Month: July 2008 Page 3 of 8

On July 25, 2008

Very. Walter Brooks explains. And the New York Times, in what may have been a misguided attempt to give Barack Obama some cover, has managed to turn his innocent wave to the Berlin crowd into a Nazi salute. Good grief.

*Correction: I take it back. The front of the Boston Globe shows Obama waving with his right hand, but the “Angola” sign is still backwards. Clearly it was just turned around. How stupid can I get?

Comcast never sleeps

On July 25, 2008

Last Sunday I posted a paranoid lament about Media Nation’s wireless- network problems, and wondered whether Comcast’s forced march to digital might somehow be responsible. As it turned out, my issues were easily solved (or would have been if I weren’t such a tech dolt) by replacing our old AirPort base station with a shiny new AirPort Express.

Before it was over, though, I had received comments from no fewer than two Comcast employees, assuring readers of Media Nation that their planet is a benevolent one whose inhabitants want nothing but the best for humanity. (See this and this.)

I didn’t think much about it until last night, when I saw a New York Times story, by Brian Stelter, on Comcast’s dogged efforts to track down negative blog posts and respond to them with warm and happy messages. Pretty interesting. Some bloggers told Stelter they found it “creepy.” I don’t, and I swear I’m not saying that just because I now know Big Daddy Comcast is looking over my shoulder as a type.

Some of the complaints about Comcast’s recent behavior are over a move I have only partly addressed — the company’s decision to shift MSNBC, CSPAN2 and several other channels to the digital tier, forcing customers who want those channels to get a digital box and pay a few more dollars each month. I did as I was told this past Monday.

There are critics who believe the move was made specifically to marginalize Keith Olbermann, whose “Countdown” program on MSNBC is the most outspokenly liberal talk show on television. This Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial, which I found on NewsTrust, attempts to make that case, and does a rather poor job of it.

Media Nation’s working hypothesis is that it’s always about the money. So when I appeared on Arnie Arnesen’s radio show earlier this week to talk about MSNBC, I was pleased to hear that she had hit upon a more likely theory: that Comcast had targeted MSNBC specifically to goad liberal viewers into upgrading and paying for more of those yummy Comcastic services.

This is the reverse of the “Let’s Censor Keith” theory. Rather, it’s “Let’s Use Keith to Choke More Money Out of Those Latte-Swilling, Prius-Driving Elitists.” She may be on to something. As a business proposition, it hits just the right middle ground. Move the SciFi Channel (or Comcast’s own CN8, which it did) and no one would notice. Move NESN, and thousands of torch-bearing Red Sox fans would storm the local Comcast office. Move MSNBC, though, and liberals would simply grumble and pay up.

And, Frank and Jim, I just want you to know that I would never, ever even look at Comcast Must Die, that nasty site maintained by that awful man Bob Garfield. Really. So please don’t take away my MSNBC again. Deal?

Photo (cc) by Steve Garfield, and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Political blogging and community

On July 23, 2008

I’ve got an essay in the summer issue of Nieman Reports on political blogs and what the traditional media can learn from them.

At their worst, political blogs of the left and right do little more than reinforce their readers’ prejudices. At their best, though, they provide a virtual community in much the same way that newspapers at their height served a geographic community, helping them understand the news in the context of what like-minded people are thinking.

The question is whether the traditional media can learn those lessons without giving up their journalistic souls.

The Globe takes the GOP’s bait

On July 23, 2008

The Boston Globe takes dictation from the Republican National Committee today, turning an innocuous remark by a Barack Obama adviser into evidence that Obama is so arrogant he’s already acting like he’s president.

I’ll work backwards. In a brief item, the Globe’s Foon Rhee notes that the RNC was gleefully passing around a story from the Politico yesterday in which an Obama adviser described the candidate’s speech in Berlin, scheduled for Thursday, as the sort that a president might deliver. Here’s Rhee:

… Republicans are highlighting any perceived hint of Obama arrogance. The Republican National Committee yesterday sent out a report by the Politico website about an exchange between reporters and an Obama adviser about Obama’s speech tomorrow in Berlin that is expected to draw thousands.

“It is not going to be a political speech,” the adviser said. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.”

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter replied, according to Politico.

That’s how the item ends. But it looked fishy to me, and I was right. Next stop: the RNC’s Web site, which highlights the exchange under its “Audacity Watch,” an ongoing feature dedicated to the proposition that Obama is so insufferably arrogant that he believes he might actually be elected president this November.

Finally, going back to the source, here is the Politico story that got the Republicans all excited. You will not be surprised to learn that their faux outrage is derived entirely from a crucial omission. Here’s what the Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown actually wrote:

At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States.

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.”

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

“He is going to talk about the issues as an individual … not as a candidate, but as an individual, as a senator,” the adviser added….

After the briefing, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki offered a statement from [Obama campaign head David] Axelrod to reporters: “The answer is that, of course, any event outside of a [congressional delegation trip] is a campaign event. But it is not a political rally. He will not engage his American political opponents. It is a speech to our allies and the people of Europe and the world. And as such, we wanted it to be open to the public and not just invited guests.”

In other words, the Obama campaign, far from claiming presidential prerogatives, was trying to answer criticism that Obama’s Berlin speech will be a campaign rally held on foreign soil. The anonymous adviser tried to draw an analogy to a presidential speech, got cut down and quickly corrected himself. Axelrod then clarified.

If you want to criticize Obama for holding a campaign rally in Berlin, well, be my guest. But the Republicans are dead wrong to label this affair as evidence of Obama’s arrogance, and they made their case through dishonestly selective quoting. The Globe should have taken five more minutes to determine whether the attack was fair or not.

Foreign policy

In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at “The Changing Newsroom,” a new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and conclude that the authors get it half-right: metropolitan newspapers aren’t dumping foreign and national news because readers don’t want it, but because they’re getting it elsewhere.

Style question

Another one for the brain trust. When I use block quotes, I do not use quotation marks. I’ve got an example from this morning — my post on the McCain op-ed. The indented text is a direct quote from McCain’s unpublished piece.

Now, that’s pretty standard in publishing, whether you’re talking about magazines, books or academic papers. But such conventions do not necessarily travel all that well to the Web. I received a comment a little while ago from someone who was confused.

Although I can’t scare up an example at the moment, I have seen blogs that use indents for block quotes and quotation marks. It’s a little bit like using a belt and suspenders, but I’d rather make it too clear that I’m quoting than not clear enough.

What do you think?

Checking in with ethnic news

I’ve got a feature on the New England Ethnic Newswire in the new issue of CommonWealth Magazine. The NEWz, a Web site that aggregates the best of the local ethnic press, is expanding into original journalism focused on health care.

“The thing that I think is really intriguing about it is this idea of connecting different communities,” says former Boston Globe editorialist Robert Turner, an adviser to the NEWz. “You see over and over again various communities building their own strength as their numbers increase. But how much of an effort around town is there to make cross-connections among them?”

The NEWz is a work in progress, as is the case with most new-media ventures. But it’s got the potential to grow into something truly important. Ethnic communities are already speaking for themselves. Now there’s a way for all of us to hear them.

Technology Tuesday

We are celebrating in Media Nation. The AirPort Express really did configure itself.

I called Apple customer service, and a terrific guy walked me through it. I think what happened yesterday was (a) I messed around and screwed up the AirPort’s internal settings; (b) incompetently performed a hard reset; (c) then did it properly, but couldn’t configure the AirPort because it needed to be reset.

Anyway, we are back in business. Now I need to catch up on some e-mail.

McCain’s factually inaccurate op-ed