A Los Angeles Times editorial (2/7/12) begins:

When the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism released a report Sunday claiming that U.S. drone strikes have killed dozens of civilian rescuers and mourners in Pakistan, the American media scarcely noticed.

It's a good point.The Bureau's report got remarkably little media attention. A New York Times story (which included an anonymous U.S. official smearing the researchers as Al-Qaeda sympathizers) might be the only story in the mainstream media; the only stories coming up in the Nexis news database are from Antiwar.com (2/5/12) and papers in Pakistan. The report was covered on Democracy Now! (2/6/12) as well.

In other words, when the L.A. Times is talking about a media blackout, they're talking about themselves too. The paper's editorial page adds that the "findings are worth a look"--though they're sure to add a caveat:

Eyewitness accounts in such places as the tribal areas must be regarded with great skepticism; playing up alleged U.S. atrocities is a common recruiting strategy for terrorist groups.

Sure. And what do you call the strategy of playing down U.S. atrocities?

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.

There's been plenty written about how reporters skew reality by treating "both sides" as equally intransigent or inflexible when it comes to the budget deficit battle.

Another example, from the L.A. Times today (8/2/11):

For Republicans, it was preventing any tax increase to upper-income families.

For Democrats, it was ensuring no cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and a handful of other programs that aid the elderly and the poor.

And for Obama, it was getting a deal that would end the threat of an economy-shaking default until after the 2012 presidential election.

None of the key players was willing to go all out to actually solve the nation's long-term financial problems. As a result, the deal doesn't.

The implication of course, is that opposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare is in some way comparable to opposing any tax increases anywhere under any circumstances. This glosses over the fact that the Bush tax cuts played a large role in creating the current deficit problem. And it evades the fact that it is certainly possible to fix the budget problem without cutting Social Security and Medicare. It is much more difficult to imagine how to do the same without raising revenues.

But the real lesson we must be taught over and over again is that both sides are to blame for not fixing the nation's problems.

Or consider this exchange from the July 31 NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Andrea, you've seen them come and seen them go. This has hardly been a profile in courage. Have you ever seen anything like this?

ANDREA MITCHELL: I actually never have. We've had crises before, political crises. We've had in our lifetime 9/11, Katrina, other national emergencies, tragedies. And in one case or another, in all of those cases one branch of government at least, if one failed, the other would step in. In this case, all branches of government, our entire government seems to be dysfunctional. And it's even questioning in people's minds the checks and balances that was the genius of the framers because now it's stalemate, it's gridlock.

It's hard to know what to make of this. On one level, you sense that Beltway fixtures like Andrea Mitchell have so much invested in the status quo that they cannot fathom how or why the system cannot produce even the appearance of 'bipartisan compromise' they find so important to a functioning democracy. That's the crisis.

More concretely, one has to wonder what she thinks should have been done differently by one of the branches of government. The White House backed a "compromise" that gave Republicans much of what they wanted. They balked and demanded more--which they got. If she means that the Republicans were unusually resistant to compromise, she should just say that--and not blame it on "checks and balances."

Some in the press still seem to have trouble defining whatever it is that motivates the Tea Party movement. I noticed this in an L.A. Times piece last week (6/5/11):

Americans possess a long-standing wariness of power and its potential as a corrupting influence, especially in the hands of large institutions. That instinct bred our government system of checks and balances and, more recently, led members of the "tea party" to embrace the nation's founders (repackaged as a band of small-government crusaders) as the guiding lights of their movement.

So "wariness of power" and the "corrupting influence" of "large institutions" is what this is about. Huh. Then came New York Times columnist David Brooks (6/14/11), who wrote:

The Tea Parties are right about the unholy alliance between business and government that is polluting the country.

So that is what the Koch brothers are fighting for?

From the L.A. Times (6/9/11):

A tattered tent, shreds of carpet and other scorched debris were all that were left of a favored retreat of Moammar Gadhafi just outside the Libyan capital, the aftermath of what appeared to be a NATO bombing run.

