Tag: MSM

Excessive

Bob Somerby reacts to this tidbit from the WaPo:

It is possible to sympathize with Clinton. Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful—and arrogant—the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media’s obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect.

with this:

It didn’t seem excessive to Thomas when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton helped murder Vince Foster.

It didn’t seem excessive to Thomas when Jerry Falwell spent years peddling the Clinton murder tapes—remaining an honored guest on Meet the Press, and on cable “news” programs.

It didn’t seem excessive to Thomas when Dan Burton was shooting up pumpkins in his back yard, showing how Foster may have died.

It didn’t seem excessive (or strange) to Thomas when the original special prosecutor got canned by a panel of right-wing judges—and was replaced by a well-known conservative functionary.

It didn’t seem excessive to Thomas when Fools for Scandal published the documents the New York Times had disappeared in the course of inventing the Whitewater “scandal.”

It didn’t seem excessive when a first lady was called a “congenital liar” by a bungling major columnist. It didn’t seem excessive when the Village called her every name in the book as they pretended that she had lied about the Cubs and the Yankees. It didn’t seem excessive when the Post published that disgraceful piece by Andrew Sullivan, two days before the 1996 election. (Headline: “Clinton: Not a Flicker Of Moral Life.”) It hadn’t seemed excessive when that same baboon had published that crap by Betsy McCaughey, in 1994—a piece whose fraudulence became quite clear in rather short order.

These events made perfect sense at the time! To Thomas, they only seem excessive in retrospect! By the way, did it seem excessive when the Post and the Times invented all that sh*t about Candidate Gore, then pimped it for twenty straight months?

Did that seem “excessive” in real time?

Wowie. My reaction seems tame in comparison. Read the whole thing.

New Rules

Dan Gillmor writes a list of 22 ideas that would improve journalism (or, more accurately, “journalism”) as it’s practiced today. As with any such list, some are more essential than others. A few of my favorites, not necessarily in order:

We would not run anniversary stories and commentary, except in the rarest of circumstances.

Every day is the x-th anniversary of y. This fact, in and of itself, does not require the fraction of the print-hole currently devoted to reminding us of this. In the internet era, in fact, such practice is less than useless. The 100th anniversary of the end of WWII, and other such seminal, big-number dates do still demand at least some backward looks, but daily papers likely aren’t the place for that either, unless they decide to go long-form and really provide something unique. The ease in producing them coupled with a (seemingly) disdainful regard for their readers’ needs perhaps explains why they choose to roll out such vacuous, culturally debatable, and ultimately banal looks back at the Summer of Love (and etc…) when coupled with the Baby Boom generation’s apparently endless reserve of self-regard (and their eternal willingness to pay for ever more talismen of group identification) are probably prime drivers here. It should stop here and now. Likewise such practices as the news weeklies’ semi-annual “Jesus” issues.

Close second in terms of annoyance: the empty trend piece. More and more people are complaining about the frequency of anniversary-based reporting…

The known knowns, and the unknown knowns:

[…] every print article would have an accompanying box called “Things We Don’t Know,” a list of questions our journalists couldn’t answer in their reporting.

God almighty, this may be the most important one. Certainly such a policy would damn near put Lemkin out of business. Context should be king. Would that we had a media that didn’t aim merely to terrify instead of inform. Then we might actually have a sane national discourse on Iran, among many others.

The next two seem pretty much different sides of the same coin:

We would refuse to do stenography and call it journalism. If one faction or party to a dispute is lying, we would say so, with the accompanying evidence. If we learned that a significant number of people in our community believed a lie about an important person or issue, we would make it part of an ongoing mission to help them understand the truth.

We would replace PR-speak and certain Orwellian words and expressions with more neutral, precise language. If someone we interview misused language, we would paraphrase instead of using direct quotations. (Examples, among many others: The activity that takes place in casinos is gambling, not gaming. There is no death tax, there can be inheritance or estate tax. Piracy does not describe what people do when they post digital music on file-sharing networks.)

This is way up there, though it implies an outsized influence of print journalism…perhaps such a policy would filter into television and internet media, perhaps not. Anything done to reduce the repeating of either party’s talking points and scare lines, even just in print media, would be worth doing. Even if it does nothing to the larger discourse, we’d at least have a little bubble of rational discourse out there for people to find when they tired of the idiocy that is TV news and talk radio.

Which leads us to:

If we granted anonymity and learned that the unnamed source had lied to us, we would consider the confidentially agreement to have been breached by that person, and would expose his or her duplicity, and identity.

Yes, yes, a thousand times: yes. This alone would fix much of what ails the modern political MSM. Quite simply: Karl Rove could not have existed in an environment like that.

