Today it’s the New York Times (5/6/11) framing the story according to nonsensical GOP talking points:
House Passes a Bill to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling
JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — With rising gasoline prices and skyrocketing oil company profits as a backdrop, the House approved a bill on Thursday to force the Obama administration to accelerate oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia.
The 266-to-149 vote, largely along party lines, was a skirmish in the larger battle between Republicans and Democrats to capitalize on consumer anger over the price of gasoline, which has now passed $4 a gallon in most parts of the country.
Once again: Domestic drilling will do next to nothing to affect gas prices. (Mostly) Republican politicians want people to believe the opposite, and push policies to that end. But journalists should question the premise of these political maneuvers, not merely reinforce them.
“But journalists should question the premise of these political maneuvers, not merely reinforce them.”
Not their job, mon. Not when it comes to GOP baloney, at least.
Same with the deficit. What happened to the push for jobs? Oh, right, the GOP decided that it was better to focus on the deficit. More jobs would bring in more tax dollars, helping to reduce the deficit. No, let’s cut Medicare, Soc Sec, Medicaid and call it a day. And then call Paul Ryan “serious” when there are no tax increases, which every economist has said is a must have, anywhere near the table, let alone on it.
The media SUCKS. I don’t know if they are too stupid to ask smart questions, or too lazy or just buying into the bull. No matter, they all suck.
Better media, please!
I was a journalist for six years. The last job I had was at a paper with a very large circulation. I quit to go back to school to teach. At the big paper where I last worked we were under a great deal of pressure to write stories reflecting prefabricated points of view and â┚¬Ã…“trends.â┚¬Ã‚ There were many times I tried to write the truth about some issue I felt was important and would affect people’s lives. At the smaller papers where I had worked in the past I had been able to cover local and state issues in a decent manner. But here is an example of the kind of thing that happened to me at the big paper: I was covering the Iraq War and I interviewed a soldier who was a tank commander during the battle of Fallujah. He told me horror stories about their lack of good equipment. For example, the treads on the tank he commanded were so badly made they were falling off and the soldiers had to get out of the tank and manually put them back on in mid-firefight. This situation, which was unrelated to the war, created great risk to the soldiers’ lives. I reported what he said accurately. I was given the cold shoulder from my bureau chief. That week I got shut out of good assignments and I was treated to an overt version of the usual, ubiquitous, smug, willfully-ignorant social conformity in the newsroom (which is basically an implied “why aren’t you acting like you are supposed to?”). It is like the Soviet Union-lite around these newsrooms. There is a military-like hierarchy of authority. My story was revamped by my editor into the “big war hero comes home â┚¬“ rah-rah troops!” variety and that was that. Other times when I tried to report on something I knew would be controversial, such as one I remember about toxic pollution in an aquifer that affected four populated townships; I was actually chewed out for it. The story was pulled, sanitized and placed on page 47. As a reporter at a higher-profile paper, I was aware every minute of every day reporters are expendable. Columbia grads and interns willing to work for free were banging down the door trying to get my job. I was paying a mortgage at the time, or trying to pay it. My advice to those considering journalism is to remain independent and to never stop caring about what happens around you. Even in your own home town. Nothing is too un-glamorous an issue to report on. The corporate media will either anesthetize us or incite us to fight among ourselves or both!
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