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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Matt Welch Debate Franklin Foer and Gabriel Sherman Tonight About "How Fox and MSNBC Are Transforming American Politics"!
Matt Welch Debate Franklin Foer and Gabriel Sherman Tonight About "How Fox and MSNBC Are Transforming American Politics"!
Tonight beginning at 6 PM atPolicy Lounge (yes that's the kind of name they give to bar/restaurants around here), I will be participating in a boozy panel discussion, organized by the New America Foundation, entitled "Red Channel, Blue Channel: How Fox and MSNBC Are Transforming American Politics." From the New America write-up:The success of Fox News - measured in terms of viewership, profits or influence - has been impressive, so it's not surprising that a more traditional news operation like NBC has sought to emulate its preaching-to-the-choir approach, at least on cable TV. This partisan TV trend, moreover, reflects the broader "sorting out" in our culture, in which consumers of news and information increasingly create virtual communities of like-minded souls, catered to by like-minded content providers.For better or for worse, the notion of impartial sources of news and information that curate "the truth" for Americans of all political persuasions is becoming an anachronism. Is the trend towards more partisan TV fostering higher levels of civic engagement, as some have argued? Or is it contributing to a nastier, zero-sum form of political discourse?
Come ponder these questions over cocktails and conversation featuring New America Schwartz Fellow and New Republic Editor Frank Foer, New York Magazine Contributing Editor Gabriel Sherman (the author of a forthcoming book on Fox News which will be published by Random House in 2013) and Matt Welch, editor-in-chief of Reasonmagazine.
Should run until at least 8 PM; there's RSVP info at the link. Come on out to 1904 14th Street, NW and join the hecklers!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
BigHomo: SMASH vs Star Trek
BigHomo: SMASH vs Star Trek: Was last night's ebony and ivory make out session on composer Tom Levitt's leather couch network prime time TV's first interracial gay ma...
Washington Post tries to censor bad news for Obama...
Tea Party -- One Lump or Two?: Washington Post tries to censor bad news for Obama...: Washington Post: We Tried To Bury That Story About ObamaCare Blowing Up The Deficit By Sean Higgins Mon., April 16, 2012 @ Investors.com
Washington Post: We Tried To Bury That Story About ObamaCare Blowing Up The Deficit
By Sean Higgins
Mon., April 16, 2012 6:31 PM ET
Tags: Media - ObamaCare - Deficit - Economy
Washington Post columnist Patrick Pexton made a rather startling admission in the paper’s Sunday edition: The Post never meant for their recent story about how President Obama’s health care law expands the budget deficit to become a viral Internet sensation. In fact, they deliberately tried to bury the story.
Putting the story (inside the paper) on A3 was the right judgment for a print publication. (Story author Lori) Montgomery urged her editors, correctly, not to put it on the front page: it wasn’t worth that.
The story in question was titled “Health care law will add $340 billion to deficit, new study finds.” It pointed out that the administration had double-counted Medicare savings in the law and once you adjusted for that it added to the deficit rather than reducing it, as the White House has claimed. This is pretty significant news and was soon repeated and reposted throughout the web.
Pexton, the Post’s resident ombudsman (an in-house critic-scold for those not familiar with journo-speak), admits that they are ambivalent about this success, calling story’s popularity a reflection of our “our reactive, partisan, hyperventilating media culture.”
You see the research was done by Charles Blahous, a Republican appointee to Medicare and Social Security’s board of trustees. Several readers responded by telling Pexton that this GOP association (somehow) tainted the data and should be ignored, despite the fact that Blahous was approved by Obama in 2010.
“Republicans say yes, it’s an accounting trick, Democrats and the CBO say no, it’s the only realistic way to do it,” wrote Pexton. So, who is right in this dispute? Don’t ask Pexton, who offered no opinion and instead seemed to want to wash his hands of the whole matter:
We in the media like the Web traffic that a story like this attracts. It quickens the media pulse; we all get a frisson of pleasure from being viral on the Internet for a day.
But I’m not sure the truth wins. The truth is that every complex law change, every annual federal budget, is a risk. They’re all based on assumptions and forecasts that may or may not come true. And when they don’t, Congress and the president have to adjust.
