Pub. 16 2019 Issue 4

Issue 4 • 2019 17 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S — H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S There is an effort from the current administration in the White House to continually push the narrative that all eco- nomic news is positive, happy days are here, and not to worry about the economy. It’s obvious why the Trump administra- tion would want to push this message, as any politician wants to create the impression that he or she is presiding over a successful economy. But why does mainstream, corporate me- dia so relentlessly push positive economic news, as opposed to pushing a more realistic picture of what the economic outlook is for the vast majority of Americans? In the groundbreaking 1988 book, Manufacturing Con- sent, authors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky make an argument that is becoming more apparent each passing year. They argue that, “contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.” Chomsky and Herman argue that cor- porate media are not the gatekeepers of truth that they claim to be, but essentially stenographers to power. For example, if a reporter is told by a powerful CEO that the economy is strong long-term, it is up to that reporter to fully investigate the claim as opposed to just merely taking the opinion of the CEO as fact. There is often a lack of critical analysis or discussion when it comes to our mainstream media, and it is always framed from the perspective of conventional wisdom, or what is the consensus of the most elite factions of our society. That is what is reflected in corporate media. As far as how the framing of information impacts news regarding the economy, look at a recent example. A story that has been largely overlooked in corporate media is the Federal Reserve’s new round of quantitative easing. “Since Septem- ber, the central bank, through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has been purchasing securities hand over fist to alleviate short-term pressures in the overnight money mar- kets. It has used repurchase (“repo”) and reverse repurchase (“reverse repo”) agreements to provide liquidity and keep overnight borrowing rates from spiking. But these complex money market operations already have caused the Fed to buy a net $400 billion worth of securities, after Chairman Je- rome Powell shrank the Fed’s balance sheet by $700 billion. That “normalization,” which also included raising the federal funds rate through late 2018, is now effectively dead and the Fed’s balance sheet is growing again. Powell and the Fed have repeatedly denied this is a new phase of quantitative easing, three rounds of which added $3.6 trillion to the Fed’s balance sheet in the years after the financial crisis. And indeed, in the earlier rounds of QE, the central bank bought Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities of various maturities. The current buying has been focused on Treasuries with maturities of 12 months or less.” Quantitative easing is defined as, “a monetary policy where - by a central bank buys predetermined amounts of government bonds or other financial assets in order to inject liquidity directly into the economy.” This begs the question, why is the central bank engaging in quantitative easing, a method often used to bring an economy out of a recession, when the econ- omy is supposedly undergoing this boom? The speculation is that the quantitative easing is an attempt to keep the market strong until after the 2020 election. In any case, this is a major story that should be reported more because it offers a realistic portrait of the American economy. But this is a prime example of how mainstream media networks, which are owned by cor- porate subsidiaries, often don’t want to do this kind of report- ing because they are doing enormously well under a system where 83% of the 2017 tax cuts went to the top 1%. A recent article on the website Vox discussing how infor- mation and disinformation has overwhelmed our democracy relates to the concept of framing information closely. The article states that, “The core challenge we’re facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environ- ment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out.” In the past, it was often speculated that democracy would die when information was denied. However, information is not being denied, necessarily, but instead people are being overwhelmed with information and are unable to sift through what is true and what is false, who are good actors, who are malicious actors, etc. This is where media literacy and under- standing how information is being framed becomes so critical. For example, if you are reading an article bashing Medicare- for-All, be extremely cognizant who is writing the article and what group the author works for. As important as consuming information is, it’s almost become as important to know what kind of information you are consuming. Ultimately, one of the most important factors in how in- formation is presented is in the framing. What information are you excluding or including to shape how others will react? Always be aware of how that is occurring. The best sources of information are often those who don’t have ulterior motives, who don’t have perhaps a monetary reason to support a certain position. It is crucial that we continue to seek out independent sources of information so that democracy works for the many instead of the few. n