New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer (2/2/12) accurately reports how Republicans want to frame the disputed over the Keystone XL pipeline. But she does almost nothing to challenge that framing.

Under the headline, "For GOP, Pipeline Is Central to Agenda," Steinhauer explains:

Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices, and trying to portray Mr. Obama as giving in to hard-left environmentalists in an election year at the expense of addressing both.

Instead of challenging that narrative, the Times bolstered it, alluding to what Republican presidential candidates are saying about Keystone and quoting from Keystone-supporting Democrats.

"This week, Democrats moved to blunt the Keystone attacks," the Times went on--which merely set up more quotes from potentially Keystone-friendly Democrats like Senator Harry Reid, who wants the project to keep the oil in the U.S.

The Times then went back to Republican PR:

For Republicans, the pipeline is a political trifecta. It unites most of their party and divides the Democrats. It is also fairly easy to explain to voters, and it hits on the key concerns of many Americans: jobs, energy independence and fear of economic competition with China, which Republicans have said will be the recipient of the Canadian oil without the Keystone plan.

You can challenge that "trifecta," but the Times mostly passed on that option. The only hint of skepticism comes late in the article:

The number of jobs that could be created by the Keystone expansion--supporters say 20,000--is disputed. But many companies and labor unions around the country were counting on the expansion and had already made materials or hired workers to gear up.

The numbers are disputed. How so?

As we've talked about before, this is arguably the key issue here. An outside estimate from Cornell says 2,500-4,000 jobs. The State Department says 5 or 6 thousand.

It's not difficult to cite these numbers, or to ask Keystone proponents to explain where they're getting their much higher estimates (hint: from the company). This is especially important in a piece about how this issue will be an important part of the Republican presidential campaign strategy.

The Times notes near the end:

A wild card is whether workers invested in the project will serve as an echo chamber for the Republicans' criticism.

Today the  New York Times certainly served that function.

There's a news article in the Washington Post today (1/26/12) that really captures that paper's view of the way the world works, and how it ought to work. Headlined "After Earthquake, Japan Can't Agree on the Future of Nuclear Power," Chico Harlan's piece begins:

The hulking system that once guided Japan's pro-nuclear-power stance worked just fine when everybody moved in lockstep. But in the wake of a nuclear accident that changed the way this country thinks about energy, the system has proved ill-suited for resolving conflict. Its very size and complexity have become a problem.

And what exactly is that problem?

Nearly a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, Japanese decision-makers cannot agree on how to safeguard their reactors against future disasters, or even whether to operate them at all.

Some experts say this indecision reflects the Japanese tendency to search for, and sometimes depend on, consensus--even when none is likely to emerge. The nation’s system for nuclear decision-making requires the agreement of thousands of officials. Most bureaucrats and politicians in Tokyo want Japan to recommit to nuclear power, but they have been thwarted by a powerful minority--reformists and regional governors.

The obstruction by this "powerful minority," the Post goes on to say, has "heavy consequences": "record financial losses for major power companies and economy-stunting electricity shortages." The story warns that "Japan, once the world’s third-largest nuclear consumer, could be nuclear-free, if it is unable to win approval from local communities to restart the idled units."

Then, after musing about the "elaborate network of hand-holding" that used to govern Japan's nuclear infrastructure, Harlan slips in a fact that changes everything:

Since the March 11 accident, just enough has changed to stall that cooperation. Two-thirds of Japanese oppose atomic power. Politicians in areas that host nuclear plants are rethinking the facilities; they hold veto power over any restart. A few vocal skeptics have emerged in the government, and in the aftermath of the accident, Japan has created at least a dozen commissions and task forces for energy-related issues.

So when the pro-nuclear goals of "most bureaucrats and politicians" are "thwarted by a powerful minority," that's a sign of the dysfunctional Japanese system, with its "tendency to search for, and sometimes depend on, consensus." The fact that this "minority" actually represents the large majority of the Japanese public who oppose the technology that has rendered substantial parts of their country uninhabitable--well, that's just another roadblock that the establishment is going to have to overcome.

With New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane continuing to puzzle over whether (or how) the Paper of Record should factcheck politicians, one might wonder whether other newspapers worry about the same thing.

Take USA Today (please!). Yesterday the paper reported on the very contentious matter of the Keystone XL pipeline and jobs--a favorite issue for Republicans. The paper (1/24/12) told readers:

Obama hasn't been willing to ignore politics, says Bruce Josten, an executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He cites several instances--from the failure to reach a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans last year to the rejection Tuesday of a jobs-producing oil pipeline--as examples of Obama's refusal to compromise.

