Media Nation

Or is that up? I’m not sure.

In today’s New York Times Book Review, David Kamp writes about Norah Vincent’s “Self-Made Man,” in which the author spends a year disguised as a guy and chronicles the experience. The book itself sounds pretty interesting. Vincent is a lesbian, so there are layers upon layers here, especially given that — in her male disguise — she goes on several dates with women.

This morning, though, I come not to praise Vincent but to bury Kamp. Here is what he says about Vincent’s experience in a men’s bowling league:

The resultant chapter is as tender and unpatronizing a portrait of America’s “white trash” underclass as I’ve ever read. “They took people at face value,” writes Vincent of Ned’s teammates, a plumber, an appliance repairman and a construction worker. “If you did your job or held up your end, and treated them with the passing respect they accorded you, you were all right.” Neither dumb lugs nor proletarian saints, Ned’s bowling buddies are wont to make homophobic cracks and pay an occasional visit to a strip club, but they surprise Vincent with their lack of rage and racism, their unflagging efforts to improve Ned’s atrocious bowling technique and “the absolute reverence with which they spoke about their wives,” one of whom is wasting away from cancer.

I quote this at some length to show that Vincent apparently gets it, even though Kamp doesn’t. In Kamp’s mind, a plumber, a repairman and a construction worker — all of them employed in what has traditionally been well-paid blue-collar work — constitute “America’s ‘white trash’ underclass.” What world is Kamp living in? Media Nation does not generally engage in reverse snobbery, but I can’t let this go.

Plumbers, especially, need to be highly educated in their trade, and are — along with folks such as electricians and carpenters — members of a rather select group of skilled craftsmen who can and do charge a lot of money for their services. Or hasn’t Kamp called a plumber lately? Kamp’s casual dismissal of working people as “trash” says a lot about what’s wrong with a certain type of Manhattan-centered elitism.

The tagline reads, “David Kamp, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, is at work on a book about the American food world, to be published later this year.”

Keep him away from diners.

President Bush’s top two political advisers said on Friday that they intend to conduct the 2006 congressional campaign on the basis of an appalling lie about the Democrats. Will the media call them on it? Or are they too hidebound by the traditional rules of objectivity to get beyond their characteristic “on the one hand/on the other hand” style of coverage?

I’m all for fair, neutral coverage of politics. But it also has to be tough-minded. So when White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman claim — falsely — that Democrats oppose efforts to spy on Al Qaeda, that lie needs to be pointed out.

Unfortunately, our two leading newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, are off to a bad start. Here’s what Adam Nagourney writes in today’s Times:

“The United States faces a ruthless enemy,” Mr. Rove said, “and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats.”

“Let me be as clear as I can be. President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they’re calling and why,” he said, referring to the wiretapping program. “Some important Democrats clearly disagree.”

Nagourney treats Rove’s remarks — made at a meeting of the RNC — as straight-up event coverage, and doesn’t even make an effort at ordinary objectivity in terms of getting comment from the Democrats. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz manages to go one better, quoting Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean as saying that Rove should resign over whatever his role was in the Valerie Plame matter. But Balz also reports this without rebuttal:

Mehlman and Rove … defended Bush’s use of warrantless eavesdropping to gather intelligence about possible terrorist plots. “Do Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean really think that when the NSA is listening in on terrorists planning attacks on America, they need to hang up when those terrorists dial their sleeper cells in the United States?” Mehlman asked. Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the House minority leader.

I assume you’ve figured it out already, but if you haven’t, let me spell it out. Not one Democrat — at least none I’m aware of — has objected to having the National Security Agency spy on suspected terrorists. The sole objection has been to the way the Bush administration has gone about doing it. The administration has almost certainly broken the law by carrying out its wiretapping campaign without bothering to seek warrants from a judge under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), even though such requests are rarely turned down, and even though warrants can be applied for after the fact when there’s a genuine emergency.

Is it possible that FISA needs to be changed to make it easier for the White House to conduct such surveillance? Well, perhaps. Media Nation makes no claims to being an expert on such matters. But such a change would have to be approved by Congress. Yet when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked about that, he replied, “We have had discussions with Congress in the past — certain members of Congress — as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.”

So much for the judicial and legislative branches of government. The White House is simply going to do what it wants to do.

The Rove-Mehlman sleight-of-hand is to cast Democrats as being against spying on terrorists if they so much as dare point out that the way the White House is going about its surveillance program is illegal. Never mind that this is false. Never mind that there are also outraged Republicans, such as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter.

This is a vital moment for truth-telling by the news media. When Republicans accuse Democrats of being opposed to spying, reporters and editors can let it go, blandly get “the other side” — or point out that no Democrat has said any such thing. Which is it going to be? (Of course, Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York are fair game when they ludicrously compare Bush and his advisers to Nazis.)

