Washington Post

Wash Post Regurgitates ‘Bailout’ Myth

Date: June 24, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Conservative terminology, Financial News, Washington Post

As negotiations continue of the financial reform package in Congress, The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis regurgitates a discredited GOP talking point:  that the $150 billion, as Dennis reports, “paid for by the industry,” is a “bailout fund.”

I give him credit for mentioning that the money would come from the industry, but why does he feel compelled to repeat the GOP’s reference to it as a “bailout fund.”  By the most common understanding of the phrase a “bailout” is when other people’s money, usually the American taxpayer, saves a company.  The fund, which was dropped from the legislation according to The Post’s story, was to be financed by financial institutions.  It’s not a “bailout,” and there is nothing in using the term that adds to the story, except perhaps to perpetuate a lie.

Is that the role of the news media?

“You Know”

Date: June 16, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Sarah Palin, Verbal ticks, Washington Post

Few of us speak in beautifully crafted paragraphs with nary an “uh,” “um,” “you know” or the ubiquitous “like.”  Few journalists include such utterances when quoting folks—unless they are trying to convey something more than the subject of the sentence quoted.  I recently saw a quote by Sarah Palin’s daughter in which she said the word “like” four times inside of about 25 words. 

"I remember sitting on the couch with one of my best friends and Levi, and I just couldn’t spit it out. I was like, ‘Mom, Mom.’ I was bawling my eyes out. She was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I was like, ‘I’m pregnant.’ And she was like" — Bristol stops and mimics a gasp — "Oh my God. Holy crap. But once that part was over with and Tripp was here, it was just like, this baby is a blessing."

The quote, I’m sure, was meant in part to embarrass her for her speaking style.

But since so many people use such phrases, including “you know,” often, it sticks out when a reporter includes the phrase when it adds no meaning to the sentence.  For example:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview that Obama "wanted to make sure as much as possible that if people had plans that they liked they got to keep them and balance that with, you know, some overall protection for consumers."

“You know” adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence.  Are you telling me that every time someone utters that phrase, Washington Post reporters print the quote with the phrase?  If not, when is it proper to include it?

How Reporters Subtly Inject Opinion

Date: May 26, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Lori Montgomery, Taxes, Washington Post

There are plenty of ways reporters add opinion or subjectivity into supposedly objective news articles.  Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post does it here with a simple word:  only.  It’s in a story about Obama’ plan to ask for authority to cut “pork” in the budget.

I’m all for cutting pork.  I’m all for cutting Social Security and Medicare spending.  That’s not my point.  Read the two ‘graphs.

Some outside analysts were equally dismissive of Obama’s rescission proposal. "A lot of people want to believe our looming budgetary crisis is caused by bridges to nowhere" and other pork barrel projects, said Cato Institute vice president Gene Healy. "But it’s not true. That sort of thing is a rounding error" compared with defense spending and entitlement programs, he said.

To that list, others would add Obama’s tax policies: A new report scheduled to be released Tuesday by the Pew Economic Policy Group found that Obama’s plan to extend a series of middle-class tax cuts would add $2.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years — saving only about $800 billion compared with a GOP plan to extend the cuts for high-earners as well.

Think about this.  $800 billion is the cost of the stimulus plan that many conservatives deride as exorbitant wasteful spending.  Adding $800 billion to a $2.3 trillion tax cut would be more than a 33 percent increase in its cost.  Yet, it is “only” $800 billion, suggesting to the reader that it is an insignificant amount for which the Obama administration must, what, apologize, rationalize, repeal?  Montgomery seems to be taking sides with the GOP here by suggesting that the difference between giving tax cuts to the middle class and adding “high-earners,” which are undefined in the article, is insignificant, i.e., only.

Post Neglects to Fact Check Right-Wing Screed

Date: May 24, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Op-Eds, Polls, Punditry, Right-wing echo chamber, Washington Post

At first, I thought this article was indicative of the right’s bending the truth to fit its ideology, but on further reflection, it is more a damning indictment of Outlook editors at The Washington Post.

I’ve written a few opinion columns for The Post and have been challenged for assertions I made in them.  But that scrutiny apparently doesn’t hold when the newspaper is trying to refute charges of liberal bias.  To do that, it seems to allow conservatives to draw any conclusion they want.

The article is provocatively titled “America’s new culture war:  Free enterprise vs. government control” by Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute.  Its thesis is that most Americans want free enterprise capitalism while the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress want “European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution.”

