When thinking about literary analogies that explain the inner workings of Washington, The Emperor’s New Clothes frequently comes to mind. Having used the analogy several years ago to dissect a legislative collapse, it also explains the mentality of most of the fourth estate.
Put simply, most “reporters” in Washington have a superficial knowledge of policy — and they know it. But rather than admit those weaknesses publicly, they instead try to conceal their shortcomings when exposed. It’s a combination of ignorance and corruption that helps explain the public’s understandable cynicism about the corporate media.
Rewrite Instead of a Correction
Take, for instance, a recent Politico article that attempted to “fact-check” a social media post by President Trump regarding transgender procedures:
In his post, Trump accused Democrats of seeking “over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens” as well as taxpayer-funded “Transgender surgery for minors” and allowing “Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits,” among other claims. … But the legislation ultimately did not ban gender reassignment surgeries within Medicaid, as Trump claims. The House-approved provision was struck out in the Senate after it was found to tun [sic] afoul of the rules governing the party-line reconciliation process.
The argument “fact-checking” Trump went like this: Democrats’ September spending bill (offered just before the government shutdown) repealed all the Medicaid and health care provisions in this summer’s “big, beautiful bill.” That legislation originally had provisions (Section 44125 of the House-passed bill) preventing Medicaid from covering transgender procedures for minors, but that section was removed in the Senate, likely due to noncompliance with Senate procedures. Because the transgender defunding provisions got struck from the “big, beautiful bill,” Democrats’ move to repeal it would not affect transgender interventions, making Trump’s allegation inaccurate — or so Politico thought.
But Politico missed another important fact: Obamacare subsidies, a permanent extension of which Democrats included in their bill, fund transgender procedures. I pointed this out in an email to Ben Johansen and Meredith Lee Hill, the reporters who wrote the story:
The Schumer bill contains a permanent extension of Obamacare subsidies, and the essential health benefits in five states require all insurance plans (including plans for which people receive taxpayer subsidies) to cover transgender care, with another six states being unclear on the issue (footnote 196 here).
I concluded my email with a simple question: “Do you plan on posting a correction?”
To this day, I have received neither an acknowledgement nor a response to my message. But not two days after I sent it, another Politico article, also co-authored by Meredith Lee Hill, included this passage about the president’s post:
[Trump’s] arguments on transgender surgeries, however, appear to stem from Democrats’ demand for a permanent extension of Obamacare insurance subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year and are currently used by more than 20 million Americans. Five states require insurance plans to cover gender-reassignment surgeries and related health care for transgender enrollees, and top Trump advisers and outside groups argue that a straight extension of the existing federal tax credits would continue taxpayer support for those policies. [Emphasis mine.]
“Five states require insurance plans to cover gender-reassignment surgeries.” Gee, I wonder where she got that information from???
Hypocritical Double Standards
Some readers might wonder, not unreasonably, the point of outlining all of the above at great length in a public setting. Politico got things right eventually, so what are you belly-aching about?
First, Hill and Johansen started the “fact-check” game. One can almost hear them tut-tutting, “Acksually…” in response to the president’s social media post. Then, when they got the “fact-check” turned against them, the two 1) hid in a proverbial bunker and 2) changed their position in a follow-up story without admitting any error in the original.
But as my mother always told me, “Christopher, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.” How exactly can Politico and other press institutions hold the government to account if they don’t hold themselves publicly accountable when they provide incorrect information?
A House of Cards
It isn’t just that reporters are lazy, although that certainly plays a role. It’s that the business model of Politico, not to mention other outlets, focuses on having people crank out content about material they haven’t read and don’t understand. Another case in point came last year, in this newsletter item that noted Joe Biden first sponsored prescription drug “negotiation” legislation more than half a century ago:
Where we came from: In 1973, Biden’s first year in the Senate, he cosponsored failed legislation alongside the late Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, that would have established a Medicare Formulary “listing the drugs deemed qualified for benefits … together with maximum allowable costs and additional information concerning such drugs,” and “makes provisions for selecting drugs for the Formulary.”
Because the bill dates from 1973, the full text isn’t available online. So the Politico reporter drafting this item had to travel from Politico’s offices in Arlington to the Law Library of Congress on Capitol Hill (or another repository library) to download the legislation, read it, and summarize it. Either that, or the reporter copied and pasted two phrases from the three-sentence Congressional Research Service summary (which is available online) and called it a day. Which option do you think the Politico reporter took?
Therein lies the real Emperor’s New Clothes element to the story. Politico charges corporations and special interests tens of thousands of dollars annually for coverage they advertise as being written by Very Smart People™. But in reality, most of the “reporters” at Politico and places like it consist of glorified interns who serve as stenographers for someone else’s talking points. And when their sloppiness, ignorance, or all of the above get exposed, the publications stealth-edit pieces or otherwise try to rewrite history in a rather pathetic attempt to avoid admitting fault publicly.
As someone who actually did take the time and effort to go spend a Saturday afternoon at the Law Library of Congress researching Joe Biden’s history of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, I resent not just the amateurs trying to portray themselves as “experts,” but the depths to which they will go to avoid admitting their poseur status. I don’t know who Politico and similar publications in Washington think they’re fooling with all the secrecy and deception to hide errors in their work. But it sure isn’t working on me. And judging from how most people view the propaganda press these days, it isn’t working on the American people either.