Was the usually idyllic nature preserve a "command and control" center used by the Libyan military? Or was this an example of NATO attempting to assassinate the longtime Libyan dictator?

A NATO official reached in Naples, Italy, late Wednesday emphasized that the Western alliance does not target people for killings, and the official would not confirm that North Atlantic Treaty Organization warplanes had even struck the site Tuesday. "It doesn't sound like that would be the subject of our attention, so I'm not sure what you were shown there," said the official, who under NATO rules could not be identified by name.

Remember, it's Libya's pathetic PR that gets ridiculed in the U.S. press. NATO officials are granted anonymity to make their spectacularly implausible claims.

Two elections, different outcomes, different headlines at the Wall Street Journal (6/6/11).

When the left loses:

Portugal Decisively Ends Leftist Rule

Portugal on Sunday voted decisively to end six years of leftist rule, electing the country's main conservative party and boosting prospects for austerity measures tied to a $114 billion aid package from the EU and IMF.

But when the left wins:

Peru Votes in Divisive Runoff for President

Voters in one of the world's most dynamic economies went to the polls Sunday to choose between two divisive presidential candidates.

The latter piece included this:  "Financial markets, which have been riding a roller coaster during the long campaign, would be almost certain to take a win by Mr. Humala badly, analysts say."

That analysis wasn't confined to Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. In today's Washington Post (6/7/11):

Peru's Path Is Question Mark as Nationalist Wins Presidential Race
Investors worry whether he will pursue leftist economic policies

And the Los Angeles Times (6/7/11):

Leftist's Victory Rattles Peruvian Stock Market
After his narrow win, Ollanta Humala seeks to reassure the business class, but his previous pledge to work for better distribution of the nation's silver and gold wealth sends the market down more than 12 percent.

Viewing elections through the eyes of the investor class might be helpful for some, but it's doubtful that it's a great way to understand what the people in any country are thinking.

At his Beat the Press blog (4/23/11), Dean Baker caught this in the L.A. Times (4/23/11):

Congress is on its first recess since Republican leaders unveiled a plan to end the federal deficit by dramatically changing Medicare, cutting other government programs and reducing taxes.

As Baker points out, what the paper is referring to--the Paul Ryan budget proposal--does not "end the federal deficit." As he put it:

This is like saying they had a plan to fly to moon because they said they would build a rocket. The whole point is the specifics. How would they build a rocket? How would they raise taxes to meet their revenue targets?

But someone at the L.A. Times seems to like Paul Ryan's budget--at least judging by the unusually flattering (and misleading) descriptions of it that have appeared in the paper recently.

On April 11, the Times reported:

Ryan's 2012 budget proposed major changes to the longstanding federal programs.

For Medicare, seniors would receive a stipend to buy insurance on the private market. Analysts expect it would raise individual out-of-pocket health costs while making federal costs more stable and predictable.

Stabilizing costs--well, that's one way to put it. Making poor seniors pay much more for their healthcare in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy--that's another way.

About a week earlier (4/5/11), the L.A. Times debuted the Ryan budget this way:

The budget resolution unveiled Tuesday by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) would dramatically improve the nation's overall fiscal picture, reducing deficits projected in President Obama's budget and moving the federal government into surplus by 2040, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

As FAIR noted, one should be wary of claims about what the Congressional Budget Office is saying about the Ryan plan--Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post explained why:

The Post's Kessler, however, reports that this claim "seriously overstates the case," since the CBO analysis "reflects the scenarios that Ryan has concocted. There are, for instance, no real revenue estimates, just an assumption that federal revenues will remain at about 19 percent of GDP." The spending cuts imagined by Ryan are equally implausible--a "bare-bones government...not experienced since before the Great Depression."

