The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is said to have remarked that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts”. The last dozen or so years have proved him wrong. Everyone does now have his or her own facts and are frequently completely unaware that there may be other, contradictory facts.
This morning in my meanderings through the media and the blogosphere I was astonished at the remarkable separation between the stories that are being covered by the left and right sides of the media and blogosphere.
I’m used to different opinions on the same story. So, for example, when Margaret Thatcher died I wasn’t surprised to hear some extolling her as a near-saint while others castigated as an historic villainess. After all, where you sit is where you stand. But it does surprise me that the stories being commented on are so distinct. On one side there’s outrage over President Obama’s proposal to use “chained CPI” in the formula for calculating cost of living adjustments in Social Security. BTW, contrary to what you might be reading, doing so would reduce no one’s social security benefits. It would only potentially reduce the increases in benefits below what they might otherwise be. Any number of Democratic senators have drawn themselves up to the full heights and condemned this as a cut in Social Security benefits which was completely and permanently unacceptable, a canard.
On the other side you’ll read harsh denunciations of North Korea’s saber-rattling. I think that’s premature.
It’s not that what’s being talked about isn’t newsworthy. It’s that what they’re deeming newsworthy is so distinct.
People of different political POVs take what they want from a news item, and leave the rest.
For instance, in Obama’s budget you’ll hear the left deride any criticism from the right for doing away with deductions in order to raise more revenue. They say, that after all this is what Romney wanted to do, chastising such negativity as being hypocritically partisan. However, what will be left behind, and distinguishing Obama’s policy from the one proposed by his opponent, is that Romney wanted to change and lower tax brackets along with getting rid of certain deductions — a big difference as to the ultimate tax bite.
As for the chained CPI — Obama’s solution for addressing entitlements — this does nothing to reform entitlements, just slow the rate of payments for existing and future seniors down a bit. The much maligned R proposals, though, actually dealt with reconfiguring the program for younger people, in order to hopefully sustain it for future generations of seniors, while leaving those now on the program alone. However, this distinguishing difference will be brushed aside (and mainly not covered) by rhetoric on the left, and lost in a vacuum by the right, by limiting such news to those already receptive to the ideas of fiscal restraint and reform.
Consequently, news, IMO, has evolved in a very segregated manner — where different, even contradictory information is disbursed or omitted to opposite sides of the political spectrum, all depending how well a news item fits into the ideology of one or the other. If you go to MSNBC, for example, it’s like you’re living in a different country than the one that FOX lives in. Kind of makes you wonder where the center of gravity of truth really lies.
Here’s a column taken from USA Today, written by Kirsten Powers, exemplifying the often times tin ear, or suppression of facts, in the MSM coverage of “an inconvenient truth”.
Why is that?
Well, it concerns a social issue uncovering an ugly, inhumane side of abortion — that of murdering live babies in order to preserve the rights of women to control their own bodies. Perhaps if this story were aired there would be more democratic support for at least doing away with late term abortions, despite the lack of support from President Obama. But, the press will deny exposure to this side of abortion, least it negatively effect a cause that tethers many females to the democratic party.
Benghazi was yet another story, having huge election ramifications, that the press effectively put a lid on to protect their chosen candidate.
In the meantime, an issue that dems adamantly support — gun control — has had an enormous amount of media eyes on it, putting the Sandy Hook tragedy on every front page, magazine cover and high amperage program, like 60 Minutes, it could possibly find.
Sadly, news is not unbiased, apolitically investigative nor real news anymore. But, rather, it has become a mere confection of selective media themes generating emotional political theater for the mainly uninformed public at large.
Added and abetted by the media, by and large. It isn’t just a canard, it is also mendacious. These Democrats know this, but they are pretending otherwise because it makes for a better sound bite.
It is amusing to me because guys like Michael like to blubber on about how his tribe, the Democrats, are smart and free thinkers and also base their views on science and facts.
Wrong. They maybe smart and free thinkers, but this just makes them better liars.
Its rather pathetic to see somebody of Michael’s age and life experience to be so blind to this.
Steve Verdon,
Unfortunately, ideology, on both sides, tends to put blinders on people. It’s hard to fully see something when it goes against a lifetime of core beliefs and way of thinking.
There is simply not enough space available to document the omissions, distortions, distractions, bias, information deconstruction, on all topics, pre-set in people and media organizations presumably assigned to objectively convey facts and figures to the public. Here is another example, republished as a letter in the powerline blog titled A scientist reproves the alarmist flock.
Here’s a sampling of cogent remarks made in this letter:
It’s been a long time since Memeorandum stories haven’t selectively been linked to either right or left wing blogs. If a headline doesn’t already make it obvious, I can easily deduce which side of the ideological spectrum ‘scores’ by any given news item listed there.
“The last dozen or so years have proved him wrong. Everyone does now have his or her own facts and are frequently completely unaware that there may be other, contradictory facts.”
Not exactly. Most of the controversy over stuff like Benghazi and the global warming conspiracies is just made up. No facts, just conspiracy. Beyond that, I can agree. Just FTR, I think chained CPI is a good idea.
Steve
I didn’t really make it clear in the body of the post but I don’t think that Social Security is really that big of a deal. I think it can be fixed in the same way as we have in the past—by tweaking it. Using chained-CPI might be one tweak. Adjusting FICA max or SSRA are other tweaks. The key point is that the shortfall just isn’t that much.
Medicare is a-whole-nother subject.
Dave Schuler: On one side there’s outrage over President Obama’s proposal to use “chained CPI†in the formula for calculating cost of living adjustments in Social Security. BTW, contrary to what you might be reading, doing so would reduce no one’s social security benefits. It would only potentially reduce the increases in benefits below what they might otherwise be.
Well, if your Social Security check in the future buys fewer goods than it does now, that could reasonably be considered a benefit cut. The purpose of the cost-of-living-adjustment is to make sure that Social Security checks do buy the same amount of goods. Because of the mix of goods seniors buy, heavily weighted towards medical and food, costs tend to rise faster than the average market basket used to calculate inflation.
Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve commented on before – a wealth of media choices means that people can (and usually will) choose sources they agree with. I wish I could say I was different. Well, I used to be, and once read a wide variety of opinion, but I’ve cut way back.
Nonsense. If you don’t get a raise, is that a pay cut? Of course not. Benefits are measured in dollars. If you think that the benefit is too low, that’s what you should say—that they should be increased faster. Characterizing increases as cuts just debases the language.