Editorial Opinion
One of the better things ushered in with the
new year for college students, and for everyone
for that matter, is the new minimum wage of
$2.90.
This yeir's increment of 25 cents is part of the
four-step legislation, signed by the president
during his first year in office, to systematically
increase the standard wage to $3.35 by 1981. The
lobbying efforts of those•favoring and opposing
the law was intense in Capitol Hill.
And it still is. Here and across the nation
The State College Area Chamber of Com
merce, taking its lead from the Pennsylvania
and national leadership, says that an increase
coming now is ill-timed and inflationary. They
suggest a delay in the scheduled minimum
wage increases of one or even two years would
lower expected increases in consumer prices by
0.8 percent.
A delay also would save some jObs in Penn
sylvania which have to be eliminated because
employers supposedly could not afford to retain
the positions. If not for everyone, then a partial
deferral for teenagers ( tentatively defined as
persons under the age of 16, but this, too, is up
for debate) is suggested. .
If not a whole loaf, then how about half a loaf,
they seem to be saying.
But just who is kidding whom?
Sure-fire reliable predictions for the coming year
Here they are: the sure-fire, can-do, will-win,
can't-lose, 100 percent reliable and totally
trustworthy predictions for 1979. May they help
you recoup some of your losses from the Sugar
Bowl game and restore your faith in destiny.
I PREDICT the House Assassinations Com
mittee will conclude that John F. Kennedy was
actually murdered,by more than 300 people, who
positively did not know each other, but who all
used the same gun.
I PREDICT the Shah of Iran will not reach his
200th birthday. .
I PREDICT economic indicators will show a
slight rise early in this fiscal quarter, then will
drop off sharply, leading investors to place less
condifence• in liquid assets and continuing
returns, among other things.
I PREDICT somebody famous will die this
year.
HotAl Do I
GET MYSELF
INTo THESE
'THINGS
financial backing affects broadcast news priorities
News, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To decide
what is news is to exercise substantial power. Of course, a
number of factors influence news priorities including: abilities
and disabilities germane to the medium; the constraints of
resources, geography, and time; the influences of other
media; cultural setting; pressure from external sources, and
reporters' instincts.
however, after examining both public service and com
mercial broadcasting, I have concluded that the method of
financing a news operation has a subtle but pervasive in
fluence on news priorities. I came to this,sonclusion after
sampling news bulletins on British radio this past spring and
on Pittsburgh local television news this past summer.
Public service broadcasting in Great Britain is financed
through television license fees and administered by a non
profit. government sanctioned British Broadcasting Cor
poration. As an alternative, commercial broadcasting has
been licensed under the Independent Broadcasting Authority.
I surveyed several random newscasts from BBC Network
Radio 1, 2. 3, and 4, local BBC Radio Manchester, and local
commercial Radio Piccadilly. Each of the lead six stories was
classified based on content (economic, violent crime, non
violent crime, sport), coverage ( international, national, local)
and tendency shown (order, disorder, or no effect). Ad
ditionally, a separate set of figures was kept which adjusted
percentages for story prominence.
What emerged was a clear pattern of what Stuart Hood,
former BBC News Editor, has called "an expression of middle
class consensus politics" which continues a "tradition of
Half-baked
I PREDICT an unheralded political hopeful
will make a serious bid for the presidency, but
will be squashed when the sordid details of his
private life are made public. Furthermore, I
PREDICT this same political hopeful will then
publish a book about his private life and make a
small fortune for himself.
I PREDICT scientists will make a major
breakthrough in the field of genetics, but no one
will ever hear about it because the government
fears it will cause international panic. .
MIMI
. ' 4 9 •
vir ",.
The arguments these businessmen present
are far from sound. First, the increased
minimum wage, far from destroying jobs, may
very well increase jobs. The theory behind this
says that more money will be placed in the
worker's hands. They will spend this money,
thereby causing a greater demand for con
sumer goods, which means more jobs for those
who produce goods.
Second, inflation is caused by more money
chasing too few goods. Some contend that the
extra 25 cents an hour the lowest-paid workers
in interstate commerce would be receiving is
less money that enterpreneurs would have to
invest. So much may be said to the contrary,
however, and there is no way to prove this line
of reasoning'. There are too many ifs, ands and
buts.
Obviously, employers will oppose any rise in
wages, be they minimum or not. But in this case
the pros outweigh the cons. It appears that
Congress is trying to achieve that Great
American Dream of reducing the disparity
between the rich and poor, the haves and have
nots, by increasing the minimum wage to an
acceptable level.
