4. Issues and Bias

4.2 Economic

Eric Alterman has covered the topic of media bias on Economic Issues in Chapter 8 of his book (What Liberal Media). I suggest readers buy his book and read it. 

What I would like to do here is go beyond what Alterman has written about, because I think his chapter significantly understates the conservative tilt in news reporting in the mainstream media, when it comes to economic issues.  

For the moment let us set aside the fact that the U.S. media are part of a corporatist conservative establishment (more on that here). Let us focus, instead, on the news reporting on several relevant topics. 

4.2.1 Free Trade/Globalization

4.2.2 CEOs and Corporations v. Workers/Labor Groups

4.2.3 Taxes

PREFACE: "Millionaire Pundit Values"

A few ways in which the media tilts conservative on the issue of taxes 

A. Downplaying or ignoring the historical, bipartisan efforts to use tax increases to cut deficits and the magnitude of such increases

B. Largely reporting tax issues using fake Republican spin points

C. Failing to hold George Bush and the Republican party accountable for their long history of misleading, mendacity and fake promises on the topic of taxes (and the budget in general) 

D. Not reviewing history to see which party has done better on the economy overall, regardless of the tax policy used

4.2.4 Social Security

4.2.5 Illegal Immigration

4.2.6 Bankruptcy

4.2.7 Tort Reform

A few ways in which the media tilts conservative on the issue of "tort reform"

A. Spreading myths about "frivolous lawsuits"

B. Spreading myths about trends in the number of filed malpractice lawsuits and their associated costs

C. Exaggerating the size of malpractice awards

D. Rarely covering a key reason for malpractice lawsuits, i.e., malpractice

E. Rarely covering two of the main reasons for high malpractice insurance rates in some area/states - insurance industry losses/practices and serial malpractice by a small percentage of doctors

F. Rarely pointing out that 
(i) damage caps will act to deter meritorious lawsuits rather than reduce malpractice premiums, which they rarely do
(ii) there are much better ways to reduce frivolous lawsuits, allow meritorious lawsuits and reduce malpractice insurance rates 

G. Rarely mentioning that businesses are among the largest filers of actual (and frivolous) lawsuits, and that the Republican party has no intent of making them accountable for it

H. Rarely pointing out the hypocrisy (and fakery) from Republicans about the unreliability of civil juries compared to criminal juries, when assessing guilt of defendants

I. Rarely, if ever, mentioning that malpractice cases are not, in general, cases with high profitability for plaintiffs attorneys

J. Rarely pointing out that the proponents for malpractice award caps are usually lying through their teeth (as an experiment in Florida showed, where people was asked to testify under oath)

4.2.1 Free Trade/Globalization

Alterman cites a study on this in page 119 of his book that illustrates the media's pro-free-trade/globalization bias in the U.S.:

While the 1993 NAFTA debate raged in Congress, for instance, the argument that the accord would undermine the jobs of America's lowest-paid workers by forcing them to bargain in the shadow of even worse-paid Mexican laborers garnered little sympathy among journalists. The only issue that mattered, New York Times editors insisted, was "America's appetite for global leadership after the Cold war."⁶ The Los Angeles Times declared a pro-NAFTA vote to be "a vote for American foreign policy continuity."⁷ The Washington Post called the vote "a historic test of American intentions toward the rest of the world." Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, calculated that the Washington Post had published sixty-three feet worth of pro-NAFTA editorials and columns, compared to only eleven feet of anti-NAFTA commentary on its op-ed page during the same period. Another labor organization tallied up forty-eight op-ed articles in favor of NAFTA in the Post and just eight against. Straight news coverage was hardly any more balanced: 71 percent of expert sources quoted in the Post were pro-NAFTA, and only 17 percent opposed. The New York Times followed with 66 percent pro-treaty quotes and only 24 percent for opponents.⁸

Alterman goes on to make a pretty much open-and-shut case for the media's general cheerleading and backing for free trade and globalization, issues on which they diverged from liberal groups like labor unions, and grassroots groups protesting the form of "free trade" that was being implemented across the globe. 

The media's coverage on free trade/globalization has been significantly slanted to the conservative viewpoint for quite some time, with particular contempt for anti-globalization protests. For example, see this 2001 column by Norman Solomon:

As police fired rubber bullets through tear gas in Quebec City last weekend, many reporters echoed the claim that "free trade" promotes democracy. Meanwhile, protesters struggled to shed light on a key fact: The proposed hemispheric trade pact would give large corporations even more power to override laws that have been enacted – democratically – to protect the environment, labor, and human rights.

Newsweek responded to the turmoil at the Summit of the Americas with a column by Fareed Zakaria, a favorite policy analyst in elite circles. He declared that "the anti-globalization crowd is antidemocratic ... trying to achieve, through intimidation and scare tactics, what it has not been able to get through legislation." In recent decades, of course, the same was said about cutting-edge demonstrations for such causes as civil rights, peace in Vietnam, and environmental safeguards.

Protests against the likes of the World Trade Organization, and now the Free Trade Area of the Americas, have great impact because they resonate widely. Foes of global corporatization are speaking and acting on behalf of huge grassroots constituencies.

Last Sunday the ABC television program This Week deigned to air a discussion with a real-live progressive activist, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Journalist Cokie Roberts voiced befuddlement: "It's gotten to the point where any time there are global meetings, world leaders meeting, we have a sense that the protesters are going to be there, and there's not much sense of exactly what you're protesting." The interview only lasted a couple of minutes.

Most news outlets showed little interest in the content of alternative forums in Quebec City that drew thousands of activists from all over the hemisphere. Likewise, a big march in the city, with some estimates ranging above 60,000 participants, got underwhelming coverage. For that matter, most reporters didn't seem very deeply interested in the several thousand people who bravely engaged in militant, nonviolent direct action – risking and sometimes sustaining injuries from police assaults – while confronting the official summit.

What did get plenty of media attention was noted at the outset of last Tuesday's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which yearned for "a world where TV cameras prefer trade agreements to black-clad anarchists." Some of those few "black-clad anarchists" call themselves the Black Bloc.

Routinely slipping by with scant journalistic scrutiny is what we could dub the "White Bloc" – a nexus of immense media power serving corporate interests.

The White Bloc is not monolithic. But on the issue of "free trade," it's difficult to find a major U.S. publication that does not editorially support accords like NAFTA, WTO, and the new FTAA.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, at the right edge of the Bloc, is much honored by the media establishment. Last year, Journal columnist Paul Gigot won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. This year, a couple of weeks ago, the same award went to another very conservative columnist for the newspaper, Dorothy Rabinowitz. But it's the unheralded daily output of the White Bloc that can be most breathtaking.

On the day Rabinowitz's prize was announced, for instance, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal featured a freelance article that began this way: "In the early 1990s, America's major cities were on life-support, suffocating under socialistic policies that left them looking like Soviet-bloc relics." (It was not a humor piece, by the way.) Farther down the page was a column headlined "The Monarchy Is Worth Saving," written by the Journal's deputy editorial features editor, who earnestly argued that British citizens need their monarchy "as a source of authority."

But the White Bloc has a liberal side too. Several New York Times columnists take turns condemning those who have the gall to stand in the way of corporate Progress.

Free-marketeers at the Times know how to pound away at the same line. While heads of state prepared to leave the Quebec summit, Paul Krugman ended his column by writing that the protesters "are doing their best to make the poor even poorer." Two days later Thomas Friedman concluded his column by explaining that "these 'protesters' should be called by their real name: The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor."

The White Bloc (which includes people of all colors if suitably conformist) has its own forms of hip solidarity. On the Hardball national TV program, airing on both MSNBC and CNBC, host Chris Matthews closed his April 18 interview with Friedman exactly this way:

Matthews: "You are the future, my man. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times."

Friedman: "Thanks, bro."

Matthews: "The smartest columnist in the world."