Calling something "jobs-producing" suggests that this would be a major component of the policy in question.

Today the paper gets a little more specific in its report (1/25/12) on the State of the Union response from Republican Indiana governor Mitch Daniels:

He derided what he called "the extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands."

That was a reference to Obama's decision against allowing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to be built from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

No, it's a reference to a myth Republicans and the oil industry are spreading about the jobs that would result from constructing the Keystone pipeline.

Last week USA Today counted 20,000 such jobs in a headline. I suppose the fact that some politicians like to claim that the pipeline would create hundreds of thousands of jobs makes the 20,000 number seem like a safe middle ground.

But that number is nonetheless dubious. Curtis Brainard has a pretty thorough rundown at CJR.org (1/24/12), explaining that the 20,000 figure comes from one estimate provided by TransCanada. Outside evaluations of the likely job numbers look different; the State Department's estimate is 5,000-6,000, and as Brainard explains:

In September, researchers at Cornell University's Global Labor Institute used the information in the EIS to come up with an estimate that was even more modest. Factoring in the various durations of employment, it calculated that "on-site construction and inspection creates only 5,060-9,250 person-years of employment (1 person-year = 1 person working full time for 1 year). This is equivalent to 2,500-4,650 jobs per year over two years."

The Republican Party wants the Keystone story to be about jobs, jobs and jobs. This is much easier to do when media outlets will print whatever they say without questioning it.

Today's front page of USA Today:

The paper adds that "Obama was putting politics ahead of jobs and the nation's energy security by rejecting the pipeline now, Republicans and oil industry leaders said." It closes with this:

Business leaders and Republicans say approving the project now would create as many as 20,000 jobs for an ailing U.S. economy and lessen dependence on foreign oil.

"This political decision offers hard evidence that creating jobs is not a high priority for this administration," said Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

If the argument in favor of this pipeline is that it creates jobs, then reporters should look into the claims about job creation. USA Today doesn't do that, but others have. A piece by CBS reporter Alain Sherter (1/18/12) explained that the 20,000 figure, while lower than some estimates, still has some problems:

But subsequent analysis suggests that Keystone's job-creating potential is more modest. The U.S. State Department calculated last year that the underground pipeline would add 5,000 to 6,000 U.S. jobs. One independent review of Keystone puts that number even lower, with the Cornell University Global Labor Institute finding that the pipeline would add only 500 to 1,400 temporary construction jobs. The authors of the September report also said that much of the new employment stemming from Keystone would be outside the U.S.

Transcanada itself cast doubt on its employment forecast when a vice president for the company told CNN last fall that the 20,000 jobs Keystone would create were temporary and that the project would likely yield only "hundreds" of permanent positions.

Another reason for the discrepancy appears to stem from what that 20,000 figure really means. As Transcanada has conceded, its estimate counted up "job years" spent on the project, not jobs. In other words, the company was counting a single construction worker who worked for two years on Keystone as two jobs, lending fuel to critics who said advocates of the pipeline were overstating its benefits.

The inflated claims will continue to fly, though--especially when reporters don't push back.

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has a column in the Washington Post today (1/3/12) outlining the three important election issues to watch--and one of them is about how the press covers the process:

Third, the media's obsession with false equivalence: How the election is covered will almost certainly have a measurable impact on its outcome.

The New York Times' Paul Krugman describes what he's witnessing as "post-truth politics," in which right-leaning candidates can feel free to say whatever they want without being held accountable by the press. There may be instances in which a candidate is called out for saying something outright misleading; but, as Krugman notes, "if past experience is any guide, most of the news media will feel as though their reporting must be 'balanced.'" For too many journalists, calling out a Republican for lying requires criticizing a Democrat too, making for a media age where false equivalence--what Eric Alterman has called the mainstream media's "deepest ideological commitment"--is confused, again and again, with objectivity.

That reminded me of a piece I read two days before in the Washington Post (1/1/12), where reporter David Nakamura discussed Barack Obama's looming decision on the Keystone tar sands pipeline, one of "several potential political landmines littering his playing field":

Republicans successfully added a provision to the two-month payroll tax cut extension mandating that Obama make a politically sensitive decision on the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline by the end of February. He had hoped to delay a decision on the project--which Republicans have said will create jobs but environmentalists have said would harm natural resources--until after a federal environmental review is completed in 2013.

As is the convention, both sides are represented here. But does this make much sense? The problem with Republicans claims about job creation is that they are, according to many experts, wildly inflated. That would be important to note in a piece discussing the "political landmines" here.

