ledeagenda.com

In an effort to re-secure another six-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and ward off efforts to open the books of the Central Bank to Congressional oversight, Mr. Bernanke has spent a great deal of time over the last two month’s meeting with and discussing the role that the Fed has in United States monetary policy.

Tonight Mr. Bernanke has agreed to do a sit-down Town Hall with a hand-selected PBS audience. The crowd, per the Wall Street Journal, was well-crafted:

The room for the taping will have 190 people, 40 of whom will have the opportunity to ask questions. They were selected by The NewsHour, local PBS affiliate KCPT and ConsensusKC, a community organization that helps select diverse audiences for events. A list of participants includes people from local chambers of commerce, unions, Kansas and Missouri universities and numerous nonprofit groups.

Additionally, it is noted:

Discussions to do the forum began in March after the “60 Minutes” program featuring Mr. Bernanke, said Robert Flynn, a spokesman for The NewsHour. Why Kansas City? “We wanted to be somewhere in the middle of the country, away from the coasts and away from Washington,” he said. The only two cities under serious consideration were Kansas City and St. Louis, and The NewsHour wanted to use a Federal Reserve bank given security considerations.

Mr. Bernanke re-affirmed implicitly that the Federal Reserve is in fact a private central bank whose charter is the regulate the Nations monetary supply in monopoly status:

Jim Lehrer, after explaining the mechanics of the event to the audience, opened the taped part of the program by calling on Gwen Bailey, a social worker with the Visiting Nurse Association.

Her question: “Exactly what is the Federal Reserve? I don’t have a clue what they do, how they impact our lives” and how it makes decisions.

Mr. Bernanke got the opportunity to explain not just financial stability, monetary policy and bank supervision, but that the Fed is responsible (through consumer protection) for the structure of disclosures on credit-card statements.

The explanation led Mr. Lehrer to ask for a definition of an “independent” central bank. “There’s a lot of evidence that when politicians make monetary policy, you don’t have a good result,” Mr. Bernanke said. It’ll lead to inflation, he says. “We’re very very sensitive to this issue,” he says.

Asked about the Fed being referred to as the fourth branch of government, Mr. Bernanke says “that’s a tremendous exaggeration.” He says he’s accountable to Congress and is subject to the appointments process by lawmakers. “Our independence has to be won everyday.”

Mr. Bernanke also implicitly confirmed fears from Austrian Economists that the drastic increase in the monetary supply could lead to inflation down the road and that the Stimulus package will do nothing to create “shovel-ready” jobs:

Bob Litan, a well-known economist at the Kauffman Foundation, asks about employment growth falling short with slow GDP growth. Bernanke says “economic forecasting makes weather forecasting look like physics.”

He sees the unemployment rate peaking in 2010, with 1% annualized growth in the second half of this year. Even when the economy begins growing again, he says “it’ll be a while before the job market gets back to where we want it to be.”

Responding to a question about inflation, Mr. Bernanke says inflation will be “quite low” for the next couple of years given slack from “the softness in the global economy.” But he says once the economy is growing again, he says it’ll be “very important” to unwind the money the Fed has put into the system.

The importance of these frank discussions however will be missed due to the allusion of journalistic objectivism.

This audience was not impartial, nor was the setting, a branch office of the Fed, intended to be. The questions that Mr. Bernanke faced were not, “from the man on the street”, but rather from specific interest  groups who have a strong desire to keep the current regulatory system in place. The questions were admittedly pre-screened and security considerations tight to avoid the suggestion of any alternative system to the Federal Reserve.

This tour is an allusion, designed by community organizers to craft a specific result: public backing for expanded regulatory powers for the private, central Federal Reserve bank. Fortunately we have Ron Paul’s HR1207 and the efforts of the Campaign For Liberty to fight off this well designed public-relations campaign.

Will we open the books and examine the evidence that this central bank has created the boom and bust cycle that has largely served as a control mechanism by government since 1913? Will we expand the powers of the Federal Reserve to every institution that presents a “systemic risk” to the financial system, even though the Fed has never been audited? We will pass HR1207, which has the support of 64% of the House, and S604, which has 18% support in the Senate, and Audit The Federal Reserve? 

Audacity it seems, is owned by fiat.

Regarding last night’s press conferance:

SOURCE: Reporters were told in advance if president was going to call on them. Senior Administration Officials notified reporters from Stars & Stripes, Univision and other news outlets that they should have question ready. Several reporters moved up in assigned seats as result…

This is report it our-way agenda setting. Sadly, President Bush (and probably many others before him) mastered it first.

Regarding the politically correct agenda:

During President Obama’s second East Room news conference, he took questions from 13 reporters over about an hour — that’s the same as during his first presser on Feb. 9. 

But in quite a departure from the first presser — and White House protocol — Obama skipped over the nation’s top newspapers. Indeed, there were no questions from the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or USA Today. That might not sit well with the already insecure newspaper industry.

In exchange, Obama opened things up to a wider variety of outlets, including  Spanish-language television, a military news outlet, and black-oriented media. It’s another example of the White House going over the typical Washington press corps “filter.”

Regarding report it our way for access:

The highest-profile moments in the new approach have been well-noted, such as the president giving an interview to progressive radio host Ed Schultz and Obama calling on a reporter from the liberal-leaning Huffington Post at his first news conference.

