{"id":1661,"date":"2010-05-26T13:03:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T17:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2010\/05\/26\/how-reporters-subtly-inject-opinion\/"},"modified":"2010-05-26T13:03:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T17:03:55","slug":"how-reporters-subtly-inject-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2010\/05\/26\/how-reporters-subtly-inject-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"How Reporters Subtly Inject Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are plenty of ways reporters add opinion or subjectivity into supposedly objective news articles.  Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post<\/em> does it here with a simple word:  only.  It\u2019s in a story<\/a> about Obama\u2019 plan to ask for authority to cut \u201cpork\u201d in the budget.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m all for cutting pork.  I\u2019m all for cutting Social Security and Medicare spending.  That\u2019s not my point.  Read the two \u2018graphs.<\/p>\n

\n

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. <\/p>\n

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 <\/strong><\/u>about $800 billion compared with a GOP plan to extend the cuts for high-earners as well. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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 \u201conly\u201d $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 \u201chigh-earners,\u201d which are undefined in the article, is insignificant, i.e., only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s in a story about Obama\u2019 plan to ask for authority to cut \u201cpork\u201d in the budget. I\u2019m all for cutting pork.  I\u2019m all for cutting… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[125,15,78],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}