Games the media plays

Textbook example of our biased media was on display today. It's so blatant, I couldn't let it go. This story moved across Associated Press wires tonight:

"Economy concerns emerge as top priority for U.S. voters"

The economy may be playing second fiddle to the Iraq war in the race for the White House in 2008, but pocketbook issues are emerging as important voter concerns.

Even though jobs are relatively plentiful, polls show strong undercurrents of public anxiety about healthcare, gasoline prices, and the effects of global competition.

There's so much here in just a headline and the first two paragraphs. But let's start with the headline, used on Web site news pages across the Internet. If you read the first paragraph, it's WRONG. And frankly, that's a fairly common thing these days. More and more people are getting their "news" and thus forming opinions based largely on headlines ... they don't read the stories.

Second issue: This story is based on an ABC News poll taken in JUNE. Anyone else find the timing interesting? A negative story on the economy that's more than a month old getting top billing on a day the stock market took a sizeable plunge? Oh yes, my Lib friends ... I'm surrrrrre we just have a big ol' coincidence here. And I'm also expecting, any minute now, that winged monkeys will fly out of my butt.

As for the story itself ... take the opening clause of the second paragraph: "jobs are relatively plentiful" ... RELATIVELY? Folks, the national unemployment rate is 4.5 percent. When it hit 5 percent in the late 1990s, the media hailed us as having "virtual full employment" ... as in, if you WANT a job, you can get one.

As many of you know, my personal experience with polls (both as part of my job and as Joe Citizen) dictates that one should take them with a huge grain of salt. If I have a story I want to write with a certain slant, I can word my poll questions to create pretty much any "result" I want.

And I've seen and been asked questions on health care. More specifically, the "rising cost" of health care. My answer? Of course I'm concerned about the rising cost of health care. More to the point, I'm concerned about the root cause of the rising cost of health care. But the answer is not nationalizing health care, which is all the Libs and their allies in the media want. Wanna start fixing the problem? Two words: Tort reform. Stop all these frivolous lawsuits that drive up the cost of malpractice insurance and, in turn, drive up the cost of medical services across the board.

Gasoline prices? The Libs are gonna fix that? Are you serious? Uhhh, exsqueeze me, but John Kerry promised a 50-cent per gallon tax INCREASE while running for president in 2004 in order to pay for ... oh, I forget now ... some social program that would enable unwed mothers of six or more children to better be able to afford tongue piercings ... or something like that. Seems that since taxes make up a pretty good chunk of the $3 per gallon we're already paying, perhaps a tax DECREASE might help ease the high price. Of course, Libs would rather talk about price fixing and charging oil companies higher taxes. Better solution: Start producing more of our own gasoline. Know what a gallon of milk would cost if we depended as heavily on Saudi Arabian cows?

And then there's the hated global competition. You know, FREE markets. Go ahead. Start jacking around with trade. Restrict what we import in order to come up with more balance. Guess what? That little item that's made in China for a buck, sold to, say, Walmart for two bucks and passed on to the consumer for three? Some company here will gladly begin making it ... but its cost starts at three bucks, if not higher. And once that little item gets through the food chain, think you'll still be paying three bucks for it?

Yeah, and perhaps winged monkeys will fly out of your butt, too.

(Imported from July 27, 2007)