In what will presumably be one of her final columns as NPR ombudswoman, Alicia Shepard has chosen to address concerns about a $1.8 million grant that the Open Society Institute made to NPR back in October of last year. As Shepard points out, the money is directed at a worthy cause: NPR’s Impact on Government project. Shepard explains that “the plan is to have two public radio reporters in every state keeping tabs on state government issues that are woefully under-reported by the media. This is to be a multi-media project for radio, the Web and social media.” So far, eight states are involved in a pilot program and audiences will begin to see the results of the project on air next month.
The problem with the grant is political: lefty moneybags George Soros founded the Open Society Institute (OSI has also been a major funder of CJR). With the Juan Williams firing and the James O’Keefe sting video, all NPR needed was another political hot potato to have to juggle in its already too-blistered hands. From Shepard’s column:
The Open Society grant was announced last Oct. 18 - ironically the same day that then NPR analyst Juan Williams made his infamous remark on Fox News about feeling nervous when he sees Arabs in Muslim garb on airplanes. He was later fired.
The timing was awful, as the poorly handled firing led to a firestorm of criticism from the right - many whom believe NPR caters to a liberal audience and that the government has no business funding public radio.
Adding to this, Soros’ foundation also announced last October a $1 million grant to Media Matters, a liberal activist group with a goal to hold Fox News (no fan of NPR) accountable. Soros has also given millions of dollars to other liberal groups, including MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress.
Criticism has not been limited to the right. “No news organization should accept that kind of check from a committed ideologue of any stripe,” wrote media critic Howard Kurtz in the Daily Beast “Even if every journalist hired with the cash from Soros’ foundations is fair and balanced, to coin a phrase, the perception is terrible.”
We all know the right wing blogs and talk show hosts cried foul at the time, but Shepard reveals in her piece that the donation rattled some staffers inside NPR as well.
“I remember the email announcing the Impact of Government project only mentioned the Open Society Institute,” said one staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for obvious reasons. “My cubicle mate immediately said, ‘Isn’t that Soros?’ We Googled to confirm…and were appalled that his name had not been included, as if the company didn’t think it was important or were trying to hide something.”
And:
“I do have problems with it precisely because he is so left wing and were he on the other side I would still have problems with it,” said a long-time NPR producer. “I don’t have a problem with people supporting particular causes but I do have a problem when obvious partisanship spills over into your support of those causes.”
Considering the situation, Shepard goes on to conclude that she is “disappointed” that, in its e-mail announcing the OSI grant, NPR did not explicitly say that George Soros was involved (though his founding of the Institute is hardly a secret). She writes, “They said they intend to publicly launch the project in June, and want to control the rollout of information, including the names of other funders. Diversification of funders would go a long way toward diluting any suspicions about a Soros connection. The sooner NPR can provide a varied list of funders for this project, the quicker valid concerns about perceptions and reality will diminish - if not go away.”
Soros is not "left" anything. He is an intellectual disciple of the conservative-ish (and very smart) philosopher Karl Popper. Soros funds left-ish causes in the U.S.for the same reason he funds right-ish causes in the former USSR - because it suits him, for reasons we can only speculate about.
I'm not trying to find fault here; it's just that describing Soros as "left" is drinking the Glenn Beck Kool Aid.
#1 Posted by marketfrankford, CJR on Wed 25 May 2011 at 01:05 PM
Joel, NPR has some interest in maintaining credibilty with both sides of the aisle, not just one side as you seem to urge. And NPR's critics may demand journalism to suit their tastes, as you charge - gee, no one could ever say that about you or CJR! - but as one of those critics, I would like to see something approximating the level of skepticism and scrutiny brought to bear on the American Left that is already applied to the Right. It is, after all, not in dispute that 'red states' have been out-performing 'blue states' in job and population growth for decades, but except as it influences House redistricting, NPR devotes no resources into asking why - even though it should now be part of the furniture of American journalism. I raise this point because it is relevant to the Soros 'mission' of using the funds to cover state and local government.
