Cognitive Dissonance: Conservative Media Respond to Libya’s Liberation
“This week’s ‘Climate Change: Fact or Fraud’ discussion has been postponed due to the flooding, the sudden blizzard, the firestorm, the tornado warnings, and the hail the size of coconuts.”
(Via “In Coverage of Extreme Weather, Media Downplay Climate Change.”)
vruz:
When you say things like “Other than repeal Obamacare…” during an interview with Michele Bachmann, it makes it look like you’ve bought into her campaign soundbites, which doesn’t make you a journalistic endeavor. It makes you Fox “News.”
i don’t think i agree with this. i feel like they’re trying to move that out of the way so she’ll stop talking about it, and using her words so she doesn’t go on fox news tomorrow and complain about being mocked or gotcha questions.
vruz: +1 in agreement with inothernews.
that kind of rationale sounds to me like “we don’t want her to complain about the difficult adult language of politics, so we’ll lower ourselves down to first grade level —think politics with training wheels — and we’ll homogeneise discourse to inane levels for everybody with language mainly composed of soundbites, buzzwords and falsely ingenious rhyme. YAY!”
Ditto what inothernews and vruz said. And no legitimate journalist should be using the right-wing term “Obamacare.” A) It’s derisive. B) It’s an incorrect term. The “Affordable Care Act” was based on and is nearly identical to the GOP’s “Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act” of 1993, the legislation offered as an alternative to Hillary Clinton’s health care reform package. Obama gave America the GOP’s reform plan. — Ryking
Sunday Breakfast Menu, August 14
Your “liberal” media, ladies and gentleman. Here’s a list of the other guests who will be appearing on the shows; notice the abundance of GOP politicians and center-right reporters, and the corresponding dearth of Democrats and left-wing journalists. ABC and CNN in particular seem to be using Fox’s booker. — Ryking
Why let facts ruin the story? Norwegian comments on US coverage of the Norway terror | openDemocracy (via robot-heart-politics)
(via paxamericana)
![whiporwill:
S&P Blames Republicans by Name in Report on Credit Downgrade, Mainstream Media Continues to Dishonestly Characterize Reasons for Downgrade
Have you seen, anywhere, in any media, or even heard reported or repeated on NPR, the following statement?
“Even assuming that at least $2.1 trillion of the spending reductions the act envisages are implemented, we maintain our view that the U.S. net general government debt burden (all levels of government combined, excluding liquid financial assets) will likely continue to grow. Under our revised base case fiscal scenario—which we consider to be consistent with a ‘AA+’ long-term rating and a negative outlook—we now project that net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 79% in 2015 and 85% by 2021. Even the projected 2015 ratio of sovereign indebtedness is high in relation to those of peer credits and, as noted, would continue to rise under the act’s revised policy settings. Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”
That is: “The downgrade is related to both excessive spending and failure to increase federal revenues, but spending cuts are on the table, have always been on the table, and are part of the current plan.
At issue is the fact that the current make up of Congress is standing in the way of increasing revenue and cutting spending alone will not solve the problem. This has created an unpredictable environment which deems a lower rating on U.S. debt because there may not be enough revenue to handle the debt load that will increase because the spending cuts alone will not be enough.” (explanation from here)
Now back to the article.
It’s right there on Page 4 of the official Standard & Poor’s “Research Update” — the actual report on what they did and why — published on August 5th as the explanation for why they believe Congress — and even the Gang of Twelve — will be unable to actually deal with the US debt crisis. Perhaps it’s just lazy — the bullet points at the beginning of the report don’t mention the Republicans or taxes, but instead just say, for example (part of one of six quick bullet-points):
“[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges”
In order to figure out that one of the reasons why is that “Republicans in the Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” a hard-working reporter would have to read to page four of the eight-page report.
It’s just too much effort for most reporters?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpkw9cw4VD1qzy416o1_500.jpg)
Have you seen, anywhere, in any media, or even heard reported or repeated on NPR, the following statement?
