Professional FUD creation

How the ‘OMB memo’ non-story happened 19

witches cauldronHow to cook a non-story…Courtesy Arbron via Flickr

Now that the “White House memo” hoopla is over—except insofar as it will live on forever as a zombie Republican talking point— it’s worth pausing to review what happened. It’s a remarkable, real-time example of how the polluter/Republican/media nexus works. And it raises some difficult questions about the media environment to which I, at least, don’t have easy answers.

Let’s go back over the timeline:

On March 24, the EPA did what more-or-less everyone expected and told the White House that CO2 is a danger to the public. On April 17, after the endangerment finding had cleared White House review, it was formally announced.

The announcement set in motion of a couple of processes required by law. One is a 60-day public comment period, after which rule-making will begin in earnest. The other is an interagency review: a government agency—in this case OMB—is charged with gathering comments and feedback from all the other federal agencies and departments and submitting them to EPA.

On April 22, OMB submitted the results to the EPA. The comments ranged widely, from fairly technical suggestions on areas where EPA could expand or strengthen its analysis to borderline wacky stuff about people moving from Arizona to Minnesota to worries about the expansion of the EPA’s regulatory purview. At the bottom of the second page was this comment:

Making the decision to regulate CO2 under   the CAA [Clean Air Act] for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities. Should EPA later extend this finding to stationary sources, small businesses and   institutions would be subject to costly regulatory programs such as New Source Review.

This is a standard-issue conservative talking point on EPA regs, and sure enough, a source at OMB revealed yesterday that it came from a Bush administration holdover at the Small Business Administration’s “Office of Advocacy,” which is “an independent entity” the views of which “do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA or the Administration.”

So, that’s where things stood: a single comment, from a Bush holdover in an independent office, buried in a large collection of comments collected in a memo submitted to EPA’s online docket after a bureaucratic review process. Hardly a stop-the-presses development.

Some three weeks later ... lo! Dow Jones reporter Ian Talley (known in green circles for being a frequent conduit for conservative talking points on energy) discovers the memo and writes a story on it (sub. rqd., or read a different version Talley collaborated on for a Wall Street Journal blog).

Perhaps Talley just happened to be perusing the EPA’s horribly designed and nigh-unusable online docket and stumbled across the memo, on the very day of the first congressional hearing to consider the nomination of Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB. Perhaps it was coincidence that the story appeared just as OMB was in the news and Sunstein was facing questions.

Then again, perhaps pigs fly out of my butt. Far more likely,  a dirty energy lobbying firm—I’m looking at you, Bracewell-Giuliani—tipped Talley off to the memo. [UPDATE: OK, that was a cheap shot followed up by wild speculation, as it appears progressive watchdog group OMB Watch was where many journalists first saw the memo.]

Republicans on the Senate Environment Committee immediately began to send Talley’s article (headline: “OMB Memo: Serious Economic Impact Likely From EPA CO2 Rules”) to the press along with a hysterical press release calling the memo a “smoking gun.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) waved the memo in EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s face at a hearing on the EPA’s budget, claiming that the agency had suppressed it (by, um, posting it online) and that it showed the endangerment finding was purely political (unlike Barrasso’s grandstanding).

Now here’s the crucial part: at this point, the memo had been written about. Republicans are making a big deal of it. So mainstream journalists have to cover it.  It’s “out there.” So the Associated Press does a story on it, as does ABC’s Jake Tapper, along with NPR, the New York Times,  any number of blogs, etc. Suddenly, it’s everywhere: the “OMB memo” reveals that EPA regs will destroy the economy (and eat babies)! [UPDATE: Jake Tapper writes to protest that he never used the phrase “OMB memo,” and he’s right—his story correctly calls it an “interagency memo.”]

Now, if you read the stories closely, you’ll see that it’s just not true that there is such a thing as an “OMB memo” that “says” these things, much less a “White House memo.” There are no “rifts” inside the Obama administration. There is only one comment (published in a document that gathers numerous disparate comments from numerous disparate agencies) making this (unsupported) claim about the endangerment ruling. That’s all. It doesn’t “reveal” anything other than what that one random Bush holdover happens to think.

