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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Deficits

1. August 10, 2011 02:44 PM

   The Journal Hypes the Downgrade

   A three-day-old story gets the overkill treatment

   By Ryan Chittum

   That Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. from AAA to AA+ is a big story no doubt. But The Wall Street Journal on Monday went overboard, devoting almost all of the first seven pages of the paper and a good chunk of the Money & Investing section to the downgrade, which happened three days earlier. Bannered across six columns atop...

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2. August 29, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: the national debt, Bailout, ProPublica on campaign finance

   GOP jujitsu on Obama and deficits

   By Ryan Chittum

   Ezra Klein, anticipating a lot of Republicans disingenuously blaming Obama for the national debt, points to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities chart showing that the increase in the debt comes almost entirely from Bush-era policies: Kevin Drum says, "Their success at convincing half the country that Barack Obama is responsible for our soaring debt is surely one of...

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3. October 25, 2011 02:31 PM

   Austerity and Objectivity

   Why are spending cuts contractionary overseas but not here?

   By Ryan Chittum

   The top story in The Wall Street Journal today is interesting for what it says about how American papers are more willing to call it like they see it when they're writing outside the U.S. The piece focuses on new signs of a looming recession in Europe. What's interesting is how the paper explains why the Eurozone economy is faltering...

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4. June 26, 2012 06:50 AM

   Bernanke goes mostly unheard on spending (UPDATED)

   The press continues its spotty coverage of Fed's fiscal views

   By Ryan Chittum

   Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, yet again, publicly called for spending (ADDING: deficit spending, I should say. Bernanke has talked about both programs and tax cuts) from Congress. Yet again, much of the press ignored him. Here's Bernanke in response to a question about whether the Fed should just let Congress and/or market forces work out the economy (by the...

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5. August 8, 2011 01:57 PM

   Blaming the Audience: Almost Always a Bad Idea

   By Ryan Chittum

   Marketplace's Heidi N. Moore lays into a listener for getting upset about Wall Street wanting to cut her entitlements. In a Tumblr post responding to the listener’s letter to Marketplace, Moore says she and the rest of the press are just reporting what powerful people are saying, whether you want to hear it or not.
 Well, take your hands off...

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6. November 20, 2012 02:57 PM

   Rise Above, CNBC’s move into advocacy

   Corporate America's house organ starts an anti-political political campaign

   By Ryan Chittum

   Any time you see Wall Street CEOs and CNBC campaigning for what they call the common good, it's worth raising an eyebrow or two. So it is with CNBC's "Rise Above" crusade, which has blanketed its airwaves and adorned its lapels since the day after the election with pleas for a solution to the so-called "fiscal cliff." You'll note that...

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7. October 30, 2012 06:50 AM

   The ‘downright dangerous’ Paul Krugman

   CNBC's Becky Quick thinks, wrongly, the economist is alone in debunking "fiscal crisis"

   By Ryan Chittum

   This summer, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went on CNBC to talk about his book and ended up getting ambushed by a pack of smug, out of touch, and/or misinformed journalists, something I wrote was emblematic of the network's financial capture. Now CNBC's Becky Quick, one of the more level heads over there, takes to the pages of Fortune...

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