04.04.24
News Avoidance Syndrome – VARIOUS OUTLETS
That announcement itself seems newsworthy, no?…
On Monday, California's ill-conceived new fast-food minimum wage went into effect, where burger slingers and other employees will be making $20 hourly. As soon as the law took effect, a number of effects were seen; prices shot up on items, many employees saw their hours trimmed significantly, and a number of businesses closed entirely – so much for helping out the little guy.
Just after that law was put into practice, a victory lap of sorts was planned, where on April 3, in the state capital, a celebratory restaurant workers rally was to be held. But then a notice was sent out to the media, requesting them not to come out for the event. It turned out that they could not get enough happy and benefitting workers to come out and attend.
Inbox: Media advisory for rally at the State Capitol to celebrate new fast-food minimum wage in California is pulled back due to “low worker turnout” pic.twitter.com/DYXNxQcYDp
— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) April 3, 2024
This seems like a gift-wrapped story: No workers attending the pro-worker celebration would make for stark visuals, and you can dig into why so few came out (not happy, needing to work after cut hours, or too busy filling out job applications) and then detail the businesses that closed down. Maybe that kind of work was too much against the grain with preferred narratives.
Stealth Story Evolution – PALM BEACH POST
C'mon now, he was only off by a few hundred million dollars, is that so wrong?
Florida media have struck again, as DeSantis Dysphoria™ has once again reared up. Columnist Frank Cerabino was covering a recent move in the DeSantis administration, and he really caught the governor in a foul-up. The state health authority set up a computer dashboard to track the health care expenses the state was incurring in caring for illegal immigrants. Cerabino looked at this "anti-immigrant" effort and spotted what he thought was a hypocritical result:
The cost of these uncompensated hospital visits, put at $566 million statewide by the agency, is less than the cost of the $577 million taxpayers paid to create the anti-immigrant online dashboard and staff its data collection.
Now on first blush, this does look like typical government incompetence. An agency spending more money on tracking how much it was spending on an expense does track with expectations. Except we see the incompetence rests not with Florida or DeSantis but with Cerabino's math. Note the link above is an archived version, as it was soon learned that in assessing the issue, the columnist was only in error by a few hundred million dollars.
Frankly, good journalism is asking questions when you don't fully understand the ins and outs of a program. The dashboard costs around $5k. Total data collection request = $567,882. Neither anywhere close to $577 million. @FranklyFlorida pic.twitter.com/nhUqsWgHdc
— Alecia C. (@AleciaDCollins) April 3, 2024
Once the paper was put on blast for this major error, this column was edited to remove all mention of these dollar amounts. Initially, there was no notice given of the wholesale changes made to Cerabino's column, then the revision carried the paragraph about the correction.
Behold the shifts at the @PalmBeachPost first made with no announcement, after @FranklyFlorida was found to be in error by only $500,000,000.
— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) April 4, 2024
1. Original Header
2. Original copy
3. New Header
4. New copy
Initially this was done without notice, but now carries this correction. pic.twitter.com/TKHhgVUrzj
Reporting on the Mirror – NBC NEWS
It makes you wonder if this qualifies her as a war correspondent.
Savannah Guthrie appeared on "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert and discussed the harrowing experience last week of her news division being rocked by the hiring of former RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Understand this is coming from the troupe who call themselves as being on par with firefighters and the soldiers on the beaches of Normandy.
'It Was An Unpleasant Few Days At Our Network': NBC's Savannah Guthrie Describes the Ronna McDaniel Firing to Colbert https://t.co/pE7N5hhLuq
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) April 3, 2024
It was "unpleasant" for Savannah to not work with the woman who did not appear on her network and is not employed by them any longer after four days. A service bravery medal will be awarded forthwith.
Race to the Bottom – AXIOS
In women's soccer, the Utah Royals apparently is embroiled in controversy over its uniforms, because people are simply stupid and reactionary any longer. The team and its stadium are sponsored by an area financial institution, America First Credit Union, and they sport the corporate logo on their jerseys. This has been called a racist and intolerant display that needs to be changed:
In a March 30 statement, two supporter groups for the Washington Spirit and D.C. United said the company's defense of their name "ignores the complex and hateful history of the name and the ongoing effects of American nationalism and white supremacy that 'America First' expresses."
Their issued statement also declares this institution in existence for 85 years – with no prior controversy – has placed "Ku Klux Klan ideology" on the jerseys (their logo is an eagle) of the players from Utah. Mind you, the players from Utah were not the ones bothered by the logo, but at least Axios is here to give a voice to these insipid cranks.
The Utah Royals are facing scrutiny over their jersey and stadium sponsor's name and logo which some are accusing of having racist and white supremacist connotations. https://t.co/OmEJ6LNftd
— Axios (@axios) April 4, 2024
Low-Octane Gaslighting – THE NEW YORK TIMES
You do understand how taking time for accuracy and delivering correct results might bother The New York Times.
It might seem a bit odd for the gang at RealClearPolitics to take the time to correct a three-year-old piece from The Times, but considering it had impugned the integrity of the RCP election reporting, it sounds a bit more logical. In that piece, The Times slammed RCP for allegedly right-leaning coverage on its site, as well as criticizing the outlet for taking longer to call the state of Pennsylvania and implying that the site showed polling results favoring Donald Trump.
Why it is regarded as a problem that the outlet paused until the contested state results were official is not explained. RCP looked back and showed it had balanced left-and-right links at the time period mentioned – including several Times' articles as the main headline. But best of all was the claim it had slanted the polling results it featured.
Not only did the RCP numbers show an advantage for Biden, but its site's polling numbers were almost in line with the election results, showing to be far more accurate than the polling results found in – The New York Times.
2 weeks after the 2020 election, the NYT ran a hit piece on RCP. We did what we normally do when we're attacked by dishonest journalists: we ignored it. But it stuck in our craw. Recently, Carl Cannon told us he wanted to write a rebuttal. Here it is.https://t.co/bpTTgqbfV9
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) April 4, 2024
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"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature covering the nation's deeply flawed aspects of journalism, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
