The Missing Word: News “Corp” vs It’s Critics
Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial has the title “News and its Critics”—obviously, it’s missing a word. The piece’s real title should be “News Corp and its Critics,” or even better, “News Corp vs. its Critics.” It’s a piece by News Corp, for News Corp. The problem is, the ugly 1044-word attack on the company’s “competitor-critics” alternates between catty defensiveness, a drunk beat poet, and utter incomprehensibility. One can only stand in awe of a conglomerate that would mass print an “aw-shucks” apology across one country while sending the Journal to do its dirty work in another. Some of the editorial’s phrases are almost self-parodying:
The overnight turn toward righteous independence recalls an eternal truth: Never trust a politician.
The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw.
Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur.
But, beyond redolence, imprimaturs, chainsaws, and Schadenfreude, the editorial’s argument—insofar as one is discernible—is so dishonest that it has the opposite of its intended effect. You come out of the piece trusting News Corp and the Journal far less than you might have before.
The first “point”:
Phone-hacking is illegal, and it is up to British authorities to enforce their laws. If Scotland Yard failed to do so adequately when the hacking was first uncovered several years ago, then that is more troubling than the hacking itself.
Of course, when “the hacking was first uncovered several years ago,” News Corp did a more than adequate job of bribing British authorities to keep them at bay. As David Carr pointed out yesterday, the company’s fondness of drowning legal problems in hush money has been pervasive, far from the domain of a single tabloid. “We didn’t get caught” is about as bad an excuse as they come, especially with the tactful omission of “…because we bribed the police.”
The second point is a dicey defense of resigned Journal publisher Les Hinton, which fails to mention the reason for his resignation: ostensibly, the two times he stood before the Houses of Parliament and said that only one News International journalist had ever hacked a phone.
The piece then moves inexplicably into self-defense mode, claiming that, well, even if News Corp is a bit unsavory, the company has improved the Wall Street Journal. Of course, a revitalized Journal must be of great consolation to hacking victims, who must also “shudder to think what the Journal would look like” under the dreary Bancrofts. And so we breeze right along to find the paper arguing for the legality of paying sources for information. But “the Wall Street Journal doesn’t pay sources for information.” So who does? Other News Corp outlets?
Again, we move on too fast to find out, and close with the same shoddy reasoning that Murdoch himself has already aired out in the Journal’s pages. Namely, that News of the World’s behavior constituted nothing more than journalistic overreach, and that cracking down on News Corp means inhibiting freedom of the press:
Do our media brethren really want to invite Congress and prosecutors to regulate how journalists gather the news?
News Corp outlets broke the law. And yet, the word “crime” is not mentioned once in the editorial. The Journal goes for a brazen euphemism, instead claiming that the tabloid’s “excesses” do not damage the reputation of its sister outlets:
The News of the World’s offense—fatal, as it turned out—was to violate the trust of its readers by not coming about its news honestly. We realize how precious that reader trust is, and our obligation is to re-earn it every day.
The News of the World’s “offense” was to commit crimes, then lie and bribe to cover them up. “Trust” is a convenient, slippery term for the Journal to use. But surely, a paper of such clout must realize that its readers know the difference between breaking trust and breaking the law. At any rate, it’s likely that News Corp is soon to find out for itself.
By: Alex Klein, Guest Columnist, The New Republic, July 18, 2011
A Politician-Created Crisis: Why Did Congress Waste Six Months?
The House Republican strategy to link a normally routine increase in the nation’s debt limit with a crusade to slash spending has already had a high cost, threatening the nation’s credit rating and making the United States look dysfunctional and incompetent to the rest of the world.
But that’s not the most awful thing about it.
What’s even worse is that this entirely artificial, politician-created crisis has kept government from doing what taxpayers expect it to do: Solve the problems citizens care about.
The most obvious problem is unemployment. The best way, short term, to drive the deficit down is to spur growth and get Americans back to work. Has anyone noticed that Americans with jobs can provide for their families, put money into the economy — and, oh yes, pay taxes that increase revenue and thus cut the deficit?