Beyond that, NPR knows that in exchange for accepting Soros' money, it legitimizes his other causes, and puts NPR in the same basket with Media Matters.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 25 May 2011 at 01:18 PM
When I see these jerkoffs cry aloud about Pete Peterson, the Kochs, Scaiffe, Reverend freaking Moon, and the horde of millionaires and billionaires that fund the workers in the Wurlitzer such as Dan "the demonizer" Gainor (who you should mention is the main voice behind this campaign) then maybe I'll take their "funding affects content" crying seriously.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 25 May 2011 at 06:33 PM
"hat 'red states' have been out-performing 'blue states' in job and population growth for decades"
To be precise, they have out-proformed in the creation of low paying jobs. And the reason for that and the increase in population is connected to increased immigration, advances in A/C etc...There is not one simple answer to that question.
Getting back to the main point, I agree, NPR should stop apologizing for its existence and go back to doing good journalism (which has been a bit too much "good morning america" of late). And get rid of Cokie Roberts, whose Monday morning chats haven't been useful for at least the last five years.
#4 Posted by Paul Guinnessy, CJR on Thu 26 May 2011 at 10:10 AM
I can't write a research paper contesting Paul Guinnessy's assertion, but I do know that Texas now headquarters more Fortune 500 companies than does New York - which is an amazing development in American economic history, if you think about it. On an anecdotal level, I see a lot more brand-new subdivisions of single-family homes when I ride around out west than I do in, say, liberal New England. And I strongly doubt that the growth of Phoenix suburbs like Mesa and Glendale has been motivated by McJobs. People don't relocate from New Jersey to Tennessee, not long ago a state with a Dogpatch image among Northerners, just to work in minimum-wage jobs.
But, to re-emphasize my original point, neither NPR nor the rest of the mainstream press, which is by coincidence heavily concentrated in the stagnating blue states, exactly explores why the red states have been gaining population and political clout. Are people on Pinch Sulzberger's payroll - or that of George Soros, for that matter - really going to produce those 10-part series' that contradict the editorial advice of the guy who signs their checks, by breaking down and conceding that, yes, it is within the realm of earthly possibility that tax and regulatory policies that are antagonistic to private commerce eventually do have their effect on economically rational decision-makers?
#5 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 26 May 2011 at 05:04 PM
Joel, what ever persuaded you that howard Kurtz does not lean to the right? (And your weasel formulation of not quite asserting that he is on the left, which he surely is not, is not particularly admirable.) Most NPR stations are not on the left, by the way, or interested in good journalism.
I also find your whole premise, that Shepard is somehow correct, to strain credulity. Do Cato Institute sponsorships, eg, get announced as Koch-funded?
Soros is not a "lefty," unless you consider the Democratic Party to be "lefty," lL'affaire Juan WIlliams was ginned up by the right, who screams whenever anyone but them exercises editorial rights.
Paul, I am surprised you found Cokie "useful" at any point in the last 30 years.
#6 Posted by marthar, CJR on Thu 26 May 2011 at 06:56 PM
Marthar, Joel once characterized Andrew freaking Sullivan as a member of "the professional left".
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/left_right_and_center_a_budget.php
And his politifact piece was an embarrassment:
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/testing_the_truth-o-meter.php
I don't mean to be cruel, but Joel is more parrot than person. When he analyzes issues based on left and right, he has no background on the philosophies of "left" and "right" to draw on. Therefore he relies on labels his washington colleagues throw around and - sadly - they are al broken instruments on that level.
So yeah, Kurtz is balanced, Sullivan is a lefty, and who the hell is Elizabeth Warren? Some nobody, I guess. Didn't she have something to do with John Edwards? What a sleaze! What was that? Ensign who? No, I would have heard about that if it were important...
Set your expectations on low here. Things change slowly under this byline, if ever.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 12:21 AM
I actually find Mark's point more interesting than the article's, so forgive me continuing the tangent. There's a deep literature in economic geography on the shift to the Sunbelt. The reasons for the shift vary by sector, but from what I've read, low wages, weak unions, and cheap and open (and yes, lightly regulated) land were the key drivers. Government defense spending has also played a huge role in the development of particular regions in the West and Southwest during the same period -- Orange County being the most famous example.
#8 Posted by Chris N, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 12:38 AM
"I can't write a research paper contesting Paul Guinnessy's assertion, but I do know that Texas now headquarters more Fortune 500 companies than does New York - which is an amazing development in American economic history..But, to re-emphasize my original point, neither NPR nor the rest of the mainstream press, which is by coincidence heavily concentrated in the stagnating blue states, exactly explores why the red states have been gaining population and political clout. "
You mean like Texas's deal with Amazon? Pretty sure Chittum covered that.
Or do you mean how few in the mainstream press is writing articles about the conservative race to the bottom / give everything to the top economic strategy?
