NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on Antioch, a quiet Nashville suburb, armed with iPads full of voter data and a fiery script.
The group, the local chapter for Americans for Prosperity, which is financed by the oil billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch to advance conservative causes, fanned out and began strategically knocking on doors. Their targets: voters most likely to oppose a local plan to build light-rail trains, a traffic-easing tunnel and new bus routes.
So read the first two paragraphs of a front-page article in today’s New York Times. Here’s the article’s title:
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country
The Times reporter, Hiroko Tabuchi, makes it sound as if the Koch brothers had a huge role in defeating the tax measure in Nashville on last month’s ballot that would have increased 4 taxes (including a one-percentage-point increase in the sales tax) to generate $9 billion for mass transit in Nashville.
But nowhere it the Times article are we told how much money the Koch brothers spent. Fortunately, a much earlier article in Nashville’s main newspaper, the Tennessean, did say. Surely Ms. Tabuchi had access to that article. In a vote with relatively high turnout for an off-year election (about 122,000 people voted, with about 78,000 people voting no), the proponents of the tax-subsidy proposal spent about $2.9 million and the opponents spent $1.2 million. So the Koch brothers must have contributed a large fraction of that $1.2 million, right? Say at least 10 percent?
Not quite. Here’s the last paragraph of the news article in the Tennessean:
Separately, a political action committee led by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group funded by the conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch, contributed a modest sum of $10,000 for mail advertising.
I doubt that the Koch brothers are the only contributors to Americans for Prosperity, and so $10,000 is an upper limit on their contribution. And $10,000 is less than 1 percent (actually 0.83 percent) of the overall spending against the tax-increase measure. Wow! Those Kochs sure are powerful.
By the way, Ms. Tabuchi’s lack of numeracy may be excused. After all, her Linked in page tells us, she reports on climate change.
The old New York Times motto was:
All the news that’s fit to print.
Its new motto should be:
All the news that fits, we print.
READER COMMENTS
Richard
Jun 19 2018 at 8:04pm
“By the way, Ms. Tabuchi’s lack of numeracy may be excused. After all, her Linked in page tells us, she reports on climate change.”
I’m not sure you realize it but comments like this alienate people (and I mean the tone and the way you attack a person and not the argument) who might otherwise be convinced by your arguments.
It also makes me less likely to listen to your thoughts about climate change in general, just because I will assume you don’t approach the topic with an open mind.
Of course I assume you write blog posts to educate and not just to vent your frustration with a (bad) journalist.
Just a thought from a regular reader of your usually excellent posts.
David Henderson
Jun 20 2018 at 4:43pm
Good point. I hesitated when I wrote that line and you’ve reminded me why. Thank you, Richard.
TMC
Jun 20 2018 at 8:39pm
Your annoyance was noticeable, but justified. Good post.
David D. Boaz
Jun 19 2018 at 8:10pm
To be fair, she said “fanned out and began strategically knocking on doors.” If they paid those people, and they hit a lot of doors, then that may have been a more substantial contribution than the reported $10,000 for mailers. Though certainly not enough to match the spending of supporters.
David Henderson
Jun 20 2018 at 12:58am
Good point.
jim bridgeman
Jun 20 2018 at 4:25pm
For goodness sake they didn’t need more Koch money to pay for all the fanning out and door knocking. Presumably the rest of the $1.2 million contributions from others than the Kochs was available to help with that.
AngryKrugman
Jun 19 2018 at 8:18pm
David,
I thought the headline to NYT article was inflammatory and told a number of people as much earlier today. But I don’t see how the Tennessean article supports your claim. It says that that one particular group—NoTax4Tracks– raised about $1.2 million of which: (1) 3/4 came from Smart Nashville, Inc.; and (2) $10,000 came from Americans for Prosperity.* But that alone does not tell us how much Americans for Prosperity SPENT ON ITS OWN BEHALF in support of its campaign.
I think there are certainly a number of fair criticisms you could lodge at the NY Times articles, but, absent additional explanation, I’m not convinced this is one of them.
* Here’s the relevant language—the last paragraph (re: Americans for Prosperity) needs to be read in context of the ones that precede it. The “contributed” is clearly referring to how much Americans for Prosperity contributed to NoTax4Tracks. It doesn’t speak to money spent on its own behalf.
—-
The Nashville for Transit coalition vastly outspent its opponents, raising nearly $2.9 million for the campaign. It allowed the pro side to flex greater muscle on television with advertising over NoTax4Tracks, which raised about $1.2 million.
But the money from opponents came under fire.
More than three-fourths of campaign dollars raised by NoTax4Tracks came from a single 501(c)(4) organization, Smarter Nashville Inc., which by law does not have to release its donors. Union groups that back the transit plan staged a protest last week with a giant inflatable rat outside Beaman Automotive.
Separately, a political action committee led by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group funded by the conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch, contributed a modest sum of $10,000 for mail advertising.
AngryKrugman
Jun 19 2018 at 8:20pm
*NY Times articles=NY Times article.
In other words, I agree this particular article could be criticized, but I’m not convinced this particular criticism is valid.