There is no mystery about the steps government could take. Ramping up public works spending is a twofer: It creates jobs upfront and provides the nation’s businesses and workers the ways and means to boost their own productivity down the road.
Wise infrastructure spending can save energy. And when public works investments are part of metropolitan plans for smarter growth, they can also ease congestion and reduce commuter times, giving our citizens back valuable minutes or hours they waste in traffic. If you want a pro-family policy, this is it.
State and local budgets all across the country are a shambles. Teachers, police, firefighters, librarians and other public servants are being laid off. As the New York Times’ David Leonhardt pointed out recently, even as the private economy has been adding jobs, if too slowly, state and local governments have hemorrhaged about half a million jobs in two years.
President Obama knows this. “As we’ve seen that federal support for states diminish, you’ve seen the biggest job losses in the public sector,” he said in his July 11 news conference. “So my strong preference would be for us to figure out ways that we can continue to provide help across the board.”
So why not do it? “I’m operating within some political constraints here,” Obama explained, “because whatever I do has to go through the House of Representatives.”
Excuse me, Mr. President, but if you believe in this policy, why not propose it and fight for it? Leadership on jobs is your central job right now. Let the Republicans explain why they want more cops and teachers let go, or local taxes to rise.
We should also extend the payroll tax reduction instituted last year and unemployment insurance. Why so little discussion of how balky Republicans have been on this Obama tax cut proposal, or how resistant they have been to further help those out of work? They won’t raise taxes on the rich to balance the budget but are utterly bored by relief for the middle class or the jobless. Isn’t that instructive?
And while we have been parsing the Rube Goldberg complexities of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s procedural contortions to get us out of a battle we should never have gotten into, we haven’t been discussing how to reform the No Child Left Behind law.
It’s true that some good people in Congress are trying to figure out a way forward on education reform. That’s a far more important national conversation than whether Tea Party Republicans understand the elementary laws of economics. But you wouldn’t know it because those who care about the substance of governing never get into the media. You get a lot of attention — and are sometimes proclaimed a hero — if you say something really dumb about the debt ceiling.
Then there is the coming debate over a “balanced budget” amendment to the Constitution that would limit government spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product and require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. It’s an outrageous way for members of Congress to vote to slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to education and a slew of other things, to lock in low taxes on the rich — and never have to admit they’re doing it. It’s one of the most dishonest proposals ever to come before Congress, and I realize that’s saying something.
Every member of Congress who got us into this debt-ceiling fight should be docked six months’ pay. They wasted our time on political posturing instead of solving problems. Better yet, the voters might ponder firing them next year. This could do wonders for national productivity.
By: E. J. Dionne, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, July 17, 2011
The Incredible Crazies: Finding Someone The House GOP Will Listen To
Negotiating with House Republicans isn’t just difficult because they refuse to compromise; it’s also because they don’t even appreciate the point of the exercise. Told, for example, that failure on the debt ceiling would lead to a disaster, the House GOP simply doesn’t believe the evidence.
It’s challenging enough trying to craft an agreement when the parties have the same goal. But what happens when the crew of the Titanic says, “The captain’s wrong; icebergs are no big deal”?
The trick is finding someone the crazies find credible. (thanks to T.K.)
Republican leaders in the House have begun to prepare their troops for politically painful votes to raise the nation’s debt limit, offering warnings and concessions to move the hard-line majority toward a compromise that would avert a federal default. […]
At a closed-door meeting Friday morning, GOP leaders turned to their most trusted budget expert, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to explain to rank-and-file members what many others have come to understand: A fiscal meltdown could occur if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. […]
The warnings appeared to have softened the views of at least some House members who, until now, were inclined to dismiss statements by administration officials, business leaders and outside economists that the economic impact would be dire if the federal government were suddenly unable to pay its bills. [emphasis added]
Right-wing freshman Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said he found the presentation, particularly the parts about skyrocketing interest rates, “sobering.”