Now, I consider myself to be a supporter of free trade and globalization, but it is blindingly obvious that the media discourse on this topic is usually tilted to the pro-corporate-conservative outlook and often reduced to highly superficial pro-free-trade sound bites (including, by so-called "liberal" columnists, as Alterman shows) - rather than a proper and thorough examination of the full ramifications of globalization to understand how to do it right (as in, correctly). Alterman mentions Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz's largely unsuccessful efforts to bring some more facts and reality into the policy discussions and media narratives on free trade. I have read Stiglitz's excellent book The Roaring Nineties and I'm going to cite a few paragraphs from the book to show some examples of the kinds of serious issues that media seriously underplayed or fails to cover (and I see similar failings in the media's coverage today, especially in their coverage of the ongoing Iraq-privatization travesty):

[p 21] ...by the summer of 1999, The New York Times was asking, "Who Lost Russia?"⁶  And even if Russia was not ours to lose, the statistics were sobering: with efficient capitalism replacing moribund and decadent communism, output was supposed to soar. In fact GDP declined 40 percent and poverty increased tenfold. And the results were similar in the other economies making the transition who followed the advice of the U .S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, China, following its own course showed that there was an alternative path of transition which could succeed both in bringing the growth that markets promised and in markedly reducing poverty. 

Clearly, something was amiss in the way we were leading the world into the new international order.
...
Again, we needed to ask, what were our mistakes and why did we make them? We failed in what we did, and what we did not do; and we failed in how we did what we did.

The international agreements, for instance, reflected our concerns, our interests: we forced those abroad to open up their capital markets, say, to our derivatives and speculative capital flows, knowing how destabilizing they could be. But Wall Street wanted it, and what Wall Street wanted, it more than likely got. 

Developing countries were told to open their markets to every imaginable form of import, including the things Corporate America was best at, such as financial services and computer software. Meanwhile, we maintained stiff trade barriers and large subsidies of our on behalf of U.S. farmers and agribusiness, thereby denying our market to the farmers of the Third World. To a country fallen on hard times and facing recession, our standard advice was to slash spending - even though we had routinely relied on deficit spending to get us out of economic downturns.

These were not the only examples of what struck those abroad as blatant hypocrisy. Even in the budget-balancing nineties, we maintained robust trade deficits even as we preached to others that they should keep their trade deficits down; evidently, it was understandable if the rich could not live within their means; what was not to be forgiven was for the poor to do so.⁷

We scolded the developing nations about their disrespect for intellectual property laws that we, too, had scorned in our days as a developing nation. (The United States didn't get around to protecting rights of foreign authors until 1891.)

Especially strange was the contrast between the Clinton administration's palliatives abroad and the battles it waged at home. At home, we defended our public Social Security against privatization, lauding its low transactions costs, the income security which it provided, how it had virtually eliminated poverty among the elderly. Abroad, we pushed privatization. At home, we argued strongly that the Fed should keep a focus on growth and unemployment, as well as inflation - with a president elected on a jobs platform, he could do nothing less. Abroad, we urged Central Banks to focus exclusively on inflation. 

One of America's great glories had been the growth of its middle class. Still, we almost completely ignored the equity implications of the policies we urged on other nations - and the increasingly inescapable fact that globalization, as it was actually practiced, tended to make poor societies more rather than less unequal. 

...The policy framework that we pushed abroad was the one that would help our businesses do well abroad. At home, there was a check on these policies, caused by our concern for consumers and workers. Abroad, there was none. At home, we resisted pressure for changes in the bankruptcy law that would unduly hurt debtors. Abroad, a primary concern in any foreign crisis seemed the promptest and fullest repayment of debts to American and other Western banks, even to the point of supplying billions of dollars to ensure that that happened. The deregulation mantra that we pushed too far at home we pushed even further abroad.

Not surprisingly, the policies we pushed and the way we pushed them generated enormous resentment...

It was too little regulation, not too much, that caused the economic crises in East Asia in 1997. It was too little regulation that gave rise to the savings and loan debacle in 1989, in which American taxpayers paid more than $100 billion bailing out an important part of the nation's financial system. (The only thing that could be said in favor of the bailout was that - given the consequences of excessive deregulation - the costs of not bailing them out would have been even greater.) 

If we in the Clinton administration sometimes lost that balance, matters have become even worse during the next administration -....

In many respects, Stiglitz's book sends a very similar message to what Prof. Amy Chua (another free trade/globalization supporter) conveyed in her book World on Fire (2003). The following extract from a review of Chua's book by Publisher's Weekly provides a high-level summary of what her book is about:

A professor at Yale Law School, Chua eloquently fuses expert analysis with personal recollections to assert that globalization has created a volatile concoction of free markets and democracy that has incited economic devastation, ethnic hatred and genocidal violence throughout the developing world. Chua illustrates the disastrous consequences arising when an accumulation of wealth by "market dominant minorities" combines with an increase of political power by a disenfranchised majority. Chua refutes the "powerful assumption that markets and democracy go hand in hand" by citing specific examples of the turbulent conditions within countries such as Indonesia, Russia, Sierra Leone, Bolivia and in the Middle East. In Indonesia, Chua contends, market liberalization policies favoring wealthy Chinese elites instigated a vicious wave of anti-Chinese violence from the suppressed indigenous majority. Chua describes how "terrified Chinese shop owners huddled behind locked doors while screaming Muslim mobs smashed windows, looted shops and gang-raped over 150 women, almost all of them ethnic Chinese." Chua blames the West for promoting a version of capitalism and democracy that Westerners have never adopted themselves. Western capitalism wisely implemented redistributive mechanisms to offset potential ethnic hostilities, a practice that has not accompanied the political and economic transitions in the developing world. As a result, Chua explains, we will continue to witness violence and bloodshed within the developing nations struggling to adopt the free markets and democratic policies exported by the West.

Let me feature an extract from her book that is directly relevant to the discussion here:

[p 194] ...Despite these variations [between Western capitalist countries], the bottom line is again the same. Starting in the late nineteenth century, the explosion of market activity throughout the West was accompanied by the emergence of redistributive institutions of unprecedented magnitude, softening the harshest effects of capitalism. In every developed country these institutions include not only relief to the extremely poor but also progressive taxation, social security, minimum wage laws, worker safety regulation, antitrust laws, and numerous other features of Western society that we take for granted.⁶ These redistributive institutions have almost certainly helped dampen the conflict between market wealth disparities and democratic politics in the industrialized West.

By contrast, the version of capitalism being promoted outside the West today is essentially laissez-faire and rarely includes any significant redistributive mechanisms. In other words, the United States is aggressively exporting a model of capitalism that the Western nations themselves abandoned a century ago. More broadly, it is critical to recognize that the formula of free market democracy currently being pressed on non-Western nations - the simultaneous pursuit of laissez-faire capitalism and universal suffrage - is one that no Western nation ever adopted at any point in history.

Is this wise? Almost by definition, in the developing world today the poor are far more numerous, poverty is far more extreme, and inequality far more glaring than in the Western countries, either today or at analogous historical periods. The ongoing population explosion outside the West only makes things worse.

...

...today's universal policy prescription for "under-development," shaped and promulgated to a large extent by the United States, essentially amounts to this. Take the rawest form of capitalism, slap it together with the rawest form of democracy, and export the two as a package deal to the poorest, most frustrated. most unstable, and most desperate countries of the world. Add market-dominant minorities to the picture, and the instability inherent in this bareknuckle version of free market democracy is compounded a thousandfold by the manipulable forces of ethnic hatred.

When I first started thinking of free trade and globalization, I must admit I was unaware of the fact that important policy details were routinely downplayed or ignored in favor of cheerleading, by the media and influential columnists (a prime example being Tom Friedman at the New York Times, who was one of the people I initially cited in my website on this topic). Since then, I have learnt a lot more about what has been mismanaged in promoting free trade and globalization across the world and how little publicity any of that gets in the media when this topic is discussed in news reports. It is a matter of life and death for many of the world's peoples and it is indeed appalling that important details are glossed over and the issue reduced to one-sided sound-bites.

Imposing an unregulated, laissez-faire mode of capitalism (whether in the non-Western world or in the U.S., as the Bush administration is driving to) is bound to cause great turmoil and ensure that the benefits of globalization are unfairly concentrated at the higher end of the income spectrum, without expanding the opportunities for a higher quality of life and wealth creation to a much wider section of the populace, especially the poor. It's about time the media brought some balance back into this debate.

