MEDIA KUDOS….Since the press gets a lot of bashing in the blogosphere, and occasionally right here on my own blog, it’s worth commending them for their coverage of the CBO budget report yesterday. Despite the confusing array of numbers on offer, the major papers all got both the story and the headline right: namely, that in an apples-to-apples comparison, the budget deficit is getting worse.
The New York Times headline said “Budget Deficit Will Rise Again,” and the story included the excellent graphic reproduced above. The LA Times headed their story “Budget Deficit to Set Record,” and noted in the second paragraph that “congressional analysts forecast a generally worsening budget outlook, saying the federal deficit would become a knottier problem in the next 10 years.” The Washington Post headline read “Record ’05 Deficit Forecast.”
Social Security reporting has been getting more accurate too, even if more and more reporters are buying into the administration’s Orwellian language decrees about “personal accounts” vs. “private accounts.” So maybe there’s hope after all.
UPDATE: Needless to say, the Wall Street Journal editorial page refuses to go along with the crowd. Their record of egregious intellectual dishonesty remains unbroken.