The entire article is intellectually dishonest, and Post editors should be ashamed for not challenging Brooks’ assertions.  He cites a Gallup Poll that

…found that 86 percent of Americans have a positive image of "free enterprise," with only 10 percent viewing it negatively. Similarly, in March 2009, the Pew Research Center asked individuals from a broad range of demographic groups: "Generally, do you think people are better off in a free-market economy, even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time, or don’t you think so?" Almost 70 percent of respondents agreed that they are better off in a free-market economy, while only 20 percent disagreed.

I support stricter financial industry regulation, more environmental controls, a safety net for the poor, more federally financed infrastructure projects and a few other Obama administration policies.  I also have a “positive image of ‘free enterprise’” and I generally think people are better off in a “free-market economy.”  That doesn’t mean I oppose sensible controls or support libertarian concepts of the wild west in our economic system.

To suggest these poll results support Brooks’ contention that Obama and company are out of the mainstream is ludicrous, particularly if you look at that same March 2009 poll at the time of the stock market’s nadir.

  • People were split 50-50 on wanting “smaller government and fewer services or bigger government and more services”
  • 54% said it was a “good idea for the government to exert more control over the economy than it has in
    recent years.”
  • 56% thought Obama’s stimulus plan was a “good idea.”

The poll was wide-ranging, and if anything, doesn’t merely not support Brooks’ contention that Obama is out of sync with the American people; the poll actually refutes Brooks’ thesis.

Moreover, there is no evidence that Obama and company want to dissolve free markets or abandon capitalism for socialism as Brook argues.  Why does The Post let him draw such fallacious and dishonest conclusions?

The article, given precious center-front page placement in Outlook, is replete with disingenuous, erroneous or duplicitous conclusions.

If we reject the administration’s narrative, the 70-30 nation will remain strong. If we accept it, and base our nation’s policies on it, we will be well on our way to a European-style social democracy. Punitive taxes and regulations will make it harder to be an entrepreneur, and the rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of greater income equality.

Brooks also argues that unfettered permission to maximize profits without regard to societal good is not only preferable but a convenient measure of success.

Earned success involves the ability to create value honestly — not by inheriting a fortune, not by picking up a welfare check. It doesn’t mean making money in and of itself. Earned success is the creation of value in our lives or in the lives of others. Earned success is the stuff of entrepreneurs who seek value through innovation, hard work and passion. Earned success is what parents feel when their children do wonderful things, what social innovators feel when they change lives, what artists feel when they create something of beauty.

Money is not the same as earned success but is rather a symbol, important not for what it can buy but for what it says about how people are contributing and what kind of difference they are making. Money corresponds to happiness only through earned success.

What Brooks seems to miss is that for many Americans, it is becoming impossible to earn success by creating “value honestly.”  The widening gulf between rich and poor is not because the poor are working any less hard.  They simply are pawns of those who want a greater share of the fruits of others’ labor.

Ironically, he concludes by citing Sen. Scott Brown’s victory as a symbol of the revolt of the “70% coalition.”

Scott Brown won the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat from Massachusetts in January by declaring himself not an apparatchik Republican but a moral enthusiast for markets. "What made America great?" he asked. "Free markets, free enterprise, manufacturing, job creation. That’s how we’re gonna do it, not by enlarging government." His cultural pitch for free enterprise hit just the right chord, even in liberal Massachusetts. It struck at the heart of the 30 percent coalition’s agenda for America.

Scott Brown is one of four Republican senators who just voted for the administration’s financial regulatory reform bill.

I guess The Post’s Outlook editors didn’t notice either.

Post Issues GOP Press Release

Date: May 7, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: "He said, she said", Mainstream Media, Right-wing echo chamber, Washington Post

Despite the rather snarky lede—

Two days after the dramatic arrest of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, Republicans were engaged in a full-bore effort to rewrite the good-news narrative.

"Yes, we have been lucky," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) said Thursday, "but luck is not an effective strategy for fighting terrorism."

Whatever the merits of their argument — and, where terrorism is concerned, it is prudent to keep cockiness at bay — there is a political imperative at work as well. "Democrats are always suspect on national security, and anything that makes them look weak on national security creates an opportunity for Republicans," said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster.

–is this really nothing more than issuing the GOP talking points for a non-story?  We know that all the GOP wants is to put into people’s mind that the Dems are weak on terrorism. The Post obliges.

