Entries associated with the tag "Media":

The important thing about the mainstream media isn't whether they lean one way or the other politically on a particular occasion. The important thing is that they are deeply stupid. Jamison Foster at Media Matters:

"No moderator [in the candidate debates so far] has asked a single question of a single candidate about whether the president should be able to order the indefinite detention of an American citizen, without charging the prisoner with any crime.

"But Tim Russert did ask Congressman Dennis Kucinich -- in what he felt compelled to insist was 'a serious question' -- whether he has seen a UFO.

"No moderator has asked a single question about whether the candidates agree with the Bush administration's rather skeptical view of congressional oversight.

"But Hillary Clinton was asked, 'Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?'"

Most Americans have figured out by now that W isn't just an annoyance, he's a disaster. But that doesn't mean he's the only disaster, and long-time DC observer Sam Smith of Progressive Review, as usual, is ahead of the pack. Last week he pointed out 11 ways in which the mainstream media (which he insists on treating as singular) are stage-managing, filtering, and otherwise rigging the 2008 presidential race.

If you have links to counterexamples, bring 'em on; so far even the blogosphere doesn't seem to have produced much commentary on this. Smith, who's a Green Party member, has been unrelenting in his criticism of both the Clinton and Bush families, and so as far as I can tell he isn't welcome in either echo chamber. His MSM indictment:

"It created the Barack Obama myth out of whole cloth. A political lightweight from the Chicago Democratic machine with a virtually non-existent record has been turned into JFK II.

"It has steadfastly refused to report on the numerous scandals associated with Hillary Clinton's past, sending years of corruption, dissembling and abuse of power down the Orwellian memory hole.

"It has not done much better with the true history of Rudolph Giuliani, creating a heroic myth based largely on behavior on one particular day, 9/11, that might have been expected of any mayor of a major city.

"With both Clinton and Giuliani it has particularly avoided their extraordinary connections with criminal figures. Whatever the ultimate import of these relationships are, the voters are entitled to know with whom their candidates have consorted.

"As we have demonstrated with our headline survey, John Edwards has been consistently blacked out of the news coverage despite being ahead of Obama in more than a half dozen states.

"When covered, Edwards has been trivialized or criticized in a manner used on no other major candidate. For example, his wealth has been targeted in a way that John Kerry's never was and Hillary Clinton's
isn't. While it is fair ground to tell about his $400 haircut, it is not
fair meanwhile to censor Obama's parking tickets in Massachusetts that
were left unpaid from college days until he decided to run for
president. Even when Elizabeth Edwards criticized Ann Coulter for her
hateful attacks on her husband, she was later said by major media to
have "defended" her remarks as though standing up for her husband was
beyond the pale.

"The media has bought into the Fred Thompson myth, despite the fact that Thompson - like Obama - has virtually nothing on his resume to recommend him for the job.

"The media has made little efforts to help voters understand the real differences between the candidates as opposed to the variations in their iconic and fantastical spin. 

"The major media has almost totally ignored the GOP vote caging scandal uncovered by Greg Palast.

"The major media has consistently treated majority American positions on the war and healthcare as out of the mainstream.

"And it has largely ignored the ever growing evidence of failure and corruption involving the use of electronic voting machines."

Tim Flannery, the Australian scientist who wrote The Weather Makers, has an interesting take on Michael Pollan and Bill McKibben in the New York Review of Books. But when he veers into media matters, he reveals that he's been drinking way too much liberal Kool-Aid:

"One suspects that were they confined to truly local radio, the likes of Rush Limbaugh would be more clearly seen as nothing but the offensive, bigoted buffoons that they are. If, that is, they could get anywhere near a microphone in the first place."

Deal with it: there really are very large numbers of Americans who adore offensive, bigoted buffoons. Not even a wildly impossible reform (like confining talent to a single local radio station) will make them go away.

Former Clinton subcabinet official and professional economist Brad DeLong was asking potential successors a key question in the summer of 2000, seven long years ago:

"I began asking Republicans I know--by and large people who might be natural candidates for short lists for various subcabinet policy positions in a Republican administration--how worried they were that the Republican candidate for president, George W. Bush, was clearly not up to the job: underbriefed and incurious. They were not worried, they told me. One of President Clinton's problems, they said, was that the ceremonial portions of the job bored him--and thus he got himself into big trouble. Look at how George W. Bush had operated at the Texas Rangers, they said. Bush let the managers manage the team and the financial guys run the business, and spent his time making sure the political coalition to support the Texas Rangers in the style to which it wanted to be accustomed remained stable. Bush knows his strengths and weaknesses, they told me. He will focus on being America's Queen Elizabeth II, and will let people like Colin Powell and Paul O'Neill be America's Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

"By the summer of 2001 it had become clear to me that something had gone very wrong. Rather than following Paul O'Neill and Christine Todd Whitman's advice on environmental policy, George W. Bush had rejected it. Rather than following Alan Greenspan and Paul O'Neill'S advice on fiscal policy, George W. Bush had rejected it. Rather than following Colin Powell and Condi Rice's advice on the importance of pushing forward on negotiations between Israel and Palestine, George W. Bush had rejected it. And--we were all to learn later--rather than following George Tenet and Richard Clarke's advice about the importance of counterterrorism, George W. Bush had rejected it.

