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Two Years Apart CBS & ABC Feature Same Woman as Drug Cost Victim
http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030619.asp#5 | June 19, 2003 | Media Research Organization

Posted on 06/27/2003 3:57:52 PM PDT by furnitureman

Two Years Apart CBS & ABC Feature Same Woman as Drug Cost Victim

June 19, 2003 Link: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030619.asp#5

What a coincidence. Two years apart CBS News and ABC News featured the same elderly woman, in news stories about the need for a new prescription drug coverage program in Medicare and the shortcomings of Republican-pushed alternatives, as the poster victim of high prescription costs.

The MRC's Tim Graham noticed, while working on the Media Reality Check excerpted in item #4 above, the exploitation of the very same woman, Eva Baer-Schenkein, by the two networks.

But CBS and ABC didn't agree on her ailment. CBS's Diana Olick complained in 2001: “President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein." Baer-Schenkein asserted: "So now I'm not taking anything at all for my osteoporosis."

Two years later, ABC's Linda Douglass worried about how “71-year old Eva Baer-Schenkein suffers from hypertension and other health problems. She cannot afford the cost of her prescription drugs and is tired of waiting for Congress to help her.”

Full rundowns of the two stories with the very same victim:

-- The Sunday, July 1, 2001 CBS Evening News:

Diana Olick began: "No sooner had the winning gavel sounded on the Patients' Bill of Rights than Senate Democrats announced they would charge ahead on comprehensive health care reform when they return from the holiday recess."

Following a clip of Senator Bob Graham of Florida, Olick explained: "Last Thursday Democrats introduced a Medicare reform act which includes unlimited prescription drug benefits for seniors who have paid their deductibles. President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein."

Baer-Schenkein: "So now I'm not taking anything at all for my osteoporosis."

Olick helpfully chipped in: "Because she can't afford the three and half thousand dollars a year for the drug her doctor prescribed."

Baer-Schenkein: "When I was given this bill I almost passed out. The pharmacy was crowded so I felt embarrassed to give it back."

Olick: "In the last two decades prescription drug prices have increased 300 percent. Last year Americans spent $116 billion to get their medications...."

For more on that story, see the July 5, 2001 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

-- Fast forward to last week, and ABC featured the whinings from the very same woman on the June 11, 2003 World News Tonight.

Linda Douglass excitedly relayed: “The President and the Congress are hurrying now to pass this prescription drug plan. They do not want to face the voters in this, next year’s election and tell them that they’ve failed one more time. Seventy-one-year old Eva Baer-Schenkein suffers from hypertension and other health problems. She cannot afford the cost of her prescription drugs and is tired of waiting for Congress to help her.”

Eva Baer-Schenkein: “I mean, we’re not asking for diamond rings or cars or furs or anything. We’re just asking to have what we need to keep us alive.”

Douglass: “Members of Congress say help is on the way.”

Senator John Breaux (D-LA): “It is, I think, an historic opportunity for the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, to come together and produce a product that is something that we can all be proud of.”

Douglass: “Seniors groups say all eyes are now on Washington.”

Bill Novelli, AARP: “This could be the year. We’re hopeful.”

Douglass worried the plan isn't expensive enough: “The Senate is galloping toward passage of a prescription drug bill, but Senators voted earlier this year to limit the cost of any plan to $400 billion over 10 years. So the Senate plan has limits. It covers half of seniors drug bills up to $3,450 per year, then there is a gap in coverage to keep the cost of the plan down. Coverage resumes when drug costs $5,300 a year. Democrats complain that a third of seniors will still be stuck with big bills...”


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To: furnitureman; dighton
My mother-in-law takes issue with your brazen comparison. You know she is Hulk Hogan's babe, don't you?
21 posted on 06/27/2003 6:10:07 PM PDT by Greg Packer (It's all in the timing.)
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To: MediaMole
We have a similar situation in Cleveland, Ohio regarding Gay Rights. A local lesbian activist, whose last name is a sea creature is always pushing herself forward to speak for gays, and feminists. She wears a lot of hats! She also pushed to be the first to have her lesbian "marraige" covered in a local publication. No matter what the cause, she seems to be pushing her face into the camera or front page.
22 posted on 06/27/2003 6:12:13 PM PDT by Ukiapah Heep (Shoes for Industry!)
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To: furnitureman
Mark Twain was prescient on this topic: "If you don't read the paper, you are uninformed. If you do read the paper, you are misniformed."

Some things never change, in fact, they seem to be getting worse. I feel that all news is highly suspect, or at least the ones from the sources "of record," LOL!!

