I saw this headline on an AP story today — Poor and disabled big losers in Trump budget. The story includes a photo of the budget (see below), so I think it’s safe to say that the AP writer didn’t read the entire thing before announcing who the “big losers” are. He’s just flogging his own agenda. (See also Harvard Study Says Media Are Very Biased Against Donald Trump) “Trump’s plan for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 makes deep cuts in safety net programs . . .” the story says. What’s the difference between a “cut” and a “deep cut”? The latter sounds mean and scary. Why not just say something factual like “10 percent cut” or “50 percent cut” and let readers put their own characterization on it? “Safety net programs” is also a loaded expression. “Trump’s budget would cut the food stamp program by $191 billion over… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Elizabeth Warren
We Need More Voter Suppression, Not Less
The latest update of the Pew Research Center’s News IQ quiz finds that while 79 percent of respondents correctly identified the Twitter logo, only 55 percent could identify Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General. The Holder question was not an open-ended question, which would have been more difficult, e.g., “Name the current U.S. Attorney General” or “Who is Eric Holder?” It was a multiple-choice question. The question (you can take the quiz yourself here) shows a photo of Holder and asks respondents to select his job from a list of four options. Results were even worse for other questions. Fifty percent correctly identified Syria as the highlighted country on a map, again from a list of four choices, and 43 percent were able to identify Elizabeth Warren from a set of four photos. And still there are some misfits who continue to insist that voter suppression is a bad thing. Read more →