Commenting on media coverage of the U.S. presidential election campaign last May, the Columbia Journalism Review asked an important question: "Do you let a candidate's remarks stand unchallenged even if they are wrong or misleading?" The CJR, a bimonthly magazine published by the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, scolded the Rocky Mountain News for reporting that Republican candidate John McCain had called the quality of American health coverage "the best in the world," without mentioning plentiful evidence to the contrary.
But why should such scrutiny be limited to candidates, and not continued after one of them wins? The army of fact-checkers that monitored campaign claims and commercials has vanished with the victory of Barack Obama, as if it were no longer needed. And yet Obama constantly repeats a fallacious claim about the American workforce that is comparable to McCain's comment about health care.
Twice this month (and many times before), Obama has exaggerated U.S. labor productivity in what seems like a bid to flatter American workers. In his weekly radio address January 3, Obama said that the United States has "the most dedicated and productive workers in the world." In a speech January 8, he urged Americans: "We should never forget that our workers are still more productive than any on Earth."
These ringing statements may sound good, but they are not actually correct. And if the U.S. media is not going to call Obama on these claims, perhaps the European media should. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, a prime authority on the subject, no fewer than six European countries score higher than the United States on the most common measure of productivity, output per hour worked. They are Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.
The Conference Board, an international business and economic analysis group, comes to a very similar conclusion, ranking the United States sixth after Luxembourg, Norway, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Maybe Obama thinks smaller countries don't count – or perhaps he means that Americans are so "dedicated" that they spend more time at work than people in other countries? Well, not exactly. According to the OECD, the inhabitants of nine European countries (ten if you include Turkey) work more hours per year than Americans. These zealous employees are to be found in the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia.
It would be nice if someone in the media were to follow the advice that the CJR dispensed to the Rocky Mountain News about McCain's exaggerated claim – "We must add history, context, and analysis, and when something is flat-out wrong, we should say so."