The flipside, we're told, is that "environmentalists" think the project might "harm natural resources." That could mean anything--pollution from a spill, perhaps. Or it might be a reference to the greater threat from climate change. So the "natural resource" would be the planet Earth.  "Balanced" journalism treats inflated jobs claims and the fate of the planet equally.

Opponents of the Keystone tar sands pipeline project--10,000 of them, by some reports--surrounded the White House on Sunday to call on Barack Obama to reject the deal. That generated a short Metro section story in the Washington Post on Monday.

More revealing than that was the Post's preview story in Sunday's paper, which presented the issue as one where protesters are "noise" and proponents talk about facts. Here's how Juliet Eilperin's story begins:

Canadian ambassador Gary Doer has a straightforward analysis of whether TransCanada will win the Obama administration’s approval to build and operate an enormous pipeline to transport oil from Alberta to the Texas coast.

"If it's made on merit, we're confident," Doer said in an interview. "If it's made on noise, it's unpredictable."

Foes of the project--which has become a test of how President Obama balances environmental considerations against economic and energy supply concerns--will try to turn up the noise Sunday with a rally around the White House. Unemployed workers who support the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline are planning to counter with a blitz of media interviews over the weekend.

The article quotes six different sources from the company trying to build the pipeline, consultants working for the company and U.S. and Canadian government officials. Climate activist Bill McKibben is the lone environmentalist voice quoted, and in the final paragraph.

If the protests are creating "noise," the Post doesn't exactly seem eager to hear it.

UPDATE: Eilperin is back on the Keystone case today, with similar results:

Pipeline route may get another look from U.S.

Opposition mounts to plan for shipping Canada oil sands crude

Eilperin reports that opposition is coming from "environmentalists and an eclectic group of ranchers, farmers and other opponents." So who's quoted in the article? A State Department official, the president of the American Petroleum Institute and the spokesman for TransCanada (the company wanting to build the pipeline  come first. And the final paragraph is reserved for someone from the National Wildlife Federation. That's in a piece that is, judging by the subhead, about the mounting opposition to the pipeline.

An article in the new issue of Newsweek (10/24/11)--"Obama's Big Green Mess: How the White House lost its Eco-Mojo"--presents White House policy as a series of failures.  It starts off with federal inspectors finding serious problems with various weatherization projects. That's just the tip of the iceberg--from Solyndra to stimulus, things aren't looking good. But writers Daniel Stone and Eleanor Clift seems to want to give White House critics an assist with things like this:

Overall, as the $787 billion economic stimulus--the primary engine for the green-energy agenda--came to an end September 30, it is clear that the program created far fewer jobs than promised. So-called green-collar jobs are notoriously hard to tally, but numerous estimates by gleeful Republicans put the taxpayer cost of each green-energy job created by the stimulus at more than $1 million.

OK, so it's really hard to figure out the numbers on this--but here's one that gleeful Republicans like to throw around?

In cases like this, it seems especially important to give readers a sense of the range of estimates. Robert Pollin from the University of Massachusetts estimates that you get 17 green jobs per $1 million of government expenditure. By comparison, the oil/gas industry produces five per million, the military about 11.

And at a House hearing on the White House and green jobs and stimulus funds last month, one Republican complained that the government was spending $80,000 per green job--that's 12.5 per million.

Newsweek is right to suggest that there are  debates over how to count green jobs, and how much the government should be investing in clean energy. But this article should have given readers more to work with than a scary-sounding number popular with Republicans.

Frontrunner-of-the-moment Rick Perry is getting a lot of press for his performance at the recent Republican debate--especially because he's standing by his belief that Social Security is a "monstrous lie" and a Ponzi scheme, and that climate change is an untested theory advanced by corrupt, discredited scientists.

You can call such ideas a lot of things. "False" or "untrue," for example, would work. But a lot of reporters characterized Perry's performance in positive terms. In today's New York Times (9/9/11), Michael Shear writes that Perry

made clear in his first national appearance that he would campaign as an unabashed Southern conservative who is unafraid to speak bluntly, would double-down on controversial statements and planned to shrug off the concerns of the Republican establishment.

Shear later added that "Perry did not back down Wednesday night from his assertion that Social Security was a failure, even in the face of direct criticism by Mr. Romney."

"Unabashed," "unafraid," not backing down--these are all more or less positive descriptions.

Likewise, on NBC Nightly News (9/8/11), Andrea Mitchell said: "Perry proved he could throw a punch and take one. And he was unapologetic about attacking Social Security as a monstrous lie."

