CVS Tobacco Ban: Money Over Morality Over Money
Maybe when you’re selling drugs for more than four or five times what some of your for-profit competitors are charging, you can afford to “sacrifice.”
NY Times Covers for Obama’s Move to the Right
President Barack Obama has decided to talk less about income inequality and more about “opportunity.” This shift to a more conservative framework to discuss economic divisions is, according to the New York Times, what the public wants. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. Reporter Jackie Calmes (2/4/14) explained that Republicans think talking about […]
The State of AP’s Factchecking Is Sad—as Usual
Why does AP still let Calvin Woodward “factcheck” political speeches? Does no one at the news service know what actual factchecking looks like? (If you’re coming in late, see FAIR Blog, 10/30/08, 2/25/09, 4/30/09, 1/28/10, 8/31/12.) Woodward’s latest venture (1/29/14) into the factcheck genre, following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, produced […]
AP Distorts Poll to Support Obama’s Inequality Dodge
It’s hard to remember a better time for politicians to talk about the issue of income inequality. But according to the Associated Press (1/24/14), Barack Obama’s State of the Union address will attempt to shift away that issue–too divisive, apparently–and opt instead for some discussion of economic opportunity. As Jim Kuhnhenn writes: The adjustment reflects […]
NYT: The Center Is Right in France
Are “economic experts” really gratified by French President Francois Hollande’s economic policy ideas? The New York Times cites one, but it’s not hard to find other economists who offer a very different take.
Zakaria’s Fantastic Economic Advice
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria– with an assist from the Wall Street Journal–divided Latin American economies into winners and losers. But does it all add up?
USA Today a Go-To Paper for Right-Wing Press Releases
When a paper runs a puff piece actually headlined “When It Comes to Testimony, He’s a Go-To Guy,” that’s way better than a full-page ad. That’s the favor that USA Today extended to right-wing economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
Paul Ryan, Poverty Fighter?
Let’s say you’re best known for coming up with a federal budget blueprint that slashed tax rates for the wealthy and proposed big cuts to anti-poverty safety net programs, but now you want to be known as a guy who really cares about fighting poverty. Lucky for you, the Washington Post is here to help.
CNN Host Sticks Up for the Biggest Bank
Before she was a reporter, CNN host Erin Burnett worked on Wall Street. Evidently she still sees things from that perspective. On October 21, Burnett took time on her show OutFront to criticize the Justice Department’s reported $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase. The bank is apparently ready to settle over a variety of claims […]
TV Host Tired of ‘Partisan Games,’ Keeps Playing Them Anyway
Bob Schieffer isn’t just a guy with an opinion about what’s not being discussed on TV. He hosts a TV show every week.
‘Searing Memories of Defaults’—and Selective Memory at the New York Times
It’s true that Mexico’s default on its debts in 1982 was followed by years of hard times. But Argentine and Russian memories of default are far less “searing”
Occupy and Inequality: Zakaria Listens to CEOs
CNN host Fareed Zakaria dedicated a portion of his October 13 CNN show to a discussion of income inequality and the second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. The guests? Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and two other CEOs.
Apologizing for Inequality Is a Growth Industry
USA Today’s op-ed from a Manhattan Institute fellow makes is a dubious claim. But it doesn’t back up at all the sweeping assertion made in the headline.
Mike Konczal on Economic Collapse, Hugh MacMillan on Fracking Study
This week on CounterSpin: Media tell us this week marks the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis since it was in September 2008 that global financial services firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. Meanwhile 6 in 10 tell pollsters they don’t think the country could avoid another collapse, which the Washington Post write-up called a “pessimistic outlook.” But are people pessimistic or realistic in saying they just don’t think there’s been sufficient action taken to really change things? We’ll hear from financial blogger Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute about that.
Also on CounterSpin today, a new study of the controversial gas drilling tactic known as fracking seems to be good news for the industry—no surprise, since they funded it. But are the findings about methane leaks as good as the press reports make them sound? We’ll put that question to Hugh MacMillan of the group Food and Water Watch.
ABC: War Might Mess Up Your 401K!
Looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average to explain anything is almost never a good idea.
NYT’s Bruni: Don’t Blame Bloomberg for Inequality—He Didn’t Mean It
As an op-ed columnist, Frank Bruni was a heck of a restaurant critic. That was demonstrated once again by his farewell (New York Times, 9/10/13) to outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who Bruni thinks is getting a bum rap from the Democrats who are vying in the primaries today for a chance to […]
Washington Post: Big Government…Isn’t That Big
The Washington Post wanted to show that big government was still big–but they wound up showing readers mostly the opposite.
NYT Sees Shift in Global Economy—by Using a Lot of Imagination
You begin to see why Nathaniel Popper doesn’t include numbers–because they completely contradict his thesis of a dramatic shift in global growth patterns.
Chris Toensing on Egypt, Bryce Covert on Sequestration
This week on CounterSpin: As a big part of the media discussion on Egypt’s coup focuses on whether it was indeed a coup, Middle East Report editor Chris Toensing says we are asking the wrong questions. He’ll join us to talk Egypt, year three.
Also on the show: Public broadcastingss Gwen Ifill says, media “spend a long time talking about the sequester and the fiscal cliff and all of these terrible things which are about to happen. They didn’t really happen.” Should we all be as relieved as Ifill suggests about the real world impact of sequestration? We’ll hear from Nation contributor and ThinkProgress economic policy editor Bryce Covert.
Working Poor Shorted in Minimum Wage Coverage
It’s hard to imagine news coverage of military regulations that excludes Pentagon officials, or a discussion of derivatives trading that leaves out Wall Street executives—those directly affected by policy outcomes. But that’s how corporate media cover the minimum wage story, according to a new study by Extra! that finds low-wage workers are largely excluded from […]