“Even assuming that at least $2.1 trillion of the spending reductions the act envisages are implemented, we maintain our view that the U.S. net general government debt burden (all levels of government combined, excluding liquid financial assets) will likely continue to grow. Under our revised base case fiscal scenario—which we consider to be consistent with a ‘AA+’ long-term rating and a negative outlook—we now project that net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 79% in 2015 and 85% by 2021. Even the projected 2015 ratio of sovereign indebtedness is high in relation to those of peer credits and, as noted, would continue to rise under the act’s revised policy settings. Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”
That is: “The downgrade is related to both excessive spending and failure to increase federal revenues, but spending cuts are on the table, have always been on the table, and are part of the current plan.
At issue is the fact that the current make up of Congress is standing in the way of increasing revenue and cutting spending alone will not solve the problem. This has created an unpredictable environment which deems a lower rating on U.S. debt because there may not be enough revenue to handle the debt load that will increase because the spending cuts alone will not be enough.” (explanation from here)
Now back to the article.
It’s right there on Page 4 of the official Standard & Poor’s “Research Update” — the actual report on what they did and why — published on August 5th as the explanation for why they believe Congress — and even the Gang of Twelve — will be unable to actually deal with the US debt crisis. Perhaps it’s just lazy — the bullet points at the beginning of the report don’t mention the Republicans or taxes, but instead just say, for example (part of one of six quick bullet-points):
“[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges”In order to figure out that one of the reasons why is that “Republicans in the Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” a hard-working reporter would have to read to page four of the eight-page report.
It’s just too much effort for most reporters?
…[T]his week we spotlighted a couple of glaring examples of right-wing smear campaigns that were dressed up as bouts of (misguided) media criticism. We easily detailed how the attacks were bogus and unsustainable, and just as importantly, how none of the players involved, including Daily Caller, Michelle Malkin, Los Angeles Times, and Commentary, did the honorable thing and admitted their mistakes or apologized.
Instead, the [right-wing] media players did the exact opposite and obfuscated and played dumb. Why? Because being part of the [right-wing] media movement means never, ever having to say you’re sorry.
But what gives them such collective confidence to defiantly (proudly?) traffic in obvious misinformation? Answer: The comfort in knowing the mainstream media won’t hold them accountable. In fact, the press might even help explain away the miscues.
(Source: progressivefriends, via alexanderpf)
vruz:
—via runfromtheherd:justjasper:mornings-as-a-mouse:
This isn’t about acts of heroism being publicised, it’s about the fact this particular story has been actively ignored by the mainstream media who usually clamour for these kind of tales of heroism they can touted as human interest.
Boy, if ever there was an ignored news story that should be spread far and wide, this is the one.
Damned liberal media! Oh, wait a minute…
(Source: of-smoke-and-honey)
Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.
So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.
The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president. Once again, health reform — his only major change to government — was modeled on Republican plans, indeed plans coming from the Heritage Foundation. And everything else — including the wrongheaded emphasis on austerity in the face of high unemployment — is according to the conservative playbook.
whether he is Norwegian, or Kansan, or Egyptian, or Sri Lankan, or Pennsylvanian, or British, or Virginian, or Irish, or Palestinian, or Israeli, or from New York, or from Illinois. Politically motivated violence with the intent of causing mass fear is terrorism and it is always abhorrent. By only calling the acts of Muslim extremists terrorism in the media, we implicitly excuse all other terrorists of their crimes.
Calling the president’s speech last night a “30-minute primal scream at the GOP” is a gross mischaracterization.
Little better encapsulates the problems we face in the media than a brief perusal of this morning’s New York Times online. All the old favorites are there: the “both sides do it” waffle, the “Democrats in disarray” switcheroo, the center-right view disguised as the reasonable one, in “contrast” with the featured hyper-conservative view. If it weren’t real, one might even consider it a work of performance art to confirm every blogger’s media critique…
After weeks of Republicans holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to the demands of the Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises cults, the Times’ blaring A1 headline declares Challenge To A Budget Deal: Selling It To Democrats. Yes, Democrats…
No one could possibly imagine why Democrats in Congress wouldn’t go along with a “deal” offering $3 billion in devastating cuts that will only exacerbate a protracted recession and jobless recovery, paired with “overhauls” of the tax code that would likely be regressive overall in nature, and that will be implemented in an election year… Clearly, the ideological rigidity of House Democrats is preventing the President and the Speaker from coming to a reasonable compromise on delivering Fancy Feast to America’s seniors.
The New York Times reports. You decide.
This has been today’s installment of “Liberal media my ASS.” — Ryking
“Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”
