August arrives with a dandy metaphor about the difference between the old journalism and the new--the New York Times' record-setting number of errors in reporting Walter Cronkite's death juxtaposed against a blog frenzy over the news of a Sarah-Todd Palin divorce.
Even for this traditional month of fake and flaky news, it's an impressive start. The Times Public Editor tells us all, maybe more than we want to know, about seven corrections in what the newspaper printed about the man who nightly told America "That's the way it is," in the course of which we learn that "a television critic with a history of errors wrote hastily and failed to double-check her work, and editors who should have been vigilant were not."
Comforting as it is to learn that the Paper of Record is still so zealous about accuracy, public flogging of staff members may strike other journalists as cruel and unusual punishment in the name of retroactively covering institutional ass.
Such MSM fallibility and stodginess has to be juxtaposed against the weekend's sensation, an Alaska blogger's report that Sarah Palin has thrown her wedding ring into a lake and is moving out on Todd to Montana.
This virtually fact-free "story" is being Googled and gaped over around the digital world, leaving traditional journalists the luxury of repeating the details while holding their noses and dutifully covering themselves by citing the former governor's denials.
And that's the way it is on the first weekend of August 2009.
Showing posts with label blogs. MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. MSM. Show all posts
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Monday, March 09, 2009
Obama's Stress Test
In the absence of an outrage du jour by the Bush Administration, the American Commentariat is now caught up in a more complex, elusive project--analyzing the nation's fall into future shock and Barack Obama's fitness to deal with it.
Is the President on a speeding-up treadmill struggling not to fall behind, as Paul Krugman suggests today?
"The problem with the budget," John Cassidy diagnoses in the New Yorker, "isn’t its size or its underlying philosophy, which is one of pragmatic progressivism. The problem is that unless the deterioration of the economy stops, the Administration’s ambitious multiyear plans could end up being purely symbolic...
"With some economists talking openly about a 'depression,' the Administration needs to start rethinking elements of its recovery program, and the President himself needs to get more involved."
In the New York Review of Books, long-time Washington watcher Elizabeth Drew observes that "the still-new President has a staggering number of challenges before him...Yet the President was traveling for most of his third and fourth full weeks in office. A little more management may be in order" and adds that "the President's aides had concluded that it hadn't been helpful for Obama to be seen participating in the give-and-take of Washington, that 'that's not what he was elected to do.' Yes it is."
All this polite, nervous yet serious criticism of a president they were prepared to cheer on reflects the disappearance for opinion makers of the black-and-white days of Bush and the new era of huge gray issues such as economic stimulus, bank bailouts and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for Detroit.
MSM pundits and bloggers alike are struggling to adapt as Markos tells CNN that "our challenge is that line from destructive criticism to constructive criticism, because there is going to be criticism. The issue is how we manage that and it's a fine line and it's very tough sometimes."
Meanwhile, Barrack Obama is beginning to show a little gray in his hair as the rest of us watch and hope and hold our breaths.
Is the President on a speeding-up treadmill struggling not to fall behind, as Paul Krugman suggests today?
"The problem with the budget," John Cassidy diagnoses in the New Yorker, "isn’t its size or its underlying philosophy, which is one of pragmatic progressivism. The problem is that unless the deterioration of the economy stops, the Administration’s ambitious multiyear plans could end up being purely symbolic...
"With some economists talking openly about a 'depression,' the Administration needs to start rethinking elements of its recovery program, and the President himself needs to get more involved."
In the New York Review of Books, long-time Washington watcher Elizabeth Drew observes that "the still-new President has a staggering number of challenges before him...Yet the President was traveling for most of his third and fourth full weeks in office. A little more management may be in order" and adds that "the President's aides had concluded that it hadn't been helpful for Obama to be seen participating in the give-and-take of Washington, that 'that's not what he was elected to do.' Yes it is."
All this polite, nervous yet serious criticism of a president they were prepared to cheer on reflects the disappearance for opinion makers of the black-and-white days of Bush and the new era of huge gray issues such as economic stimulus, bank bailouts and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for Detroit.
