Stating quite succinctly how "there is an ongoing issue about whether global warming deniers should be treated seriously by the media, given that they have about as much scientific support for their position as the flat-Earth crew," economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 7/11/09) notes how the July 11 "New York Times goes them one better in finding a global warming ignorer":

Apparently, Ben Stein has never heard about global warming. How else can someone interpret this paragraph:

I don't believe we need to do something radical about energy, but even assuming that we do, why do it right now? Do we need to take one of the few sectors that is working like clockwork through the recession--oil refining--and wring its neck by making it pay for pollution "cap and trade" credits? Why attack a healthy industry when so many other sectors are ill? What is all of this anger at Big Oil, which has not done anything blameworthy, all about? Why endlessly beat up the companies that keep the country going?

He then goes on to complain about the Obama administration's efforts to change the laws on foreclosures. This would be a good idea, except the Obama administration is not working to change the laws on foreclosure.

Baker explains that "Stein is opposed to this plan because he is worried that it will further discourage mortgage lending," even though "there is no problem of mortgage lending at present. Mortgage rates are near historic lows and the Mortgage Bankers Association applications index indicates that few people are having trouble getting mortgages." Baker is impressed with how, "once again, Ben Stein distinguishes himself by how many things he can get really seriously wrong in a relatively short column."

Viewing "two excellent pieces by the American News Project about the Fed's astonishing actions during the current meltdown," A Tiny Revolution's Jonathan Schwarz (7/12/09) confirms that "ANP does great work, and I commend them for taking on this subject—especially since it's covered nowhere else, including on progressive blurms." But he's nonetheless reminded of a June 29 TruthDig piece in which war reporter Chris Hedges tells why "The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free":

The public is bombarded with carefully crafted images meant to confuse propaganda with ideology and knowledge with how we feel. Human rights and labor groups, investigative journalists, consumer watchdog organizations and advocacy agencies have, in the face of this manipulation, inundated the public sphere with reports and facts. But facts alone...make little difference. And as we search for alternative ways to communicate in a time of crisis, we must also communicate in new forms... This style, one that turns the abstraction of fact into a human flesh and one that is not afraid of emotion and passion...will permit us to counter the force of corporate propaganda....

We will have to descend into the world of the forgotten, to write, photograph, paint, sing, act, blog, video and film with anger and honesty that have been blunted by the parameters of traditional journalism. The lines between artists, social activists and journalists have to be erased.

Despite their great efforts, Schwarz feels ANP still are "suffering from exactly the problem Hedges describes. To start with, what is the Fed? How does it work? Perhaps 900 people total in the U.S. could tell you. So for everyone else it's automatically like gossip about strangers--i.e., extremely boring."

A Tiny Revolution blogger Jonathan Schwarz (7/9/09) has posted a reminder that "back in March Phillip Swagel, who'd been assistant treasury secretary under Hank Paulson, wrote a long article about the TARP bailout called 'The Financial Crisis: An Inside View.'"

Thinking that maybe "it would be news if Swagel had stated that Paulson, Bernanke and Bush's attempts to foment panic to pass the bailout have 'surely' contributed to the current recession," Schwarz lays out some quotes showing that actually "he did": "The way in which the TARP was proposed and eventually enacted surely must have contributed to the lockup in spending," and "they could plainly see that the U.S. political system appeared insufficient to the task of a considered response to the crisis. Surely these circumstances contributed to the economic downturn."

To Schwarz, "this was obvious at the time. Back on September 26, I (among many, many others) asked: 'How have things turned out before when the president, Treasury secretary, Federal Reserve chairman and a leading presidential contender all scream in public constantly about how we're on the verge of a giant financial meltdown?'":

In any case, there are no references to Swagel's statement anywhere online except in the original document.

Likewise, Swagel suggests the mid-September financial situation might have been dealt with without an immediate appropriations bill by Congress: "A counterfactual to consider is that the Treasury and Fed could have acted incrementally, with backstops and a flood of liquidity focused on money markets and commercial paper—but not the TARP."

