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3฀ Investigating฀Business฀and฀Consumerism Broadcast news critics often attacked reports that turned a critical lens on business’s treatment of consumers in the 1960s and early 1970s. The era was marked by a rising consumer politics and a special relationship between the news media and consumer advocates in government, social movements, and the professions. Business moved to protect its image from the challenge of consumerism and media coverage of it. The conflicts that emerged can be seen in the origins, framings, and impacts of the two most heavily investigated muckraking reports on consumer issues: Banks฀and฀the฀Poor (PBS, 1970) and Pensions:฀The฀Broken฀Promise (NBC, 1972). The Regeneration of Consumerism Many observers have remarked on the long-term transition in postwar America from political movements organized around production, principally the labor movement, to those concerned with issues of consumption or quality of life.1 Although consumer organizations arose to support Progressive era food and drug safety legislation at the turn of the twentieth century and to conduct product testing and campaigns against deceptive advertising in the 1930s, the movement quieted thereafter. Mark Nadel suggests some of the reasons for its revitalization in the 1960s.2 The marketplace had become increasingly complex, impersonal, and removed from consumer control. Intricate products grew more difficult and costly to repair, prescription drugs became more potent and potentially dangerous, and burgeoning traffic and accidents sent auto insurance rates soaring. Americans increasingly relied on consumer credit, but computerized billing errors undermined credit histories and distanced consumers from human billing clerks. Consumer protection especially attracted Democratic presidential administrations and congressional figures because it offered a set of issues that spoke to middle- and working-class constituencies 03.106-140.Raph.indd฀฀฀106 6/23/05฀฀฀8:45:36฀AM investigating฀business฀and฀consumerism 107 while being cheaper to implement than environmental controls and the War on Poverty. Finally, consumerism was a potential consensus issue at a time when the Democrats in particular were divided over Vietnam and civil rights. No potential constituency was broader than consumers. Congress and the executive branch were already discovering consumer issues before Ralph Nader’s emergence in the mid-1960s, first as a champion of auto safety regulations, then as the creator of a range of consumer and publicinterest law groups from 1968 onward. Indeed, Nader began working on the auto issue as a staff member at the Department of Labor and a consultant to congressional committees. As early as 1962, the Kennedy administration appointed a Consumer Advisory Council, and Congress passed significant safety amendments to the Food and Drug Act. From 1965 onward, when Lyndon Johnson made consumer protection a major part of his legislative program, presidents legitimated the issue through annual messages to Congress endorsing and proposing new consumer legislation. Congressional activity on consumer issues during this decade peaked between 1966 and 1968 with the passage of major laws on auto safety, meat inspection, fair packaging, and truth in lending. In short, the turn toward a politics of consumerism was already evident within the federal government, and among political elites themselves, prior to the rebuilding of a broader consumer movement.3 By the late 1960s, a loose, mainstream, liberal coalition had built around consumer interests. It included northern Democrats, especially a handful of activist policy entrepreneurs in the Senate, and their counterparts at the state and local levels. The consumer coalition included Ralph Nader’s public-interest law groups and citizens’ organizations, which were supported not only by major foundations but also by the pro bono activities of large mainstream law firms. The coalition included older organizations such as Consumers Union and the groups that gathered under the umbrella of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) in 1967. Organized labor played an important role. The AFL-CIO often provided research and lobbying in support of consumer interests, and several of its member unions were active in forming the CFA. “Until 1970,” Nadel notes, “there was no important issue on which the primary consumer groups and the unions were divided.”4 Civil rights and antipoverty advocates turned toward consumer issues toward the end of the 1960s as they confronted the causes of economic inequality in the exploitation of ghetto residents by merchants and credit providers, who were frequent targets of black rage during the urban riots of the decade.5 By the end of the 1960s, the courts became more receptive to tort suits brought against businesses for a range of offenses against consumers, and...

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