(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Being Tom Friedman Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry About China Trade

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China, Mainstream Media, protectionism, pundits, The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, Trade, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Uber-pundit Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column this week about China demonstrated both that “better late than never” may not always be true, and that there’s precious little accountability in the Mainstream Media. Too bad he performed both vital tasks completely unwittingly?

As he traveled through China recently, Friedman told us, his conviction grew that, as President Trump has been charging, “China is not playing fair on trade and has grown in some areas at the expense of U.S. and European workers….” Moreover, he adds, this China challenge “needs to be addressed — now.”

Continued Friedman: “The core problem, U.S. and European business leaders based in China explained, is that when the U.S. allowed China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001 and gain much less restricted access to our markets, we gave China the right to keep protecting parts of its market — because it was a ‘developing economy.’ The assumption was that as China reformed and become more of our equal, its trade barriers and government aid to Chinese companies would melt away.

“They did not.”

And Friedman did a pretty good job of summarizing what RealityChek regulars and so many others have known for years – that China’s mercantilism became considerably worse.

The author ended his piece with a (sort of) ringing call for action: “China needs to know that some people who disagree with everything else Trump stands for — and who value a strong U.S.-China relationship — might just support Trump’s idea for a border-adjustment tax on imports to level the playing field.”

But Friedman also included this kicker: According to someone he called “the smartest person I know inside China on trade (who will have to go nameless),” such actions “if anything… may be too late.”

As the author’s reaction – “Ouch!” – suggests, there’s a distinct possibility that his source is right about the consequences of waiting sixteen years to grapple seriously with China’s predatory practices.

But here’s what Friedman didn’t tell you: One of the folks who pushed vigorously for the boneheaded American WTO decision was none other than Thomas Friedman! As he wrote in 2000, opponents of China’s admission, like U.S. labor unions, were “head-in-the-sand” protectionists. Nor did Friedman seem to think much of fears that “China’s entry into the WTO will make it a more formidable geopolitical rival to the United States.”

Instead, he confidently wrote that “to say that [admission] will hurt the cause of democratization in China or that it won’t help create more islands from which Chinese democrats can operate and more tools by which they can communicate, is to speak utter nonsense.”

Interestingly, by 2011, Friedman seemed to be having important second thoughts about China’s reformist intentions. But he still doggedly opposed meaningful actions to neutralize Beijing’s currency manipulation, for example, with tariffs.

Since no one likes to admit mistakes – especially whoppers – I can certainly understand Friedman’s failure to report his enthusiasm for a China trade strategy he now recognizes as a titanic failure. Much less clear is why so much of the rest of the Mainstream Media – and especially news talk shows who view him as a globalization oracle – keep giving him a pass.

Im-Politic: Trump’s Sure Not Draining the Mainstream Media Swamp

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Im-Politic, journalism, Maggie Haberman, Mainstream Media, media, Sean Spicer, The New York Times, Trump, Washington Post, White House Correspondents Association

At this early stage in the Trump administration, my biggest disappointment doesn’t concern the gaps of varying sizes between the president’s campaign rhetoric and policy moves. Sure, I’m concerned – though less (so far) about his decision to use cruise missile strikes to punish Syria’s dictator for alleged chemical weapons use in that country’s chaotic civil war than about his linkage of China trade ties with Beijing’s willingness to help rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Instead, my biggest disappointment concerns Mr. Trump’s dealings with the Mainstream Media.

For the president gave his supporters and the nation at large every reason to believe that he was going to take badly needed steps to reduce the bloated and increasingly harmful role played in American democracy lately by political reporters for America’s leading national news organizations and the failed bipartisan ruling class they tend to shill for. Yet three months into his administration, it looks like same-old-same-old — at least regarding the fundamentals — even though there’s no shortage of unusually sharp-edged exchanges between individual reporters and individual administration officials.

The president and his aides looked to be off to a strong start, as I reported in this post on the mold-breaking press conference he held just before his inauguration. Moreover, Press Secretary Sean Spicer has followed through on his stated intention to enable new news organizations and voices to take part in his daily White House press briefings, rather than defer to the arguably self-serving standards of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). Perhaps most stinging to the establishment press, in terms of discrete events, the entire administration decided to skip the WHCA’s increasingly narcissistic, celebrity-drenched, and off-putting annual dinner. On an ongoing basis, the president kept slighting the press several times per day with tweets that went over their heads and directly to his tens of millions of followers.

But at least to date, the administration has missed two opportunities genuinely to cut the Mainstream Media down to size and thereby introduce some desperately needed accountability into their cosseted world. The first has to do with the daily press briefings. Spicer clearly has been more combative at these events than his predecessors – for a time, the sessions were treated by networks as must-see TV.

As has become all too obvious, however, “combative” doesn’t necessarily mean “effective.” Indeed, Spicer’s numerous gaffes have made him an object of ridicule even among many outside national chattering class ranks. Yet what should be most upsetting about his performance – even for Americans who are not die-hard Trump-ers – is how plainly it shows the weakness of Spicer’s command of substantive issues and, at least as important, how slow he actually is on his rhetorical feet.

As a result, Spicer is conspicuously ill-equipped to carry out what should be one of the highest priority missions of Trump spokesman: using the press briefings to expose how politically partisan, childishly shallow, and downright ignorant so many Mainstream Media journalists and their breathlessly voiced questions tend to be.

