From The Driving Me Nuts Files

by digby

You know, I understand that the economic issues are complicated. I’m wading through them in muddled fashion myself. But that’s no excuse for the press to just regurgitate idiotic GOP talking points about legislation that is perfectly clear even to an idiot. Media Matters documents the journalistic malpractice:

Discussing the March 19 House vote to levy a 90-percent tax on executive bonuses paid to companies owing more than $5 billion in loans to the government, NBC, ABC, and Fox News all advanced the false Republican accusation that by passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Democrats created the right for AIG to pay bonuses. In fact, as Media Matters for America documented, the recovery bill did not create the right for AIG — or any company — to pay bonuses. Rather, AIG reportedly disclosed that it had entered into agreements to pay these bonuses more than a year ago, the Bush Treasury department approved of the AIG bailout with this agreement in place, and the relevant provision in the recovery act, which was based on an amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), actually restricted the ability of companies receiving money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to award bonuses in the future. In the absence of the recovery bill, AIG’s ability to pay the bonuses would not have been limited. Indeed, if Republicans had succeeded in defeating the bill, the clause restricting the ability of troubled companies to award bonuses in the future would not have been enacted at the time.

I know it’s a mouthful to explain all this and that the gasbags are media stars who have to entertain their audience. But it’s important that the press be precise in their reporting on these matters. The ability of the government to maneuver us through these times is getting narrower and narrower. Granted, that’s partially due to their own error and misjudgment, but that’s no reason for the media to make things worse by misreporting the story and placing blame where it doesn’t belong.

If the press ever looked back at their previous mistakes instead of pretending that they wre innocent bystanders, they’d realize just how dangerous these lies and misinterpretations are. It’s not like they have to look back very far — just five years ago this kind of sloppy, braindead reporting led us into the national security and financial disaster we find ourselves in today.

This isn’t a matter of figuring out the workings of arcane financial instruments. This is simple legislative reporting that anyone can do. But the ramifications of their failure to accurately report it will be steep if it erroneously empowers the know-nothing Republicans and limits the president’s options for the wrong reasons.

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