But those moves are only part of a much larger strategy aimed at communicating directly with audiences the White House believes are more sympathetic to the president’s agenda — and one in which much of the work is being done by Obama’s top advisers.

On the day Obama released his ambitious spending plan, the administration put White House budget director Peter Orszag on a conference call with liberal-leaning writers. Senior administration aides have followed up by promoting the budget to local radio talk shows during morning drive time.

More info:

Lede Agenda: Fake Press Conferances

WSJ: Obama Pre-Screen’s Questions

Newsbusters: Obama’s “Pre-Approved” Press List Getting Notice

From Live Feed:

Fulfilling their scheduling civic duty is starting to seem increasingly cumbersome to broadcasters, however. Between a struggling economy and ratings sagging in midseason, every interruption costs networks advertising dollars and momentum. 

“At a time when we’re struggling not only financially but to build audiences, this doesn’t help on either front,” one network executive said. “These repeated interruptions — and the rumor of even more to come — really make it difficult to build audience flow and loyalty. We will all lose one or two million dollars for this.”

The presidential election resulted in a fall season regularly interrupted by political news coverage, followed by primetime inauguration coverage, then two primetime speeches about the economy. The White House requesting yet another primetime slot, during sweeps and right after several shows dropped to new lows in last night’s ratings, has some executives exasperated.

“I believe in the president and his policies, and as broadcasters we have a responsibility to provide the airtime,” said another network insider. “But these frequent primetime requests are wreaking serious havoc with our schedule and our advertisers. Ratings are down everywhere and the airtime is costing us all significant dollars when we can least afford it.”

From Yahoo:

Obama’s comments near the market close rattled investors when he said financial institutions that pose a serious risk to markets should be subject to serious government supervision.

“Whenever there is a question about how large the government role will be … the market doesn’t like that,” said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“As we came close to the bell we got the curveball: our president came on TV,” he said.

Trade was choppy on Wednesday, with stocks buffeted by uncertainty over Washington’s plan to shore up the banking system and weak housing sales. The market had turned briefly positive after the government gave details on stress tests of banks’ capital levels, with investors betting that banks would be able to withstand the news tests with relative ease, before finally falling in late trade.

These two articles highlight perfectly what is going on- the MSM being in the tank for Obama while pushing us down a self-destructive national path. Wonderful.

File this under Government/Media Complex, from WSJ:

About half-way through President Obama’s press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. “All, Chuck Todd,” the President said, referring to NBC’s White House correspondent. “Where’s Chuck?” He had the same strange question about Fox News’s Major Garrett: “Where’s Major?”

The problem wasn’t the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren’t White House favorites.

Few accounts of Monday night’s event even mentioned the curious fact that the White House had picked its speakers in advance. We hope that omission wasn’t out of fear of being left off the list the next time.

From Yahoo:

Several newspaper executives launched a public relations campaign Monday to counter what they call “gloom-and-doom” reports of the industry’s demise.

Sure, they admit, times are tough. The economy is bad, the Internet has sucked away advertising dollars and people are losing jobs.

But the 100 million people who read a newspaper the day after the Super Bowl outnumbered the TV audience for the game, the group said in an advertisement that appeared Monday in more than 300 daily newspapers, including The New York Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

With the ads, commentary pieces and a Web site, the industry is painting itself as a vital source of information and the best place for advertisers to sell anything from grapes to a house _ not the dinosaur often portrayed in the media.

If those claims were true, then yes, the MSM is still the best source for news. But true to fashion, the MSM doesn’t let the facts stand in the way of their opinion.

The simple reality is that newspapers are in the business of selling the news, but the medium that it is delivering the content is largely free. It is hard to pad the bottom line more than half of your readers opt for the free online version than the subscription copy.

Time Magazine did a great piece this week. Basically, the editors at Time assert that the way for newspapers to reinforce their financial footing is to once again charge people for online content.

Bloggers have a intense relationship with the MSM. On one hand, there is no way bloggers could replicate the day-to-day news reporting that delivers the fundamental facts that society needs to make informed decisions. Indeed, the largest single agregator of any news site is going to be the blogs and alternative news sites that link to it. On the flip side, however, alot of bloggers exist because they feel called to write against the bias and partisan politics so prevalent in the MSM.

I would like to offer this suggestion to the MSM. If you want to change for online content you had best first do some quality market research.

I read both The Idaho Statesman and the New York Times websites every day. In fact, I used to subscribe to The Statesman back in college. If forced to make a choice, I would have to let these news sources go by the wayside if they were to attempt to charge for the “privilege” of reading their paper.

Quite simply, I am fed up with the rabid editorial and political bias in both of these newspapers.

Yes, they give my the news- The New York Times probably has one of the best Washington D.C. bureau’s of any newspaper. And the Statesman’s coverage of Boise State Football and Idaho politics is also unmatched locally.

But, they also give me something I didn’t ask or bargain for: rabid left-leaning columnists and commentary. You want me to pay to hear how horrible Republicans are and how god-like Obama looks without his shirt on? You want me to pay for you to attack this country’s morals and values? You want me to pay for you spell out diatribes about the ills of capitalism and the greatness of socialism?

I don’t think so.

I have no problem with you charging for your content. Products and markets cannot survive in a profit void. Someone should not be expected to work for free. But, if you really plan on turning back the clock and restoring paid online news content, then you had best do an honest market analysis. And it stands, it seems, you only want to help bloggers gain an even bigger market share and run even more professional than they already are.