Category: Uncategorized

More on the so-called liberal media

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that Dana Milbank’s smear of Barack Obama in the Washington Post — a self-regarding quote that’s neither verified or presented in context — is just the latest example of how the so-called liberal media establish their bona fides by beating up on liberal politicians.

iPO’d

Within the last month or so, the battery life of my five-year-old, third-generation iPod dropped to almost nothing. It was too old to justify sending it back to Apple for one of its expensive battery-switch jobs, but too functional to toss out. So I sent away to a company that promised to sell me a battery and easy installation instructions for just $33, a price that included shipping. Sounded pretty good to me.

The battery showed up last night. According to the instructions, and to a really nifty online video, all I had to do was wave this blue plastic tool (included) in the general vicinity of my iPod, and the case would magically, and safely, come apart so that I could make the switch without causing any damage to the insides. (I exaggerate only slightly.)

Let me cut to the chase and tell you there was no way on earth that case was coming apart with the magic blue tool. I enlisted the help of Media Nation Jr., who opened it the only way I think it could have been done: with a utility knife and a screwdriver.

The sides ended up slightly worse for the wear, but he was able to make the switch without incident and put things back together the way they were before I had attempted my blue-tool magic. It was pretty easy — no forcing anything, no pushing anything around.

And yet. Now that it’s back together, the headphone jack doesn’t work. If you squish things around, you’ll get some momentary sound, but you can’t sit there and listen to the thing. The other end — the slot used to charge it, transfer music and play through my car stereo — works just fine, which makes me wonder whether there’s some sort of headphone adapter I could get. For now, though, it looks like I’ve got a car-only iPod, which takes care of maybe two-thirds of my needs.

I’m not singling out the battery company because the battery seems fine. I suppose it’s not the company’s fault that it felt it had to lie emphasize the positive about how easy it would be to crack open the iPod. But, as careful as MNJ was, the difficulty he had in opening it up is obviously why the headphone jack got damaged.

All of which means that I’m now iPod-less, more or less. And wondering why Apple had make the thing so difficult to pull apart.

Google’s pretty good wiki

I’ve been casting about for a free, easy-to-use wiki program for my students in Reinventing the News to play with this fall. I didn’t want to use anything I would have to install at the server level, because life is too short to spend it learning that sort of thing.

Wouldn’t you know it, but Google has a nice solution called Sites. Ridiculously simple, and more features than we’ll probably use. Now I just need the right class project. I’m thinking of a compendium for internal newsroom use rather than something that could be edited by the public (although I’m open to that, too).

Any thoughts?

But wait: Ari Herzog’s “U.S. Congress on Twitter,” using PBwiki, looks awfully nice.

Anthrax, Iraq and ABC News

ABC News has some explaining to do. The suicide of Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who’s now being described as the principal suspect in the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11 (not that there’s a whole lot of evidence), has prompted renewed scrutiny of ABC’s sensational claim in October 2001 that the anthrax had been traced to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

At the time, ABC reporter Brian Ross said that “four separate and well-placed sources” had told the network that the anthrax sent to then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle contained traces of bentonite, evidence that the anthrax was of Iraqi origin. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who’s been busting ABC’s chops for years now, presents all the background of this miserable episode here, here and here.

For ABC, the best-case scenario is that its reporting was simply wrong, for whatever reason. (Greenwald notes that Ross reported the Bush administration’s denials at the time.) The worst-case scenario? Government sources deliberately used the network to make the public believe that Saddam was poisoning us with anthrax. The timeline Greenwald presents is disturbing, as it suggests the possibility that a scare campaign about anthrax was unfolding even before the first attack.

There are many questions and few answers. So today I’d like to lend my name to an effort being put together by New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen and Center for Citizen Media director Dan Gillmor to pressure ABC and Ross into answering three overarching questions:

1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement?

2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources” who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick had found the presence of bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?

3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting done by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?

A couple of caveats.

First, Greenwald tries hard to argue that ABC’s reporting contributed in some significant way in building public support for the war against Iraq. I don’t buy it. By the fall of 2002, when the White House began its final push for war, it was all about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, including nukes, and his supposed ties to Al Qaeda.

Second, there’s a possibility that ABC can give a reasonably full accounting without naming its confidential sources. Despite the evidence Greenwald has amassed, there’s a chance that ABC’s sources were acting in good faith. If that’s the case, then they shouldn’t be outed.

Still, this was a terrible moment in a series of terrible moments for the media. I doubt that a vigilant press could have stopped the war. But we’ll never know, because too many news organizations poured gasoline on the White House’s glowing embers.