4.2.2 CEOs and Corporations v. Workers/Labor Groups

No reasonable person can deny the fawning and largely uncritical coverage that businesses and CEOs got in the 1990s at the expense of workers and ethics. Alterman covers this in some detail and as he says:

[p 122] An entire money-loving journalistic structure grew up around the prosperity of the Nineties and the market boom that inspired it. The boom itself, as we all know, would prove to be heavily skewed toward the wealthiest Americans.
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[p 123] Evidently, the media's market-centricity carried with it important ideological implications for the spin they put on the news. The single-minded emphasis on "wealth creation" crowded out concerns for virtually everything that might be perceived to interfere with it, such as workers' pay, environmental destruction, equity issues, and, as investors found to their deep chagrin, honest accounting. 

Alterman also traces the incredibly fawning coverage that Enron got for most of its life and how one of those rare journalistic pieces (in the WSJ in 1998) by Jonathan Weil, that raised a red flag about Enron's dubious accounting practices (recording *expected* future income as current income), was largely ignored in the media. Warnings by some (on the Left) that skyrocketing energy price increases in California were likely due to rigging by energy companies like Enron were repeatedly dismissed by pathologically dishonest conservatives of the likes of Charles Krauthammer, William Safire and Vice President Dick Cheney and their enablers in the media. The deep links between big energy companies (like Enron) and the Bush administration (and its energy "policy" - which was largely drafted by the same companies) were barely investigated. And so on...

It is important to note that the pro-business or pro-CEO tilt is only part of the equation - even as the tilt softened in recent years due to the numerous corporate scandals. As Alterman shows, the voices of labor unions (part of the traditional liberal/Democratic establishment) are barely heard in media coverage in comparison to the voices of company representatives and corporate/conservative front groups (Sec. 4.4 has more data on the media's significant over-reliance on conservative front-groups and "think-tanks" in guiding discussion on news coverage.)

CASE STUDY: A recent case study provides a good example of the media's pro-corporate/ pro-conservative bent on economic issues. I am referring to a 2004 paper by Christopher J. Kollmeyer at University of California, Santa Barbara, titled "Corporate Interests: How the News Media Portray the Economy". The paper looked at the Los Angeles Times' coverage of economic issues in 201 articles focused on the economy in 1997 and 1998. (Remember, the LA Times is considered by the Right to be "liberal".) What is interesting about this study is that unlike half-baked studies that merely mine databases for "words" used, "topics" covered, "headlines" used, or "tone" of coverage, this study actually included a reading of each article to assess the detailed nature of the content. Granted, the study has its flaws - for example, it focused more on the manufacturing sector of the economy and it doesn't independently assess the accuracy of the news reports - but the way it was designed showed far more intelligence than is characteristic of the usual conservative "studies" that claim to show "liberal bias". As a result, the study was also able to extract conclusions that are more credible than the half baked studies mentioned above.

Kollmeyer first provides a good review of various papers that discuss media bias on economic reporting and derived a set of testable hypotheses from those papers:

Hypothesis 1: Negative accounts of the economy outnumber positive accounts of the economy.
...
Hypothesis 2: Most negative accounts of the economy focus on problems affecting the general workforce rather than problems affecting corporations or investors.
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Hypothesis 3: The news media rarely run stories about economic problems affecting workers.

Hypothesis 4: The news media rarely mention economic reforms designed to improve the material well-being of workers.
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Hypothesis 5: When covering the economy, the news media emphasize events and issues affecting corporations and investors and downplay events and issues affecting workers. 
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Hypothesis 6: Journalists rarely use union leaders, workers, or their spokespersons as sources of information about the economy.
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Hypothesis 7: Articles citing business spokespersons or government officials will report good news about the economy more often than articles citing union leaders, workers, or their spokespersons.

He then set up the study such that its findings are likely to be quite conservative, by doing two things:

(a) omitting any articles that appeared in the Business section of the paper, which tends to be business focused, rather than labor focused

(b) choosing keywords than tend to bias the articles selected from Lexis-Nexis in the direction of labor or workers (or bad news), as opposed to business, CEOs or corporations. 

He explains his methodology here:

In order to create a representative sample of articles, I used the Lexis-Nexis archive of electronic databases to identify all articles about the economy appearing in the Times during 1997 and 1998. Within the specified dates, I used the keyword function in Lexis-Nexis to obtain all articles with the words “economy,” “markets,” “labor,” “workers,” or “recession” in the headline or introductory paragraphs.⁵ Then I eliminated articles from the foreign desk, leaving only those articles about the domestic economy within the data set. The resulting materials included all topically relevant articles — whether they were hard news, human-interest stories, or editorials—appearing in the front, metro, and opinion sections of the paper. These selection criteria yielded 201 articles—149 from the front section, 37 from the metro and editorial sections, and 15 from Sunday’s opinion section.

Articles from the business section were not included in the data set. At first, this decision might strike some readers as peculiar, for seemingly an analysis of economic journalism should include articles from the business section. But this aspect of the research design, although it undoubtedly excludes many important articles about the economy, should actually strengthen my primary argument for two interrelated reasons. First, as Gans (2003:65–6) notes, nearly all newspapers design their business sections around the implicit interests of investors and business managers. This orientation, for instance, manifests in the business section’s emphasis on the stock market and related aspects of the economy,⁶ and the fact that nearly all newspapers label this section as the “business section,” rather than the “economy section” or “labor section.”⁷ Given these circumstances, the inclusion of articles from the business sections in the analysis would hinder my effort to understand those parts of the newspaper with the greatest chance of affecting public opinion about the overall performance of California’s economy. Second, and perhaps more importantly, since the business section by design appeals to a specific audience, research that finds a pro-business slant in the business section provides little sociological insight into important questions about the news media. 
...
Next, I read all of the articles, coding the content of each in terms of several criteria. First, the story’s date of appearance, location within the newspaper, and number of words were recorded. Then, more substantively important factors—such as the story’s topic, source of information and viewpoints, the appraisal of the economy’s performance, and discussion of reforms, if any—were analyzed and coded accordingly.

Let's review the main conclusions.

First about the good news-bad news mix:

These results can be interpreted in two ways. With only 7.5 percent of the articles reporting exclusively bad news, as compared to the nearly 40 percent of the articles reporting exclusively good news, the data do not reveal a pronounced inclination toward negative accounts of the economy. But when combining the bad-news and mixed-news articles into one category, the data indicate that over 60 percent of the articles contain at least some criticism of the economy’s performance.
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As Table 2 shows, articles reporting good news appeared on the front page 77.2 percent of the time, and they had an average length of 1,413 words. Conversely, articles reporting bad news appeared on the front page only 33.3 percent of the time, and they had an average length of only 1,232 words. These findings clearly contradict the assertion that the news media most often emphasize the economy’s shortcomings.

The emphasis on corporations and investors v. workers:

As Table 4 shows, articles reporting problems threatening corporations and investors received front-page attention 73.7 percent of the time, and they had an average length of 1,447 words. But articles reporting problems threatening workers received front-page attention only 21.1 percent of the time, and they had an average length of 1,315 words. By comparison, articles about problems affecting the economy in general, although they had the smallest average word count, were distributed almost evenly between the front and back pages of the newspaper. Nonetheless, the overall findings displayed in Table 4 portray a pattern of journalism that downplays coverage of economic issues affecting workers.

More:

Taken together, this means that articles discussing reforms, as compared to articles not discussing reforms, were half as likely to appear on the front page and almost 9 percent shorter. 

Second, when articles mentioned reforms intended to help corporations and investors, they were given more prominent attention, by a considerable margin, than articles mentioning reforms intended to help workers. As Table 6 indicates, articles mentioning reforms intended to help corporations and investors appeared on the front page 83.3 percent of the time, and they had an average length of 1,569 words. But articles mentioning reforms designed to help workers appeared on the front page much less frequently (only 14.3 percent of the time), and they were much shorter on average (only 1,120 words). Or, stated differently, this finding means that articles mentioning reforms designed to help corporations and investors were, on average, almost six times more likely to appear on the front page and approximately 28 percent longer than articles mentioning reforms designed to help workers. Combined, the data presented in Tables 5 and 6 depict a pattern of journalism that, while not avoiding the subject altogether, downplays discussions of potential economic reforms, especially when the proposed reforms address problems affecting workers. 

