Steve Benen
surveys the traditional media's handling of yesterday's filibuster of the infrastructure jobs bill, and finds that at least a few outlets got it right.
The Associated Press, for example, got it right. Under a headline that read, "Senate GOP blocks Obama infrastructure plan," the AP piece told readers, "Republicans in the Senate Thursday dealt President Barack Obama the third in a string of defeats on his stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines."
That accurately reflects what transpired. Reuters got it right, too. The headline read, "Republicans block another part of Obama jobs plan," and the lede told readers, "Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a $60 billion White House proposal to repair crumbling bridges, highways and other transportation systems as President Barack Obama’s job creation agenda hit another obstacle in Congress."
CNN, probably not surprisingly, didn't get it right, with the headline "Competing infrastructure spending measures fail in Senate." There were competing measures, but one was pretty much infrastructure spending and one that coupled some road building money with gutting the EPA and hamstringing every other regulatory agency. Not so much an infrastructure bill.
But POLITICO takes the cake for crappy reporting on this one. Benen:
Politico's report was even worse. The headline read, "Senate gridlock: Both parties block jobs bills." And check out the lede:
Rival Democratic and Republican jobs bills failed in the Senate on Thursday, the latest sign of the partisan gridlock gripping Washington as Americans look for relief from high unemployment and a sagging economy.
No, no, a thousand times, no. This just isn't what happened.
That would be because the "job creating" done in the GOP alternative is the aforementioned regulation killing, which doesn't create jobs.