Fake News Hits Home

Talk about Fake News.

Recently, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney touted the state of the economy in a speech at NAFCU’s Congressional Caucus.

He told attendees that they probably hadn’t heard or read much about how good the economy is because of the people in the back of the room.

The people in the back of the room only wrote about how poor the economy was, he said.

I looked around and suddenly realized that I was in the back of the room.

Surely, he wasn’t talking about me, so I looked around, only to discover there weren’t very many people in the back of the room, so he must have been talking about me.

The folks attending the NAFCU conference were fine people. They didn’t turn around and boo the folks in the back of the room like crowds have done at rallies for President Trump.

Still, I felt guilty, so I went home and scoured my recent reporting to figure out where I had been so deceptive.

And I couldn’t find a thing.

I had not written anything about the state of the economy. Nothing. Nada. I wrote about regulatory and legislative matters.

That got me steamed. Not only had I spent valuable time rereading my own work, but Mulvaney was lumping the folks in the back of the room at NAFCU – presumably including me – with the doomsayers who say the economy stinks.

Now, I’m not making any judgement about whether a recession is coming or not. That’s for others to decide.

And yeah, I’ve written before about the administration’s cheap shots when it comes to criticism of the news media.

But this time, it was personal.

If you believe what you read, Mulvaney is not above creating all sorts of Fake News himself. Supposedly, the White House Chief of Staff contacted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration so he could disavow the statements made by forecasters that Alabama was not at risk of being hit by Hurricane Dorian.

You remember that kerfuffle, don’t you? The president added Alabama to a map of areas that were threatened by the hurricane when forecasters hadn’t said the storm was going to hit the state.

And administration officials were left scampering around cleaning up the mess.

Anyway, it was a relief to do some research and figure out that I did not participate in Fake News, although I will probably never get Mulvaney to admit it.

That’s not to say that reporters and editors don’t make some cringeworthy errors. In my first job, I misspelled the name of the publisher’s prospective son-in-law and it ended up in print.

And of course, there are bigger errors that journalists make.

The late Phillip L. Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, famously referred to journalism as the “first rough draft of history.” All the stories we journalists work on change from day to day, so one day’s story may not be fresh tomorrow.

It used to be where you had to wait until tomorrow to update a story because the newspaper wouldn’t be printed until the next day.

These days, with a 24-hour news cycle, stories can be updated throughout a day. That doesn’t mean the last story was wrong, just that it’s out of date.

But of course, that 24-hour news cycle can and has resulted in publications trying to break news first, which means that emphasis on getting a story right has been diminished.

But the Trump Administration is implying something else entirely – that journalists routinely make up sources and stories to fit whatever narrative they want. In this case, it’s how much they hate the president and the people who work for him.

Sure, there have been celebrated cases of journalists making up sources and stories. And there probably are some journalists – and I use that term loosely here – who continue that practice.

But down through the years, I’ve known a lot of editors and reporters, including many working for the publications that the administration contends make up stories. They are among the finest – albeit poorly dressed – people I know. They take pride in their work and don’t make up stories or sources.

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox.

Now about that recession …

What’s Left Unsaid

If you’ve been watching the hours of debates between the Democratic candidates for president, I have a question for you.

Why? Are you a masochist?

I mean, I feel like I must watch the debates in case Dodd-Frank, credit unions and banking are mentioned.

So far, unless I missed something while refilling my popcorn, the only time banking and related issues were mentioned was when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made some reference to predatory lending and when some candidate made some promise about student loan forgiveness.

Other than that, nothing. Guns, healthcare, Trump and other assorted issues have been discussed ad nauseum.

Why no banking issues?

There are a couple probable reasons.

First, there is no crisis. Banks aren’t failing, thousands of homeowners aren’t having their mortgages foreclosed and credit is relatively available.

And until there is a crisis, an issue generally doesn’t merit much discussion at such forums.

Secondly, these are the people who gave you Dodd-Frank. And generally, Democrats continue to support the law and Republicans have not been successful in totally gutting it.

Now, just wait until the Republican presidential debates. That’s when the law will be raked over the coals.

Oh, wait.

Never mind.

David Baumann is a correspondent-at-large for CU Times. He can be reached at dbaumann@cutimes.com.