The worst thing about the so-called “mainstream media” is not that it skews consistently to the right or left (I don’t think that, on average, it is particularly ideological, Fox News notwithstanding) but rather that is it so bad.
Bad, as in lazy, credulous, insipid, unchallenging, and overall just tragically mediocre.
Here’s an example. An economist from the Reuters news agency opines that a progressive tax structure, presumably as opposed to a flat tax rate, increases income inequality. Here’s the logic, with my thoughts in parentheses:
- If there’s inequality, then a greater share of income accrues to the rich. (Of course, this is axiomatic.)
- In such a case, all else being equal, tax revenues will increase because tax rates are higher for the rich in a progressive structure. (No shit.)
- Therefore, the government will prefer inequality. (As if government is both sentient and monolithic.)
- Therefore there will be more inequality. (Now government is omnipotent as well!)
Really, that’s the argument. For fun, you might try counting the logical fallacies in this line of thinking but it seems easier to just chalk this up to sheer ineptitude (or, I suppose, malevolence) on the part of the author.
Of course, it’s a logical fallacy itself to argue that just because the proponent of an argument is an idiot, the argument is false — but in this case the argument is actually false. In the past 40 years, income inequality has steadily risen while tax progressivity has fallen. So not only is this authors logic flawed, the conclusion is completely opposite the facts. My guess is that this came about as a cheap and lazy way to come up with a provokative and counterintuitive angle without doing any actual work, but this is of course speculation on my part.
And these fine folks from the fourth estate are the people we trust to keep us aware and informed.