Press Release Journalism
Here's why I ask. A big above-the-fold headline in the L.A. Times California section proclaims, "ANGELIDES PROPOSES TAX CUTS." Well, okay, that certainly seems newsworthy. But as you read the article, you see that $88 million of the "tax cuts" comprises "property tax relief and rent subsidies for the poor, disabled and elderly people."
Repeat: the "tax cuts" include "subsidies."
Since when do subsidies constitute tax cuts?
The answer, of course, is that if a favored politician says something to the L.A. Times, then it is merely repeated as truth without any analysis. The article includes a table of numbers and cites, as the source, the Angelides campaign. If Angelides says subsdies are tax cuts, then who is an L.A. Times "Norwegian blue" reporter to do anything but repeat same?
Here's another example. When Mayor Villaraigosa told reporters he is a fiscal conservative who cut spending to overcome a "structural deficit" of $200 million, the L.A. Times dutifully and unquestionably reported that. In fact, however, as the City's own budge reports show, Villaraigosa did not cut spending, there was no deficit, there is instead $717 million more in revenues this year, and he has managed to spend every penny of it.
Where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins of the Twenty-First Century?