Which brings us to a real innovation in the sense of combining the limitless capacity of the web with the inherently limited capacity of the daily paper:

For any person or topic we covered regularly, we would provide a “baseline”: an article or video where people could start if they were new to the topic

You’d free more space in the paper for analysis of the topic at hand (by moving the background into the baseline piece) and be able to provide a hell of a lot more baseline as well. Excellent idea. The New York Times could, if it chose to, absolutely dominate the baseline industry without much of an investment. They choose not to, apparently. They do so at their peril. Somebody will do it, and soon.

Finally:

We would never publish lists of ten. They’re a prop for lazy and unimaginative people.

Agreed. This is precisely why Lemkin posts Lists of Four.

Two Little Caveats

NYT readers seem to understand the problems with American healthcare in ways that NYT writers never seem to:

The Swiss system for universal coverage is certainly intriguing, but there are two little caveats that will make it unappealing to our legislature: the insurance companies are to some extent nonprofit, and the drug prices are regulated. The Swiss system directly attacks what is wrong with the American health care system: profit.

Get Your Ass to Mars

Chris Matthews, apparently a longtime resident of Olympus Mons, talks to Clinton biographer Taylor Branch about the Fools for Scandal that are the Villagers:

Branch: Well, first of all, [Bill Clinton] was frustrated that his presidency was off course and besieged by tabloid scandals for six years of which the Lewinsky one was the only one that proved any substance. He forfeited the attempt to rise above the cynicism of the tabloid era by validating that cynicism with Monica Lewinsky. And his only explanation was that he felt sorry for himself, yet he was trying so hard to to be a good president and all anybody wanted to talk about was filegate, travelgate and whether or not he had killed Vince Foster.

Matthews: Did he think that people … well let’s get to some of the more extreme charges against him. Did he think that anybody thought that, anybody real, I mean we talk about the nut jobs all the time. But does anybody really think that Bill Clinton put a hit on his friend Vince Foster?

Branch: No, but it stayed in the news for six years.

Matthews: What news?

Branch: …. that’s astonishing. It was all over the place.

Matthews: What newspapers carried that?

Branch: Well first of all..

Matthews: The Clinton Chronicles, you know and Fox

Branch: Ken Starr could make stories about it all the time. It was an official investigation of the Whitewater special counsel.

This has been something of a recurrent theme with the establishment press in DC. They created Whitewater. They hounded Clinton for years. They invented stories about Gore out of whole cloth (these tales remarkably always managing to buttress preferred GOP talking points), and continue to repeat them to this day as though they are fact. But, when confronted directly about their complicity…they go into Sergeant Schultz mode: “I know nothing! I see nothing!” and act like it’s a brand new fucking discovery that the MSM was directly responsible for the lead-up to the Clinton impeachment, just like they were directly responsible for the run-up to the Iraq war. But they are fundamentally incapable of admitting or even perceiving this. Again with the Upton Sinclair:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Which, perhaps should be moderately revised to:

It is difficult to get a complicit media agent to understand something when they became millionaires by not understanding it.

You’d think there wouldn’t be anything more remarkable in the Branch interview than the Vince Foster stuff excerpted above. But there is:

Matthews: Why would he think that the liberal establishment, reflected in newspeople’s opinions were anti-Clinton?

Branch: That’s what drove him nuts. But more specifically, the New York Times and the Washington Post drove the Whitewater scandals and he always looked up to them and he though they were sucked into some tabloid netherworld that was detracting from his agenda for the country.

And continues to detract from any substantive agenda to this day. But, setting that aside for the moment, it’s utterly breathtaking to see Matthews here, pretending as though the six year war on Clinton, the subsequent war on Gore, the role the MSM played in the “election” of George W. Bush over Gore, the parroting of Bush lies as truth, and the bitter, still-unwinding outcome of those lies and all the rest: just never happened. Well, maybe, but only on FoxNEWS or something. This man was himself complicit in these events. Here’s Matthews on W. Bush:

MATTHEWS: What’s the importance of the president’s amazing display of leadership tonight?

[…]

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically […], the president deserves everything he’s doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That […] if you’re going to run against him, you’d better be ready to take [that] away from him.

[…]

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here’s a president who’s really nonverbal. He’s like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

And on and on and on.

Here’s Matthews on the “Clinton ordered Vince Foster’s murder” theories, chatting with Gennifer Flowers, no less, having a conversation he now denies ever happened in the MSM:

Ms. FLOWERS: I don’t know for–I didn’t hear Bill get on the phone and call and place the order to have this man killed, no.

MATTHEWS: Well, that’s not–you sort of need evidence like that to accuse even this guy, your–a guy you don’t like, perhaps, of murder, don’t you?

Ms. FLOWERS: Well, I–well, I think if it looks like a chicken and walks like a chicken, perhaps it’s a chicken. I mean, come on.

MATTHEWS: Well, perhaps, perhaps.

