What Rhymes With Derp?

The CJR wants to know.

CNBC, that font of misinformation, would like you to know that “Anyone who ran a company with a balance sheet that looked like the U.S. probably wouldn’t have a company anymore.” 

Of course, nobody can run a company with a balance sheet like the US, which is why it’s always a mistake to compare the US government to a corporation, much less a household. The government can pass taxes and print money. You and I can’t.

But wait... it gets better...

Perhaps worse even than CNBC’s balance-sheet boo-boo is this whopper: 

The declining national deficit this year due primarily to sequestration budget cuts has provided some optimism that the problem is becoming more manageable. 

That’s flat false. 

Higher tax receipts accounted for nearly 80 percent of the decline in the deficit. Government spending declined by $84 billion in fiscal year 2013, and sequestration was responsible for about $42 billion of that. 

Tax receipts, meantime, rose $325 billion, accounting for the vast majority of the decline in the deficit. 

CNBC is challenging Fox News for the title of derpiest media outlet.

CNN: Good or Bad?

Hilarious (and depressing)

Glenn Greenwald FTW

In a well-publicized online exchange with New York Times columnist and former editor Bill Keller, Glenn had this to say.

A journalist who is petrified of appearing to express any opinions will often steer clear of declarative sentences about what is true, opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful 'here's-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won't-resolve-the-conflicts' formulation. 

That rewards dishonesty on the part of political and corporate officials who know they can rely on 'objective' reporters to amplify their falsehoods without challenge 

Worse still, this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring 

... 

Worst of all, this model rests on a false conceit. Human beings are not objectivity-driven machines. We all intrinsically perceive and process the world through subjective prisms. What is the value in pretending otherwise?

...honestly disclosing rather than hiding one's subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism. But no journalism – from the most stylistically 'objective' to the most brazenly opinionated – has any real value unless it is grounded in facts, evidence, and verifiable data.

Well said, Mr. Greenwald.

Luke, I AM Your Father! And I am PISSED OFF!!!

Why, oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Listen as rumored "journalist" Luke Russert, son of the late (and most excellent) Tim Russert, asks Nancy Pelosi if she's too old to be Minority Leader of the House.

It's appalling.  I'm appalled.

Fox News has a Moment of Clarity

It was remarkable that, on election night, Fox News actually acted like a real news organization.

[O]n Tuesday night, the people in charge of Fox News were confronted with a stark choice after it became clear that Mr. Romney had fallen short: was Fox, first and foremost, a place for advocacy or a place for news? 

In this moment, at least, Fox chose news.

Despite Karl Rove's tantrum, the journalistic instincts of the Fox team broke through the bubble that Fox itself had such a big hand in creating and they reported that, indeed, Ohio had gone to President Obama.

The best journalistic instincts of Fox’s news people kicked in and the hard reality of Mr. Obama’s triumph was allowed to land as it occurred. In doing so, the network avoided marginalizing itself and ended, at least for a night, its war on the president.

So while the GOP goes through it's internal convulsions, perhaps Fox can take a good, hard look at their strategy and help the Republicans break out of their bubble.

 

Ignorance is a Competitive Disadvantage

I believe the phrase you're looking for here is... NO DUH!

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election. 

Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a "Grand Jihad" against America. Seriously? 

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who'd lose worse than George McGovern.

The left does this occasionally, but rarely to this degree.  Nobody on the left would mistake ThinkProgress for The New York Times.  But conservatives frequently cite opinion sites like breitbart.com or Hot Air as if they were "news."  They're not.  Until you figure that out, your competitive disadvantage will endure.

Former Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editor Kicks the Paper in the Nuts

Wow...

I strongly objected to Journal Sentinel's endorsement of Gov. Scott Walker in the recent recall election, the flimsiest reason given for which being that recall shouldn't be favored because of a governor's policy positions. Considering the radical changes rammed through by Walker - the most radical of which were unvoiced by him in his original election campaign - Wisconsin citizens deserved this potential remedy of recall. For the Editorial Board to support retention of Walker despite the radical, hidden agenda he eventually implemented was a disgusting cop-out.

Same goes for ducking the most important contests on this Nov. 6 ballot for president and U.S. senator. I'm aware of the huge workload imposed by the endorsement process in the lead-up to elections, exacerbated at a time of staff shrinkage, but that can hardly justify ducking the very most important contests.

David Behrendt
Edmonds, Wash.

Charlie Pierce is Smarter Than Me

Take it from me, Charlie Pierce over at Esquire is the smartest political writer working today.

There is no question in my mind anymore that the Republican Party has reconfigured itself as a Confederate party. Not because it is so largely white, though it is. Not because it is largely Southern, though it is that, too. And not because it fights so hard for vestigial accoutrements like the Confederate battle flag. The Republican Party is a Confederate party, I think, because that is its view of what the government of the United States should be. It is written quite clearly in the party's platform that the Republicans adopted last week in Tampa: "The Republican party... stands for the rights of individuals, families, faith communities. institutions — and of the States which are their instruments of self-government." 

Or, as John C. Calhoun put it, years earlier: "The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States ... formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities." 

(Writing from his retirement in Virginia, no less an authority than James Madison called bullshit on Calhoun. "The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it.") 

We are not a union of states. That argument lost in Philadelphia in 1789. The Constitution is a covenant between We, the People, not We, the States. The national government is every bit the "instrument of our self-government" as any state is. Nevertheless, the Republican Party has gone full Tenther. Now a lot of it is couched in arguments against the tyranny of EPA regulations and the jackboots of the individual health-care mandate, but there is no question that the driving force of this theory of government is resistance to full African-American citizenship just the way it was in 1860, in 1879, in 1957, and in 1965. And the most obvious manifestation of that resistance today is the staggering welter of voter-suppression laws that have emerged in the years since the president was elected. Almost all of them are being defended on Tenther grounds; Texas is directly challenging the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So-called States Rights is and always has been a cover for racism in America.  The Constitution is a pact between The People, not between The States.