That too has been mentioned nowhere online. Oh well.

All of which earns Schwarz' scathing headline declaring the corporate media silence "Another Triumph for American Journalism." Read the FAIR magazine Extra!: "Going All Out for Bank Bailout: Media Paint Crisis as Too 'Urgent' for Skepticism" (1/09) by Dean Baker & Kris Warner.

Reacting to media noise over the economic costs of the Waxman-Markey environmental bill currently before the U.S. Congress, Dean Baker (ZNet, 7/1/09) looks to the damages of a different annual spending bill, this one perpetually unexamined in corporate news:

Global Insight projected that after 20 years of higher defense spending, annual car sales would be down by more than 700,000. Housing starts would be almost 40,000 lower. Exports would be 1.8 percent lower and imports would be 2.7 percent higher, leading to a trade deficit that was almost $200 billion larger. The model also projected that there would be nearly 700,000 fewer jobs as a result of the higher level of defense spending.

In short, the economic harm projected from high levels of military spending is far larger than the damage projected from the Waxman-Markey bill. Given this situation, we should expect that all the oil and coal industry folks who are now so concerned about the average family's well-being would have been screaming about the economic pain that would result from sustaining the Iraq War levels of military spending.

Did anyone ever hear them raise this issue? Does anyone recall members of Congress giving speeches about how the job loss from the Iraq War levels of spending will be devastating? Does anyone recall any newspaper columns or editorials making this point? How about a news story that analyzed the economic impact of higher levels of military spending?

"For some reason," Baker says, "job loss and economic pain associated with the military are just not worth mentioning. These items only become newsworthy when the issue is saving the environment." Listen to the FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Miriam Pemberton on Military Budget" (4/17/09).

Posting on Canada's Centre for Research on Globalization website (6/29/09), economic historian Michael Hudson notices that "Happy-face media reporting of economic news is providing the usual upbeat spin on Friday's debt-deflation statistics. The Commerce Department’s National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) for May show that U.S. 'savings' are now absorbing 6.9 percent of income":

I put the word "savings" in quotation marks because this 6.9 percent is not what most people think of as savings. It is not money in the bank to draw out on the "rainy day" when one is laid off as unemployment rates rise. The statistic means that 6.9 percent of national income is being earmarked to pay down debt--the highest saving rate in 15 years, up from actually negative rates (living on borrowed credit) just a few years ago. The only way in which these savings are "money in the bank" is that they are being paid by consumers to their banks and credit card companies.

Explaining how "income paid to reduce debt is not available for spending on goods and services," Hudson says "it therefore shrinks the economy, aggravating the depression"--leading back to his main question: "So why is the jump in 'saving' good news?":

It certainly is a good idea for consumers to get out of debt. But the media are treating this diversion of income as if it were a sign of confidence that the recession may be ending and Mr. Obama's "stimulus" plan working. The Wall Street Journal reported that Social Security recipients of one-time government payments "seem unwilling to spend right away," while The New York Times wrote that "many people were putting that money away instead of spending it."

For more on stimulus misreporting, see the FAIR magazine Extra!: "Stimulus Snake Oil: Media Promote Nonsensical GOP Talking Points" (3/09) by Peter Hart.

Tying the urgent present-day topic of economic reporting in with the most pressing global emergency of climate change, Dean Baker has posted at his Beat the Press blog (6/29/09) on "What Does 'Free Trade' Have to Do With Taxing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?":

That is the question that the New York Times should have been asking in an article that reported President Obama's opposition to taxing imported items from countries that have not taken steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The point of his cap-and-trade program is to make items that require large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions more expensive, thereby discouraging their consumption.

If goods can just be imported from countries that have no tax on GHG, then the point of cap-and-trade is undermined, as goods that require large amounts of fossil fuels will just be produced abroad. It is understandable that importers and other special interest would be opposed to measures that prohibit this sort of evasion, but that has absolutely nothing to do with "free trade."

