The Media: Our Maligned Little Buddy

Matthew Yglesias on how the media fails to help inform voters:

In case Rudy Giuliani's penchant for cross-dressing had you doubting his conservative bona fides, doubt no more. "I regard myself as a supply-sider for sure," he told Larry Kudlow on March 27. And just in case you weren't clear that by "supply-sider" Giuliani meant "know-nothing fool and liar," he clarified: "[I] watched Ronald Reagan do it and learned it, saw it work. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in."

Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. That, to Giuliani, is what it means to be a supply-sider. And a supply-sider is what he proclaims himself to be.

Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. It's a nice idea. Nice, but not true. What's more, it's known to be untrue. Reagan did try it, but it didn't work.

Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. Again, this is something Republicans like to say -- but it isn't true, and people who follow politics closely all know it isn't true. Elections, however, are decided by the broad mass of voters, the vast majority of whom don't follow politics especially closely. For that, they turn to the professionals -- the corps of campaign correspondents working for the country's major newspapers and television networks.

These professionals do follow politics closely and use their years of experience in the field to write stories that provide meaningful information to their readers. Thus a person who doesn't follow politics all that closely and reads an article about how Giuliani puts a debunked theory at the heart of his economic policy will come away newly in possession of that key piece of information. "Giuliani: Crank or Liar?" reads the headline, as the author explores whether Giuliani is deliberately misleading people or just too dumb to know the truth. That's how the papers cover the story, because the papers are in the business of informing their readers about politics. It's a no-brainer.

I kid, of course.

Facts have a well known liberal bias. That's why the media never had a liberal bias. They only facts that most of the mainstream media seems interested in reporting is what sides A and B have to say on a particular subject.

Reporters: Pointing out that fact that one side is wildly misleading the public in their argument isn't a sign of bias, it's your freaking job.

-The Hippy