Gigi Stone

On Saturday's "Good Morning America," co-anchor Bill Weir and reporter Gigi Stone actually took a look at whether or not it's a good idea to tax CEO bonuses and what effect it could have on Wall Street. While much of the mainstream media have been playing off populist anger over bonuses, Weir teased the segment by wondering, "With tempers flaring over executive payouts, Congress considers cutting off bonuses at all institutions receiving taxpayer money. But without incentives, why would any smart banker work to fix Wall Street's mess?"

He followed up by querying, "But, could the corporate crackdown, all this righteous anger, actually backfire and make it even harder to rescue our system?" (Of course, "righteous anger" is certainly editorializing on Weir's part.) Reporter Stone talked with several financial experts who posed the same question. Scott Talbott, senior vice president for the Financial Services Roundtable, insisted, "By taking away bonuses, you remove incentive for employees to work harder." Stone added, "So, if taxpayers want their money back, they want the best and brightest working."

Just how bad is the economy? ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" went all the way to Edwardsburg, Mich. to find out. 

The Dec. 18 broadcast of "World News" highlighted a new economic indicator - the increase in the number of people willing to lend their body to science for money.

"We're going to turn next to some of the extreme measures that some Americans are taking because of the faltering economy," Gibson said. "According to an ABC News Poll, more than one in four people say someone in their household has been fired, faced a cut in pay or a reduction in work hours. Facing mounting debts and dwindling finances, some people are deciding to put their bodies at risk."

Beats waiting in a soup line, no?

There's economic trouble in the land with people unable to afford proper health care or heat for their homes ABC and NBC contended on Wednesday night. And where did the network journalists travel to find the heart-rending anecdotes of people in pain thanks to the awful Bush economy? Some Republican area with harsh conservative politicians who have slashed government funding to the poor? No, to Boston, a veritable liberal nirvana of big government for decades, the home of John Kerry, with a Democratic Mayor in a state with an Obama ally, Deval Patrick, as Governor.

ABC's Gigi Stone looked at how “many Americans” supposedly now “find themselves...forced to choose between short-term survival and long-term health.” She asserted: “Doctors here in Boston say they're seeing an increasing number of patients who cannot afford the most basic preventive health measures.” So much for the wonders of the Bay State's mandatory health insurance law.

NBC anchor Brian Williams acknowledged “record levels of government help available” for heating bills, yet “communities around this country are worried people will simply not have enough money to keep warm in the cold winter during this cold economy.” Michelle Kosinski showcased a Normandy veteran in Boston who “sometimes” can't afford to eat before she turned to John Drew of Action for Boston Community Development who fretted people “do not have enough income,” so there are “infants who are at risk” and “as a national government, as a national priority, we've got to do better.”

[Update, 10:15 am, 12 August: Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek, who is a central figure in the story of Barack Obama's support for infanticide, gave a deeper explanation of Megan Kelly's background on her blog on Monday evening.]

ABC correspondent Gigi Stone’s report on Friday’s World News lined up two liberal women against a pro-life pharmacist in a segment on the controversy over whether pharmacists have the right to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception. She later reported in a condescending tone about how the family of the pharmacist has nine children [see video at right; audio available here].

Stone introduced the first woman, Megan Kelly, as a "married mother." Several years ago, as Stone described, Kelly "tried to fill her monthly birth control pills [when] a pharmacist refused."

In her sound bite, Kelly explained her reaction to this refusal: "It's very, very shocking and very unsettling and one of those moments where, you know, as like a female, you're not sure if you want to cry, if you want to get really mad."

Four days after NBC centered a story around an elderly couple forced to move “into their van, sleeping on a mattress in the back” while “high food costs have meant” they've “gone hungry,” ABC's World News caught up Tuesday night with a nearly as silly anecdotal report on how families in Minnesota can no longer afford electricity. In the first of two families she showcased, reporter Gigi Stone relayed Julie Tkachuk's plight: “After paying for more expensive gas and groceries, Julie had no money for the heating bills left over from the winter.” Then Stone described the predicament of a family whose father “says business at his moving company is down 35 percent this year. There just wasn't enough money for the power bill.”

Referring to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Stone acknowledged that “there's federal assistance for people who can't afford their utility bills,” but she ominously intoned, “the number of applicants reached the highest point in 16 years.” ABC then aired a soundbite from Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Director's Association, an advocacy group for LIHEAP spending. The group's April 25 press release (PDF) hyping “the number of households receiving LIHEAP funds this year is the highest in 16 years” also, however, disclosed a fact ABC didn't mention -- that increase is merely 3.8 percent over fiscal year 2007 with the number of households on the dole in Minnesota rising from 120,765 to 126,500, hardly a huge jump.