Within 7 hrs, Jeff Bezos' WaPo Squeezes Out 4 Anti-Sanders Stories From 1 Tax Study [View all]

[RiverLover]

by Adam Johnson
Washington Post Squeezes Four Anti-Sanders Stories Out of One Tax Study Over Seven Hours
5/11/16

A study released by the Urban Institute this week, writes Johnson, "was irresistible for editors looking for viral outrage: huge, scary national debt numbers by a tax-and-spend liberal (entirely without any context), complete with innuendo that the campaign had been lying about its projections." (Image: Screenshots compiled by FAIR)

Surely one study can’t be this important?

It’s not news that the Washington Post’s editorial board has been lobbying against Sen. Bernie Sanders since the beginning of his improbable presidential campaign. Sometimes this editorial ethos seems to extend to other parts of the paper, as it did in March, when the Post managed to run 16 negative stories about Sanders in 16 hours (FAIR.org, 3/8/16).

While the Post has published the occasional pro-Sanders piece, the Jeff Bezos–owned publication was back at it yesterday when it pounced on a tax study by the Urban Institute, running four pieces (two by Post writers, one by the editorial board and one by the AP) in one afternoon:

>1:00pm Sorry, Bernie Fans. His Healthcare Plan Is Short $17,000,000,000,000, by Max Ehrenfreund

>1:49 Confirmed: Sanders Is Selling a Fantasy Agenda, by Stephen Stromberg

>5:15pm Study: Sanders’ Economic Plan Piles $18T on Federal Debt, by AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

>7:59pm Sanders’ Plans Aren’t Just Too Good to Be True; They’re Also Fiscally Dangerous, by the Post’s editorial board

The study was irresistible for editors looking for viral outrage: huge, scary national debt numbers by a tax-and-spend liberal (entirely without any context), complete with innuendo that the campaign had been lying about its projections.

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....Depending on the target audience, the ideology of the study’s publisher, the Urban Institute, also changed.

To the Post, it’s “nonpartisan,” while the nominally hipper Vox (“Study: Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Plan Is Twice as Expensive as He Says,” 5/9/16) described them as being “left-leaning”—though to depict an organization funded by the likes of Bill Gates, Pete Peterson and JPMorgan Chase as leaning “left” is to render the description meaningless.

Traditionally, the Urban Institute has been considered “liberal,” but this has always been a loaded notion, that pro-Democrat equated to progressive.

The Urban Institute’s president, Sarah Rosen Wartell, worked in the Bill Clinton White House and co-founded the Center for American Progress in 2003 with Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chair, John Podesta. The State Department, while under Clinton’s charge, donated millions to the Institute (as it did before and after her tenure).

Considering Sanders is expressly running against the “Democratic establishment,” it’s no surprise that a scion of this establishment like the Urban Institute would oppose Sanders.............

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http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/11/washington-post-squeezes-four-anti-sanders-stories-out-one-tax-study-over-seven