Under the somewhat nonsensical headline, "Wall Street Demonstrations Test Police Trained for Bigger Threats," New York Times reporter Joseph Goldstein may have managed to turn in (9/27/11) a more offensive piece than Ginia Bellafante's June 25 dispatch (picked apart by Allison Kilkenny here).

The piece begins:

When members of the loose protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street began a march from the financial district to Union Square on Saturday, the participants seemed relatively harmless, even as they were breaking the law by marching in the street without a permit.

But to the New York Police Department, the protesters represented something else: a visible example of lawlessness akin to that which had resulted in destruction and violence at other anticapitalist demonstrations, like the Group of 20 economic summit meeting in London in 2009 and the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999.

Well, that's just silly, for any number of reasons. (Times reporters in particular might want to be sensitive about these issues, since the paper was roundly criticized for printing erroneous articles about Seattle violence--one of which the Times corrected.)

But it gets worse:

The Police Department’s concerns came up against a perhaps milder reality on Saturday, when their efforts to maintain crowd control suddenly escalated: Protesters were corralled by police officers who put up orange mesh netting; the police forcibly arrested some participants; and a deputy inspector used pepper spray on four women who were on the sidewalk, behind the orange netting.

So a controversial, well-documented act of police violence was a "milder reality" of a concerned police force whose "efforts to maintain crowd control suddenly escalated." Note the nobody's-responsible phrasing--whoops, efforts at crowd control just suddenly escalated!

The Times says that the "police's actions suggested the flip side of a force trained to fight terrorism." If assaulting peaceful protesters is the "flip side" of anti-terrorism, what does that look like?

Goldstein adds:

So even as the members of Occupy Wall Street seem unorganized and, at times, uninformed, their continued presence creates a vexing problem for the Police Department.

At this point I think most readers aren't wondering about the protesters seeming uninformed. But yes, attacking protesters is indeed a "vexing problem."

The piece's framing of the demonstrations is so curious that a reader might almost miss this bit of actual news:

Since August, investigators with the Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have monitored the online efforts of activists to bring demonstrations to Wall Street, people briefed on the matter said.

That sounds vexing too!

One of the most disturbing things about corporate media's disdain for (non-Tea Party) protests is the fact that this is fundamentally a serious attack on the speech rights of citizens. One would think that journalists, so quick to celebrate First Amendment rights, might consider this kind of police action something to treat critically--instead of covering for the cops.

There's an interesting piece at the Huffington Post (9/27/11) by Joy Resmovits about what some critics of the corporate-backed NBC Education Nation conference are saying. Even though some are crediting NBC for a more balanced program than last year, not everyone's ready to give the network a passing grade:

While some lauded the increased balance and depth at this year's Education Nation, retired New York City teacher and Grassroots Education Movement member Norm Scott gave [NBC News president Steve] Capus an earful on Tuesday. "People see an absence of the word 'class size' in these debates," he told Capus.

"This notion that somehow we're skewed too close to the reformers, I just don't buy it and completely disagree," Capus responded.

"How did a guy like Jonathan Alter end up as an expert on Sunday night's panel?" Scott asked. He was referring to the Bloomberg columnist and MSNBC contributor who has taken hard-line stances on charter schools and teacher evaluations.

"We had Jonathan Alter and 300 teachers," Capus countered.

Alter has long been one of the most vitriolic critics of teachers unions in the media--which would seem to be the only reason he'd be invited on a panel in the first place. (Teacher-bashing is one of the fastest paths to becoming an education pundit.)

But his presence on the stage wasn't the only area of criticism. Among the sponsors of the event, the controversial for-profit University of Phoenix:

The event took place in a tent whose central outside decoration was the logo of the for-profit University of Phoenix.

The University of Phoenix has 200 campuses and online degree programs. An ABC News investigation found that the school routinely makes promises about work eligibility that it can't deliver on, resulting in students mired in debt without the benefits of a degree.

A U.S. Senate committee investigation found that 66 percent of associates degree students and half of bachelor's degree students at the school withdrew after beginning their programs. About 22 percent of University of Phoenix students defaulted on their loans during 2008, while the school's owner, the Apollo Group, devoted 22 percent of its spending to marketing.

Capus defended University of Phoenix's sponsorship of Education Nation. "We have about seven decades worth of experience of building a dividing line between the...commercial sponsorship side and the reporting side of NBC News," Capus said. The Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation and State Farm also sponsored the summit. "They don't shape the editorial content," Capus said.