Or maybe you want to talk about how the blue states, which have supplied the economic base for the country since the collapse of American manufacturing, subsidize the red conservative states which are experiencing less of the recession than everyone else because their economies get the generous year to year stimulus known as farm subsidizes.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/the_red_state_ripoff.html
Is that it?
And still he goes on...
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 12:49 AM
"Are people on Pinch Sulzberger's payroll - or that of George Soros, for that matter - really going to produce those 10-part series' that contradict the editorial advice of the guy who signs their checks"
Yeah, tell me more about the guys who signs the checks:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525
I really want to hear from conservatives how journalistic and political integrity is harmed by those who sign their checks:
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/why-hasnt-roger-ailes-been-called-out-r
Think about a career in movies Mark. You make an excellent projectionist.
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 12:55 AM
Like Chris N, I find Mark Richards comment that: "It is, after all, not in dispute that 'red states' have been out-performing 'blue states' in job and population growth for decades..." much more interesting than the "Soros Problem at NPR".
This is quite an assertion, and it would indeed be interesting to know what truth there is to this statement, and what the underlying causes might be. I've heard this repeated a few times, mostly by the right, as an argument that conservative policies are somehow better than progressive policies for state economies.
Mark, would you be willing to provide some source references that back up this 'well known fact'?
Thanks.
#11 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 10:25 AM
Rick, all you have to do is Google census data. We had one in 2010. Some tidbits - the 'youngest' state is right-wing Utah, with an average age of under 30. The 'oldest' population is in liberal Maine. Four of the seven most aging states are in 'blue' New England - the population there is even older than in retiree states like Florida and Arizona.
The states with the most population (=jobs) growth are all traditionally 'red' states, though Obama did pick off a few in 2008. However, they are still more Republican than the national median. Texas (6% unemployment) will gain four new Congressional seats as a result of the latest census. California (12% unemployment), by contrast, gains none, the first time this has happened since records began to be kept. When JFK was elected, New York was the most populous state in the union. It is now fourth, passed by Texas and Florida.
I could go on, but you should get the picture. The migration of population and jobs has been going on for a good many years, and matches up with the general upper hand the GOP has had in politics since 1980 or so. Massachusetts is losing a Congressional seat, and it has to be a Democratic seat, since they have no Republican seats to try to give away. Dennis Kucinich's district has lost population to the point where he is considering running from Washington. There has been some drama over Russ Carnahan's seat in Missouri, since it has become depopulated and the Black Caucus is going to throw him into a nearby district against a black Democrat. In 2004, George Bush added six or seven electoral votes simply by holding the states he won in 2000. Population movements shifted the relative power of red states vs. blue states.
NPR devotes quite a lot of air time to the ethnic composition of census demographics, but it has never addressed the case of regional re-distribution of people, and the implicit causes of it, which is my problem with NPR's coverage. Liberals have no explanation for why California is stagnating in job creation and population growth - with all the advantages California would seem to have - though New York started to decline relative to the rest of the country in exactly the same pattern half a century ago. You would think that an investigation of the Golden State's chronic dysfunction might timidly suggest that the idea of economic growth as undesirable may have something to do with this, but it has not occurred within my hearing. The Economist, a foreign publication, ran an article on the contrasting fortunes of California and Texas last year, which (grudgingly, because the editors are culturally liberal and antipathetic toward the conservative GOP base) concluded that, yes, there was a connection between the political cultures of the two states which accounted for their likely future outcomes. But the American press, which is overwhelmingly based in 'blue' environments, has averted its eyes from the trade-offs between a kind of affluent lifestyle leftism and rough economic outcomes for the less well-off. You don't hear much anymore about illegal immigration in California anymore, because that's not where jobs and opportunities exist for the poor but ambitious. You hear about it in conservative states like Arizona, Utah, Georgia, North Carolina, because that's where the illegals are going now. And they are going there for the same reasons that internal migrations have been away from the Democratic states.
Really, there's no amount of reality that Democratic partisans will not deny if it suggests that their party's nostrums involve trade-offs that may result in worse outcomes for the people they supposedly care about. You can acknowledge such trade-offs without being less of a Democrat. What you can't do is deny that trade-offs exist, and that pro-Democratic states are aging and stagnating in terms of population growth relative to pro-Republican states. The attempts by NY-based media to
#12 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 07:56 PM
As for my old friend Thimbles, I appreciate his unintentional confirmation that there is more similarity between Fox on the one hand, and NPR & the NY Times on the other, when it comes to political framing and slanting, than a lot of chattering-class people are willing to admit. When it comes to coverage of domestic politics, I don't see a lot of difference between what I see of Fox (unquestionably right-leaning, as I've acknowledge to Thim many times) and what I read in the Times or hear on NPR. Just different partisan preferences.
