On rare occasions, when I get really irked, I complain about media bias. Examples include this AP story on poverty, the Brian Ross Tea Party slur, this example of implicit bias by USA Today, and a Reuters report on job creation and so-called stimulus.
On other occasions, though, you stumble upon a news report or column that is ignorant beyond belief and you have to assume that the person has transcended ordinary bias and belongs in a special category.
The Washington Post seems to specialize in this kind of über-mistake. It was a Post reporter, after all, who wrote last year about a GOP plan to “slash” spending when timid GOPers were merely trying to trim 0.15 percent from the growth of federal spending. Not 15 percent. Not 1.5 percent. A mere $6 billion out of a bloated federal budget of $3,800,000,000,000.
And it was the Washington Post that decided to refer to a certain country as fiscally conservative. Was the reporter writing about Hong Kong or Singapore, the two jurisdictions with the smallest government and freest markets? Nope. Was the reporter referring to Switzerland, with its strong human rights policy on financial privacy, or Australia, with its personal retirement accounts? Nope, the reporter wrote about “fiscally conservative Germany.”
I guess the folks at the New York Times were feeling left out, because our latest example comes from that newspaper. Someone named Chrystia Freeland wrote an article about income inequality, making some decent points about cronyism, but also reflexively regurgitating talking points on class-warfare tax policy. What caught my eye, though, was this incredible assertion about government funding of education.
Educational attainment, which created the American middle class, is no longer rising. The super-elite lavishes unlimited resources on its children, while public schools are starved of funding. …elite education is increasingly available only to those already at the top. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama enrolled their daughters in an exclusive private school; I’ve done the same with mine.
So “public schools are starved of funding”? That’s a strong statement. It implies very deep reductions in the amount of money being diverted from taxpayers to the government schools. So where are the numbers?
You won’t be surprised to learn that Ms. Freeland doesn’t offer any evidence. And there’s a good reason for that. As show in this chart, government spending on education has skyrocketed in recent years.
This data isn’t adjusted for inflation or population, but you can peruse this amazing chart put together by one of Cato’s education experts to see that per-pupil spending has skyrocketed even after adjusting for inflation.
In other words, Ms. Freeland has no clue what she’s talking about. Or, to be fair, she made a giant-sized mistake, perhaps because she’s lives in a statist bubble and blindly assumes that left-wing politicians tell the truth.
Though I do want to giver her credit. She acknowledges that Obama and Clinton both decided to save their kids from a failed government-run school system, thus exposing some hypocrisy on the left. So it’s quite possible that she wanted to write a fair piece, but simply had a few major blind spots.
And it goes without saying that none of the editors or (non-existent?) fact checkers at the New York Times knew enough or cared enough to catch a huge blunder.
P.S. You can enjoy some cartoons about media bias here, here, and here, with the last one being my favorite.
P.P.S. Yes, I know Paul Krugman writes at the New York Times and sometimes seems to specialize in big mistakes. But he’s explicitly an opinion writer, so readers are forewarned to expect a certain point of view.
[…] I’ve shared may examples of media bias (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), I think the answer is […]
[…] The New York Times asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] The New York Times asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] The New York Times asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] is being “starved” have been repeated in elite circles for years. The economist Dan Mitchell called out the New York Times back in 2012 for printing the same incorrect assertion about imaginary cuts to […]
[…] is being “starved” have been repeated in elite circles for years. The economist Dan Mitchell called out the New York Times back in 2012 for printing the same incorrect assertion about imaginary cuts to […]
[…] “starved” have been repeated in elite circles for years. The economist Dan Mitchell called out the New York Times back in 2012 for printing the same incorrect assertion about imaginary cuts to […]
[…] is being “starved” have been repeated in elite circles for years. The economist Dan Mitchell called out the New York Times back in 2012 for printing the same incorrect assertion about imaginary cuts to […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] on the other hand, have generally pushed for criminal justice reform for a while, but have held fast to the ridiculous idea that we only need increased education funding to improve outcomes. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] when the New York Times published a story about schools being “starved of funding” when even a cursory look at the data would confirm outlays have climbed […]
[…] P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that government education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] While it’s quite clear that the establishment media leans to the left, I don’t get too agitated about bias. Though every so often I can’t resist the temptation to comment when I come across egregious examples on issues such as poverty, guns, Greece, jobs, taxes, and education. […]
Calnilg all cars, calling all cars, we’re ready to make a deal.
[…] P.P.P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] I can’t resist sharing this correction of some very shoddy education reporting by the New York […]
[…] I can’t resist sharing this correction of some very shoddy education reporting by the New York […]
[…] instance, when an article in the New York Times asserted that “public schools are starved of funding” back in 2012, I couldn’t help but point out that […]
[…] When I wrote about the media, it’s generally to criticize sloppy and/or biased reporting […]
[…] I wrote about the media, it’s generally to criticize sloppy and/or biased […]
[…] I can’t resist sharing this correction of some very shoddy education reporting by the New York […]
[…] I can’t resist sharing this correction of some very shoddy education reporting by the New York […]
[…] P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that government education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] a Washington Post story that turned a spending cut molehill into a “spending slash” mountain, a silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been reduced, and a Washington post claim that […]
[…] a Washington Post story that turned a spending cut molehill into a “spending slash” mountain, a silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been reduced, and a Washington post claim that […]
[…] P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] Asserting that government schools are “starved of funding” when taxpayer subsidies actually have skyrocketed. […]
[…] Are there any Fact-Checkers at the New York Times? […]
[…] don’t mean to pick on the New York Times. Yes, the self-styled paper of record has been guilty in the past of turning budget increases into spending cuts, but the Washington Post is guilty of the same sin, […]
[…] already know that government schools do a rotten job, consuming ever-larger amounts of our tax dollars for a system that produces very mediocre results (check out this chart if you don’t believe […]
[…] silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been […]
[…] silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been […]
[…] he does work at the New York Times, which is tediously left wing (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), so we’ll give the newspaper an award for the […]
[…] a Washington Post story that turned a spending cut molehill into a “spending slash” mountain, a silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been reduced, and a Washington post claim that […]
[…] a Washington Post story that turned a spending cut molehill into a “spending slash” mountain, a silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been reduced, and a Washington post claim that […]
Fact-checkers? What’s that? ?:/
[…] Post story that turned a spending cut molehill into a “spending slash” mountain, a silly assertion in the New York Times that education spending has been reduced, and a Washington post claim that […]
[…] Mitchell pokes at an oft-repeated, always-untrue canard about government education spending that popped up again in […]
There is nothing new about the New York Times’ playing fast and loose with the facts to serve their political agenda; this is been going on for a long, long time.
I first noticed it (not that it was something new even then) back in 1997 when they covered the impending court-martial of Lt. Kelly Flinn who, following an adulterous affair with the husband of an enlisted subordinate, disobeyed a direct order from her commanding officer to break off the affair, and then lied to him about having done so. The New York Times wrote an editorial that emphasized the adultery, barely mentioning that there were any other charges, and blamed the military’s “antiquated adultery rules and their consistency in administering them, as well as their management training.”
It was then I realized that political propaganda comes first for them, and that they have no regard for the facts when they would get in the way of their demagoguery.