Given the media's general tilt in favor of corporate "reformers," it's hard to imagine that Gates, Broad and the rest would need to intervene. Clearly they're happy to put their names on something that aligns with their views on education. (NBC's Brian Williams has acknowledged how deference to Gates was shaping his network's coverage of the summit, saying that "it's their facts that we're going to be referring to often to help along our conversation"--Answer Sheet Blog, 9/26/11.)

University of Phoenix, on the other hand, probably could use some good publicity. (Greenwashing isn't just for oil companies.)

As proof of their independence, Capus said: "The University of Phoenix has been subject to some tough news stories on NBC News."

Not many. Take this one from last year (Today, 9/29/10)--where the NBC anchor tells a company executive, "Good for you, helping young people":

ANN CURRY, anchor:

Welcome back to Learning Plaza, part of NBC's weeklong Education Nation. And most educators agree that personalized learning improves student performance. Well, joining us now is Rob Wrubel. He is the executive vice president for University of Phoenix and creators of the learning assessment test, which can be found on the Education Nation website.

And basically, the key is to find out what kind of learner we are, right, Rob? Good morning.

ROB WRUBEL (executive vice president, University of Phoenix): Yes, because each of us have different learning styles. Some of us are more visual, some of us are more auditory and we listen to things and learn. So by finding your learning style you can really optimize and personalize your learning outcomes.

CURRY: In fact, you've got a list of seven different kinds, and physical, as you say, aural, solitary, logical, social, verbal, visual. And by going to this Web site that you've created, people can take a test, and in just a few minutes they can find out what kind of learner they are.

Mr. WRUBEL: Right. You can go through this, it's 21 questions. And the kinds of questions they are ask you--just a range of questions about your activities, how you do things. Are you a good listener, do you do--do you talk with your hands. And then when we use our program we can give you a quick profile of what are your different types of learning styles.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

WRUBEL: Sometimes you have a dominant learning style; sometimes you have a whole mix of different styles.

CURRY: But it would seem that it would be so important for, especially, parents of young people who may be, in fact, those young people may be having trouble in school, and may be showing some signs of having difficulty sitting still in class, that they go and maybe help their kids take this test, it would seem. The place you go is HowDoYouLearn.EducationNation.com?

WRUBEL: Yes, that's it.

CURRY: All right.

WRUBEL: And it is a very simple test. And for kids who are really trying to find a new way to learn, maybe they need more physical activity, it's a very successful tool to help parents find out what their learning style is.

CURRY: Good for you, helping young people...

WRUBEL: Right.

CURRY: ...this way. Congratulations, Rob Wrubel.

If you're in the New York area and you'd like to hear a conversation about education with a different point of view, come to FAIR's Miseducation Nation forum tonight at 7, at Manhattan's School of the Future.

It is very unusual to see such direct criticism of the New York Times in the Times itself (9/27/11)--this is something to celebrate.

To the Editor:

Anyone who has spent a few days--or nights--in occupied Zuccotti Park near Wall Street this past week would have trouble recognizing what they’ve seen in "Gunning for Wall Street, With Faulty Aim," by Ginia Bellafante (Big City column, September 25).

The protesters' numbers have been growing, not "dwindling," both in New York and in related occupations around the country. Though their views are diverse, what exactly unites them is anything but "impossible to decipher": the rampant corruption of the country's politics by a wealthy few.

At the symbolic heart of that corruption, protesters are making decisions and organizing themselves through a purposely leaderless, consensus-based process based on people, not money. For many Americans, nonviolent direct action like this is the best hope for having a political voice, and it deserves to be taken seriously by those of us in the press.

NATHAN SCHNEIDER
New York, September 25, 2011
The writer is editor of WagingNonviolence.org.

ABC This Week (9/25/11):

CHRISTINE AMANPOUR: And coming up, Rick Perry on the ropes.

PERRY: Yep, there may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters, but I know what I believe in, and I'm going to stand on that belief every day. I will guide this country with a deep, deep rudder.

AMANPOUR: Can the new frontrunner come back from a shaky debate performance? Or is Chris Christie waiting in the wings to steal his thunder?

