silveradept | Special Comment: The "Worst" Media Myths? Prove it. (Reply)

Since it's close to the end of the year, have a rant, inspired by a different rant.

Oooh, lists. The kind that make you want to deconstruct them because they're a list. The Media Rersearch Center's Business and Media Institute, a propaganda arm of the thoroughly discredited propagandist L. Brent Bozell III, releases their top ten "Economic Myths of 2010", as reported in the mainstream media, specifically on the three major broadcast networks they're goign to accuse of bias - NBC, ABC, and CBS. We presume they leave out Fox because Fox routinely proves themselves biased in the conservative direction, and they're not really claiming objectivity, just "balance".

Let's run them down and see where they're looking -

Media myth: GM's bailout repayment means the taxpayer auto bailout worked.. Their countervailing fact: The TARP money was paid back using other bailout money, so it's a shell game, not a proof of concept. A good lead, actually, because it's true - the TARP money was paid back with other money, so the payback of the TARP loan really doesn't say oen way or another whether the bailout was a success. That the auto industry still employs people and seems to be making some money again - that's where the proof of the bailout's effectiveness is. So score one for the propagandist - although I'm guessing this is the "stopped clock" phenomenon.

Media Myth: Despite Obama's failed promises about stimulus keeping unemployment from rising above 8 percent, stimulus is still needed in 2010. The evidence? Teacher jobs being on the line and needing more stimulus spending. Yeah... A =/=> B here. There are two arguments presented as one here.
1. Because it did not keep unemployment below 8 percent, as promised, stimulus bills, regardless of what they were for, are complete failures and no more money should be spent on them.
2. There are already too many teachers, so we shouldn't spend any more money on making sure they stay employed.
Two very different arguments, I note. I think they want to argue the first, but for that, they need evidence that supports that claim, and talking about whether teachers should be hired or retained isn't nearly broad enough to support the bigger claim. Moving on.

Media myth: Obesity is caused by advertising and some foods and drink are like illegal substances. The evidence? A comparison between soda and cocaine and disputing that advertising affects the way people think and consume. The comparison was used to thump faulty logic; If one consumes because the taste is good or because things are fun to eat/drink, then that logic can be used to justify the use of substances currently considered illegal - they're also fun to use, and some of them probably do have a good "taste". It's taking it out to a fairly extreme conclusion, but the logic is relatively sound (argue the slippery slope at your own leisure). As for the other claim, if advertising really didn't affect what we consume and how, then instead of being an industry that spends many billions of USD on developing the perfect advertisement, seeking celebrities, and the like, advertising as a department would be small and mostly impotent. Advertising works. And when advertising turns itself to marketing unhealthy things as healthy or attractive, it's going to show in the waistlines of the people. It doesn't "cause" obesity, sure, but only in the same way that HIV doesn't kill someone directly, but just gets them in a susceptible state for other things to kill them instead.

Media myth: The president who campaigned on raising taxes for the rich is a hero to the middle-class taxpayer. The evidence? The promise not to raise taxes on the middle class has been serially violated, in tobacco taxes, new taxes for health care reform, and the possibility of expiration of the Bush tax cuts, once again characterized as a giant tax hike. There have been some tax cuts, but the promise of not raising taxes on the under-250,000 crowd is dead. Half credit to the propagandist on this one - there's very solid proof there that the middle class is going to get tax increases and tax cuts one way or another under President Obama. But to prove the myth point they were going for, that President Obama is no hero to the middle class taxpayer, he comes up a little short. Instead of hanging his argument on the "he'll let the tax cuts expire" which can be refuted by "he's been wheeling and dealing on those, to the irritation of his base", delve into the details of the deal a little bit and point out how much he's fellating the rich and screwing the middle class with what he's proposing. Then you'd get full marks for that statement.

Media myth: Conservative grassroots movement is fake, but corporate-sponsored environmental holiday isn't. The evidence? Corproate sposnsorship for environmental rallies and the like is openly present. Their definition of "Astroturf" is "corporate interests, government bureaucracies and media collaborating to push a political agenda". No, that's "lobbying" and/or the normal way things go in Washington, D.C. "Astroturf" is when corporate interests generate something that looks like a grass-roots organization, fund it, have it push their interests, and then don't disclose that they are, in fact, a corproate-sponsored front group. Thus, Astroturf - fake grass. Open corporate sponsorship isn't Astroturf.

Media myth: Big spender Obama is going to cut wasteful spending, curb deficit. The evidence? Apparently, one story about the C-17 a media narrative makes. I don't think anyone's kidding themselves about cutting waste and curbing the deficit. Besides, all appropriations bills must originate in the House of Representatives, pass there and the Senate before going to the President for signature. It's not just Obama that's a big spender.

Media myth: BP must be controlling the Coast Guard, FAA and others to block press access to oil spill. The evidence? "Federal officials" were supposedly blocking press access to the gulf oil spill, as well as some BP contractors, and the press just blamed BP. Well, the most vocal and publicized versions of press blockades were from BP contractors, as well as the various NDAs and other threats presented to those working on the spill not to talk to the press. If there were government officials involved, I would have thought that would have been reported on. Furthermore, the fact that the government officials are giving way to BP should indicate some sort of hinkiness going on in the area. It's not conclusive enough.

Media myth: There are 'signs of hope' in the labor market. The evidence? The unemplyment rate continues to be high, and the growth rate stays low, despite the fact that the economy has been growing. This is the other "stopped clock" point in this list - we all want to believe that recovery is around the corner, but nobody seems to be willing to take action to actually bring about that recovery, whether in the private sector or the public one. Their evidence says the media should be criticizing the President more for the lack of jobs. Truthfully, though, this "myth" is really optimism, any sort of optimism against the crushing reality of life at the moment. If optimism goes away, the problems will only get worse.

Media myth: The climate scandal isn't a big deal, after all they were 'exonerated.' I wonder if they also still believe the President is secretly Muslim and O.J. Simpson killed his wife, and they're willing to admit that the previous administration tortured and that Scooter Libby covered up things in the Plame investigation. If not, they're standing on the double-standard platform, where exoneration is enough when its a conservative, but not when it's perceived liberals. In any case, they're also claiming a whitewash on the exoneration and that climate change really has been utterly debunked because a small set of scientists were potentially cooking their books.

Media Myth [The Big Whammy]: Business group, [The Chamber of Commerce], is improperly funding its mid-term campaign ads. The evidence? Well, the Chamber of Commerce says they didn't improperly put foreign money into their election funds, and we believe them. And other groups have international affiliates and lobby here in the U.S., so why aren't they being investigated...and it's all just a liberal smear, anyway, funded by a George Soros group. In reality, the evidence for or against this claim is insufficient to prove it. If the Chamber really wanted to disprove the claim, they would need to make a stronger financial disclosure and be able to prove none of the money collected into the general fund was used for campaign purposes. Or they could have set up a separate fund for electioneering and made sure nothing foreign went into that, with disclosure all the way. But because there's secrecy, shadowiness, and imperfect disclosure, there is the possibility that money from foreign entities went into electioneering spending. It's not a myth, nor a truth - it's indeterminate. This is why we need better disclosure in all of our political campaigning. Considering, however, that Astroturf groups and other corporate entites want to maintain anonymity, lest the people find out which corporations are supporting the things they hate, it's unlikely that we'll ever really know whether the Chamber of Commerce actually did fund its mid-term elections improperly.

Well, that was pleasant. Right twice on generalities, inconclusive on a lot more, and flat out wrong at least once. For somewhere that claims to be scoping out bias in the media, they need a better track record than that if they ever want to be credible. And possibly getting rid of their disgraced propagandist.