Sources used:

To facilitate a quantitative analysis of the resulting information, the identified sources were grouped into one of seven mutually exclusive categories. The results of this coding process, displayed in row one of Table 7, provide strong support for the hypothesized outcome. As anticipated, the data show that union leaders, workers, and their spokespersons were rarely used as sources of information about the economy. Specifically, these individuals were used as primary sources for only 7.9 percent of the articles in the data set. This compares unfavorably with most other types of sources — the two exceptions being the category representing Times op-ed writers (used in 5 percent of the articles) and the category representing three or more sources (also used in 5 percent of the articles). The most frequently cited source was “business/government,” a category for articles citing both business spokespersons and government officials as the primary sources of information. The next most frequently cited sources were business spokespersons (21.3 percent), social scientists and individuals described as authors (19.3 percent), and government officials (18.8 percent). Consistent with the literature of the subject, these findings demonstrate that journalists with the Times rely heavily upon individuals representing the corporate community and government for much of the information that eventually becomes news about the economy. In fact, at least 62 percent of the articles in the data set used some combination of business spokespersons and government officials as primary sources—a number nearly 8 times greater than the percentage of articles using union leaders, workers, or their spokespersons as primary sources.

When used as sources of information about the economy, business spokespersons and government officials seemingly received preferential treatment in other ways as well.   According to the data displayed in row two of Table 7, there exists a moderate association between an article’s source of information and its likelihood of appearing on the front page. Specifically, when journalists used business spokespersons as primary sources—either alone or coupled with government officials—the resulting articles appeared on the front page more than 83 percent of the time. But when journalists used union leaders, workers, or their spokespersons as primary sources, the resulting articles appeared on the front pages less frequently— approximately 56 percent of the time. The least prominent attention, however, went to articles citing social scientists and individuals described as authors. When journalists cited these sources, only 17.9 percent of the resulting articles appeared on the front page. Taken together, the data displayed in rows one and two of Table 7 provide moderate support for the claim that the news media privilege the corporate community and government as sources of information on the economy.

As I said earlier, the study here is not without flaws since article accuracy is not evaluated, which is very important. But the detailed and conservative approach to the study makes it superior to most other media bias studies to date and makes it conclusions more credible. While this study focused only on one paper and for a limited time period, it so happens that the paper is deemed a (so-called) "liberal" one and that the broad conclusions are consistent with other data presented on this page. The bottomline is clear: the U.S. media's reporting on economic issues tilts conservative and downplays the voices of workers and labor unions. 

There are many reasons why media coverage might tilt conservative, especially on issues relating to business or corporations. Steve Kangas has commented on this - here are some snippets from one of his older essays:

The fact is that conservatives have powerful friends in the media: the corporations that own them, and the corporations that pay for their advertising. These giant firms have been increasingly successful in bending the media's message to suit their self-interests, which include a conservative and pro-corporate agenda. Studies show that the media are eerily silent on the issues most important to workers, consumers and other citizens adversely affected by corporate behavior.
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The Media Monopoly

Easily the most famous book on media trends in the last 15 years is Ben Bagdikian's 1983 book, The Media Monopoly. In it, he predicted that deregulation under President Reagan would allow media ownership to concentrate in fewer and fewer corporate hands. This, in turn, would result in a more pro-corporate media. Ridiculed as "alarmist" when it first came out, it has since been praised as a classic for the accuracy of its predictions. "I derive no pleasure from having been correct," writes the former dean of American journalism in his most recent edition. (3)

To be specific, the number one trend within the media today is that they are rapidly being monopolized by large corporations. Technically, the term "monopoly" is incorrect when describing today's media -- what we actually have is a shrinking media oligopoly. Most scholars use the term "media monopoly" only because that's the direction the media are headed. This essay will also use the term "media monopoly" to denote the direction, rather than the current status, of the media.

The dangers of a media monopoly

Before reviewing the statistical evidence of the media monopoly, which is undisputed even by the media themselves, we should make certain of its dangers.

The incentives for buying media organizations have long been obvious to Wall Street, which has seen vicious competition break out to capture the remaining media markets. These incentives were articulated in 1986 by Christopher Shaw, a Wall Street expert who has handled over 120 media mergers. Shaw told investors that media buy-outs would give them two things: "profitability" and "influence." (4)

There is nothing inherently wrong with either profitability or influence, of course -- it's just that in a monopoly, they would be abused. Consider the abuse of profits. All the usual market failures would be present in a media monopoly: the captive market, the rise in prices, the drop in quality, and the exploitation of consumers.

But significantly more troubling is the monopolization of influence. If one person controls all information, there are no opposing viewpoints so essential to keeping public and scientific debate honest. We profoundly condemn the monopoly of information by the state, as exemplified by Joseph Goebbels' "Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment." But this danger is no less evident if a single business takes over the control of all information in society. Then all information would come from a corporate point of view, silencing the voices of workers, consumers and other citizens who are affected by corporate behavior. Democracy is based on the assumption that opposing viewpoints can be heard. If corporations could somehow eliminate or control populist debate, then we will not have a true democracy.

The potential for abuse by corporate owners is obvious. Just one example was General Electric's earlier buyout of NBC News. General Electric is the 10th largest company in the United States. It is a major Defense contractor and an international player on the world market. It is sensitive to the needs of its clients, who come from all sectors of the economy. It is also a fact that GE has suffered many a scandal throughout its history. During the Great Depression, it cut the life of its light bulbs by one-third to drive up profits. It was convicted of an illegal agreement with a German arms company during World War II. It has been convicted of fraud, fixing bids, conspiracy and tax evasion. (5) In all these cases, control of a major media outlet would have given it undue influence, whether in the market or before Congress or the courts.

Furthermore, GE has played an active role in conservative politics. Shortly after the company acquired NBC, a GE executive announced that NBC should start a political action committee to contribute money to strengthen the company's influence in Washington. Failure to cooperate, the executive said, would raise questions about the employees' "dedication to the company." (6) Later the President of NBC News clarified that its news employees would be exempt from contributing, but this hardly removes the larger conflict of interest.

It should not be surprising that these parent companies, like most big businesses and all Defense contractors, are extremely conservative. They have agendas: they desire lower taxes, fewer lawsuits from the public, fewer environmental restraints, better public relations (a euphemism for less public exposure to scandals), higher profits and more effective lobbying power in Washington. Controlling public opinion would give them all these things. Ironically, it would not be necessary for a single winner to emerge from the take-over wars. Shaw maintains that by the year 2000, all U.S. media will be in the hands of six giant corporations. Most business analysts agree with him. (7) One can safely assume that they will all have the same business and political agenda.

The statistical evidence of a media monopoly

That said, let's review the evidence of a media monopoly. Ownership of all forms of media (newspapers, magazines, radio shows, network television, cable, journals, books, movies, videos and cassettes) are quickly being consolidated under a few corporations. In all, the number of dominant corporations who control any form of media has shrunk from 46 in 1981 to exactly half in 1992: 23. At the end of World War II, 80 percent of all newspapers were privately owned. Today, that figure is its exact opposite: 80 percent of all newspapers are owned by corporate chains. From 1960 to today, the number of corporations which own newspapers fell from 27 to 14. (Gannett Company, which publishes USA Today, is the largest, with 87 other daily newspapers.) From 1981 to 1988, the number of corporations who owned magazines fell from 20 to a mere three. Television news is dominated by four major networks, who control up to three-fourths of the audience share. (8)

One of the most obvious signs of this trend is that cities are becoming "one-newspaper towns." One of the persons most responsible for buying out competing newspapers is Rupert Murdoch, who says that his worldwide strategy is acquisition and takeovers. (9) Another is Allen Neuharth, chairman of Gannett Company, who told a group of Wall Street investors that "No Gannett newspaper has any direct competition." (10)

Since the 1992 edition of The Media Monopoly, media mergers of unprecedented scale have continued unabated -- but there's no discussion of the dangers involved, or the controversy it should represent. Disney has since bought ABC, Westinghouse has bought CBS, and Time-Warner has bought Turner Broadcasting System. Congress cleared out the remaining obstacles for still more media mergers by passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Headlines in the media blared about the bill's attempt to censor pornography on the Internet, but otherwise remained completely silent about its deregulation of anti-trust laws for the media. For this bit of censorship, the Telecom Act was voted the number one censored story of 1995 by Project Censored.

