June 16, 2009 03:37 AM UTC

A Belabored Point Too Far With Adam Schrager

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• by: Colorado Pols

We blinked at the latest 9NEWS “Truth Test” with political reporter Adam Schrager, normally a source of solid and impartial fact-checking for political ads:

The following is a Truth Test on a commercial called “Against Us” and it is paid for by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local No. 7.

The union represents 17,000 grocery workers at King Soopers, Albertson’s and Safeway stores throughout Colorado. (Source: UFCW, http://www.ufcw7.org/) The union is currently involved in contract negotiations with all three grocery chains. (Source: 9NEWS.com, http://www.9news.com/rss/artic…

QUOTE: Seen the news lately? More corporate bailouts. CEO’s still making millions.

TRUTH: There are a couple points here which could use some context. The government’s recent decision to help Chrysler and General Motors as the giant automakers filed for bankruptcy has been labeled by some as a “bailout,” but there’s been no connection to government help for any of the grocery stores. None at all and to put that in a commercial dealing with grocery workers is disingenuous…

Sounds fair enough, until you keep reading–on the subject of the grocery business’ profitability in the current recession:

QUOTE: And the big national grocery chains? They’re making millions too.

Truth: This is true. While net profits have been down overall from 2008 to 2009, Safeway posted first quarter profits…

The Albertson stores in Colorado, northern California, Florida and Texas are owned by a New York-based investment firm called Cerberus Management. [Pols emphasis] It is not publically traded…

Wait a minute. Cerberus Capital Management, right? Cerberus owns Albertsons? That wouldn’t be the same Cerberus Capital Management that just lost its ownership of Chrysler after burning through a few billion ‘non-bailout’ taxpayer dollars, would it? Kind of makes the original point, the one Schrager called ‘disingenuous,’ seem all the more compelling–don’t you think?

We don’t even really think that auto industry Fed assistance was exclusively what this ad was talking about with “more corporate bailouts,” but damn. Minimal cross-referencing of facts, dear readers, is worth the effort, if for no other reason than to avoid getting things this ironically wrong.