Steve Benen: If you perused the headlines on several prominent political news sites yesterday, you were led to believe that former President Clinton, in an interview with Newsmax, expressed his opposition to President Obama’s debt-reduction plan, or at least the provisions related to tax fairness.
….. Perhaps the most egregious was Time’s Mark Halperin, who ran this as the lead political story yesterday afternoon. The headline …., read, “42: No Tax Hikes.” The blurb told readers, “In Newsmax interview, Clinton says, ‘I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes … This has been a dead flat economy.’”
What did Clinton actually say? The quote from the former president is pretty straightforward: “I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending until we get this economy off the ground.”
Notice the difference between the quote and the media’s coverage?
First, these media outlets simply chose to ignore the part of the quote in which Clinton rejected spending cuts during a weak economy. Halperin went so far as to use ellipses to take out the part in which the former president dismissed the Republicans’ priority, misleading the reader about Clinton’s position.
…. Clinton and Obama are saying the same thing. There’s no excuse for these media outlets telling the public otherwise.
Full post here
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The Obama Diary 
‘clinton, context, and coverage – a case study’
Tags: Barack, benen, bill, Clinton, comments, debt, deficit, halperin, Mark, newsmax, Obama, President, reduction, spending, steve, taxes, twisted
Steve Benen: If you perused the headlines on several prominent political news sites yesterday, you were led to believe that former President Clinton, in an interview with Newsmax, expressed his opposition to President Obama’s debt-reduction plan, or at least the provisions related to tax fairness.
….. Perhaps the most egregious was Time’s Mark Halperin, who ran this as the lead political story yesterday afternoon. The headline …., read, “42: No Tax Hikes.” The blurb told readers, “In Newsmax interview, Clinton says, ‘I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes … This has been a dead flat economy.’”
What did Clinton actually say? The quote from the former president is pretty straightforward: “I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending until we get this economy off the ground.”
Notice the difference between the quote and the media’s coverage?
First, these media outlets simply chose to ignore the part of the quote in which Clinton rejected spending cuts during a weak economy. Halperin went so far as to use ellipses to take out the part in which the former president dismissed the Republicans’ priority, misleading the reader about Clinton’s position.
…. Clinton and Obama are saying the same thing. There’s no excuse for these media outlets telling the public otherwise.
Full post here