Making the Case for an ‘Affluent Left’ by Ignoring Evidence
Thomas Byrne Edsall, a New York Times pundit who argues that Democrats are more the party of the rich than Republicans (FAIR.org, 10/15/15), was grinding his axe in a June 22 column:
In the 2016 election, as issues of race and immigration became more salient, the percentage of Trump and Clinton support among voters making more than $50,000 was virtually the same. If anything, those at the top making $200,000 or more tilted slightly to Clinton.
This is cherry-picking in the extreme: Looking at the actual exit-polling, you see that Donald Trump indeed did only 1 percentage point better than Hillary Clinton among voters who make more than $50,000 a year—but did 12 percentage points worse than Clinton with voters making less than $50,000. Edsall simply ignored the clear class skew of 2016 voting—because it conflicted with his thesis about “the rise of an affluent left.“
Democrats Are Back! And by ‘Back,’ We Mean ‘Screwed’
In a New York Times op-ed (7/6/17), right-wing Democrats Mark Penn and Andrew Stein told a fractured fairy tale: “Years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich,” they wrote, until “President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening healthcare.” As a result, “Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.”
Actually, the draconian crime bill and corporate-friendly healthcare plan both happened before Gingrich took the House back in 1994. But the bigger problem is the claim that “Democrats were back”; in reality, Republicans kept control of the House for the next 12 years, and held the Senate for the remainder of Clinton’s term. When Clinton took office, 30 states had Democratic governors and 18 were run by Republicans; when he left, the ratio was reversed.
Four Years Later, a Baseless Iran Smear Is (Sort of) Retracted
It took almost four years, but the New York Times finally corrected a bizarre assertion that Iran was behind the September 11 attacks. In a September 6, 2013, story about a lawsuit over an Iran-connected Manhattan office building, the paper reported that
proceeds from a sale would probably be used to pay some of the $6 billion in damages claimed by family members of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, including victims of the 9/11 attacks.
After the same claim was repeated in a story (6/29/17) updating the lawsuit’s progress, the Times appended a weaselly correction to both pieces:
While a federal court found that Iran had some culpability for the September 11 attacks as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has not been established that Iran sponsored the attacks, which were planned and executed by Al Qaeda.
It’s also “not been established” that NASA faked the Moon landings, but you won’t find the New York Times treating a conspiracy theory with that kind of respect—unless it involves an official enemy.
USA Today’s Korea Sources Have Something to Sell You
USA Today’s “US Missile Defense Plans to Zap North Korean Threats” (7/17/17) quotes Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Security and International Studies (CSIS), saying that “missile defense buys you time and opens windows.” That’s not all missile defense buys: Three of the biggest military contractors who shared in a $3 billion contract from the Department of Defense to develop missile defense systems (UPI, 2/10/17) are CSIS contributors: Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and BAE have together given more than $335,000, according to CSIS.org. This conflict went unnoted in USA Today’s report.
Get your red-hot anti-missile system here!
Readers also heard from retired Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering III, who now “heads the directed energy team at Booz Allen Hamilton,” who says the US needs the “smaller, more powerful and lighter” laser-based weapons that his company sells to protect ourselves from the North Korean threat, adding, like a good salesperson, that how soon we will be protected is “based on how much money we’re putting into that program.”
The piece quotes just five words from anyone who doesn’t directly benefit from missile defense spending; uncoincidentally, Kingston Reif of the Arms Control Association pointing out the “increased risk of arms racing” with Russia and China is the only part of the piece that doesn’t come across like an advertisement for missile defense.
You Don’t Have to Work for Bezos to Boost Amazon
A survey (FAIR.org, 7/28/17) of coverage of online retail giant Amazon revealed, unsurprisingly, that the paper owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post, had little critical to say about the boss’s business: Just 5 percent of Post stories on Amazon (from 7/20/16–7/19/17) focused on any downsides of the company, such as labor abuses (Gizmodo, 2/22/17) or antitrust issues (Slate, 6/19/17). Forty-eight percent of Post coverage was positive, while 43 percent was neutral.
Jeff Bezos with his spaceship
A clear case of bias? Actually, media coverage of Amazon in general is so boosterish it’s hard to tell: Over the same time period, only 6 percent of Wall Street Journal and 7 percent of New York Times reports on Amazon were negative, while 31 percent of Journal coverage and 57 percent of Times coverage was favorable. Yes, the New York Times had more good things to say about Amazon than the Amazon CEO’s own paper.