The Newsroom: Tea Party Taliban

This is so awesome.  Imagine a world where this was actually a news program???

Deconstructing Mitt

The audacity.  The chutzpah.  It's positively breathtaking...

By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House.

Matt Taibbi is a scrumptious blend of George Orwell, Hunter S. Thompson, Will Rogers and Edward R. Murrow.  And he is the most important journalist working today.

Charlie Sykes: The Once and Future Douchebag

Why am I not surprised?

Michael Maistelman, a lawyer for defendant Timothy Russell, sent an email to radio talk show host Charlie Sykes on Jan. 22, tipping off Sykes to the likelihood that two other former Walker aides would be charged that week. Those aides, Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch, were charged four days later on Jan. 26.
[...]
Sykes and other defenders of the Republican governor have complained of illegal information leaks on the Doe investigation, which was launched more than two years ago. Sykes' radio program is aired on WTMJ-AM (620). Sykes said he has referred to the investigation as "leaking like a sieve," without putting the blame on prosecutors.

Once a douchebag, always a douchebag. Your "free press" hard at work!

Sykes declined to comment Tuesday on the email he got from Maistelman, who didn't immediately return a call.

Our Dumb Media: Atlantic Wire Edition

Seriously, Atlantic?

Republican Liars

It's who they are.

Matt Taibbi on Imus

A good segment with Matt Taibbi talking about his new investigation in municipal bond rigging.

A Real News Organization

The Wisconsin Reporter bills itself as a "real" news organization.  Their charter states,

WisconsinReporter launched in January 2011 as a division of StateHouseNews. It is a nonpartisan organization, dedicated to playing the watchdog role on state government, while localizing stories to certain districts: La Crosse, Kenosha, Eau Claire, Wausau, Stevens Point, Chippewa, and Beloit.

[...]

StateHouse News Online began in June 2010 and is a product of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting non-partisan, new media journalism.

Sounds like a legitimate news organization.  Until you actually, you know, encounter them in the real world.  Then they look like this exchange with Cognitive Dissidence blogger Jeff Simpson:

Yes, a serious news organization indeed populated by Very Serious People™.  When you can't play the ball, play the man.  That always works.

This tune's for you, Wisconsin Reporter! We can see you for what you are!

The New York Times Blame-Shifts

Shocking, I know...

I wonder which of the NY Times big advertisers made the call to insist on the change...

h/t Naked Capitalism

Hyper-objectivity and a Failure of American Journalism

The events in New York this weekend where already restrained demonstrators were maced for no apparent reason have prompted a re-examination by at least one journalist of the role of journalists in reporting the news not just objectively, but fairly.

New York Times reporter Brian Stelter tweeted that a "battle" was underway on the streets.  Reporter Michael Tracey took exception to this characterization.

As I understand it, if a “battle” is taking place, that means at least two aggressors are “battling” one another. Which would seem to be an odd characterization of yesterday’s events. I wasn’t there, but all the first-hand reports, news stories, video, and eyewitness testimonies suggest that the NYPD was quite clearly responsible for escalating tension, at least in certain instances — such as when several female protesters were indiscriminately maced in the face.

So I had a question for Stelter — what evidence indicated to him that a “battle” had taken place yesterday, or in other words, what evidence indicated that protestors had “battled” police? Again, the term “battle” implies the participation at least two parties, but there is no reason (as yet) to believe that protestors attacked police. Here’s what Stelter said in response: “I used the word “battle” in an attempt not to judge either side.”

Let’s think about this. “In an attempt not to judge either side,” Stelter characterized both sides as “battlers.” How is that not a judgement in of itself? There is clear evidence that police attacked protestors, but no evidence that protestors attacked police, yet Stelter casts both in exactly the same light because he presumably feels that upholding a sacred standard of impartiality is his prime journalistic duty. Even with video evidence available, Stelter shies away from accurately conveying what transpired, because it’s of paramount importance to remain “impartial,” no matter what, always.

This is a perfect manifestation of the pathology of objectivity. Stelter evidently was not interested in accurately portraying the facts. Rather, he obscured them.

Spraying mace into a crowd of captive demonstrators isn't a battle, it's torture.

Krugsandra and the WSJ

Krugsandra reviews a generation of epic wrongness found in the OpEd pages of the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ editorial page comes across as the work of people who love the rich (unless they support liberal causes), hate liberals and the poor, and feel personally affronted by lucky duckies too poor to pay income taxes; and a significant number of well-heeled readers see this and say, “those are my kind of people!”

Why News of the World (probably) Won't Happen Here

Columbia Journalism Review:

The Wall Street Journal’s special committee on editorial integrity (true, rather hapless as oversight bodies go ) felt compelled to assure readers this morning that hacking and bribery do not, repeat not, take place even at my old paper, perish the thought.

But, actually, the answer is no, you won’t see a NotW-style scandal unfurling here anytime soon.

The first thing to keep in mind is the sheer scale of NotW-gate—rampant criminal activity on an institutional scale, an entire newsroom running amok, with, as we’re learning, active participation of top editors, including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks (who herself told Parliament of paying police for information, before saying she couldn’t remember actual instances). On top of this, NotW includes senior News Corp. figures playing key roles in keeping the crimes under wraps, including Les Hinton who told Parliament he had checked thoroughly and found it was only a single reporter, and James Murdoch, now deputy COO, who authorized payments to hacking victims and was well-briefed on what it was about, despite what he told Parliament. (For a nice summary of #hackgate sins, see Chittum.)