Just What the Hell is Going On? I don't often write about lack of responsible reporting in major newspapers. There are bloggers who do a great job with it, and a lot more authority to speak about journalism issues. But the New York Times' report of President Bush's comments in Toledo wasn't inaccurate--it just didn't bother to report the one newsworthy thing that the President said. The gulf between the newspaper article and the reality was so vast that the only reasonable conclusion is that the reporter wasn't actually at the speech and just reported the press release, or he works for the Bush-Cheney campaign and just writes whatever will get votes for the President. If the New York Times had the pretensions of even a fourth-rate newsletter in a one stop-light hamlet, it would fire David Stout today.
Here is what Stout wrote about the President's Toledo address:
President Bushcampaigned today in Ohio, a state of huge importance to his re-election hopes this year, and followed up his State of the Union address Tuesday night with a message tailored to Midwestern hopes and fears.
"I fully recognize, in Ohio there are still troubled times," Mr. Bush told an audience at a community college near Toledo, where he began a two-day trip to Ohio, Arizona and New Mexico that is freighted with politics.
"The manufacturing here is sluggish at best, and, therefore, people are looking for work," Mr. Bush said, acknowledging his awareness of the economic situation in Ohio. "People who could rely upon a steady job in the manufacturing sector are hoping to be able to realize their hopes by finding work elsewhere."
Yes, the quote is accurate, but it isn't all that the President said about jobs. In a short address, President Bush took outlined three reasons for the job losses felt by Ohio. The first cause was the lack of a level playing field for international trade--no surprise there. The the other two "causes" were just-- ludicrous seems too weak:
We also need an energy policy, by the way. If you rely upon manufacturing to have a vibrant job base, you've got to have an energy policy. Manufacturers need to have a reliable source of energy. We're too dependent on foreign sources of energy. We got public policy that is -- that makes it difficult for Ohio's manufacturers to say, we got a reliable source of energy. We've run up the demand for natural gas, we haven't had a corresponding increase in natural gas. It's hard to keep people working when your energy bills are going out of sight. We need an energy policy. I called on Congress to pass one, and they need to get one to my desk. (Applause.)
One other issue that makes it hard for people to stay working in certain industries is that we got a problem with medical liability. There are junk and frivolous lawsuits which are running good docs out of business. Now, look, any doctor who is a bad doc deserves to be held to task. But you can't have a system where people just file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, fishing for a rich settlement -- (applause) -- because what that's going to do is it's going to run up the cost of health care and drive good docs out of business. And that affects the ability for employers to keep people working. Congress needs to pass medical liability reform now.
No one--literally-- has ever suggested that the massive job losses in the manufacturing sector were caused by frivolous medical lawsuits, or the lack of a federal energy policy. Yet the reporter doesn't bother with this part of the speech. I would have thought that the President's thoughts on the causes of the manufacturing slump would be important. And doubly so if those thoughts are just-laugh-out-loud-crazy-ass-wrong.
The New York Times didn't mention it.
The President did not have a "message tailored to Midwestern hopes and fears", but he instead used the pain and fear of economic hardship to sell pet political programs.
How is this not news? The President, making a high-profile jobs speech, clearly misstates the causes of 2 million job losses, right in front a journalist and it is never mentioned. What the fuck?
The President made no public appearances on Tuesday, and the audience at Owens was limited to 300 invided guests. With no mention of this part of the speech in either The Blade or the Times, no one will know just how hollow a sham this visit was.
Read the NYT story and then read the White House's transcript of the speech. There is no reason to suspect that Stout was in Toledo, or even read the transcript--he just repeated a summery he was given by a White House aid.
When a blogger can pull up a transcript and pull out the newsworthy paragraphs that the largest, most respected newspaper in country misses, something is very, very wrong.
12:54:09 PM 
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