Im-Politic: The New York Times’ DeSantis Hatchet Job Flunks Even the Competence Test

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demographics, Florida, Im-Politic, Immigration, journalism, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Mainstream Media, MSM, Regime Media, Ron DeSantis, The New York Times

Memo to New York Times podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro, her editors at the paper’s opinion section, and indeed all journalists: If you’re going to do a takedown piece on a major politician, or anyone, try to display at least minimal competence.

Had Garcia-Navarro and her editors followed this advice, they’d have never published a recent hatchet job on Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican governor and possible 2024 presidential candidate, that’s a monument to factual cherry- picking and outright misinformation trafficking, and a disgrace even to the increasingly debased practice of opinion writing.

Garcia-Navarro concentrates on debunking the claims of DeSantis and his supporters that the governor “has overseen a growing economy” and that. “Florida now has the fastest-growing population in the country.” (I reported on the latter and related developments here.)

Actually, the author claims,

“Florida is not a model for the nation, unless the nation wants to become unaffordable for everyone except rich snowbirds.

“While my home state’s popularity might indeed seem like good news for a governor with presidential ambitions, a closer look shows that Florida is underwater demographically. Most of those flocking there are aging boomers with deep pockets, adding to the demographic imbalance for what is already one of the grayest populations in the nation. This means that Florida won’t have the younger workers needed to care for all those seniors. And while other places understand that immigrants, who often work in the service sector and agriculture, two of Florida’s main industries, are vital to replenishing aging populations, Mr. DeSantis and the state G.O.P. are not exactly immigrant-friendly, enacting legislation to limit the ability of people with uncertain legal status to work in the state.”

One obvious reason for doubting Garcia-Navarro’s arguments is the lack of documentation. That’s likely because had the author decided to present the principal facts, or had her editors insisted upon this, they ‘d have watched this indictment melt away.

A balanced picture of Florida’s demographics would have begun by noting that DeSantis has only occupied the state house in Tallahassee since the beginning of 2019. Anyone familiar with the Sunshine States knows that it’s been a popular retirement destination for decades.

It’s possible that DeSantis has had such a powerful impact on Florida’s demographics that these patterns have changed dramatically in the last four years? Well, yes. But the statistics surely have been distorted – like virtually all U.S. data – by the CCP Virus.

In any event, Florida’s own state government shows that the state’s (higher-than-the-U.S. Average) median age rose 0.71 percent between 2019-2021 (the latest figures available) while that of the nation as a whole increased by 0.52 percent. For comparison’s sake, during the two years before 2019, Florida’s median age advanced by 0.48 percent versus the 1.05 percent for the entire United States.

So these limited samples do show that Florida has been aging at a relatively fast pace under DeSantis, both versus its own pre-DeSantis pace and that of all of America. But the none of gaps or the changes between them is the least bit dramatic.

Between 2017 and 2019, Florida’s median age dipped from 110 percent of its total U.S. counterpart to 109.375 percent. By 2021, it bounced all the way back to …109.585 percent. In other words, big whoop.

As for Garcia-Navarro’s charge that DeSantis’ governorship has benefited only “rich snowbirds” economically, that’s hard to square with what the exit polls told us about his 2022 reelection results. Specifically, fully 41 percent of Floridians who voted last year lived in households that earned $50,000 annually or less. Thirty-eight percent of these voters’ households earned between $50,000 and $99,000 per year. And 21 percent earned more than $100,000 each year. So clearly, lots of DeSantis voters weren’t one percenters or five percenters or ten percenters or even close.

It’s true that DeSantis clobbered his Democratic opponent among voters aged 45 or older – by 63 percent to 36 percent. But that group includes lots of non-geezers. And among the 18-44-year olds, DeSantis trailed by just 50-48 percent. So clearly lots of DeSanti voters weren’t wealthy seniors, either. Either all these non-super-rich and young and midde aged Floridians are too stupid to vote in thei own economic self-interest, or they know something that Garcia-Navarro and her editors don’t.

