PatsWSB47

This is the teaser on CNN's home page:
As political battles rage, Bush steers to ethanol

This is the story:

Amid political battles, Bush sticks to ethanol
POSTED: 9:19 a.m. EDT, March 27, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The attorney general is struggling to keep his job in a standoff with Congress over the purging of U.S. prosecutors. The war spending bill is stuck over whether troops should stay in Iraq, another bit of brinksmanship with lawmakers.

And President Bush is again talking, for two days in a row, about converting switchgrass and wood chips into ethanol.

The president's public schedule has Bush operating in two different worlds of news: the one threatening his administration, and the one he is determined to promote whether anyone is listening or not.

So while Congress challenges Bush on the firings of U.S. attorneys, the president is sticking to energy.

His only planned public event Tuesday was a visit to a U.S. Postal Service plant, where he was to stand near vehicles that run on alternative fuels and hail them as a way to reduce reliance on oil. If it sounds familiar, it's because he did something similar Monday at the White House.

He also touted his energy plan on a Midwestern tour of auto plants last Tuesday, which adds up to three times in about a week.

"We want people to know that we're doing a lot on energy, and we think energy is an issue where there's an interest in getting it done on the Hill," said Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director. "The only way to break through and build some momentum is to do two or three events in a short period of time."

Without newsy developments, the message gets diminishing attention from networks and major newspapers. That's particularly true when it is up against the stories of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Iraq war and the 2008 presidential race.

From the White House perspective, though, there other ways to measure success.

Bush's visits get strong regional coverage, which can influence members of Congress and help give a boost to his legislation. In that sense, how the president spends his time is a message unto itself, a sign of his commitment to an issue.

Plus, pounding one issue increases the chances that people will hear what Bush is saying -- even if takes several times to do it.

"I don't know whether it works, but I don't think they have any choice," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. "Sticking to your agenda is just the standard rule of what you do, and you do it even more when you're in trouble."

It is not surprising that Bush is spending so much time on energy, Bowman said. The issue affects the lives of gas-guzzling Americans. Politically, it also important to Democrats, which creates an opening for Bush to get something done as his term winds down.

Expect Bush to stay active on the four themes of his State of the Union speech: energy, education, health care and immigration.

The events are typically scheduled weeks in advance, which means they are not thrown together to draw attention from the controversy of the day. The White House certainly doesn't mind when that happens, though.

If Bush didn't keep pushing his domestic agenda, his administration says, it would be accused of being paralyzed by distraction.

"You certainly don't want the president just hunkered down in a bunker, besieged with problem after problem," said John Podesta, chief of staff to President Clinton during the impeachment scandal.

Clinton was famous for staying focused on one issue while a crisis raged on another one. He called it compartmentalizing. Unlike Clinton, though, Bush's popularity has sunk with the public because of the war in Iraq and other missteps, Podesta said.

"His agenda is relatively thin, and his job approval on the elements of his agenda is bad," Podesta said. "It's very hard to break through and have much to break through with."

Bush's advisers say his agenda is plenty robust to matter to millions of people, if Congress will work with him.

Energy is one example. Bush wants to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption 20 percent over 10 years, so he promotes cars that run on batteries or on alternative fuels such cellulosic ethanol, which can be produced from cornstalks, woodchips and switchgrass.

Bush's theme sounds about the same each time, but his events are subtly different.

After announcing his plan, he first went to a high-tech ethanol lab in Delaware to focus on the science.

Then he toured Ford and General Motors plants in the Kansas City area to show people that hybrid vehicles are becoming sleeker and more common. On Tuesday, he was showcasing how big delivery companies use alternative fuel technology.

The danger of such a singular focus is the risk of appearing tone-deaf if everyone is paying attention to something else.

Sullivan says Bush won't let that happen. On the day Bush toured the auto plants last week, for example, he returned to the White House earlier than expected to give a statement on the Gonzales matter and take questions from reporters.

Iraq remains the dominant issue for the public and for Bush, and it continues to show up on his calendar regularly. He plans to make comments on it Wednesday. As for promoting the rest of the agenda, Sullivan insists: "We can do more than one thing at a time."

