Over at My Journalism Class Weblog
Over at my journalism class weblog:
Covering the January 27 GDP Release: There's news--lots of news--lots of bad news--in the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis's "advance" release on GDP and the state of the economy in the fourth quarter of 2005. So I'm going to want to spend class on Tuesday, January 31 looking at (a) what the Thursday morning economic news was, and (b) how it was reported
Readings for February 7, 2006 : Loose ends, real wages, and Peter Gosselin of the LA Times on income insecurity
The Bush Administration Federal Budget Proposal: Jonathan Weisman's Tuesday budget story... Stan Collender's Wednesday budget story... National Journal 2007 budget proposal special report.... David Sanger's Tuesday budget story.... There are three kinds of federal budget proposals: (a) those that describe the policies that a powerful president expects to get through congress this year; (b) those that describe a weaker president's opening bid, that is to say what he hopes but does not expect to get through congress; and (c) those that are not policy but political documents, crafted to get the maximum amount of favorable press. This year we have a budget of type (c). How is it being covered?
Budget: What Do You Do When Officials Lie? : Class Afterthoughts: What can a working journalist do when official sources and documents tell lies? That was a difficult part of what those journalists covering the budget this year had to do. We have this same question coming up in another context: Daniel Froomkin writes: "It is now clear that several reporters and editors at Time knew very well that McClellan's statement was false.... [W]hat should Time have done?...