And has DeSantis really shut off the flow of desperately needed immigrants into Florida? Despite his efforts to “limit the ability of people with uncertain legal status to work in the state” (love that latest euphemism for illegal aliens!), U.S. Census data show that the answer is emphatically “No.”

For example, from July, 2021 to July, 2022 (the latest official data available), slightly fewer immigrants moved into Florida on a net basis (125,629) than into California (125,715). And that’s even though California’s estimated population last year (39.03 million) was much larger than Florida’s (22.24 million), and even though California is a self-proclaimed sanctuary state. (See the the fourth xls table downloadable from this Census link.) 

These data don’t distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, but for the purposes of this post, who cares? Indeed, do the (not rocket science) math, and even if you believe that more immigrants (includin those with “uncertain legal status) are essential for adequate senior care, it turns out that Florida is in much better shape because it’s receiving nearly as many of the foreign born as California even though its population includes many fewer (4.69 million) seniors in absolute terms than California (5.93 million).

Moreover, these numbers are little changed in a relative sense from those of the last pre-DeSantis year.  In fact, the data in the fifth xls table available at this Census link show that from July, 2018 to July, 2019, more immigrants came to Florida (88,678) than to California (74,028) even though more seniors (just over six million) lived in the latter than in the former (4.54 million).  (Note:  this last data describes the situation as of April, 2020. These were the closest Census figures that seem to be available.)   

I was able to find all these highly relevant figures without undue difficulty. Why couldn’t Garcia-Navarro? Or her editors? No doubt because their intent was not to englighten but to smear. As a result, I feel better than ever about changing my nomenclature for such established news organizations from “Mainstream Media” to “Regime Media.”  

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Glad I Didn’t Say That! Vaccine Derangement Syndrome

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Associated Press, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Mainstream Media, MSM, vaccination, vaccines, Wuhan virus

“Tens of millions of Americans have refused to get vaccinated,

allowing the highly contagious delta variant to tear through the

country….” 

– Associated Press, October 2, 2021

 

“Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates”

– Associated Press, October 3, 2021

 

(Sources: “COVID-19 deaths eclipse 700,000 in US as delta variant rages,” by Tammy Webber and Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press, October 2, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-dead-us-milestone-80209c66802902e42adfbe075ff5272b and “Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates,” by Wilson Ring, Associated Press, October 3, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-pandemics-vermont-d25aae90b2dda65b3d1c2c0d5d00156c)

Those Stubborn Facts: Immigration Excuse-Making for California

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Associated Press, Barack Obama, California, Donald Trump, green card holders, green cards, immigrants, Immigration, legal immigration, Mainstream Media, MSM, Those Stubborn Facts

California’s “immigration decline has been particularly fast in the past half decade as President Donald Trump’s administration sharply reduced the number of people legally entering the United States.”

– Associated Press, April 24, 2021

 

Average annual grants of legal permanent U.S. resident status to

immigrants, Trump years: 1,085,181

 

Average annual grants of legal permanent U.S. resident status to

immigrants, second Obama term: 1,060,402

 

(Sources: “Awaiting census count, California ponders slow growth future,” by Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press, April 24, 2021, Awaiting census count, California ponders slow growth future (apnews.com) & “Table 1. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 to 2019,” Yearbook 2019, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Immigration Data and Statistics, Department of Homeland Security, Table 1. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 to 2019 | Homeland Security (dhs.gov))

Glad I Didn’t Say That! A Weird NY Times Definition of “Polarizing”

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, experts, Florida, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, MSM, politics, polls, public health, reopening, Ron DeSantis, The New York Times, Wuhan virus

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis “has become a

polarizing leader in the resistance to lengthy pandemic lockdowns,

ignoring the advice of some public health experts in ways that have

left his state’s residents bitterly divided over the costs and benefits of

his actions.”