The cable industry offers a perfect snapshot of media monopolization and all its dangers. After the cable television industry was deregulated in 1984, prices soared, quality of programming plummeted, and cable systems began selling their channels in indivisible blocs that prevented subscribers from voting with their dollars. From 1986 to 1990, the cost of basic service rose 56 percent -- twice the rate of inflation. (11) The problem? Growing monopolization, at several levels. There are now 11,000 cable systems across the nation, almost all of them exercising a local monopoly over their municipal region. They in turn are controlled by a handful of national companies. By far the most dominant is the phenomenally expanding TCI, which is a gatekeeper over national programming. Its owner, John Malone, owns all or part of 25 national or regional cable channels, including Turner Broadcasting. (12) Because there is little or no competition, cable programmers search for the cheapest shows to produce. Quality of programming has sunk to network TV levels. It seems that each year, Congress passes yet another cable deregulation bill. Every single one has been touted to "open competition" and "benefit the consumer." But the concentration of power in the cable industry keeps getting worse, not better.

Another source of pro-corporate bias: advertising

Owning and monopolizing the media is only one way that corporations introduce a pro-corporate bias into the media. An equally pervasive one is advertising.

Most media depend on the sale of corporate advertisements to stay alive. Without advertisements, a medium would have to charge its customers a higher up-front price for its product. But that would kill its circulation, since competitors would offer up-front prices that were considerably lower or even free. Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The consumer actually pays a higher price for the advertiser's products, which then go to the media.

Advertising has been criticized on many grounds: it is inefficient, wastes time and resources, is terribly unpleasant, stifles free market competition, helps sustains long-term advantages to giant corporations, and makes people buy products for psychological reasons instead of economic ones like cost, quality and demand. Entire essays could be written on each of these shortcomings, but what we will address is how advertising injects a pro-corporate bias into the media.

The media generally cannot run stories that offend corporations, because sponsors will threaten to pull their advertising dollars. [eRiposte emphasis] In 1980, the liberal staff at Mother Jones debated over whether or not to publish a series of articles linking cigarettes to cancer. The editors knew that the tobacco industry would punish them by canceling their lucrative advertising contracts, which the young, struggling magazine desperately needed. Mother Jones stuck to its principles and printed the articles anyway; and, just as expected, the tobacco companies angrily pulled their ads.

And whereas a parent corporation like GE has a particular set of interests that NBC would never report against, advertisers have general interests that reporters would never tilt against either. A publisher never knows who the next advertiser might be; therefore it's good policy not to write offensive things about any corporation, or even corporate culture in general. No news organization could attract advertisers if it persistently attacked the corporate agenda.

Evidence of pro-corporate bias in the media

...Ben Bagdikian writes that owners let the editors operate freely until a story arises that affects the company's interest. Then one of two forms of influence will be exerted. It may be a direct order, as when the Chairman of General Electric called the President of NBC News after the 1987 stock market crash and told him not to use words in their reporting that would adversely affect GE stock. (13) (The NBC News president claimed he did not pass on the order.)

Or it may be an unspoken agreement. Editors and writers know what their employer's interests are, and they protect them without being told. Why? Either to demonstrate their dedication to the company, thus protecting their future promotions, or simply because they fear being fired. Unfortunately, it is a frequent practice for owners to fire journalists who, knowingly or not, write against their particular interests. Just one of many examples is the owner of the Dallas Morning News, who fired Earl Golz for writing a story about an imminent bank failure that outraged the owners of the Abilene National Bank. Golz' story proved true -- the bank crashed a few weeks later -- but Golz' was not rehired. (14) To be sure, other journalists witnessing his fate would practice self-censorship whenever it came to protecting their owner's interests. [eRiposte emphasis] 

Whether owners interfere explicitly or implicitly in the newsroom, evidence of it continually surfaces. [eRiposte emphasis] Here are just a few examples:

• During the debate on health care reform, the New York Times ran stories persistently in favor of managed competition, a program which would have been profitable to major health care corporations. Other proposals for reform, like the Canadian single-payer program, were criticized or ignored. Reason: four members of the Times board of directors are also directors of major insurance companies, and two are directors of pharmaceutical companies. (15)

• Victor Neufeld, the executive producer of ABC's top-rated news show 20/20, repeatedly rejected several promising stories on nuclear power hazards. Reason: His wife is a prominent spokesman for the nuclear and chemical industries. (16)

• Walter Annenberg, owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, used his paper to attack a candidate who opposed action that would have benefited the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Reason: he was the single largest stockholder. (17)

• Rupert Murdoch's Post endorsed President Carter in the crucial New York Presidential primary, contributing to his victory. Reason: two days earlier, Murdoch had lunch with Carter, convincing him to lean on the Export-Import Bank of the United States to give him a taxpayer-subsidized loan of $290 million. The bank had previously rejected the loan. (18)

• A four-month study by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) analyzed how the New York Times and Washington Post covered NAFTA. Of the experts quoted in their articles, pro-NAFTA outnumbered anti-NAFTA sources by three to one. Not a single labor union representative was quoted. Reason: these newspapers' boards of directors are drawn from big business. (19)

• Journalist Elizabeth Whelan asked ten major women's magazines to run a series of articles on the rise of smoking-related diseases in women; all ten magazines refused. Reason: "I frequently wrote on health topics for women's magazines," says Whelan, "and have been told repeatedly by editors to stay away from the subject of tobacco." (20)

The above stories are anecdotal, but they show specifically how editors and advertisers interfere with the objectivity of the media. Now let's look at broader statistics. All feature the same theme: the power of editorial selection. Editors play a crucial role in deciding which stories get covered and which ones don't. This is an important tool for shaping and influencing the nation's debate. Due to the abuse of this power, three giant trends have grown within the media as big business continues to monopolize it:

The first is that pro-labor stories are almost completely absent, even though blue-collar workers make up the vast majority of this nation's work force, and indeed the news media's audience. The majority of stories should include the conditions they work under, the challenges they face, the wages they earn and the hazards that maim and kill them. But the media is curiously silent on nearly all these natural topics. In 1989, researcher John Tasini studied ABC, NBC and CBS for a year to see how much coverage was devoted to workers' issues, including the minimum wage, workplace safety and child care. He found it amounted to a dismal 2.3 percent of all coverage. In fact, all three networks carried only 13 minutes of coverage on workplace safety for the entire year! The worst offender was NBC Nightly News, who devoted a total of 40 seconds to worker safety. This is not surprising, since its parent corporation, GE, has an appalling work safety record. (21) Elsewhere, a Los Angeles Times poll found that 53 percent of the nation's newspaper editors were pro-management, but only 8 percent were pro-labor. (22) The pro-corporate bias of our media is one of the most important reasons for the decline of labor unions in this country. [eRiposte emphasis] 

4.2.3 Taxes

The issue of taxes is another area where the mainstream media displays its strongly conservative tilt on economic matters, by its biased, misinformation-laden coverage - to the point that it has become toxic for Democrats or liberals to not just advocate tax increases but even oppose tax cuts. 

PREFACE: "Millionaire Pundit Values" 

In some respects, it is no surprise why the U.S. media makes the talk of tax increases a no-no. This exchange noted by Bob Somerby is notable:

MILLIONAIRE PUNDIT VALUES: And, of course, there’s always time for this required exchange:

RUSSERT: There are indications that some of the soldiers in Iraq, because of their low income, will not be beneficiaries of this tax cut. Would that be acceptable to you?

NOVAK: To me, it’s quite obvious that people who pay the taxes should get the tax cuts. People like you, for example, who get so much income, should get the tax cuts.

SAFIRE: And you. And you.

AL HUNT: All of us here, let’s be honest.

Can these harlequins ever discuss the budget without explaining how rich they all are?

And Somerby's note on a column by Bill Keller of the New York Times makes it clearer:

Trust us—scribes who quote their three-year-old children are trying to tell you how silly they are, and Keller has surely completed the task with his pandering piece in this Sunday’s Times magazine. Profiling Bush, Keller fawns long and hard—and shows off those Millionaire Pundit Values. We’ve warned you that your millionaire scribes simply don’t care about normal people. But we don’t know when we’ve seen a pundit revel so much in that fact:

KELLER: Bush has already surpassed Reagan in advocating a shift of responsibilities from government to the private sector, and from the federal governments to the states…You could easily imagine Reagan’s husky chuckle the other day as Bush announced plans to outsource up to 850,000 federal jobs—about half the government’s civilian work force—to private contractors. This is on top of the 170,000 federal employees who will lose most of their contract protections when they are folded into the new Department of Homeland Security.

