Media Bias?????

by Yerusalyim 14 Replies latest social current

• 

  Yerusalyim

  Interesting AP stories and their headlines yesterday. Notice that in the story on Kerry, the Headline is, "Kerry Calls for deeper tax cuts for the middle class" In the article I've highlighted the real news of that story. Which is that he said the GOP was the most crooked lying group he's ever seen.

  Bush gives what is basically an economic policy speech and is said to be "attacking" Kerry

  Both these are AP headlines...is there media bias? YOU BET!

  http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/8159315.htm

  Kerry calls for deeper tax cuts for middle class

  
  By Mike Glover
  
  The Associated Press
  
  

  WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry called Wednesday for deeper tax cuts for the middle class than proposed by President Bush and described his Republican critics as "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen."

  The chairman of Bush's re-election campaign called on Kerry to apologize "for this negative attack."

  After urging labor leaders to support his campaign, Kerry met with one-time rival Howard Dean to discuss an endorsement and what role the former Vermont governor might play in his campaign.

  After the 45-minute meeting, officials close to the talks said Dean will endorse Kerry. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the best time might be March 25 when the presidential candidates join former Presidents Clinton and Carter for a Democratic Party fund-raiser.

  "There is a lot we can do together to rebuild an America that belongs to all of us, and we'll be saying more about what our amazing grass roots network can do to help with his goal," Dean said in a statement that did not mention an endorsement. Kerry was scheduled to meet today with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

  Earlier Wednesday in Chicago, Kerry toughened his comments about his GOP critics.

  "We're going to keep pounding," Kerry said. "These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen."

  Bush campaign Chairman Marc Racicot called on Kerry to apologize.

  "Senator Kerry's statement today in Illinois was unbecoming of a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America, and tonight we call on Senator Kerry to apologize to the American people for this negative attack," Racicot said in a statement.

  Kerry spokesman David Wade said earlier that Kerry was referring to Republican critics in general and that the comment was intended to convey the message that "he's a Democrat who fights back."

  In a satellite address to top AFL-CIO leaders meeting in Florida, Kerry said Bush's economic policies have driven up costs for working families. He vowed to reverse that trend while asking those making more than $200,000 a year to pay the same taxes they paid under President Clinton, effectively repealing portions of a tax cut Bush pushed through Congress.

  Kerry also proposed creating a $50 billion fund to help states provide relief from state and local taxes for working families that he said have been struggling.

  In response, the Bush campaign accused Kerry of favoring broad tax increases that would affect all taxpayers.

  On the other hand, Bush gave what was essentially an Economic Policy Stump Speech and is accussed of "ATTACKING"

  http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2010276,00.html

  Bush attacks Kerry's economic philosophy

  By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press

  CLEVELAND -- President Bush, in a state hit by huge job losses, tried to deflect Democrats' attacks on his economic policies Wednesday by portraying John Kerry as an advocate of higher taxes and trade barriers that are "the enemy of job creation."

  Bush expressed sympathy with economic anxieties in Ohio, a politically important state that has lost more than 200,000 jobs since he took office. The Republican captured Ohio in 2000, edging Democrat Al Gore, and this year the state looms large in any electoral calculation.

  "Manufacturing communities like Youngstown and Cleveland have been hit especially hard," Bush said. "I understand that. I know there are workers here concerned about their jobs going overseas." He blamed economic problems on factors beyond his control -- a recession that began after he took office, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and corporate scandals.

  Job losses are a major issue in the presidential campaign, and Bush and Kerry traded charges over how to respond.

  Without naming Kerry, Bush accused his Democratic rival of promoting job-killing policies to raise taxes and discourage free trade.

  "The old policy of economic isolationism is a recipe for economic disaster," Bush said on his 15th visit to Ohio. "Americans have moved beyond that tired, defeatist mind-set and we're not going back."

  Bush made a quick tour through Thermagon Inc., a small company that makes materials that conduct and disburse heat from computers and other equipment. Kerry was in Chicago, speaking via satellite from the shop floor of a mechanical contracting business to AFL-CIO leaders at their winter convention in Florida.

  "We will create new incentives to help companies create and keep new jobs here at home," said Kerry, who won the labor federation's endorsement last month and hopes to use labor's organizational muscle and money to boost his campaign. "If I'm president, our government won't provide a single reward for sending our jobs overseas, or exploiting the tax code to go to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes while sticking the American people with the bill."

  The Bush-Kerry duel came on a day when America's trade deficit swelled to an all-time high of $43.1 billion in January as the value of goods and services imported into the United States eclipsed the value of U.S. exports. The deficit figures highlight tensions over global trade and the loss of U.S. jobs to other countries, a phenomenon known as "outsourcing."

  Bush said trade barriers need to be torn down, not erected, and U.S. workers must have the education and training for jobs in growth industries. He also renewed his call for Congress to make permanent an array of tax cuts due to expire this year; reduce dependency on foreign oil; cut red tape on small business; stop frivolous lawsuits; and make health care more affordable.