– The New York Times, April 10, 2021

Latest two DeSantis Florida approval ratings: 53 % & 60 %

– Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, March 2, 2021 and The Florida Times-Union, March 4, 2021

 

(Sources: “Could Ron DeSantis Be Trump’s G.O.P. Heir?  He’s Certainly Trying,” by Patricia Mazzei, The New York Times, April 10, 2021, Could Ron DeSantis Be Trump’s G.O.P. Heir? He’s Certainly Trying. – The New York Times (nytimes.com); “New poll shows 53% of Florida voters approve of DeSantis, a big increase from July,” by Zac Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 2, 2021, https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/03/02/florida-governor-ron-desantis-approval-rating-sees-big-increase-covid-pandemic-anniversary/6877677002/; and “UNF poll: Gov. DeSantis approval at 60 percent,” The Florida Times-Union, March 4, 2021, UNF poll: Gov. DeSantis approval at 60 percent – News – The Florida Times-Union – Jacksonville, FL )

Im-Politic: A Trifecta (& Not in a Good Way) for the Washington Post

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alliances, allies, benefits, contract workers, education, foreign policy, geopolitics, globalism, globalization, Jobs, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, media bias, MSM, national security, NATO, North Atlantic Treat Organization, remote learning, reopening, schools, teachers, teachers unions, temporary jobs, Trade, wages, Washington Post, Zoom

At 11:30 yesterday morning, when I sat down for my typical Sunday brunch at home (where else these days?), I had no idea what I’d blog about today. At 11:35, after perusing the Washington Post Outlook section, I had no fewer than three ideas, each of which focused on an article simultaneously whacko and emblematic of key Mainstream Media and broader establishment biases. Ultimately, I decided that they were all so inane and representative that a single post briefly examining each would suffice to get the message across.

First catching my eye was a proposal by Seton Hall University political scientist Sara Bjerg Moller that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “reorienting” its focus to add countering the rise of China to its list of missions, and even designating it the top priority. One obvious retort is that the European members of this alliance binding America’s own national security to that of the continent is that during the Cold War, when they readily acknowledged the threat posed by the old Soviet Union, these European members collectively never even mustered the will to provide adequately for their own defense even when they became wealthy enough to create such militaries.

They preferred to free ride on the United States instead – which perversely enabled this behavior by sticking hundreds of thousands of its own troops – and their dependents – in harm’s way, smack in the middle of the likeliest Soviet invasion roots. The idea was that since these units couldn’t possibly match the conventional armes of their Soviets and their East European satellite states, once the shooting started, their vulnerability and indeed impending destruction would leave a U.S. President no real choice but to use nuclear weapons to save them. The odds that the conflict would escalate to the all-out nuclear exchange level that would endanger the Soviet homeland itself was suppsed to keep Moscow at bay to begin with. (And if you think this sounds exactly like the U.S. “tripwire” strategy for defending South Korea that I just wrote about here, you’re absolutely right.)

As with the Korea approach, Washington’s NATO Europe strategy needlessly exposes the continental United States to the risk of nuclear attack because wealthy allies skimp on their own defense spending, but that’s not the main problem with Moller’s article. After all, if the Europeans never mobilized enough resources to prevail over a Soviet threat located right on their doorstep – and a Russian threat that presumably still exists today, since the alliance didn’t disband once Communism fell – why would they answer a call to arms against a danger that’s half a world away from them. And even if they agreed with the United States on the imperative of containing Beijing, why wouldn’t they simply repeat their free-riding strategy, which arguably would allow them once more to reap all the benefits of America’s efforts without incurring any of the costs or risks?

But weirdest of all, the author herself admits that Europe remains far from a new anti-China European mindset. In her own words:

“Regrettably, as with Russia [today], Europe is divided over how to deal with China. Many European allies are wary of picking sides in the struggle for influence between the United States and its Asian rival. Some, like Germany, even appear outright resentful at the suggestion that they must choose. German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed last year to conclude the E.U.-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment — even though the incoming U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had strongly signaled that Europe should wait till Biden’s inauguration.”