Polls suggest that when Americans are asked whether the White House should have obtained warrants, they agree — but that when they are asked if it’s all right to spy on “suspected terrorists” without warrants, they agree with that, too. This inconsistency has given Bush’s defenders an opening they are now intent on exploiting.

Rove and Mehlman have hit upon a powerful tactic to turn what should be an overwhelming negative into a positive. If any Democrat comes out against spying altogether, that’s one thing. But the media have an obligation not to go along with attempts to cast Democrats who oppose official lawbreaking as soft on terrorism.

We should light a candle for the late Boston talk-show host Jerry Williams today, as the Legislature and Gov. Mitt Romney are on the verge of tightening the state’s seat-belt law.

In the 1980s, Williams — then the king of afternoon drive time on WRKO Radio (AM 680) — whipped the public into hysteria over plans to make seat-belt use mandatory. Williams, a staunch civil libertarian, saw the law as an infringement on personal freedom. I disagreed then and disagree now, seeing a seat-belt law as no different from making drivers stop at red lights. But I agreed with him on principle, and cheered on his equally vociferous efforts to end such police-state it’s-good-for-you tactics as highway road blocks, where you’d be handed a pamphlet on the hazards of drunk driving — and, of course, given the once-over.

No one could make the switchboard at the Statehouse light up the way Williams could, but he was fighting a losing battle. Eventually, when his ratings started to slip and his show was rescheduled, a mandatory seat-belt law was passed, although it couldn’t be enforced unless you were observed doing something else, like speeding. The stronger law now under consideration will eliminate that anomaly.

Here is what Tony Schinella wrote about Williams at the time of his death nearly three years ago. Schinella, a one-time candidate for the Boston City Council, is now program and news director at WKXL Radio (AM 1450) in Concord, N.H. And here is anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson’s tribute.

On to the appeals court: the libel-suit saga involving the Boston Herald and Judge Ernest Murphy continues, as the trial judge, Charles Johnson, has refused the Herald’s requests to act in response to Murphy’s over-the-top letters to Herald publisher Pat Purcell. Phoenix coverage here; Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.

Dan Shaughnessy, the Red Sox’ co-general manager:

[John] Henry and [Larry] Lucchino were in Phoenix yesterday at the owners’ meetings. I spoke with Henry late in the afternoon before he boarded a jet to fly home to Boston. I told him the same thing I had told him in December. I thought it looked as if he could not make a decision. I thought he should either fire Lucchino or tell Epstein to get lost.

Whatever happened to journalists who ask questions? Amazing.

Tony Massarotti’s take is worth reading, even if he doesn’t strut around barking orders at the Sox’ principal owner.

Good for Google, which is living up to its “Don’t Be Evil” slogan by refusing to go along with the Justice Department’s anti-pornography crusade. Supposedly the government is not looking for personal data, which is why Yahoo, AOL and MSN were willing to play along. But this is a bedrock liberty issue, and Google shouldn’t retreat.

Still, this serves as a reminder of the kinds of data Google and other Internet services keep on all of us. It’s not easy to link the data to any one individual, but it can be done, as I reported a year ago. As Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says:

The only way Google can reasonably protect the privacy of its users from such legal demands now and in the future is to stop collecting so much information about its users, delete information that it does collect as soon as possible, and take real steps to minimize how much of the information it collects is traceable back to individual Google users. If Google continues to gather and keep so much information about its users, government and private attorneys will continue to try and get it.

Wired.com has posted some advice on how to keep your private data private.

It’s so rare to see radio stations move toward quality local programming and away from syndicated screaming that attention must be paid. So here is the latest press release from WRKO Radio (AM 680):

WRKO AM 680, Boston’s talk station, brings together three powerful business news sources — Boston Globe “Downtown” business columnist Steve Bailey, Boston Herald Business Editor Cosmo Macero, and the Wall Street Journal — to create “Boston Business Today,” a local news package which started Monday, January 16.

“Boston Business Today” will cover Boston’s business community with news and thoughtful analysis hourly during “Boston This Morning” and during “The Howie Carr Show.”

Macero and Bailey, two of the city’s top business journalists, will bring to “Boston Business Today” fresh business news and their view of important business stories. Macero will be on live at 6:37 a.m. every weekday, and Bailey will be on at 7:37 a.m. every weekday.

Joe Connolly of the Wall Street Journal will provide hourly business news updates, creating in-depth Greater Boston and New England business coverage to match the Wall Street Journal’s legendary reputation. Connolly’s reports will air during newsbreaks at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. during “Boston This Morning,” and then at 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. during “The Howie Carr Show.”

“This is part of WRKO’s plan to provide Greater Boston with the best local coverage, whether it’s news, politics, business, lifestyle or the Boston Celtics,” said WRKO Operations Director Brian Whittemore. “We’re bringing together three business heavy-hitters to create a must-listen package for anyone in Boston business.”