23 posted on 06/27/2003 6:20:20 PM PDT by SpinyNorman
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To: furnitureman
Could someone please give me examples of long term drugs that cost so much? I have elderly parents and friends with serious conditions. Cancer drugs, AIDS drugs, and ones for acute conditions are expensive. But drugs for common conditions like hypertension, high cholesterol, arthritis, glaucoma, etc. aren't all that high.
What health conditions require expensive drugs long term?
24 posted on 06/27/2003 6:21:26 PM PDT by speekinout
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To: You Dirty Rats
Between the SCOTUS decisions and the new drug entitlement, this week was like something right out of the Sixties.

When you think about what has happened since 9/11 the constitution might as well be a roll of toilet paper. This week was the icing on the cake that it means absolutely nothing anymore.
25 posted on 06/27/2003 6:48:35 PM PDT by John Lenin (Government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them)
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To: furnitureman
and is tired of waiting for Congress to help

It's called "cradle to grave" vote buying. No, I am not unaware of drug costs or uncaring BUT it's time to stop our careening down the slope to socialism. There's a limit to what the middle class can carry on our shoulders. I pay over $5000 a year med insurance and $380 a month for drugs (and I am retired) and am not demanding someone else pay it for me. HOW ABOUT A LITTLE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?

26 posted on 06/27/2003 7:36:33 PM PDT by zip (gimmee, gimmee, gimmee and I'll vote democRatic - Just don't ask me to work.)
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To: furnitureman
bump
27 posted on 06/27/2003 7:51:40 PM PDT by RippleFire
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To: arasina
I especially love her bogus illnesses, which shift dramatically from interview to interview. It's a freekin' miracle!
28 posted on 06/27/2003 8:31:37 PM PDT by friendly
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To: furnitureman
BOYCOTT DISNEY: a vortex of seductive evil™
29 posted on 06/27/2003 8:32:45 PM PDT by Petronski (I'm not always cranky.)
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To: DannyTN
I bet she was first in line at a Hillary booksigning too!
30 posted on 06/27/2003 8:33:33 PM PDT by July 4th
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To: furnitureman
"Which is more fake? Professional wrestling or network television news?"

The telescreen. Period. All of it.
31 posted on 06/27/2003 8:34:31 PM PDT by Beck_isright (If Dennis Kucinich ran for President would anyone know it?)
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To: boxerblues
busted 2 posted on 06/27/2003 3:59

REMINDS me of during lyinAlGores Presidential run, he had an elderly lady in Iowa? Idaho? who they claimed walked the town collecting pop cans to take to turn in for money to buy her much needed medications. You guessed it...it was a big fat lie. The woman was real , but it turned out her house was paid off completely, and her family helped out buying most of the meds. And the neighbors would save all their pop aluminum cans and drop them off at her driveway. Also it was pointed out by observent FReepers that those ditches would be covered with many feet of snow for like five months of the year, and in the spring and summer it would be too hot for elderly to out "looking for aluminum cans". It was a complete DemoncRAT lie.

32 posted on 06/28/2003 1:13:40 AM PDT by timestax
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To: muggs
ping
33 posted on 06/28/2003 8:48:33 AM PDT by timestax
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To: timestax
ping for pop cans $$$
34 posted on 06/28/2003 8:49:53 AM PDT by timestax
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To: friendly
Clearly, network television news is a total fake.

LOL!
I watch major network TV news just to see when they have a major breakdown and
give a total, truthful picture of events.

It happens now and then and is a thing to behold!
One of my favorites was when Andrea Mitchell (spouse of Allen Greenspan)
reported on NBC Nightly News that Arafat often spoke peace/love in English or to
Israeli-Jewish audiences...
then the same day would preach jihad to his Palestinian/Muslim audience.

Sure it took NBC time to catch up with the Internet (e.g., MEMRI.org), but it
was nice to see them finally catch up. Sort of.
35 posted on 06/28/2003 8:55:57 AM PDT by VOA
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To: furnitureman
Seems that network news does not report the inadequate average "savings rate" of America's aging population.

Granted, today's miracle medications were hardly dreamed of, but they were developed with billion$ of risk capital, private and public.

Now, the retired want to keep their wealth and income assets for themselves and their potential heirs, while they demand that others pay for their medical and medicine costs.

This is GREED at its most brazenly crass - THEFT with elected and judicial accomplices, under penalty of law.

Why don't these old selfish people, sitting in their mortgage free homes, living off their own "planned" life savings and SS wealth transfer, ask or even demand that their own families and friends pay for their meds? CRASS GREED.