I hope Ross and company at ABC News are saying nothing for the moment because they’re looking into what went wrong right now. But, as Greenwald observes, they’ve known their reporting was wrong for several years now but have done little. Let’s hope public pressure leads to a different outcome this time.

On (not) building for the future

What a strange sentence Richard Pérez-Peña wrote in describing the problems faced by the Chicago Sun-Times in finding a buyer. From tomorrow’s New York Times:

The Chicago Sun-Times is the kind of trophy that once appealed to deep-pocketed buyers. It has a big audience in a big market, a storied name, and stars like Roger Ebert and Robert Novak.

Ebert, as you probably know, has been battling brain [sorry; that was his on-air reviewing partner the late Gene Siskel] cancer for many years, and can no longer speak, though he continues to write. Novak, who’s 76, just announced that he has a brain tumor.

It’s not disrespectful to point out that no newspaper executive would buy the Sun-Times thinking he’d have Ebert and Novak in his stable for any length of time. Pérez-Peña knows this. What were he — and his editors — thinking?

Stephen Baird on Menino’s crackdown

Musician Stephen Baird, the founder of Street Arts and Buskers Advocates, offers more details on Mayor Tom Menino’s crackdown at Faneuil Hall. In an e-mail to Media Nation, Baird notes that the steel fence erected by city and federal officials blocks the Freedom Trail, something the irony-deprived mayor no doubt fails to appreciate.

I reproduce Baird’s e-mail (which I have lightly edited) with his permission:

The City of Boston and National Park Service put a fence around one of the premier symbols of freedom in America — Faneuil Hall. The fence actually blocks the Freedom Trail. This was done to disenfranchise the civil rights of street artists and the general public who freely choose to peaceably assemble and support them. The fence is a blight not only on the city, but the country. The fence, similar to the old Berlin Wall, is a symbol of Mayor Thomas Menino’s and other government officials’ failure to develop intelligent and equitable public policies and regulations.

There was no warning or public process before this crackdown. Portrait artists, living statues and street performers were suddenly told they could no longer exercise their First Amendment artistic expression in this public park by the police. There are no written guidelines or laws, just the arbitrary whim of the police officers and government officials of where people can perform and audiences can gather.

These actions are all being done in direct defiance of stipulation by Boston city attorneys in the federal court case Community Arts Advocates Inc. v. City of Boston et al. (December 2004), where they stated artists would not be stopped from exercising their First Amendment expression in Sam Adams Park.

Background:

I sued the City of Boston 2004-2006 over arrests and threats of arrest in Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, Copley Square and Sam Adams Park.

The city repealed old Police Rule 75 (from 1850s) and a new law (403) that was just as bad on December 23, 2004, in front of Federal Judge Nancy Gertner. I was threatened with arrest in Sam Adams Park while conducting an interview with Boston Phoenix about this court case. See photograph and details.

I argued that the city could not allow Faneuil Hall audition artists to use Sam Adams Park and not allow other artists. And I won.

I proposed an ordinance similar to the Cambridge ordinance, but the city stated it would use other laws, including the noise ordinance, to control performances. The police have since failed to monitor sound levels with decibel meters. (Sound is also supposed to be inaudible at 100 feet, which could control bucket drummers). The city cannot control performance location issues with out doing drastic, heavy handed and unconstitutional ad hoc use of other laws. See the front page Boston Globe story by Donovan Slack on Aug. 1, 2008.

The City of Boston put chairs and tables in the primary performance area in Sam Adams Park, which pushed artists next to the restaurant that caused the current complaints.

The closing of Filene’s and construction of Downtown Crossing has pushed many artists to Sam Adams Park. There are many conflicts of space, sound and other issues between artists. Artists — Balloon, Living Statues, Portrait Sketch, Bucket Drums — started to set up on north side of Faneuil Hall facing Quincy Market, which has curtailed and caused major tensions with Quincy Market artists.

As long as the city fails to set up performance location guidelines, a lottery system to share the performance locations/time and enforce the noise ordinance consistently/fairly (the police and firemen union picket demonstration were 10 times louder then any performers at Sam Adams Park), then the situation will flare up with arrogant abuse of power that is both mean-spirited and unconstitutional.

I suspect the only way I will be able to bring any measure of equity to this situation is through the federal court.

Stephen H. Baird
Street Arts and Buskers Advocates
Community Arts Advocates Inc.
P.O. Box 300112
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
E-mail: info {at} BuskersAdvocates {dot} org
Web: www.BuskersAdvocates.org

Cultivating ongoing fundamental relationships between artists and communities by celebrating self-expression as a basic human right essential for the healthy growth of youth, individuals and communities.

Menino’s last tangle with Baird resulted in His Honor’s receiving a 2005 Phoenix Muzzle Award. It looks like he’s well on his way to winning another one.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Baird.