Media Matters vs. Fox News
Yesterday, a friend on Facebook linked to a Media Matters for America critique of a Fox News chart supposing to show “Job Loss By Quarter.” Normally I brush off Media Matters, because while they often have very solid analysis, I also feel they often do more attacking AGAINST conservative media than analysis of, or “fighting back against,” conservative media.
However, the analysis by MM’s Jocelyn Fong interested me, particularly since she hit the chart from multiple angles and even gave Fox the benefit of the doubt a couple of times. This latter part is not something I often see when I go to MM. Below is the chart, with some of Fong’s analysis:
The chart claims to show “Job loss by quarter.” But it doesn’t. (We lost 15 million jobs in the second quarter of 2010!?? Surely, that would have been catastrophic news.) What this defective chart actually displays is the number of unemployed during four random quarters over the past two-and-a-half years.
And later:
Notice on Fox’s chart that the first interval on the horizontal axis, from December ’07 to September ’08 represents 9 months. The second interval, between September ’08 and March ’09, represents 6 months. And the third interval, from March ’09 to June ’10, represents 15 months, almost all of Obama’s term so far. So the third interval should be two-and-a-half times as long as the second. But in Fox’s chart, it’s shorter!
The effect of this is to flatten out the steep rise in the number of unemployed between September ’08 and March ’09 (before Obama’s policies started taking effect) and to suggest that the increases in unemployment later during Obama’s term were more dramatic than they actually were. To get the line straight, Fox also manipulated the scale of the vertical axis.
I decided to do some background checking. I called the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was led to their June 04, 2010 report of May’s unemployment numbers, which said 15.0 million people were unemployed during May. (The BLS employee I spoke to said the 15 million was slightly rounded up from the actual numbers.) So far, it looks like Fox was not actively misleading with information on the chart- merely, as Fong noted initially, misnaming the chart and skewing its intervals. Bad, but not dishonest.
However, I was still unsatisfied, and called Chris Harris at MM, who followed up with Fong on my behalf (their research people don’t take calls directly, according to the operator). My question is in bold, with her answer following:
Is it accurate to say these are the number of jobs lost at these points during the recession?
Not quite. The number of unemployed and “jobs lost” are not the same thing. When the recession started in December 2007, there were around 7.7 million people unemployed, according to the BLS Current Population Survey data. If you go back a couple of years, to December 2004, long before the recession began, there were 7.9 million people unemployed. Since there are always several million people unemployed at any given point, it’s misleading to say that 15 million have “lost jobs” as of May 2010. It’s even more misleading to omit any information from the period between March ’09 and June ’10, during which the unemployment level trend shifted significantly from increasingly steeply to essentially leveling out. The number of unemployed is now 639,000 lower than when it peaked in October 2009. You have to wonder why Fox chose those four specific points to include in the chart. And it’s also misleading for Fox to manipulate the scale of their chart in a way that understates the unemployment increases in late 2008 and early 2009 and exaggerates unemployment increases during the remainder of Obama’s term.
In retrospect, I realize my question was not phrased well. Not only did I forget that there is always unemployment, even in good times, but I also should have asked- as Fong noted- about the number of unemployed as opposed to jobs lost. However, I think Fong’s response shows that while Fox did skew the scale and misname the chart, there was no intent to mislead on what the actual information.
In the end, I think Fong was a bit overzealous in her analysis, because she obviously has talent, but also clearly was going out of her way to hammer Fox. She notes the following in her closing:
And again, when you use Fox’s data points like this, with no information about the period between March ’09 and June ’10, you miss the fact that the number of unemployed has essentially stopped rising since the Fall of 2009.
While this is entirely accurate, it also obscures that a lot of the hiring has been census workers, and that Fox wasn’t attempting, by Fong’s own statements, to show when and where employment stopped falling. Whether or not they should have is a debate for a different day- Fox was merely showing the unemployment rate at semi-random quarters (two of the quarters were the start of the recession and the current month, hence why they were semi-random data points) throughout the recession, as Fong herself noted. Again:
What this defective chart actually displays is the number of unemployed during four random quarters over the past two-and-a-half years.
It is overstepping of the analysis like this that causes me to sometimes brush off Media Matters. They do a lot of good work, but why spend so much time and effort on tearing apart a single Fox chart, when discrediting this particular chart could have been done with the above quote and a couple of their own charts? This is why they appear to some to be as much a tool of the Democratic Party as they likely believe Fox News to be of the Republican Party.
Update: Media Matters has an update noting Fox has changed the name of the chart to reflect more accurately upon the numbers.
Huffington Post is REALLY Stretching It This Time
Last week, a strong accusation was made against Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts and the donations to soldiers which the organization- and Hannity- claim to engage in, as well as their fundraising practices. Since the accusation was made, Media Matters mostly brushed over it, citing the accuser’s lack of substantial, in-depth evidence to make a strong case for running roughshod over Hannity. They admitted her numbers tracked, but that she missed a lot of important information.
Unfortunately, Huffington Post has ignored the MM and Frum Forum analyses- the latter, particularly, shows that the accusations are false- and has an article on the front page of the site headlined, “Sean Hannity’s Charity Accused Of ‘Deceptive And Illegal’ Practices.” While technically accurate, as accusations have been made, it would have been nice if the headline had admitted the accusations were wrong. Instead, Huffington Post goes on the attack, with nary a thought for, you know, the evidence.
