Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Michael Grunwald at TIME magazine's Swampland has some words of advice for the media villagers in reporting on the so-called "fiscal cliff" austerity crisis. Fiscal Cliff Fictions: Let’s All Agree to Pretend the GOP Isn’t Full of It (Shorter version):
It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing
along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening offer in the fiscal cliff
talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same
reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican
complaints that Obama had no plan. It’s even more amazing to see them
pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn’t cutting Medicare enough,
in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass
along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare [by $713 billion].
This isn’t just cognitive dissonance. It’s irresponsible reporting.
Mainstream media outlets don’t want to look partisan, so they ignore the
BS hidden in plain sight, the hypocrisy and dishonesty that defines the
modern Republican Party. I’m old enough to remember when Republicans
insisted that anyone who said they wanted to cut Medicare was a
demagogue, because I’m more than three weeks old.
* * *
Whatever. I realize that the GOP’s up-is-downism puts news reporters in
an awkward position. It would seem tendentious to point out Republican
hypocrisy on deficits and Medicare and stimulus every time it comes up,
because these days it comes up almost every time a Republican leader
opens his mouth. But we’re not supposed to be stenographers. As long as
the media let an entire political party invent a new reality every day,
it will keep on doing it. Every day.
So do your damn jobs and call them out for it. Stop aiding and abetting GOPropaganda. If you are not the solution, you are the problem.