Month: June 2006 Page 3 of 5

Because it’s easy to get bogged down in technical arcana when discussing a topic such as net neutrality, I’m particularly taken with an argument offered by Siva Vaidhyanathan of New York University. Without net neutrality, Vaidhyanathan explains, Internet service providers — mainly the cable and phone companies — get paid twice. It’s an easy, consumer-friendly message, and more people need to hear it.

Let’s say you’ve got broadband now, and are paying $50 a month. In a few years, your ISP might roll out a new, ultrafast connection that will let you download a full-length movie in just a few minutes. It might even be fast enough that Web-based television becomes a realistic possibility. Do you think you’re going to pay the same $50? Of course not. You’ll pay $70, or $100, or whatever, and if it allows you to get rid of other expensive services, you’ll be glad to do it.

But the ISPs want to charge extra not just to you but also to content providers that wish to take advantage of the faster connection. Here’s how Vaidhyanathan explained it in a recent interview with NPR’s “On the Media”:

[W]hat they’re actually proposing doing is double billing. They want to charge me and you, consumers getting broadband service, a very high rate and extort money from the service providers, so that those willing to write the big check get their stuff delivered faster to you and me. That’s not a fair business practice, nor is it really healthy for the sort of information and cultural environment and economic playing field that we really want to see on the Internet.

Net neutrality simply means treating ISPs as common carriers, requiring them to treat all content providers equally while allowing them to charge customers different fees for different levels of service. This is exactly how the phone companies have always been regulated, and it is how the Internet has evolved — at least until now.

This is not the world’s sexiest issue, yet it’s crucial to our hopes of a democratic, diverse media. That’s why groups ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition are fighting for net neutrality. The Internet is the only medium in which major media conglomerates have no delivery advantage over the scruffiest amateurs. The ISPs are trying to change that, and we’ll all be the losers if they win.

Visit Save the Internet today. And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out this Moby PSA.

It’s one of the great mysteries of our time: If the news media have a liberal bias, as is generally supposed, why is the press so much more deferential to Republicans than it is to Democrats?

You might disagree with that premise, but I don’t think it can be denied. Bill Clinton was ripped apart for a nonexistent scandal (Whitewater) and for his personal failings (the Lewinsky matter). Al Gore was battered for minor exaggerations and for things he didn’t even say (such as the false assertion that he’d claimed to have “invented” the Internet). John Kerry was deeply wounded by the obvious lies of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has never really been held to account for offenses both high (launching a disastrous war on the basis of hyped intelligence) and low (Dick Cheney’s shooting an elderly hunting partner in the face).

In recent years, media observers such as Eric Alterman (“What Liberal Media?”) and Joe Conason (“Big Lies”) have tried to explain this conundrum. Now comes former Salon media columnist Eric Boehlert, whose “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush” (Free Press) documents in sometimes mind-numbing detail the ways in which the media routinely pick over every minor Democratic flaw while ignoring much more important instances of perfidy on the Republican side.

My own view — not entirely original — is that though much of our major media are imbued with a mild liberal cultural bias on issues such as gay rights, reproductive choice and the role of religion in society, that bias does not extend to the way they cover politics. Indeed, it often seems that the way liberal reporters make their bones is by tormenting liberal politicians. And with partisan Republican media such as the Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and the Wall Street Journal editorial page constantly charging “liberal bias,” life is much easier for journalists if they tilt to the right.

Boehlert’s book would have benefited from a stronger analytical tone. His methodology is largely one of documenting media somnolence in the face of outrageous behavior by Bush, Cheney, et al. and then asking his readers how the media would have reacted if a Democrat had engaged in similar offenses. Most of the material Boehlert offers will be familiar to readers who follow this stuff. The principal strength of “Lapdogs” is that Boehlert shows the easy treatment of Bush has continued since the 2004 election, thus updating the earlier work done by Alterman and Conason.

Slate’s Jack Shafer recently criticized “Lapdogs” on the grounds that Boehlert largely confines his critique to television news and talking-heads shows, giving a pass to our two most important news organizations, the New York Times and the Washington Post. If the Times and the Post aren’t part of the problem, Shafer asks, how can Boehlert complain that the media lean Republican? But I don’t read “Lapdogs” the way Shafer does; in fact, Boehlert cites numerous examples from both papers. A very short list would include:

• The Times’ decision to hold its Pulitzer Prize-winning story on the secret, no-warrant NSA wiretapping program from before the 2004 election until December 2005.
• The Post’s repeated editorializing in favor of the war in Iraq.
• The Times’ indulgence of Judith Miller’s flawed reporting on Iraq’s supposed weapons capabilities.
• The Post’s role in concocting that fake Gore quote about “inventing” the Internet, endlessly repeated by the sneering Washington press corps.

Boehlert gives due credit to media watchdogs such as the Daily Howler and Media Matters for America. Ultimately, though, that’s the problem with “Lapdogs.” The distinctive voice and edge Boehlert usually brings to his work is frequently missing here, replaced by his voluminous but not fully digested research.

Still, there’s a lot of valuable information in “Lapdogs,” and it shows how the goal of the right, as Boehlert puts it, “is to create a news culture where there are few if any agreed upon facts, thereby making serious debate impossible.” That is by far the most disturbing aspect of the media wars taking place today, and Boehlert does a good job of shining a light on it.