Don’t get me wrong: It would be great if the Europeans were ready and willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States against China. But they’re not today, and a heavy burden of proof rests with those arguing that this common front is even remotely possible for the foreseeable future, much less that the United States should spend much time trying to create one. So I’ve got to think that this article was run simply because the relentlessly globalist and therefore alliance-fetishizing Washington Post believes that wishing for (and hyping the prospects of) something can make it so.

The second item is actually a pair of Outlook articles this morning. Their theme – and I could scarcely believe my eyes: Everyone’s overlooking all the advantages that remote learning can create! In other words, for months, national dismay has been growing that conducting classes by Zoom etc at all educational levels has been at best completely inadequate and at worst could permanently scar both the educational attainment and the psyches of the a generation of American students. As warned by none other than President Biden:

“Today, an entire generation of young people is on the brink of being set back up to a year or more in their learning. We are already seeing rising mental health concerns due in part to isolation. Educational disparities that have always existed grow wider each day that our schools remain closed and remote learning isn’t the same for every student.” 

But it’s also clear that the President is loathe to antagonize politically powerful teachers’ unions, which have acted determined to keep schools closed unless a wildly ambitious – not to mention medically unnecessary – set of demands have been met. Largely as a result, all the evidence indicates that a large share of American students still aren’t back in class in person full time (although the hesitation of many parents is partly responsible, too).

It’s just as clear, though, that the Post as an institution, like the rest of the Mainstream Media, is wildly enthusiastic about Mr. Biden. So even though the editorial board has upbraided the unions for their foot-dragging, the Outlook section is run by a different staff and, call me paranoid, I can’t help but suspect that yeserday’s two pieces – by an “author and educator in Boston” and a college professor – aren’t part of an effort to pave the ground for a school re-closing if the CCP Virus shows signs of a comeback.

After all, the articles were dominated by claims to the effect that one author’s Zooming this semester is “light-years better than the last;” that his teaching is “radically improved” since then;  that “if remote learning has been good for one thing, it has closed that gap between authoritative teacher and abiding student”; and presumably best of all, “I used to invest a lot of importance in arbitrary deadlines and make-or-break exams to establish high academic standards. These days, I’ve let go of many of my old notions about penalties for late or missing work.”

It would be one thing – and indeed noteworthy – if these alleged developments were broadly, or increasingly, representative of the American educational scene today.  But the Outlook editors provided no such insights, and if these reported experiences have been exceptions to the rule – as the evidence overwhelmingly concludes – what else could they been trying to accomplish by airing them but soft-pedaling the harm resulting from mass remote teaching?   

The third Outlook item that set me off today was an article by a Washington University (St. Louis) sociologist that included a challenge to the claim that “Manufacturing jobs are the ‘good’ jobs.” The reason? “Unlike in the past, typical pay for these workers is now below the national average” and “the rise of temporary and contract work is a factor….” Moreover, “Not all [such jobs] were offshored or automated, it turns out. Many were just reclassified — downgraded into worse jobs.”

Sure, author Jake Rosenfeld didn’t devote a lot of space to the subject. But he definitely should have devoted more, because what he omitted was critical. For example, it’s true that overall private sector average hourly wages now exceed those for manufacturing, whether you’re talking about the total workforce or just the production/non-supervisory workforce.

But the changeover is pretty recent. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the former, it came in 2019; for the latter, in 2006. Moreover, a 2018 Economic Policy Institute study found that although manufacturing’s wage premium (its edge over the rest of the private sector) indeed eroded between the mid-1980s and 2017, the benefits premium actually increased. That’s a finding hard to square with the idea that temporary workers are increasingly dominating manufacturing payrolls.

Further, the idea that offshoring in particular has nothing to do with what growing popularity temps have had with manufacturers can’t withstand serious scrutiny. Or does Rosenfeld believe that super-low-wage pressure from countries like China is unrelated to U.S. workers’ declining bargaining power even when production and jobs aren’t actually sent overseas?