So he's not only a fearlessly blunt speaker, he's also an unapologetic punch-thrower. This is the kind of coverage the Perry campaign would probably pay for. Yes, there are pieces here and there that point out that, you know, Social Security isn't actually a massive scam. On the other hand, Washington Post liberal Ruth Marcus writes today (9/9/11): "On the substance, Perry’s point about Social Security-as-Ponzi scheme has some grounding in reality." She gets around to criticizing him, but that's a lot of ground to cede to a falsehood.

As Greg Marx notes at CJR,  the media designation of certain pieces as "factchecks" is strange because one might logically conclude that run-of-the-mill articles don't dwell on checking the facts of politicians (a conclusion that would largely be a correct one). He points to a CBS News piece on Perry and Social Security that quotes other Republicans disagreeing with his stance. Readers are apparently being asked to believe either Karl Rove or Rick Perry on the issue. That's a lot to ask of anyone.

The New York Times has a story today (9/7/11) by Jeff Zeleny about how both sides are branding Obama:

The White House is in the midst of rebranding the president as a pragmatic problem solver prepared to set aside ideology to address a compelling need (see last week's concession on ozone regulations), a reasonable man in an era dominated by extreme views.

I'm not sure that qualifies as "rebranding"--I think that's been the Obama "brand" all along.

More worrisome is the notion of "pragmatism" here. It's not clear whether the White House offered the ozone rule as evidence of Obama's pragmatism, or if this is the Times' view. Either way, it doesn't really make sense--unless you believe that there's a "compelling need" for dirtier air, or that wanting fewer deaths from air pollution is an "extreme view." Or, come to think of it, you define cleaner air as a "problem" that is "solved" by loosening pollution rules.

The Obama White House made (yet another) move bound to disappoint progressive activists.  But good luck trying to get corporate media to explain the impact.

Here's how the September 3 New York Times piece by John Broder started off:

WASHINGTON — President Obama abandoned a contentious new air pollution rule on Friday, buoying business interests that had lobbied heavily against it, angering environmentalists who called the move a betrayal and unnerving his own top environmental regulators.

The president rejected a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that would have significantly reduced emissions of smog-causing chemicals, saying that it would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress.

Business groups and Republicans in Congress had complained that meeting the new standard, which governs emissions of so-called ground-level ozone, would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

So this new standard would lead to HUNDREDS of thousands of lost jobs? Wow. That's a powerful argument against it. Where does that figure come from? Is  it correct? The Times is of no help--"balance" requires that both sides get a hearing, no matter the details.

But a little history would be helpful. Similar claims were made during 1997 debates about provisions of the Clean Air Act; as this Center for American Progress report demonstrated, the massive job losses that industry warned about are difficult to spot.

Broder was back on the job-killing beat on September 5, writing (along with Motoko Rich) a piece with this lead:

In case you were wondering whether Irene sparked any discussions of climate change, here's a moment from the panel discussion on ABC's This Week (8/30/11):

RON BROWNSTEIN (National Journal): Do we want to get into a global warming and a hurricanes discussion?

DONNA BRAZILE (Democratic Strategist): No.

BROWNSTEIN: I mean, I don't know if we want to open that door.

Let that serve as a reminder to read Neil deMause's piece from the last issue of Extra!

This was a laugh line, so I guess take it for what it's worth.  On the other hand, Cokie Roberts seemed to be serious when she said this about George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina:

It was surprising to me, his reaction, because his father's example with Hurricane Andrew had been such that you would think that he would, you know, understand that he needed to get out front on Katrina. But in his case, a huge part of his appeal post September 11th, was that he was keeping the country safe. And suddenly, people didn't feel safe. They weren't safe. They were in a very dangerous situation.

Back in reality, Bush's job approval rating was hovering around 50 percent for about 18 months prior to Katrina--which would suggest quite a number of people weren't sure about Bush's "appeal" before that storm hit. More jarring, though, is to hear someone say that people liked Bush after the 9/11 attacks because "he was keeping the country safe." Really?

OK, that headline reflects one of the most common right-wing complaints against the Obama administration. (See Bill O'Reilly's bullet point on Monday:  "Increased federal regulations: Cutting into profits and causing banks to hoard, not lend money.")

That's the right-wing argument, but it's also the premise of some news reporting. Take this lead in today's USA Today:

WASHINGTON – President Obama's effort to roll back costly regulations that are not needed could save more than $10 billion over five years, but critics say that's a drop in the bucket.

That's a lot to pack into one sentence:  Regulations are costly and unnecessary, and the only critics worth mentioning are the ones who say there should be more cuts.