The Los Angeles Times' Michael Muskal explains Obama's 2012 campaign:

Running for reelection is different than running for the first time because the incumbent has a record that voters can evaluate. Obama will cite healthcare insurance overhaul, his administration's response to the recession and his foreign policy, which includes winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Afghan War is winding down? Well, that would be news.

Forget about Obama having "a record that voters can evaluate." I'm more concerned about reporters' inability to evaluate the present.

A brave, truth-telling whistleblower has emerged to tell the White House's side of the story in the Libya War. The inside scoop appears in a Los Angeles Times article by Christi Parsons (4/2/11) headlined, "For Obama, a Carefully Calculated Delay on Justifying Libya Airstrikes."

Are you confused by the White House's decision-making on Libya? Fear not--everything has gone according to plan. Like, for instance, the delay in public explaining the decision to bomb:

The timing was deeply controversial, but was designed to be a major part of the message itself, unfolding as the U.S. chalked up a measure of achievement in Libya and appeared to back away from lead management of the international military effort there.

The delay helped to underscore the key ideas Obama wants to drive home: that the commitment differs dramatically from the deep investment of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars he inherited, largely because the U.S. shares responsibility for it with a broad coalition of international and regional partners.

To an American audience weary and skeptical after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama wanted to explain his reasoning when he could also demonstrate some closure.

"Instead of saying, 'I promise this is the way it's going to be,' he was able to go before the American people and say, 'Here's what I said I would do, and I did it,'" said one senior administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss the deliberations....

Some liberals joined with conservatives in objecting that Obama owed the country an explanation right away--if not before the attack.

But Obama's advisers said they wanted to break out of past practice on messaging, much like the president was breaking with the foreign policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

"We wanted to make the point that this was not an Iraq-like war engagement," said the official. "The commitment was limited in duration and scope, and so the ways in which you deliver that message help convey it. It's not just what you say but how you say it."

Got it?

The Times also notes that some of Obama's left critics were miffed by the delay in explaining the purpose of the war: "Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) questioned a commitment to act without debate in Congress." To which the paper responded:

But steering clear of the trappings of wartime gravity could help Obama counter skeptical public perceptions.

Did that analysis come from the anonymous White House official, or is that Parsons' own contribution? Whatever the case, if ignoring the constitutional requirement that Congress authorize all wars can help us steer clear of the "trappings of wartime gravity" and "counter skeptical public perceptions,"  perhaps it's all worth it.

Few pieces better illustrate the uselessness of so much corporate media political journalism than Kathleen Hennessey's piece in the L.A. Times (4/4/11) on Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's deficit reduction plan.

The piece is headlined "House Republican Budget Plan Would Revamp Medicare," and the lead explains that the GOP budget proposal outlined by Ryan "includes an overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid and would aim to chop at least $4 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.""Revamp," an "overhaul"--well, that sounds good, doesn't it? How does Ryan plan to do that, exactly?

Despite reporting that Ryan's "broad overview" offered "the clearest picture yet" of Republican deficit-reduction plans, the piece is far from clear: Hennessey reports that Ryan is suggesting "changes to entitlement programs"--"dramatic changes"--and is "addressing the rising costs of the program." Then, in the seventh paragraph, we get this:

Under the proposed rework of the Medicare program, seniors would chose from several federally subsidized health plans. The changes would take effect in 2021 and would not affect people who are 55 or older now, Ryan said.

Oh, OK--so how's that going to save $4 trillion? The piece doesn't say--that's the full description.

Then in the 26th paragraph, we get a quote from a partisan critic of Ryan's plan, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D.-Md.), who says that the plan cuts "health security for seniors." He's not allowed to get any more specific than that, but Ryan gets four paragraphs of rebuttal to Van Hollen's one paragraph of vague criticism, starting with:

Ryan described the Medicare plan as a version of a "premium support" system he crafted along with former Clinton administration budget director Alice Rivlin. He acknowledged the proposal would shift more of the burden for healthcare costs to seniors, saying the wealthiest seniors would bear the largest portion.

