Remember when Walter Cronkite declared the US victory at Tet a disaster, and dashed LBJ's re-election hopes?

OK, I was pretty young, and don't directly remember the newscasts, but I have read plenty of disections of it over the years. The media came to conclude that they had the right and the power to direct public policy, by directing the public understanding of current events. The media has been trying to replay its 'victories' over Vietnam and Nixon with Iraq, and has not gotten the results they have wished and now it seems that they are trying a new tack.

Captain Ed points out the hugh level of misrepresentation of the Economy in the news.

Have the media learned anything? Apparently not. Despite 36 straight months of expansion, an unemployment rate of 4.6%, and inflation at an annual projected rate of 2.4%, the media still can't bring themselves to report on a Republican economy honestly. Business & Media Institute found that TV networks gave twice as much airtime to negative stories as positive ones (62% - 31%). Bad news was twice as likely to get full-length treatment as well. The people interviewed by the network were three times more likely to relate negative anecdotes. To no one's surprise, CBS took the lead in negative coverage, committing 80% of its economic coverage to bad news in the middle of a huge economic expansion.

If they can't ruin the war effort or impeach the president, then they'll try to swing the mid-term elections with bad economic reporting.


"Somewhere along the line, many Americans relegated the media to a notch on the morality scale only slightly above that of child molesters." -- Gregory Kane, Baltimore Sun, 1997

Gee, I wonder why?