In reality, there are plenty of critics who warn that cutting regulations can be dangerous to public safety and a giveaway to corporate interests. (See the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards.) And as Rena Steinzor of the Center for Progressive Reform points out, while corporations are always going to want the government to do them more favors, there are real issues of concern about what we know so far:

In some instances, though, the changes, if done as planned, would have real-life negative consequences: The planned axing of "clearance testing" under EPA's renovation, repair and painting rule will save money, yes, but run the risk of leaving lead dust behind to poison children when they move back into renovated buildings.

Totally unnecessary, in other words.

If the White House encouraged Americans to prevent colds by wearing sweaters, one would hope that media outlets would point out that there's no evidence that being chilly has anything to do with catching a cold.

Likewise, if the Interior Department green-lights a plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean in order to demonstrate "a willingness by President Obama to approve expanded domestic oil and gas exploration in response to high gasoline prices," as John Broder and Clifford Krauss wrote in the New York Times today (8/5/11), then reporters really ought to point out that expanded offshore drilling can only have the tiniest impact on the price of gasoline, since oil is  a global commodity and the United States does not have enough offshore oil to meaningfully increase the world supply.

But don't hold your breath.

I was struck by this headline in the Washington Post (7/10/11):

Loss of Support for Nuclear Power Threatens Japan's Economy

There are probably a lot of things that are threatening the Japanese economy--a massive, deadly earthquake and tsunami, for instance. Or the massive nuclear disaster that resulted from that tsunami.

The news here is that Japanese officials are doing inspections of their nuclear reactors--as they've always done. The problem, apparently, is that they're doing more than that:

Under ordinary circumstances, these shutdowns would be temporary. Instead, they loom as an urgent problem for Japan, whose government--itself divided over nuclear policy--has not yet mustered the political will or the popular support necessary to restart reactors once they are idled.

The "problem" is that the government is also doing stress tests to make sure the reactors can survive major disruptions. That doesn't sound like a bad idea, given the horrendous disaster that they've just suffered. The Post describes the government's decision to call for these tests as "undermining its cause," apparently because this contradicted an earlier claim that the reactors were safe.

The problem, as defined by the Post, is a lack of political support for nuclear power, inspired by a government that wants to increase the country's reliance on safe renewable energy.  That position is what the Post is saying "threatens" the country's economy. Others might argue that a massive nuclear disaster is to blame.

The story of Michele Bachmann's surging campaign momentum continues, this time courtesy of Beltway reporter Mark Halperin of Time magazine:

Why has Michele Bachmann suddenly become the It candidate?

With her impressive New Hampshire debate performance, Bachmann has gone from a conservative Sarah Palin-lite curiosity to a potential game changer. For two hours onstage with her GOP rivals, Bachmann appeared polished, serene and in command. Her smooth performance was partly the work of a top-shelf team of veteran advisers (manager Ed Rollins, pollster Ed Goeas, forensic coach Brett O’Donnell). They sanded down some of her rough edges but let Bachmann be Bachmann, complete with zinging anti-Obama applause lines and sunny-side-up conservatism.

Halperin gave some advice on what Bachmann needed to do to keep things going:

Most of all: avoid the kinds of gaffes, misstatements, self-promotional moments and wacky behavior that would cause the media and many traditional Republicans to--once again--write her off.

Huh. Remember that this was a debate where her economic plan boiled down to calling for certain government agencies to be abolished-- especially the Environmental Protection Agency, which she called the "Job Killing Organization of America." That didn't cause the media to write her off--or most voters, either, since they mostly didn't hear about it.

Or when she said:

The Congressional Budget Office has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs. What could the president be thinking by passing a bill like this, knowing full well it will kill 800,000 jobs?

This is, as you might expect, not true. But maybe it qualifies as "sunny-side-up conservatism."

It's not just Halperin, though. Time columnist Joe Klein writes:

Bachmann is often linked with Palin as a Tea Party pinup, but she is a different breed of cat: She knows her stuff. She actually gives factual, informed answers. She lacks Palin's bitter, solipsistic edge. She skillfully framed even her most extreme responses in an amenable way, smothering her opposition to abortion in cases of rape and incest within a paean to the sanctity of life.

If you scan the debate transcript, Bachmann didn't give many factual answers to any of the questions. (This is probably not all that unusual in a debate.)  When she tried to--see above about the 800,000 lost jobs--her "fact" was totally inaccurate. As has been the pattern in the past with her--like when she claimed on CBS there was a study showing 30 percent of doctors were leaving the field due to the healthcare law. There is no such study. CBS viewers didn't know the truth, and it seems like journalists are unwilling to tell people that Michele Bachmann's not telling the truth.