"More for the poor, more for people who are sick, and we don't give as much to the people who are wealthy," Ryan said. "This saves Medicare."

Whoa, whoa, wait a second--"shift more of the burden for healthcare costs to seniors"? Why is this the first we're hearing about this, in the 27th paragraph of a 31-paragraph article?

Ryan's plan is not very hard to explain: He wants to replace Medicare with a system where seniors would receive vouchers to buy health insurance. As the cost of health insurance rises every year, the value of the vouchers would rise by not as much. Eventually the difference between the value of the vouchers and the cost of buying health insurance, along with a similar scheme for cutting Medicaid reimbursements, would amount to $4 trillion--which would be the amount that would come out of the pockets of seniors and the poor, plus the amount of healthcare they would do without.

That's what the L.A. Times means by "revamping." But if the paper explained that to its readers, they would mostly think Ryan's idea was a terrible one. And that would be biased--so it's better to leave the readers not knowing any more than they did before they read the article.

It was certainly surprising to see former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier return to the country on January 16. To say he has blood on his hands is an understatement--the Duvalier regimes were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and widespread abuse, and stole millions of dollars from the country.

Soon thereafter, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to return to his country. Aristide, twice elected and twice removed from office, remains a popular figure in Haitian politics. His first stint in office was remarkably peaceful; his second, during which he faced armed attacks that eventually succeeded in overthrowing his government, was scarcely more violent. But some media accounts are expressing concern about Aristide's return, in effect equating him with the bloody Duvalier.

USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham wrote a piece on February 8 headlined "U.S. Meekly Allows Despots to Return to Haiti." Wickham recounts the horrors of Duvalier's reign of terror, but for some unfathomable reason decides that Aristide poses some comparable menace to Haiti--his return might "push Haiti closer to turmoil," and the two of them are "old troublemakers from returning at a time when Haiti's democracy is most vulnerable to the havoc they almost certainly will produce."

Wickham seems mostly concerned about democracy:

With another round of voting scheduled for March 20, the thing Haiti needs more than anything else now is a level of stability and calm. But what it's likely to get once Aristide returns--and once he and Duvalier rally their old supporters to their side--will be a return to the bloody factionalism that punctuated their time at the helm of Haiti's government.

It might be worth pointing out that Aristide's Lavalas party--still enormously popular--was banned from participating in last year's election, which as a result had the lowest turnout of any election held in the Western Hemisphere in the last 60 years.

The Duvalier = Aristide equation could be seen elsewhere. A New York Times report (2/9/11) warned that "experts inside and outside Haiti fear that the presence of the two former leaders could further destabilize the country." The Times went on to note that "members of the international community expressed concern that Mr. Aristide...could create widespread instability at a precarious moment." The story does note that Aristide was "beloved by the poor but criticized by many"--given Haiti's massive poverty, it's hard to know what to make of that.

A short Los Angeles Times piece (2/8/11) conveyed a similar message: Aristide "has broad popular support but remains a polarizing figure in Haiti." That article also equated Duvalier and Aristide, reporting that "the return of the two former leaders comes at an unsteady moment for the country."

One would hope reporters could find a way to make a meaningful distinction between a ruthless, bloody dictator and a popular elected president. It is obscene to refer to them both as "leaders" or, as the USA Today headline put it,  "despots."

The L.A. Times'  controversial investigation last year that rated Los Angeles schoolteachers' effectiveness based on a value-added research method has faced a storm of criticism. (See Wayne Au's recent Rethinking Schools piece.)

Now the National Education Policy Center has weighed in, finding that the research "was demonstrably inadequate to support the published rankings."

The NEPC was covered in the Washington Post and, wouldn't you know it, the Los Angeles Times.

Below are the headlines. Go ahead and guess which one is which.