While Republicans praised the FBI and local authorities, they noted that the intelligence agencies have — for the third time since the Fort Hood attack in November — failed to interrupt an individual before the act. "I look at the Christmas deal," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Calif.), referring to the attempted airliner bombing over Detroit, "and I look at this deal, and I say, ‘Wow, one of these times they are going to get it right.’ "

Does anyone really believe that we can stop all attempts to detonate a bomb if someone with half a brain wants to?  Yes, we have been lucky.  But someone is going to succeed. 

Instead of acting as a stenographer for the GOP’s talking points, might it been helpful for The Post to examine how other countries have dealt with such random bombings?  Israel, of course, comes to mind.  We might not like the solution.  Or might the reporters have asked the Republicans leadership, “What would you do differently?”  How would you stopped someone—a citizen, with little suspicious behavior, from attempting such an attack?

Alas, that doesn’t fit into the easy narrative that too many journalists buy into—conflict.  No matter how ludicrous the charge, it is conflict and reporters can easily write their “he said, she said” story.

The Post Gets It Wrong on ‘Net Regulation

Date: May 6, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Cecilia Kang, Net Neutrality, Punditry, Supreme Court, Washington Post

With all the seemingly intractable problems we face, you would think that surviving media would focus on the information we really need.  Yet today in The Washington Post we have a story about how President Obama’s is “to make a Supreme Court decision soon,” as if he were thinking of postponing it until after the November elections.  The article breaks no new significant ground.  Then we have a story about Attorney General Eric Holder’s “rare moment to celebrate,” the capture of the Times Square would be bomber.  The story could have been written by one of The Post’s sports writers, as it focused on Holder’s “good week.”  But The Post never seems to miss an opportunity to allow its reporters to make broad sweeping statements, such as Anne Kornblut’s characterization of Holder being “on rocky ground,” as if he’s let big innings inflate his ERA this week.

One would hope The Post learns that too many of its stories are nothing more than a series of events trying to find a trend the paper can report on.

But we have a stark reminder today that postulating where there is no news can bite them on the ass.

Dateline—May 3 by The Post’s Cecilia Kang:

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has indicated he wants to keep broadband services deregulated, according to sources, even as a federal court decision has exposed weaknesses in the agency’s ability to be a strong watchdog over the companies that provide access to the Web.

Dateline—May 6, again by Kang

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission plans to seek clear-cut powers to regulate Internet service providers, redefining the government’s role over at least parts of the fast-growing industry.

Kang cited three sources for her May 3 story, all of whom are probably now in her dog house.  The story didn’t provide anything more than well-known talking points from each side of the regulation debate and ultimately, of course, proved false.  Why waste time on speculating what might happen before it does?  OK, that was a softball question on today’s exam: because The Post wanted to be the first with the news.

But don’t expect the paper to take the blame.  In today’s story,

Sources said Genachowski appeared to have shifted from late last week, when The Washington Post reported that it looked like he was inclined to keep broadband services deregulated.

The same sources, no doubt, who had no clue what was happening three days earlier.  It wasn’t The Post that got it wrong; it was the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski who changed his mind. 

Watch soon for a flip-flopping story.

Comparisons of Protest Coverage

Date: April 30, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Protests, Washington Post

Dateline: April 20, written by two Washington Post reporters and assisted by two more.

The protest by hundreds of gun-rights advocates [emphasis added], billed as a national march in support of the Second Amendment, drew small but fervent groups to the Washington area. As many as 2,000 people gathered in the shadow of the Washington Monument, and about 50 at Gravelly Point and Fort Hunt parks in Virginia.

Total number of words: a little more than 500.  As I recall, the story—in print—also had prominent placement on the Metro front page or maybe it was on A1, but it definitely had a large photo accompanying the story, which as any editor would tell you, draws more readers to the story.  The photo was of the 50 folks at Gravelly Point.  Online the story includes a video and 18 still photos.

In today’s Post, there is a story about protests against Wall Street, organized by labor, community and progressive religious groups and the NAACP, most likely to be the political opposite of the gun-lovers:

Thousands of union workers, students and unemployed New Yorkers [emphasis added] angry over high unemployment, reckless financial industry practices and billion-dollar bailouts gathered Thursday to march in the financial district in Lower Manhattan, one of a series of rallies organized by a coalition of labor and community groups.

Online, the story, which was written by only one reporter, is nearly 600 words.  But in the print edition of The Post today, it was less than half that and buried on page A16.  No photo and no video or photos online.  Other reports said there were “several thousand” protestors.  Another said there were as many as 7,500.