#13 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 27 May 2011 at 08:01 PM
Mark, I was looking for a reference that makes the case that red states are doing better economically than blue states, and that ties the outperformance to red state policies. Something written, something with statistics and arguments to back it up.
You said: "I could go on, but you should get the picture" - actually I don't. I don't see the direct connection between population growth, and economic performance. To me, it would make more sense to look at the quality of jobs in a given state, and the median incomes. If you are going to focus on population changes, then you'd have to look at the reasons for the population changes, and tie them specifically to policies (not, say, climate). Nor do I see the correlation between the "age" of a state, and it's economic performance.
So I was hoping these arguments had been compiled by someone with some credentials, or at least with some rigorous arguments as to why the conclusions had been drawn in favor of red state policies.
On the other hand, maybe you are not making the assertion that red states are doing better economically - maybe all you're saying is that population growth is higher in red states. That would be a different beast.
#14 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Sat 28 May 2011 at 06:23 AM
"As for my old friend Thimbles, I appreciate his unintentional confirmation that there is more similarity between Fox on the one hand, and NPR & the NY Times on the other, when it comes to political framing and slanting, than a lot of chattering-class people are willing to admit. "
No, what I said is that I'm not interested about even beginning a conversation about the possible alleged effects of a Soros contribution on the coverage of NPR or the politics of whoever cares at the NYTimes while your side not only funds papers and reporters to report from their side - often dishonestly - but also dishonest and slanted think tanks + academics while pledging money - now anonymous - to judicial and political races.
After all, "Are people on Roger Ailes brothers' payroll - or that of the Koch brothers', for that matter - really going to produce those 10-page judicial decisions favoring the rights of the individual over the corporations who bought them? Are they going to write legislation that forces them to act as responsible corporate citizens, paying their taxes and conducting business in a way that doesn't endanger the nation?"
I refuse to talk about Soros and whatever alleged trivial bs you can kick up while your party and institutions are getting documented revenue from dubious sources. You should clean your own disgusting attic before yelping about mine.
#15 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 28 May 2011 at 10:59 AM
Rick, I wrote that the red states are outperforming the blue states in population (i.e.) job growth. I don't find anything you have written that actually refutes the consequent census outcomes I have cited. Instead, I get the not-uncommon passive-aggressive 'prove it to me by writing a research paper' response, with the also frequent bourgeois 'credentialism' questioning, as if the message is less important than the messenger.
I've cited a lot more 'data' than anyone else on this thread, and made a number of empirical statements that can easily be verified or refuted. No one who objected to my original statement has gotten around to actually citing census or other data showing how it is Illinois and Vermont and New Jersey which are gaining jobs and population, while Tennessee and South Carolina are losing. I suspect you know that the Sunbelt states have been performing as I note, because of the 'climate' aside - the alibi of leftists for the movement away from 'their' states has been, well, it's warmer down south. But this contention runs up against a big problem, i.e., the state of California and the correlation between its Democratic Party dominance on the one hand, and its fiscal/political dysfunction on the other, in spite of a great climate and other advantageous factors.
For the rest, you're griping because I won't do on this thread what I charge NPR with not doing - investigating why jobs and population continue to grow in red states much more robustly than in blue states. You can say this doesn't matter, etc., San Francisco is still a great place to live, and so on. But I expect that a lot of blue-state public officials would like to have those red-state job/population stats - for one thing, they result in more representation in Congress. Which fact you also fail to refute. Instead you keep asking for more 'evidence' - usually (i.e., global warming) a sign of deep denial.
#16 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sat 28 May 2011 at 11:15 AM
There's a very specific reason why Mark is picking Texas (which has strong regulation over bank loan activity and has a profitable oil sector to boot) and not places like Nevada to contrast with blue states.
There's a reason why Mark is picking California (which suffered the real estate collapse very badly and has a dysfunctional government - not a liberal one) and not Wisconsin or Vermont.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met_y=unemployment_rate&dl=en&hl=en
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met_y=population&dl=en&hl=en
#17 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 28 May 2011 at 07:19 PM
Allow me to correct some erroneous or incomplete statements about California by Mr. Richard.