The main purpose here wouldn’t be payback. The main purpose would be public education. Although the media’s poor trust and approval ratings indicate that few Americans still view them as reliable sources of information, the impact of daily broadcast humiliations can’t be overemphasized, especially given the matchless megaphone of social media. And because fostering the image of omniscience is obviously much more central to the Mainstream Media’s reputation (and profitability) than its by-now-shredded image of impartiality, a steady stream of comeuppances could well lead to the mass firings or demotions and infusion of new, untainted blood that the news business urgently needs.

The second media opportunity the Trump administration is missing has to do with access. Proximity to power is another key to the Mainstream Media’s disproportionate power (and pro-establishment bias). Love them or hate them, these journalists and the organizations they work for enjoy their still huge audiences largely because they can plausibly claim to be in the know. Because of the connections these correspondents and pundits have developed with America’s most important political leaders and other movers and shakers, they have nurtured the entirely credible impression that they’re privy to the real views of The Deciders and their advisers, and to the principal reasons (both genuine and those created for public consumption) behind their decisions. That is, following these news people was rightly seen as a good way to figure out both what American leaders were actually trying to do and why, and what these leaders wanted the public to think they were trying to do.

Unfortunately, as has been widely noted, the price for this access almost invariably has been independence that is all too easily compromised in far too many ways. Most obviously, a reporter who’s too difficult to manipulate, and/or too harshly critical, simply isn’t going to have the kind of contact with the figures that count the most as a reporter who eagerly plays this game.

More subtly, ongoing exposure to top leaders in government (and other spheres) tends to socialize journalists in innumerable ways that generate strong pro-establishment and status quo-oriented leanings. Understanding this process entails first and foremost understanding that journalists operate on the fringes of power. They lack the ability to shape events directly, but their choice of profession logically indicates a deeply felt interest in these events. Access to top leaders brings them tantalizingly close to this power – and to its biggest secrets (at least in theory).

Shrewd power-holders know how to capitalize on this journalistic weak spot by pretending to bring news people into their confidence, and on a regular basis actually doing so – usually in minor or superficial, but always self-serving, ways that at the same time can be dramatic and/or colorful enough to undergird an entire hard news story or feature. Sometimes, leaders also flatter journalists by asking for their counsel, and even acting as if it’s valued. After years of such treatment, it’s easy for a journalist to imagine that they and leading policymakers are ultimately on the same team.

Don’t forget that the aesthetics of Washington, D.C. (and other power centers) play a big role in this socialization process, too. It’s no accident that government office buildings, for example, are usually built at least in part from the same kind of marble favored by the Roman emperors and the classical Athenians. Nor is it an accident that individual offices at the uppermost levels of government are so beautifully and luxuriously appointed. Enter them and it’s difficult to imagine that anyone but the truly Best and the Brightest could occupy such regal quarters.

Access matters crucially to journalists in two other ways that disincline them to “afflict the comfortable.” First, by publishing leaks intended to advance certain policies or personalities, or block them or undermine them, media types can actually shape events themselves. In other words, they can actively engage in the arena, rather than simply observe it passively. Not surprisingly, many of these would-be movers and shakers regard these chances as prizes to be preserved at practically any and all cost.

Second, a reputation for enjoying big-time access to power-holders can translate into tremendous prestige both within the profession’s ranks and without. And the latter kind of prestige can easily turn into big bucks – in the form of lecture fees and book contracts. The bigger the bucks, moreover, the likelier a journalist is to gain entree to the power-holders’ social circles. As a result, the most successful mainstream journalists become even less inclined than ever to question in any fundamental way leaders who become neighbors, dinner-party companions, and even genuine friends. Moreover, although income levels are never sure-fire predictors of political and policy leanings, the rich rarely become populists, and considerable wealth and status surely don’t make journalists likelier to view promises to “drain the swamp” dispassionately.

So nothing would have dealt the Mainstream Media as damaging a blow as actions making clear that its access was going, going, and just about gone. As noted above, then-President-elect Trump and Press Secretary-designate Spicer were moving for a time in this direction. And few obstacles seemed to stand in their way. What, for example, could be easier than not returning phone calls from Trump-hating pundits like George Will or Charles Krauthammer, or comparably hostile beat reporters from The New York Times or Washington Post? Just as easy would have been to spread the word that these journalists actually are on the outs, and that their days of trafficking in inside information are over. Their remaining professional lives – at least at the national level – would have been measured in minutes. After all, it’s not as if their writing styles or expertise or analytical skills have ever been anything special.

Yet not only have at least some Trump loyalists and populists apparently been speaking with them on the sly. (What other explanation could there be for the sheer volume of reports about various personality and policy feuds inside the White House?) These figures have been speaking with them on the record – at length – not to mention showing up dutifully for those Sunday morning talk shows that have degenerated into little more than chortle-, sneer- and eyeroll-fests. Yet weirder, so has President Trump – even to New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman, whose political reporting was considered so dependably biased toward Hillary Clinton that her Democratic party supporters labeled her a “surrogate.”

This CNN story purports to explain Mr. Trump’s views of Haberman and his willingness to keep talking with her. In fact, it explains nothing – unless you think that the president is unaware of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails outing her prejudice. If he did, would it be remotely plausible to think that “he knows that she matters, that she will not treat him with kid gloves but not be unfair either, that she commands the respect of the political communities in both Washington and New York”?