Would anyone care to explain to me why the different emphasis in coverage by The Post?  Why does a protest that attracts 50 people draw on the resources of four reporters and earn a photo and prominent placement while another that draws 150 times that is virtually ignored?

Katharine Graham Had It Right

Date: April 30, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: David Ignatius, Mainstream Media, Objectivity vs. Balance, Washington Post

From a great piece by David Ignatius due to be published in Sunday’s Washington Post.

Our late Post publisher Katharine Graham once chided some of us, "Just because you are getting attacked from both the left and right doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job." She was right, but it’s still a useful index.

I agree…until the “useful index” part.  No it’s not.  If the MSM were willing to call a lie a lie, they may have a chance to regain relevance.  Having both sides criticize you assumes most comments by both sides are informed.

Don’t be misled by the lede.  This article is more than about war correspondents and worth the time to read from a writer I greatly respect.

The Press Honeymoon with Obama is Over

Date: April 29, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Cable News, Mainstream Media, NY Times, Political Labels, Politico, President Obama, Washington Post

Politico yesterday, in one of the longest articles I’ve seen there, lays out the media criticisms of the Obama administration.  Their complaints range from lack of access and favoritism to calls not returned and obsessive control of the message.  The bottom line, as is expressly feared in the article, is that the Fourth Estate comes off whiny.  Worse, it may be they have only itself to blame.

In the piece, writers Josh Gerstein and Patrick Gavin chronicle the widespread complaint among reporters that the Obama White House controls the message by going over the media’s heads with videos and other forms of messaging that aren’t filtered by journalists. 

One current focus of press corps ire are gauzy video features the White House’s staff videographer cranks out, taking advantage of behind-the-scenes access to Obama and his aides, such as a recent piece offering “exclusive footage” of first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden touring Haiti.

“I think someone out there might mistake them for news, as opposed to slick publicity handouts for the White House,” said Compton. “To me, they’re mocking what we do.”

So they’re complaining about not having access to softball tours of the first lady and Mrs. Biden?  Even so, who can blame the administration?  Any organization wants to control the message.  It’s the reporters job to find the real news, not wait for the White House to hand them it.

Reporters perceive the administration favors the New York Times, whose editorial page clearly supports most of Obama’s agenda. 

“It’s clearly the case that they’re playing favorites,” said Bloomberg’s Chen, when asked about the White House’s relationship to the Times. "It’s kind of par for the course. Some people understand that — none of us really like it — but that’s the way the administration does business."

But why didn’t those same reporters complain when the Bush folks often used interviews on FOX News, sure to be solicitous, to its advantage?

Gibbs denied an “unnecessary advantage” to the Times, while saying it has far more reporters covering topics of interest to the White House than most outlets. Times Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Dick Stevenson said it would be “absurd” to suggest the Times doesn’t get access in certain instances that others don’t.

“[F]ar more reporters covering topics of interest” is a key phrase.  Not that I think it is the real reason, but it may be a subtle jab to news organizations that give undue emphasis on process rather than substance.  Let’s face it.  The Times, The Washington Post and a few other newspapers drive the public policy conversation.  Television network news operations, cable talk shows and most newspapers around the country do little original reporting on national issues and instead follow the leads or run syndicated articles, often from the Times or Post.  And those stories are often about process, not policy.

Most interesting to me is the pushback from the White House when stories are not favorable.  Press secretary Robert Gibbs and his staff even complain over a word or phrase.  Gibbs defends his aggressiveness, even over the smallest thing, because lies take on a life of their own and are hard to kill, as Brendan Nyhan has described.  Gibbs pushes back in the Politico article.

“The way we live these days, something that’s wrong can whip around and become part of the conventional wisdom in only a matter of moments, and it’s hard to take it, put a top on it and put in back into the box,” Gibbs said. “That’s the nature by which the business operates right now. … This isn’t unique in terms of us, and it’s likely to be more true for the next administration.”

Asked about some of the more aggressive tactics, including complaints to editors, Gibbs said, “We have to do some of those things. … I certainly believe anyone who goes to an editor does so because it’s something they feel is very egregious. I don’t think people do it very lightly.”

Some reporters say the pushback is so aggressive that it undermines the credibility of Obama’s aides. “The willingness to argue that credible information is untrue is at its core dishonest and unfortunately calls into question everything else the press office says,” one White House reporter said.

