Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9507140080
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Unless, that is, you're a U.S. congressman whose Capitol digs come complete with your very own refrigerator, yet you expect taxpayers to spring for your daily ice delivery just the same.
As Engberg would erupt: TIME OUT!
Or what about all those government historians? Engberg found out there are more than 700 full-time, professional historians on the federal payroll - a body of scholars larger than the entire Yale University faculty, and serving a far more dubious purpose.
As Engberg would bray: EXCUSE ME?!
So goes ``Reality Check,'' a cheeky little expose Engberg checks in with every week or so on ``The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.''
The reality: Washington is a wasteful, self-absorbed place, and flushing out examples can be a real kick.
``It's really fun to look for this stuff,'' says Engberg, a jovial man who loves his job as much as talking about it, which he clearly doesn't mind. ``And it's even more fun when you find something.
``I'm not a cynic, and I don't hold bureaucrats or public servants in contempt. I'm just thinking: What would the average taxpayer say if he knew this is going on?''
After joining CBS News in 1975, Engberg covered politics and government agencies on a number of beats. Then, during the 1992 political campaign, he was among several reporters making up the new ``Reality Check'' team, which evaluated and, all too often, debunked claims made by candidates in their speeches and advertising.
After the election, Engberg became the sole ``Reality Check'' correspondent as its focus shifted from the campaign trail to the trail's end, Washington.
``We moved from looking at what politicians say, towards an attempt to evaluate the institutions,'' he explains, including in the ``we'' producer Dick Meyer.`` What we look for are not so much policy questions as structural questions.''
The brisk pace and arch tone of a ``Reality Check'' segment belies the painstaking research that went into it. Not to mention the often lengthy gestation period.
``When we found out that not only the secretary of agriculture but also the deputy secretary of agriculture was protected by armed guards, I said to my producer, `Protecting him from what? Wood lice?'''
It took a full year to pull together a report on Cabinet bodyguards, as Engberg awaited the sluggishly processed Freedom of Information requests, then pored over the records he finally got.
``The officials wouldn't tell us much about their security arrangements,'' Engberg says, ``but if you get the travel records of these officials, you find out who they take with them on trips.''
And in the report that aired last summer, viewers found out that, while the attorney general has one of the leanest security contingents, the secretary of the interior is among the most heavily guarded (``Against what,'' Engberg laughs - ``angry salmon?'').
He began last week's ``Reality Check'' by echoing the familiar view that the federal work force is far more bloated than it used to be.
TIME OUT!
Fact is, the number of federal employees per capita has been in sharp decline the last 30 years, according to his report. The problem? More and more layers of bureaucrats clogging the chain of command from the top down.
``I'm a great reader of federal telephone books,'' Engberg says. ``You go through them, and you see all of these departments and all these subdepartments, and you think to yourself, What do these people really DO all day?''
Engberg spends his days finding out. And telling.
``But we don't want to be wiseguys,'' he says. ``I try to be very careful not to come off as a slash-and-burn hater of everything in Washington.''
Which he clearly isn't. Instead, Engberg is an avid student of human nature - intra-Beltway human nature, that is, as it trips toward the power-crazed and profligate.
His only complaint?
``The danger that you drive yourself crazy,'' he laughs. ``There are so many things that ought to be looked at.''
by CNB