I’ve heard other explanations for Trump’s views of The Times – that he believes he can gain or keep the upper hand through the force of his personality, that he has an out-of-control wish to be loved by all, that it’s his hometown paper, that no native New Yorkers can resist the impulse to court it. Those last arguments appeared especially convincing when, not two weeks after his election, Mr. Trump visited The New York Times‘ offices for a long interview with many staffers – including columnists and editorial writers – who had pilloried his presidential run. Was he trying to rub the paper’s hostility in its collective nose? Maybe. But in that case, shouldn’t he have demanded that the Times staff traipse over to Trump Tower if it wanted some of his precious time? Was Mr. Trump trying to kill the publication with kindness? Perhaps. But why bother – and inevitably convey the impression that it’s still in the loop?

With the president apparently tacking to the center on policy, it may be inevitable that he’ll continue treating the Mainstream Media ever more conventionally. In which case, his supporters’ best hopes for a revival of authentic Trump-ism — and the country’s best hopes for encouraging the Mainstream Media to play a genuine watchdog role — could be the chief executive’s richly deserved reputation for about-faces.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: All the Trade Fakeonomics That’s Fit to Print

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China, globalization, John Maynard Keynes, Mainstream Media, Paul Krugman, Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times, Trade, Trade Deficits, Trump, US-China summit, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Last week’s U.S.-China summit turned out to be as close to a nothing-burger as any meeting between the leaders of the world’s two most important countries could possibly be. But at least one useful purpose was served by the understandably suspenseful run-up to this eagerly anticipated first direct encounter between President Trump and the human face of the economic rival he blasted during his White House campaign: It reminded once again how relentlessly terrible Mainstream Media coverage of trade and globalization issues tends to be.

Any number of reports and columns dealing with the summit and the surrounding economic issues deserves targeting by buckets of rotten tomatoes. Worthy of special attention, however, was a “news analysis” on the economics of trade and U.S.-China trade by New York Times correspondent Peter S. Goodman. Indeed, his April 5 article, “Behind Trump’s Trade Deficit Obsession: Deficient Analysis” was so permeated with fakeonomics and outright howlers that even zeroing in on the following three will produce a pretty lengthy post. 

First, Goodman portrays as detached from “economic reality,” President Trump’s belief that “international trade is a zero-sum affair, as if every country were jockeying for a share of forever limited amounts of business.” Instead, according to Goodman, “Trade is not zero-sum. Expanded trade has historically tended to support economic growth, which generates more spoils to be divvied up for all.”

That may indeed be what the economics textbooks say. It may even be what many economists have told Goodman. But this claim misses a far more important reality. Whatever the import of trade balances in a strongly or even normally growing world, the world of recent years hasn’t fit that description. Why didn’t Goodman note that – or an equally important point that economists such as John Maynard Keynes and his own newspaper’s Paul Krugman have observed: In today’s slow growth world (to quote the latter) “mercantilism makes a fair bit of sense”? And of course the corollary is equally true: Countering that mercantilism is sensible, too.

Second, Goodman correctly reports that “Economists generally dismiss bilateral trade deficits as essentially meaningless, for reasons easily recognizable in the rest of everyday life. Most people surely run lopsided trade deficits with their dentists, handing these professionals their dollars without expecting them to purchase anything in return. One may assume that successful dentists will distribute their profits throughout the economy — on marketing, accounting, laundry and streaming music services. One way or another, these dollars generate jobs and income for other people. So it is with countries.”

But apparently, Goodman doesn’t believe that his “news analysis” mandate permits him to analyze this particular statement. If it did, he’d surely recognize that this analogy has nothing do with America’s current circumstances.

For starters, this comparison with everyday life is generally used by economists to illustrate the virtues of specialization – which unfettered trade enhances in theory and often in fact. That is, no one need worry about running a trade deficit with his or her dentist because attempting to take care of their own dental needs would be a foolish waste of their talents, resources, and time. Far better to leave that responsibility to someone with expertise and experience. And this strategy is viable because patients presumably can offer the dentist equally valuable services, or (in a more complex model), because the total amount of goods and or services that patients can offer to all of the merchants that they patronize roughly balance the amount of goods and services that the patients consume.

In other words, patients can run trade deficits with their dentists and remain financially solvent because they are earning the income to pay for these services by successfully “exporting” their own output.

Of course, this is far from the position in which the United States finds itself, since its global trade is in deep deficit, and has been so for many decades. Its economy has remained viable because it’s been able to finance those deficits by a combination of selling off assets and ever more borrowing. Its ability to borrow at affordable rates, in turn, largely reflects the reserve currency role of the dollar – which itself stems from the nation’s past record as a matchless creator of real wealth, its still world-class financial markets, and the lack of any suitable alternative. If Goodman thinks this situation is fine and dandy, he should at least say so. Then he should try remembering how similar circumstances led to the entire world economy’s near-meltdown less than ten years ago.

The financial crisis also should have taught Goodman how unrealistic it has become to expect that “one way or another,” America’s creditors will recycle their trade surplus earnings back into the U.S. economy that generate “jobs and income.” For as I’ve explained frequently, the very offshoring-happy trade policies of so little concern to Goodman (and the rest of the American establishment) greatly reduced the odds that capital inflows would be used productively (e.g., on new factories and labs) and greatly increased the odds that they would be used instead to finance consumption and crackpot finance. Responsible and productive use of recycled trade surpluses is also unlikely when they reach the mammoth scale seen during the bubble decade. For the very abundance of cheap credit greatly erodes the incentive to use it prudently. 