MSM pundits and bloggers alike are struggling to adapt as Markos tells CNN that "our challenge is that line from destructive criticism to constructive criticism, because there is going to be criticism. The issue is how we manage that and it's a fine line and it's very tough sometimes."
Meanwhile, Barrack Obama is beginning to show a little gray in his hair as the rest of us watch and hope and hold our breaths.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Requiem for the Printed Word
The cover of Time this week shows not the Person of the Year but a vanishing artifact--the American newspaper--and reflects, in a larger sense, the coming end of journalism as we know it.
After a lifetime of putting words and images on paper--selling them, if you will--the computer screen and the crashing economy are conspiring to make what I did obsolete. (The timely site "Newspaper Death Watch" should be expanded to "Printed Word Death Watch" as magazines and books go onto life support.)
But the obsolescence is more than technical (nobody wept for the makers of buggy whips)--it involves a basic change in how we all get our sense of the world around us and, in many ways, not for the better.
"During the past few months," Walter Isaacson writes in Time, "the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions. It is now possible to contemplate a time when some major cities will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network-news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters."
As a journalist in the last century and a blogger now, I can testify to what this may mean for the future--self-serving information from political and social institutions beset by vociferous electronic critics with few disinterested reporters to mediate their distortions.
Even worse will be the sure death of investigative journalism to tell the public what it has no other way of knowing it needs to know.
Never mind nostalgia for exposing McCarthyism, Woodward and Bernstein et al, look back only as far as the Iraq war to see how journalists, after initially being gulled by the Bush Administration and goaded by bloggers, went about documenting the deception and uncovering what was being hidden.
It's easy to sneer at shortcomings of the MSM--they are serious and many--but if those primary sources go under and take their trained journalists with them, who will do the legwork for the legions of talking heads on cable TV and bloggers in heat?
As Timothy Egan pointed out on his New York Times blog, "there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post--even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter."
That day is practically here.
After a lifetime of putting words and images on paper--selling them, if you will--the computer screen and the crashing economy are conspiring to make what I did obsolete. (The timely site "Newspaper Death Watch" should be expanded to "Printed Word Death Watch" as magazines and books go onto life support.)
But the obsolescence is more than technical (nobody wept for the makers of buggy whips)--it involves a basic change in how we all get our sense of the world around us and, in many ways, not for the better.
"During the past few months," Walter Isaacson writes in Time, "the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions. It is now possible to contemplate a time when some major cities will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network-news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters."
As a journalist in the last century and a blogger now, I can testify to what this may mean for the future--self-serving information from political and social institutions beset by vociferous electronic critics with few disinterested reporters to mediate their distortions.
Even worse will be the sure death of investigative journalism to tell the public what it has no other way of knowing it needs to know.
Never mind nostalgia for exposing McCarthyism, Woodward and Bernstein et al, look back only as far as the Iraq war to see how journalists, after initially being gulled by the Bush Administration and goaded by bloggers, went about documenting the deception and uncovering what was being hidden.
It's easy to sneer at shortcomings of the MSM--they are serious and many--but if those primary sources go under and take their trained journalists with them, who will do the legwork for the legions of talking heads on cable TV and bloggers in heat?
As Timothy Egan pointed out on his New York Times blog, "there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post--even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter."
That day is practically here.
Monday, December 08, 2008
No Thomas Jefferson Bailout
With Congress preparing a $15 billion Christmas tip for Detroit, a more basic American industry is slowly going under.
"If I had to choose," Thomas Jefferson famously said, "between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."
The "latter" is in the grip of the financial squeeze and advertising losses in a failing economy as the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun files for bankruptcy protection today, and the New York Times is reportedly planning to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building to ease its cash crunch.
Some bloggers who hate the MSM will no doubt show little more sympathy for newspaper makers than the most of the public does for the car industry. Yet their downfall threatens us all in an age when we are awash in tip-of-the-iceberg news, while fewer and fewer journalists are helping us see what's going on under the surface.