In short, there’s nothing to it. The story is vapor; there is no story. And yet look what happened: all it took is for one clever operative to inject the story into one legitimate media outlet. Then Republicans amplified it and the rest of the media world dutifully took it up. Voila, it dominated a news cycle and required pushback from OMB Director Peter Orszag and the White House itself. Through the magic of spin, a nothingburger became “a story.” And now it will be repeated, over and over, forever, by pro-dirty-energy legislators and on right-wing blogs, e.g. the OMB “revealed” that EPA regs are dangerous to small business.

It will never die, never go away. And, unfortunately, this kind of thing happens constantly.

My question is: What should have been done differently once the fake story was out there? Whoever fed the story to Talley was doing their job. Talley was certainly right that the story would be considered newsworthy. (What does it matter, honestly, whether it really is newsworthy?) Republicans were right that it would throw a wrench in the works. Mainstream journalists were right that it had become a story and they needed to cover it.

Everyone was basically doing their jobs. And yet the net effect was to confuse the public and decrease aggregate understanding of an extremely important issue. I would suggest that when the result of everyone doing their jobs is to produce a net reduction in public understanding, the system is broken. Something’s gone wrong.

But I honestly don’t have a clue how it could be fixed. Grist readers, perhaps you do?

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. markg8 Posted 8:48 am
    13 May 2009

    How to fix it? Spread your article far and wide. It's an excellent primer on how messed up the media is in this country.

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  2. Clifford Wells's avatar

    Clifford Wells Posted 9:34 am
    13 May 2009

    Wow, the mouse that roared!  The funny thing is that while the Small Business Administration was consulted and their advocate make some kind of remark, any CO2 regulation would likely only cover Big Business, not little dinky ones.  It's almost too funny to take serious.Thanks for the story.  Just last night I heard an even scarier story about home high powered legislative committee that didn't like a bill, and sent the staff lawyer out into the foyer saying "bring us back a new bill in one hour."  Well, the poor fellow did.  He regrets it to this very day it was such a horrible bill they approved.  That's politics for ya!

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  3. Christopher S. Johnson's avatar

    Christopher S. Johnson Posted 9:44 am
    13 May 2009

    Go David, do.   Thanks.Not to say this is the sole reason, but I thought one of the solutions to this kind of thing was a news org having a beat reporter who covered a topic consistently.  That is the kind of reporter who could see it for what it was.That's it, David.  You have to leave Grist and join the Main Stream Media.  I hear every news org is hiring...   ;-)

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  4. raphsperry Posted 10:40 am
    13 May 2009

    David, Nice research.  On your conclusion, though, I don't think it's fair to say "Everyone is doing their job."  Legitimate news sources (print and broadcast) are supposed to fact-check stories.  They failed to do their job by failing to distinguish between the SBA Office of Advocacy, the OMB, and the White House.  It is past time for mainstream media outlets to do "he said/ she said" stories where one side is factually accurate and the other is not (see for example, descriptions of climate science).  Media criticism needs to be part of the environmental movement, and of the broad progressive reform coalition's view of revitalizing democracy in the US.Until the mainstream media do their job, guess you will have to keep doing it for them.

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  5. Noons Posted 10:50 am
    13 May 2009

    MMMMMM Liberal News Media supporting Republican reports???? gee this does not sound usual.....or are we just continuing to bash?The interference of government if anyone is noticing is becoming overwhelming......best we all start playing more attention to that.

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    1. raphsperry Posted 11:10 am
      13 May 2009

      Noons- I dispute the notion that the News Media are predominantly Liberal.  In fact, I think that they routinely give more space and more credence to conservative ideas and Republican politicians than the opposite.  But that's a larger discussion for a different forum.

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      1. markg8 Posted 11:23 am
        13 May 2009

        They certainly give more space and credence to conservatives and Republicans than they deserve.Noons I suggest you read the article, doesn;t sound like you bothered. 

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    2. splashy's avatar

      splashy Posted 2:03 pm
      17 May 2009

      That "liberal news media" is pretty much all owned by conservatives, who control what goes on. Try researching things a bit more.

