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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.
...
[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.
...
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.
...
Hypothesis 5: When covering the economy, the news media
emphasize events and issues affecting corporations and investors and
downplay events and issues affecting workers.
...
Hypothesis 6: Journalists rarely use union leaders, workers,
or their spokespersons as sources of information about the economy.
...
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.
...
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.
...
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 |