NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is joining a clutch of frustrated journalists and educators worried that today’s youth are growing up news-free, obsessed with social media but unplugged from what makes the world tick.
Williams, tops in the evening news broadcasts, surprised organizers of an effort to engage students with news by providing a two-minute public service announcement in which he frets that “news isn’t even in the lives of almost a third of young adults, that they are essentially growing up news-free.”
His support, revealed to the Washington Examiner, could buoy the upcoming National News Engagement Day on Oct. 7 when colleges and high schools around the country plan to urge students to pay attention to world events.
“When the NBC network news anchor, a trusted and respected source, says National News Engagement Day is important, the public, the news media, opinion leaders, educators, students, families, and even the White House will take notice,” said organizer Paula M. Poindexter, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
“Perhaps Brian Williams’ video message will inspire President Obama to endorse National News Engagement Day with a video message or at least a tweet,” she added.
Her group provided a new poll that shows just how disengaged the public is. Among the findings, just 36 percent of respondents said keeping up with the news is important, 35 percent said they were raised to believe news is important and a tiny 16 percent said news helps with daily life.
TREASURY’S LEW COULD FACE OWN TAX SLAP
Past financial deals of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Obama trade czar Michael Froman could be dragged into the administration’s bid to jam retroactive taxes on corporations that set up tax-avoiding operations overseas.
Critics of the administration’s plan to end so-called corporate “inversions” are looking at the investments that both Obama officials had in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, before joining Team Obama.
If corporations are going to lose their tax advantages retroactively under a plan hatched by Lew and top officials, they said, then maybe there is a way to also target them through legislative amendments. Critics of the administration’s plan claim it amounts to double taxation.
“Even muggers only steal what you have on you,” said one Lew critic who works with Congress on corporate tax issues.
NORTHEAST LOSING CLOUT IN WASHINGTON
The Northeast, once the nation’s political engine that produced presidents, House speakers and Senate giants including the late Edward M. Kennedy, is losing clout in Washington as citizens flee the high-tax region, according to experts worried about the trend.
The Census Bureau reports that population growth has shifted to the South and the result is that the 11 states that make up the Northeast are being bled dry of representation in Washington.
Critics blame rising taxes in states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut for limiting population growth in the Northeast to just 15 percent from 1983 to 2013, while the rest of the nation grew more than 41 percent.
The biggest impact comes in the loss of congressional representation.
Deep in a recent report provided to the Washington Examiner, for example, the American Legislative Exchange Council tabulated how the drop in population relative to the rest of the nation cut the region’s power in Washington. While the states from Pennsylvania to Maine had 141 House members in 1950, they are down to 85 today. California and Texas combined have more.
BACK OFF! DNC BOSS HAS PARTY DEBT-FREE
When first lady Michelle Obama went to bat last week for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, it was a strong signal to the Florida lawmaker’s critics to stand down.
Under fire by some for her management of the party, Obama’s shout-out to Wasserman Schultz as “fabulous” is helping to shift attention to her successful efforts to eliminate the debt she was handed by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and boost prospects for the embattled Democratic election lineup.
Officials report that she faced a debt of $22 million three years ago. “Today,” said one, “we’re in the black.”
The grueling job has taken her to 37 states and 99 cities where she has headlined 63 events for the DNC. She also has appeared as a special guest for at least 26 fundraisers that support competitive national races and at least 22 for state parties.
She has been given credit for helping fund and organize the party’s huge Project Ivy digital initiative and the national and state Voter Expansion Project.
“Today we’re in better financial shape than any time since November 2012 – and because of that the DNC is investing more heavily in the midterms than originally planned,” said an associate.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
