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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Social Security

1. November 8, 2011 11:05 AM

   WaPo’s Misleading Social Security Piece

   Article doesn’t come close to telling the whole story

   By Trudy Lieberman

   By now we’re aware that The Washington Post supports serious changes in Social Security. In fact, the paper editorialized Friday that the word “thuggish” comes to mind when discussing ads from the AARP opposing Social Security cuts. “The crunch time for the congressional super committee has arrived, and with it comes a new round of self-centered, shortsighted intransigence on the...

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2. March 3, 2011 12:48 PM

   A Big Omission at NBC

   Whatever happened to Social Security?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   NBC Nightly News took on retirement income the other day and found most Americans’s savings will come up short. The segment drew a bleak picture of the amount of money people have saved for retirement versus the amount they will need in the future. The picture was bleaker still because the story left out any reference to Social Security—even though...

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3. November 24, 2010 09:44 AM

   A Curious Omission at the Times

   Three Social Security proposals, or two?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   It was puzzling to see Jackie Calmes’s brief story in The New York Times last week with its provocative headline: “Deficit Panels Go Where Politicians Won’t.” That, of course, conveyed the notion that politicos may be shying away from taking the tough steps necessary to cut the deficit. But there are tough steps a-plenty in a proposal put forth by...

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4. August 31, 2012 11:00 AM

   A dart to the AP—and a laurel!

   Good work on fact-checking speeches; on Social Security, not so much

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Dart The Associated Press misled its many readers, unfortunately, about what is a Social Security benefit cut and what is not. A piece published August 27, one in a series the AP has been running, purports to break new ground in gauging public sentiment about the government’s largest social program. In other polls, the AP said, “most of the...

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5. November 12, 2012 02:50 PM

   A dart to Yahoo Finance

   For utterly confusing its readers about Social Security

   By Trudy Lieberman

   By now we’re accustomed to weak reporting about Social Security, but a piece on Yahoo Finance, part of its “Just Explain It” series, is a real doozey. It does not come within one centimeter of explaining Social Security, and instead misleads the 16,089 readers, as of mid-day Monday, who have weighed in with comments, plus thousands of others who...

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6. January 4, 2012 12:46 PM

   A Good Payroll Tax Piece from the Post

   Finally, some balance from WaPo

   By Trudy Lieberman

   At last The Washington Post, which shaped much of the media coverage of the defcit and entitlement discussion last year, has produced a very good story about Social Security. This one offers another take on the Democrats’ drive to extend the payroll tax for the next two months. The message of Jia Lynn Yang’s piece: cutting payroll tax contributions to...

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7. April 11, 2011 12:35 PM

   A Good Social Security Story—At Last

   Reuters shows it can be done

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Last week Reuters sent out a fine piece by Emily Kaiser that helped readers understand what the Social Security fight is all about by giving them enough context and history to get the gist of the debate—if it can be called that—and moving beyond the one-sided framing that has characterized almost all of the reportage over the past fifteen months....

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8. May 29, 2012 02:35 PM

   A Grand Bargain on entitlements?

   The press is sending signals about Simpson-Bowles. How about explaining it?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   To the average person, Nancy Pelosi’s May 20 interview with George Stephanopoulos probably seemed like standard procedure for a Sunday morning talk show—another politician slipping and sliding around the questions. It was more than that. Stephanopoulos noted that Pelosi had said—a few weeks earlier—that she would vote for the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, l which among other things proposes severe...

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9. November 11, 2011 12:18 PM

   A Laurel to the AP

   For its eye-opening story on Social Security

   By Trudy Lieberman

   The AP’s recent story on proposed changes in the derivation of Social Security’s cost of living (COLA) formula is the kind of explainer we have urged the press to write. The piece, written by Stephen Ohlemacher, lays out exactly what will happen to people—and not just seniors already on Social Security, but others who will be affected by a new...

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10. February 27, 2012 04:29 PM

    A Medicare Memo to Campaign Reporters

    Tailing Mitt on Medicare and Social Security, too

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Dear Colleagues: I have just returned from a reporting trip to Southeast Arkansas, where the folks I visited have very little. They certainly don’t have good health. Some are crippled by bad knees messed up from on-their-feet jobs. Most have diabetes. Some have had strokes. They are lucky, though, that they have Medicare. Without it, they probably would have died...

