This Is A Good Thing
All I can say is that it's about time the White House started objecting to some of the allegations the press makes. A lot of folks in the blogosphere have been doing this all along (myself included). Until now, the White House has not directly challenged outright falsehoods the press has printed.
Tony Snow is changing that. That's good. When the New York Times prints outright false numbers, they need to be publicly called out for it. The same applies to CBS and to USA Today:
“CBS News misleadingly reports that only 8 million seniors have signed up for Medicare prescription drug coverage,” Wednesday’s missive said. “But 37 million seniors have coverage.” On Tuesday, the White House railed against “USA Today’s misleading Medicare story.”
“USA Today claims ‘poor, often minority’ Medicare beneficiaries are not enrolling in Medicare drug coverage,” the press office complained. “But by April, more than 70 percent of eligible African Americans, more than 70 percent of eligible Hispanics, and more than 75 percent of eligible Asian Americans are enrolled or have retiree drug coverage.”
Waiting for a page 92 microtype correction is not going to counter the lies. Calling them on it publicly will at least let the American people know something is really wrong with the news they are getting these days. (Though judging by the falling revenues in the media world, I suspect a lot already do).
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CARRY ON AMERICA » Blog Archive » A Punching Bag No More — Thursday, 11 May , 2006 @ 3:56 pm
By Robert, Thursday, 11 May , 2006 @ 12:10 pm
You got it.
But let’s also move away from the “he said, she said” crap.
By Gaius, Thursday, 11 May , 2006 @ 12:19 pm
That would be nice.