On February 7, FAIR issued an action alert criticizing USA Today‘s re-writing of George W. Bush‘s Social Security rhetoric. Bush has said a number of times that the system will be “flat bust,” “exhausted” and “bankrupt” in the year 2042. In describing Bush’s position, USA Today changed those misleading claims, reporting that Bush has said that Social Security “won’t have enough money to pay promised benefits in 2042,” and “Bush says that in 2042, it won’t be able to pay 100 percent of guaranteed benefits.”
As FAIR argued, USA Today effectively changed Bush’s inaccurate claims into more accurate– though still debatable– ones.
On February 10, USA Today sent the following response to FAIR:
****
Regarding your request to site users to contact USA TODAY, here’s a response from our News department:
Thank you for your interest in USA TODAY’s coverage of President Bush’s comments about Social Security.
The word “bankrupt” can refer to a situation in which obligations exceed revenue, a problem the Social Security system faces in about 15 years. In addition, various projections show the Social Security Trust will be exhausted, or broke, by 2042 or later.
We explained to readers in an article on Jan. 27 that even when the Trust Fund is exhausted, payroll taxes could continue to pay about 80% of scheduled benefits.
We will be sure to pass on your comments to our reporters.
Sincerely,
Owen Ullmann
Deputy Managing Editor, News
USA Today
****
FAIR is grateful that USA Today responded about this issue.
Ullmann claims that the word “bankrupt” can mean “a situation in which obligations exceed revenue, a problem the Social Security system faces in about 15 years.” It’s a very peculiar definition of “bankrupt” that would apply to a program with more than $4 trillion in assets, as the Social Security system is projected to have in 15 years. The Gannett Company, which publishes USA Today, would love to be so “bankrupt.”
Ullmann goes on to say that “various projections show the Social Security Trust will be exhausted, or broke, by 2042 or later.” This is a rhetorical sleight of hand, switching from the Social Security system (as the article in question discussed) to the Social Security trust fund, which by two of the three projections made by the Social Security trustees will in fact eventually run out of money. But the Social Security system, unless the laws are changed, will continue to receive payroll taxes equal to roughly 12 percent of U.S. wages, a huge amount of money now and an even larger sum in 2042. So it is hard to argue that the system will be “bankrupt,” let alone “broke,” “exhausted” or “flat bust.”
Ullman points to another article where the paper explained the difference between what Bush says and the reality of Social Security’s financial predicament. Surely the editors at USA Today don’t assume that their readers read every article in every edition of the paper, and retain all the information from those articles in their memories. Newspaper articles need to be accurate and understandable standing on their own. But the article Ullman pointed to seems to be the exception rather than the rule at USA Today: on February 10, the day the paper sent Ullmann’s message, it reported that Bush “says [Social Security] will be unable to pay full benefits by 2042.” By inaccurately paraphrasing George W. Bush’s claims about Social Security, USA Today is failing in this obligation.
If you think USA Today should still make a correction or clarification in its print edition, you can contact USA Today’s Reader Editor Brent Jones at:
Phone: 1-800-872-7073