Oh, now it’s “sobering”? We’re 17 days before the drop-dead crisis deadline, and now it’s dawning on some House Republicans that they’re not only playing with matches, but may actually torch the entire economy?
At this point, of course, I’ll take progress wherever I can find it. If some of the House GOP’s madness is “softening,” maybe they’ll be slightly more inclined to be responsible.
But I can’t help but find it interesting the limited pool of individuals Republicans are willing to listen to. The Treasury tells the House GOP caucus members they have to raise the debt ceiling, and Republicans don’t care. The Federal Reserve tells them, and they still don’t care. House Speaker John Boehner tells them, and that doesn’t work, either. Business leaders, governors, and economists tell them, and Republicans ignore all of them.
But Paul Ryan warns of a meltdown and all of a sudden, the House GOP is willing to pay attention.
I guess we should be thankful the radical House Budget Committee chairman is only wrong 90% of the time, and not 100%.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly-Political Animal, July 16, 2011
Does Michele Bachmann Have A ‘Reverend Wright’ Problem?
Joshua Green of The Atlantic is reporting that Rep. Michelle Bachmann has long belonged to a church that, well, has some odd views about the Catholic Church:
Michele Bachmann is practically synonymous with political controversy, and if the 2008 presidential election is any guide, the conservative Lutheran church she belonged to for many years is likely to add another chapter due to the nature of its beliefs–such as its assertion, explained and footnoted on this website, that the Roman Catholic Pope is the Antichrist.
The short, obvious response to the idea that this might hurt Bachmann’s presidential aspirations is, in a few words, “Reverend Jeremiah Wright.”
After all, President Barack Obama’s ties to Reverend Wright and his church didn’t hurt his presidential campaign nearly as much as expected — as he went on to win. Even in 2008, the idea that Obama was a covert black radical hiding behind a moderate liberal façade seemed far fetched. There was little connection between Wright’s views and Obama’s actual policy agenda.
This could, however, create problems for Bachmann. After all, unlike Obama, Bachmann has placed her religious views front and center in the campaign, most recently by signing onto a “pledge” issued by a group of social conservatives in Iowa affirming a number of paternalistic policy positions. In signing the pledge, Bachmann was promising to fight marriage equality, pornography, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and even the presence of women in the Armed Forces. Bachmann’s religious views, unlike Obama’s, are easily connectable to a definable policy agenda. So her religious views will be far more relevant than Obama’s — and many of the policy positions she’s adopted as a result aren’t likely to be popular outside of the GOP base.
George W. Bush frequently credited Karl Rove’s outreach to Catholics as key to his ascension to the White House. Has Bachmann — who left her former church last year and disavowed its views on Catholicism — damaged herself with this key segment of the electorate? That’s anybody’s guess. But generally speaking, some of her religiously informed political views will be a major liability among the broader electorate, should she win the nomination, and may even discourage Republicans who want to win the White House from voting for her. The more stories like this one expose the extent to which some of Bachmann’s religious views smack of bigotry, the worse her chances will get.
By: Adam Serwer, The Washington Post, July 14, 2011
Why The GOP’s ‘Job Creators’ Are Hard to Find
If you’re a “job creator,” raise your hand. It would be nice to know who you are, exactly.
Republicans negotiating with President Obama over a fix for the nation’s debt problems have been rolling out the heavy buzzwords lately, and there must have been a fresh memo about the sonorous ring of “job creators.” House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly decries tax hikes on job creators, with congressional colleagues such as Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling forming a job-creators chorus behind him. House Republicans recently published a “Plan for America’s Job Creators” (but not for everybody else, presumably) and if you’re an aggrieved job creator, you can let House Majority Leader Eric Cantor know what’s bugging you by filling out a brief form at http://jobs.majorityleader.gov/.
The trouble is, job creators are an endangered species these days. The biggest problem in the U.S. economy, in fact, is a shortage of job creators to reward and protect. Companies are barely hiring, and there are about 7 million fewer jobs now than there were at the end of 2007, when the Great Recession began. Part of the Republicans’ plan is to lower taxes, streamline regulation, open more trade and take other steps that will stimulate job creation. But we’ve already tried some of that, including several rounds of tax cuts since 2008. Most job creators are still hiding.