As for the bilateral deficits, it is indeed reasonable to downplay them – when the global deficit is fairly evenly distributed across a nation’s foreign trade partners. When nearly half of the total merchandise deficit is concentrated in U.S.-China trade, as is the case now, bilateral deficits clearly count for a great deal – unless the importance of trade deficits is discounted completely.

In fact, like Goodman, we can analogize to daily life: If an individual or family’s over-consumption is highly concentrated in a single product or service area, that’s a conspicuous target for belt-tightening.

Third, it was nothing less than jaw-dropping to see Goodman emphasize that “even if China were a paragon of fair trading practices, it would almost certainly run a surplus with the United States. Despite tremendous economic advances, China remains a relatively low-income country, home to hundreds of millions of people who cannot afford the more sophisticated fruits of the American economy.”

Just recall: This statement is being made a quarter century after the United States decided to prioritize the expansion of trade with China, and a decade-and-a-half after the landmark decision to admit China into the World Trade Organization – which was based on predictions that China would soon become a market whose growth would contribute to America’s prosperity.

If after all this time, China is still too poor to be able to support a reasonably balanced trade relationship with the United States, then its at least arguable to conclude that liberalizing trade with China so rapidly was a major mistake and was sold to the American public with completely erroneous arguments. It’s also crucial to remember that during the vigorous China trade debates that surrounded those decisions, numerous critics predicted that such imbalances would result – and in part precisely because China’s very low income levels made export bonanza forecasts so ludicrous.

But strangely, none of their views was included in Goodman’s article. Apparently being right isn’t news that’s fit to print.

Im-Politic: Mainstream Media’s Pro-Open Borders Bias Remains Widespread

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assimilation, civil religion, CNN, Donie O'Sullivan, illegal immigrants, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Irish-Americans, Mainstream Media, national identity, National Public Radio, Open Borders, Samuel P. Huningtom, Seymour Martin Lipset, The Washington Post, Tom Gjelten

The pro-Open Borders slant of the Mainstream Media has become so pervasive that the last few days alone have served up no less than two major instances by leading news organizations. One should be painfully obvious – at least to anyone familiar with the history of immigration in the United States and the nation’s (until unquestionably successful) approach towards assimilating newcomers. The other is more difficult to detect. Both also entail telling failures of professional judgment by writers and editors alike. You decide which (if either) is the most worrisome.

The obvious example of bias came from a Washington Post piece Sunday by National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten. If you ignore the lessons Gjelten claims flow from that American immigration history, you can learn a lot from his article about (or be usefully reminded of) the various efforts made from the early 19^th to the mid-20^th century to address the various social and cultural issues large inflows from regions outside Britain (though still mainly from Europe) in particular posed. Of course, far too many were products of simple bigotry.

But Gjelten then ventures deeply into a dangerous fantasyland when he discusses those lessons and what they mean today. He all but explicitly states that, given the more recent waves of immigrants, now dominated by non-Europeans, Americans should not only reject race and ethnicity or religion the bases of their national identity. They should also reject using what’s long been called a “civil” or “political” religion – a group of political beliefs and values that can surely be argued over around the edges, but that surely closely approximates a formula developed by political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset. As Gjelten summarizes it: “liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and a laissez-faire approach to governance and daily life.”

Since I’d add separation of church and state, another common definition of Americanism – advanced by another political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington – is more problematic. “Anglo-Protestant culture and political values.” But if you think about it, it’s not that much more problematic, especially since the overlap between Lipset and Huntington is so substantial.

Moreover, look at the matter from the opposite perspective. How many other peoples and contemporary regions have created political values in particular (“cultural values” is a concept that’s much too sweeping and much too prone to intolerant abuse for me) that most Americans today would want to live under? Latin America? East Asia? The Middle East? Please. So if you employ a little common sense, and substitute something like “European Enlightenment” for “Anglo-Protestant,” you arrive at a basis for American identity that not only should offend no one, but that, more important, has underlain much of the nation’s extraordinary success.

But Gjelten seems not to agree. In response to Huntington’s (poorly formulated) contention that successful assimilation has entailed “people who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants [becoming] Americans by adopting America’s Anglo-Protestant culture and political values,” he maintains:

“Whether that had really happened or was even possible was debatable. ‘A nation of more than 130 cultural groups cannot hope to have all of them Anglo-Saxonized,’ argued Molefi Kete Asante in his book ‘The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism.’ Trying to do so, he argued, would only alienate minorities and deepen disunity.”

Yet having apparently dismissed civil religion as well as (rightly) race and ethnicity as the source of America’s national identity, does Gjelten come up with any viable alternatives? None that I can see. In fact, at this point, his article dissolves into an endorsement of concepts like “nondiscrimination,” “diversity,” and “multiculturalism” that are not only gauzy but lacking in any particular content.

The author maintains that what he terms “nondiscriminatory immigration” based on these empty principles has succeeded in America by making it “more resilient.” But his evidence can’t possibly impress: that “In comparison with Western European countries that have also received large numbers of immigrants, America has proved to be more capable of absorbing and successfully integrating a diverse population.” Of course, this observation practically defines “low bar.”

