[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E1697]]


                        ``JUNK JOURNALISM 101''

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL G. OXLEY

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 25, 1996

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring a recent column by 
Robert J. Samuelson to the attention of my colleagues. The subject is 
media coverage of the economy.
  I am dismayed by the inferior quality of reporting on economic issues 
presented by the national news media. Whether the topic is the minimum 
wage, foreign investment, tax policy, or international trade, the 
American public is fed a steady diet of conjecture and cliche in the 
guise of hard economic reporting.
  What we have is journalism based on emotion and ideology rather than 
fact or economic principle. We have business page editors more 
interested in financial scandal than financial growth, and features 
editors obsessed with fiscal misfortune. Negativism, sensationalism, 
and economic illiteracy rule the airwaves and the news page.
  The complexities of the domestic and global economies are frequently 
ignored in favor of melodramatic stories and conclusions unsupported by 
common experience or economic fact. Tax and trade issues are taken out 
of context or selectively reported in a manner promoting protectionist 
demagoguery and economic resentments.
  Ultimately, culpability for this state of affairs rests with senior 
editors seemingly unfamiliar with accepted economic theory. Frozen in a 
Keynesian, New Deal mentality, they seem wedded to redistributionist, 
big-government solutions to every economic trepidation, real or 
imagined.
  The result of decades of decision-making by liberal-leaning editors 
is an institutional bias against conservative economic theory and a 
brand of reporting infused with prejudice against conservative 
policies. Republican initiatives are panned or ignored, while the 
studies of every left-wing think tank in Washington, DC are dutifully 
reported without dissent or criticism.
  Again Mr. Speaker, I commend the following column by Robert Samuelson 
to the attention of all interested parties.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 18, 1996]

                          Junk Journalism 101

                        (By Robert J. Samuelson)

       The Philadelphia Inquirer began a 10-part series last week 
     titled ``America: Who Stole the Dream?'' that will attract 
     attention. The thesis is simple: Big Government and Big 
     Businesses are relentlessly reducing living standards and job 
     security for most Americans. The series, by Donald Barlett 
     and James Steele, portrays living in America as a constant 
     hell for all but the super-wealthy. This seems overdrawn, 
     because it is. It's junk journalism, and the intriguing 
     question is why a reputable newspaper publishes it.
       I call it ``junk,'' because it fails the basic test of 
     journalistic integrity and competence: It does not strive for 
     truthfulness, however impossible that ideal is to attain. It 
     does not seek a balanced picture of the economy--strengths as 
     well as shortcomings--or an accurate profile of living 
     standards. Instead it offers endless stories of people who 
     have suffered setbacks. Their troubles are supposed to speak 
     for (and to) everyone.
       They don't. Statistics implying lower living standards are 
     contradicted by what people buy or own. Home ownership (65 
     percent of households) is near a record. In 1980, 11 percent 
     of households owned a microwave oven, 37 percent a dishwasher 
     and 56 percent a dryer; by 1993, those figures were 78 
     percent, 50 percent and 68 percent. People buy more because 
     their incomes are higher. (Statistics understate incomes by 
     overstating inflation's effect on ``real'' wages and 
     salaries.) As for anxiety, it exists--and always will. But 
     America is not clinically depressed. The Gallup poll reports 
     that 66 percent of Americans expect their financial situation 
     to improve in the next year.
       The Inquirer's twisted portrait of the economy is not, 
     unfortunately, unique. Earlier this year, the New York Times 
     ran a distorted series (which I criticized) on corporate 
     ``downsizing.'' A recent ``CBS Reports'' called ``Who's 
     Getting Rich? and Why Aren't You?'' is another example. 
     Explanations for this sort of shoddy journalism fall into 
     three classes: (1) sensationalism--it sells; (2) ideology--
     journalists detest the profit motive; and (3) ignorance--they 
     don't know better. Sensationalism and anti-business bias are 
     old hat, but the larger problem, I think, is ignorance or 
     something akin to it.
       Journalism copes awkwardly with the ambiguities of many 
     economic stories. We're most comfortable with scandals, 
     trials, politics, sports and wars. The conflicts are 
     obvious, moral judgments often can be made, and stories 
     have clean endings. The economy defies such simple 
     theater. The process by which wealth is created is 
     unending and complex. Costs and benefits are comingled. 
     What's bad today may be good tomorrow. What hurts some may 
     help many others. Low inflation is good, but ending high 
     inflation may require something bad: a harsh recession.
       The capacity of journalist to recognize such distinctions 
     has grown since 1969, when I first began reporting on the 
     economy. Daily economic stories have improved in quality. But 
     there's one glaring exception to the progress: the nation's 
     top editors. Outside the business press (for example, the 
     Wall Street Journal), the people who run newspapers, 
     magazines and TV news divisions don't know much about the 
     economy--and seem unbothered by their ignorance.
       The assumption is that most economic stories are done by 
     specialized reports and aimed at specialized audiences. While 
     this assumption holds, editorial ignorance doesn't matter 
     much. Little damage occurs if know-nothing editors don't do 
     much. But on big projects--newspaper series, magazine cover 
     stories, TV documentaries--the assumption collapses. 
     Editorial control shifts upward, and there's a scramble for 
     familiar news formulas. Editors want villains and heroes, 
     victims and predators. Reporters who promise simple morality 
     tales can sell their stories. The frequent result is 
     journalistic trash.
       The Inquirer series blames the ``global economy'' and 
     ``free trade'' policies for lowering wages and destroying 
     jobs. What it doesn't say is that the trade balance and 
     employment are hardly connected. Barlett and Steele deplore 
     the fact that the last U.S. trade surplus was in 1975, but 
     they don't tell readers that the unemployment rate in 1975 
     was 8.5 percent. They note that other countries run trade 
     surpluses. Between 1980 and 1995, Germany had 16, the 
     Netherlands 14 and Sweden 13. But they don't say that the 
     unemployment rates for their countries are 9 percent for 
     Germany, 6 percent of the Netherlands and 9 percent for 
     Sweden. By contrast, the U.S. rate is 5.1 percent.
       Trade doesn't determine unemployment, because trade mainly 
     affects a small part of the job base: manufacturing. In 1995, 
     its share of all U.S. jobs was 16 percent. Trade creates some 
     jobs and destroys others, but total employment depends mainly 
     on the economy's overall vitality. The United States runs 
     regular trade deficits in part because the rest of the world 
     wants dollars to finance global commerce or substitute for 
     weak local currencies. As a result, we don't have to sell as 
     much abroad as we buy; the difference is made up by the 
     dollars other countries keep. All those extra imports raise--
     not lower--U.S. living standards.
       If Barlett and Steele wanted to inform readers, they'd 
     explain all this. But they're mainly interested in 
     condemning. Everything they discuss (trade policies, growing 
     income inequality, executive compensation) is the legitimate 
     stuff of journalism. What's illegitimate is to report matters 
     so selectively--with so little attention to conflicting 
     evidence or any larger context--that ordinary readers are 
     misled. The press can do better. The Los Angeles Times 
     recently ran a good series on the gains that economic change 
     creates as well as trauma it inflicts.
       The real fault here lies with the top editors (at the 
     Inquirer, the Times and other media giants) who commission or 
     approve these distortions. There's no excuse for their 
     ineptness. The ``economic story'' is no longer new. It is 
     central to the American condition and, therefore, a permanent 
     concern of journalism. If editors don't understand the 
     economy, they can't exercise good judgment. The present 
     sanctioned stupidity leads to junk journalism.

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