Baker notes that "the NYT completely misrepresents the issue by implying that this is somehow a debate over principles of free trade," when really "it is a debate of whether special interests will be allowed to import goods to undermine the limits set by a cap-and-trade bill for GHG emissions." For more on press distortions of Obama's cap-and-trade policies, listen to the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: "Mike Lillis on Climate Bill" (5/22/09).

Activist David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org, 6/24/09) has some problems with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's and Congressmember Tom Perriello's recent visit "generating a story and big color photo on page 1 of the Charlottesville Daily Progress" under the headline "In UVa Visit, Democrats Call Deficit Reckless":

The newspaper reported on Congressman Perriello warning that he could not vote for healthcare without a way to pay for it. There was no mention of the fact that the previous week, the day before Hoyer introduced his bill to fight deficits, both of these gentlemen had voted to spend another $97 billion on wars and to loan $100 billion to European bankers through the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Nobody in Washington had even hinted at where any of that money would come from, and apparently Hoyer and Perriello didn't care.

The article did include a quote from a Republican blaming Democrats for deficits. But that's doubly bad reporting. Republicans have pushed deficits up far more than Democrats, and just getting a haphazard (and inaccurate) quote from "the other side" misses the relevant context of the war supplemental vote. Here's the patently false quote from Congressman Eric Cantor: "We've amassed more debt over the last five months than this country has amassed in the last 200 years."

Swanson sees another example of this kind of overwhelmingly uncritical coverage in the same day's visit by "two top environmental officials from the White House": "Oddly, there was no particular news to announce at the press conference. Predictably, all the media outlets were there to trumpet the story anyway." Listen to Swanson on FAIR's radio show CounterSpin: "David Swanson on 'Benchmarks'" (5/18/07).

Amanda Terkel of Think Progress (6/18/09) has posted video and transcript of an MSNBC segment in which Joe Scarborough asked CNBC's Jim Cramer about "a stunning poll the New York Times has this morning suggesting that Americans are more concerned about deficits than stimulus":

Cramer claimed that Americans aren't buying into healthcare reform right now because "it just means tax increases, and there's got to be someone who pays for it." According to Cramer, the solution that "everybody" wants is for Obama to "go away": "But until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit."

If Cramer looked closer at the poll, it also shows that 57 percent of the American public approve of what Obama is doing on the economy overall. Of course, Cramer is someone who claimed that Obama's policies have resulted in “the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president” and is known for his irresponsible financial cheerleading (e.g., “Bear Stearns is not in trouble“).

Terkel has to wonder if, in actuality, "maybe it's not Obama who Americans want to 'just kind of go away for a little bit.'”

Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 6/14/09) has caught "Fox on 15th (a.k.a. 'The Washington Post')" once again "departing from normal news practice" with "another editorial complaining about President Obama's deficits on the front page." The piece's subhead--"Concern Mounts in White House as 2010 Elections Loom"--prompts some hard questions from Baker: "Who is concerned? The story doesn't tell us. Who says that they are concerned? The story doesn't tell us." His conclusion--"In short, it's not clear that there is any news here":

But the Washington Post wants to highlight the budget deficit, so it won't let such details stand in the way; after all, there were protesters in Wisconsin calling President Obama a socialist. That's enough for a front-page news story in the Washington Post.

Needless to say, the Washington Post has no problem ignoring completely far larger protests that don't agree with its editorial agenda, much less putting them on the front page. It is incredible that at a time when close to 15 million people are out of work that the Washington Post can continue to obsess about the deficit.

And, just so "there is no doubt which side the Washington Post is on," Baker reminds us that "of course this is also a paper that highlights on the front page that it is now easier to hire nannies."

Looking at last week's "whole series of bad reports on the state of the economy," Dean Baker of Beat the Press and the Center for Economic and Policy Research tells readers of London's Guardian (6/1/09) if they think "these reports might have led to gloomy news stories," such assessments are to be found "not in the U.S. media": "The folks who could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble are still determined to find the silver lining in even the worst economic news":

For example, National Public Radio told listeners that the new home sales figure reported for April was up from the March level. While this was true, the April figure was only 1,000 higher than a March level that had just been revised down by 5,000. April new home sales were 4,000 below the sales level that had originally been reported for March. USA Today touted a "surge" in durable goods orders, which was also based on a sharp downward revision to the prior month's data.