Big companies employ a lot of Americans, but over the last few years they’ve been better at job destruction than job creation. Between 2007 and 2010, companies with more than 1,000 employees shed about 2.6 million jobs, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. Many big companies have rebounded sharply from the recession, with impressive profits and a lot of cash on hand. But even some of the most successful big companies aren’t doing much job creation–not in the United States, anyway. Here are a few examples:
General Electric, which is run by the same Jeffrey Immelt who chairs President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, axed 32,000 jobs worldwide between 2007 and 2010, according to information from GE’s annual reports. About 22,000 of those lost jobs were in the United States. No job creation there, even though GE earned about $12 billion in profits in 2010.
Exxon Mobil has added about 2,800 jobs worldwide since 2007, but the giant oil firm doesn’t break out how many of those new hires work in the United States. Since Exxon earns nearly 70 percent of its revenue from overseas, it’s a good bet that’s where most of the new jobs are, too.
Wal-Mart has added about 40,000 jobs in the United States since 2007, largely because the discount retailer has been a beneficiary of pinched consumers desperate to save money. But it has added about 150,000 jobs overseas during the same time–nearly four times the U.S. tally. Still, Wal-Mart seems to be one company that can legitimately call itself a job creator.
IBM has added about 40,000 employees since 2007, but like Exxon, it doesn’t say where. About 65 percent of IBM’s revenue comes from abroad, and that’s where almost all of its revenue growth has come from since 2007. IBM’s U.S. business is actually down from 2007 levels, so it’s possible that most or all of IBM’s new hires have been overseas.
Big companies, in fact, aren’t considered a big source of new jobs. While they generate a lot of profits, they also tend to be mature enterprises more likely to swallow other companies and consolidate market share, which tends to eliminate jobs, not create them. “It’s the job of big firms to shed jobs,” says Carl Schramm, CEO of the Kauffmann Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship. “Big firms want to lower costs, which means lowering labor costs.”
Young firms, Schramm says, account for virtually all net job creation in the U.S. economy over the last 30 years. That’s because startups that survive their first couple of years tend to be vibrant, fast-growing companies that create new industries and hire a lot of new workers. Think Microsoft and Oracle in the 1980s, and Amazon, eBay, and Google in the 1990s. Today, new technology-based firms like Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Zynga, and LinkedIn represent one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy. However, they’re the last companies that need any kind of tax relief–and they’re not about to ask for special treatment from Washington, either. They became transformative companies without Washington’s help, and they’d like to keep it that way.
Politicians routinely extol the virtues of “small business,” but that’s not really where the job creators are, either. Conventional small businesses–dry cleaners, nail salons, delicatessens, independent professionals like lawyers and doctors–tend to be important pillars of their communities, but they also come and go without generating a lot of new jobs, on balance. During the third quarter of 2010 (the most recent quarter for which there’s data), firms with fewer than 20 employees eliminated 34,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department. The biggest gains were among firms with 500 to 999 employees, which created 37,000 jobs.
So if Republicans want to modify the tax code to reward and encourage job creators, they need to come up with a scheme that offers the lowest tax rates to fast-growing startups, some medium-sized firms, and a few select multinationals. Of course, they might prefer to lower taxes on everybody who could be a job creator–because that includes almost everybody. If you ever spend money, that makes you a job creator, in the most expansive sense of the phrase, since somebody gets paid to provide whatever you buy. But then we’d have to figure out whether to reward American consumers for helping create jobs in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, or wherever the imported goods they purchase come from, or to reward people who spend money that helps create American jobs. So if you buy a Lexus made in Japan or Gucci loafers made in Italy, you’re not really a creator of American jobs and you shouldn’t be eligible for favorable tax treatement. But if you have your kitchen remodeled by a local contractor or go to a chiropractor for back pain, you qualify. It’s not so easy being a job creator. Or locating one.
By: Rick Newman, U. S. News and World Report, July 13, 2011
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