Los Angeles Times avoids important details on McCain advisor

On Wednesday August 6, 2008, The Los Angeles Times ran a front page piece entitled, An ousted pioneer explores a new trail, on the female advisor and surrogate for the McCain Campaign—who is “famous for breaking glass ceilings”—former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP), Carly Fiorina. The article begins with Fiorina as a championed "self-described change-warrior.” Since the presidential campaigns began, 'change' has become a popular mantra, and the country has demonstrated in recent polls that it wants change. Earlier this year a CBS Poll showed that eighty-one percent of respondents think that the country is on the wrong track (CBS).

But is the change that Fiorina represents the kind of change that the population is looking for from a new president? By September 2001, HP, under the leadership of Fiorina, had fired 25,700 workers (Guardian). During her tenure at HP she cut more than 20,000 jobs, according to The Times article, and after the job cuts Fiorina enjoyed a pay increase of 231 percent to $4.1 million. (Guardian) These jobs cuts were during a time of great prosperity for HP; from 1999 -2000 their profits almost tripled from $1.319 billion to $3.697 billion (Fortune). In 2004 HP nearly doubled its lobbying budget to $734,000 (News Max). The goal: to get legislation passed that would lower HP taxes, and it worked. Legislation was passed reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 32% saving HP millions (WP).

Fiorina’s leadership at HP actually represents the opposite kind of change that the country is looking for. According to a Harris Poll survey in 2007, 84% of the country believes that "big companies have too much power and influence in Washington" (Harris). Another poll, conducted by CBS News, found that 69% of the population thought that outsourcing hurt the economy more than helped it (CBS). But The Times article barely mentions this conflict of interest. Most of the criticism of Fiorina is how her tenure at HP affected the company’s ownership and profitability not on broad economic issues, issues that have become a top concern for the country.

The Times article actually claims that, “her business resume bolsters his economic credentials." But the article also mentions that “Fiorina serves several roles in shaping the candidate’s image.” For the corporate owned media, candidates that have the economic credentials are ones that have “change warriors” shaping their image; the candidate’s image is sold to the population because you can’t sell their economic policies.