How much to push back one should exert is a question that has been discussed on public relations forums on LinkedIn.  Some, myself included, believe in strong pushback, not only on political issues but also for corporate clients.  If a story about a company or its product, services and standing in the industry is unfair, some PR practitioners think pushback is counterproductive and will result in even tougher coverage from reporters.  Maybe.  Clearly, unhappy reporters may have a hair trigger.

“They ain’t seen nothing yet,” the longtime ABC reporter [Ann Compton] said. “Wait till they have to start really circling the wagons when someone in the administration is under attack, wait till there’s a scandal, wait till someone screws up, then it’ll get hostile.”

There are two other important questions not raised in the article.  The first is, has the press marginalized itself because of its focus on conflict and partisanship?  In the comments section of this article Tom Genin writes,

Seeing as the president wins on campaigning and loses on policy with the American people as a whole, there’s no reason or upside for him to get into the minutiae of policy with a reporter.

Oh, were that policy minutiae be what the press wants to get into.  Actual policies, their possible impact or the experience of other countries that may have employed them are rarely the subject of articles generated by the White House press corps.  Frequently, all they are reporting is the spin.  Too often, the WH press corps write stories that outline the administration’s point of view, counter opinions from members of the other parties and frequently include quotes from organizations that are usually described as “liberal” or “conservative,” sending a signal to readers of both camps about whether they should believe their point of view.  Once a conservative sees “liberal” describing an organization, they are likely to dismiss the quote as partisan BS—and vice versa.  It has gotten to the point where any partisan can make any claim and it largely goes unexamined by the press, until it has gained a viral constituency that will believe it no matter how the press later refutes it. 

Writing or saying, “but that’s not true,” after a false claim is rarely done by today’s journalists.  Thus, if readers can expect only tit-for-tat reports, why read them?  If the news consumer can’t find needed information in a story, why waste the time?  In fact, I am struck by how much more useful information I find in columns,which are usually designed to have a point of view.  That’s where the fact checking often goes on, as well as sites such as PolitiFact.com.  Wasn’t there a time when a reporter, sent information he knew to be not true, wouldn’t publish it?

University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill thinks the press can only blame itself.

Is this the same White House press corps that was too cowed to ask a follow-up question of George W. Bush for e
ight years? The press corps that had so abandoned its professional obligation to press the president for the truth that anyone who could raise their hand and throw a soft lob at the president could pose as a member of the corps (remember some-time male escort’s Jeff Gucker Gannon stint as member of the corps?). The same press corps that gave away the critical role of the war correspondent in the first Gulf War under George H.W. Bush (with Cheney as Defense secretary) and accepted instead the "organized tour" for reporters, and then under George W. Bush (this time with Rumsfeld at Defense) the "embedded reporter" control on war reporting? The corps that spent two years questioning President Clinton about a certain intern, rather than about the rising threat of extremist terrorism in the Middle East? 

If the Obama administration is taking a firm hand with the White House press corps, then perhaps its time for the corps to engage in a little "truth and reconciliation" about its past failures to vigorously engage the president on the issues most important to the American people. Otherwise it’s hard to work up sympathy for a group of reporters that have participated in their own marginalization.

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research agrees.

The job of the White House press corps is to reporting [sic] on issues that matter to the American people, not what President Obama had for breakfast. There is nothing that the Obama administration has done that prevents the press corp [sic] from analyzing proposals for health care reform, financial regulation, plans for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or doing any other part of the job. It seems that the press is upset because he is forcing them to be real journalists instead of gossip columnists. Too bad.

Which brings me to the second question:  Has the White House press corps outlived its usefulness?  Donald Johnson, a blogger at Businessword, authors this view in the comment section of the Politico article:

If the W.H. press corps wants to make itself as important as it thinks it is, it should do original reporting and go around the W.H. Meanwhile, why do news organizations waste time and money on staffing the W.H.? There is no there there.

At the very least, should news organizations invest in keeping reporters holed up in the White House waiting for the latest morsel from the administration?  Are reporters serving any useful purpose asking the chief mouthpiece of the administration to explain and defend its position, if they are not going to put that information under a microscope to ascertain its validity?  Certainly, a select, rotating pool of reporters could ask such questions while the others are spending more time examining the issues. 

Finally, I am not defending the Obama White House withholding critical public information the public has a right to know.  But this article isn’t about that.  It’s about the press wanting special access.  Take the information coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., critically analyze it, confirm it if you can, find the holes in it if they’re there, get the views of others and not just the political establishment and report it.

And stop whining.