As we are threatened with drowning in repetitious cable TV and online headline-chasing and opinionizing, we learn less and less about hard news that might help us with the informed consent that Jefferson wanted us to have and depend more and more on the government he did not trust in its absence,
As far back as 1922, in "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann pointed out that "the citizen will pay for his telephone, his railroad rides, his motor car, his entertainment. But he does not pay openly for his news,"
There won't be a Washington bailout for newspapers, so they will have to figure out new answers to who is going to pay for what we urgently need but expect to get free.
"If I had to choose," Thomas Jefferson famously said, "between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."
The "latter" is in the grip of the financial squeeze and advertising losses in a failing economy as the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun files for bankruptcy protection today, and the New York Times is reportedly planning to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building to ease its cash crunch.
Some bloggers who hate the MSM will no doubt show little more sympathy for newspaper makers than the most of the public does for the car industry. Yet their downfall threatens us all in an age when we are awash in tip-of-the-iceberg news, while fewer and fewer journalists are helping us see what's going on under the surface.
As we are threatened with drowning in repetitious cable TV and online headline-chasing and opinionizing, we learn less and less about hard news that might help us with the informed consent that Jefferson wanted us to have and depend more and more on the government he did not trust in its absence,
As far back as 1922, in "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann pointed out that "the citizen will pay for his telephone, his railroad rides, his motor car, his entertainment. But he does not pay openly for his news,"
There won't be a Washington bailout for newspapers, so they will have to figure out new answers to who is going to pay for what we urgently need but expect to get free.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Pregnant Pause in the Palin Story
From CNN: "Bristol Palin, the 17 year old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the father, a senior McCain aide confirmed to CNN Monday.
"McCain was aware of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he chose her mother for his running mate, the aide said."
So now a teenager's reproductive melodrama enters the presidential campaign, and the sounds of sanctimony on both sides will reach decibel level. A statement by the Palin family, exalted by the McCain campaign for family values, reads:
“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”
This new development will sorely test that "tradition," most recently reflected in the MSNBC suspension of correspondent David Shuster for musing on air about the Clinton campaign, "Doesn't it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"
The Sexual Spin Machines will be working overtime in the Twin Cities, much to the chagrin of those on both sides who believe that private behavior, particularly of minors, is no business of the public's, regardless of who profits politically from it.
"McCain was aware of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he chose her mother for his running mate, the aide said."
So now a teenager's reproductive melodrama enters the presidential campaign, and the sounds of sanctimony on both sides will reach decibel level. A statement by the Palin family, exalted by the McCain campaign for family values, reads:
“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”
This new development will sorely test that "tradition," most recently reflected in the MSNBC suspension of correspondent David Shuster for musing on air about the Clinton campaign, "Doesn't it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"
The Sexual Spin Machines will be working overtime in the Twin Cities, much to the chagrin of those on both sides who believe that private behavior, particularly of minors, is no business of the public's, regardless of who profits politically from it.
Friday, August 08, 2008
John Edwards Owns Up
The MSM's silent soap opera is over.
From ABC: "In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her." (Reminiscent of Bill Clinton's admission that he smoked marijuana but did not inhale?)
Even in confessing, Mr. Sincere is still playing the angles, timing his disclosure for a late Friday night news dump when all eyes will be on the opening of the Olympics. (My confession: Edwards has always brought out the worst in me, a skepticism bordering on cynicism. More here.)
"It is time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," Edwards says.
Amen to that.
From ABC: "In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her." (Reminiscent of Bill Clinton's admission that he smoked marijuana but did not inhale?)
Even in confessing, Mr. Sincere is still playing the angles, timing his disclosure for a late Friday night news dump when all eyes will be on the opening of the Olympics. (My confession: Edwards has always brought out the worst in me, a skepticism bordering on cynicism. More here.)
"It is time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," Edwards says.