David Henderson
Jun 20 2018 at 1:00am
Good point. So we don’t really know. I stick by my “shoddy reporting” title though. She knew that the only documented contribution of the Koch brothers was $10,000 but didn’t say so.
Olaf Storaasli
Jun 19 2018 at 10:52pm
Amen! Just read “Airframe” by Michael Crichton. 22 years ago he recognized change from news to bias propaganda (e.g. p 109). “There was a time when reporters wanted information, their questions directed to an underlying event… But now reporters came to the story with the lead fixed in their minds; they saw their job as proving what they already knew. They didn’t want information so much as evidence villainy…”
(Much more but no time to type).
The meaning of news, reporter have changed to the point most media including the NYT have serious bias, so their credibility has dropped seriously for good reason.
As I see media
Mark Z
Jun 20 2018 at 4:49am
Reason also had an article on this NYT piece.
It seems implausible that such a wide margin could be swung by some financed activism. I think some people simply find it impossible to accept that most people actually might disagree with them on something (isn’t the simplest explanation that most people didn’t think the tax hike was worth it?).
In any case, if the Koch brothers really are so good at killing such projects, I’m glad they’re doing it, and would love them to come to my city next time something like this is up for a vote.
David Boaz
Jun 21 2018 at 11:09am
Yes, good point: “some people simply find it impossible to accept that most people actually might disagree with them on something.”
I few years ago I noted a New Yorker writer’s inability to imagine how government-skeptics might think. He wrote:
Jon Murphy
Jun 20 2018 at 8:45am
I think there’s an interesting larger question here that I’d like to see those concerned about the Kochs address:
The Kochs are not the largest donors. According to Open Secrets, they are numbers 67 and 93 for largest individual donors. As far as organizations go, Koch Industries is #12. There are people and organizations ahead of them that spend a lot more money. And yet, the Kochs are seen as the kingmakers, as the power brokers.
If we take the Koch influence as correct, I think this raises an interesting question: how are the Kochs able to be so influential with their dollars? How do they get such an amazing return?
Ronald Warrick
Jun 23 2018 at 10:22pm
“The totals do not include contributions to 501(c) organizations, whose political spending has increased markedly in recent cycles. Unlike other political organizations, they are not required to disclose the corporate and individual donors that make their spending possible.”
Thaomas
Jun 20 2018 at 10:49am
Henderson’s focus on how much the Koch brothers contributed to spending on this issue seem odd. From the quotes, it seems that the point of the Times story is that a non-local organization was trying to influence the election. If the article focused on Americans for Prosperity to the exclusion of any other group, THAT would be shoddy reporting or worse.
MikeW
Jun 20 2018 at 11:04am
From the headline, it seems the point of the Times story is to demonize the Koch brothers.
Hazel Meade
Jun 20 2018 at 12:40pm
The fixation on the Koch brothers really does not enhance the credibility of anyone on the left. The way some people constantly implicate them as shadowy manipulators behind the scenes make it seem like they are cartoon supervillians. Where is the secret Koch lair, I wonder?
Besides they don’t even support Trump, they are anti-drug war and pro-immigration. which you would think would buy them some credit with Progressives. But it seems that some people would rather follow the narrative in their heads than the one unfolding in real life.
Mark Z
Jun 20 2018 at 2:41pm
The animosity toward the Koch brothers may just be indicative of progressive priorities – that economic populism ranks far above immigration reform or criminal justice reform on their priorities list. There are big conservative donors that should, in theory, be far more anathema to progressives but nonetheless seem to escape their interest. This is one reason I’m not optimistic about any actionable common ground between libertarians and the left.
graciela suarez
Jun 20 2018 at 2:30pm
As a Venezuelan I can tell you that we have suffered the NYT bias in alerting what was really going on in Venezuela. Since I am not eloquent I will post here an article written by a friend: https://panampost.com/luis-henrique-ball/2016/06/22/new-york-times-venezuela-i-accept-about-time/?cn-reloaded=1
TexasCharlie
Jun 20 2018 at 10:33pm
Koch Industries is one of the largest employe-owned companies in the world. This may be the real reason it is loathed by progressives. They cannot be embarrassed into acting against the interests of the company and its workers. There is no stock price that can suffer from bad publicity. There is no annual meeting where a progressive group owning a handful of shares can kick up a fuss. No SEC breathing down their neck.
Tom L.
Jun 21 2018 at 10:30am
I don’t know if you realize it, but the old MAD magazine used “All the news that fits, we print” to describe the Times a half century ago!
David Henderson
Jun 22 2018 at 4:23pm
Thanks, Tom L. I didn’t. That’s news (pun intended) to me.
Ronald Warrick
Jun 23 2018 at 10:33pm
Great minds think alike. 🙂
Dallasd
Jun 23 2018 at 12:36pm
Who provided the money for the pro-rail side?
Contractors, construction firms, politicians wanting their cut, etc.
Ronald Warrick
Jun 23 2018 at 10:42pm
Kochs are at least second-tier click-bait on the left. Like Soros on the right.
Comments are closed.