Well, one way to ensure that the truth wins out is is to report all the facts to your readers. And putting it on the front page is one way to get it to them. Just sayin’.
Follow Sean Higgins on Twitter: @SeanGHiggins
Share:
Comments
ADD NEW SEARCH
mikeo - Job opening |04-17-2012 14:09:59
In amplification of what False God said: Pontius Pilate's job is open.
Reply
0 0
Steve |04-17-2012 13:58:34
We've been all over this on Common Cents...
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
Reply
1 0
RebeccaH - I wish I could say it was amusing |04-17-2012 12:53:53
to watch Obama's media supporters squirm and wiggle, trying to cover for him and
his disastrous policies. But I'm not amused.
Reply
6 0
Buck Bradley - Accurate but Fake |04-17-2012 10:42:20
Accurate but Fake.
Reply
3 0
Martin L. Shoemaker - Haven't they learned by now? |04-17-2012 10:29:29
In this day, Google is your front page. Drudge is your front page. Huffington
Post is your front page. The only way to bury a story today is to not print it.
Printing it on page A-7 is printing it on the front page if anyone finds it
newswortyhy.
Reply
1 0
Ann in L.A. - CBO does what it's told |04-17-2012 09:33:03
Saying that the CBO allows the double counting is silly. The CBO gets
instructions from politicians on how to do their accounting, uses those
instructions only, and puts out their estimates with those politician-blessed
instructions.
If the instructions contained a line to include the sale of the
Moon to a bunch of speculators from Mars, that's what the CBO would do.
Reply
6 0
Disgusted |04-17-2012 08:32:12
But I’m not sure the truth wins. The truth is that every complex law change,
every annual federal budget, is a risk. They’re all based on assumptions and
forecasts that may or may not come true. And when they don’t, Congress and the
president have to adjust.
************
And Congress telling the CBO to
double count Medicare savings was just one of those things that couldn't be
predicted or avoided? What utter BS! Obama and the Democrats deliberately lied
about the true cost of Obamacare so they could sell the public another lie (that
it wouldn't add to the deficit). But informing the public of that fact is a bad
idea, says the Washington Post, because the bitter clingers might not like being
lied to by their Beneficient Leader, who's so much smarter and better than them
anyway.
Reply
7 0
Karensky - ...some experts say... |04-17-2012 07:35:31
Pexton's comment that he cannot will not determine the truth is so very
revealing.
Reply
6 0
roger rainey |04-17-2012 06:39:32
Since when does a reporter argue NOT to have her story on the front page?
Reply
5 0
LTodd |04-17-2012 03:15:16
"story’s popularity a reflection of our 'our reactive, partisan,
hyperventilating media culture.'"
Sniff, sniff goes WaPo.
We don't believe
the public deserves this information because we don't like what they will do
with it.
Cough, cough.
Reply
8 0
Ron Nord |04-17-2012 03:11:57
To read newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post for factual
news you have to go to the back pages, way past page 10 and always below the 3rd
paragraph. The preceding pages is propaganda for the useful idiots and the
unionized government workers. The first pages are the party line to be used
that week, reminds me of Pravda and Izvestia somehow.
Reply
7 0
Rich - Buried? |04-17-2012 03:
Washington Post: We Tried To Bury That Story About ObamaCare Blowing Up The Deficit
By Sean Higgins
Mon., April 16, 2012 6:31 PM ET
Tags: Media - ObamaCare - Deficit - Economy
Washington Post columnist Patrick Pexton made a rather startling admission in the paper’s Sunday edition: The Post never meant for their recent story about how President Obama’s health care law expands the budget deficit to become a viral Internet sensation. In fact, they deliberately tried to bury the story.
Putting the story (inside the paper) on A3 was the right judgment for a print publication. (Story author Lori) Montgomery urged her editors, correctly, not to put it on the front page: it wasn’t worth that.
The story in question was titled “Health care law will add $340 billion to deficit, new study finds.” It pointed out that the administration had double-counted Medicare savings in the law and once you adjusted for that it added to the deficit rather than reducing it, as the White House has claimed. This is pretty significant news and was soon repeated and reposted throughout the web.
