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Arianna isRight
By encinoman
I&;ve often taken a critical look at the Huffington Post, because of their uncool policy of not paying contributors, which is bad in itself and can lead to horrible work like this. Then there&;s their habit of &;borrowing&; work on the Web.
But there&;s no denying the intelligence and wisdom of its founder, the eponymous Arianna Huffington. Interviewer Choire Sicha recently asked her, &;What was the most under-covered story of 2008?&;
&;I think the most under-covered story for me was: How did we get here? How did we get suddenly, or appear suddenly, in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And exactly how did all these billions of dollars disappear? I think most immediately, the most under-covered story is how are the billions of bailout money being spent.&;
She&;s right. Henry Paulson&;s bailout &;plan&; seems to be to fly a helicopter over Wall Street dumping out buckets of cash.
But the coverage problem rests with the news media, which seems unwilling and unable to cover the crash of home values, banks, stocks and jobs in ways America can understand and act on.
One reason is that business desks are being slashed and the survivors are dispirited, wondering if their own jobs will be next, making for low-energy reporting. A second is the &;innumeracy&; too common in the news media, which Yglesias notes has &;almost no understanding of quantitative methods.&; Finally, you can blame our celebrity culture from Barack to Britney, whether it&;s force-fed to consumers by editors or whether the media is responding to pressure for ratings from their own pressured bosses.
Tags: Arianna-Huffington, Huffington-Post, innumeracy, Yglesias
This entry was posted on December 23, 2008 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Huffington-Post, Journalism.
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