Now, of course, none of this ever happened. Not in the mainstream media, of course. Only those fringe lunatics ever talked about this stuff. Un-fucking-believable.

All About the Benefits

TNR reports on the firing of Hyatt’s Boston-area housekeepers, noting:

The housekeepers, some of whom had worked for Hyatt for over twenty years, were making between $14 and $16 an hour plus health, dental, and 401(k) benefits. Their replacements were to make $8 an hour with no health benefits.

It’s unclear to me why, within the context of the current debate about healthcare, the benefits angle to this story has received zero attention. Instead, everyone rushes to the $16/hr to $8/hr change in gross-pay. Sure, Hyatt is now paying half as much and these replacements are, apparently, pretty much all there on guest-worker visas (and so are, by definition, short-term, damned near cash basis day workers).

The key fact, though, is all that stuff that comes after the mention of base pay. These folks that have been fired were getting health, dental, and 401k benefits. That’s a vaguely astounding contract they had; seemingly unprecedented, actually. I’d wager Hyatt cut their expenses on employing these workers by four to five fold just by dropping benefits. Tacking on the pay cut was just gravy; something they did because they could. Based on some back-of-envelope calculations using these figures to get ballpark estimates for provisioning the insurance coverage, to provide the health benefits (forgetting dental and 401k for now) Hyatt was paying these workers the equivalent of $23/hr. Add in the rest and you’re up to $30/hr easily. Probably well beyond it.

So, we have workers’ jobs cut specifically to save on the (presumably) outrageous expense of providing them with healthcare; these firings have subsequently gone national for a variety of completely unrelated reasons. During the biggest healthcare debate of my lifetime. What does the media focus on with absolute uniformity? An $8/hr pay differential. As if nothing else is going on here. Do we mention that these uninsured guest workers still create a cost on healthcare in this country? Do we mention that Hyatt has effectively shifted some of its healthcare expenses from Hyatt to you, the US Taxpayer? Do we mention that this is yet another clear-cut case of spiraling health coverage costs measurably and indisputably claiming jobs, all the while adding to the rolls of the unemployed (and uncovered) in this country? Of course not. Keep walking. That sort of thing just isn’t said.

Center-right (in Germany)

The MSM is lately trumpeting the German elections having created a “center-right” governing coalition as though that construction has meaning, or at least the same meaning in the United States as it does in Germany. And, of course, it plays to their MSM-preferred storyline that the “split-the-difference” solution is not just better politics, it’s better policy. Which is utter nonsense. But, for context, let’s review just what were the two key issues of the recent German elections:

-modest middle-income tax relief

-work toward a strategy for the eventual withdrawal of the more than 4,200 German troops in Afghanistan

The first is and was a key Obama plank. Everyone, and I mean everyone, on the “right” in Congress voted against that. Some Democrats on the right did too. The second wouldn’t even be on the table of a nationwide election in this country unless you’re Dennis Kucinich, or some other denizen of the “far” left. The fact is, our political spectrum has been radically re-formulated; this began with Reagan and accelerated mightily under W. Bush. Today’s bipartisanship, such as it exists at all, is between left- and right-of center Democrats. This seemingly obvious fact is, as yet, utterly unknown to the MSM. I’ve seriously never, ever seen mention of it outside the progressive blogosphere. It just isn’t said. Keep walking.

Anyway, back in Germany, it would seem the main point of contention comes down to:

the Conservatives disagree with the Liberals on some policy issues, for instance on how much regulation the finance sector needs or on the right balance between strengthening security measures and protecting civil rights.

That (at least) sounds vaguely familiar. Again, though, in the US, the GOP is categorically against any new financial regulation. Hell, Palin is going around saying there’s still too much financial regulation. But, I think we can rest assured: in Germany, “conservatives” are categorically for universal healthcare, support relatively high tax rates (compared to the United States; these very “center-right” Germans support raising corporate taxes, for instance), and are calling for a less aggressive global military stance (again, relative to the US).  Does anyone out there believe that any of those policy positions would fly in the modern GOP? At any level?

But, by all means, let’s simplify matters and just pretend that the German-GOP had big gains in the most recent German election cycle. As always, bad news for the Democrat.

The Shahab of Iran

Why, why, why is context never supplied? Oh, right, because it might ruin a perfectly good (and preferred) story. In this case, the NeoCon paymasters of your MSM want you to be terrified of Iran. Likewise, the ever-powerful Israeli lobby. Thus, you are instructed to assume the world is near its end because Iran has tested the terrifying Shahab-3 missile.

