This will be the 16th consecutive year that, in Eat the State! and the various other venues where I’ve written, I’ve compiled — usually with the help of my colleague Maria Tomchick — lists of the most overhyped and the most underreported stories of the year. (The list from 2010 is here.) In general, the overhyped stories are an opportunity for merciless ridicule, and the underreported ones are some combination of inspirational and profoundly depressing.
This year, I have a secret weapon: you, the Frog Pond, as savvy a bunch of commenters as there is on the Interwebs. Got any suggestions? Overhyped. Underreported. Leave ’em in the comments.
Overhyped by virtually every news organization: The Sixteen Dollar Muffins at a Justice Department Conference
If any of these fools who wrote these bullshit stories had bothered to look at the actual report they claimed to be sourcing their story from and thought about it for a moment, they would have understood that the hotel who hosted the conference sold the venue and all catering services as a package deal which, among other things, included muffins for around $16 per attendee.
There were a few stories around that debunked the reports but I don’t recall any retractions of the stories. Now there are millions of lazy-minded Americans who, with all the excitement surrounding and repetition of this story, simply accept it all as fact.
Underreported: Congressional Insider Trading.
If Martha Stewart were a member of Congress, she’d be even more wealthy now, without doing all the work and the jail time.
Under-reported – the J-1 abuses at Hershey Chocalate.
The J-1 program brings in “students” from other countries who displace American kids and who work at summer jobs. The abuse at Hershey Chocalate was somewhat reported, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Teen unemployment has skyrocketed in recent years from 50% to 75%, while this program brings in thousands of teens to work as virtual slaves in various jobs under the pretence of providing an “American Experience”. What it really does is provide cheap labor, and the employer does NOT PAY TAXES for these foreign serfs. This program needs to end, now.
I remember almost no discussion of the revelations of the $trillions handed out by the Fed during the crisis. Even many of those “sound” banks who were “forced” to take $25 billion from the Fed with TARP took at times many times that in unannounced basically free money. The revelations? Like a tree falling in the woods – did they make a sound….
Even with the OWS movement, this story got almost no coverage that I saw outside the financial press, and by sheer volume of righteous (fake) indignation, far less than the bogus story of $16 muffins from what I saw.
The withdrawal from Iraq is the most under-reported story of the year.
It somehow went from “that’s never going to happen” to “so what?” without ever stopping off at “hey, look at this.”
The most important episode in American history since the end of World War 2 is brought to an end that most of the country didn’t think could possibly happen, and it’s a one-day news story.
Shouldn’t something actually be recognized and commented on as news before being dismissed as old news?
You beat me to it. The ho-hum reporting on this historic day, and all the implications of what went before, is nothing short of amazing.
If there weren’t wingnuts attacking President Obama for his policy, would the end of the war have even been mentioned in the media?
Context is everything. The US lost its collective shit on 9/11, committed genocide against a people who had nothing to do with the events of that day, for reasons that make no sense, and now in shame, will never speak of it again.
This is the most amazing thing I’ve not witnessed. The news barely mentioning this. They could have done a week long introspective of how we got into Iraq, the massive corruption, death and destruction to the Iraqi people and land(with depleted uranium)along with the huge cost in money and livies of military and extended families…any number of things to show the true costs of war…and for what.
Instead I saw ‘breaking news’ headlines saying that Romney called Gingrich ‘zany’. Proving again how absolutely useless the ‘news’ media has become.
Since Joe stole my thunder on underreported and there are just too many absurdly overreported stories to even untangle, I’ll just highly recommend listening to a great NPR discussion of the overlooked international stories of the year, without the usual gang of yappity talking heads.
Anthony Weiner’s weiner.
Over or under?
Under reported
Ron Paul’s belief that America needs to bring back 19th century Jim Crow.
Overhyped: Solyndra.
Underreported: It’s still a little early in the process, but I’m not seeing much outside of the leftisphere about the ongoing NDAA debate.
here at the frog pond, the president’s decision to sign the NDAA has been thoroughly under-reported, to the point of almost not existing at all on the front page (geov, I think you covered it a few weeks ago, once).
