economy

Entries Tagged as 'economy'

Austerity Pitch: AP laces news with opinion… again

February 5th, 2014 · 2 Comments · budget policy, economy, Fact Check, inequality, journalism, tax policy, Uncategorized, Washington

By Arthur Alpert This is a tale of two opinions. Winthrop Quigley of the Albuquerque Journal offered his in a recent UpFront column Thursday, Jan. 28, on inequality and higher minimum wages. I disagree with his conclusions, but so what? Quigley stated his premises and marshaled evidence (income inequality is real, extreme and bad for […]

A Question of Institutional Intellect

January 21st, 2014 · 1 Comment · economy, Education, journalism, labor, Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert Sometimes I feel like Pavlov’s dog. Because editors at the Albuquerque Journal regularly substitute political for journalistic decisions, they’ve trained me to salivate at the prospect of identifying the paper’s barely disguised editorial agenda in the news columns. And as you know, I find it and bark. However, on looking away from […]

Censoring The Pope

December 20th, 2013 · 3 Comments · economy, inequality, journalism, Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert As I was saying, power and its distribution by hierarchy – are fundamental. Naturally, the folks atop the ladder fear nothing more than challenges to that inequality. And now, after the U.S. elite has spent 40 years restoring the rampant inequality of the Gilded Age, with its poisoned fruits, Americans are protesting […]

News From The Aerie Dwellers

December 12th, 2013 · 2 Comments · economy, financial coverage, journalism, Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert Journalism is superficial, of course. With some praiseworthy exceptions, it’s basically a gloss on politics. Politics is superficial, too, relative to what it revolves around, power. Power, however, is fundamental. So is its distribution along the vertical axis we call hierarchy. “It’s good to be the king,” said Mel Brooks, reminding us […]

Read All About It (elsewhere): GM Bailout Saved a Million Jobs

December 11th, 2013 · 2 Comments · economy, journalism, role of government, Washington

By Arthur Alpert If you ever doubted the Albuquerque Journal’s passion for passing off its editorial views as news, consider a modest item on the Business Page, Tuesday, Dec. 10, almost at the bottom left. Here’s the headline: “Feds lost $10.5B in bailout of GM” And here is the first of its three paragraphs: “The […]

What If Someone New Took the Journal Helm?

November 1st, 2013 · 7 Comments · economy, Education, energy policy, Fact Check, journalism

By Denise Tessier Here’s a thought: What if Alan Webber, who’s just announced he’s running for the Democratic nomination for governor, ran the Albuquerque Journal? Whether he was to take the helm of state administration or of the state’s leading newspaper, I submit the effect on New Mexico could be comparably profound. To be clear, […]

Government Shutdown Coverage: A Discordant and Disqualifying Performance

October 27th, 2013 · 2 Comments · budget policy, economy, journalism, Uncategorized, Washington

By Arthur Alpert You have noticed, surely, how the Albuquerque Journal’s song changes from time to time, as if an unseen fiddler was calling variations on the tune. Now, for example, the editors are segueing from the shutdown/debt ceiling crisis to promote austerity, even as they maintain the underlying theme. One day soon I’ll document […]

False Equivalency Shifts Into High Gear

October 11th, 2013 · 1 Comment · economy, health care reform, journalism, role of government, tax policy, Washington

By Arthur Alpert I must break the habit of understatement. In that last post, I mean, where I wrote the Albuquerque Journal was guilty of false equivalence and worse, in playing the shutdown story as a partisan divide where the parties are almost equally to blame and solutions lie in negotiations aimed at meeting in […]

False Equivalency in the Government Shutdown Story, Journal Style

October 7th, 2013 · 3 Comments · budget policy, economy, health care reform, journalism, role of government, tax policy, Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert Editors must work around the staff to distort local reality so it fits the Albuquerque Journal’s agenda. It’s a snap, however, when the issue is national. Witness the current campaign to persuade readers the federal government shutdown represents a split between Democrats and Republicans, the parties are almost equally to blame and […]

Samuelson’s Fables

August 27th, 2013 · 2 Comments · economy, financial coverage, journalism, role of government, tax policy

By Arthur Alpert Henny Penny, hit by a stray acorn, assumed the sky was falling and raced around spreading hysteria in the barnyard. It’s a folktale about a deluded fowl scaring the bejeebers out of the community. The obvious moral is, watch out for idiots flapping wings. Or jaws. The Albuquerque Journal’s favorite economics reporter, […]