1) Around 40% of the entire illegal immigrant population in the US resides in California. The reason Mr. Richard doesn't "hear about it" is because California generally isn't full of enraged, armed xenophobes like Arizona is. That said, illegal immigration in California is a serious problem here. We choose to deal with that burden in more effective ways, however, than stationing armed rightwing lunatics at our borders and allowing psychopathic sheriffs unfettered power to shoot them down at will.
Source: www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/illegal.pdf
2) It's true that our explosive population growth that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s has leveled off. We are kind of glad about that. Here in the Los Angeles area, we thought we'd top 10 million people this census and were surprised to come in under that number. Hopefully, our education and health systems will catch up with the population.
3) I know for a fact that a number of large companies have moved their headquarters out of California. I know personally of two or three major companies that have moved their major operations to Plano, Texas. So Mr. Richard is correct about that with respect to California.
The major reason for #2 and #3 above is housing costs and wages. If you go here Real Estate Sales Statistics, Economic Indicators, Forecasts & More and look at the Housing Affordability Index is a table of median wages and median house prices by region -- lower wages, lower housing costs in the South and Midwest compared to the Northeast and the West. Note the difference in qualifying income.
At that Realtor.org site, you'll also find a table of Median Sales Prices for Single-Family Homes by Metropolitan Area. You'll see that the median sales price for a home in Los Angeles Metro area is $316,000 down from 402,000; the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area it is 143,800.
And Mr. Richard is correct that it is cheaper to do business in Texas: taxes are lower, fewer environmental and safe workplace regulations. These last items are really the only issues that have much to do with politics, i.e., red state/blue state.
It's true that California's government is profoundly dysfunctional. The California Republican Party is a marginalized, extremist minority, and the Democratic Party is calcified and corrupt. Historically, until the 1990s, California was a reliable conservative Republican state. But it was the kind of Republican like my father was -- rock-ribbed cloth-coat Republican, not the seething extremist xenophobic lunatics of today's Republican Party. Changing demographics and the emerging extremism of the Republican Party has turned the state blue on the federal level. I expect the same evolution to occur in Texas over the next few years.
See, people aren't moving to Texas because of the politics. They don't move there because it is a red state. They are moving there because they can afford to live there. They are bringing their politics with them.
#18 Posted by James, CJR on Sun 29 May 2011 at 12:52 AM
To James, thanks for your comments. As I said, and as you agree, you don't hear much about the 'illegal immigration' problem in California anymore. There are still a lot of 'illegals' in California - there are a lot in Texas, too - but, as you say, not much organized political opposition. The people who would make a fuss about it were overruled by the courts. Maybe they gave up and moved away.
To Thimbles, I chose Texas and California because they are the two largest states in the country, and thus provide a striking comparison as political laboratories.
I would like to remind my friends that CJR is ostensibly a journalism review, not a political sheet, and my comments had more to do with the lack of coverage of the trend (unrefuted, though denounced on this thread) of population and jobs away from blue states and toward red states. There are many reasons, which NPR could offer its listeners, but the big picture is as clear as a census map. It raises the perennial question of whether that new organization is willing to acknowledge facts that may be difficult to explain for its urban listeners and neighbors. Recently the Washington Post and NY Times have a approached the problem, predictably, through the prism of white-liberal racial concerns, i.e., that African-Americans have been drifting back to the South, and this spells trouble for those district lines drawn specifically on race-based geographical assumptions. The bigger picture is artfully avoided.
#19 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sun 29 May 2011 at 11:38 AM
In fact, Mr. Richard, NPR has covered recent stories on the 2010 census quite a bit, and much of it has been focused on the "big picture", or the trends in migration with respect to age, race, jobs, etc. You can see some of the recent coverage here: census source:npr - Google News. (That's just a seat-of-the-pants quick google search, not meant to be comprehensive.)
I do agree with you that coverage of much of race-based migration trends in the mainstream media has been approached from the perspective of how white people might react to the news. (OMG! Blacks are moving back to the South!) I also think it is noxious to focus solely on the political aspects of this data. (OMG! This is bad news for the Democrats!) This kind of approach is not specific to NPR. And I also agree with you that the national media is dominated by the perspective of the Northeastern elite -- the overwhelming number of national journos come out of the Northeastern elite universities, and that white, Northeastern, upper middle class point of view is terribly narrow and exclusive.