Amen to that.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Opening John Edwards' Back Door
Like nature, scandal abhors a vacuum. Ignored by the MSM for weeks, the John Edwards illegitimate child story is oozing into sight with debate over his role at the Democratic convention.
"If there is not an explanation that’s satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards...he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention," Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chair, tells the Charlotte Observer.
"He absolutely does have to (resolve it). If it's not true, he has to issue a stronger denial," says a Democratic strategist who ran Edwards’ 1998 Senate race. "It's a very damaging thing.
"The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it's clearly getting ready to bust out. If it's not true, he's got to stand up and say, 'This is not true. That is not my child and I'm going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.' It's not enough to say, 'That’s tabloid trash.'"
No, it isn't and Edwards' continuing silence, while understandable on the personal level, does not bode well for his reputation and any future role on the national political stage.
"If there is not an explanation that’s satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards...he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention," Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chair, tells the Charlotte Observer.
"He absolutely does have to (resolve it). If it's not true, he has to issue a stronger denial," says a Democratic strategist who ran Edwards’ 1998 Senate race. "It's a very damaging thing.
"The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it's clearly getting ready to bust out. If it's not true, he's got to stand up and say, 'This is not true. That is not my child and I'm going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.' It's not enough to say, 'That’s tabloid trash.'"
No, it isn't and Edwards' continuing silence, while understandable on the personal level, does not bode well for his reputation and any future role on the national political stage.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Silence of the Hams
Like Sherlock Holmes' dog that didn't bark in the night, the MSM blackout on John Edwards' visit to his "mistress and love child" (particularly on the part of the cable news loudmouths) gets curiouser.
My assumption yesterday about "this morning's MSM reticence to what surely will be a cable news orgy tonight (Fox News in hog heaven over a fallen Democratic idol on Obama's VP list)" turned out to be stunningly wrong.
The reaction, or lack of it, on the part of the CNN, MSNBC and Fox operatic anchors and their endless panels of expert logorrhea is much more interesting than the story itself.
On Slate under the heading, "Edwards: The Agony of the MSM," Mickey Kaus asks, "If the MSM can discuss the charges in meta form ("It's so easy to jump to conclusions---and I admit, this looks bad") in blogs, chat rooms, and in press commentaries, why not on the front page in political commentaries?"
The most likely answer is a combination of fears about looking salacious and being insensitive to Elizabeth Edwards' medical condition. Even for a longtime non-admirer of John Edwards, this is understandable but not persuasive in the light of media reactions to previous political scandals, from Bill Clinton to David Vitter and Larry Craig.
The rationalizations, extending from "not proven" (the Enquirer today offers more details) to Edwards' privacy rights (he has been out front promoting his poverty campaign and hinting about being Obama's VP), fail to explain it.
As comforting as it would be to believe that all the media are developing more scruples about exploiting the personal lives of public figures, that explanation won't wash.
My assumption yesterday about "this morning's MSM reticence to what surely will be a cable news orgy tonight (Fox News in hog heaven over a fallen Democratic idol on Obama's VP list)" turned out to be stunningly wrong.
The reaction, or lack of it, on the part of the CNN, MSNBC and Fox operatic anchors and their endless panels of expert logorrhea is much more interesting than the story itself.
On Slate under the heading, "Edwards: The Agony of the MSM," Mickey Kaus asks, "If the MSM can discuss the charges in meta form ("It's so easy to jump to conclusions---and I admit, this looks bad") in blogs, chat rooms, and in press commentaries, why not on the front page in political commentaries?"
The most likely answer is a combination of fears about looking salacious and being insensitive to Elizabeth Edwards' medical condition. Even for a longtime non-admirer of John Edwards, this is understandable but not persuasive in the light of media reactions to previous political scandals, from Bill Clinton to David Vitter and Larry Craig.
The rationalizations, extending from "not proven" (the Enquirer today offers more details) to Edwards' privacy rights (he has been out front promoting his poverty campaign and hinting about being Obama's VP), fail to explain it.
