I’ve seen the media misbehave in my time. Indeed, in just the
last six months I watched Rathergate and Easongate expose the Old
Media as a deceptive dinosaur in drastic need of reform. And
speaking of reform, the media’s coverage of the ensuing Social
Security debate has been at least as diabolical as those other two
scandals. Call it Social Security-gate. Or something.
The two worst offenders have been the New York Times
and the Washington Post. Indeed, almost like the seesaw
battles of the old Lakers and Celtic matchups, these two opinion
leader rags appear to be one-upping each other, or one-downing each
other, as the case may be. That the Times should be so
irresponsible in their coverage of President Bush’s chief domestic
priority is no shock. The Post’s imprudence is a bit of a
surprise, because the Post has remained remarkably
open-minded about personal retirement accounts on its editorial
page. Nevertheless, it was in the news pages of the Post
where the first deceptive blow was struck.
The Post got the ball rolling on February 3 with a
bogus description of President George W. Bush’s plan
to allow younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll tax
into personal retirement accounts. Jonathan Weisman, the
Post reporter who wrote the story, described a “clawback”
scheme in which the government could dip into your personal
retirement account to keep their own books balanced. It was an
astonishing assertion by Weisman considering President Bush has
publicly disavowed “clawbacks” and anyway had not yet articulated
the details of his plan. (He still hasn’t.)
By 1 p.m. the same day, Weisman had corrected the article on the
Post’s website. But the Post never changed the
headline (it still hasn’t), which reads, “Participants Would Lose
Some Profits From Accounts.” The headline is no truer today than it
was the morning of February 3.
BUT AT LEAST WEISMAN and the Post ran a correction. Five
days later, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
confidently averred of the Bush plan, “Here’s how it would
work. First, workers with private accounts would be subject to a
‘clawback’: in effect, they would have to mortgage their future
benefits in order to put money into their accounts.” Was Krugman’s
editor sick that day?
Not to outdone, on each of the five work days last week
(here, here, here, here, and here) the Post used the phrase
“widespread skepticism” to describe the public’s attitude toward
Bush’s proposal. Once or twice is a coincidence. Five days in a row
is an editorial policy, I should think. And yet the Post’s
own poll, run between Feb. 3 and Feb. 6, shows
public support for personal retirement accounts at a remarkably
high 56%. Perhaps “widespread skepticism” describes the
Post editors’ attitudes toward the results of their own
poll.
And speaking of polls, the Times ran a doozey last week under the headline, “New Poll
Finds Bush Priorities Are Out of Step With Americans.” The poll
showed Americans oppose President Bush’s plan for personal
retirement accounts by a hearty 51% to 33% margin.
You needed to read pretty deep into the article to learn that
the poll was conducted among “adults,” as opposed to the much more
reliable “registered voters” or even more reliable “likely voters.”
Even worse, the partisan split in the Times poll
undersampled Republican adults. The party identification in the
poll favored Democrats to Republicans by a margin of 36% to 29%. To
put that into perspective, consider party identification in the
2004 election was dead even, 37% to 37%. Do we really need the
New York Times to run a poll to remind us President Bush’s
“priorities are out of step” with a majority of Democrats?
AND FINALLY LAST WEEK, in this race to the credibility cellar, the
Post may have pulled far out ahead. It appears they
grossly misrepresented Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s remarks
before a crowd of journalists. Post reporters Mike Allen
and Charles Babington kicked off their story with this lede:
“The Senate’s top Republican said yesterday that President
Bush’s bid to restructure Social Security may have to wait until
next year and might not involve the individual accounts the White
House has been pushing hard.”
But here’s what Frist actually said, “In terms of whether it
will be a week, a month, six months or a year, as to when we bring
something to the floor, it’s just too early.”
Frist wasn’t saying “it’s too early” to vote on Social Security
reform, as in that old (now obsolete) Red Sox lament, “maybe next
year.” He was saying it’s too early for a floor vote, which is
self-evident since the various Social Security reform bills before
Congress haven’t even had a committee hearing. Some haven’t even
been introduced yet! But that didn’t stop the Washington
Post from running the misleading headline screaming “Social
Security Vote May Be Delayed.” Sources on Capitol Hill tell me Sen.
Frist was seething mad.
So as of today, the Post is in the lead. But we’re
talking about the New York Times here. And we all know how
low they are willing to go. So don’t count them out.
