Op-Ed

After billionaire Michael Bloomberg won the race to become New York's next mayor, the French news agency AFP noted that he "was among the first to see how the information age could serve investors in unprecedented -- and lucrative -- ways." In recent months, Bloomberg's campaign spent at least $50 million from his vast personal fortune, made possible by a media environment teeming with reverence for accumulation of wealth.

Bloomberg News became a far-reaching wire service during the 1990s as financial news gradually loomed larger in mass media. The operative definition of "general interest news" kept tilting. Mainstream outlets steadily shifted resources and priorities to the business of covering business.

Back in 1970, when PBS launched "Wall Street Week" with Louis Rukeyser, the program was conspicuous. Now it's just one of many national TV shows -- most of them daily -- focusing on the quest for high returns. After "Moneyline" premiered on CNN in 1980, cable television news grew while embracing the world of investment. In 1989, General Electric opted to dedicate much of its startup news channel CNBC to the stock market.

AUSTIN, Texas -- We Texans are sleeping more soundly at night now that Land Commissioner David Dewhurst is on the job as state director of Homeland Security, preventing attacks on important cultural monuments, such as the statue of the roadrunner in Fort Stockton. Dewhurst normally spends his time laboring on anti- litter campaigns, but he is fully qualified to ensure Homeland Security on account of he was once in the CIA doing something in Latin America we'd probably rather not know about.

On his regular watch, all Dewhurst has done for Texans' security is permit the Longhorn Pipeline Co. to build through populated areas without so much as an environmental impact statement, thus endangering the lives of thousands, if you believe those alarmist environmentalist types. Just the man for the job.

AUSTIN, Texas -- I don't see how we can call the House "economic stimulus" package anything but war-profiteering. The bill is a disgrace, and the usual suspects from Texas -- Tom Delay and Dick Armey -- hold large responsibility for it.

What happened here, while we were all being exposed to anthrax-scare 24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the earlier tax-cut package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill in the name of patriotism and economic stimulus.

The bill provides big tax cuts for big, profitable corporations -- IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a total of $3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks. A total of $25 billion in immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much instant rebates to profitable corporations as the House, by two votes, decided to give the 37 million low-income families who didn't qualify for the original tax rebate.

The World Series provided a heck of a photo-op for George W. Bush when he threw out the first pitch one night, aiming at a large TV audience. For the most part, the game that followed was a pleasure to watch -- midway through a week that combined what's best and worst about major league baseball in an era of compulsive media spin.

Baseball may not quite be America's favorite sport anymore, but it still has plenty of emotional resonance. For that reason, politicians and corporations alike are eager to graft themselves onto the climactic games of the post-season.

The 2001 World Series attracted an abundance of the commercial hype that we've come to expect from pro sports, plus a gauntlet of patriotic imagery bordering on jingoism. The play-by-play included a steady flood of brand-name plugs -- "Budweiser, the official beer of Major League Baseball," the John Hancock "In Game Box Score," the "Nextel Call to the Bullpen" -- along with frequent overlays of Old Glory.

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- It now looks, with 20-20 hindsight, as though he should have taken a few more deep breaths before smacking that tar-baby that is Afghanistan. We're running out of time for three reasons -- winter, Ramadan and the prospect of millions of people starving to death.

We've run out of time to set up a bridge or coalition government and so, of necessity, are throwing our lot with the Northern Alliance. According to the Afghan women's organization, the Northern Alliance is as bad as the Taliban and, in addition, consists of minority tribes who have always warred with the majority Pushtan.

We seem to have bombed everything bombable, including the Red Cross twice. At this point, it seems to me, we can give it another month and call the war for the season, which is what the Afghans do, and wait 'til next year without any disgrace. What would be worse than disgraceful is causing mass starvation. The humanitarian aid folks are getting frantic about this, and we need to stop and figure out what we can do about it.

AUSTIN -- Excuse me if my professionocentrism is showing, but I believe the American media deserve a good chunk of all the blame that is going around for Sept. 11 and its aftermath. Here we are trying to figure out "Why Do They Hate Us?" at this late date. One is tempted to reply, "Where have you been?"

The American media, notoriously provincial country to begin with, have been getting noticeably worse in recent years, with the amount of time and space devoted to the rest of the world shrinking to an ever smaller percentage of the total, while we go relentlessly full-bore, for months at a time after Monica Lewinsky, Elian Gonzalez and Gary Condit.

For some people, war is terror, disaster and death. For others, it's a PR problem.

At the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm with offices in Boston and Washington, pleasant news arrived the other day with a $397,000 contract to help the Pentagon look good while bombing Afghanistan. The four-month deal includes an option to renew through most of 2002.

This is a job for savvy PR pros who know how to sound humanistic. "At the Rendon Group, we believe in people," says the company's mission statement, which expresses "our admiration and respect for cultural diversity" and proclaims a commitment to "helping people win in the global marketplace."

A media officer at the Pentagon explained why Rendon got the contract. "We needed a firm that could provide strategic counsel immediately," Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan said. "We were interested in someone that we knew could come in quickly and help us orient to the challenge of communicating to a wide range of groups around the world."

AUSTIN -- We had one of those "What was he thinking?" moments with Gov. Rick (Goodhair) Perry the other day. The only governor we've got decided to bring back that old bone of contention: prayer in the schools. Nice timing, guv.

AUSTIN -- On war, and rumors of war. In 1950, the United States got involved in a war and called it a police action. We are now involved a police action we're calling a war. The semantic confusion is having unfortunate effects on everyone.

As we bomb Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell is waging a diplomatic offensive in the region, including plans for a broad-based future government to include "moderate elements of the Taliban" -- an arresting concept. This must be as confusing to the Afghans as it is to us. However, it makes perfect sense in the context of a police action with limited aims and a substantial humanitarian commitment.

President Bush's upward spike of popularity owes a lot to his presence on television -- a medium that has not always been so kind. At times, under pressure, he has earned many comparisons to a deer in headlights. But after a wobbly performance on Sept. 11, Bush got into a groove of seizing the TV opportunity and making the most of it.

Today's television environment is, more than ever, warmly hospitable to simple -- and simplistic -- declarative statements. That's just as well for Bush, who has shown a distinct tendency to get entangled in a morass of fragmentary linguistic riffs. Last year, on many occasions, he seemed painfully anxious to make his way to the end of sentences without further embarrassment. But now, for the most part, it's a very different story.