By doing so, economically disadvantaged
groups of this country, the young, the
minorities and
,the unskilled, have received
some protection against potential exploitation.
I PREDICT many people will spend millions of
dollars buying something everybody thought no
one in his right mind would buy.
Bob Carville
I PREDICT we will see the first Red Chinese
impartiality on the side of the establishment." A bulletin is a
result of a number of choices by "gate-keepers" who accept or
reject material based on a number of factors including class
background, upbringing, education, political and social at
titudes. This ethos filters down as 'traditional wisdom.'
Of course, no one in any British radio newsroom sits down to
plan government propaganda. As R.S. Frank writes, "The
informal daily education of the population is conducted by the
mass media which tends to select some topics and ignore
others, give precedence to some and not to others and frame
contexts and select contexts, all according to standards which
perhaps owe more to custom than malevolent design, and
more to unconscious synchronization of decisions than to
conspiracy."
Indeed, while I was at BBC Radio Manchester a story was
run describing a bank robber as "coloured." It was not im
portant to the story and probably would not have been included
credit card this year, and the subsequent in
stitution of the first Red Chinese collection
agency.
I PREDICT several representatives from
several different states will all claim their
respective states are the most corrupt state in
the country.
I PREDICT many people will be murdered in
the course of this next year in a major
metropolitan center of the United States,
possibly New York.
I PREDICT many people will be murdered in a
political uprising in a heretofore unnoticed third
world country somewhere in Africa.
I PREDICT prices will rise.
I PREDICT we will hear Richard Thornburgh
announce that his plans to revitalize the state
"must be given more time; and, in the mean
time, we will put up with more of the same as
(sl7B Myth/WAN Apeut
i•tt,<' .
14--z.5.i..i,v.7-•:_.
r 6 FROM JUNioßial I4E'S RUN oFF To JOIN THE
CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL .1
Collegian forum
It's dollars over deaths
Editor's note: The following was
written by an Iranian student for
Iranian students at the University.
In Iran mass demonstrations take
place daily. At the Ministry of
Science and Higher Education, 80
professors and university employees
have been calling for the withdrawal
of troops and reopening of univer
sities, according to The New York
Times. On Dec. 26 , a 28-year-old
professor was shot to death as he
stood on the ministry balcony. The
next day troops fired into his funeral
procession, killing and wounding
many mourners. In Mashad, on Dec.
:30, 2,000 were killed by shah's U.S.
trained army.
Other reports indicate that by the
end of December the number of
deaths in Iran is somewhere between
25,000 and 30,000.
In order to conceal the extent of the
massacre, army trucks were brought
in to wash blood off the walls and
streets, Some of the dead were small
children. These savage massacres
are with full U.S. government
backing. The American government
has publicly stated its support for the
shah.
Why does Carter keep reaffirming
his support for the shah? The uprising
if the thief had been white. It was not a matter of racism,
simply a matter of traditional practice on crime stories.
While I was at BBC radio network a story came in con
cerning large scale abuses by the Gray's Building Society. The
story easily could be confirmed, had rib tional significance and
was very current. Yet, an unconfirmed three-hour-old account
on the Aldo Moro kidnapping in Italy grabbed the lead item.
The Gray's story was not even broadcast. When I asked why,
the duty editor said, "It wasn't really significant."
Perhaps because of this set of values in the newsroom, not a
single white collar crime story was broadcast on the BBC
network during my attachment or the monitoring study ( and
only one such story ran on Radio Manchester).
These upper-class news values are reflected in the near one
to one disorder-order ratio and in economics coverage. Forty
percent of the stories on Radio's 2,3,4 are financial in nature,
52 percent when adjusted for prominence. Radio Manchester's
figures are 61 percent and 46.5 percent respectively. Contrast
these with the popular commercial station Radio Piccadilly
(26 percent coverage, 28.5 percent prominence) and its pop
music competitor Radio 1 (28 percent coverage, 35 percent
prominence).
Using roughly the same procedure, I surveyed news
priorities in Pittsburgh local television news. Here again the
funding source greatly influenced news priorities. Ratings
wars, news consultants and other commercial pressure has led
to a proliferation of "blood and guts" reporting.
Violent crime, non-violent crime and disasters including
auto wrecks comprised over 55 percent of the average station's
Imgmm
before."
or something to this effect
I PREDICT we have not heard the last of
Elvis.
