Axios gets ratio-ed by community notes after false claim

Users on X criticized Axios reporter Emily Peck on Tuesday after she claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris was not advocating for price controls but rather promoting “price gouging bans.” Critics pointed out that Peck had previously referred to similar measures as “price controls” when discussing policies in the United Kingdom and Russia.

A Community Note on X highlighted the inconsistency, stating, “The same author called it ‘price controls’ when the UK proposed voluntary caps on grocery store profits.”

Harris recently pledged to implement price controls aimed at curbing “gouging on food and groceries” and preventing “big corporations” from exploiting consumers. In the same speech about Democratic fiscal strategy, Harris also introduced a housing program modeled after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s policies, which critics compared to the ghettos of the Great Society or Soviet-era housing blocks.

Even mainstream media outlets dismissed Harris’ economic proposals, likening them to “Soviet” programs or deriding them as “gimmicks.”

Peck’s article on “price gouging,” titled “Don’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work,” argued that Harris was not following the Soviet Union’s economic model but rather adhering to existing U.S. laws. Peck wrote, “If banning price gouging is communist, then the US went Marxist long ago. Most of us live in states that already have bans in place,” though she acknowledged that these laws typically “prohibit companies from jacking up prices during emergencies.”

X users were quick to point out Peck’s inconsistency. In a 2023 article, she had described the UK government’s efforts as “voluntary price controls on essential food items” in response to high inflation. Peck wrote at the time, “Persistent inflation is changing the conversation around price controls. Once waved off as an affront to capitalism, they’re starting to look more appealing—especially to politicians who want to avoid headlines about people who can’t afford to eat.”

Another fact-check noted that “Axios called it ‘price controls’ when it was proposed to limit how much Russia could profit off oil in a time of crisis,” linking to a story that discussed how price controls had been largely abandoned after the 1970s as economic policy shifted toward less government involvement.

By Kate Stephenson
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