There’s been plenty of talk about NBC‘s decision to skip the news about General Electric‘s ability to make huge profits and pay zero taxes. Now, it’s possible that everyoneat NBC misplaced theircopies of the March 25 New York Times, but the GE story finally made it to the NBC Nightly News yesterday–in a report that was basically a chance for GE boss Jeffrey Immelt, whose company owns nearly half the network, to try and rebut the story.
Anchor Brian Williams started off by saying this:
The news is still reverberating this week after last week’s page-one story in the New York Times….
Now, that is a weird way to describe something you’ve never told your viewers.
Correspondent Lisa Myers went on to explain that this has created an “uproar,” with “liberal groups” up in arms over GE‘s tax avoidance. She adds:
Well, today Immelt defended GE, saying taxes were unusually low in the last two years because of losses during the financial crisis.
She went on:
Immelt says that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, including GE, and that the corporate tax code needs to be reformed to make it more competitive and eliminate loopholes. Also, Brian, Immelt says he does not intend to resign from the president’s council on jobs.
“More competitive” here means that corporate tax rates should be lower–yes, Immelt is arguing that the fact that GE pays no taxes is a reason to lower its tax rate.
So NBC went from avoiding the news to presenting aone-sideddefense of the company, courtesy of the boss. It must be nice to own a TV network.
What would we expect … the big money in this country has bought the news feeds, and why not? Would any of the Big Girls and Boys want the nation to know how corrupt and greedy and malicious and self-serving and twisted they are? How they’re pillaging their own companies, and looting the public treasury? Of course not, so head ’em off at the pass. Buy the news feeds, and even if a rogue journalist, now and then, should get outta line, well, just talk to the boss, and put a stop on it, or hire a few dozen lawyers to spin it backwards and upside down, and then make a publicity statement promoting the company’s innocence and how really it’s interested only in the welfare of the nation. Lie, lie, and lie again, and then claim it for the truth, buy it for the truth, twist and recast it for the truth, and maybe a few million gullible Americans will actually believe the garbage.
This is beyond disgusting, and I can only hope that Americans everywhere will rise up in protest at the prostituting of our news feeds.
Apparently only “liberal groups” should be concerned with a massive corporation failing to pay its taxes. I would think that most conservatives (not on the whole, after all, incredibly wealthy or heads of multinationals) would also harbor some resentment for incredibly wealthy tax cheats.
Why don’t you folks publish a roster of legislators who procured or defended the tax loopholes for the guys? Be sure to annotate the list with specific details.
“There is no such thing at this date of the world’s history in America as an independent press. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinion, and if you did, you know beforehand it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allow my opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it, and I know it, and what folly is this, toasting an independent press? We are the tools and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the Jumping Jacks. They pull the strings, and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
— John Swinton, CEO, New York Times, New York Press Club, April 12, 1953.
The quote from Swinton is thought to be genuine, but the date and his relationship to the New York Times are off. See http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAswintonJ.htm .
RE: Bob Walton above. Kudos!
Give us USEFUL facts, please. (Of course, we would be expecting partisans to be useful.) Most of what FAIR throws our way is red meat we all have a similar opinion about, but in the end is pretty useless information, in that it is not actionable.
++++++Please, give us the *names of the members of the Ways and Means Committee* who **approve** of these tax breaks.++++++ And give us the chance to exact retribution!
And, FAIR’s fund-raising campaigns would be more successful, guaranteed!
Larry…Our race?????What kind of writer are you?Im seeing red flags.Your opinion of journalism is um interesting -to say the least(and the most)I recommend you travel a bit more. Proabably 2 days in Iran, and you would sing a different tune about our free/unfree press.It aint perfect but….
Today it was announced that Government Jobs now make up exactly twice manufacturing jobs.As expected in these Obama times this is exactly what he needs and wants..
More than manufacturing, agriculture and several other things combined.Really we are becoming a liberal bouffet.
GE threw their lot in with Obama ,and the return is immediate.Look at the companies who threw in with BAMS healthcare and received hundreds of millions in kickbacks.Every stat shows you that those of us who told you this was coming were right.
Fix the tax codes huh????How about we just stop handing out favors in backroom deals.And stop union chiefs from “living”in the whitehouse.Cronyism is alive and well.Just behind an elephant instead of a donkey.
Hey Mike, Larry’s entire comment is a direct quote for someone else, and as Jim points out the quote appears to be real but that the person who said it worked for the NY Times in the later part of the 1800’s.
Thanx…..I zipped through it to fast and missed that.Sorry Larry
“The press lives by disclosures making them the common property of the nation; obtaining the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the times is the goal.”
and
“For us, with whom publicity and truth are the air and light of existence, there can be no greater disgrace than to recall from the frank and accurate disclosure of facts as they are. We are bound to tell the truth as we find it, without fear of consequences___to lend no convenient shelter to acts of injustice and oppression, but to consign them at once to the judgment of the world.”
Robert Lowe, London Times in the 1850’s.
The problem I have is that the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Emelt WORKS for Obama! Must be NICE to be buddy buddy with the President of the United States! This is why NBC and MSNBC supported Obama in 08 and still do!! These two “news” channels will NOT report on anything that will hurt Obama’s Favorable Opinion Polls and ATTACK Republicans to make Obama Look Good!!!! “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours! Obama with the help of the Democrat Controlled Congress in 09 and 2010 gave GE 3.5 Billion in TAX CREDITS for 2010 ALONE! Which means, they should of paid that amount in taxes–But Did NOT! I want to see how many more voters are fooled again in 2012! Obama has ALL The bankers working for him (people from Goldman Saks, JP Morgan, Etc) but tells YOU that he is going after the “fat cats” in wallstreet and how the “rich needs to pay more taxes” But If you are a BIG Donor and own a news channel that can cover Obama’s Screw Ups–You Don’t have to pay taxes!!! f you believe that Obama is for the little guy, have a bridge to sell you! NBC and the rest of the liberal media are in Bed with Obama and will NOT Report on the Facts b/c Obama’s poll numbers will plundge and be ao ne term president–Which HE WILL ANYWAY!!!!! WAKE UP!
Obama Makes Nixon Look Like A SAINT!