  Kerry agrees with Bush on extending some tax cuts past next year, which the president insists are responsible for the economic rebound, but he would roll back tax cuts for Americans who earn more than $200,000.

  Kerry supported the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade pacts but now says he would place all such trade agreements under 120-day review to see if they are fair for America, taking unspecified steps if they are not. He also would require companies to provide notice before moving jobs to other countries.

  Ohio's 20 electoral votes are critical to Bush, but his economic policies are a hard sell here. Ohio's unemployment rate is at 6.2 percent, above the national average in February of 5.6 percent.

  While Bush deplored Kerry's trade policies, the president has erected some trade barriers of his own. In March 2002, he imposed tariffs on 10 types of foreign-made steel, then set stiff import duties on a popular type of Canadian lumber.

  Outside the convention center, about two dozen members of the Sheet Metal Workers Union stood in front of a 15-foot inflatable rat balloon emblazoned with a sign that said "Jobs Not Bush." Matt Oakes, 35, of Akron, a Sheet Metal Local 33 recruiter, said 30 percent of his local's 5,000 members in northern Ohio and much of West Virginia had lost their jobs since Bush took office.

  Trying to steal Bush's thunder, Kerry's campaign said Bush was naming Tony Raimondo, a business executive from Columbus, Neb., as assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing -- a position Bush announced with fanfare more than six months ago to focus on the faltering manufacturing sector. The White House said an announcement was imminent.

  Kerry said that "putting another bureaucrat in the Department of Commerce isn't going to get people back to work." White House spokesman Scott McClellan accused Kerry of trying to "hide his pessimistic, growth-stunting, job-killing economic policies."
• 

  Badger

  Yeru: AP is usually down the middle, based on the thousands of stories I read through while working at a paper before placing them...local papers usually slap in their own bias.

  One paper I worked at was agressively liberal. When our governor had been hired after leaving office (he was well known as a special interest hound), the AP headline said "Keating Hired as Lobbyist." Our Headline? "Keating to Finally Work for Insurance Industry Full Time."

  My fave recent headline?

  "O'Donnell Marries Girlfriend, Slams Bush"

  har har....

  plus, I've met Mike Glover....he writes the most vanilla headlines EVER. I can't speak for Deb Reichmann, but Glover really avoids grabbing your attention. Your local paper will slug it differently.
• 

  grows1

  Considering that Kerry has NEVER had a real job in his entire life,VIGOROUSLY supported and signed the NAFTA, WTO, GATT treaties AND supported the most favored nation status for Red China AND that he has taken more lobbysts money than ANY other senator and sells himself to the highest bidder, like the whoring political prostitute he is, I'd say that he has a lot of nerve trying to portray himself as a friend of labor. But not to worry, the duplicitous labor union big wig, who will never have to work another day in their whoring lives, are backing him 100%. They don't give a crap either if no one in this country ever works again either- their salaries are safe as union big wigs. American laborers have been sold out by BOTH political parties and don't seem to really care- they keep voting for the same old traitors of both parties. What workers don't realize is that both Dems and Repubs pols get most of their income from STOCKS and DIVIDENDS in companies that have moved lock, stock and barrell overseas, thereby maximizing profits(money for them) and minimizing cost(our use to be good wages that are now pennies in foreign lands). Do any of you really think that people and politicans like Kerry and Bush give a rats a.. if any of you ever have a good job ever again????? The lower your wages, the MORE MONEY THEY MAKE!!!! That is also why the power brokers in BOTH parties want the illegal immigrant flood over the border INTO this country to continue- these people take jobs and KEEP wages artifically low, not to mention the fact that they continue to vote in our elections,wholesale, thereby ensuring that we have an open border policy. We have been had and it is our own fault- we continue to vote for these whores.
• 

  Gopher

  We have been had and it is our own fault- we continue to vote for these whores.

  Who is the "we" at fault here? I'm about to vote in the presidential election for the first time. I come into the system facing a Democratic-Republican duopoly. The parties dominate American politics, and I don't have much choice. I'd rather have a better option than tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, but the moderates (like Joe Lieberman) are already out of the race.

  So what am I to do? I'll probably vote for the Green Party candidate, even though he/she has no chance to win the election.
• 

  Phantom Stranger

  Grows1, if you are advocating blanket protectionism, you better figure out how to make it work better than it's worked anywhere else before. I like the way Kerry approaches NAFTA - it may not be working the way we wanted it to... so let's look at fixing it.

  The WSJ had a front-page article on a factory in Mexico that lost all its contracts to China... so it went north and took contracts from US plants. Would blocking NAFTA have prevented that end result? Probably not. China is a huge labor and manufacturing issue, and the reason we don't deal with it logically is that US businesses are panting over the huge market, so they don't want to piss off the Chinese. You oversimplify.