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11. April 27, 2011 12:13 PM

    A Missing Medicare Link from The New York Times

    Covering Medicare, Part II

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In this new series, “Covering Medicare,” we will follow the reportage and offer Medicare beat memos from time to time. Medicare was big news on the political circuit yesterday, with Florida congressman Allen B. West getting, shall we say, pushback from...

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12. March 16, 2011 04:48 PM

    Another Take on NPR’s “Liberal Bias”

    Its reporting on Social Security is anything but

    By Trudy Lieberman

    It was easy to understand why a story yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered appeared to favor the Republican position on Social Security. Let’s be clear. The piece pretty much stacked the deck against those who believe that Social Security is fine for the moment, and that benefits should not be cut or privatized, a position that polls show much...

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13. March 9, 2011 07:45 PM

    Audit Notes: More Murdoch, Hiltzik on the Social Security Trust Fund

    By Ryan Chittum

    A couple of weeks ago, Allan Sloan wrote about Rupert Murdoch is using $673 million of his shareholders' money to buy Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth's production company. That self-dealing caused him to say this: It's one thing to have News Corp. employ family members. But it's a different thing to use assets of a company 88 percent owned by the public...

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14. October 23, 2012 06:50 AM

    Audit Notes: What’s Social Security worth?, another CNBC ‘poll,’ Greg Smith

    An excellent personal-finance story from the Journal

    By Ryan Chittum

    What would Social Security coverage look like if the press covered it more like personal finance reporters cover IRAs and 401(k)s? The Wall Street Journal's Ellen Schultz shows us with a great piece on Social Security that cuts through the propaganda that's falsely convinced so many people that they won't ever draw benefits: Despite widespread gloom over the health of...

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15. May 17, 2011 01:41 PM

    Candidate Pawlenty and Social Security

    What’s he really talking about?

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Not long ago, presidential aspirant Tim Pawlenty sat down with reporters from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for a heart-to-heart about his policy positions. The interview covered everything from from Libya to health care. (We know where he stands on that last one). He talked of his personal battles with the Minnesota legislature and said “you’ve got to draw some lines in...

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16. November 29, 2010 01:15 PM

    CBS Fumbles Again

    A lopsided report on Social Security

    By Trudy Lieberman

    If there were prizes given for the most one-sided, misleading story about Social Security this year, a segment aired on the CBS Evening News before Thanksgiving would make a great candidate. In a breathless recitation of the horrors befalling the system, CBS painted a grim picture of Social Security, using scare words and phrases like “the system is headed for...

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17. August 22, 2011 03:25 PM

    CJR Holds a Town Hall in Missouri

    Do the pols represent the voters?

    By Trudy Lieberman

    As Barack Obama’s bus cruised through the heartland last week, the media told us a fair amount about what the president said. In Alpha, Illinois, Obama gave a less-than-clear explanation of the amount of wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax, and then let it slip that apparently he supports a change in the way cost of living benefits...

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18. April 25, 2011 01:48 PM

    CJR Holds a Town Hall in Philly

    Shoppers on Market Street sound off

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Finding myself in Philadelphia recently, I decided to stroll along Market Street and see which of the day’s big political issues ordinary people had on their minds. Medicare topped the list, followed by Social Security and job security. The day of my interviews, the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released results showing that two thirds of respondents had...

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19. March 9, 2011 10:20 AM

    CNBC Misleads on “Welfare State” Dominance

    Bad math overstates government payouts

    By Ryan Chittum

    (UPDATE: See my follow-up post here: A Zombie Lie Is Born: CNBC’s false welfare-state story spreads far and wide.) There are so many things wrong with this CNBC "Fast Money" story it's hard to know where to begin.

 But let’s start with the headline:

 Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of U.S. Wages 

I guess the first thing to point...

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20. March 9, 2011 10:38 AM

    Conflating Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid

    By Ryan Chittum

    Meanwhile, while we're pointing out games journalists play and the question of whether Social Security is welfare, WaPo's Robert J. Samuelson says this:

 In a recent column on the senior citizen lobby, I noted that Social Security is often "middle-class welfare" that bleeds the country. This offended many readers. In an e-mail, one snarled: "Social Security is not adding one...

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