It’s Gjelten’s right to believe in a definition of national identity evidently distinguished only by what it isn’t – though he sure didn’t provide any examples of countries that have been held together adequately simply by ideals such as multiculturalism and diversity. It’s also his right to believe – as actually seems to be the case – that the idea of a national identity is either pointless or undesirable. But he should have the intellectual honesty to say so. Further, his editors should have had the competence to challenge his case more than they obviously did.

The other troubling instance of journalistic failure by a reporter and editors alike – this CNN post noting that a significant chunk of America’s illegal immigrant population is Irish. That’s unquestionably useful information. But neither author Donie O’Sullivan nor his editors had anything direct to say about the real significance of the article: It powerfully undercuts claims that President Trump’s immigration policies, and even his focus on illegal immigration, stem largely from racism.

Starting with its headline, the article does point out that the illegal Irish have a major advantage over much of the rest of the nation’s illegals – their ability to pass more easily for native-born since they’re white. So obviously, enforcement of immigration law nowadays will inevitably be affected to some extent by race and ethnicity. (At the same time, the article helpfully observes that there are many fewer Irish illegals than Mexican illegals in particular.)

O’Sullivan makes abundantly clear how much fear the administration’s policies have struck among the illegal Irish, and even presents some evidence that these fears have some basis in reality, their physical appearance edge notwithstanding. He quotes an official at an organization providing support services for all Irish newcomers as stating that “it seems that the ICE [immigration law enforcement] agents are using their discretion in a much greater capacity now than ever before.”

But it’s absolutely astonishing (or is it?) that the author says absolutely nothing about the screamingly obvious implication of this claim: It’s a sign that immigration law is being enforced in a race- and ethnicity-blind way. And even though the racism charge has deeply colored the national immigration debate especially since President Trump’s harsh description of some Mexican immigrants when he declared his candidacy for the White House, it’s equally astonishing (or is it?) that none of O’Sullivan’s editors at CNN apparently noted this fact’s omission or importance, either.

Bias-free journalism admittedly is difficult to produce, and the challenge is made all the more formidable by the numerous forms bias can take, and how difficult many can be to spot. All the same, these Washington Post and CNN offerings stand as vivid reminders of how far the Mainstream Media that still dominate news dissemination in our democracy remain from meeting it.

Im-Politic: How Trump Could Really Make the News Media Great Again

Tags

CNN, Constitution, First Amendment, Harvard University, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, press freedom, Sean Spicer, The New York Times, Trump, White House Correspondents Association, White House press corps

The nation’s intertwined media and political elites are in an uproar over President-elect Trump’s performance at his press conference yesterday – the first he’s held since July. Their stated fear: Mr. Trump’s refusal to answer questions from a CNN reporter at the session add to evidence that he and his administration will be willing to “retaliate, bully, and ban journalists whose questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

As a result, the media won’t have “the access and information necessary to accurately and honestly cover the new administration” and the public will lose out “on the perspective those reporters bring, and we as an industry lose out in our efforts to hold power accountable.”

Sounds pretty serious. Except here’s what these supposed watchdogs of democracy either don’t get or won’t admit: More than ever before in recent memory, the Mainstream Media that Mr. Trump has so often attacked are hardly the totality of the U.S. media universe. They’re clearly not the totality of the competent or intellectually honest U.S media universe. And therefore, restricting some of their members’ access to American officials no longer means that the public’s right to know need be endangered.

The nation, and especially those increasingly overlapping political and media classes, have gotten so used to the structure of the journalistic universe as it’s evolved in recent decades that everyone’s forgotten that it has never, and shouldn’t be, set in stone. More specifically, although freedom of the press unmistakably is and should be protected vigorously by the Constitution, the role of today’s leading national news organizations, and in particular, the current White House press corps, has no legal or Constitutional basis. Nor should they enjoy such a privilege.

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), for example, exists and itself influences access to White House officials through its membership criteria, solely at the president’s behest. No government officials are required to deal with reporters on its roster, and as the organization itself acknowledges, presidents have treated it with dramatically varying measures of respect and disdain for more than a century.

In fact, the last word on who can interact in the role of journalists with government officials on any level legally belongs with government agencies themselves. In the words of this 2014 Harvard University study on such issues, the First Amendment

“does not cover the full spectrum of newsgathering activity, and, as presently understood, does not confer a right to gather news in particular places or circumstances to which the public is not otherwise admitted. This includes access to private events, as well as access to nonpublic spaces owned by the government (such as government offices and prisons).”

Could American leaders exploit this situation in order to deny the public the information it needs to evaluate their performance, and weaken the vibrancy of truly representative government? Of course. But keep the following three considerations in mind:

First, according to the Harvard report, “Recognizing that effective newsgathering requires greater levels of access than what the First Amendment provides, legislators and regulators at various levels of government have adopted policies granting to a subset of the public identified as the ‘press’ certain privileges to do things that ordinary citizens may not.”

In addition, as this study documents, the courts have demonstrated a clear determination to ensure extensive access by journalists to public officials, and to define “journalist” in ways that have enabled aggressive reporting.

Regarding worries about the presidency in particular, the federal government also contains a legislative branch with plenty of members of opposition political parties. Even disgruntled members of a president’s own party have ample means to disclose information they consider important – either through their authority to compel testimony and reports from the executive, as well as their power of the purse; or by working with the media themselves.  