Tom Friedman today responds (sub. req.) to General Motors’ criticism of an earlier column. He writes:

After the May 31 column appeared, G.M.’s vice president for global communications, Steven J. Harris, and his colleagues denounced my argument in a formal statement and on G.M.’s corporate blog. This is an important issue, so let me respond to their response.

Yet nowhere does Friedman reveal that GM tried to place a letter in the Times and was told to forget it unless said letter was toned down. (Nor, for that matter, does the online version of his column link to the GM blog.)

This has been a matter of some notoriety on the Web. For Friedman not to acknowledge it (or was it an editor?) is not only wrong — it’s just plain weird.

Blogger just ate a longer post on this subject, so I’ll make it short. I just finished reading Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Rolling Stone article in which he argues that the 2004 presidential election in Ohio — and, thus, the nation — was stolen. Bobby’s kid is unlikely to be taken seriously, but his monumental research, a lot of it based on earlier work by Mark Crispin Miller and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, seems irrefutable. So why aren’t the New York Times and the Washington Post all over this?

Anyone who’s been paying attention already knew that Karl Rove didn’t break the law when he helped blow former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s cover. Jack Shafer, among others, explained as far back as 2003 that you practically have to be a sworn enemy of the United States to be prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

Scooter Libby, after all, was charged with lying about leaking, not with leaking per se. The expressed desire of Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, to see Rove “frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs” was never realistic.

All of which means that the positive spin accompanying the news that Rove will not be charged is unwarranted. Rove has not been cleared in any meaningful sense. He is, in fact, guilty of a deeply unethical act. David Corn, who’s followed this story as closely as anyone, explains:

[S]everal essentials are well-established: Rove leaked classified information that may have harmed national security; the White House said he hadn’t and that leakers would be fired; Rove remains at the president’s side today.

Not that any of it is going to matter. Former ambassador Wilson’s own headline-seeking and dissembling, well-documented by the incomparable Bob Somerby, has always made this a more complicated matter than most critics of the Bush administration are willing to admit.

Still, it’s appalling that Rove is being treated as though he’s been exonerated when, in fact, he did exactly what he was accused of doing all along.

MSNBC is the sleeping giant of cable news. As the only one of the three all-news channels backed by a network news division, MSNBC could establish itself as the quality leader tomorrow — make that tonight — if the owners at General Electric so desired. Instead, it staggers on in third place, year after year, foisting dreck hosted by the likes of Rita Cosby, Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson upon an unsuspecting public. (Or not, since no one’s actually watching.)

Let me qualify that a bit. Cosby’s nothing but a third-rate sob sister, but Scarborough, stiff and weird though he may be, is willing to listen more and shout less than most of his peers. Carlson is a terrific writer and a charming guy, but I don’t think he’s ever found his footing on television. Each may be capable of doing better, but neither of their shows was ever conceived of as news.

So Media Nation did not exactly hang the black crepe when Rick Kaplan was shown the door earlier this week. Ratings have gone up during his tenure, but from where I’ve been sitting (that is, on the couch), MSNBC has just been marking time the past couple of years.

Now Dan Abrams will get his chance. As the host of a tabloid law show, he is not, to say the least, the first person who’d come to mind if your interest is in seeing MSNBC become a serious news outlet. But I was somewhat heartened to see that he considers Keith Olbermann‘s and Chris Matthews‘ shows, easily the two best on the network, to be models for the direction in which he wants to move. (I’m not saying I’m a huge Matthews fan, and I’m not saying I don’t wish Olbermann’s program, “Countdown,” were a bit less contrived. I’m just saying that everything else is much, much worse.)

And, Dan, here’s an idea, free of charge: Hire Aaron Brown to be the host of a prime-time, hour-long newscast. Give it a try. What the heck. Brown wasn’t exactly a ratings king on CNN, but he did better than his replacement, Anderson Cooper.

Somehow, though, I don’t think much is going to change at the News Channel That Viewers Forgot.

And I’m moderating comments again. Now, this could persuade me to end comments. Sorry, but life is too short.

Among the odder phenomena related to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the notion advanced in some circles that liberals are unhappy because the deadly raid makes President Bush look good. Media Matters offers this example, in the form of a deeply stupid exchange between Fox News host John Gibson and Republican strategist Ed Rollins.

Yes, Nick Berg’s poor father has said some strange things, but he is, after all, still grieving.

Anyway, Media Nation this morning issues a challenge. If you can find a credible example of a mainstream liberal expressing anything other than delight at Zarqawi’s demise, send it along and I’ll post it. An explanation of the rules:

• “Credible” means from the horse’s mouth. If Sean Hannity, for instance, claims that Liberal X uttered Outrage Y, that doesn’t count. However, if you’ve got proof that Liberal X did indeed say Outrage Y, that counts.
• “Mainstream” means someone whom we don’t have to spend a half-hour researching to figure out who he is. Also, Ward Churchill doesn’t count.
• In determining the validity of any particular entry, I am judge, jury and executioner.

In a twist, conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds accuses Newark Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine of falsely claiming that Reynolds had criticized the media for not being sufficiently appreciative of Zarqawi’s death.

I followed the links, and I’d say Reynolds comes closer to making that accusation he wants to admit. The Himmler aside is telling.

Does this make Ann Coulter better or worse? Worse, I’d say.

The spam attack appears to be over, and I have turned off comment moderation.