Nice guy! Keller pictures Reagan callously chuckling as hundreds of thousands of normal people lose job protections for which they have bargained. But why should we be so surprised at this image, when Keller—speaking with an approving tone, as he does throughout this piece—sketches out Bush’s bold vision:

KELLER: What Bush is striving for, on the evidence of the choices he has made so far, is bold in its ambition: markets unleashed, resources exploited. A progressive tax system leveled, a country unashamed of wealth. Government entitlements gradually replaced by thrift, self-reliance and private good will. The safety net strung closer to the ground.

Finally! Progressive taxation will finally end and wealth will again dare speak its name! Throughout this profile, Keller showers praise on this oddball vision, which he fawningly fobs off on Bush. You’ll have to read the piece yourself to take in Keller’s pandering tone. But through the course of his 8000 words, Keller never shows the slightest concern about these remarkable values.

But then, we’ve warned you about Millionaire Pundit Values. Like many high-toned modern pundits, Keller doesn’t seem to spend too much time worrying about normal people. Insouciance is his all. 
...
You’ll have to read this piece for yourself to pick up its remarkable tone. Why does Keller fawn so fully? Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t have a clue. But dudes! Would Reagan have laughed at those laid-off workers? We doubt it. But Bill Keller will!

The media's almost one-sided coverage on taxes manifests in multiple ways. 
Some of these (A, B, C, D) are:

A. Downplaying or ignoring the historical, bipartisan efforts to use tax increases to cut deficits and the magnitude of such increases

Who ever hears this replayed again and again in our mainstream media? The fact that these facts hardly come out shows the media's strongly conservative bias on taxes, since it is established "wisdom" that conservatives are for tax cuts and that they effectively associate tax increases with the apocalypse [yes, I'm kidding, but only barely so]: 

“Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts,” Krugman writes. Krugman notes that Reagan “followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases.” Here’s the skinny on Reagan Tax Increase number 1:

KRUGMAN: The first Reagan tax increase came in 1982. By then it was clear that the budget projections used to justify the 1981 tax cut were wildly optimistic. In response, Mr. Reagan agreed to a sharp rollback of corporate tax cuts, and a smaller rollback of individual income tax cuts. Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.

We’ll return to that highlighted point. For the record, here’s Krugman’s description of Reagan Tax Increase 2:

KRUGMAN: I’m referring to the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, which followed the recommendations of a commission led by Alan Greenspan. Its key provision was an increase in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance.

For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent—but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down.

For those who don’t want to do the math, Krugman’s “middle-income families with children” were paying a combined burden of 18.4 percent by 1988, up from 17.7 percent in 1980. For these middle-class families, Reagan—who did reduce taxes overall—had actually raised their tax burden.

For many American consumers of “news,” these facts might come as a surprise. As we’ve told you again and again, our modern press corps is fact-averse, but is very much fable-friendly. We’re fed simple tales about every topic, including Reagan’s effect on taxes. With that in mind, let’s return to that point Krugman made about Reagan’s 1982 tax increase: “[A]s a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.” Presumably, Krugman included that fact today because he’s familiar with our spin-driven cable discourse, in which President Clinton’s 1993 increase is routinely said to have been “the largest tax increase in American history.”

The spinning began almost instantly, driven by the foolish—and largely uncorrected—hyperbole which now defines our discourse. On May 2, 1993, David Rosenbaum quoted a leading Republican in the New York Times:

ROSENBAUM: “This is the largest tax increase in the history of the human race, and it is not appealing to us,” said Representative Bill Archer of Texas, the top Republican on the [House Ways and Means Committee].

The largest in the history of the human race! On May 28, 1993, the Times’ Michael Wines captured more of the clowning:

WINES: “The largest tax increase in the world,” said Representative Deborah Price, an Ohio Republican.

“The largest tax increase in the history of civilization,” anted Representative Philip M. Crane, an Illinois Republican.

Lenin and Mao never taxed so much! For that matter, Pharoah was off the hook too! On radio, of course, Rush Limbaugh was peddling such pap every day. In late May, the Times tried to introduce a few facts in an unsigned “scorecard” feature:

NEW YORK TIMES (5/28/93): The Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper in such matters, estimates that the package will increase taxes by $270 billion over five years. That appears to make it larger than the 1982 tax increase, which raised $215 billion in new taxes over five years under President Ronald Reagan.

But if inflation is factored in, the Clinton package raises taxes less.
Viewed another way, the Clinton package would raise taxes in its fifth year by slightly more than 0.9 percent of gross domestic product. The Reagan tax increase ends up being larger because it increased taxes in its fifth year by 1.3 percent of gross domestic product.

As everyone knows, it’s pointless to compare budget costs across the decades without adjusting for inflation. On August 5, David Rosenbaum also laid out some facts:

ROSENBAUM (8/5/93): When the dollars are adjusted for inflation, this year’s budget bill is neither the biggest deficit reduction measure nor the biggest tax increase in recent years...

As for taxes, the 1982 law enacted under Ronald Reagan raised taxes by $215 billion over five years, which amounts to $286 billion in 1993 dollars, considerably more than this year's figure.

And, of course, as Krugman notes, the Reagan increase was followed by Reagan Tax Increase 2. But so what? Two days before Rosenbaum’s analysis appeared, Bob Dole had responded to an address by Clinton, saying the Man From Hope’s budget plan was “not just the largest tax increase in American history, but the largest tax increase in world history.” And uh-oh! Someone had penned a Times op-ed that same day. His name was Ronald Reagan:

REAGAN (8/3/93): [Clinton] knows Americans have always been kind and generous. In war and peace, they have been willing to make great sacrifices to serve a greater good. Today, the White House is trying to appeal to this great quality by getting us to go along with the largest tax increase in the history of our country.

Needless to say, Reagan was troubled by all the spinning. “Despite the slick presentation, talented spin doctors and White House talking heads all over TV, the simple truth is that this plan is bad for America,” he good-naturedly said.

This is just a tiny part of the recent history of tax-increase-spinning. For the record, we’re pretty sure that we saw Bob Dole, in recent years, acknowledge ruefully that the GOP may have exaggerated the size of Clinton’s tax hike a bit. But we’re darned if we can find the statement today. (Anyone know where he said it? We have an idea, but it won’t be on Nexis.) So why did Krugman mention the fact that Reagan’s 1982 increase was actually somewhat larger than Clinton’s? Most likely, because this silly spinning continues. Clinton’s “biggest tax increase in human history” is a silly staple of pseudo—con spin. Just last month, as a matter of fact, Sean Hannity made a comical adaptation. Here he was on April 16, trashing big-taxing John Kerry:

HANNITY: John Kerry has flipped and flopped on just about every issue...The only issue he is consistent on is voting for taxes. He voted for the two largest tax increases in American history, voted to raise taxes 350 times. And, you know, on every tax issue he’s wrong.

No, we’re not sure what Hannity meant; at the time, the official Bush/Cheney talking-point only said that Kerry had voted for the one biggest increase. Was Hannity comically accusing Kerry of voting for Reagan’s tax increase too? Of course, Kerry didn’t happen to be in the Congress at the time of the Reagan increase, but Hannity didn’t seem to know that. Here was another exchange from this same laughable program:

ELAINE KAMARCK: Well, first of all, you’ve got to start with the fact that John Kerry has been a deficit hawk from the word go. In the 80s—don’t laugh at me. Do you know that he voted with President Reagan? In the 80s, he voted for the famous Gramm-Rudman Act. Not many Democrats did that.

HANNITY: Did he vote for the Reagan tax cuts?

KAMARCK: He voted for—

HANNITY: Did he vote for the Reagan tax cuts? No.

No he didn’t, and neither did you. You weren’t in the Congress then, and neither was Ol’ Flip-Flip, John Kerry.

This week could be a time for tributes—and beyond that, it could be a time for learning. But the press corps rarely lays out facts when clowning clowns make a joke of your discourse. Today, Krugman offers some information. Expect it to end right there.