Where I disagree is that this narrow, exclusive point of view is liberal. It isn't. It is biased towards class, but it slants conservative, and has for 20 years. Now, you and I might disagree what constitutes "liberal," but Washington Post and NBC and CBS and ABC and CNN and New York Times and NPR are not liberal. They may seem liberal to you, because you are positioned so far to the right. But theirs is in no way a liberal point of view.
#20 Posted by James, CJR on Sun 29 May 2011 at 07:46 PM
yeah I know why you chose texas but it doesn't make a difference. Your point was that red states have experienced population growth and job growth based on the popularity of right wing policy. If you are going to claim that then you should look at more typical red states like Nevada and Arizona and more typical blue states like Wisconsin and Vermont. You'll see that indeed there was a population surge followed by an employment crash. Then, if you look at other metrics, you find red states trail in education and receive more money from the federal government than they contribute. What you see, and this is true of human nature since Lot and Sodom, is that in good times everyone wants to be an individual and they let the community collapse because "why should I have to support such and such?"
In bad times, community doesn't seem so bad, and a-holes who keep villianizing it get unpopular real quick.
Wait and see.
#21 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 29 May 2011 at 08:04 PM
James, thanks for the link. I looked at all the articles. None of them address the obvious - red states are younger and growing, blue states are older and relatively stagnant. The first round of critics, mainly Rick, disputed this. Now Thimbles is conceding it, but offering his reasons why. I've heard the 'the red states get more federal money' point - but the red states usually have gotten more federal money, especially out west, in no small measure because the feds still retain so much direct ownership there. It doesn't explain what has changed - changed - in the past half-century, change which has affected American population demographics.
It isn't just the United States. China threw away Maoist socialism and became dynamic. India reformed its colonial inheritance of English socialism and is now another Asian tiger. Social-democratic Europe has had high unemployment and low job growth for a generation, and youths have taken to rioting in France and Spain because there are no jobs. I don't need a road map to get from a lot of employer mandates there to unemployed, unskilled 20 year-olds. There are a lot of cultural reasons why societies are dynamic and why they are static. But the movement toward markets and growth is, again, unmistakable after the 20th century. NPR listeners have no idea why. They still live in a world in which you can tax and regulate the hell out of productive activity and there are no negative consequences. I just find that to be as reality-challenged as anything liberals charge conservatives with believing.
#22 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 30 May 2011 at 07:25 AM
Mark Richard wrote: "But the movement toward markets and growth is, again, unmistakable after the 20th century. NPR listeners have no idea why. They still live in a world in which you can tax and regulate the hell out of productive activity and there are no negative consequences"
padikiller lauds: Slam dunk!
Socialism is failing all over the world - riots, unemployment and debt plague the most socialist states - like Greece, Spain and Italy - while countries like China and India that have eschewed socialism have seen their economies and standards of living skyrocket.
That "commie" thing just doesn't work, but that "free market" thing is a sure bet, and Mark is spot on in pointing out the fact that NPR has not addressed this little undeniable slice of reality.
#23 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 30 May 2011 at 12:23 PM
Well, Mr. Richard, you advance a number of hypotheses there that are not supported by the data. The Census bureau put out an excellent brief earlier this year with respect to US population dynamics here: www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-01.pdf. It's actually quite fascinating, and there on page 5, which is a closer look at changes in population at the county level refutes your generalization about red/blue and regulation/no regulation.
The counties that lost population were mostly regionally clustered and mirrored decades of population loss for those areas; for example, many Appalachian counties in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia; many Great Plains counties in the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas; and a group of counties in and around the Mississippi Delta saw population declines. In addition, many counties along the Great Lakes and on the northern U.S. border either lost population or grew below 10 percent.
But do read the whole thing, because there is other data there that support some of your assertions.
I'm not trying to prove you wrong here, but to note (again) that changes at the population level are much more complex than you claim they are, and attributing those changes to narrow political dogma is a mistake.
But with respect to NPR, like every mainstream media organization, not only is it not their purview to interpret the complexity of the underlying dynamics of newly released Census data, but if they did, they'd probably get it as wrong as you have. Yet you insist that NPR should be capable of reporting this, and that they should interpret these changes according to your preferred political dogma, which are hypotheses that are largely impossible to prove and in many respects, just not supported by the evidence. Not to say you are entirely wrong, but I think that the data shows a far more complex story than you admit.
