Hype and Fear in the News

[babylonsister]

Reposted from Eds., somewhat aged, but it's true.

Hype and Fear in the News

David Cay Johnston, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his innovative coverage of our tax system, retired this year as a investigative reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill).


Now that the House has rejected the $700 billion bailout, what we have to fear is not fear itself, but fear-mongering--particularly by our leading news organizations.

Katie Couric opened the "CBS Evening News" last night with video of the House clerk declaring the 205-228 vote, and then she said, "That sets off the biggest decline in stock prices ever."

Wrong.

Brian Williams opened the "NBC Nightly News" with the same error, saying it was "the worst single day drop ever."

These are not minor errors. They are profound, ridiculous, amateur-hour errors that surely frightened many people, especially in the context of the tone of the coverage. The stock market has had much bigger one-day declines. How about right after 9/11? How about 1987, when the Dow fell 22 percentage points, more than three times the slightly less than 7 percent drop Monday?

ABC was almost as bad. Charles Gibson read from his teleprompter words that were technically accurate, but so misleading that the effect was to instill fear in the hearts of millions who did not catch the technicality. He reported "the biggest one-day point drop" in the stock market.

That's scary unless you know what it means.

As my friend Fred Brock, one of the best copy editors who ever worked at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, said when I read him the transcripts last night: "That doesn't mean anything; it's utterly meaningless."

more...

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/30/hype-and-fear-in-the-news.aspx

[Swamp Rat]

1. k&r

[babylonsister]

5. Paulson and the freak DHS guy, Chertoff. They're melding!

:scared:

[Imagevision]

2. Yes but don't you think the M$M have an agenda of their own - sponsors/commercials?

I mean really CBS NBC are also selling... popcorn?

[AuntPatsy]

3. Reccomended because the media's outright missuse of its power

should not continue to be ignored, we do so at our peril...

[babylonsister]

4. True that. I saw Chuckie T. saying today that polls no longer matter,

after they've mattered for months. :wtf:

[AuntPatsy]

6. Amazing isn't it? It's enough to make one's head spin, perhaps that is the intent...a bit of a way

of ensuring the viewer, we the american people remain with our heads spinning so much and so often that we are unable to retain focus on the real picture...

[babylonsister]

7. I don't know, but it is odd. But we are all stoopid, or shoud be.

Very odd. Fun to watch, hopefully. Myself, I can't wait til Nov. 5th with Obama winning.

[AuntPatsy]

8. I've come to the conclusion that for some, they simply see what they choose to

regardless of the inaneness of it all, case in point, mcbush and his running mate...