Ironically, it is Media Matters who has to step in and remind everyone that liberals don’t consider the Hannity accuser, one Debbie Schlussel, a reliable source, and so believers in what she wrote should tread lightly. It’s too bad Huffington Post did not follow suit, especially when, to quote Frum Forum’s Tim Mak on Schlussel’s accusation Hannity benefited from the organization’s travel budget:
If Schlussel stands behind her statement, then she will have to do better than a quote from a blind source, who is, as she admits, a friend of a friend.
Corpse: only the E is Silent.
I don’t mean to dwell on such minutiae, really. However, considering the amount of flack that Former President Bush (43) received over how he pronounced “nuclear,” in what can be considered journalistic fairness, we will look into the same matter with current President Obama.
Some people have difficulties framing certain words a certain way (which tends to be the way others may pronounce them). Sometimes we just can’t seem to get a word right because of our speaking abilities, our accents, or perhaps a good old fat tongue. This can lead to real problems for some people, just ask the Ephraimites in the Book of Judges:
In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory. The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered. (The Story of Shibboleth)
I would recommend that you go to a number of your friends, and hear which ones properly pronounce the month Fe-brew-air-ee instead if Fe-byou-air-ee. So picking on people for pronouncing words is a bit childish, but the left made it a part time occupation during Bush’s eight years, as did popular shows like my two personal favorites The Simpsons and Family Guy. This all tied into the “Bush is Stupid” mantra, and Bush supporters gritted their teeth and said “back off” or perhaps even joined in on the linguistic fun.
Slate.com’s Kate Taylor wrote an article entitled “Why Does Bush Go Nucular?” in which she gives a half-hearted defense of the President’s pronunciation of the word:
When speaking about nuclear weapons, George W. Bush invariably pronounces the word “nucular.” Is this an acceptable pronunciation?
Not really. Changing “nu-clee-ar” into “nu-cu-lar” is an example of what linguists call metathesis, which is the switching of two adjacent sounds. (Think of it this way: “nook le yer” becomes “nook ye ler.”) This switching is common in English pronunciation; you might pronounce “iron” as “eye yern” rather than “eye ron.”
Sunday Shows
While I cannot watch all of the Sunday shows due to my limited omnipresence, I was able to catch This Week on ABC with George Will, Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, and special guest Roger Ailes of Fox News. (This was after watching a rare Power Panel on Fox News Sunday which contained both William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer). I must say, I was impressed with Roger Ailes’ ability to fire back at the other side of the table when they sniped, which is an action George WIll rarely does, for good reason I might add. It was nice when Huffington accused the GOP of using “paranoid politics” and anger to energize a base that ended up helping Sen. Scott Brown win his elections, to have Ailes fire back with his own anecdote about Huffington Posts’ columns comparing Ailes to J Edgar Hoover and other similar snarky posts. Point. Ailes.
The roundtable played out like a fireworks show: a pop here, glittering showers of fire and lights there before subsiding into monotone. The end was a magnificent display, however, with Ailes calling them all out around the table, and making ABC regret extending him an invitation in the first place. Liberal tweeters and bloggers alike are answering Ailes’ points in typical ad hominem fashion:
| Roger Ailes’ doctor wants him to lose 100 pounds. #abcnews #thisweek | ||
| RT @KatrinaNation: Paul Krugman terrific on ABC “This week”on dysfunctional Senate. Priceless: his face listening to Roger Ailes blathering | ||
Daily Kos & Media Matters- Joking Not Allowed
Daily Kos & Media Matters decided to get offended today because Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) made a joke. Not even a bad joke, or an offensive one. A tiny little joke in an interview with Politico. Below is the question and answer these bastions?of the?far left?are upset over:
Politico: “What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen?s Caucus do?”????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Harper: “We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.”
That’s it. Remember, this is the same Daily Kos that has an ad for a site supporting Representative Alan Grayson?(D-FL), the Congressman who said the Republican health care plan is for people to not get sick BUT, if they do get sick, to die quickly. He said it?on the floor of the House of Representatives. (I paraphrased Grayson’s talking points, but?the full speech?can be seen in full here.) Unlike Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), who inappropriately yelled “You lie” at President Obama during his joint address to Congress and subsequently apologized to the White House for his inappropriate behavior…Grayson “apologized” by taking a few more shots at Republicans?and blaming them for 45,000 American deaths per year due to a lack of insurance. (Side note: there is no censor against Grayson forthcoming by House leadership.) The ad is prominently displayed on Daily Kos’ main page.
To be fair, Media Matters’ Matt Finkelstein?quoted Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), who last February (nothing like up-to-date information)?supported the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus as bipartisan: “Unlike some of the other activities in Washington, Republicans and Democrats reach across the aisle?and join hands to work together, not as Republican or Democrat, but as sportsmen and women.” However, this bit of friendly behavior by a Democrat is too much for?Daily Kos poster David Waldman: “But what does it say about Sen. Ben Nelson as a judge of character? I guess you’d have to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least for a while. He probably has no idea who Harper is, so there’s really now way of knowing that he’s going to turn out to be one of those gun-as-substitute-for-johnson types. Hope Nelson speaks up and has something to say about this. Or at least privately thinks to himself, “Maybe bipartisanship isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And Harper’s a loser.”" Ah, the open-minded liberal. Can we find one somewhere?
Hey, Waldman?and Finkelstein…grow up. Laugh a little. Here, watch Jon Stewart rip apart Fox News. It’s really funny. Now watch him rip apart President Obama. It’s okay- nobody will find out.