The media have obviously abandoned economic reporting and instead have adopted the role of cheerleader, touting whatever good news it can find and inventing good news when none can be found. This leaves the responsibility of reporting on the economy to others.

Predicting that "at some point it will be impossible to conceal the bad news, and Congress' attention will return to stimulus," for now Baker notes that "media's reality defying happy talk on the economy is delaying this moment." Read the recent issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Stimulus Snake Oil: Media Promote Nonsensical GOP Talking Points (3/09) by Peter Hart.

This Associated Press story ("Debate Over Who Sotomayor Is a Sensitive One," 5/29/09) sure is confused. Luckily reporter Sharon Thiemer makes at least that much clear from the very start:

There are two sides to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: a Latina from a blue-collar family and a wealthy member of America's power elite.

The White House portrays Sotomayor as a living image of the American dream, though its telling of the rags-to-riches story emphasizes the rags, a more politically appealing narrative, and plays down the riches.

Yes, somehow the White House picked her despite the fact that she is no longer poor--and still pretended that she was the "living image of the American dream," which as we all know is to remain poor one's entire life.

That's not the end of it.  The AP also writes:

On ethnicity, Sotomayor herself has recognized--and contributed to--the dichotomy. She proudly highlights her Puerto Rican roots but hasn't always liked it when others have.

The evidence:

Yet years ago, during a recruiting dinner in law school at Yale, Sotomayor objected when a law firm partner asked whether she would have been admitted to the school if she weren't Puerto Rican, and whether law firms did a disservice by hiring minority students the firms know are unqualified and will ultimately be fired.

So she's proud of being Puerto Rican and she takes offense at the notion that she couldn't have gotten into Yale if she weren't? What a "dichotomy." The AP goes on to note that Sotomayor "won a formal apology from the firm."

We do learn, as well, that her brother is a doctor "whose practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare-- programs for the poor and elderly--according to its website." Great--now her sibling isn't poor anymore, either?

Blogging (Beat the Press, 5/26/09) about how the "New York Times Cooks the Books on Europe's Auto Industry," economist Dean Baker catches the paper "touting the layoffs in the U.S. auto industry as a virtue"--since "it notes that auto industry employment in Europe is remaining steady at around 2.3 million, while it is falling to close to 700,000 in the U.S.":

The article and accompanying chart imply that Europe is delaying an inevitable adjustment. The case is far from clear, in spite of the NYT's best effort to make the case. The chart shows that Europe produces about 18 million cars a year, while North America produces around 12 million. Those noting the asterisk will see that one-third of the cars in North America are produced in Canada or Mexico, meaning that only about 8 million cars are produced in the U.S. This adjustment makes the gap in employment look less extreme.

Furthermore, the U.S. imports a large portion of the parts for the cars that are produced here. Much of the employment in the auto sector is in parts production. Without knowing the balance of trade in car parts, there is no easy way to know how Europe's auto employment relative to its output compares to the U.S.

But such pesky realism has never gotten in the way of the neocon idealism U.S. media routinely try to push upon sometimes recalcitrant Europe; see FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Europe Says No--to Pundits’ Advice: 'Painful Reforms' Find Few Takers" by Seth Ackerman (9–10/05)

Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post, 5/25/09) is offering, as "a particularly egregious example" of corporate media as "enabler of the transformation of real reform into D.C. 'reform,'" a May 23 L.A. Times editorial she thinks "might as well have been written by industry lobbyists (the way many 'reform' bills are)." After her initial reaction to the subhead, "Stung by the excesses of the financial services industry, Congress is striking back"--"Actually, it wasn't Congress that was 'stung' by those 'excesses'--it was the entire world. And why is regulation of out-of-control markets 'striking back'?"--Huffington warns us that "it gets worse":

"Rather than trusting market forces, Democrats in Congress and the administration argue that unbridled capitalism has victimized consumers."

