Unlike Think Progress, I don't believe the Associated Press is "misleading" except in the most active sense of the word. Just to make it clear, I don't believe AP goofed, I think they deliberately misled -- and mislead.
AP is hardly alone in this. It's not as simple as the media favoring the right; it's that the media favor the battle, the blood, the anger, the partisan scrum, whatever "facts" get them ratings. Eye-catching distortions get a good deal more attention and revenue from TV-educated Americans than "just the news."
The Center for American Progress calls AP out on this for their "misleading" reports on the "Buffett rule" tax plan. AP offers its own "class-warfare" version of Buffett's proposal.
Republicans have predictably, blown their collective top over the Buffett rule. And today, they were aided by a bizarre Associated Press “fact-check,” which purported to reveal something disingenuous about Obama’s plan. “President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. "The data say they already are," the AP wrote, noting that the average tax rate for those in the highest tax brackets is, of course, higher than the average rate for middle-class or low-income Americans.
This is not surprising, and it certainly doesn’t make the Buffett rule any less relevant. After all, as Center for American Progress Action Fund Director of Fiscal Reform Seth Hanlon wrote, “tons of data — including data cited in the AP article itself — confirm the compelling need for a Buffett rule because large numbers of super-rich individuals are indeed paying lower taxes than middle-class families." ...
...As Hanlon noted, “AP’s ‘fact check’ misses the point of the Buffett rule. The point is not to ensure that rich people on average pay higher taxes than middle-class people on average, but “to ensure that all households with incomes above $1 million pay at least what middle-class families are paying.”
This is not the first time this month that the AP’s “fact-checkers” have bungled the facts regarding Obama’s economic plans. At this rate, they should think about opening a new division to fact-check the fact-checkers.
Think Progress has the numbers.