I am sick of old selfish people demanding to be supported by others' income and angry at politicians all too willing to be accomplices in that theft.

Thieves deserve no respect.
36 posted on 06/28/2003 9:11:58 AM PDT by SevenDaysInMay (Federal judges and justices serve for periods of good behavior, not life. Article III sec. 1)
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To: timestax
REMINDS me of during lyinAlGores Presidential run, he had an elderly lady in Iowa? Idaho? who they claimed walked the town collecting pop cans to take to turn in for money to buy her much needed medications. You guessed it...it was a big fat lie.

The Myth of Winifred Skinner

37 posted on 06/28/2003 9:16:35 AM PDT by michigander
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To: Area51
President Bush made this a clear campaign issue in 2000. He said he would do it, we elected him, and now he followed through. It's a little late to complain. Either you like straight forward do what you say politics, or you don't.
38 posted on 06/28/2003 9:17:28 AM PDT by BlueNgold (Feed the Tree .....)
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To: VOA
One of my favorite network news frauds is the Amazing Disappearing "Homeless," who are forever on the nightly broadcasts during Republican Presidencies, but vanished without a trace during the Clinton and Carter fiascos.
39 posted on 06/28/2003 10:54:15 AM PDT by friendly
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To: zip
What Ann Coulter really thinks



Posted: June 28, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

If you've never heard of Ann Coulter, a good hint at understanding her philosophy can be summed up in her response to a question on national television this week.

When asked on ABC's "The View" if she had ever seen two women having sex, her response was vintage Coulter:

"Not since Katie Couric interviewed Hillary Clinton – that was the last time."


Ann Coulter

Firing such a shot is typical for the attorney, author, WorldNetDaily columnist, and self-described "windbag" whose image and ideas saturate the airwaves and Internet this week as she promotes her latest book, "Treason."

She is the darling of conservatives, and a bitter pill among liberals.

When WND polled readers this week on their thoughts about Coulter, more than half – 54 percent – said she was the "hottest political analyst on the scene," with another 30 percent saying she's brilliant and worthy of the presidency.

Three percent suggested Coulter is not outspoken enough, and another three percent said she was "long on caustic wit but short on real information." Even fewer responded she's only popular because she's "a babe," she's an "off-the-wall extremist" or that she's "mean-spirited."

Of course, that's just an unscientific popularity quiz, but it's an indicator of the affinity many have for Coulter.

Ann, who likes to claim she's 23 but sheepishly admits to being in her late thirties, grew up in New Canaan, Conn. She graduated with honors from Cornell University and the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of the Michigan Law Review. After practicing law in New York City, she worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and also clerked for a federal judge.

Though currently a resident of Miami Beach, she spends a lot of time in New York, and – like Hillary Clinton – admits to being a Yankee fan.

She's quickly interjects, though, that Hillary roots for both of the Big Apple's teams, and all New Yorkers.

"It's like cheering for Republicans and Democrats," Ann says.

Coulter previously authored best-selling attacks on the left such as "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton," and "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right."




In "Treason," she maintains that liberals in America consistently "hate their country," from demonizing anti-Communist Sen. Joe McCarthy in the Cold War era, to refusing to back the war against terrorism today.

When asked to explain, she said liberals actually enjoy rooting against the United States.

"They attack the country, the flag, 'God Bless America,' and denounce patriotic people as flag-waving yahoos. They oppose cleaning out the swamp where terrorism comes from and measures for domestic security. ... If they aren't traitors, how are we supposed to tell the difference?"

Ann says what she's trying to convey about McCarthy in her book will come as a shock to 90 percent of conservatives, to say nothing of liberals.

"You see how [liberals] will never quit, they will never stop defending a lie. People just got sick of arguing with them [about McCarthy's legacy]."

She groans when Hillary's new book "Living History" is mentioned, wondering how long she'll have "to make the same arguments over again to combat the same lies."

If Hillary is the hottest thing going for the left right now, Coulter is the polar opposite for the right.

When it comes to Mrs. Clinton, Ann says Americans don't doubt the senator will run for president, but she tends to think Hillary could not be elected unless the Republican Party makes a terrible blunder, which is within the realm of possibility.

"I get this chill up my spine wondering if Republicans will nominate another Bob Dole. Are Republicans that stupid? They are."

She points out when former President Bush broke his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge in the middle of his first term, "he condemned this nation to Bill Clinton," adding that conservatives went ballistic and voted either for Ross Perot or no one at all.