Who wrote this, the "tea party" organizers? Glenn Beck? Since when do things like setting ground rules and demanding transparency mean you no longer believe in "market forces"?

Apparently, according to the L.A. Times, the call for reform is now a "backlash" in which "Democratic majorities in Congress" are going to "clip the financial industry's wings." And this is bad because reform means "raising costs and limiting the freedom of savvy investors and borrowers."

Really? I wonder just how many of those "savvy investors" made money in, say, 2008, when they were blissfully free of all the wing-clipping regulations the L.A. Times is so afraid of? Not many--and that's because all investors, savvy and non-savvy alike, are victimized when the entire financial system is destabilized. In fact, I believe I've heard something about the crisis affecting the L.A. Times, too.

Noting that "the closer we get to actual reform, the more hysterical the debate surrounding it becomes," Huffington tells how "mainstream media's habit of internalizing bad faith arguments in the name of 'balance' becomes more pronounced; and the public interest loses out to the interests of the established financial/political class."

The Washington Post editorial (5/14/09) on the Social Security and Medicare trustees' report didn't break much new ground, other than perhaps a uptick in the sarcasm quotient. ("Oh, please" is their retort to critics who point out the paper's demonstrable hostility to the Social Security program.)

But this line jumped out at me as noteworthy:

Furthermore, the size of the Social Security surpluses has shrunk, posing a problem for the government since it relies on these funds to help plug its deficits. Over the next seven years, the cumulative surpluses will be $157 billion instead of the previously estimated $454 billion, forcing the cash-strapped feds to borrow even more than they had expected.

This is wrong in an important way: The Social Security surpluses are money that the program is lending to the U.S. government; when the government accepts this money, it is borrowing it, with a legal obligation to pay it back--just as if it had borrowed money from private sources.  So whether or not the Social Security surpluses have shrunk doesn't change the amount of money the government is borrowing--it just changes who the government will owe the money to.

But folks like the Washington Post editorialists don't seem to see the money being loaned by Social Security as really being a loan--that's why they express alarm at the fact that "the date when the Social Security trust fund will start running deficits has moved closer by a year, to 2016." Now, the reason that there is a Social Security surplus is that taxes dedicated to the program were raised in 1983 for the specific purpose of paying for the baby boomers' retirement--which will be well underway by 2016 and which will be mostly over by the time that the trust fund is scheduled to run out in 2037.

If the government doesn't actually intend to pay back that money--if it hopes to engineer a new "save" of Social Security that results in the money continuing to flow indefinitely from the program to the Treasury--then a fraud will have been perpetrated on the working Americans. And the Washington Post will no doubt cheer this fraud as an act of fiscal prudence.

Current Anti-Advertising Agency CEO Steve Lambert and founder Jordan Selier have posted (AntiAdvertisingAgency.com, 5/12/09) their letter to the New York Times responding to a May 11 piece that cites one NYC advertising executive asking, "All you have to do is walk out the door for lunch and notice the number of vacant storefronts... so why not get in there and put a message in there?":

I know why not, because it's a crime! And I was disappointed that the Times didn't mention this. Outdoor advertising is regulated by the Department of Buildings for several reasons; so billboards aren't erected in dangerous places and ways, to regulate advertising to specific districts keeping the city livable, and to prevent persuasive messages from being placed anywhere and everywhere a corporation can buy space.

The Department of Buildings has strict regulations on size and these storefronts turned billboards are simply too large for nearly every commercial district in New York with the exception of Times Square.

Deeming the Times "mistaken in reporting on this as a 'thriving' type of advertising emerging from declining economy," Lambert and Selier would rather the paper "call it what it is, advertisers desperate for profits, committing organized crime and hurting the livability of our city"--and even urge "New Yorkers who care" to "have them removed! Or just tear them down themselves."