Campaign Desk
-
July 02, 2009 03:55 PM
More PitneyGate Fallout?
Press focused on who asked questions at Obama town hall
We may, thankfully, be putting Pitneygate behind us. But reading through press coverage of President Obama’s town hall meeting on health care reform yesterday, one could be forgiven for thinking that the episode is still weighing on the minds of the Washington press corps.
Continue reading
Nico Pitney, of course, is the national editor of The Huffington Post, who made... -
July 02, 2009 10:40 AM
The Economy Today: School’s Out
With Money Tight, Classes Are Slashed
The New York Times leads its print edition with a dispatch about the latest victim of the recession: summer school. The federal government has been urging local school districts to use some of the $100 billion in education funding provided by the stimulus bill to maintain summer programs, but most districts have used the money for other purposes. As...
Continue reading -
July 01, 2009 04:22 PM
Normalizing the Filibuster
The Senate’s peculiar institution gets taken for granted
Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court finally made official what had for months seemed a foregone conclusion: Al Franken will be the state’s next senator. The reason this matters outside of Minnesota, of course, is that Franken’s win, following on the heels of Arlen Specter’s defection from the Republican Party, gives Democrats sixty votes in the upper house, and thus the...
Continue reading -
July 01, 2009 12:04 PM
The Economy Today: Happy New (Fiscal) Year
Economic headlines from California, Utah, North Dakota, and elsewhere
The arrival of July brings the start of the fiscal year and a statutory deadline for new budgets in many states. USA Today rounds up action from around the country and notes New Jersey, Massachusetts and Wisconsin were among the states to meet the deadline, using a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes to make up for...
Continue reading -
June 30, 2009 10:54 AM
A Morning of eGov
Notes on the Obama administration’s ambassadors to the Personal Democracy Forum
This morning, attendees of the Personal Democracy Forum Conference, an annual event for people interested in the intersection of politics, government, and online technology, were treated to discussions with three of the Obama administration’s biggest lights in government information and communication policy.
Just before nine o’clock, Macon Phillips, the White House’s chief of new media, took the...
Continue reading -
June 30, 2009 10:20 AM
Memo to Sen. Barbara Boxer—and Journalists, Too
More skepticism about savings from preventive care, please
Sen. Barbara Boxer was defiant. As Campaign Desk reported recently, the gentle lady from California said in no uncertain terms that if the Congressional Budget Office did not give the Senate the numbers it was looking for in estimating savings from preventive care, she, for one, would not follow the CBO’s advice: “We’re going to look at OMB...
Continue reading -
June 30, 2009 08:13 AM
The Economy Today: Solar Big Bang
Headlines from Texas, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington state, and elsewhere
National papers continue to lead with the Madoff sentencing. Yesterday, Judge Danny Chin sentenced the Ponzi schemer to the maximum 150 years in prison.
In consumer economic news, USA Today reports that credit-card companies have raised interest and balance-transfer rates as a result of the new credit card reform enacted by the White...
Continue reading -
June 29, 2009 08:58 AM
The Economy Today: It’s All Happening at the Zoo
Headlines from Missouri, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, and elsewhere
The Wall Street Journal reports that consumer confidence is up for the fifth month in a row. This report is coupled with another survey which says that the personal savings rate grew to 6.9 percent this May, up from 5.6 percent in April. The indicators represent divergent prospects for the economy: consumer optimism is good, but if that’s...
Continue reading -
June 29, 2009 08:00 AM
Health Care Flashpoints, Part III
Taxing insurance benefits and health care equity
Over the next few months, health reform will succeed or fail based on a few major flashpoints that will shape any new program, including the financing of health insurance and access to medical care itself. This is the third of a series of occasional posts that will explore these flashpoints, and how the media is explaining them to the public....
Continue reading -
June 26, 2009 09:42 AM
The Economy Today: Half a Loaf
News from Maine, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and elsewhere
In national headlines, USA Today notes that federal stimulus spending slowed last week compared to any weeks in May, and compared also to the average amount the government has spent since the stimulus package was signed in February. Federal agencies allocated about $5.2 billion in new stimulus aid for projects last week. This follows complaints about the pace...
Continue reading -
June 25, 2009 04:21 PM
Sanford’s Flight of Fancy
What South Carolina columnists and editorials are saying about the governor’s affair
The Mark Sanford affair story affords plentiful opportunities for practitioners and observers of journalism and politics. It allows for the making of jokes, the calling of names, and the partisan schadenfreude. But we wanted to look at how the Palmetto State’s editorial columnists are handling the affair. After all, while Sanford may be primo...
Continue reading -
June 25, 2009 10:40 AM
The Economy Today: Stimulating Paperwork
News from Georgia, Montana, Nebraska, and elsewhere
In national headlines, USA Today reports that “less than one-half of 1%” of the money set aside for highway repair and construction has been distributed, according to the federal transportation department. Predictably, Republicans are saying there’s too much red tape, while Democrats are calling for more patience. The two sides will get to air their thoughts at...
Continue reading -
June 24, 2009 03:27 PM
Planted Questions
Calling foul on HuffPo’s press-conference deal with Obama
Yesterday’s presidential presser added another installment to the Annals of Questions That Make News. Last April, it was Jeff Zeleny’s multipart question that made waves. This time around, The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney did the honors, with a question that was essentially requested by the White House itself.
This is how the exchange between President Obama and...
Continue reading -
June 24, 2009 10:02 AM
The Economy Today: Moonlighting Back in Vogue
Headlines from Michigan, Illinois, Montana, and elsewhere
A tough job market is pushing some workers to take on second jobs, USA Today reports. According to various surveys, the number of Americans who are working a second job has risen this year. An AARP survey found that almost one fifth of Americans ages 45 to 54 took on a second job. But moonlight also takes a...
Continue reading
Campaign Desk Feature
Carl Malamud, Public Printer
An open source Presidential appointment campaign
On and off for the last eighteen years, Carl Malamud has been involved in or led a spate of impish efforts to pry public domain information—like building codes, law books, and court records—out of hidebound government entities. Now, via a Web-focused viral campaign, he’s unabashedly asking President Obama to make him the nation’s twenty-sixth Public Printer and put him in charge of one such very large government entity, the Government Printing Office.
Continue reading—advertisement—
Campaign Desk Blogroll
About Campaign Desk RSS
Campaign Desk critiques media coverage of politics and policy each weekday, separating spin from substance through close reading, original reporting, and serious analysis.
About the Funders
Coming soon.
Desks
The Audit Business
- Amplifying the Drumbeat on the “Overdraft Protection” Racket The issue picks up momentum in the financial press
- Journal: Wall Street Pay Could Set Records
The Observatory Science
- Some Optimism for the Future of Science Journalism And especially for international collaboration
- NSF “Underwriting” Coverage… And other controversies from the World Conference of Science Journalists
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- More PitneyGate Fallout? Press focused on who asked questions at Obama town hall
- The Economy Today: School’s Out With Money Tight, Classes Are Slashed