(Note: None of this has a thing to do with the merits of these different tax increases. But our discourse is rarely about the merits. Our discourse is about pleasing spin.)

VISIT OUR INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: In October 2003, conservative economist Bruce Bartlett wrote a detailed review of Reagan’s tax increases. For the record, he referred to Reagan’s 1982 hike as “the largest peacetime tax increase in American history.” Incomparably, we quoted Bartlett at length. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/31/03.

Meanwhile, one last point on that Clinton increase. By the time Clinton’s budget plan passed, Americans were deeply misinformed because of all the silly spinning. In our discourse, spin and dissembling almost always overwhelm the press corps’ feeble attempts at clarification. Too see how little the voters knew, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/12/02. As usual, American voters lacked the first clue. Our discourse tends to be like that.

B. Largely reporting tax issues using fake Republican spin points

Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler has covered various "scribes" doing this. Let's start with Tim Russert, the king of GOP spin, who runs Press The Meat Meet The Press on MSNBC:

As he interviewed John Kerry on yesterday’s program, Tim Russert pushed them RNC points rather hard. First, Kerry said he wouldn’t implement future Bush tax cuts. In other words, current tax rates would stay where they are. Let’s say it again: Current tax rates would stay the same. To Tim, of course, that’s a tax increase:

RUSSERT: So the tax cut that’s scheduled to be implemented in the coming years, for the—

KERRY: No new tax cut under the Bush plan.

RUSSERT: Immediately.

KERRY: Most of which goes to the wealthiest Americans, because we simply can’t afford it.

RUSSERT: Effective immediately.

KERRY: It doesn’t make economic sense….I’m saying no new tax cuts, Tim.

RUSSERT: But would you implement the ones that are now scheduled to take place?

KERRY: Those are new tax cuts.

RUSSERT: The Bush administration says that is raising taxes because people—

KERRY: Well, I don’t care what they say, Tim. The average American understands that a tax cut that you don’t have today is a new tax cut…

RUSSERT: But the Republicans—

KERRY: And in no way—look, we can’t cower in front of their silly argument that by not being given a new tax cut it’s an increase. No average American believes that’s an increase.

Actually, no speaker of English believes that’s an increase [eRiposte note: Not to mention that the expiry of the 2001 tax cuts was specifically agreed to by Bush and the GOP when they pushed it through - which, according to their and Russert's logic, would mean that Bush and the GOP were for tax increases in 2001]. But Russert pushes the ludicrous point every time the need arises. Somebody run and wake up Fred. He’s probably dozing over Rupert’s best cognac.

And Russert’s point-peddling was hardly finished. Soon, he read an anonymous quote to Kerry. Was there anyone watching the show who couldn’t figure who Tim was quoting?

RUSSERT: There is a big philosophical debate, however, how you grow the economy. Let me show you one explanation. “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders, but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions.” And it goes on: “In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut its rates now.” Do you agree with that?

Kerry said he didn’t agree, and Russert dropped the bombshell. That was John Kennedy he was quoting, all the way back in 1962! And why was Russert reading this quote? Duh! Because it’s a Rush Limbaugh spin-point. Never mind the fact that the marginal tax rate was 91 percent when Kennedy said that “tax rates are too high today.” Over and over, Rush bullshits his listeners with this absurdly irrelevant precedent, and Tim was eager to recite it too. Somebody go wake up Fred!

And that wasn’t all. Eager to complete the Rule of Three, Russert journeyed back seven years to peddle a tired old spin-point. He revisited the tired old 1995-96 battle over Medicare funding:

RUSSERT: But the Republicans—

KERRY: And in no way—look, we can’t cower in front of their silly argument that by not being given a new tax cut it’s an increase. No average American believes that’s an increase, and every American—

RUSSERT: So when the Republicans wanted to limit the growth in Medicare that should not have been called a “cut” by Democrats?

KERRY: No. If you’re holding something at equal spending, but inflation is going up at a rate above that, you’re not keeping up with inflation, that is a cut. That is in fact a cut, Tim.

In 1995, both parties proposed spending less on Medicare in future years than it would have cost to maintain the existing program. And that was the kind of budget proposal that had always been described as a “cut.” But the Gingrich Congress changed the language, as we’ve incomparably explained in the past (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/20/99). Newt’s effort produced a load of confusion (see below). And it was Newt who was changing the language—no one else. But no matter. On this Sunday’s Meet the Press, Russert was still pushing Newt’s point.

More on Tim Russert from Somerby:

But let's just say it: When Russert sat down with the Treasury Sec, O'Neill ate Tim Russert for lunch. Was the big guy even prepared for the session? Here were a few of the problems:

1) How much will the tax cut cost? Russert asked O'Neill about Democratic claims that the Bush tax cut would really cost $2.6 trillion. Not one word of O'Neill's reply had anything to do with what Russert had asked. Seeming not to notice this point, Russert simply moved on (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/6/01).
2) How much will go to the top one percent? Twice, Russert asked O'Neill about claims that 43 percent of the tax cut's benefits go to the top one percent. Both times, O'Neill pulled a switch—asked about the total plan, he gave an answer about the income tax provisions. That seemed to be fine with Russert. O'Neill was never forced to speak to the question which Russert had asked (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/7/01).
3) What about those White House numbers? On Saturday, both the Washington Post and the Washington Times reported on distributional numbers which the White House had released. Each paper devoted an entire story to the White House numbers (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/5/01). Russert—seeming wholly unaware of the Saturday stories—asked O'Neill if the White House would ever release such numbers. O'Neill—who dodged the distribution question all through the session—didn't mention the Saturday stories either.

Does performance like this by the press corps matter? Only if democracy matters. If the Democratic cost analysis is accurate, for example, then Bush's plan truly doesn't add up. You'd think Russert would want to examine that question. Sorry—the genial host was far too busy hashing and rehashing the Clinton pardons, asking again and again, for the thousandth time, questions which have been hashed and rehashed long before.

Let's move to the other mainstream media outlets (including Fox News):

As a candidate, George W. Bush paraded about, vowing to pay down debt. Like Candidates Bradley, McCain and Gore, Bush pledged to use Social Security surpluses ($2.4 trillion over ten years) for Social Security only. During most of the campaign, that seemed to mean that he’d use those surpluses to pay down federal debt. (Later, he quietly said that he might use $1 trillion of the $2.4 trillion to set up private accounts in SS.) And why had Bush set his proposed tax cut at $1.3 trillion? Because that was all we could afford, he said, or else we’d have to spend SS dough. Bush had counted every penny. $1.3 trillion was all we could manage.

But that was then, and this is hijacking. Bush got his $1.3 trillion in 2001; passed another small tax cut in 2002; and has just passed another cut which will likely cost $800 billion over ten years. His agents say more tax cuts are coming. And everyone knows that the Alternative Minimum Tax will have to be fixed; that will cost hundreds of billions more. Meanwhile, what else is happening while these tax cuts proceed? We’ll let Chait review it:

CHAIT: Although no one talks about it much, this year’s $400 billion (or more) deficit comes on top of the administration spending the Social Security surplus in its entirety—restraint has dwindled.

Let’s make sure we understand what this means. Throughout the campaign, Bush said that none of that SS surplus would be spent. That’s why his tax cut could only be $1.3 trillion. Now, the entire SS surplus is being spent (plus an extra $400 billion this year)—and he keeps trying to cut taxes more! It’s time to go searching for Candidate Bush. Someone else seems to be in the White House.

“No one talks about it much,” Chait says. And that is surely an understatement. Bush’s actual program has little to do with the picture he drew during Campaign 2000. As a candidate, Bush didn’t say the silly things he says now. He didn’t say that he’d keep cutting taxes in order to produce increased revenues. He didn’t say he’d present a new tax cut every single year he held office. As a candidate, Bush painted a pleasing portrait—one that fit the press corps’ CW. Now, he’s flip-flopped, and he clowns in their faces. Cowards, they pretend not to notice.

CHAIT CHAT: Enjoy all four incomparable installments. And study Jonathan Chait’s helpful article:

CHAIT CHAT, PART 1: Bush is still lying, TNR’s cover says. Chait has some prime Grade A groaners.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 2: Reagan cut taxes and revenues soared! This foofaw is spread around daily.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 3: What really happens when tax rates are cut? Sometimes, cons come out and tell you.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 4: Whatever happened to Candidate Bush? Your press corps is too scared to ask.