Second, how democratic would it be to empower the media themselves – which after all consist overwhelmingly of privately owned, profit-seeking businesses – to determine who can attend press conferences and belong to media pools covering traveling leaders? Indeed, how democratic would it be to entrust the establishment media specifically with this responsibility?

These businesses – again at the government’s sufferance – already play a decisive role in these matters. How many Americans – outside Beltway insider circles – are satisfied with the results? And what evidence is available that the White House Correspondents Association has adequately disciplined members who have been exposed as partisans? As little as has been seen from the journalistic employers of these hacks – who don’t seem to have fired any of them.

Third, the better establishment journalists perform at reporting accurately and impartially, the likelier they are to create, maintain or reestablish the kinds of informal relationships with the widest variety of officials that have always been central to the most valuable investigative reporting – as opposed to shouting questions in the White House press room. And don’t forget the importance of filing Freedom of Information Act suits, or even keeping up with information on the public record – which can be astonishingly revealing.  

In the meantime, the incoming administration has indicated that it’s thinking of introducing some badly needed accountability of its own into its dealings with the press – for example, Mr. Trump’s refusal to respond to the CNN reporter in the (not unreasonable) judgment that the organization has too often fallen short of best journalistic practices. Moreover, his press secretary-designate, Sean Spicer, has spoken of changing the authorized White House press pool in various ways in order to reflect better the makeup of contemporary journalism.

So America may be heading towards a world in which presidents (and other senior government officials) don’t feel any particular need to deal with, say, CNN. Or The New York Times. In the short term, the result might be a rocky period for the government, for the media, and possibly for the flow of high quality information a real democracy needs. Yet the status quo ante plainly was not sustainable – both because of new technologies that have been rapidly transforming the media landscape, and because traditional journalism’s recent performance in particular has been so deficient.

But American leaders will still have powerful interests in getting their stories and narratives out through news organizations with large audiences. That’s why I’m confident that, however scornfully they treat individual media companies, they’ll nonetheless wind up dealing with responsible and dedicated journalists. And who knows? Maybe heightened competition will help make the Mainstream Media great again.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Confusion in Mainstream Media-Land

Tags

Ben White, Catherine Rampell, economy, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Mainstream Media, Politico, recovery, The Washington Post, Trump

“Trump’s ‘make America great’ plans face a slowing economy”

– Ben White, Politico, January 6, 2017

 

“Trump is being handed a great economy”

– Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, December 26, 2016

(Sources: “Trump’s ‘make America great’ plans face a slowing economy,” by Ben White, Politico, January 6, 2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/us-economy-2017-outlook-trump-233293 and “Trump is being handed a great economy. What happens when it goes south?” by Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, December 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-being-handed-a-great-economy-what-happens-when-it-goes-south/2016/12/26/524ff948-cba9-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.403834fd0f3d)

Im-Politic: The U.S. Mainstream Media Keeps Merging with the Political Class

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ABC News, chattering classes, Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, Im-Politic, Jonathan Karl, Mainstream Media, This Week with George Stephanopoulos

If you want a revealingly stomach-churning-inducing example of much of what’s whoppingly wrong with the nation’s intertwined media and political chattering classes – and a big reason for Donald Trump’s presidential victory – check out a video of yesterday’s edition of ABC-TV’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The episode was capped by a sit-down joint interview by guest anchor Jonathan Karl of Newt Gingrich and Donna Brazile.

What’s outrageous about this? That’s the same Donna Brazile who unmistakably took advantage of her position as a CNN political analyst to leak presidential debate questions to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. In other words, it’s the same Donna Brazile who is nothing better than a common thief.

Now it isn’t the fault of Karl or ABC News that Brazile is still interim chair of the Democratic National Committee. That’s on the party. Nor is it the fault of Karl or ABC that Brazile’s sense of ethics is so perverted that she’s refused to apologize for the misdeed. That’s on her. What is the fault of Karl and ABC is giving this crook a national forum and treating her like some venerable sage – with Karl failing even to mention her perfidy.

Clearly, America’s political culture has traveled far from the notion of the press as watchdog of the public interest. But what Karl’s treatment of Brazile demonstrates – yet again – is that the problem only secondarily stems from the liberal bias of which the media is widely accused. The fundamental problem is a pro-establishment and pro-conventional-wisdom bias that originates less in ideology (for it’s bipartisan) but in sociology.

For whatever their personal backgrounds, Karl and Brazile (and so many other Beltway denizens) now belong to the same class, live the same kinds of lives and in the same kinds of neighborhoods, socialize with the same kinds of people – and often get invited to the same cocktail and dinner parties. As a result, they too often share the same kinds of values – especially about personal and professional norms of behavior. They thus tend to overlook all but the most flagrant (and highly publicized) transgressions. As Karl has just demonstrated, they even tend to act protectively of each other’s interests. And of course this mutual admiration society and support network takes on special importance in years like the one just past, when outsiders start breaching their common fortress.

Back in ancient Roman days, the poet Juvenal is credited with asking what’s become one of the most important questions in political philosophy and day-to-day governance: “Who guards the guardians?” Karl’s session with Brazile once more reminds Americans that the Mainstream Media has become all but structurally incapable of playing this role.