As comforting as it would be to believe that all the media are developing more scruples about exploiting the personal lives of public figures, that explanation won't wash.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Truth as Private Property
Hostilities between the Associated Press and bloggers are escalating to the point that some are now vowing to stop linking to the wire service. Regardless of the merits, such conflict is unhealthy for the free flow of information in a society that depends on it.
As a part of traditional media, AP regards its output as property without distinguishing between form and substance. The arrangement of words and sentences in its reports belongs to the agency, but the news conveyed does not. The facts and public statements therein, once published, belong to everyone. "Published" literally means "making public"
Bloggers, regardless of where their information comes from, have the right to analyze and comment on news without restriction. What they may not have the right to do is cut and paste large chunks of AP stories, as some do, and add their reactions which, in some cases, amount to no more than "Oh, wow!" in either a positive or negative sense.
Even before the Internet, on-the-spot reporting was only a fraction of what MSM did. TV news often piggybacked on newspaper reporting, and magazines got most of their ideas and leads from daily news. In the future, with news bureaus being cut back for economic reasons, that will be truer than ever.
Those of us who spent a working lifetime dealing with copyrighted material have no formula for where "fair use" ends and theft begins. But context is important. If a blog post is using AP material as a taking-off point for commentary or to illustrate a point, that's "fair use," and a word count formula can't be the only criterion.
For example, if this post were legally copyrighted, fair use would be characterizing it, quoting from it and expressing views but not just lifting most of it without creating some new piece of writing. But the exhilarating thing about blogging is that such property considerations are beside the point.
Beyond that, the real puzzlement in this debate is defining what damage AP believes results from having bloggers quote from its output by linking to the media that are legally using it. In what way does it devalue the product or damage those legal users? In fact, don’t they benefit from getting more traffic to their web sites?
But, all that aside, the larger issue is that, in a free society, it's not a good idea to start treating the truth as private property.
As a part of traditional media, AP regards its output as property without distinguishing between form and substance. The arrangement of words and sentences in its reports belongs to the agency, but the news conveyed does not. The facts and public statements therein, once published, belong to everyone. "Published" literally means "making public"
Bloggers, regardless of where their information comes from, have the right to analyze and comment on news without restriction. What they may not have the right to do is cut and paste large chunks of AP stories, as some do, and add their reactions which, in some cases, amount to no more than "Oh, wow!" in either a positive or negative sense.
Even before the Internet, on-the-spot reporting was only a fraction of what MSM did. TV news often piggybacked on newspaper reporting, and magazines got most of their ideas and leads from daily news. In the future, with news bureaus being cut back for economic reasons, that will be truer than ever.
Those of us who spent a working lifetime dealing with copyrighted material have no formula for where "fair use" ends and theft begins. But context is important. If a blog post is using AP material as a taking-off point for commentary or to illustrate a point, that's "fair use," and a word count formula can't be the only criterion.
For example, if this post were legally copyrighted, fair use would be characterizing it, quoting from it and expressing views but not just lifting most of it without creating some new piece of writing. But the exhilarating thing about blogging is that such property considerations are beside the point.
Beyond that, the real puzzlement in this debate is defining what damage AP believes results from having bloggers quote from its output by linking to the media that are legally using it. In what way does it devalue the product or damage those legal users? In fact, don’t they benefit from getting more traffic to their web sites?
But, all that aside, the larger issue is that, in a free society, it's not a good idea to start treating the truth as private property.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Whistle-Blowing MSM Dogs Don't Hear
Behind the media popcorn of Scott McClellan's revelations, relatively unnoticed is a new book by the former American commander in Iraq that should be red meat for historians.
This week's Time has an excerpt from "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" by Gen. Ricardo Sanchez that nails his Pentagon boss Don Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the Bush Administration, for "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty" at the start of the unfolding disaster.
This is no out-of-the-loop flunky's account of what happened, but the testimony of the man in the middle of it all, one of the generals whose advice Bush maintained he would follow but obviously did not.