At the same time, efforts to downplay U.S. trade policy’s effects on manufacturing are incredibly convenient for a news organization that, like so many of its peers, enthusiastically backed the pre-Trump administration trade decisions that decimated U.S.-based manufacturing and its employees for decades – and still does.

Despite the expression, “Three strikes, you’re out,” I’m not going to stop reading the Post Outlook section or the rest of the paper. Both are just too influential. But no one should assume that the number of whiffs in yesterday’s paper was limited to three, or that other editions in recent years have been much better. And I do find myself wondering just how many strikes per day I’m going to give this once venerable publication.

Im-Politic: The Mainstream Media’s Approval Ratings (Rightly) Keep Sinking

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Fox News, Gallup, globalism, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, journalism, Mainstream Media, media bias, MSM, news media, Sean Hannity, Trump

Some RealityChek readers have noted (and kind of griped) that I spend a lot of time here attacking the performance of the Mainstream Media (MSM) – and they’re right. This focus stems from two related reasons: First, this performance (as I’ve documented extensively*) has not only been genuinely terrible when it comes to getting facts and their obvious implications straight, but it’s been genuinely terrible in an overwhelmingly pro-globalist vein, including on trade, immigration, and foreign policy issues, and of course on the highest profile of all critics of these views – President Trump.

Second, media performance deserves attention because they’re supposed to play such a crucial watchdog role in our democratic republic. Yet their biases have been so flagrant, and even so deliberate, that these news outlets are no longer serving as a source of reliable, trustworthy information, and consequently keep weakening the foundations of accountable government.

Anyone skeptical should take a look at a new Gallup poll that tries to measure how Americans view the ethics of major occupations. I know that pollsters didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory during the last presidential election, but journalists coming in tenth of the fifteen categories mentioned has “epic fail” written all over it. The only occupations ranking lower? Lawyers, business executives, advertisers, car salesmen (apparently new and used) and Members of Congress. (They came in dead last.)

To be sure, Gallup didn’t single out MSM journalists in its survey, so reporters and editors with a less America First-y outlook, as with many (but by no means all) newspeople in conservative outlets like Fox News were undoubtedly included in the ranks of the mistrusted. But the highly skewed partisan divide reported strongly suggests that it’s the MSM (which, being mainstream, is by definition the media that reach the biggest audiences) that’s got the biggest problem.

If this wasn’t the case, why would only 28 percent of Americans considering themselves political independents give journalists “very high” ratings for ethics and honesty? (The figures for Republicans and Democrats were five percent and 48 percent, respectively.)

It would be great to think that, with Mr. Trump out of public office (if not necessarily the limelight), the MSM might recover some of its integrity. But the timid coverage of apparent president-elect Joe Biden so far, and of the worrisome foreign business dealings of his son, Hunter, don’t justify much optimism. 

As Fox News-talker Sean Hannity (not my favorite) complained during the presidential campaign, the MSM in effect put Biden into a “candidate protection program.” If this approach continues into his likely administration, the next Gallup report could show media trustworthiness sinking further – and America’s democratic republic under even greater strain.

*During my long tenure at the U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC), I first began going after news coverage of trade and globalization issues (as well as policy decisions and proposals) in 1997 or so in two series of reports sent around by fax called “Globalization Follies” and “Globalization Factline.” Eventually, they were all posted on the organization’s AmericanEconomicAlert.org website. But shortly after I left USBIC, in 2014, the website seemed to have gone dark, and the only decent set of surviving records is in my computer files.

Im-Politic: Clearcut China Coddling by The Times

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America First, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Andy Purdy, Dealbook D.C. Policy Project, Dina Powell, Eric Swalwell, globalists, Huawei, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, MSM, The New York Times, Trump, Wall Street, Winston Ma

If the Mainstream Media really aren’t deeply in the tank when it comes to the challenge China poses to America’s security and prosperity, they often do an awfully good job of imitating panda huggers. Just check out the latest installment of The New York Times‘ “Dealbook D.C. Policy Project” on “How to Reset the Relationship Between the U.S. and China.”

