Yellow Journalism in Action

This video article by MSNBC (The Dylan Ratigan Show) is more complex than the soundbites would have you believe.  Watch before you read.


First, the American Steel industry hasn't been competitive globally since the 1950s or so, with the exception of mini-mills that have really learned how to use recycled steel efficiently. Many of the larger companies went out of business (I remember working the LTC Steel bankruptcy around 1991) and have left the detritus of a once proud industry to compete in a viscously competitive market.

Second, the show presents a cursory discussion on the decision to outsource the steel to China. The cost benefit was huge at the time, saving as they pointed out $400 MM in project costs, a not insubstantial sum that the taxpayers would have picked up as what, a subsidy to a non-competitive sector of industry? Not saying that we shouldn't do this, maybe it's the only way to recreate a competitive industrial sector, but there should be a discussion on this particular topic before we rush down the road with legislation like this.

Third, the reporting itself is incendiary - they make it sound like the entire bridge was made in China when from a value add $400MM / 7,200MM, or roughly 5% of the project was.  That means 95% of the project value wasn't in this issue.  I'm not saying that it was all American made (I don't know), but I do know that Mare Island has had enormous stockpiles of pilings and fittings for years which are ferried by presumably American ferries to the construction point 20 miles away, and that the concrete forms that make up the bridge are manufactured up the American River 30 or 40 miles away and once again ferried down to the bridge site.  Oh, And I'm fairly certain that the hundreds of construction workers that cover the evolving structure like ants haven't been shipped in from China.

Fourth, by international treaty (which trumps US law if we bother to read the constitution and understand international law, hence all the "Black Helicopter" nut cases out there), we cannot erect trade barriers without cause - Chinese subsidization of their industry, currency manipulation, or even failing to incorporate negative externalities such as the use of slave labor or pollution would qualify, but we have to make a case for this, and with China holding, what, $1 Trillion in US debt, that's a tough case to want to make.

Not that I'm against American jobs bills. 


I think we need to focus on eliminating the trade treaties we have that prompt flow of capital and goods, with 

1. no regard to negative externalities such as pollution, use of child or slave labor, or foreign subsidization of industry (look to China's $1 Trillion subsidization of the Solar Power industry if you'd like to understand how we're screwed before we start in green), 
2. no regard to trade practices others practice save the most public and egregious, and 
3. no consideration for the plight of labor under these laws. 

I just hate poor journalism, and pithy, simple explanations of complex situations to the American people. 


It's demeaning to the people, and perpetuates the bullet point dummying down of complex issues relieving us of our obligation to be informed and considered in our opinions. 


It's one of the major reasons we're headed down the path to a totalitarian fascist state in my mind - read your Orwell if you need context - and needs to stop.


As an American I believe you have an obligation to be and remain informed.  You need to question the simplistic sound bites that all sides bombard you with.  At the most basic level, we all need to ask the one simple question that lawyers and police have asked forever:


"Who benefits"


So who benefits from shoddy journalism?


You, the viewer?  It may feel good, it may be entertaining, but that doesn't make it journalism.  Go watch a "reality show" if you want to be entertained.  If you want to be informed, to understand the world, then demand more of these hacks.


The journalist who through either laziness or other, more sinister reasons, takes neither the time to research their article, nor makes the effort make a balanced presentation of the topic?


The congressman and party that desperately want to make a case for what here appears to be a poorly thought out jobs bill?


Powerful domestic corporate interests that would love to see some trade barriers re-erected to protect a noncompetitive market sector?


Trade Unions that want to create American jobs?


You the American voter that ultimately decide which of these wankers are put into and stay in office?


Ask yourself.