Matthew Yglesias (8/3/10) has a good takedown of senators John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Tom Coburn’s (R.-Ok.) list of supposedly wasteful stimulus projects that generated an “exclusive” on ABC‘s Good Morning America (8/3/10):
Jon Chait observes that McCain and Coburn also seem to have decided that anything relating to animals is necessarily waste. Hence a small grant to fund research on cocaine addiction and relapse is turned into “Monkeys Getting High for Science.” Hardy-har-har. There’s a case to be made that the government has no role to play in funding scientific research, but it’s a mighty bad case. If you think the government should fund research in the health and medical fields, then of course you’re going to be funding some experiments that involve monkeys. Even though monkeys are funny.
This animals-are-funny principle was followed by ABC‘s Jonathan Karl, who cited “among the highlights” of the McCain/Coburn press release not only the monkey study but also “nearly $1 million for the California Academy of Sciences to study exotic ants.” That’s doubly funny because they’re bugs and they’re “exotic.” But the reason you would want to study exotic insects (meaning non-native) is that they’re a threat to agriculture, either current or potential. Agriculture is a $36 billion-a-year industry in California–but this crucial context was ignored by ABC.
But including the context is dangerous, because it has the potential to reveal that what you’re reporting is completely pointless. Karl led off his report with this example:
KARL: The Forest Service is spending more than $500,000 to replace the windows at this Mount St. Helens visitors center. It could sure use a facelift, but–
ANSWERING MACHINE: Coal Water Ridge Visitor Center is now closed.KARL: The visitors center is closed and there’s no plans to reopen it.
What an outrageous waste of taxpayer money! But then Karl follows up with this crucial bit of information: “The Forest Service told us, they are fixing it up to sell it.” If that had been mentioned in the first place–“The Forest Service is spending half a million dollars to fix up a shuttered visitors center in order to sell it”–that wouldn’t have sounded crazy at all; lots of homeowners make similar decisions about their property every day. But if it didn’t sound crazy, it wouldn’t have been a catchy way to lead off the report.
Of course, the real point of the list is not the individual items, but the general point that the whole stimulus program was a waste of money that failed to boost employment. On this economic question, ABC cites exactly one expert: John McCain, who declares of the projects he listed, “I think none of them really have any meaningful impact on creating jobs.” This is the politician who declared during the 2008 campaign (Think Progress, 1/18/08), “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”
The Congressional Budget Office (5/25/10), whose understanding of economics is somewhat more advanced, estimated that in the first quarter of this year, the stimulus bill created the equivalent of 1.8 million to 4.1 million full-time jobs. This is context that ABC could have included in its story, but chose not to–perhaps because it would have revealed that the story had no real point.
“The equivalent of 1.8 million to 4.1 million full-time jobs” can mean 3.6 million to 8.2 million half-time (underemployment) jobs, or even 7.2 million to 16.4 million jobs with 10 hours available per week (WAY underemployed), assuming “full-time” means 40 hours per week, or any combination that totals 72 million to 164 million man-hours paid. The phrase “the equivalent of…” constitutes weasel words worthy of any slick pitchman trying to sell an audience a bill of goods.
Full disclosure: I credit FAIR with teaching me to spot such gaps and to ask such questions.
Animals Are Funny, And Other News From ABC…Are Funny Too
I knew when I heard this from 2 politicians that the R’s were going to exploit this. Now I’ve heard it on MSNBC. They’ve already tried this before and there were explanations for what sounded like ludicrous investments so what keeps the press from either refusing to repeat it or actually investigating it?
I can’t help but wonder how the media can ‘aid and albeit’ these falsehoods that equate to gains for lying R’s as if they themselves don’t have any stake in what happens to this country. Don’t they have children…doesn’t this noxious insanity ever oppose a threat to their own well being? Are all these promotions of lies and sloppy reporting just an edict from higher ups who want them pushed or are media people themselves really that unattached to anything that affects the country’s future?
The list of things the stym money has been spent on -and the stupidity of those expenditures is already legend.To try to prove this or that is a legit thing to of spent our money on(and our childrens and their childrens) is gonna be a tough sell if you have viewed any of the lists.It is a slush fund for political gifts.The Liberal dream.Plain and simple.I can still hear Joe Bidon.”If we pass this stym we will be creating 500 thousand jobs a month by Aug of 2010.I new it was crap.You knew it was crap.It was/is crap!We lost another 70 thou this month.
“stym?” You dipshit! Check your fuckin’ spelling, scmuck, and go real easy on the stupid invented words.
. . . and I’ll check mine more carefully (schmuck). I promise. Go now–there’s another thread you can muck up somewhere.
Comment 6
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Half a million bucks on windows? Surely they haven’t got their priorities in order?
News writing doesn’t have to be boring! If a writer can’t learn to spice up the story with the right angle, readers will skip right past it – no matter how important the content.Writing an interesting news piece isn’t hard. You just have to learn how to approach it in a more interesting manner. Readers need to know what happened at last night’s school board meeting, but is it necessary to bore them with a basic rundown of the agenda? Of course not! Even at the most mundane meeting, a good writer can find a unique angle or twist to highlight some aspect of what’s being discussed. Just stay away from sensationalizing and editorializing in order to create a story. It may seem that that’s what sells these days, but a true news journalist should always strive to get the story – the real story – and present it in a fair and factual manner. ,
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