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      1. LogicRules Posted 2:56 pm
        17 May 2009

        Splashy, please check the facts first.  The MSM is overwhelmingly liberal.  Ownership doesn't appear to matter too much.  The percent of liberals in the media is worrisome, in fact.  It is the function of the media to provide all sides of a story, and not to inject their own bias into what is intended to be news, not commentary.  I find it almost unbelievable that anyone would not know this.  The quote below is from http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx?RelNum=6664"Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.  Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter."And this is a report from one of the most liberal institutions in the most liberal state.  This much bias is a danger to the country because it is a form of brainwashing.  Be a little skeptical of anything you hear.

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  6. greengenie4 Posted 12:52 pm
    13 May 2009

    This is a great article. It never ceases to amaze me how trusting most people are of the media, especially when reporters are so closely tied with broader corporate interests, because it's in the latters interest.Talley is a 'beat' reporter (energy and environment) who oftentimes slants to republican/conservative interests, so you can't always trust a particular beat reporter to weed out the misinformation, even if they recognize it as such.To say, though, "Why does it matter, honestly, whether is really is newsworthy?" is a misinterpretation of what drives a reporter's job, competition and controversy. Controversy drives the news, and in this case, the controversial, urgent status of the "memo" is what made the article newsworthy. The term 'newsworthy', unfortunately in today's world, has nothing to do with the actual factual basis for the article, but it is nevertheless what decides what reporters cover; even if it is a mythical construction of the "facts". THAT is what is so f'd up about today's media coverage.

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  7. LogicRules Posted 12:59 pm
    13 May 2009

    The point raised, that regulations could hit many small stationary sources, is a fair one to make.  It depends on what EPA determines is a major source.  Where the cutoff is set will have a huge impact on costs.  I had a job in which I had to deal with EPA.  The pointless reports, permits, emissions models, and limits that have no basis in science are hard to keep up with.  They don't always get it right.A more significant item came out recently.  EPA did not do a cost-benefit analysis, did no research themselves into CO2 as a cause of global warming, and did not even verify that the information they used for their NPRM was done to established standards.  This is not the first time they've done this, but this issue has far greater impact than most of what they have done to this point, and should be done right.Regarding the media, study after study came to the conclusion that they have a left bias.  I try to get both sides of a story, whatever it is, but it is pretty much impossible.  I have been involved personally in a few stories reported in newspapers and TV, and there is very little similarity in their reporting to what actually happened.  They have an inherent desire to make industry look as bad as possible without getting sued.  Sorry, but that's the truth as I have seen it. 

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    1. rharris50 Posted 2:59 am
      15 May 2009

      I guess objectivity is in the eye of the beholder.  I too have been involved with the media, but in many interviews and other stories I haven't observed that bias.  It's pretty hard to imagine that reporters inherently "desire to make industry look as bad as possible without being sued."  First of all, reporters are a heterogenous bunch, so generalization is dangerous (and typically wrong).  Second, the rules regarding libel are pretty loose, so that libel generally requires deliberate intent to defame, not just simple misstatements.  Third, if they do have a common goal it is to break a story first.  This is very frustrating to business people who are used to their media relations departments issuing press releases.  Except on Fox News, that is not the purpose of the news media.  Of course, there is a tendency to suppress a story if it will alienate a big advertiser whose revenues are important for the survival of the media source.  But that is the opposite of the bias to which you refer. <!--Session data--><!--Session data-->

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  8. Sean Casten's avatar

    Sean Casten Posted 1:58 pm
    13 May 2009

    Well done, David.I guess the question is whether this is a problem with Republicans per se, or the news industry more broadly, that has strayed far away from whatever idealistic, Edward R Murrow/Walter Cronkite just-the-facts roots that they once had.  And stories on OMB deliberations on CO2 policy economic impacts are hardly the most prevalent case of that trend.  (Chris Rock's line about the prevalence of "missing white girl" stories in the news cycle comes to mind...)I don't mean to suggest that we condone the Rs for skewing that system to their own advantage.  But if TV news has long passed the point of being relevant to people who care about factually accurate reporting, is print media not headed in the same direction?  I hope not... but am not exactly optimistic.

