When talking about liberal bias in the media, it’s important to keep in mind news magazines like Time and Newsweek, which once were reasonably middle of the road, but now are mouthpieces for the Democratic Party.
Today’s Washington Times has an editorial on a recent Newsweek article titled “Why Your Tax Cut Doesn’t Add Up.” The Newsweek article is a pre-election hit piece intended to convince its readers that the recent tax cuts don’t benefit “ordinary people.” It does this by focusing on three random individuals or couples–Jennifer Evans of San Diego, Ron and Patty Taverno of State College, Pa., and Ted and Erania Ellis of Texas. Newsweek briefly describes the financial circumstances of these people and then quotes them saying that their tax cuts were “inconsequential,” “no break for us,” etc. Of course, Newsweek provides no actual data to back up these assertions.
The Times editorial shows how fatuous Newsweek’s claims are. The Bush tax cuts would have reduced Evans’ income taxes by 45%, the Tavernos’ by 44%, and the Ellises’ by nearly $7,000. The Times concludes that “Newsweek has published a dirty little story, which it surely had to know was filled with distortions and misrepresentations.”
Do you ever wonder where magazine and newspaper writers find the citizens-on-the-street whom they use for stories like this one? How, exactly, do they identify a random person out of nearly 300 million Americans who happens to be willing to say that his tax cut was “inconsequential”?
I can’t tell you how the authors of the Newsweek hit piece came up with Jennifer Evans or the Ellises, but I’m pretty sure I know how they spotted Ron Taverno. He’s a Democratic Party activist who was the Democratic Party’s nominee for County Treasurer in 2000:
Mr. Taverno is a Democrat from birth, raised in a Democratic household, with a portrait of the Pope next that of John Kennedy. When asked why he runs, he says that the Party needs candidates, and that he is the best man for the job.
I suspect that this kind of thing happens all the time. Scratch a man on the street, and you’ll find a Democrat friend of the Democrat who wrote the article.
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