The Central Command, Gen. Sanchez writes, had originally planned 12 to 18 months of active troop deployments but then "had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over...
"That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.
"There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse [Gen. Tommy] Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.
"In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
Amid all the whistle-blowing in Washington these days, this particular one by Gen. Sanchez should be heard loud and clear, but so far the media dogs are not responding to its frequency.
This week's Time has an excerpt from "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" by Gen. Ricardo Sanchez that nails his Pentagon boss Don Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the Bush Administration, for "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty" at the start of the unfolding disaster.
This is no out-of-the-loop flunky's account of what happened, but the testimony of the man in the middle of it all, one of the generals whose advice Bush maintained he would follow but obviously did not.
The Central Command, Gen. Sanchez writes, had originally planned 12 to 18 months of active troop deployments but then "had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over...
"That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.
"There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse [Gen. Tommy] Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.
"In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
Amid all the whistle-blowing in Washington these days, this particular one by Gen. Sanchez should be heard loud and clear, but so far the media dogs are not responding to its frequency.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Withdrawal Symptoms
The pundits will have to go into rehab--the TV talking heads, newspaper columnists, the bloggers who have been overdosing on Obama-Clinton for more than a year and just can't quit cold turkey.
Maureen Dowd ransacks pop culture to describe Hillary as "less Blanche than Scarlett. 'Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you,' Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey.
"And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary. On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans 'a nuclear option' during her Shermanesque march to Denver...get the Florida and Michigan delegates seated."
"Is Hillary Done?" Howard Kurtz asks in the Washington Post but scrounges for evidence that she isn't after citing the New York Post headline "TOAST" and Andrew Sullivan confesses that Obama's "patriotic message tonight...moved me to my core" while noting that "African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy."
The reluctance to let go brings back memories of what the politicians said after Eisenhower had a heart attack before his reelection in 1956: If he dies, they'll run him posthumously.
The Clinton campaign is now entering its life-after-death phase.
Maureen Dowd ransacks pop culture to describe Hillary as "less Blanche than Scarlett. 'Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you,' Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey.
"And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary. On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans 'a nuclear option' during her Shermanesque march to Denver...get the Florida and Michigan delegates seated."
"Is Hillary Done?" Howard Kurtz asks in the Washington Post but scrounges for evidence that she isn't after citing the New York Post headline "TOAST" and Andrew Sullivan confesses that Obama's "patriotic message tonight...moved me to my core" while noting that "African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy."
The reluctance to let go brings back memories of what the politicians said after Eisenhower had a heart attack before his reelection in 1956: If he dies, they'll run him posthumously.
The Clinton campaign is now entering its life-after-death phase.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Elizabeth Edwards, Media Critic
The most cogent and heartfelt critique of the coverage of this Presidential campaign comes today from the wife of a candidate who was at the heart of the media melodrama.
"Watching the campaign unfold," Elizabeth Edwards writes in the New York Times, "I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride.
"And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities."
She cites an independent study showing that during the early months of 2008, 63 percent of campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.
But the media circus is a tacit collaboration between politicians and reporters, who assume (with considerable justification) that voters will be more interested in the cost of John Edwards' haircuts than his poverty proposals. If the media are shallow, the public and politicians have been their willing partners in what Mrs. Edwards calls "the Cliff Notes of the news" and "strobe-light journalism."
Only now, in desperation, after months of picayune personal attacks, does Hillary Clinton propose Lincoln-Douglas style debating on the issues without a moderator, as Barack Obama seems headed for the nomination despite the networks' best efforts to make mud fights out of their previous encounters.
"As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina," Mrs. Edwards writes, "I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
"If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie 'Network' but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can--as voters--do ours."
Well said, but don't hold your breath until that happens.
"Watching the campaign unfold," Elizabeth Edwards writes in the New York Times, "I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride.
"And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities."
She cites an independent study showing that during the early months of 2008, 63 percent of campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.