Im-Politic: The Trump Voters Who Want Work, not Welfare

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coal country, Dante Chinni, Democrats, dignity of work, family leave, Im-Politics, Immigration, Jobs, Mainstream Media, minimum wage, Obama, Obamacare, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, Trump, wages, welfare

There’s no doubt that “Aha!” articles need to occupy a prominent place in journalism. This is especially true when they reveal important gaps between the claims of politicians and other major public figures on the one hand, and incontestable reality on the other.

At the same time, “Aha!” journalism can contain fatal flaws even when it’s superficially accurate. As illustrated by a Wall Street Journal article published yesterday, the problems can become serious when the Mainstream Media and others in America’s chattering classes try to figure out what’s going among those American voters who supported President-elect Trump.

Since I’m not a mind-reader, I of course can’t know reporter Dante Chinni’s exact motive in presenting the evidence that Trump voters look to be among the biggest losers if the president-elect keeps his campaign promise to repeal President Obama’s healthcare reforms. But it’s certainly got major – and legitimate – “Aha!” overtones. What could be easier to imagine than Democrats and other assorted liberals and progressives making political hay out of the idea that Mr. Trump will wind up shafting his own backers big-time. Indeed, that’s already begun.

Nonetheless, there’s a big part of this picture that pieces like this miss (regardless of how much or how little of Obamacare the next administration tries to keep). As the Journal article makes clear, Trump voters appear certain to take a painful Obamacare hit because so many live in parts of the country that have been devastated by trends like technological advance, offshoring-friendly trade deals, and the demise of the coal industry. Where lost jobs haven’t resulted, wages have fallen significantly. Of course, these setbacks go far toward explaining why they were Trump voters to begin with!

But there’s a clear implication at work here: that, in fact, those Trump voters should have backed Democratic presidential nominee, and Democratic or otherwise liberal members of Congress, because they’d have surely kept the very important benefit of adequate, free or much lower cost medical coverage.

This conclusion makes perfect sense from the standpoint of typically well heeled, thoroughly urbanized members of the nation’s media, political, and policy establishments. Business leaders who view themselves as progressives surely agree. But it makes no sense from the standpoint of economically pressed Trump voters – who as should now be screamingly obvious, live worlds apart from these elites.

For many of these folks remember the days when they didn’t need Obamacare to prop up their living standards or prevent their descent into near-poverty or outright destitution. They also remember the days when they were able to own a home by financing it responsibly, take a respectable vacation, buy a new car, provide for their children the college education they may have lacked, and retire securely – all without minimum wage hikes, without paid family leave, and without subsidized healthcare during their working lives, and without any of the other actual and prospective palliatives offered by the public sector, whether adequate or not.

In other words, they remember the days when they and/or their spouse held good-paying and reasonably secure jobs, and they reject the idea that any forms of welfare – even all added up together – amount to acceptable compensation. And they resent the dole especially vehemently if they believe, rightly or wrongly, that their livelihoods disappeared or turned into dead-end jobs because of entirely avoidable political decisions – especially on the trade and immigration fronts.

The point here is not that Obamacare and other government supports are bad or unnecessary. The point is that Trump voters (and of course many others) believe in “the dignity of work” – not in the formal Catholic sense, but in the informal, everyday sense. And they want to see more politicians taking this idea seriously, instead of giving it lip service.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Lows for Mainstream Media Coverage of Trade & Manufacturing

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Don Lee, exports, imports, intermediate goods, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, media, MSM, National Foreign Trade Council, offshoring lobby, producer goods, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Trade, U.S. Business and Industry Council, William Reinsch, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Everyone, no matter what their views on trade and related economic issues, agrees that reviving the U.S. domestic manufacturing sector represents a major challenge. What everyone needs to agree on is that the goal will never be reached as long as the Mainstream Media keeps presenting views on the subject that are as silly as they are downright ignorant. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider these two recent examples.

The first came in a piece by a team of New York Times reporters earlier this month. According to headline on the December 2 article, “Trump’s Tough Trade Talk Could Damage American Factories.” The reason?

“[M]any existing American manufacturing jobs depend heavily on access to a broad array of goods drawn from a global supply chain — fabrics, chemicals, electronics and other parts. …Mr. Trump’s signature trade promise [steep tariff hikes], one ostensibly aimed at protecting American jobs, may well deliver the reverse: It risks making successful American manufacturers more vulnerable by raising their costs. It would unleash havoc on the global supply chain, prompting some multinationals to leave the United States and shift manufacturing to countries where they can be assured of buying components at the lowest prices.”

To be sure, this article suffers numerous flaws. For instance, what’s the “U.S.-made product” it uses as its signature example of globalization-related trends that (one must logically assume) are being portrayed as beneficial for American industry? A movie seat chair comprised of two-thirds imported parts by value. Talk about a formula for a hollowed out manufacturing base!

But the main problem is with the authors’ apparent belief that these parts and components and materials (often called intermediate or producer goods) must be imported because they’re either not made in America, or can’t be made in America at all, or at competitive prices.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a huge percentage of American manufacturing output consists precisely of these products. It’s hard to know exactly how big because of shortcomings in U.S. data collection. But the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly trade figures show that, on a pre-inflation basis, America’s goods exports for the first 10 months of this year have totaled just over $1.2 trillion. Of those, nearly 62.5 percent consisted of “capital goods” and “industrial supplies” – i.e., intermediate goods. (See Exhibit 6 in this release.)