The Dealbook initiative says it seeks to bring together “Leaders from the public and private sectors [to] debate solutions to the world’s biggest policy challenges” which is a perfectly fine objective although its structure is unmistakably weird. It’s a product of “Andrew Ross Sorkin and team,” meaning it’s run by a Times-er whose overwhelming focus has been the financial world.

And it’s that financial world that dominates the roster of supposed leaders that Sorkin has convened to provide suggestions for the apparently incoming Biden administration on a subject that entails so much more than financial considerations.

In fact, Wall Street’s dominance is so thorough that the group features only one member with any recent public sector experience – Dina Powell. And although she served briefly in the Trump administration, she was clearly one of the traditional globalist Republicans who saw their top priority as undermining the President’s America First agenda, including its determination to recognize the full scope of the China threat and take it seriously.

Worse, the result not only is the complete absence of anyone representing a Trump-ian perspective on China – especially when it comes to policy responses. It’s also a roster that includes one current servant of the Chinese regime – Andy Purdy, a senior executive at Huawei, the Chinese (and therefore regime-controlled) telecommunications giant that, not so incidentally, has been labeled by major national security threat by the Trump administration; and one recent servant (who could still be on Beijing’s payroll for all any outsider knows): Winston Ma, who worked for ten years as a Managing Director of China’s (of course state-run) global investment fund.

In recent weeks, as I and others have reported, The Times has completely ignored the news that a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (and prominent peddler of the Trump Russia hoax) had established a significant relationship with a woman he himself acknowledges was a Chinese spy. Now the paper has organized a policy forum heavily weighted toward longtime China coddling interests and containing two longtime representatives of Chinese interests themselves.

The paper does continue to publish material critical of China’s regime – see, for example, today’s piece on its initial response to the CCP Virus. But just as its neglect of the aforementioned Swalwell spy scandal has clashed with its “All the News That’s Fit to Print” motto, this decidedly skewed – and decidedly pro-Beijing-skewed – China policy panel clashes with what should be a corollary: All the Opinions Fit to Print.

Im-Politic: The Swalwell Spy Scandal News Blackout Extends Far Beyond the NY Times

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ABC News, Associated Press, Bloomberg.com, CBS News, China, Christine Fang, Eric Swalwell, espionage, Fang Fang, Fox News, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, McClatchy News Service, media bias, Michael Bloomberg, MSM, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Reuters, spying, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USAToday

If you’re a news hound, you know that The New York Times, long – and long justifiably – seen as the most important newspaper in the world, has devoted exactly zero coverage to a bombshell report earlier this month that California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell several years ago was pretty successfully targeted by a spy from China.

And if you don’t know about this Swalwell story, you should. He’s a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which means that he’s been privy to many of the nation’s most important national security secrets. In addition, he has long been a genuine super-spreader of the myth that President Trump is a Russian agent. So although there’s no evidence so far that Swalwell either wittingly or unwittingly passed any classified or otherwise sensitive information to this alleged spy, understandable questions have been raised about his judgement and therefore his suitability for a seat on this important House panel. Further, he hasn’t denied having an affair with this accused operative, who was known as Christine Fang here, and Fang Fang in her native country.

In other words, it’s a pretty darned big story, and The Times decision to ignore it completely (not even posting on its website wire service accounts of developments) is a flagrant mockery of its trademark slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and clearcut example of media bias – especially since the paper showed no reluctance to report on his abortive presidential campaign this past year or his (always unfounded) attacks on Mr. Trump.

At the same time, if you don’t know about l’affaire Swalwell, you’ve got a pretty compelling excuse. Because The Times has by no means been alone in its lack of interest. Joining it in the zero Swalwell coverage category since the China spy story broke on December 8 have been (based on reviews of their own search engines):

>The Associated Press – possibly the world’s biggest news-gathering organization

>Reuters – another gigantic global news organization

>Bloomberg.com – whose founder and Chairman, Michael Bloomberg, is a leading fan of pre-Trump offshoring-friendly China trade policies

>USAToday

>NBC News

>CBS News

>MSNBC (The FoxNews.com report linked above says this network covered this news once briefly, but noting shows up on its search engine.) 

