Free Republic

My colleague, Amy Menefee, just posted an excellent review of media coverage of the Dubai Ports World controversy. [begin excerpt] Now that the Dubai ports deal has been sidelined, some in the media are beginning to wake up and smell the protectionism. “The Bush administration is making another argument that a lot of economists are also echoing,” ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas said on the March 10 “World News Tonight.” “The U.S. is hurting itself economically by scuttling this deal.” But just a day earlier, the domestic political nuances and the president’s image were of more interest to “World News Tonight.” Vargas...

Media’s bad news bears deliver negative news 62 percent of the time despite economic expansion.* Economic news heavily negative: Coverage of economic news on the three broadcast networks was negative 62 percent of the time, despite ongoing good news of more jobs, low unemployment and economic growth. * Good news undermined: Even when good news made it to viewers, journalists undermined it with bad news 45 percent of the time. * Negative stories given more air time: Good news stories were relegated to briefs roughly two thirds of the time. Negative news received longer stories and outnumbered positive stories by...

In the race for emissions regulation, journalists are in the lead. CNN and USA Today have already declared the global warming debate over, and they’re not alone. Media coverage leading up to the G-8 Summit, beginning July 6, has been based on the assumptions that human-caused global warming is occurring and it must be curbed. The Group of Eight major economic powers meets annually to discuss global issues and map out plans for the year. The United Kingdom took the rotating presidency of the G8 in January 2005, and Prime Minister Tony Blair has said Africa and climate change are...

Media harp on PBS political controversy but ignore massive government funding of public broadcasting. PBS advocate Bill Moyers is against subsidies – when they go to the wrong people. But the public broadcasting that airs the show he once hosted rides a $7 billion-plus wave of government funding – a fact that media outlets have omitted in recent coverage of budget wrangling. “Favored corporations get their contracts, subsidies and offshore loopholes,” Moyers said in a political rant on “Now,” a weekly newsmagazine, on March 26, 2004. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), has been...

Gasoline prices actually fell during the week leading up to Memorial Day, but broadcasters reminded drivers of ‘record highs.’Memorial Day weekend brought the usual slew of news reports about driving, and network reporters seemed stumped that drivers would keep driving despite the price of gas. What they didn’t point out was that gas prices actually declined going into the holiday weekend. Rewind to April 10, 2005, when CBS’s Trish Regan made a dire prediction on the “Evening News”: that the “national average on a gallon of gas expected to hit $2.50 a gallon by Memorial Day.” That prediction wasn’t attributed...

by Amy Menefee March 25, 2005 A flurry of media coverage beginning on March 18 put Galveston, Texas, back into the Social Security spotlight. It’s one of three Texas counties that have gained attention because they opted out of Social Security in the early 1980s, when it was still legal to do so. The New York Times, The Washington Post and ABC News warned Americans last week that the counties’ pension alternative to Social Security was a telling “laboratory” for testing President George W. Bush’s reform plan. According to these news sources, the Galveston plan produced “controversial” results that cast...