But such exports are surely far greater, because the Census figures don’t break out the numbers for auto parts.

Similar problems plague American manufacturing output numbers, but also leave no doubt about the prominence of intermediate goods in the U.S. industrial complex. They show that, in 2014 (the last year for which detailed data are available), American manufacturing’s pre-inflation production was slightly more than $2 trillion. Of this amount, nearly 37.5 percent consists of products clearly identifiable as intermediate goods (like machinery, metals, and chemicals).

But again, due to data shortcomings, it’s difficult to tease out other leading intermediates – including not only auto parts but semiconductors and other electronics components and electrical equipment. (These figures are calculated from the “GDP by State” interactive tables in this section of the Commerce Department Bureau of Economic Affairs website, which includes national totals.)

So the claim that Trump-ian tariffs would eviscerate domestic manufacturing by cutting off American industry’s access to imported producer goods completely ignores the potentially greatly positive impact of stimulating demand for the nation’s immense (remaining) domestic producer goods complex.

The second example is even nuttier. In a December 12 piece, Los Angeles Times reporter Don Lee quoted an attack on tariffs from William Reinsch, identified as a “distinguished fellow at the nonpartisan Stimson Center.” That’s a big problem right there, as what Lee didn’t mention is that for 15 years, Reinsch was president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a pillar of Washington’s corporate offshoring lobby.

Yet it was Reinsch’s actual statement – and Lee’s apparent failure to see its fatal flaw – that was the real eye-opener. According to Lee, one of Reinsch’s main objections to tariffs broadly is that “We may assemble more stuff here, but we’ll export less because they’ll be more expensive. We’re going to be losing market share. Ultimately, the cost is jobs.”

Of course, as shown by that aforementioned New York Times article, too much American manufacturing already consist of “assembly.” More important, however, is that it seemingly hasn’t occurred to Reinsch or to Lee that the United States is running immense trade deficits overall, and especially in manufacturing. In other words, all else equal, the potential gains of producing “more stuff here” (and Reinsch never explains why it would be restricted to assembly) vastly outweigh the losses from exporting less.

Outsized domestic gains are even likelier because the United States has much more control over its own market and access to it than over foreign markets. Nor do Reinsch and Lee seem to know that the nation has been losing major market share even in advanced manufacturing industries for many years, as documented by several reports of mine issued by the U.S. Business and Industry Council. Here’s the latest.

President-elect Trump’s trade policy proposals are anything beyond controversy, and a thoroughgoing debate over the best globalization approach for the U.S. economy would be a long overdue and welcome development. Sadly, these two articles make clear that too much of the Mainstream Media remain far from making valuable contributions.

Im-Politic: The Times (Implicitly) Admits its Anti-Trump Bias

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Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., Im-Politic, Jim Rutenberg, John J. Harwood, Maggie Haberman, Mainstream Media, media bias, The New York Times, Trump, Wikileaks

If you think President-elect Trump has been a master of the non-apology apology during the 2016 campaign, you should get a load of the letter just sent to subscribers by New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. In the aftermath of an election cycle in which The Times and other Mainstream Media outlets rightly saw their credibility with Americans sink to all time lows due to their indisputable and nearly unremitting bias against both Mr. Trump and the insurgency he led, Sulzberger walked right up to the line of acknowledging his newspaper’s failings – but declined to cross it.

Just to remind: In August, Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg reported that journalists throughout the country – including presumably at his own newspaper – had decided that Trump’s unconventional nature justified abandoning the notions of balance that in post-Yellow Journalism times have lain at the heart of reliable and honest hard news coverage.

Indeed, his piece quoted a colleague – The Times‘ senior editor for politics – as stating that “copious and aggressive coverage” was justified not only by the cloud of personal scandal trailing Trump, but because he had expressed “warmth toward one of our most mischievous and menacing adversaries,” and proposed “to rethink the alliances that have guided our foreign policy for 60 years….”

Further, Times reporter John J. Harwood has been exposed by Wikileaks as an unmistakable cheerleader for Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, and a scornful foe of the new president-elect’s. Wikileaks also published emails revealing that yet another Times journalist – political correspondent Maggie Haberman – was viewed as a reliable “surrogate” by the Clinton campaign in her previous job as a reporter for Politico.

So the paper – along with the rest of the Mainstream Media – unquestionably has a lot to apologize for. But Sulzberger’s letter avoided any of these specifics. At one point, in fact, he wrote that “We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign.” Yet before that, he presented this enigmatic statement:

“As we reflect on this week’s momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly.”

But logically, in the process, Sulzbergery raised the question of why a rededication to The Times‘ fundamental mission is needed in the first place if the paper had always been carrying it out.

Sulzberger closed his letter by observing that “We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers.” In that vein, it’s awfully interesting that The Times just reported its third quarter profits, and that they were down 96 percent year-on-year. That is, they practically disappeared. And the finances of the rest of the mainstream print media are awfully fragile these days as well.

Declining credibility among readers certainly isn’t the only reason – news outlets have long been struggling with creating a digital model that actually makes money, even as their hard copy revenues keep sinking. But given that the media’s success ultimately relies on its perceived integrity, honestly admitting its atrocious performance over the last 18 months looks like both the right step to take ethically, and an urgently needed business decision.