All of that said, it would be good if we, and the media, could put the narrow political agendas and shallow headline-mongering aside to have a better, more complete discussion about immigration, market forces, regulation, and other important policy issues of our time, based on the available data. I'm not optimistic that it will happen anytime soon.
#24 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 30 May 2011 at 01:21 PM
"They still live in a world in which you can tax and regulate the hell out of productive activity and there are no negative consequences."
Funny that. I live in Japan. Lots of people live of the Mexico coast. Tons of people live in those red states where predatory loans and bank law breaking in the rush to foreclose have depressed real estate values and the economy.
I wonder what they'll say when you try to pass your "regulate the hell out of productive activity" hokum. I wonder what they'll say when you trade their schools and entitlements for tax cuts for the rich. Keep talking Mark.
#25 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 30 May 2011 at 06:13 PM
Mark, you've criticized NPR for failing to cover the 'well known' fact that red states have been outperforming blue states in population and job growth over the last few decades. Implicit in your criticism is the assertion that red state policies are responsible for this trend. I am not questioning the population growth facts; what I'm questioning is the job growth claims, the quality of the jobs, and the reasons for the decades old trend. If it is so 'well known', then I had thought there would be an article somewhere that makes the case. My guess, based on what you've said so far, is that this is not 'well known', and that the conclusions you've come to are driven by your bias. It's easy to cherry pick data for claims like this.
It's not unreasonable to ask for a reference. If you're going to make a claim, you ought to be able to substantiate it. And if you're going to criticize a news outlet for not covering something, then there ought to be good reason why it's worth covering. So far, you haven't provided one.
#26 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 01:16 PM
Rick, just to use your own words, you don't question the population growth facts. Good. Texas has grown enough to gain four Congressional seats, while California has gained zero. Stay with me here. Texas nevertheless has an unemployment rate about half of California's. (Both figures, for economy's sake, can be found in The Economist of July 9, 2009.) California can't create jobs for the stable population it has, while Texas has created jobs for the growing population it has. Unless your math is more metaphysical than mine, Texas (to take the most obvious red-state example) is creating jobs to go with that population growth. California is killing them, though stagnant in population growth relative to Texas. Sorry, but that's a story - one NPR won't even look into. News organizations have a tendency to not even think about stories outside their institutional-culture box. Why is the growth in the Hispanic population a story, but the growth of the red-state populations - a story with much greater effect on seats in Congress and electoral votes - is treated simply as something that . . . happened?
The 'quality of jobs' point is strictly, well, qualitative. Young or unskilled workers need those jobs that more affluent people look at down their snoots as 'McJobs', because they provide training in job skills (in Texas) that you don't get from being unemployed (in California). I expect that job creation across the board, from low-skilled to high, has improved in Texas. In the meantime, for a symbolic tale of how the Golden State now strangles small businesses in the cradle, you can consult the same publication's May 19 issue on the budding yogurt entrepreneur.
For the rest, you'll have to wade through some census data, easily scanned by Googling (among others) 2010census.gov.
#27 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 08:15 PM
I don't understand why you believe, Mr. Richards, that the particular piece of information, with your narrow interpretation, is all that interesting to the majority of people. It isn't.
The fact that Texas gained Congressional seats, and California didn't, was covered when that part of the census results were released, by the entirety of the mainstream media including NPR, in large headlines. So they reported it and moved on. I can't understand why the bitterness that any organization, including NPR, hasn't flogged that particular, relatively uninteresting bit, and reported it from your sketchy and incomplete prism of rightwing dogma. That's not what any respectable news organization does, or should do.
In fact, here is a quite interesting census brief that shows the growth of the Hispanic population, including in Texas, which experienced a 40% growth. California's total population is not "stagnant" but grew 10% and the Hispanic population in California grew almost 28%. www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf (Table 2). So you are just blowing smoke there.
In fact, NPR covered the redistricting story at length: census redistricting site:www.npr.org - Google Search. Then they went on to other news. End of story.
#28 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 11:49 PM
James, what NPR averts its eyes from is the cause of the population movements and job statistics. You don't deny that, instead you deny that reasons for population movements are not important. Not important to head-in-the-sand Democrats, maybe. The MSM has lost a lot of credibility by refusing to cover news challenging liberal orthodoxy by saying 'there's no story there'. It is only the strongest reason behind the rise of the Republican Party since about 1980.