New York Times (9/26/11):

After Perry's Debate Showing, Eyes Turn Toward Christie

Washington Post (9/26/11):

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent stumbles--his rambling attempt at last week's GOP presidential debate to attack former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's flip-flopping is a prime example--have renewed speculation that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie might rethink his "no go" decision on the 2012 race.

There's a piece at the CBS website (9/21/11) by Robert Hendin marking Bob Schieffer's 20 years hosting the network's Sunday morning show Face the Nation. Hendin, a senior producer for the show, writes:

From the get go, Bob made his plans known. "Our aim is to going to be very simple here: to find interesting people from all segments of American life who have something to say and give them a chance to say it," he said that morning.

The piece goes on to reveal--likely by accident--a lot about what they mean by "all segments of American life."

So to celebrate Bob's 20th Anniversary, we went through the files and looked at exactly who he's had on the broadcast. Here's a look at Bob Schieffer's 20 years at Face the Nation by the numbers:

Bob has interviewed:

Three presidents of the United States, four vice presidents, seven secretaries of state, six secretaries of Defense and 45 different cabinet members. He's also interviewed 123 senators and 109 different representatives.

Of those, a few notable names come up more frequently than others: Vice President Joe Biden has been interviewed by Bob on Face the Nation 46 times. House Speaker John Boehner, seven times. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been on the broadcast 16 times, including this past Sunday's program. By far though, the number one guest of Bob's tenure as host of Face the Nation is none other than Senator John McCain, who has been on the program 76 times.

All segments of American life.  When did they give up on that idea?

At the top of Meet the Press yesterday (9/25/11), NBC anchor David Gregory announced one of the topics to come:

Is the president's plan basic fairness or class warfare?

As with too many other media debates, an absurd proposition--that returning tax rates for certain wealthy people to levels seen in the 1980s and 1990s is a declaration of war--is treated as one of the two possible answers to a question. Gregory manages to make things worse by getting the only answer on the show from billionaire New York mayor (and media tycoon) Michael Bloomberg:

GREGORY: Does that trouble you?

BLOOMBERG: It does trouble me. You can't define what's middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor. Every time you have a jump, people play games to get on one side or another. And I think it's not fair to say that wealthy people don't pay their fair share. They pay a much higher percentage of their income. They have a higher rate than people who make less. The Buffett thing is just theatrics. If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. And, in fact, a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk on their taxes.

Bloomberg's response is incoherent. Of course definitions of what makes someone  "wealthy" or "poor" differ, but there's no reason people can't make such distinctions.

And Buffett's tax burden has nothing to do with "theatrics." Bloomberg says, "If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher."

Well, yeah. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT of Buffett's argument.

If Meet the Press is going to actually engage this discussion, it might make sense to invite some guests who know something about the issue--perhaps even a non-billionaire.

CNN anchors Carol Costello and Ali Velshi today (9/26/11) provided some rare TV coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Lower Manhattan:

VELSHI: A group of people protesting Wall Street greed are now screaming abuse after they were arrested over the weekend. The incident happened Saturday in Lower Manhattan. The protesters say they were pepper-sprayed, roughed up and denied food and water. Police defending the arrests saying the marchers blocked traffic and ignored orders to stay on the sidewalks.

And here's an iReport from Saturday's demonstration. At one point, you can actually see a protester and police getting into a fight. You see that in the middle. At least 80 people were arrested.

COSTELLO: Of course, what you can't see is what came before the fight.

VELSHI: Yes. We don't know.

COSTELLO: We don't know.

Let's head to Atlanta and check in with Reynolds Wolf. Any extreme weather on the horizon?

The PBS NewsHour did a pretty strong piece last month (8/16/11) on inequality in America. So perhaps it was a sense of "balance" that drove them to do a follow-up segment on September 21 that argued that things aren't so bad after all.

As anchor Jeffrey Brown put it:

NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman has been examining that subject, including studies showing an alarming rise in the so-called wealth gap. But tonight's interview takes issue with that view.

It turns out that one of Solman's old friends, American University economics professor Bob Lerman, didn't much care for that piece: "It would be nice if there was more equality, but let's not overdo it."

In case that doesn't sound convincing to you,  he elaborated:

I think it's somewhat of a problem, but you way overstated it. There were no nuances to the report. You ignored a big source of wealth, which is the wealth embodied in Social Security.

