A textbook example of extreme bias in political reporting

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Oh, I am definitely going to use this report from the Arizona Daily Star the next time I teach a political science class. This is a textbook example of extreme bias in political reporting.

As you know, I have been encouraging the Star to send one of its Clueless political reporters to interview our local Congressman Raúl Grijalva about the People's Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus that he co-chairs. The People's Budget has been receiving favorable reviews from serious economists and in the national news media, but barely a mention in the Arizona Daily Star.

Until today. Check out the Star's creative headline writer's handiwork, again: Grijalva gets seniors to talk about Ryan's bill (subheadline: "Budget Blueprint Would Transform Medicare, Medicaid"). "Transform"? This is a GOP talking point — It would "end" the program.

The reporting is worse than the creative headline. The People's Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is never mentioned in the article. The reporting is all about Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap to America's Ruin, a plan dismissed by serious economists as "not serious." Tea-Publican members of Congress, including Rep. Ryan himself, are facing hostile constituents back home for having voted to end Medicare. This plan is not popular, even with Republicans and self-described Tea Party types in polling.

The closest the reporter comes to mentioning the People's Budget, the plan whose name shall not appear in print in the Arizona Daily Star, is this one papragraph:

Grijalva agreed, urging attendees to suggest Congress explore closing oil and gas subsidies, bring the troops home from the Middle East and raise taxes on the very rich. And he said they shouldn't just contact Republicans, either, but the White House, too, to make sure there isn't any caving in negotiations, such as agreeing to try some of the changes for a time-certain. "Once you open the box, it's going to be difficult to put the lid on it," he said.

The reporter tells you absolutely nothing about the People's Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus that Grijalva co-chairs, despite having him available for an interview.

This extremely biased reporting ends with a regular feature of the Clueless political reporting in the Arizona Daily Star, which really pisses me off. The Star does not get their "fair and balanced" quotes from Pima County Republican Party Chair Brian Miller, oh no. The "speed dial" quote always comes from the equally clueless Trent Humphries, who leads one faction of the Tea Party here in Pima County (he does not speak for all the Tea Party groups, and they would be the first to tell you that Humphries does not speak for them).

Here is the gratuitous "money quote" from Teabagger Trent Humphries:

Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries blasted congressional Democrats for punting on a budget blueprint in 2010. Critics at the time speculated Democrats didn't want to deal with deficit figures in an election year. Democrats said it wasn't realistic to pass a budget without first seeing a deficit commission's plans for reducing the deficit.

"The last person I want to hear about budgeting from is Raúl Grijalva," Humphries said. Cuts are going to be necessary. "If we don't pay attention to what's going on now, there won't be anything left later. We have to understand we're going to have a huge problem."

Humphries is full of it, of course, but the reporter does not fact check him. You're shocked, I'm sure.

The House passed the 2011 budget on time and under projections in the summer of 2010. Rep. Grijalva did his job. It is true that the U.S. Senate delayed consideration of the 2011 budget in September, a foolish political move by Sen. Harry Reid with which I vigorously disagreed, opting to wait for the "bipartisan" recommendations from the president's Catfood Commission that failed to produce any recommendations (the chairmen's mark report is not the recommendations that the Catfood Commission was statutorily tasked to produce, we have been over this previously).

The 2011 budget was then held hostage in the U.S. Senate for extension of the Bush tax cuts for the 'two percenters" and, as part of the negotiated deal for other legislation to pass during the lame duck session in December, the budget was carried over to the new Congress because Republican leadership insisted that it wanted to make additional cuts. Both parties were equally to blame.

The Ryan Roadmap to America's Ruin does nothing to reduce the deficit because it gives the savings derived from ending Medicare to tax cuts for corporations and the "two percenters" at the top. Humphries should read the analyses from serious economists that I have been posting here about Ryan's plan, as should any reporters who should be fact checking the nonsense coming from clueless politicians like Trent Humphries.