This is not reporting the news. It is clearly an attempt to paint Bush in a negative light. It isn't their job to decide for us what Bush's motives are or are not. You may or may not connect the dots of "steering" or "sticking" but a news report should not make up their minds of what they think motivations are and then report them as facts or "news"

BelichickFan

I guess they'd prefer Bush to stop everything and concentrate on defending the firings that his administration had every right to enact.

I don't think ethanol is the answer but I'm glad he's persuing energy issues instead of the bull the Dems want to stick him with.

Real World

I don't think ethenol is a long term solution either. I think hydrogen is going to be the answer.

As for the article, I don't know who wrote it, so I don't know what type of reporter the writer is. Lou Dobbs could have written it.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

PatsWSB47

Well, Dobbs always has the credit given to him on the CNN site. This is under the heading of "Latest News" then sub tab of "top Sories" There is absolutely no attempt to show this is anything other than a news story.

Harry Boy

If Bush found the cure for Cancer this afternoon the Democrats would ignore it.
The NY Times wouldn't even report it instead they would have a picture of Auntie Pelosi Grinning And Holding Hands With Harry Weasel Reid on their front page celebrating some new tax they were going to ram down our throats.

You would have to go to Fox News to learn that GW Bush had discovered a Cure For Cancer.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

patsfan13

Hydrogen is an energy storage mechanism not an energy source.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PatsFanInVa

Okay, PatsSB42 summarizes thusly:

However, he's posted a news article that clearly presents Administration points of view, and clearly states that schedule details are planned in advance, so probably aren't meant to deflect one or another particular news twist:

Clearly, giving the rationale for the blitz on energy, from the administration perspective...

This is a far cry from the hatchet jobs indulged in by the Fox sortanetwork on a regular basis. The article opens with a "Hmmm. Things are going bad, and Bush is hammering on an agenda that's not on peoples' minds" note. But it goes on to clearly state that the timing is broader than scheduling an event tomorrow to cove a gaffe today, or anything on that order. It explains the strategy and the reasoning, through the president's own advisors, among others.

From what I can see, most right wingers see anything other than a total ballwashing to be "hostile" and "biased" press. But then, when you're dealing from a position of the "absolute truth" as recorded in various conservative canons, it's damn near treasonous to hear anything other than one side of the story.

Here's the key, fellas: good journalism tells both sides. That does not mean good journalism tells both sides of why the president is always right ("I don't know, Jim, maybe he's very smart." "No, I differ, Bob, I think it's because he's latched on to conservatism, which is very smart.") In this example, to tell both sides, we must leave open the option that somebody, somewhere, thinks he is in fact not that smart.

I know this post is just pissing in the wind, so I'll end it here. You may return to your network's regularly scheduled single viewpoint program (or webcast.)

PFnV

Fogbuster

If you have to ask, you already know the answer. The "news" is also known as "spin". So little truly earth-shattering news ever occurs that the full-time news cycle is just that, a cycle of spin.

If Jesus were to reappear, and if he were to walk on the Sea of Galilea once again, the headlines of *some* outlets would be:

"Nazarene Jesus returns; still cannot swim."



//

PatsWSB47

Your opinion is valid in that we know it's an opinion and we can therefore read it with that in mind. The problem with this and pieces like this, and yes Fox does it as well, is that the teaser and headline tell the reader how the article should be looked at. We're told in the teaser that Bush has steered to talking about energy as a response to politcal firestorms. Then the same "news" is stated slightly differently in the headline.The entire first paragraph of the story does'nt even mention ethenol. All it talks about is the attorney thing
and the war spending bill. This type Of "journalism" is not news reporting, it is news creating. The energy discussion is almost lost because the reader is has been told basically to take this with a grain of salt because we all know what the true purpose is behind the energy discussion.

You're journalism lesson of presenting both sides is fine, but just as the way
a question is asked can change the results of a poll, so can the teaser, headline and opening paragraph of a story sway the publics perception of the "news" its reporting on.

If this story was about Hillary Clinton and it was on foxnews.com I would be telling you the same thing. Headlines that are intended to create a negative or positive opinion about the upcoming story is not journalism and belongs in the opinion section

sdaniels7114

There's a funny thing about bias, all the smart people recognize it and are not swayed, and all the dumb people vote for the candidate with the best hair. So would somebody tell me why there's always a thread on bias in this forum? Are we biased towards bias?