Pexton, the Post’s resident ombudsman (an in-house critic-scold for those not familiar with journo-speak), admits that they are ambivalent about this success, calling story’s popularity a reflection of our “our reactive, partisan, hyperventilating media culture.”
You see the research was done by Charles Blahous, a Republican appointee to Medicare and Social Security’s board of trustees. Several readers responded by telling Pexton that this GOP association (somehow) tainted the data and should be ignored, despite the fact that Blahous was approved by Obama in 2010.
“Republicans say yes, it’s an accounting trick, Democrats and the CBO say no, it’s the only realistic way to do it,” wrote Pexton. So, who is right in this dispute? Don’t ask Pexton, who offered no opinion and instead seemed to want to wash his hands of the whole matter:
We in the media like the Web traffic that a story like this attracts. It quickens the media pulse; we all get a frisson of pleasure from being viral on the Internet for a day.
But I’m not sure the truth wins. The truth is that every complex law change, every annual federal budget, is a risk. They’re all based on assumptions and forecasts that may or may not come true. And when they don’t, Congress and the president have to adjust.
Well, one way to ensure that the truth wins out is is to report all the facts to your readers. And putting it on the front page is one way to get it to them. Just sayin’.
Follow Sean Higgins on Twitter: @SeanGHiggins
Share:
Comments
ADD NEW SEARCH
mikeo - Job opening |04-17-2012 14:09:59
In amplification of what False God said: Pontius Pilate's job is open.
Reply
0 0
Steve |04-17-2012 13:58:34
We've been all over this on Common Cents...
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
Reply
1 0
RebeccaH - I wish I could say it was amusing |04-17-2012 12:53:53
to watch Obama's media supporters squirm and wiggle, trying to cover for him and
his disastrous policies. But I'm not amused.
Reply
6 0
Buck Bradley - Accurate but Fake |04-17-2012 10:42:20
Accurate but Fake.
Reply
3 0
Martin L. Shoemaker - Haven't they learned by now? |04-17-2012 10:29:29
In this day, Google is your front page. Drudge is your front page. Huffington
Post is your front page. The only way to bury a story today is to not print it.
Printing it on page A-7 is printing it on the front page if anyone finds it
newswortyhy.
Reply
1 0
Ann in L.A. - CBO does what it's told |04-17-2012 09:33:03
Saying that the CBO allows the double counting is silly. The CBO gets
instructions from politicians on how to do their accounting, uses those
instructions only, and puts out their estimates with those politician-blessed
instructions.
If the instructions contained a line to include the sale of the
Moon to a bunch of speculators from Mars, that's what the CBO would do.
Reply
6 0
Disgusted |04-17-2012 08:32:12
But I’m not sure the truth wins. The truth is that every complex law change,
every annual federal budget, is a risk. They’re all based on assumptions and
forecasts that may or may not come true. And when they don’t, Congress and the
president have to adjust.
************
And Congress telling the CBO to
double count Medicare savings was just one of those things that couldn't be
predicted or avoided? What utter BS! Obama and the Democrats deliberately lied
about the true cost of Obamacare so they could sell the public another lie (that
it wouldn't add to the deficit). But informing the public of that fact is a bad
idea, says the Washington Post, because the bitter clingers might not like being
lied to by their Beneficient Leader, who's so much smarter and better than them
anyway.
Reply
7 0
Karensky - ...some experts say... |04-17-2012 07:35:31
Pexton's comment that he cannot will not determine the truth is so very
revealing.
Reply
6 0
roger rainey |04-17-2012 06:39:32
Since when does a reporter argue NOT to have her story on the front page?
Reply
5 0
LTodd |04-17-2012 03:15:16
"story’s popularity a reflection of our 'our reactive, partisan,
hyperventilating media culture.'"
Sniff, sniff goes WaPo.
We don't believe
the public deserves this information because we don't like what they will do
with it.
Cough, cough.
Reply
8 0
Ron Nord |04-17-2012 03:11:57
To read newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post for factual
news you have to go to the back pages, way past page 10 and always below the 3rd
paragraph. The preceding pages is propaganda for the useful idiots and the
unionized government workers. The first pages are the party line to be used
that week, reminds me of Pravda and Izvestia somehow.
Reply
7 0
Rich - Buried? |04-17-2012 03:
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
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