It has been studiously ignored, in favor of niggling attacks on republican morons who are never going to win the nomination or the presidency.
Considering the gross violations of our basic Constitutional rights, basically gutting amendments 4-7, one would THINK this was a huge deal. And it WAS when Bush was president.
Since the law the President is signing makes no changes whatsoever to current law about detentions, as a result of his veto threat forcing amendments, it’s not a terribly important story.
“President signs defense spending bill” is not exactly front-page material unless there’s something notable in the bill.
Sorry Joe, but you’re wrong.
The NYT says you’re wrong too. So does the ACLU. I could go on and on and on.
I know, I know: when a democrat does it, it’s OK.
That’s not what joe is saying. Joe is saying that the executive has seized these powers and the Congresses of the past have refused to do anything about it; as we see here, they want to do the opposite, and give the president the powers they’ve been using anyway.
So what we have is the status quo we’ve had since 911. It doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, but the law as interpreted hasn’t changed…other than perhaps a little more vagueness, although that hasn’t stopped either president from interpreting it as they wanted anyway.
“That’s not what joe is saying.”
He knows.
“I know, I know…” is Brendan’s tell. He writes that when he’s going to invent a position and attribute it to his opponent, instead of answering the actual argument.
Look through his old comments if you want: “I know, I know…” is exclusively used when he is being willfully dishonest and attributing a straw man to his opponent.
Very impressive appeal to authority.
You really are incapable of thinking in any terms between “What team am I on?” aren’t you?
This is why it’s not worth it to try to explain anything to you.
Glenn Greenwald is such a sorry little poseur. No wonder you worship him.
He holds forth for months on how awesomely principled he is about important issues, but whenever there’s actually a fight over something he claims to believe in – whenever the left and right line up on opposite sides in a debate about, say, torture (2009) or military detention (2011) – you can count on Greenwald to do absolutely nothing other than shoot his own side in the back.
2009, there’s a huge nationwide debate between Democrats and Republicans over the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and whether they should be used, and what Greenwald have to say? “Boo hoo, the Democrats aren’t pure enough, Nancy Pelosi was (allegedly) briefed, Obama doesn’t want to prosecute people.” With the actual issue in the balance, all he wants to do it cut off the Democrats at the knees.
And now, he does it again. Obama hasn’t put a single person into military detention in his entire presidency. In fact, he’s consistently fought back against Congress as they tried, over and over again, to make him do so. He and Holder put up the good fight over trying KSM in New York in federal court, and they stuck with it until they got their butts kicked. But this time, they won. Congress tried, and failed, to make Obama change his policy and use military detention, and Hooray! They failed! Obama won! The next guy who tries to blow up a plane with his underpants is going to be handled as a common criminal, just like the last guy – because of the stance Obama took.
And where’s Greenwald? Why, whining about Obama, of course.
I love people who are so passionately opposed to military detention that the question of whether or not people are being put into military detention simply doesn’t matter to them.
The most under reported, and most in need of developing, is the universal impact of the John Birch Society. The JBS was formed in 1958, Quite possibly as an out growth of the American Liberty League, whose Fascist treason was thwarted by Smedley Butler and FDR in 1936. The plutocrats of both groups rabidly hate Communism and ain’t too friendly with Democracy.
The initial goal of the “A.L.L.” was a military coup de etat of the USA. The JBS seems to desire the same end, but by different means. The primary visible impactors are the KOCH Bros./JBS and Keith Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. as well as many other 1 percenters.
The different means could include:
Think (lie )Tanks that promote disinformation, misinformation, wedge issues, and anything else possible
Bribary of Gov. officials at all levels
Patronizing relgious Zealots and anyone else deemed useful
Manipulating the economy
Subverting Political Parties
Neo-Cons
Terrorism and War
ETC.
The JBS has a lot of dots that need to be connectd and are yet to be connected.
A story under realized for the past 50 years and very dangerous.