Letter to The CBS Evening News, 3/10/05....

Dear Sirs,

I have been a long time viewer of The CBS Evening News. I have always found CBS News to report fairly and honestly, without regard to power or position.

I was particularly interested in the recent change of anchors and am watching carefully for any change in tone or content in the Evening News.

I was very disappointed to find, the very first broadcast contained an unbalanced and inaccurate news piece on private investment accounts in Chile. The report incorrectly characterized the privatization of government pensions in Chile as "Successful". In fact, the word "Success" was used in a banner teaser for that news segment.

The facts show that the privatization of pensions has been a disaster for the people of Chile. And this was "airbrushed" in this segment to instead concentrate on the lifting of the Chilean stock market by the influx of private accounts.

The reporter did say that some Chileans couldn't participate in the private accounts due to underemployment, self employment, or low income. But the actual percentage of non-participants, a striking full half of the working population of Chile was not mentioned.

No mention was made of many participants in Chile's private accounts losing over 50% of their benefits at retirement, due to excessive administrative costs of the private program. And that similar workers who opted to stay in the original government insurance plan had monthly benefits of twice that of the privatization participants.

Nor did the reporter tell the viewers that government pension costs for the Chilean public still amount to over 25% of the entire Chilean government budget, and the pensions available to the majority of Chileans who didn't prosper from this ill fated plan is below the poverty line.

Was this segment a sop to the Bush Administration? Is CBS moving to the right to gain the good graces of the Republicans in control of our government? Or will they continue their history of reporting the truth without regard to power or position.

Your new start leads me to believe that partisan politics has entered the newsroom at The CBS Evening News. And I cry for my nation when one of the few fair media voices is silenced.

Polemic
Charleston, SC

Why people can't see that Bush hates Social security, not because it's failed but BECAUSE IT HAS SUCCEEDED, is beyond me.

It is so patently obvious--destroy any government program that doesn't benefit the money men.

Next, they should go to England and interview people--I heard a report on NPR about people who have lost money in Margaret Thatcher's privatization plan.

Nicely worded and great bullet points. The intern at the CBS mailroom who's hired to read these should be quite impressed.

:kick:

Keep the heat on them!!!

:kick:

Your story tonight on the Chilean Social Security system "success Story" is "divorced from reality". You portrayed privatization of SS in Chile as a success. President Bush used this line too. He has the support of Jose Pinera, the architect of the Chilean plan and now a member of the CATO Institute. He supports Bush's plan despite the abysmal record in his home country. It has been a failure. Please note the following quotes of information which clearly dispute your story:



"As the Bush administration pushes to privatize Social Security, many people are looking at countries where state-funded pensions have been privatized. One of them is Chile. President Bush lauded Chile’s privatized social security system as a "good example" for the U.S. when he visited Santiago last November to participate in the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

"Today even the government itself and the AFPs have admitted that at least half of the Chilean people will never accumulate enough to be able to get the minimum pension equivalent to $100 (US) monthly. The Chilean Center for Alternative National Development (CENDA) has said that "two-thirds of the population will never qualify for a minimum pension." Manuel Riesco, CENDA’s director, added that "the Chilean private pension system will provide pensions on its own only to the upper-income minority."



If there is one sector in Chilean society that has benefited from the privatized system, however, it is the AFPs. Many have former Pinochet cabinet officials on their boards of directors and they are among the most profitable companies in all of Chile.



Just like in the U.S., the people’s movement in Chile is fighting not just against the privatization schemes, but to expand programs for people’s needs. Its trade union federation, CUT, has set as one of its six priority "points of struggle" for 2005 "to change the current pension system" so that there is greater coverage and that it pays at least 70 percent of wages after retirement. CUT is also calling for an end to "the abuse of excessive fees by the management of the pension funds," as well as stopping the fund monies from becoming profits for the AFP owners.



The key architect of the Chilean plan under the fascist dictator Pinochet was José Piñera. Where is Piñera today? He’s a senior fellow at the Washington-based, libertarian Cato Institute, one of the main proponents of Social Security privatization in the U.S."

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/659/1/46



As Media Matters for America has previously noted, Chile's system of private accounts has been less effective for poor and middle-class workers than the public pension system that preceded it. The New York Times reported on January 27 that middle-class workers have discovered that private accounts "are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received if they had stayed in the old system," and many poor Chileans don't receive "even a minimum pension" or "remain outside the system altogether." According to a Chilean government official specializing in pensions, "If people really had freedom of choice, 90 percent of them would opt to go back to the old system," the Times noted.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503040004



Is it prophetic that Dan spoke of courage on his last night on air? Did he know you would 'overlook' the Pinera /Pinochet connections to the CATO Institute and its support for Bush's similar privatization plan? Was Dan likely to have aloud people to air an outright fictitious story on the state of privatization of social security in Chile? You did this the day after he left. You aired a story with a slant Karl Rove would have paid for.



I believe Dan Rather did a story in which Chile’s SS system was more accurately portrayed. Thanks for your continued attacks on the Bush administration. We no longer can count on CBS to hold to a level of independence as when Dan was there.