Ignorant Media

By John Stossel Has the media gotten worse? Or am I just grouchier? Every day I see things that are wrong or that so miss the point I want to scream. Four examples: Storm Coverage As this weeks storm approached the East Coast the media reverted to breathless hype: monster storm ... very dangerous. Here I blame my beloved free market: Predicting scary weather works. Viewers tune in. What galls me more is the reporters government-centric thinking. Everything is closed they say. Employees cant get to work. But the corner grocery stayed open. So did many gas stations and restaurants. Why is it that when government buildings close so many private businesses stay open? Because their own money is at stake. The stores employees probably make less money than government workers. They are less likely to own all-wheel-drive cars. But they get to work. Some sleep there. Their own money is on the line. Reporters dont think about the distinction. The Deep State Monday The New York Times ran the headline What Happens When You Fight a Deep State that Doesnt Exist? The article explained that unlike Egypt or Pakistan America doesnt really have a powerful deep state and to claim that it does presents apolitical civil servants as partisan agents. Give me a break. Apolitical civil servants? A deep state absolutely exists. Some call it administrative state or regulatory state. These are the people who crush innovation and freedom by issuing hundreds of new rules. Regulators if they dont pass new rules think theyre not doing their job. Even anti-regulator President George W. Bush hired 90000 new regulators. Calling them nonpartisan doesnt make them harmless -- it just means we put up with them through multiple administrations. Even if you exclude the military and post office more than 20 million Americans work for the government. Because of civil service rules its almost impossible to fire them. The Times calls these 20 million people apolitical. Please. Most are just as partisan as you or I. Maybe more so as leaks and signs of bureaucratic resistance to presidential edicts demonstrate. People who choose to work for say the EPA tend to be environment zealots. This should surprise no one. Somehow New York Times reporters dont see it. Chief of EPA Bucks Studies Speaking of the EPA and the Times their front page claimed President Donald Trump appointee Scott Pruitt is at odds with the established scientific consensus. That makes Pruitt sound like an anti-science idiot. But the headline is bunk. Pruitt only said that he does not agree that man is the primary contributor to global warming. Thats at odds with Times reporters and government flunkies on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change but many scientists say there is so much uncertainty to climate measurements that no one can know if mans greenhouse gases are the primary cause of warming. The earth warmed similarly last century well before we emitted so much carbon dioxide. John Oliver British comedian John Oliver hosts one of the better political talk shows. Hes like Bill Maher but funnier and not as mean. Yesterday on an airplane I watched an episode that led with a report on the chaos in Venezuela. I perked up expecting Oliver to at least mention Venezuelas caps on corporate profits abolition of property rights media censorship regulation of car production from the factory door to the place of sale etc. In other words: socialism. But no Oliver didnt mention any of that. He mocked President Maduros speeches but said Venezuela was in trouble because its economy depends on oil and oil prices dropped. What? Kuwait Nigeria Angola and other countries exported more oil than Venezuela. But they survived the price drop without experiencing the misery that Venezuela suffers. The suffering was created by socialism. Americas leftists cannot see the horrors of socialism even when they are right in front of them.