The Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2007

[RWSchilz]

10. Airlines are solely to blame for the unfriendly skies.
Media myth: Blame the airlines for all those flight delays; never mind the obsolete government-run agency creating the gridlock.

The media were quite unfriendly to airline companies this year, attacking them repeatedly for flight delays and for making a profit. NBC’s Meredith Vieira even tried to extract a promise from one CEO – asking him to guarantee that no flight would ever be cancelled again.
“Do you fly to San Francisco by any chance?” the host of NBC’s “Today” show asked Northwest’s Douglas Steenland on the August 15 program. “OK, I have to go out there, are you going to promise me, guarantee me, that if I buy a ticket at the end of August you won’t cancel that flight?”

Vieira phrased the outrageous question as though it were Steenland’s fault that a high number of flights had been cancelled earlier in the summer.

Charles Gibson blasted companies’ bottom line on September 17: “And new airline industry numbers out today show that while millions of passengers suffer through record delays, cancellations and lost baggage – airline profits have been soaring,” said the ABC “World News” anchor. Never mind that some airlines had barely made it out of bankruptcy protection and were finally turning a profit.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2007/toptenmyths/mediamyths.asp
:hat:)

[frodo82801]

Very nice.

Someone posted it in another forum, but it's good for some political volleys.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2007/toptenmyths/mediamyths.asp

There are very few non-business reporters I've heard over the years who truly understand the free marketplace and capitalism.

It's late. I've been coding all day. I'm tired. That explains the redundancy in the title.

[Buzzardhut]

7. Anyone who ‘denies’ global warming shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Media myth: Global warming could cause a ‘century of fires,’ just as it has created allergies and ended winter fashion. If we don’t do something now (i.e. spend hundreds of billions of dollars), it’s only going to get worse.
Allergies, wildfires and the end of winter coat season. What do these three things have in common? Each one was cited as a result of global warming by the news media.

CNN exploited a national tragedy on October 23 by finding a way to blame global warming for wildfires, then went on to suggest even more fires due to climate change.

"Climatologists say, while we can't blame on fire on climate change, we can say that these factors are combining in that area [Southern California] to set up what could be a century of fires just like what we're seeing now," said Tom Foreman during “Anderson Cooper 360: In the Line of Fire.”

NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman suggested on October 25 that “Even global warming may play a role” in food allergies. And Marie Claire magazine stretched even further in its October issue. The magazine called for global cooling “so we get a chance to wear winter’s hot new coats.” The 14-page segment on “hot” winter coats was more media activism against global warming and even included a staged protest photograph.

In 2007, comparisons between global warming skeptics and holocaust deniers went mainstream. ABC’s “20/20” did it and so did CBS’s Scott Pelley.

Pelley responded to criticism of not including global warming skeptics in his reporting by saying, “If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”

Newsweek magazine took the “denier” comparison in another direction, comparing them to moon-landing deniers on August 13. When asked if journalists should be more interpretive or analytical in their climate change reporting, Newsweek editor Sharon Begley said, “It depends …When you cover the history of the space program, you don't quote the percentage of Americans who think the moon landings took place on a stage in Arizona.”

A number of journalists supported activism over objectivity on the climate change issue, including Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing.

“I’ve also been thinking about the newspaper industry and global warming. And frankly, I don't think newspapers are doing enough,” Outing wrote. “Indeed, newspapers’ fabled commitment to ‘objectivity’ has been a detriment to efforts to combat global warming.”

Truth: Dissent against the “consensus” on global warming gets the cold shoulder from the media, but there is disagreement.

A climate scientist at the University of California, Merced, told Alan Zarembo of the Washington Spokesman-Review that these [California] wildfires are the result of two “staples of the region's climatic history,” meaning “strong Santa Ana winds” and “a drought that turned much of the hillsides to bone-dry kindling.”

"Neither can be attributed to climate change," said the UC Merced professor.

When it comes to warming stories, the media typically downplayed extremes: No offense, “No Impact Man,” but we won’t be going without toilet paper for a year. Journalists also shied away from complaining about the huge costs of taking action.

Variations on global warming legislation have been proposed, none of them cheap. The Lieberman-Warner bill could cost $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 40 years – or roughly $500 for every American man, woman and child every year.

2007 was also the year of “carbon neutrality.” Even the Oscars claimed to be carbon-neutral and gave away carbon credits as swag. But the truth according to some experts is that carbon credits do no more to limit CO2 emissions than your salad lowers the calories from your double cheeseburger, fries and milkshake.

Jutta Kill of the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN) said carbon offsetting does not reduce emissions and the public is being seriously misled. Kill and several other environmentalists explained that offset payments often go to tree planting and other projects, but “they are not actually neutralising their impact on the global environment.” The system is harmful, they said, because people believe action is being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when they buy offsets.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned about the cost of another carbon scheme – carbon caps – in his book, “The Age of Turbulence”:

“There is not effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of the economy. Net, it is a tax. If the cap is low enough to make a meaningful inroad into CO2 emissions, permits will become expensive and large numbers of companies will experience cost increases that make them less competitive. Jobs will be lost and real incomes of workers constrained,” wrote Greenspan.

Meanwhile, Time magazine declared the “case closed on global warming” on February 19. But the March 5 “Hannity & Colmes” scrolled a list of more than 70 scientists who “indeed do question” global warming.
Even The Weather Channel founder John Coleman declared global warming to be “the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.”

[frodo82801]

Have you noticed that Al Gore won't debate anyone on the issue of global warming being man-made? He'd get his ever living butt kicked.

[Issachar]

There are very few non-business reporters I've heard over the years who truly understand the free marketplace and capitalism. That is because they received their education in America. :) Virtually all universities teach some version of socialist economics. When the NWO folks want to accomplish something, they always start with the education system ... elementary grades on up ... They are patient.

Issachar

[Racheal59]

So they won't tax us but they WILL tax us.

[frodo82801]

That is because they received their education in America. :) Virtually all universities teach some version of socialist economics. When the NWO folks want to accomplish something, they always start with the education system ... elementary grades on up ... They are patient.

Issachar
It's not the new world order. It's just group think. The 60s flower fools are now firmly rooted in the universities and media. They still have that Woodstock look in their eyes. They still like the idea of sticking it to the man. They don't trust or understand capitalism, so they don't teach it or report well on it. They also don't trust the common folk to do what's best for themselves.

There's no conspiracy. It's just a collection of people who think deluded thought together.

Neil Armstong and Buzz Aldrin really did go to the moon, and Aldrin had communion up there.