>National Public Radio (partly funded by the American taxpayer)

>McClatchy (another big news syndicate)

Performing slightly – but only slightly – better have been:

>PBS (one reference on its weekly McLaughlin Group talk show – nothing on its nightly NewsHour)

>ABC News (one news report)

>The Wall Street Journal (one news article, one opinion column)

The Swalwell story isn’t the world’s, or the nation’s, or even Washington’s biggest. But it’s unmistakably a story, and the apparent blackout policy of so many pillars of journalism today, coming on the heels of similar treatment of the various Hunter Biden scandal charges, further strengthens the case that a national institution that’s supposed to play the critical role of watchdog of democracy has gone into a partisan tank.

The only bright spots in this picture? Social media giants Twitter and Facebook haven’t been censoring or arrogantly and selectively fact-checking Swalwell-related material. Yet.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Spot-On, if Belated, Warning About Experts

Tags

conflicts of interest, economists, experts, Immigration, Mainstream Media, MSM, Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post, Trade, {What's Left of) Our Economy

If you’re a normal person – meaning someone who doesn’t follow the U.S. economy especially closely – you have no reason to care much about the news that long-time economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson announced his retirement this week. In fact, even though I follow the economy really closely, I don’t much care either about his departure as such, either.

Nonetheless, one point Samuelson made in his farewell piece in the Washington Post does deserve everyone’s attention, and that was the (reluctant) swipe he took at the character of economists. And this indictment presumably includes many of the discipline’s leading lights, because the observation was made in the context of his claim that they’ve taught him a lot, and because his position gave him regular access to so many of them.

But first, some full disclosure. I’ve dealt with Samuelson on a steady basis literally for decades, mainly because pundits like him have a powerful megaphone, and therefore convincing him that some finding made by me or one of my various colleagues was worth covering boosted the odds that policy makers would pay attention.

He’s been refreshingly respectful and reasonably open-minded, and occasionally took the bait. So I was grateful for that. Otherwise, he’s been a decidedly faithful transmitter of the national, and especially academic and think tank version of, economic policy conventional wisdom, including on trade policy. In that respect, I found him less impressive. The only exception that come to mind – he’s repeatedly, and quite emphatically, challenged the notion that the more immigrants the United States admits, legally or otherwise, the more prosperous the nation as a whole will be. (See, e.g.. here.)

As a result, although in his swan song Samuelson presented some major lessons he says he’s learned about the economy and life in general, they’re hardly gold mines of insight. But what he said about economists was a true shocker, and something to which everyone should pay attention – his fellow journalists first and foremost.

As implied above, Samuelson didn’t exactly relish being critical. For he began by insisting that “With some exceptions, most [of the economists in his Rolodex] are intelligent, informed, engaged and decent. In my experience, this truth spans the political spectrum.”

But in the very next sentences, he maintained that

“But it’s not the only truth. Another is this:  Economists consistently overstate how much they know about the economy and how easily they can influence it.  [Samuelson’s emphasis.] They maintain their political and corporate relevance by postulating pleasant policies.”

And a few column inches down, he added that “the quest for economic status and power pushes economists and their political sponsors toward exaggerated promises that lead to widespread public disappointment.”

In other words, according to Samuelson, the economists with whom he’s continually consulted (and who are mainstays for pretty much every other leading economic journalist and pundit you can think of) are generally nice people personally, but “consistently” they succumb to temptations to cast aside intellectual honesty. And the references to “political and corporate relevance” and “political sponsors” aren’t far from charges of outright corruption.

The 75-year old Samuelson closed this final column with an observation that hit particularly close to home for this 66-year old: “I am a man of the 20th century, but we are now facing the problems of the 21st century, which demand new policies and norms.”