Book-peddling aside, Ann's typical day begins "early," as she leaps out of bed at the break of noon.

Her writing ideas are usually sparked simply by reading the New York Times, which she calls the liberals' playbook, the embodiment of "the most well-expressed liberal thought at the moment."

As an example of how one-sided and lazy the Times and other media can be, she cites the recent love-fest coverage of Hillary's memoir debut.

Reports of people lining up outside New York bookstores to purchase the book sounded a little suspect, so Ann put on her investigative-reporter cap.

By combing through newspaper archives in a Lexis-Nexis search, Coulter discovered some key points no one else had disclosed.

First was that Charles Greinsky, one of the people quoted as rushing out at midnight to buy Hillary's book, turned out to be a longtime Clinton campaigner "who has been the Clintons' guest several times both at the White House and at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y."

She also discovered that another "big fan" purchasing Hillary's book, Greg Packer, is simply someone who longs to see his name in print, as she noted in her column:


It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.
With the exception of Fox News, the Internet, and talk radio, Coulter does not hold print and broadcast journalists in high regard.

When I asked who she thinks is the worst newsperson, the biggest Bozo in the industry, without hesitation she cited former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite.


Walter Cronkite, or Ted Baxter?

"His pomposity is overshadowed only by his rank stupidity," she said. "He's like a real-life Ted Baxter [of the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show'], but without the charm." Not wanting to assign the TV character portrayed by Ted Knight to Cronkite's level, Ann said Ted Baxter was actually kind of lovable.

Continuing her bodyslam, she recalled how Ronald Reagan told Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War that had the conflict been World War II, CBS News would have been tried for treason for Cronkite's anti-American coverage.

As her book promotion kicks into high gear, Coulter says one of her main objectives is to defend Reagan from the hypocrisy of his detractors.

She remembers how during his administration in the 1980s, liberals had a "relentless hysteria" warning how dangerous and frightening the president was in dealing with the Soviet Union. But when the "evil empire" finally crumbled, they claimed that Reagan was a non-factor, that it would have happened on anyone's watch. She wonders how it's possible Reagan could have been so "horribly frightening and completely irrelevant" at the same time.

While Coulter says she's achieved her career objectives, her goal in life now is "to change people's minds, to change America for the better."

To her, that means shedding truth on events, and educating people about the huge difference between the right and the left.

"The fundamental difference is that conservatives think man is created in God's image. Liberals think they [themselves] are gods – they want to create utopia on Earth with wealth redistribution, breaking the bonds of marriage and ties between parents and a child."

She suggests many people identify themselves as "liberal" only because it makes them sound like a nice person, but if you go through a checklist of questions such as:


Are you for or against affirmative action?

Do you want your taxes to go up or down?

Do you support the ability to get an abortion after the first trimester?
then most people would admit they're actually Republican.

"If you ask 'Should we give swarthy-looking men an extra look while boarding an airplane?,' 90 percent would agree," she says. "The other 10 percent work for the New York Times."

Being a successful writer is one thing, but having the good looks of a fashion model is another aspect that attracts many people to Coulter.

"Ann, your brains are exceeded only by your beauty," gushed Marty, a caller on Wednesday's Sean Hannity radio show, phoning in to speak with Ann. Such compliments are more the norm than the exception, as some WorldNetDaily readers wrote in the daily message board:


Ann is one of the most "to the point," "slam it in your face," entertaining political writers of all time (and not bad to look at).

What is wrong with a woman being smart, witty, well-written, gorgeous, a lawyer and a Republican?
Does she get inundated with marriage proposals?

"I think not enough," she says facetiously. She actually does receive a "fair bit," calling them very sweet.

"Some of the military ones are fabulous. They're never actually hitting on me ... but [reading them] brings tears to your eyes."

Ann is single, never married, and like her professional life, she leans to the right when it comes to men's affection.

"I mostly date conservatives. The real problem is just meeting people, since I'm working all the time."

She met the last few men she's dated in everyday circumstances – on an airplane, walking to church, and even going to the store for a Diet Coke.

Even in her personal life, the political rhetoric doesn't cease.

"I argue with all my conservative friends," she says. "Conservatives love to argue. We can always find some area of disagreement."

But she stresses her everyday discourse with pals is not what you see on the airwaves.

"There's a difference between arguing on TV and the kind of talk behind closed doors with my friends. With friends, it's more like a tennis game. TV is like professional wrestling."



40 posted on 06/28/2003 2:15:39 PM PDT by furnitureman
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