According to a 'correction' to a speech by Rick Perry by Polifact today, Texas almost created more new jobs in 2010 than all other states combined (Perry claimed it had created over half). You would not know that from following NPR or any other tired and narrowly-focused liberal-establishment outlet. Sorry, but that's news, especially in a recession/sluggish recovery.
If California's population grew 10% in a decade, that's less than 1% a year, and falls under the category of 'stagnant', especially in relation to the rest of the country, and especially given California's historical role as a population magnet.
Beyond that - peace. I think we've about beaten this topic to death. We will have to agree to disagree about whether population movements just sort of happen randomly, or whether there are political implications behind them - and in front of them.
#29 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 1 Jun 2011 at 12:55 PM
I agree with James. Mark and his conservative friends are looking at a very limited set of statistics, and extrapolating broad conclusions based on a conservative right perspective. Population shifts aren't necessarily the result of economic policies. But the right is eager to make the huge
stretch to this conclusion because it bolsters their economic narrative
of low taxes, small government, and unregulated markets.
How do we know that the population shift (and related job growth) isn't a result of global increases in the demand for energy, or the crash in the California real-estate market, or the extremely low cost of real estate in Texas?
And the success (or lack thereof) of economic policies HAS to take into account the quality of the jobs created. There's just no way around that.
For those who don't jump to conclusions, the story that is supposedly 'well known' is no story at all.
By the way, in attempting to find something like a scholarly research paper that supports Marks arguments, the best I could find was a 'study' done by the "Texas Public Policy Foundation", headed by Arther Laffer; comparing Texas and California during the 1996-2006 decade, and concluding that Texas 'wins' on all counts, because of low taxes. (No bias here, I'm sure.)
http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2008-09-CompetitiveStates-laffer.pdf
Anyway, Fox News, and other conservative outlets were all over it with uncritical reporting. They were similarly enthusiastic about Ireland's Celtic Tiger before the debt crash. They're not talking about that now.
In fact, the bigger story here is not why NPR isn't covering this; instead,
the question is why are the conservative news outlets so heavily emphasizing
this story without any critical reporting.
It will be interesting to see what the impact of Texas' massive budget deficit is on the future of the state. They'll impose huge cuts on
education, infrastructure, and public services. Will the desirability of
Texas hold up after the impacts of these trickle through the
system? We'll see how well Fox News covers that one.
#30 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Sat 4 Jun 2011 at 06:53 AM
NPR isn't covering the story. Neither is Rick. For all the rhetoric, I would repeat to the interested and unaffiliated reader that there is a striking correlation between population growth and job creation on the one hand, and red-state/blue-state politics on the other. Somehow if the reverse were true, I question whether Rick & others would be denying that policy and politics had anything to do with it.
You'd think someone at NPR or elsewhere would be curious enough to ask why. It may be correlation, it may be causation, who knows. Rick didn't even bother to check out and respond to the references I included. He wants a 'scholarly' research reference, rather than, say, an uninformed journalistic source like The Economist - as if any research paper I cited would not be dismissed as biased, you know. He first denied that the reds were growing faster than the blues altogether, then switched to denying that it should matter to NPR or any other journalist. But it undoubtedly matters to a lot of House representatives, mostly Democratic, who will be losiing their seats for the upcoming 2012 elections, and to professionals involved in the presidential election next year, who know that the electoral vote distribution will shift a little more (as a decade ago) to the more conservative states. Bush vs. Gore was decided by an electoral margin that was less than the shift of 7 electoral votes that the 2000 census gave the Bush states.
Asking MSM journalists to look into the reasons for this continued shift should be innocuous enough. The Times and The Post, as I mentioned, have already noted the trend with stories about African-Americans leaving depressed northern districts and returning to the South. The stories even conceded that the reason is economics. Apparently it is newsworthy when African-American population movements are in the direction of politically conservative states, but not as a function of a more general trend. Since when have geographical population trends been meaningless to genuinely professional political reporters, but ethnic population trends (such as the growth in the Hispanic-American population) been laden with policy implications? Since the white urban liberal mind-set became predominant in newsrooms, along with the determination to stuff reality into a little ideological box, that's when.
#31 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sun 5 Jun 2011 at 07:45 PM
Mark, obviously we're not going to come to terms on this. We'll have to agree to disagree.
#32 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Wed 8 Jun 2011 at 03:11 PM