  Yeru, the AP also does not write the headlines for many stories posted on the Internet... Yahoo and others often write the headlines, and they vary with who's writing them, since none of these INternet site folks are "journalists". I've seen Yahoo go both ways depending on the time of day. However, I would suspect that Yahoo, being located in SF, CA, is probably largely liberal-staffed.
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  Phantom Stranger

  Study Faults Media Coverage of WMD

  Tue Mar 9 (Editor and Publisher)

  NEW YORK A new study of how the media has covered the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), released today, concludes, "Many stories stenographically reported the incumbent administration's perspectives on WMD, giving too little critical examination of the way officials framed the events, issues, threats and policy options."

  The other three main conclusions of the study conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and the University of Maryland: Too few stories offered alternative perspectives to the "official line" on WMD surrounding the Iraq conflict; most journalists accepted the Bush administration linking the "war on terror" inextricably to the issue of WMD; and most media outlets represented WMD as a "monolithic menace" without distinguishing between types of weapons and between possible weapons programs and the existence of actual weapons.

  The complete study, directed by Susan Moeller and titled "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction," is available at the CISSM Web site.

  The authors of the study state that, "Poor coverage of WMD resulted less from political bias on the part of journalists, editors, and producers than from tired journalistic conventions." They also declare that the British media "reported more critically on public policy than did their American colleagues."

  In a foreword to the study, John Steinbruner, director of the center, writes: "The American political system is in the early stages of contending with an unwelcome but ultimately unavoidable problem. The United States initiated war against Iraq on the basis of an inaccurate representation of the scope and immediacy of the threat posed, and it did so without international authority. That has prejudiced the legitimacy of the occupation, thereby undermining the single most important ingredient of successful reconstruction."

  He adds that "the American media did not play the role of checking and balancing the exercise of power that the standard theory of democracy requires."

  Among those writers singled out for praise in the study are Barton Gellman, Walter Pincus, Michael Getler and Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times, and David Sanger and William Broad of The New York Times. It also cites articles in E&P by William Jackson Jr. exploring Judith Miller's controversial WMD coverage in the New York Times.
• 

  grows1

  Gopher- I'm sorry that you will have to contend with cleaning up the disgusting mess that the previous generations have made for you. Because your generation and your children will be incredibly burdened by the financial burdens that MY generation is getting ready to pawn off on you and yours- social security, the national debt, and paying for all of the trade deficits that will eventually be demanded to be paid. We have ensured your slavery for generations to come once the bills all come due. And there will be a reckoning day. As for trade protectionism- for the first 120 years this country had stiff trade barriers, on purpose. The fledgling USA gov didn't want foreign competition for newly emerging industries and for our new growing nation. And during that 120 years we became the most powerful manufacturing nation the earth had ever seen. Because we DID have stiff import taxes ( those were the ONLY taxes allowed by our gov until 1913-those taxes were what our gov used to conduct itself with )EVERYTHING that was used here almost had to be made here. Wages were higher than anywhere else in the world and there were jobs for everyone who wanted jobs. In the 1940's the USA began lowering the tarriffs and during the early 50's decided to almost eliminate trade tarriffs so that imports from war devastated countries could help their economies. As these countries recovered they heavily and successfully lobbied to KEEP trade barriers down. We are now at a point that we no longer manufacture anything and Greenspan acknowledged this in 2001 when he was testifying before the senate. He matter of factly stated that we are now a service economy and no longer produce much anything except farm products. What he really meant to say was that we are now a servant (peon) enonomy. And all of the big LORDS and KINGS are sitting up there in the Congress and WH making sure that their incredible incomes, dividends, and stocks keep rolling on overseas while we have to fight over the few well paying jobs left. Think I'm off the track. G.W.Bush just last week wanted to reclassify hamburger flippers to heavy industry occupations so that things wouldn't continus to look so bad. Also NASDAQ is more than 90% NON manfacturing companies-web based and paper companies; NASDAQ the manufacturing thermometer for this country for I can't remember how long.
• 

  Phantom Stranger

  ...and there were jobs for everyone who wanted jobs...

  I don't mean to be flip, but as I recall, there was a little thing called the Great Depression that occurred in the middle of that period... and most economists seem to think that tariffs hastened the coming of that depression.

  Look, it would be great if that would work... but there's no way in heII that it would. Someone once called politics the art of the possible. Total economic isolationism is not possible.
• 

  Phantom Stranger

  Why won't it work? Greed.

  Public corporations are measured by growth. Not the best thing to measure for, in my opinion, but that's the way it is. At some point we will choke this planet to a point where communication and cheap transport will create a truly global market, and there will no longer be local market inequities, and we can't grow anymore ... and at that point capitalism will come to a screeching halt like the millipede who's asked in which order he moves his legs... but that day is not today.

  Wall Street exists to find inequities and take advantage of them. Until some metric other than growth is used, the US market isn't big enough for any of these firms to justify their existence.
• 

  Phantom Stranger

  Weird...I made the ninth post, and it shows up that way on Active Topics... but I can't see the darned thing...