Manufactured Quotes: News organizations fail to disclose “regular Joe” businessmen’s lobbying ties [View all]

[salvorhardin]

Ryan Chittum (one of the best business watchdog reporters IMHO) at CJR writes about the media's unnerving tendency to seek opinions from "regular Joe" businessmen without disclosing that these Joes aren't so regular as they pretend.

Two weeks ago The New York Times wheeled out that old chestnut of Great Recession-era economic reporting: Companies can’t find workers, despite high unemployment. ...

Well, I’m looking for a Mary Poppins type to take care of my twins for $7.25 an hour, but can’t seem to find one. Where are all those stern-but-cheerful nannies with charming accents willing to work for a song? ...

...what really sends the BS meter into the red zone is when you learn that the anecdotes are populated with business people with ties to lobbying groups that news organizations, for whatever reason, fail to disclose. ...

Undisclosed in any of these stories is the fact that [Drew] Greenblatt is an executive-committee member of the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, the powerful DC trade lobby. NAM not only pushes Congress for anti-labor policies (like banning picketing), it lobbies for government-funded workforce training programs (“to be led by the business community,” naturally). ...

A couple of weeks ago, blogger Steve M. at Balloon Juice and No More Mister Nice Blog caught NPR and NBC talking to the same small businessman, Joe Olivo, about how Obama’s health care law is keeping him from hiring for his printing business. Turns out Olivo’s quite the active member of the National Federation of Independent Businesses...

Full post: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/manufactured_quotes.php?page=all