But what is it, exactly? It’s a medium-range ballistic missile with a payload capacity of around 700 kg (1,500 lb). It has an operational range of 2,100 km (1,300 mi), meaning it can deliver 1,500lb of whatever about 1,300 miles away. Now, it’s true that payload capacity likely includes highly sophisticated warheads like the those found in a Trident II MIRV. But nobody on this Earth thinks Iran’s nuclear program is anywhere near that level of sophistication. Hell, the United States worries that it’s not near (or soon will lose) that level of sophistication any more. Instead, Iran is (most likely) busily developing Fat Man. It weighed 10,000 pounds and required a modified B-29 for delivery. Even assuming they can halve the weight of a similar design, you’re still at 5x what they can lift off the ground. To continue the rather apt WWII theme, the Shahab-3 is really more consistent with the B-17; it had a range of about 800 mi with a bomb-load of 4,500 lb (2,000 kg). Oh, wait, that’s still almost 4x the payload capacity of this missile. How about a well-regarded, frequently ship-based fighter/bomber of the same era? Well, at 2000lb we’re at least getting close.

It’s also worth noting that the damage potential from a North Korean high-explosive carrying missile of similar capabilities is considered so minor that:

As a result, Washington and Seoul have not placed the highest priority on North Korean short-range missiles in their negotiating strategies

Ultimately, we’re talking about a relatively low-payload, unguided missile. Even if they could rain them down like arrows on Tel Aviv, the damage would be scattered and relatively minor. Think: SCUDs. Or, to close the loop: V2s.

But: more to the point. What, exactly, is the New York Times providing here? Internet, TV, and radio can give us quick-hitting, context-free “OMG Iran is going to kill us all!!!!!!!” stories much more quickly (and probably more cheaply) than can the NYT or any other dead-tree news source. Why in the world do they spend time and resources aping that? To be first? Please. For print media to survive, it needs to be better than this; if any paper-source were churning out indispensable, immediate context and analysis the day after the news initially broke, with long-form analysis a day or two later, don’t you think they’d be just slightly more relevant? And infinitely better for our National Discourse? Instead, they provide us this. More of the same. Truly, a national treasure…

How to Write With Style, by Kurt Vonnegut

givemesomethingtoread:

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings.

This is most of our current problem in the MSM. But, the linked article certainly serves as instruction as to why KV is top three to Lemkin, and, really, should serve as a guideline to anybody writing, well, anything (summarized, but read the whole thing):

1. Find a subject you care about

2. Do not ramble, though

3. Keep it simple

4. Have guts to cut

5. Sound like yourself

6. Say what you mean

7. Pity the readers

How to Write With Style, by Kurt Vonnegut

Observe and Report

Bob Somerby:

… whatever a person may think of Van Jones, he simply wasn’t a major White House player. Glenn Beck ran a largely crackpot crusade against Jones, often disinforming millions of viewers in the process. Jones “went to prison and became a communist,” Beck would constantly say. (That clip comes from his August 4 show.) Cracker, please! That’s “apocalyptic” junk. And guess what? When millions of people get disinformed in such ways, that might qualify as news too!

The Post didn’t report that disinformation—the process by which millions of people were told that Obama had an important “czar” who “went to prison” and “became a communist.” But it didn’t occur to Alexander to ask why the Post was silent about that. We’d say there are two likely reasons:

First, Alexander has absorbed a Republican point of view about whose outlook dominates Washington.

Second, there is no countervailing Democratic point of view! There is no narrative which might have made Alexander think twice before he joined a famous old band. For decades now, conservatives have spread the idea that liberal notions dominate Washington.

The notion was silly by the mid-1990s, of course. But when have Democrats spoken?

Well, Bob, when so-called Democrats with daily access to microphones do speak, they all too often recite internalized GOP talking points. Let’s take just one set of recent examples centered around attempts to remake and refine the United States’ Afghan policy going forward. Here we have (the normally quite good) Mara Liasson, when asked if Bush administration policies have anything to do with Afghanistan as Obama found it:

[Obama] owns the war in Afghanistan

Indeed, Obama did start and then ignore said war in Afghanistan for the better part of a decade. Whatever domestic and military issues that remain to be solved there are totally his fault, and have nothing to do with anything that went before. And, just to let you in on the news of the future, success in Afghanistan (should it come): total NeoCon victory, and was all Bush the whole way, largely despite Obama, and certainly not because of any new policies. Failure, or simply staying mired in the present quagmire, well that was because Obama failed to execute W’s brilliant strategeries.

Now let’s take Juan Williams on the same subject:

[Afghanistan] becomes President Obama’s war in such a way that people would say he has gone back, he has become a war president, and how ironic for a man who ran against the war.

You see, Juan, the problem here is: Obama ran “against” the conduct of the war in Iraq. If anything, he was arguing from day one for a more aggressive, more involved stance in Afghanistan. And he’s repeatedly, repeatedly said that Iraq was a “distraction” from the hunt for al Qaeda and action against the Taliban remnants. You might recall, these are the two groups responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Too bad none of that material was in the GOP’s talking points memorandum for the day.