"A strange picture of George W. Bush emerged from conversations with subcabinet Bush Administration appointees and their friends and their friends of friends. He was not just underbriefed but lazy: he insisted on remaining underbriefed. He was not just incurious but arrogant: he insisted on making decisions about things he did not know, and hence made decisions that were essentially random. And he was stubborn: once he had made a decision--even or rather especially if it was a howlingly wrong and stupid one--he would never revisit it."

DeLong's point is that the mainstream media failed to tell this story until the last year or so. What strikes me, looking forward to the most open election since 1952, is how difficult it was even for informed people to predict the character-based catastrophe of the Bush presidency before the 2000 election (the 2004 election is another matter altogether; MSM or no, the evidence was clear to those who cared to see). I know enough to vote only for a candidate who repudiates Bush and his policies, but how can I know enough to avoid getting the same empty-suit-takes-charge syndrome from some other quarter?

Short version of this morning's Chicago Tribune front-pager: A rich guy who doesn't wear a suit has bought a rich newspaper run by rich guys who do wear suits. The rich guy who doesn't wear a suit says the paper should be "relevant."

One way to be relevant: dispatch Dick Tracy and Charles Krauthammer on a one-way mission to Iran.

I actually know someone who'd be delighted to send a postcard made largely of dried squid—and according to Pink Tentacle, such objects may now be available from Susami, Wakayama prefecture, Japan.

The avatar of Chicago's Seventh Circuit Federal Appellate Court Judge Richard Posner will be interviewed on Second Life December 7 about his new book, Not A Suicide Pact, according to Wagner James Au at New World Notes. Maybe Judge Posner can get on the Supreme Court there.

Chicago lawyering is being increasingly offshored, writes Moushumi Anand in the Chi-Town Daily News, with the help of firms like Mindcrest ("a pioneer in legal outsourcing since 2001"). "An outsourcing firm in India charges between $25 and $90 an hour for work done by a attorney. Similar work done by an attorney in the United States can cost between $120 and 250."

Too much spare time? News Trust has a brand-new site where you can nominate, read, and evaluate news stories— a kind of social bookmarking site with a side of journalism critique. (Hat tip to Dan Gillmor at the Center for Citizen Media.)

If this doesn't immediately warm your heart, you are not a geek. Jennifer Ouelette of Cocktail Party Physics on why she's engaged to fellow blogger Sean Carroll: "Let's just say that the man has his very own bag of plush plagues, stuffed toys that represent the biblical ten plagues of Egypt."

The media's wild ride continues: "It will require only a slight shift in the economic model for the [Thomas] Friedmans of the world to realize that they don’t need the newspapers they work for. " Read the whole thing by Michael Hirschorn in the Atlantic (brief ad viewing required; hat tip to Kiki).

Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren analyzes General Social Survey data and finds a trend among less sophisticated, or less scrupulous, conservatives: "Those who express less tolerance for unpopular groups tend to favor income redistribution and oppose capitalism."  Abstract here, discussion here.

Last rites for VHS, performed by Ed Darrell at Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, who learned of the death from Variety. The Dead Media Project saw it coming. 

Do you hate apostrpophe mis'use more than fingernails on a blackboard, but can't stop seeing it? Then you'll "enjoy" this collection at Give, Get, Take, and Have (via Boing Boing), which also showcases misspellings and "quotation mark" abuse.

Football maps showing which NFL game is on where, and why, here. (Hat tip to The Map Room.)

MyTWords, a 43-year-old guy with a job in education in downstate Urbana, is keeping an eye on "right-wing, progovernment, and corporate bias" on National Public Radio at NPR Check.

Last weekend he noted that all the polls showed that the November 7 voters were opposed to the Iraq war, corruption, and George W. Bush. So why are NPR personalities like Mara Liasson and Daniel Schorr making up the notion that voters asked for bipartisanship and cooperation?

Why do you think? My first (charitable) guess is that they share the kind of upper-middle-class good taste that frowns on actual partisanship and strives to be a bit above it all.

Did Bush swing states like Missouri to the Democrats? Chuck Todd of the National Journal presents some evidence.  Billmon says, "I thought Shrub would end up about as popular as cholera. But I never thought he'd prove almost as lethal."

Georgia10 at Daily Kos (Reader readers know her from the April 26 cover story) observes that the mainstream media echoed Republican talking points that the Democrats had no positive agenda -- until it became clear that the Dems had won.  "Only now, after most races have been called and it's clear that the Democrats will take power, only now do they report on that which they had suppressed throughout the campaign. Now we get articles detailing the Democrats' tax plan."

Will defeat make Republicans more libertarian? Indiana's Mike Pence is running for Hastert's job on a platform Libertarians like. (Note that in the Montana Senate race the Libertarian candidate's vote total was triple the winning margin.)

If you don't gag at the thought, Mental Floss has a collection of best and worst campaign videos.

"It takes a true lack of class to fire a newspaperman on the day he's most needed, just to ensure no one sees the story." -- Harry Siegel at Cities on a Hill, on the Tribune Company choosing election day to toss the recalcitrant Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet off their weaving chariot.

Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter stayed up till the wee hours so we didn't have to. It was all worth it when he heard this, from Chris Matthews's lips to Pat Buchanan's ears: "Let's not pretend you were on Lincoln's side in that war!"

On October 5, the chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, Ed Lazear, told the Washington Times, "We do not say the tax cuts pay for themselves." (Hat tip to Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal.)

Last night on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program, reporter Nancy Marshall Genzer reported on the deficit created by Lazear's boss: "President Bush says if Congress will make his tax cuts permanent, they'll boost the economy and help to reduce the deficit." She did not mention that the chief executive's own economist had publicly refused to eat this baloney.

It's not as though Genzer missed breaking news. Bush has been ignoring the fact that his tax cuts reduced government revenue -- according to his own experts -- since at least 2003, as documented by political scientist and blogger Brendan Nyhan (who quit writing for the American Prospect blog after editors complained he criticized too many liberals) in his ongoing series, "Bush vs. His Economists."

Bush is good at ignoring expert advice. It's good politics for him to do so, since the platform of starving and shrinking the government still doesn't command majority appeal. But what's in it for Nominally Public Radio and the rest of the media, that they allow this big lie from the Reagan era to live on unchallenged?

• Just be sure to pick up more than you leave behind.  Openlands Project and the Forest Preserve District are sponsoring a cleanup day along the Little Calumet River, which flows through south suburbs including Calumet City, Harvey, and Blue Island.  (Sign up at 312/863-6253.)  According to the email announcement, "This event is sponsored by McDonald's and participants will receive a free McDonald's lunch!"

• How hard is it to say, "Less Sports"?  In Minnesota, the Center for School Change, headed by Joe Nathan, reports that last spring the local Star-Tribune newspaper published about six times as much on high-school athletes as on high-school academic stars.  (Sounds like an undercount to me.)  The center and allied groups want the paper (and the electronic media) to do better.  But, writes Nathan, "We're not urging reduced attention to high school sports, just more coverage of students who excel in academics."  Huh?  If they're not urging that, they're not urging anything.  News coverage, like attention in general, is a zero-sum game.

• Sure, Speaker Hastert will take your call, Mr. Mayor!  Mayor Daley to the Sun-Times:  “If you took the impropriety of every congressman and senator in Washington D.C. [as an excuse to demand resignations], I don’t think anybody would be left.” 

• Once more with feeling.  Downstate Peoria Republican U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood urges that the Congressional page program be abolished, on CNN: "M. O'BRIEN: Well, that's kind of a sorry state of affairs. In essence, what you're saying is that members of Congress can't be trusted to be around young people.  LAHOOD: Well, that's pretty obvious."

We're slowly catching up to the fact that video games are not only games but a new medium on par with newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, and the Internet. Columbia College Chicago now offers a four-year undergraduate major in game design. Their FAQ starts with, "Can I really get a degree in Game Design? Is this a 'real' degree?" Yes and yes.

Now the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists makes a pitch for the public-radio crowd by highlighting how "serious games" are being used to train soldiers and firefighters.

Hazmat: Hotzone, writes Josh Schollmeyer, puts firefighters "on the scene, forcing quick decisions and testing their assumptions in a safe, virtual environment." One gaming test featured a sarin attack in a shopping mall:

"Almost immediately, a cyber firefighter collapsed. 'I thought if I could see, it was safe to go in,' the firefighter controlling the character told his instructor. 'Not when you have suspicion of a hazmat,' the instructor responded."

Which medium is more likely to produce a knowledgeable professional? A text medium like this one, or the game?

Things get more interesting as games move into less cut-and-dried subject matter. A Force More Powerful--the Game of Nonviolent Strategy is described on its Web site as "the first and only interactive teaching tool in the field of nonviolent conflict." Interactive media are on the verge of teaching things that others really can't.

In the market, however, serious games are still what one advocate calls a "rounding error." Schollmeyer: "A Force More Powerful will ship 4,000 copies in its first six months of release. . . . Halo 2 . . . sold 2.4 million copies within the first 24 hours it hit retail shelves in 2004."

Wikipedia says that blogs combine "text, images, and links."  By that standard, the Reader has had one since August 16, 1985, when the ink for "The City File" first hit the back pages of the paper. (Check out an image of that column below.)

Of course, back then we had neither the word "blog" nor hyperlink technology. "Google" was just a way to misspell a very large number, and any reader who questioned the information in an item had to make phone calls and/or visit a public library.  But a bloggy substance was already there in that first column--short snips that referred to original sources and occasionally provoked conversation.  
 
In that first blog entry I noted that local entrepreneurs had to find venture capital in Minneapolis; today Marshall Field's is set to become Macy's, dancing to a tune played at regional headquarters in--Minneapolis. Other items back then chronicled drug-war insanity and racism in schools and public housing, and one quoted now-famous new urbanist Peter Calthorpe's case that city dwellers are doing the environment a favor just by . . . being city dwellers.  

The medium has changed, but the stroboscopic alternation of insight and idiocy goes on.