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  9. Anna Haynes's avatar

    Anna Haynes Posted 6:41 pm
    13 May 2009

    > Everyone was basically doing their jobs. And yet the net effect was to
    confuse the public and decrease aggregate understanding of an extremely
    important issue.Like
    the baseless "the more you know, the less you worry" "finding" from the Kellstedt et al paper in Risk Analysis
    last year.  Picked up by John Tierney, spread to the four winds, and
    looks to have all the signs of being done deliberately. (e.g. the Joe
    Walker of 1998 climate-disinfo memo fame turns out to have written the
    K. paper's press release, etc - whose thrust was pretty much "Note to
    press: don't bother covering climate change")> I honestly don’t have a clue how it could be fixed. Grist readers, perhaps you do?If
    it came from a govt agency, submit a FOIA to get the correspondence
    from the guy who wrote it, to see what *really* went on.  It won't be
    fast though - I'm trying to get correspondence from Texas A&M
    related to the Kellstedt paper's submission and publicity, but they've
    appealed to the state Attorney General who, so far, has not deigned to
    give a ruling (it's been about 2 months now)As for the
    daily-grind journalists - they should do something like what you did here, and write about why it's not a story
    - which is much more informative and interesting than pretending it is
    one. 

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  10. Clifford Wells's avatar

    Clifford Wells Posted 10:09 pm
    13 May 2009

    Well the good man asked an honest question and I don't think anyone gave him and answer, which I can paraphrase as "how can we prevent such BS non-stories from becoming a nightmare?"After careful consideration, I figured you just can't stop such blow-hards from saying what they feel.  During the Bush Administration, there was a major push for supressing all public and agency comments that were contrary to the "unified executive."  I hated that.  The way I feel is that if some bloviator wants to vent their spleen, let them.  This is a democracy.  The opponents usually hang themselves by their own arguments, and in the end don't amount to a hill of beans. And as you said, this kind of circumstance happens a lot, although I would hope more transparant during the Obama Administration.  I would hope so anyway. Let them sit and stew!But it's always the same game, where somebody really nasty would launch a proverbial missile and you had to shoot it down, and then go on the offensive too.  It's a game I played for years. My favorite strategy is to ignore the bahstids and take the high road, since I'm getting older now. But no, you can never stop the schmooze.

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  11. Dave from Canada Posted 8:18 am
    14 May 2009

    Quick answer on "how to fix it": don't bother trying, because you'll never fix it.Instead, take lessons on how to get your own message out, and then get it out. Build the infrastructure - the reasearchers, the appointments, the blogs, the media insiders, etc.We now have a message-saturated environment. Only by getting more of the message out, and repeating it frequently, does your message stick. Don't try to undo the other side's message, because that doesn't work. 

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  12. GreenMom Posted 12:20 pm
    14 May 2009

    David, a very nice summary.  There is no quick fix to stopping this sort of thing, of course, but Dave from Canada is correct.  You have to fight fire with fire. It's only when we began to build infrastructure on our side of the fence that we got the good guys back in power.  We needed to learn how to craft our messages so they stick. We also needed to develop muckrakers who know how to not only dig up the story, but tell it in a way that works.Look at the Daily Show.  It's a brilliant example of muckraking that sticks.  (I'm defining muckraking broadly, to include getting people to focus on information that is technically already public). 

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  13. raphsperry Posted 9:52 pm
    17 May 2009

    Logicrules-- That UCLA study certainly seemed convincing... at first.  But you have to wonder about the methodology:"They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think
    tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning
    Heritage Foundation.  Next,
    they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet
    displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method
    assigned both a similar ADA
    score."
    This is not a formula for accurately determining what media positions are: politicians have different reasons for citing think tanks than media outlets, so it's not safe to assume that a similar citation pattern indicates similar preferences.  For instance, politicians often cite their opponents when making points, whereas media outlets often strive for (at least an impression of) "balance".  Also, this methodology gives rise to some strange outcomes: the Drudge report is found to be centrist, which the authors claim is an indication of the overall bias of the news media, not an obvious flaw in their methodology.  The UCLA study also finds, based on this approach, that the National Rifle Association is a centrist group.  With analysis likes this, who needs leftists?
    The more standard quantitative studies of media bias look at, for instance, the number of times conservative and liberal politicians are quoted, in which conservatives typically dominate by ratios of 3:2 to 5:! or more.  See http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2534

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