Actually, the story is too short in the sense that it spends too much time on (the lack of) plans to fix the problem and not enough on how we got here. Journalism is much better at digging into the record than projecting the future.
The graphic helps.
It’s too facile to call this story a case of false balance. Its handling is actually fairly deft. But reading the big papers one does get the sense that thirty years of press-bashing from the right has taken a toll on just calling it like it is. This piece was like walking across a wire with a juggling pin in one hand—and an anvil in the other.
I think there is another issue with this story that you did not mention -- the assumption that the deficit can be managed at a time of economic peril, when government spending is called for. Of course, Obama isn't doing anything to fix the deficit -- doing so would mean tax hikes and spending cuts, the kinds of manuevers that go against Keynesian prescriptions.
I would have liked to have heard from someone like Robert Reich, who has written in the past about the idea of productive deficits and the need to pump money into the economy. Without someone like that included, the story ends up tip-toing around Bush's complicity, but also endorses agruments being made by fiscal hawks.
#1 Posted by Hank Kalet, CJR on Wed 10 Jun 2009 at 05:16 PM
Given the way in which internet journalism seems less interested in neutrality and more interested in being up front and honest (in the best cases) about what perspective it comes from I wonder if the model of journalism as sticking to the supposedly pure facts is valid anymore. Many of the recent developments in journalism connected to new technologies might suggest that our former belief in pure unadulterated fact was always more than a little misguided. Whatever the case may be, the current state of journalism gives us a lot to think about concerning the future, and indeed purpose, of journalism. I have found some great interviews and discussions concerning just these issues at http://www.ourblook.com/component/option,com_sectionex/Itemid,200076/id,8/view,category/#catid69
#2 Posted by Bill, CJR on Wed 10 Jun 2009 at 10:34 PM