Lerman and Solman go on to visit a nursing home, where older people are apparently enjoying their staggering wealth--mostly in the form of healthcare. As Lerman put it: "Take a lot of the people right here at this nursing home. Medicare is a source of wealth that finances their stay here." Solman seemed to see the logic in this, telling a woman at the home, "Medicare is like a stash of wealth that you're now drawing on." She must have been relieved to know about her secret wealth!

It's hard to imagine comparing assets like a house or cash to the healthcare one receives (or might receive one day)--much of which is derived from taxes you've paid over the years. By that logic, someone who gets really ill and requires massive amounts of care is actually striking it rich!

As we pointed out recently (in response to a Robert Samuelson column about the lucky duck senior citizens), half of all Medicare beneficiaries had incomes below $22,000, and half had less than $2,100 in retirement account savings.

The argument shifts a bit as the segment moves on, as Solman's friend seems to want to argue...well, I'm not sure exactly what you'd call this:

Today, you could have a Ferrari or you could have a Kia. You could stay at the Taj Boston or you could stay at the Holiday Inn. Is there that big a difference? So, let's be clear. The rich do have more opportunity to consume than everyone else, but I'm not sure that we need to be as concerned about it as implicit in your program.

So there's inequality, but the difference between luxury and poverty isn't as wide as you might think. Thanks, PBS.

Charles Krauthammer's  column today in the Washington Post ("Return of the Real Obama," 9/23/11) reveals the Barack Obama, who's apparently been hidden away for the past few years:

In a 2008 debate, Charlie Gibson asked Barack Obama about his support for raising capital-gains taxes, given the historical record of government losing net revenue as a result. Obama persevered: "Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital-gains tax for purposes of fairness."

A most revealing window into our president's political core: To impose a tax that actually impoverishes our communal bank account (the U.S. Treasury) is ridiculous. It is nothing but punitive. It benefits no one--not the rich, not the poor, not the government. For Obama, however, it brings fairness, which is priceless.

That was, indeed, a memorable moment--but not in the way that Krauthammer thinks. The real problem was that the question Charles Gibson asked was premised on a falsehood. As  FAIR pointed out at the time, Gibson was

pressing Obama about his plan to raise capital gains tax rates to levels of the early 1990s--a position that struck Gibson as bizarre, since lowering these taxes increases government revenue:

In each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

This question rests on two false assumptions. The capital gains tax is paid by a small percentage of the population. As Citizens for Tax Justice pointed out (3/16/06), "The wealthiest 10 percent of taxpayers enjoyed 90 percent of the capital gains eligible for this special tax break." Gibson's reference to the 100 million Americans who own stock is irrelevant, since this tax is applied to the sales of stocks and real estate--not the act of having a retirement account.

Gibson's other point--"History shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up"--might be popular in certain conservative circles, but the evidence to support it is thin. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out (7/12/07), there is little causal relationship between the capital gains tax cuts and increased federal tax revenue. Economist Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution pointed out the the "Joint Committee on Taxation and Treasury both score raising capital gains taxes as raising revenues" (New Republic, 4/16/08).

The same corporate media that will rush to cover the latest burp from Tea Party protesters seem strikingly uninterested in demonstrators camped out in Manhattan's financial district, protesting the corporate takeover of U.S. politics. Please see FAIR's latest Action Alert (9/22/11) to call on the broadcast TV networks to pay attention to this activism.

You can use the comments thread for this blog post to leave copies of your messages to the networks or to comment on the alert.

I caught this MSNBC commercial last night featuring their own Chuck Todd, explaining (apparently) how he thinks about his job:

My job is to bring up issues that Americans care about.

It's my responsibility to ask the tough questions. No matter who's leading the country, they need to be held accountable.

I have unique access to the president, his advisers, the candidates and members of Congress.

I'd better use that access for a greater good. Use it for people who can't get through the White House gates. For people who can't be heard.

The American people deserve answers.

Huh. The Chuck Todd I see on television is more like this, this, and this--and don't forget the time he met a journalist (Jeremy Scahill) who actually does work that resembles Todd's self-description. Scahill appeared on a TV show panel with Todd, and criticized him for saying that investigating Bush-era torture policies would be a distraction. Off the air, Todd told Scahill that he shouldn't be so impolite:  "You sullied my reputation on TV."

I guess my question is this: Does Chuck Todd have another job? One that more closely resembles this description of a fearless truth-teller, giving voice to the voiceless?