I’m trying to keep up – how well I’m succeeding of course ultimately is up to you. But when it comes to identifying the need for new policies and norms, one area in which I think I’ve done a pretty good job has been pointing out that the economics and business press should do a much better job revealing the actual and potential conflicts of interests of the experts it repeatedly treats as dispassionate truth-seekers. (See, e.g., here.)

So it was gratifying to see someone as established as Samuelson reinforcing this case, however implicitly – even if he waited till he was walking out the door.

Im-Politic: You Bet the Mainstream Media Has Become Troublingly Woke – & It Matters

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FredBauerBlog, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, media bias, MSM, race relations, racism, Tablet, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, wokeness, Zach Goldberg

As RealityChek regulars know, I’ve long been strongly critical of the American Mainstream Media (MSM), and presented any number of examples of its brazen bias – including, and in fact especially, in ostensible straight news reports. My main focus has the pronounced slant of these big, influential news organizations’ in favor of interventionist U.S. foreign policy globalism, supportive of Open Borders-like immigration policies, against any departures from jobs- and growth-killing trade agreements, and unremittingly hostile to anything said or done by President Trump.

But I’ve also paid attention to media bias on largely domestic issues, and in particular on the adoption (notably by The New York Times) of a clear perspective endorsing – and often embodying – the emergence of a highly intolerant strain of progressivism and in American life, and a view of the country’s society, politics, and history stressing the central role of what’s called systemic racism.

At the same time, even though I’ve cited numerous examples of all the above developments, there still aren’t enough to prove a trend. Recently, however, exhaustive evidence has emerged on the systemic racism front, and we can thank a political science student named Zach Goldberg who’s conducted wide-ranging research on the subject for his Ph.D. and just published in the on-line magazine Tablet.

Goldberg has performed the kind of content analysis that’s only become possible with new information technology tools, literally counting the number of times The Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal in particular have used words describing what he calls “wokeness”: “a prevailing new political morality on questions of race and justice that has taken power at The Times and Post—a worldview sometimes abbreviated as “wokeness” that combines the sensibilities of highly educated and hyperliberal white professionals with elements of Black nationalism and academic critical race theory.”

His main finding: this racial wokeness’ takeover of The Times and the Post in particular preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police by several years; that it’s completely unrelated to any change in levels of racism in the United States; and that it at the very least correlates – and may have played a big role in triggering – a significant rise in the numbers of Americans who agree with the woke/systemic racism claims.

This graphic shows the skyrocketing increase in the use of wokeist race relations terms by these publications. The absolute percentages are of course tiny. But keep in mind that they represent shares of all the words in these publications, and that recent years haven’t exactly been devoid of major developments in countless other fields.

This graphic, when combined with the first, indicates how robustly American perceptions of racism’s pervasiveness has risen in tandem with the Mainstream Media’s treatment of the phenonemon. And the strongest effect has been among white liberals.

Indeed, although the graphic below covers a somewhat different timeframe, it makes clear that not only did white Democrats’ views on the power of American racism increase as the Mainstream Media became much more racially woke, but minority Democrats’ views of this subject actually decreased during the December, 2006-June, 2015 period. That’s compelling evidence that these news organizations became woke racially even though the racism-in-America situation might actually have improved.

Although I clearly disagree with most of what I see as the fundamentals of woke thinking, like Voltaire, I would resolutely defend anyone’s right to express them. And that includes Mainstream Media reporters and pundits and editorial writers alike. All I (and others like me) would insist upon is that news writing clearly be labeled newswriting, and opinion clearly be labeled opinion. Goldberg’s research makes a powerful case that way too much of what Americans have always regarded as reporting of the facts that at least tries to be objective has turned into propagandizing, and that the nation is a much more polarized and angrier place as a result.

P.S. Thanks to Fred Bauer, whose FredBauerBlog always makes excellent, important reading, for calling my attention to Goldberg’s work.