FAIR has a new Action Alert (9/13/10) pointing out ABC World News‘ misleading treatment of taxes and small businesses. Please leave copies of your messages to ABC, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.
Jim Naureckas
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org, and has edited FAIR's print publication Extra! since 1990. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader. He was an investigative reporter for In These Times and managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere. Born in Libertyville, Illinois, he has a poli sci degree from Stanford. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR’s program director.
◄ Previous Post But Older White Men Are ‘Newsmakers’!
► Next Post PBS Ombud’s Trust in Nova Only Goes So Far
Comments
Funny how corporations (and let’s not forget that’s what media conglomerates are) don’t seem to have the same deep and abiding concern for the fate of small businesses when they’re running them out of business, isn’t it?
Some very good reasons why it’s in poor taste to build a mosque at Ground Zero
This is what I just sent ABC as a comment:
The recent ABC â┚¬Ã…“fact checkâ┚¬Ã‚ on expiring Bush tax cuts muddied the waters by comparing apples and oranges. The segment conflated exceptionally large personal gain and business profits and was therefore misleading.
Two illustrations were followed by an accurate statement that 2.5 percent of businesses would see taxes go up. Unfortunately, tying this to earlier misleading illustrations, made the whole fact check even less factual! Please revisit this topic with accurate examples
It seems there’s been an exponential increase in the flood of erroneous media information since Obama’s election. The waters are beginning to tickle my nose hair. Oxygen breathers are now, from all indications, an endangered species.
ABC’s Broken Tax ‘Factcheck’
World News bolsters Republican myths
9/13/10
One of the core debates about federal tax policy concerns the expiring Bush tax cuts. A September 8 “factcheck” segment on ABC World News did more to propagate myths than to set the record straight.
For the sake of an informed electorate, please report accurate facts please.
Sincerely,
Richard Warren
Carencro, LA
commented to ABC:
“Is this article on FAIR about Karl’s factchecking true? You tried to lampshade the complexities of these economic and political situations by asking Karl to check the facts. Then to give a full analysis, you present TWO small business owners claiming (utterly false) potential losses. If there is a defense to any of this, I hope you have the guts to publicly respond back to FAIR. And thanks for limiting your feedback to 500 characters. Consider yourself short one viewer at the very least.”
perhaps an overly harsh 492 characters?
This is what I wrote to ABC~
Concerning the program of 9/13/2010.
Johnathan Karl needs to get a fact checker. That is the reason I don’t watch network news. If you’re going to mislead the public about facts you can’t call yourself a news program. Call yourself TALK TV!
You have a mistake in this alert. I am a CPA and CFO of a small company structured as an S-Corporation. All income of an S-Corporation is “passed through” to its shareholders and reported on the shareholders’ personal tax returns. So if an S-Corporation has a single shareholder and the company makes taxable income of $1 million, the shareholder will report that as income even if they do NOT take a single dollar out of the company. Personal income is not, as you state, “by definition money that has been taken out of the” company, if the company is an S-Corp. (And I believe most small companies are structured as s-corps).
The tenor of the alert is correct, however. Our company has never considered progressive tax rates when considering whether or not to add staff. We consider whether the level of demand for our products supports additional staff.