Mitt Romney’s gotten in hot water with the nation’s burgeoning horde of fact checkers by asserting that Jeep “is thinking of moving all production to China.”
That’s clearly false. Chrysler is considering adding Jeep production over there, not closing up shop here and outsourcing everything to China.
But Romney preceded his claim by saying he’d “seen a story” that told him this. It turns out that story was an easy-to-misread piece by Bloomberg News.
It’s a good example of how subpar writing and editing—a longstanding problem with Bloomberg—can mislead readers.
We’re thrown off immediately in the lede:
Fiat SpA, majority owner of Chrysler Group LLC, plans to return Jeep output to China and may eventually make all of its models in that country, according to the head of both automakers’ operations in the region.
Most readers would read this as reporting that Jeep is moving all production to China, rather than adding production there to serve the China market.
We’re not told otherwise by Bloomberg until the second sentence of the fifth paragraph, and even that is worded poorly (emphasis mine):
Chrysler currently builds all Jeep SUV models at plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. Manley referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.
Ledes are critical in any news story, obviously. They tell readers what the news is, are the most likely part to be read (besides the headline), and they frame how the rest of the piece is viewed. But they’re extra important for a wire service like Bloomberg whose copy is picked up by harried editors across the world and stuffed into newsholes that typically don’t allow for the full text to run.
Bloomberg’s story was picked up by at least fourteen news outlets, according to Factiva. Just one of them included the critical caveat line that “Manley referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.”
If Bloomberg set this one up, the Washington Examiner helped it take off, and Paul Bedard’s misreading of the Bloomberg story stands uncorrected and unclarified.
Basically, anybody in half a rush could be excused for misreading Bloomberg’s story. But the Examiner has no excuse for not updating its miss.
As far as the Romney campaign, its subsequent TV ad drops the “all production” bit but has come in for criticism, in part, for saying that Chrysler’s Italian owners “are going to build Jeeps in China.” But that happens to be true, even if it was happening before 2009 under its German and private-equity ownership. Cars made overseas by an American company (even one with Italian owners) are cars that won’t be made in the U.S., and it’s fair to say those jobs are outsourced.
On the other hand, it’s high hypocrisy for Romney the free-trader private-equity guy to attack anyone for outsourcing production, much less for a bankruptcy plan that actually worked. He was hardly opposed to outsourcing while at Bain Capital, and his bankruptcy plan had little chance of success because it relied on markets, which weren’t working at the time.
As poor as the article was, I don't think you can give Mr. Romney a pass because of his oft made claim that he understands the auto industry. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the auto industry would know that moving all of Jeep production to China is a completely ridiculous assertion. So you're left with two possible conclusions. Either Mr. Romney really doesn't know the first thing about the auto industry and his claims along those lines are just BS. Or alternatively he does understand the auto industry, in which case he knew the claim regarding Jeep production was false and he went ahead and said it anyway. One way or the other he was deceitful.
#1 Posted by AC Points, CJR on Fri 2 Nov 2012 at 01:37 AM
It's kind of like people saying Romney wanted Detroit to go under because of the "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" headline. That headline was repeated more than the actual articles op-ed Romney wrote which explained in details what a managed bankruptcy was and how that would help the auto industry more than a government bail-out. Even uber-liberal David Letterman caught that. Selective reading comprehension makes for ill-informed people.
#2 Posted by Ann, CJR on Fri 2 Nov 2012 at 08:09 AM
Do we really want another chicken-little president who doesn't bother to verify facts before storming of into an abyss?
Regardless of sloppy writing and editing, Romney should NEVER have used a store he had "seen" as a basis for a statement.
My gosh, the guy's running for president. Unless he's a blatant liar, what would posses him to say something so misleading for personal gain.
Wait... Wait. It's true, he is a shameless opportunist who will tell mis-truths for personal gain.
déjà vu. Bush reincarnated.
#3 Posted by unkjwea, CJR on Fri 2 Nov 2012 at 10:33 AM
You're assertion that cars built overseas are cars that will not be built here is misleading as well. China imposes a 25% tariff on cars. So cars built here are unlikely to be sold in China and the lost income will not be reinvested here.
#4 Posted by Fred Hakim, CJR on Fri 2 Nov 2012 at 03:22 PM
I remember first reading this. I can see where Romney got his take, but the article clearly detailed that the manufacturing of Jeeps in China was for the Chinese market, and that the article detailed how eventually all of the Jeep models offered in the US would be also be built for the Chinese market through the Chinese joint venture.
He could've got away with the "honest mistake" rap when it first happened. CEOs skim executive summaries and rely on underlings to understand the details. The lack of a firm grasp of the situation isn't becoming, but at least it could be explained away. Or at least shut up about it. But now that Romney's misinterpretation of the facts has been widely reported and he's still trading on it, it exhibits an almost willful neglect of the facts. Craven, really.
#5 Posted by jrhmobile, CJR on Fri 2 Nov 2012 at 07:58 PM