The Pope

As many of you are aware, the Pope recently released his world view. The document he released summarizes his world view and how the Catholic Church should react to world problems. Interestingly enough he had much to say regarding the world economic system. He lashed out at market forces that, in his view, have castigated millions of poor folks at the expense of a few millionaires. He got really specific at which policies he thought had done most of the damage of economic inequality over the past few decades. I was very surprised that a religious figure was so open to speaking about public policy. He was very frank in what he considered public policy fallacies,

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Francis wrote in the papal statement. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacra­lized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

His message has special resonance to the political discourse in the United States. Do you think the Pope should be speaking about highly polarizing issues. Whatever your opinion may be, I would be very interested in hearing it. Such a highly esteemed figure and his teachings have implications for billions of Catholics worldwide.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pope-francis-denounces-trickle-down-economic-theories-in-critique-of-inequality/2013/11/26/e17ffe4e-56b6-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html

False Equivalency?

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has undoubtedly tarnished the President's image with the American people. Most people believe this program will simply not work because of the rollout. Others believe that this is definitive prove that the government should not be meddling in the everyday affairs of Americans. All that being said, it has been immensely interesting to see how the media has been covering this entire debacle. Many of them have been comparing the rollout of a Federal program to massive disasters during George W. Bush's term. I don't know how I feel about this comparison to Katrina..it simply doesn't seem equivalent. Some anchors have also compared it to the Iraq War. Again I don't think these are fair comparisons. The folks from Media Matters have their perspective on it as well. What do you think?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/20/wmd-guilt-with-obamacare-the-press-keeps-trying/196986

CBS Mess Up

I'm sure most of you have heard about the major screw up that CBS has committed with their latest reporting on Benghazi. CBS has a very respected name in news reporting but unfortunately they have tainted that name quite a bit with this latest reporting. It is vastly unfortunate that they did not double check their sources. Do y'all think this happened because they were trying to make a political point? Or was it careless errors by the producers?

Here's another possible problem:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/12/60-minutes-still-hasnt-mentioned-their-benghazi/196862

Election Results

A few days ago we had a few elections around the country! There were a few wins that could be seen as potential predictors of future elections around the nation. First off Terry McAuliffe won in Virginia due to his coalition of the ascendant such as minorities, women and young folks. He emulated the model that catapulted Barack Obama to the Presidency and has been key for the Democrats over the past few elections cycles. Although he campaigned as a bipartisan politician, he never backed off his positions on guns and his social liberalism. This election is particularly interesting because many people believe that Virginia is the new Ohio. It will become more pivotal as future cycles come. All that being said I will include how Fox and MSNBC covered the win of the Governor-elect. How different is the coverage from the news organizations.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/06/mcauliffe-wins-virginia-governor-race/

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/target-mcauliffe-wins-big-gun-control

Media Inclusion of Economists

Although both political parties have different views regarding which sort of budget we will have in the future, we have finally at least sat down to conference. This past Wednesday both major parties had a conference meeting in order to be able to hash out the differences between them. Surprisingly enough, I did not see many media outlets cover the conference nor pay much attention to it. I assume once we begin to inch closer to the deadline in March they will pay more attention. Since they hadn't given it much attention, I decided to look back during last year's budget battles. I found an astonishing article in Media Matters that deals with how many economists had been interviewed on the major networks. Media Matters says, "In a recently published study of news segments discussing current budget negotiations, Media Matters found that the presence of economists was sorely lacking - out of 503 total guests in the 337 segments analyzed, only 22 were economists." 

Why do y'all think this is? In an economic debate, shouldn't economists lead the way in what prescription best fits the country? I think it is quite shameful. 

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/12/13/economists-and-economics-absent-from-media-cove/191837

Media Coverage on Healthcare Policy

With all of the healthcare talk going on in Washington I wanted to look back a few years. It was always particularly interesting to me seeing how the media framed the issue of healthcare reform. Although there were many disparaging points of view on the issue, there was a general consensus that the system was in need of serious reforms. Another emerging consensus was the fact that a big chunk of Americans believed the government should make sure that all Americans had access to quality healthcare insurance. The article that I read regarding media coverage found that the media did a very poor job of having substantive policy debates. They rely heavily on a study conducted by Pew that looked at thousands of articles covering the debate. They found that the majority of media coverage was dedicated towards political strategy and not about the actual law. I suspect this might be a reason as to why many Americans are not fully informed about the Affordable Care Act and its mission. What do you think of the horrendous media coverage during this contentious debate?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/health-care-reform-media_n_620892.html

Media coverage of Syria

The Atlantic has an interesting piece regarding how major American newspapers framed the Syria intervention debate. Given that this was a huge topic a few weeks back I wonder what y'all think of this. They claim that all these newspapers are inserting a bias into their narrative whether they realize it or not. I know we've had previous discussions regarding whether journalists should report both sides or if they should seek truth and facts regardless of what way they lean. This piece has a brief overview and excerpts for which I would like to see what y'all thought. Give it a go.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the-press-and-the-syria-debate-neither-neutral-nor-balanced/279256/