FoxNews.com’s top story is a think piece that quotes plenty of GOP folks saying that the Obama administration is making too much out of the impending mandatory cuts to federal spending.
The headline: “Economic Armageddon? Republicans call sequester warnings hype.” (Or, a sexier hed from the site’s front page: Chicken Little Tactics? GOP
Points to Sequester Fear as Hype.) Note that the headline includes a question mark, the clever way of asking a question that provides its own answer.
The first four paragraphs:
First there was the debt-ceiling crisis. Then the “fiscal cliff.” Now it’s the “sequester.”
While Congress averted the first two crises, it looks like lawmakers do not have a way out of the automatic spending cuts poised to hit Friday — at least not yet.
But are they really as bad as the Obama administration says?
Republican lawmakers, while acknowledging the whole situation is far from ideal, have increasingly come to the conclusion that, no, they’re not.
The story includes:
* A GOP congressman saying it’s no big deal.
*A blind quote from a congressional aide.
*A claim that the Congressional Budget Office saying the cuts will be much less — but no link to the CBO’s math so we can judge for ourselves.
* More quotes from a GOP congressman and senator.
Missing from the story is any response from the issue from any Democrat on this specific question. That’s not surprising, although the story doesn’t say whether anyone asked for Democratic comment.
But what is surprising is that, had anyone at Fox done any looking, they would have found lots of Republicans worried about budget cuts. (And you don’t even have to look through regional papers, such as today’s Birmingham News front page.)
Multiple stories from the Republican Governors Association press conference, in which governors blamed Obama even as they worried about the cuts. It’s part of a package about a real or imagined rift between GOP governors and Congress.
In fact, you have to look deep into Fox archives to find any mention from a GOP governor that the cuts will have an effect.
Bad journalism? Or journalism designed to fit a narrative?