United States Project

11:00 AM - December 7, 2012

Cracking open Congress

We need better insider reporting about the “fiscal cliff”

By Brendan Nyhan

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Dude, first principles.

Who cares about the reporting on negotiations and who has what power and what not when the public, many journalists, and elected politicians have little clue what the fiscal cliff really is nor why it's bad.

Why not try giving that problem a shot before delving into the reporting of the kremlin talks?

Because none of those discussions will mean anything if we don't know the meaning of what they are talking about.

Amirong?

#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 7 Dec 2012 at 11:18 AM

That too! Not my focus here but I agree the explanatory component is being underserved as well.

#2 Posted by Brendan Nyhan, CJR on Fri 7 Dec 2012 at 12:10 PM

Speaking of first principles, y'all might be interested in a bit of this journalisty something:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/dan-froomkin/republican-lies-2012-election_b_2258586.html

""It's the great unreported big story of American politics," Ornstein said.
"If voters are going to be able to hold accountable political figures, they've got to know what's going on," Ornstein said. "And if the story that you're telling repeatedly is that they're all to blame -- they're all equally to blame -- then you're really doing a disservice to voters, and not doing what journalism is supposed to do."

Ornstein said the media's failure led him to conclude: "If you want to use a strategy of 'I'm just going to lie all the time', when you have the false equivalence meme adopted by a mainstream press and the other side lies a quarter of the time, you get away with it.""

Valuable thing to keep in mind while we're on the fiscal rigamarole topic. And another thing to keep in mind while covering this "Too much austerity! Don't raise my marginal taxes!"

"Mann said he was struck in conversations with journalists by how influenced they were by the heavily funded movement to promote a bipartisan consensus around deficit reduction and austerity. Such a bipartisan consensus doesn't actually exist, Mann pointed out. But if you believe it does, than you can blame both parties for failing to reach it.

"The Peterson world, I think, has given journalists the material to keep doing what they're doing," Mann said of the vast network of think tanks and other influential Washington groups underwritten at least in part by Wall Street billionaire Peter Peterson.

Peterson's vast spending has given rise to an environment of contempt among the Washington elites for anyone who doesn't believe the government is dangerously overextended. And by that reckoning, the Democrats are therefore more out of touch with reality than Republicans, who at least pay the concept ample lip service."

Ugh. I suspect lip service is a weak euphemism.

"Ornstein said his message would be this: "I understand your concerns about advertisers. I understand your concerns about being labeled as biased. But what are you there for? What's the whole notion of a free press for if you're not going to report without fear or favor and you're not going to report what your reporters, after doing their due diligence, see as the truth?

"And if you don't do that, then you can expect I think a growing drumbeat of criticism that you're failing in your fundamental responsibility.

"Your job is to report the truth. And sometimes there are two sides to a story. Sometimes there are ten sides to a story. Sometimes there's only one.

"Somebody has got to make an assessment of whether the two sides are being equally careless with their facts, or equally deliberate with their lies.""

The only way this can get done is to ignore the political parties on any given topic, at first, and make sure you understand the topic empirically. Once you've established the truth, then you can identify the liars and their lies.

We ain't near at that stage yet with the fiscal cliff. We're at a stage where Peterson democrats are going to start attacking the social safety net in order to get support for tax hikes on the rich. The republicans are struggling to get on board with the tax hikes. And all this is being pushed because, "OMG TAX RATES DEBT!"

This BS has to be reported on so that it can be stopped. Inform the damn public. Do your damn jobs.

#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 9 Dec 2012 at 11:18 PM

Who are these people? Some history is in order.

http://www.thenation.com/article/164073/how-austerity-class-rules-washington

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/peter-peterson-foundation-half-billion-social-security-cuts_n_1517805.html

Protip: On this topic, if you hear the word bipartisan, it's a bad thing. It's referring to 'bipartisan supported' screwing of the public.

Both parties collect money from Wallstreet. Bipartisan, in this day and age, means politicians doing the job their paymasters have told them to do.

"According to a review of tax documents from 2007 through 2011, Peterson has personally contributed at least $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to cast Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government spending as in a state of crisis, in desperate need of dramatic cuts. Peterson's millions have done next to nothing to change public opinion: In survey after survey, Americans reject the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare. A recent national tour organized by AmericaSpeaks and largely funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation was met by audiences who rebuffed his proposals.

But Peterson has been able to drive a major shift in elite consensus about government spending, with talk of "grand bargains" that would slash entitlements, cut corporate tax rates and end personal tax breaks, such as the mortgage deduction, that benefit the middle class."

ONE GUY. Think he's the only wall street guy buying support? Bipartisan = 'someone is gonna screw us'. Be nice if journalists let us know that.

#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 9 Dec 2012 at 11:33 PM

for more on the subject , check out the thread of discussion here:

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/cnbcs_rise_above_hot_air.php#comment-67888

#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 9 Dec 2012 at 11:38 PM