This brings Bailey back to the airwaves following the meltdown of Brad Bleidt, the sticky-fingered former owner of WBIX Radio (AM 1060), where Bailey and fellow Globe columnist Charlie Stein (who recently took the buyout and left the paper) had an hour-long morning show. (‘BIX is still around, but it’s a ghost of its old self.)

But that’s not all. Mark Jurkowitz reports here on a new substance-abuse-recovery program that WRKO is planning to unveil on Sunday afternoons. I’m skeptical, to put it mildly, but it’s local and it sounds well-intentioned.

And this comes not long after the station replaced “Blute & Scotto” with “Boston This Morning,” which, despite the unexplained jettisoning of Peter Blute, strikes me as a reasonably high-minded attempt to put together something of substance. No one’s going to confuse it with NPR, but we’ve already got that.

Best of all, WRKO recently bumped syndicated hate-monger Michael Savage from 7 to 10 p.m. in order to make way for “Taste of Boston.” Not really my thing, but the fewer listeners Savage has, the better.

Anonymous (a very common name, I’ve noticed) claims that I “missed” Al Gore’s speech the other day. I did not, although I concede that I chose not to write about it. Which raises a point I’ve been meaning to make about Media Nation, or about any blog.

I look for items, mostly but not entirely media-related, that interest me, and that I hope will interest a few readers as well. (A political speech like Gore’s doesn’t cut it, even though I hold Gore in reasonably high esteem.) I don’t feel obligated to post anything, with the possible exception of follow-ups to previous items — especially if it’s to correct the record.

Media Nation is likely to be sporadic over the next several months, because my teaching schedule this semester has made it hard for me to keep on top of my reading as much as I’d like — at least until later in the day. There may be days when I post quite a bit; there may be days when I don’t post at all.

For what it’s worth: I consider anything I write to be fair game, so fire away. But I don’t consider anything I choose not to write about to be fair game at all, and I hope you won’t either. There’s a flood outside, and I’m sitting here with a thimble.

Romenesko today highlights a debate between liberal columnist/blogger Eric Alterman and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on media bias — if it exists, and whether it leans left or right. As you might expect, Carlson argues that the bias trends liberal, Alterman that it’s conservative.

They are both right. As Carlson accurately observes, the elite media — especially in big-city newsrooms — hold views far to the left of average Americans on such issues as gay marriage, reproductive choice and gun control. Now, you and I might think it’s to the credit of folks who work for those media institutions, but there’s no doubt that conservative views on such cultural and social issues are rare within the media, and common elsewhere.

And Alterman is absolutely right that the same elite media want nothing to do with organized labor, and that they’re at least partly responsible for the fact that a large plurality of Americans mistakenly believes Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Moreover, as Alterman wrote in his book “What Liberal Media?,” the same liberal journalists who say they vote for Democratic presidential candidates have made a full-time sport out of torturing them: giving Bill Clinton a far rougher time than the public did over his personal failings; spreading untruths about Al Gore such as falsely claiming he’d said he’d “invented the Internet”; and providing too much (i.e., any) credence to the swift-boat liars who tried to bring down John Kerry.

So even though I think Carlson and Alterman are both right, I think Alterman is more right on what really matters: how the media cover electoral politics, and why that coverage works to the benefit of Republicans.

There is no “controversy” over James Frey’s admission that his book “A Million Little Pieces” is not the nonfiction memoir he had claimed it to be; only the exposure of a literary crime. There’s been a voluminous amount of commentary since last week. Michiko Kakutani’s, in today’s New York Times, is especially good.

Bloviation over whether a memoir has to be entirely true is especially troubling because, at root, nonfiction — whether it’s memoir, history, biography or social science — is a form of journalism, or at least its first cousin. If it isn’t true, it’s worthless, regardless of its literary merits. (I’m not talking about an inadvertent error or two. I’m talking about intent.)

Several years ago I published my one and, so far, only book — a nonfiction work on the culture of dwarfism that combined social criticism, interviews, medical and science journalism, historical research and, yes, memoir. Titled “Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter’s Eyes” (that’s where the memoir comes in), it is currently out of print, although I have some hopes for a paperback edition.

Readers can like what I wrote or not. But the one promise I made every effort to deliver on was that “Little People” would be a work of nonfiction. I taped hours upon hour of interviews. I kept reconstructed quotes from years past to a minimum, and explained their limits in the footnotes. When my editor asked for more of our daughter, Becky’s, voice, I didn’t try to rely on the vagaries of memory. Rather, I sat down with Becky — who was 10 at the time — and told her exactly what I was up to. She could have cooperated or not. Fortunately, she wanted to do it, and we had our first serious conversation about her dwarfism. With a tape recorder rolling.

There are so many authors trying to do it right that it’s depressing to see someone like Frey succeed by cheating. The diminution of trust that accompanies such a revelation harms all of us — readers and, of course, writers, who have a hard enough time getting published and noticed as it is.