The Miami Herald took first place in the contest to have the most inaccurate article on Social Security when it printed without challenge an assertion that: "For awhile, there's been a consensus among economists that raising the retirement age makes a lot of sense." This is obviously not true, since there is no shortage of economists who do not agree with this view and it is quite possible that a majority of economists do not agree with this position. Any reporter who had researched this topic at all would know that the assertion is not true and would not present it to readers as being true. Instead the article presented almost exclusively the views of people calling for cuts in Social Security...
The article also never once mentions the possibility of addressing the projected long-term shortfalls in Social Security by raising the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax or by raising the tax rate. Polls consistently show that these positions are far more popular than the raising the retirement age.
The article also makes a point of discussing the increases in life expectancy without noting that tax rate has been increased substantially over the last 70 years, precisely to cover the cost of a longer retirement. Again, it is impossible to write a balanced article without pointing out that current workers have paid higher tax rates in order to finance a longer retirement.
The article also implies that it would be reasonable to cut Social Security benefits to finance other parts of the government. This would mean describing the payroll tax as a "Social Security" tax even though the money was being used to finance the war in Afghanistan or other expenditures. It is unlikely that this would be a popular position...
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/miami-herald-invents-a-qconsensus-among-economistsq-to-push-social-security-cuts