Category: Media & Journalism

Best line of the day, so far

[Tom] Friedman seems to be arguing here that [Chris] Matthews is simply paid to spout opinions, and that whether they are wise or stupid is not relevant to the discussion. I am now very confused. If your job is to spout opinions, isn’t the spouting of wise opinions a pretty good measure of whether or not you’re doing your job well? In our culture, the spouting of stupid opinions generally used to be left to people on barstools, just as the spouting of crazy opinions generally used to be left to the man in the park who thought he was Napoleon. One opinion is not as good as another.

Charles Pierce

Story time

The Daily Howler parses the Obama-Reagan-Clinton debate issue — and the media’s misuse of it. Good stuff!

UPDATE: Judge for yourself. Obama’s now infamous Reagan remarks begin at around 19:00 minutes. BUT be certain to listen to his entire discussion at least until 21:00. I believe Obama endorses Reagan’s political leadership skills — which are indisputable — and not Reagan’s and more recent Republican ideas. The Clintons are using this discussion out of context, as are some progressive bloggers.

“The Republican approach I think has played itself out …”

Meanwhile Guardian Unlimited has an excellent review of Senate votes where Obama and Clinton have differed.

If I was more talented and more ambitious this is what I would be doing

You don’t need me to be linking every time Hullabaloo posts something worth reading. If you care about progressive politics you should just be reading that blog faithfully.

But one more time I recommend you click the link to get a good feel for the campaigning (specifically Nevada) and why the news media reacts the way they do.

Playing Telephone with MLK

CJR (Columbia Journalism Review) has a solid piece today on this whole Clinton-Obama-Martin Luther King thing that’s been going on since last Monday (January 7). It’s subtitled “How the press fanned the Dems’ ‘racial tension’.”

The whole affair, more than anything else, is incredibly sad. The two leading candidates of the party that, right now, seems to have the momentum going into the national election will, whoever wins the nomination, make history. We should be thrilled. We should be proud. But the past week’s “racial overtones” coverage reminds us that, however much our political universe has progressed, our media universe is still often one of ‘(sound) bite first, ask questions later.’

I think, therefore I mess up

The Daily Howler points out this strange discussion by John Judis in The New Republic [emphasis the Howler’s]:

Could it be that voters lied to pollsters this time, too?

Andrew Kohut, a pollster for the Pew Research Center, thinks so. Kohut is the eminence grise among pollsters. His interpretation was published in The New York Times. Suffice it to say, it carried a lot of weight. Kohut’s argument goes as follows: Clinton did much better in the final count than Obama among poorer, less educated voters. These voters “have more unfavorable views of blacks” than wealthier, more educated voters. Kohut doesn’t accuse these voters of lying.

So, to summarize Judis:

1. Could it be they lied.

2. Andrew Kohut thinks so.

3. Kohut doesn’t accuse these voters of lying.

Don’t they even read what they write?

What I think happened

Atrios:

I don’t know if reaction to the media treatment of Clinton had anything to do with voter choices yesterday, but I certainly know people in real life who a) don’t want Clinton to win and b) are tempted to vote for her every time they’re exposed to the way she’s treated by the deeply broken monsters in our mainstream media.

kos:

The way she was treated the past few days in New Hampshire was a disgrace, and likely a large reason for her surprise victory. So keep attacking her for bullshit reasons, and you’ll be generating more and more sympathy votes for her. Obama’s “you’re likable enough” was likely worth 2-3 points all by its lonesome self.

Kevin Drum (last week):

I just hate the idea that the fever swamp has been able to turn a perfectly decent liberal woman into such an object of malign loathing. If she loses, then she loses. But by God, I don’t want her to lose because millions of [GOP operative Lisa] Schiffren’s fellow travelers have carried on a 15-year vendetta of sick-minded smears and hatred. Enough’s enough.

The role of political reporters

Glenn Greenwald takes another look at what’s wrong with the boys and girls on the bus:

But I’m not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, the on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates with whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage — the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing — which in turn influences the election in the direction they want it, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

It’s just all a completely inappropriate role for political reporters to play, yet it composes virtually the entirety of their election coverage.

Best news article lede of the day, so far

A crisp winter morning in Albuquerque, the scent of breakfast burritos wafting from local restaurants, unwary drivers zipping through red lights, and suddenly – whoosh.

A White House-sized object descends from the skies, creating a fireball with hurricane-force winds that knock over buildings and blow out windows for miles around.

Sue Vorenberg, Albuquerque Tribune

The article tells how Sandia National Laboratories researchers have estimated that such an event is more common than previous expected. Well, not Albuquerque precisely, but on Earth in general.

Chicken Little was right!

Did Maxine do a ‘Britney’?

Canberra Times editor Mark Baker has defended his newspaper’s decision to publish a revealing front-page photograph of Labor MP Maxine McKew in a short dress.

The broadsheet received complaints from readers after it ran the image of Ms McKew talking animatedly to former Prime Minister John Howard.

LIVENEWS.com.au

Click the link, then click the photo link (the little camera in the article) to see the contentious photo.

What do you think? I’d have cropped it.

Is Perry Bacon Serious?

In The Washington Post this morning, reporter Perry Bacon Jr. wrote what may be the single worst campaign ’08 piece to appear in any American newspaper so far this election cycle.

In the front-page piece, Bacon muses over how the chances of Barack Obama getting elected president might be affected by the fact that he’s not Muslim. Seriously. To build his case, Bacon stumbles artlessly through all manner of rumor, innuendo, and xenophobic smear–never bothering to refute any of it, even though there is plenty of well-documented evidence to knock down much of this stuff.

Columbia Journalism Review

Bacon essentially equates internet rumors with Obama’s own statements (and church membership).

I’m surprised the Post continues to employ Perry Bacon Jr. given the rumor of his multiple child rape convictions on the internet.

Update: The Post’s story has wings.

The problem with the original Post story is that the “rumors” have already been reliably established as false. To make this a he said/she said story is to give credence to the lies. Lies are lies, not rumors.

Do you myth me?

Examples: In the past two months, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment has played a major role in the Democratic primaries. Have you seen a single [media] report examining the merits of this amendment? Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants have turned the Democratic race upside down. Have you seen any reports, of any length, about the states which already allow this? (About New Mexico, whose governor is one of the Democratic candidates?)

The Daily Howler, which once again explains how much of modern political coverage is just plain myth-making. Some good background on David Broder and his infamous 1972 report which described Ed Muskie, the leading Democrat, with “tears streaming down his face.” No other reporter mentioned tears.

Best line worth bringing up again

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!

Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner quoted by Glenn Greenwald.

Dead Tree Delivery May Be Down, but . . .

Newspaper circulation may be decreasing, but newspaper websites demonstrate that content is still in demand thank you. Here’s the top five in October with number of visitors (in thousands) and time for each person. I guess The New York Times was wise to give up on its paid features — 17½ million visits.

NYTimes.com — 17,502 — 0:34:53
USATODAY.com — 9,469 — 0:16:13
washingtonpost.com — 8,681 — 0:17:22
Wall Street Journal Online — 5,867 — 0:14:19
LA Times — 5,812 — 0:09:51

30 Most Popular Newspaper Sites for October