THEY REPEAT, YOU DECIDE: Who will ask about Bush’s reinvention? Not that gang at Special Report. In recent days, their budget “reporting” has been pure propaganda. On Tuesday night, for example, Major Garrett reported on current budget battles in congress. Midway, he spoke with Rick Santorum, who voiced a prime RNC spin-point:

SANTORUM (6/2/03): Democrats play the game of class warfare, which is trying to take from some to give to others.

Dems are playing class warfare, he said. But on Fox, you don’t have to wait for Republican senators if you want to thrill to this GOP spin-point. Here was the increasingly egregious Brit Hume as he introduced Garrett’s report:

HUME (6/2/03): There were efforts in the House and Senate today to offer refundable tax credits to certain low-income families…Resurrecting the tax credits has become a political football in Washington’s seamlessly endless class warfare debate over taxes. Fox News correspondent Major Garrett reports.

Omigod! Brit called it class warfare too! But then, viewers got to hear the pleasing point last night too. This time, “reporter” Carl Cameron played Charlie McCarthy, mouthing the GOP’s spin:

HUME: There’s talk of a new economic stimulus package on Capitol Hill. For more, chief political correspondent Carl Cameron reports.

CAMERON: The class warfare is on. And Democrats who largely opposed the tax cut that president recently signed into law now want a tax break for working Americans who don't even pay income taxes.

“The class warfare is on,” Cameron instantly said, repeating prime spin of his net’s masters. We’re sure Cameron gets a nice pay-check from Fox. How much does the RNC pay him?

A last example to wrap up this sub-section:

We began our review with that Culture of Lying—the culture that now surrounds Bush (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/2/03). But Jonathan Chait had a different idea; in his TNR cover piece, he started with Reagan’s tax cuts. As the talk-show right has come to rule our deeply troubled public discourse, a Culture of Foolishness has taken hold; absurd accounts of Reagan’s work now play a key role in that discourse. Turn on talk radio and you will hear them—iconic accounts of his budget achievements. Reagan cut taxes and revenues soared—this well-spun tale is bruited daily. But this silly account has gone unchallenged by “good guy” pundits who snore inside logs. Many conservatives believe these stories, and indeed, why wouldn’t they do so? After all, Sean and Rush keep reciting the tales—and Big Mainstream Pundits just sit on the side, too effete to engage the real discourse.

That’s why we were mightily pleased to see Chait’s useful opening. It’s a very rare day when American citizens are asked to consider these facts:

CHAIT (from pgh 1): [I]n truth, Reagan reacted to the consequences of his 1981 tax cuts in a way that would have put him far out of step with Bush’s Republican Party. When the scope of the budget deficit [caused by his tax cut] became apparent, Reagan acceded to a series of tax increases in 1982 (in the midst of a severe recession, no less), 1983, and 1984. In 1986, reacting to complaints that his 1981 tax cuts opened too many loopholes for the rich, Reagan enacted a sweeping tax reform that liberals, including this magazine, hailed for making the tax code more progressive. Reagan’s record on taxes, in short, consisted of one year of unvarnished conservative ideological warfare followed by seven years of retreat and consolidation.

Those are facts which talk-show listeners never hear. For that reason, those are facts which you must learn—and recite, applying as needed.

Reagan cut taxes—and revenues soared. This silly tale is spun many ways. Fantasists like to ignore basic facts—that federal revenues almost always go up because of population growth and inflation. And they like to look at all federal revenues—adding in those payroll taxes, which Reagan actually raised. (Duh! We wonder why those “revenues soared.”) Meanwhile, snoring “liberals” don’t dirty their hands engaging in this crucial discourse. Sean and Rush keep pounding the piffle. Richard and William sleep in their logs. At THE HOWLER, we’re sick of this inane, corrupt culture. We were pleased to see Chait’s basic facts.

C. Failing to hold George Bush and the Republican party accountable for their long history of misleading, mendacity and fake promises on the topic of taxes (and the budget in general) 

How many people are told day in and day out that leading Republicans and conservative "experts" and "commentators" were featured repeatedly in the mainstream media predicting gloom and doom if Clinton's tax increases were passed and they were all full of s*** considering the exact opposite occurred? 

How many people are told day in and day out that leading Republicans and conservative "experts" and "commentators" were featured repeatedly in the mainstream media predicting fabulous job growth if Bush's tax cuts passed, and that they were all full of s*** considering that the job creation promised by Bush, repeatedly, when he sold his 2003 tax cuts spectacularly failed to materialize? 

How many people are told day in and day out about the serial misleading and lying by Bush and his administration on the topic of tax cuts (among other things)? (More here.)

The data is too vast to reproduce here, so I will just highlight a couple of examples to show you the tip of the iceberg. 

Bob Somerby:

As a candidate, George W. Bush paraded about, vowing to pay down debt. Like Candidates Bradley, McCain and Gore, Bush pledged to use Social Security surpluses ($2.4 trillion over ten years) for Social Security only. During most of the campaign, that seemed to mean that he’d use those surpluses to pay down federal debt. (Later, he quietly said that he might use $1 trillion of the $2.4 trillion to set up private accounts in SS.) And why had Bush set his proposed tax cut at $1.3 trillion? Because that was all we could afford, he said, or else we’d have to spend SS dough. Bush had counted every penny. $1.3 trillion was all we could manage.

But that was then, and this is hijacking. Bush got his $1.3 trillion in 2001; passed another small tax cut in 2002; and has just passed another cut which will likely cost $800 billion over ten years. His agents say more tax cuts are coming. And everyone knows that the Alternative Minimum Tax will have to be fixed; that will cost hundreds of billions more. Meanwhile, what else is happening while these tax cuts proceed? We’ll let Chait review it:

CHAIT: Although no one talks about it much, this year’s $400 billion (or more) deficit comes on top of the administration spending the Social Security surplus in its entirety—restraint has dwindled.

Let’s make sure we understand what this means. Throughout the campaign, Bush said that none of that SS surplus would be spent. That’s why his tax cut could only be $1.3 trillion. Now, the entire SS surplus is being spent (plus an extra $400 billion this year)—and he keeps trying to cut taxes more! It’s time to go searching for Candidate Bush. Someone else seems to be in the White House.

“No one talks about it much,” Chait says. And that is surely an understatement. Bush’s actual program has little to do with the picture he drew during Campaign 2000. As a candidate, Bush didn’t say the silly things he says now. He didn’t say that he’d keep cutting taxes in order to produce increased revenues. He didn’t say he’d present a new tax cut every single year he held office. As a candidate, Bush painted a pleasing portrait—one that fit the press corps’ CW. Now, he’s flip-flopped, and he clowns in their faces. Cowards, they pretend not to notice.

CHAIT CHAT: Enjoy all four incomparable installments. And study Jonathan Chait’s helpful article:

CHAIT CHAT, PART 1: Bush is still lying, TNR’s cover says. Chait has some prime Grade A groaners.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 2: Reagan cut taxes and revenues soared! This foofaw is spread around daily.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 3: What really happens when tax rates are cut? Sometimes, cons come out and tell you.

CHAIT CHAT, PART 4: Whatever happened to Candidate Bush? Your press corps is too scared to ask.

Another note:

What happens when the federal government cuts taxes? Duh! In almost all instances, revenues decline from where they would have been if tax rates had stayed the same. But over the course of the past quarter-century, the talk-show right has been fed some pure cant—cutting taxes increases revenues! This dogma makes little sense on its face. After all, if cutting the top rate to 33 percent increases revenue, why not cut it to 30 instead? But our discourse thrives on spin, lies and fable. And Bush likes to tell this tale too:

CHAIT: Bush and his allies have three responses to critics who point to the negative effects of long-term structural deficits. The first is that tax cuts will, over the long run, boost economic growth to such a degree that tax revenue actually rises. This is the most extreme claim of supply-side economics, and Bush makes some reference to it in nearly every speech he delivers. “The way to deal with the deficit is not to be timid on the growth package; the way to deal with the deficit is to have a robust enough growth package so we get more revenues coming in