Google averages a meeting with the White House every week(fortune.com)
fortune.com
Google averages a meeting with the White House every week
http://fortune.com/2015/03/25/google-white-house/
7 comments
The original WSJ article (just search for "Google Makes Most of Close Ties to White House") is even more ridiculous with this.
It lists a bunch of meetings that coincided with significant events in the FTC investigation, underlining a supposed connection between the two, then proceeds to mention the fact that the logs for each of these meetings (and sources that were in the meetings) say they had nothing to do with the FTC investigation (and involved people that couldn't influence the FTC investigation) and did have a lot to do with other things going on at the time, changes in STEM, patent reform, healthcare.gov, etc.
It lists a bunch of meetings that coincided with significant events in the FTC investigation, underlining a supposed connection between the two, then proceeds to mention the fact that the logs for each of these meetings (and sources that were in the meetings) say they had nothing to do with the FTC investigation (and involved people that couldn't influence the FTC investigation) and did have a lot to do with other things going on at the time, changes in STEM, patent reform, healthcare.gov, etc.
The context is given later in the article - the amount of meetings rose around the time of the FTC investigation into a possible lawsuit against Google. And that lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
Google spends the most on lobbying in Washington these days, more than any other company. It's true that it's hard to draw a direct line between money spent on lobbying and results, or on number of meetings in the white house and results. But it is still worth reporting on.
The amount of money that large corporations spend on politics, and the amount of influence they have, is very large in the US. And Google is now at the forefront there. That's important for the public to know.
Google spends the most on lobbying in Washington these days, more than any other company. It's true that it's hard to draw a direct line between money spent on lobbying and results, or on number of meetings in the white house and results. But it is still worth reporting on.
The amount of money that large corporations spend on politics, and the amount of influence they have, is very large in the US. And Google is now at the forefront there. That's important for the public to know.
Its appropriate to use a marketing term, since it is political marketing.
> I guess it counts as FUD but I associate that term with marketing. There must be a journalism-specific term for it.
Lazy journalism?
Lazy journalism?
It looks an awful lot like paying the piper. But I agree that it's not good form to draw conclusions without context.
Could call it "beckening".
First, I think the main link should probably be to the WSJ publication, instead of this Fortune one which offers even less detail and analysis.
Second, I think it's incredibly shameful to be so damned misleading as the WSJ was with their reporting. While I'm all for calling into question whether the number of visits Google has to the Whitehouse is appropriate or not, I think it's worth considering context and purpose of the visits when looking at the raw numbers. Not actually looking any further into this seems to be either some of the most spotty journalism from a major publication, or a blatant lie of omission used to push a narrative.
Second, I think it's incredibly shameful to be so damned misleading as the WSJ was with their reporting. While I'm all for calling into question whether the number of visits Google has to the Whitehouse is appropriate or not, I think it's worth considering context and purpose of the visits when looking at the raw numbers. Not actually looking any further into this seems to be either some of the most spotty journalism from a major publication, or a blatant lie of omission used to push a narrative.
The original WSJ story feels like "we requested the visitor logs as part of our reporting, and there wasn't that much interesting in them, but we might as well write something about it."
Julian Assange told us about this last year.
http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8500970
I remember reading the article. I found this to be quite interesting:
“In 2012, Google arrived on the list of top-spending Washington, D.C., lobbyists—a list typically stalked exclusively by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, military contractors, and the petro-carbon leviathans. Google entered the rankings above military aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, with a total of $18.2 million spent in 2012 to Lockheed’s $15.3 million. Boeing, the military contractor that absorbed McDonnell Douglas in 1997, also came below Google, at $15.6 million spent, as did Northrop Grumman at $17.5 million.”
“In 2012, Google arrived on the list of top-spending Washington, D.C., lobbyists—a list typically stalked exclusively by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, military contractors, and the petro-carbon leviathans. Google entered the rankings above military aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, with a total of $18.2 million spent in 2012 to Lockheed’s $15.3 million. Boeing, the military contractor that absorbed McDonnell Douglas in 1997, also came below Google, at $15.6 million spent, as did Northrop Grumman at $17.5 million.”
Google may be the largest individual contributor within the list you cite -- and not by much -- but it is still greatly exceeded by the combined contribution of the military contractors. And Google being a top contributor may not be such a bad thing; who else on that list is going to lobby for patent reform?
[deleted]
who was the last business leader in tech sector close to politics? john scully?
As we get bigger, we need bigger friends to get bigger.
There needs to be a name for this kind of thing, where two facts are stated but the whole point of the article is an unspoken accusation implied by those two facts.
#1: Google met with Obama a lot, #2: Google has faced a lot of regulatory scrutiny over the last few years. #3: ?
Obviously the implication is that Google and or the president were engaged in some sort of shady shenanigans, but the article never really comes out and says it. It's more like it just dumps some facts out there without context, shrugs its shoulders, and says, "could be coincidence...OR IS IT?!?".
I guess it counts as FUD but I associate that term with marketing. There must be a journalism-specific term for it.