From a Washington Post story today about Obama's speech at the United Nations:

In his remarks, Obama sought to celebrate the Arab Spring — the popular revolutions that have upended the political order of the Middle East — but his lack of support for the Palestinians’ U.N. bid may put him at odds with the region’s proponents of democracy. He has sometimes struggled to convince many Arab protesters that he supports their movements, in part because the United States has a long history of backing autocratic rulers in the region.

Perhaps they remain unconvinced not merely because of that "long history" but because present U.S. policy has mostly not been on their side either--despite corporate media assurances to the contrary.

In the L.A. Times today (9/21/11), media reporter James Rainey asks a very important question:

In a week that saw the number of people in poverty hit a half-century high and President Obama propose a tax increase on those with million-dollar incomes, will America and the American media finally dig in for a serious conversation about class?

And his evaluation of the media's performance on wealth-and-poverty issues accords with what FAIR has found when we've looked at the coverage (Extra!, 9-10/07, 6/10). Here's Rainey's take:

Even though economists say the gap between haves and have-nots has been building for three decades, the growing income disparity and its causes have come up for discussion mostly as a sidebar--removed from the front page, rarely the lead story on the evening news.

But when it comes to explaining why the media fail to cover "arguably the central story of our times," I can't help but feel there's something missing. Rainey offers several possibilities:

The media excel at stories that are instantaneous, visual and that produce clear winners and losers.... Despite the struggles of our own industry, most journalists still live more cheek by jowl with the people who are getting by.... In the years since the late 1970s, journalists have been focused elsewhere...aimed at other great socioeconomic collisions.... The working class has no obvious lobbying group or advocate to bring its interests to the fore.... A majority of the public hold an almost mystic faith in the upward mobility ideal.... They hesitate to speak out, lest they sound as though they are whining.... There's plenty of fodder for those who want to create a counter, not-so-bad narrative.... "Americans have been uncomfortable for a long time talking about class.... The idea that there is a strong class system undercuts the claims we cherish most."

There may be some truth to each of these explanations. But the most obvious explanation for why U.S. media avoid talking about growing inequality is that they are almost entirely owned by, and dependent for the bulk of their income on, large corporations that have greatly benefited from that inequality. Why should we be surprised that the institutions that control our national conversation use that power to protect their own interests?

Certainly they're not going to quit doing that as long as there's a taboo against pointing out that that's what they're doing.

Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC (9/19/11):

Or, if you prefer reading:

But last week when Wolf Blitzer and CNN had that debate, the CNN/Tea Party Express debate, and Wolf sat there and called them his partners--I just thought, this was amazing, because would you ever see the CNN nurses union debate or the CNN teachers union debate? Because I think there are a few more teachers and nurses in this country than there are members of the Tea Party.

But we'll never see that in the mainstream media. And liberal organizations which have many more members just don't get the attention. A thousand people arrested in front of the White House a couple of weeks ago on the tar sands environmental issue -- hardly any coverage of this.

Can you imagine if 1,000 Tea Party members had been arrested in front of the White House? It would be at the top of every news story.

People are down on Wall Street right now, holding a sit-in and a camp- in down there--virtually no news about this protest.

This goes on with liberals and the left all of the time, and it gets ignored. And, fortunately, there are shows like yours and others who aren't ignoring it. It doesn't mean it isn't happening, and it will continue to happen.

Politicians beware: Thomas Friedman is still threatening to launch a third party.

In his New York Times column today (9/21/11), Friedman moans:

One would hope that our politicians would rise to the challenge by putting forth fair and credible recovery proposals that match the scale of our debt problem and contain the three elements that any serious plan must have: spending cuts, increases in revenues and investments in the sources of our strength. But that, alas, is not what we're getting, which is why there remains an opening for an independent third party candidate in the 2012 campaign.

Hmm, spending cuts, revenue increases, investments that are supposed to help us win the future.... Does that remind you of any politician you know? Poor Barack Obama--he's trying his hardest to be President Tom Friedman, and he still can't get any love from the original.

It needs to be said that the columnist the president seems to be trying most hard to please (especially now that David Brooks has jilted him) is absolutely bonkers when it comes to economics.  His column begins: "It becomes clearer every week that our country faces a big choice: We can either have a hard decade or a bad century." By "hard" he presumably means like we've been having--and somehow keeping 9 percent of our workforce out of productive employment for a decade is going to make things better up through 2111? What this is really is sadism masquerading as masochism.