I PREDICT a multi-million dollar media hype
will fall flat on its face.
I PREDICT the Senate will split over a con
troversial issue, than table it for future con
sideration.
I PREDICT the Health Department will an
nounce something previously considered safe for
consumption is actually a deadly poison.
I PREDICT a new punk rock group will not live
up to expectations in record sales.
I PREDICT that a low-ranked basketball team
will win an upset over a top-ranked team, then
lose 60 percent of its remaining games, finishing
last in its division.
I PREDICT that a low-paid college newspaper
columnist will get into an argument with his
in Iran has sent shock waves in the
corporate boardrooms of Grumman,
Lockheed, General Motors and
hundreds of other U.S. corporations.
The collapse of the shah threatens to
terminate billions of dollars in in
vestments in factories, banks and
military hardware. These include
$7OO million in direct investments by
U.S. corporations in Iran, about $3
billion in yearly military sales, $3.8
billion in exports each year and $2.2
billion in bank loans.
The past weeks have seen extensive
strikes and demonstrations by
teachers, students, airline em
ployees, government employees,
shopkeepers, doctors and nurses,
factory workers, postal workers,
bank employees, and the religious
community. Weeks ago, in an
amazing show of solidarity with these
struggles, some 37,000 oil industry
workers stopped production and went
on strike, dealing yet another
decisive blow to the hated regime.
The oil workers have raised political
demands, among them an end to
martial law, and freedom for all
political prisoners.
The Iranian people are determined
to overthrow the corrupt monarchy
and to bring about a democratic
editor, and then will be conveniently forgotten ii
his next pay period.
I PREDICT a small group of cultists will stag
a wild demonstration, make top newspape
headlineS and then will be forgotten forever.
I PREDICT a highly publicized Hollywood
couple will break up shortly before one of their
will appear in a motion picture.
I PREDICT a series of terrorist attacks
' !
somewhere in the Middle East.
I PREDICT a previously unknown University
student will buy hundreds of buttons, balloong
and flyers and will be elected USG president
though still quite unknown. (c i ,X
I PREDICT someone will predict a new waY,
for the world to end. • ! •
I PREDICT it will be cold at least one mord
day in State College.
Bob Carville is an 11th-term journalism major
republic. They are opposed to the
shah on many grounds 'religious,
social, economic and political. So
what grounds are left on which to
support him? In Iran, none.
But in the United States, we are
witnessing a fierce campaign on the
part of the government to rally
support for the shah to change the
American people's natural sympathy
for the oppressed people of Iran and
to persuade them the shah deserves
support, not the millions opposed to
his rule and who want an end to all
foreign domination, and to shape
their own destiny.
- This campaign, conducted through
much of the U.S. news media, is
distorting the situation in Iran in such
a way as to discredit tiii: opposition
(calling them "fanatical" and
"ungrateful"! ), and project the shah
as a "modernizer"
We urge all concerned Americans
not to be swayed by the fallacious
statements emanating from the State'
Department and the press with
regard to Iran. We are appealing to
your humanitarian and democratic
spirit to prevent the creation of
another Vietnam-type conflict in Iran
which would bring untold suffering to
millions of Iranians and Americans.
output in the survey. The disorder-order ratio was roughly 8.3,
but would have been much higher save that almost all politie6 .
stories favored the status quo. Much economic coverage, was
film of local strikes. Indeed, most lead. items were loca l`i
murders, robberies, fires and accidents all tightly for
matted.
National stories, usually just tapes from network newscasts,' ti(
or feeds, show up later. There follows extensive sports and- ,
weather possibly with an eccentric reader, happy talk or a i tii!
"kicker" feature at the end.
My purpose is not to criticize either system or to reveal
undisclosed influences on news. I seek only to add statistical.,.;
confirmation that the source of broadcast news dollars, heiti . i
government allotment or commercial revenues, does InA •
fluence news output. Responsible journalists should recognize
and deal with its influence and, if need be, temper it. . 0 , ll
I\lark Harmon is an I I th-terni broadcast jounialis in major.' . IC
=Collegian
Dave Skidmore
Editor
BEAT COORDINATORS: Consumer-Busineqs, Lynn Osgood; Faculty.
Administration, Colleen Gallagher; Local Government, Allen Reeder i
Minorities, Vanessa Opolicky; Student Government, Bruce Becker. ',.
in Iran
Judy Stimsun,
Business Managqn
I . !! , 1U