But the media circus is a tacit collaboration between politicians and reporters, who assume (with considerable justification) that voters will be more interested in the cost of John Edwards' haircuts than his poverty proposals. If the media are shallow, the public and politicians have been their willing partners in what Mrs. Edwards calls "the Cliff Notes of the news" and "strobe-light journalism."
Only now, in desperation, after months of picayune personal attacks, does Hillary Clinton propose Lincoln-Douglas style debating on the issues without a moderator, as Barack Obama seems headed for the nomination despite the networks' best efforts to make mud fights out of their previous encounters.
"As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina," Mrs. Edwards writes, "I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
"If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie 'Network' but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can--as voters--do ours."
Well said, but don't hold your breath until that happens.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Media Meltdown
Below the radar of the subprime crisis and credit crunch are signs of distress in American media. ABC and CBS are cutting jobs, and Newsweek is shrinking its staff with over 100 buyouts.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Another F.D.R.?
As the Ron Paul rebellion bubbles up on the Internet, there are increasing signs of Big Media discontent as well.
Today Paul Krugman in the New York Times proclaims, "Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world." This leads him to criticize Barack Obama (yet again) as naïve and "out of touch with the strong populist tide running in America right now."
Krugman's alternative is John Edwards, who is portraying himself as "another F.D.R.--a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes."
If Edwards is the answer, what's the question? He may not be as weird as Ron Paul, but his windmill-tilting is much less sincere. Paul's country-doctor ethic comes from a lifetime of bedrock distrust of government power. Edwards is a negligence lawyer who milked the system for millions, spent one undistinguished term in the Senate and, only when he hit the campaign trail, started posing as the friend of the poor.
For those old enough to respond to Krugman's F.D.R. analogy, try Huey Long.
Today Paul Krugman in the New York Times proclaims, "Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world." This leads him to criticize Barack Obama (yet again) as naïve and "out of touch with the strong populist tide running in America right now."
Krugman's alternative is John Edwards, who is portraying himself as "another F.D.R.--a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes."
If Edwards is the answer, what's the question? He may not be as weird as Ron Paul, but his windmill-tilting is much less sincere. Paul's country-doctor ethic comes from a lifetime of bedrock distrust of government power. Edwards is a negligence lawyer who milked the system for millions, spent one undistinguished term in the Senate and, only when he hit the campaign trail, started posing as the friend of the poor.
For those old enough to respond to Krugman's F.D.R. analogy, try Huey Long.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Rumors About Trent Lott's Retirement
This could be a case study of the difference in news values between the Mainstream Media and blogs.
After Trent Lott's surprising announcement yesterday that he would retire from the Senate at the end of the year, there was puzzlement about his motives and timing. Why would the second most powerful Republican resign after two decades with five years left in his current term to "pursue something else"?
Then, lo and behold, a questionable D.C.-based blog last night offers a gay-sex scandal to explain it all. This morning, the young man involved denies it all and the whole story pulses through the blogosphere in a tizzy of titillation and disappointment.
Unless the arbiter of Washington sleaze, Larry Flynt, comes forward with evidence, file it under "Sex Scandals That Never Happened" with yesterday's Drudge Report of a British rumor about Hillary Clinton's affair with a female aide.
This post will self-destruct in 30 seconds.
After Trent Lott's surprising announcement yesterday that he would retire from the Senate at the end of the year, there was puzzlement about his motives and timing. Why would the second most powerful Republican resign after two decades with five years left in his current term to "pursue something else"?
Then, lo and behold, a questionable D.C.-based blog last night offers a gay-sex scandal to explain it all. This morning, the young man involved denies it all and the whole story pulses through the blogosphere in a tizzy of titillation and disappointment.
Unless the arbiter of Washington sleaze, Larry Flynt, comes forward with evidence, file it under "Sex Scandals That Never Happened" with yesterday's Drudge Report of a British rumor about Hillary Clinton's affair with a female aide.
This post will self-destruct in 30 seconds.
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