Researchers Fault L.A. Times Methods in Analysis of California Teachers

Separate Study Confirms Many Los Angeles Times Findings on Teacher Effectiveness

There's  an emerging line in the corporate media that Obama's recent bump in the polls is due to the perception that he's shifting to the "center." There's a long record of media encouraging Democrats to move to the right; after the midterms, Wise Pundits were saying that Obama had to pull a Bill Clinton in order to get things back on track.

And now we see things like this from the Los Angeles Times (1/24/11):

After his party was dealt an electoral blow in November, Obama embraced a compromise that extended the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts, retooled his West Wing to include more moderate voices--such as his new chief of staff, William Daley--and made new overtures to the business community.

His polls have rebounded on the eve of his second State of the Union address, passing the 50 percent threshold in a series of major surveys.

And on ABC World News (1/23/11):

DAVID KERLEY: Even with high unemployment, President Obama is much higher in the polls than he was just weeks ago. His charm offensive with business, appointments of business-friendly staff and a productive lame duck session have put him on a roll.... Moving to the center, talking about cutting spending, creating jobs is working.

And on NBC Nightly News (1/22/11), pollster Charlie Cook declared:

We started seeing--starting a week or so after the election, we started seeing the president moving, reaching out, compromising, shifting over, reaching out to business, and the proof is in the--is in the polls.

Somehow I doubt that there is some unusual public fondness for William Daley, or a desire to see Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce happier with the White House. The generally favorable reaction to Obama's response to the Tucson tragedy would seem to be a likelier explanation for the current trend. But leave it to the media to chalk up any shift in the polls to Obama's march to the "middle."

Obama's selection of conservative Democrat William Daley as his new chief of staff didn't surprise anyone. So reporters were left to explain the political shift behind the move. Some saw little movement at all, since Daley's political views would seem more or less in line with his predecessor Rahm Emanuel. The Washington Post (1/7/11) offered this somewhat confused explanation:

His moderate views and Wall Street credentials make him an unexpected choice for a president who has railed against corporate irresponsibility and tried, with limited success, to appease restive liberals who think he has not been tough enough on bankers.

Actually, the opposite would seem more accurate; the choice of a right-leaning banker with deep ties to corporate America would suggest that Obama doesn't really "rail" against corporations, and certainly has done little to "appease restive liberals." Daley's selection is more evidence of this general trend. Tell that to USA Today, which headlines its piece "Daley Choice Puts a Moderate in Play"--as if there weren't many "moderates" around to begin with. The piece leads with this:

President Obama's choice of Chicago business executive William Daley to run his White House operation is the clearest sign yet that he intends to move toward the political center as he approaches a likely 2012 re-election campaign, members of both parties say.

And over at the L.A. Times, "Obama Chooses Former Clinton Staffers in a Move to the Center" is the headline; readers are told that these moves are "a signal to business leaders and independent voters that he is resolved to steer a more centrist course after two years of intense partisan clashes."

The obvious point here is that Obama "intends to move" towards the center--meaning that he's not there already. The media preference for a Democrat is one who continuously moves to the right. In order to convince readers that Obama isn't already there, reporters magnify certain political disputes in order to prove this point. Today's Wall Street Journal headline, "President Revs Up Campaign to Make Peace With Business," is a perfect example: Obama's been too tough on corporate America, and now he's moving the other direction by hiring a businessman to run the White House.

They don't show--at least in any significant way, with the caveat that thousands of e-mails still remain to be released--the U.S. government seriously misleading its allies. They don't show unauthorized war, fraudulent procurement practices or unexpected assassination. They don't show America forming significant alliances with sworn enemies or visiting unexpected deceit on friends.
--James Rainey on the "dearth of scandalous behavior" in the WikiLeaks material (L.A. Times, 12/1/10)

How good do you have to be to qualify as good? I haven't killed anybody. See, that's good, right? I haven't committed any felonies. I didn't start any wars. I don't practice cannibalism. Wouldn't you say that's pretty good?
--Calvin (Scientific Progress Goes "Boink")