Tag: media criticism

Explaining an unexplained dip

The New York Times’ Steve Lohr today writes about the growing furor over executive pay, and the widening disparity between what top company officials make as compared to average workers.

But the story is accompanied by a chart, based on statistics from the Economic Policy Institute, that shows a huge dip in the disparity earlier in this decade. Today, according to the chart, the disparity is rising once again, though it has not yet reached the heights of 2000.

Nowhere in Lohr’s story is the blip explained. (Not that I’m blaming him — he probably had no idea that particular chart would be used to accompany his reporting.)

What’s the explanation? According to an Economic Policy Institute report from June 21, 2006:

The ratio surged in the 1990s and hit 300 at the end of the recovery in 2000. The fall in the stock market reduced CEO stock-related pay (e.g., options) causing CEO pay to moderate to 143 times that of an average worker in 2002. Since then, however, CEO pay has exploded and by 2005 the average CEO was paid $10,982,000 a year, or 262 times that of an average worker ($41,861).

OK, I suppose we could have figured that out. But someone at the Times should have seen that the chart did not perfectly match Lohr’s reporting that chief-executive compensation has risen from 35 times to 275 times that of the average worker since the 1970s. It’s true, but stuff happened in between, too.

Your own lying eyes

I’m going to break one of my rules for blogging by engaging in a little mind-reading. That’s because it seems fairly obvious that the folks at the Washington Post have decided they don’t want to engage in a battle with the McCain-Palin campaign over Sarah Palin’s crystal-clear, public statement linking the war in Iraq to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

How else can we possibly explain Post ombudsman Deborah Howell’s column accepting the line that Palin was actually referring to a terrorist group known as Al Qaeda in Iraq? How else can we understand reporter Anne Kornblut’s contention that there was more than one interpretation that could be given to Palin’s remarks? Why else would the Post run a “clarification” to Kornblut’s article that might as well have been headed “obfuscation”?

By all means, watch the video above, but here’s the key sentence from Palin’s talk to Iraq-bound Alaskan soldiers, including her son Track: “You’ll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans. You’ll be there because America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before Sept. 11, 2001.”

Is this difficult? There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001. Al Qaeda in Iraq did not plan and carry out the attacks. Every one of the terrorists was either Saudi or Egyptian. I mean, come on. Palin’s words were plainly spoken. There is no alternative interpretation.

The U.S. military, after extensive study, found there were no ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The military also believes that Al Qaeda in Iraq is merely a homegrown, Iraqi insurgent movement.

Why is the Washington Post acting as enablers for the McCain-Palin campaign’s transparent attempt to explain away Palin’s ludicrous statement?

Sarah Palin and the Special Olympics

Several news organizations, including the New York Times and NPR, have reported that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin cut the state’s Special Olympics budget by $275,000 earlier this year. That’s accurate, but it’s not the whole story, and I’ve posted an update to reflect that.

According to Newsbusters.org, and verified by state documents, the Special Olympics sought $550,000 for the coming fiscal year. Palin used her line-item veto to cut that in half, but it still represented an increase of $25,000.

Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard gets carried away, describing the $550,000 as merely a number that was “proposed.” In fact, it was approved by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature, so Palin really went out of her way to make this cut. The question: Why? Alaska’s KTUU-TV tried to get someone from the Special Olympics to comment, but was unsuccessful.

What services would the extra money have paid for? Was it for new programs? Was it to make up for a loss of funding from other sources? What will be the effect of Palin’s veto?

I’d say someone ought to find out. How about it, Anchorage Daily News?

Picking apart Jeff Jacoby’s indictment

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby today takes on what he calls the “frenzy of rage and contempt set off by the nomination of Sarah Palin.”

Because Jacoby’s an important voice and deserves to be taken seriously, I’m going to take a little more space than I normally might to pick his column apart. As you will see, there is almost nothing in Jacoby’s piece that holds up to scrutiny.

1. “There has been legitimate criticism, of course. But there has also been a gusher of slander, much of it — like the slur that she isn’t the real mother of her infant son, Trig — despicable.”

Agreed. It doesn’t get much more despicable than that. But why bring it up? As we know, this rumor was nothing but the product of a pseudonymous hate-monger on Daily Kos. Until the McCain campaign itself cited it as a reason for going public with 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, the only mainstream journalist who mentioned it was Andrew Sullivan, blogging for the Atlantic. I unloaded on him for that.

This complaint makes as much sense as blaming the media and mainstream Republicans for anonymous e-mails that claim Barack Obama is a Muslim.

2. “Voters have been told that she slashed funding in Alaska for special-needs children.”

Perhaps that’s because, this summer, she cut the budget for the Special Olympics by $275,000. [True, but see note below.]

3. “That she tried to ban books from Wasilla’s public library.”

Unproven, though Bill Adair, editor of the nonpartisan Web site PolitiFact, now says there may be more to this allegation than first appeared. The investigation continues.

4. “That she was a member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party.”

That was a case of media overreach based on some pretty tantalizing information. We know, for instance, that Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, was a member for seven years; that she denies the testimony of several eyewitnesses who say she attended a state convention in the mid-1990s; and that, as governor, she recorded a cheery video message to be played at the party state convention.

Lest we forget, the words of party founder Joe Vogler remain emblazoned on the party’s Web site: “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

5. “That she links Saddam Hussein to the attacks of 9/11.”

She does, most recently last Thursday.

6. “That she backed Pat Buchanan for president.”

The source of this error was an MSNBC analyst named, uh, Pat Buchanan. In Buchanan’s defense, it’s possible that the “Buchanan for President” button Palin was wearing fooled him.

7. “That she doesn’t want students taught about contraception.”

During her 2006 campaign for governor, Palin answered a questionnaire that dealt with sex education and a number of other issues.

Here is one of the questions: “Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?”

And here is Palin’s answer: “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”

Does not abstinence-only education by definition exclude teaching kids about contraception? That’s not a rhetorical question — I don’t know. But I think it does. (Or not. See “Update,” below.)

8. “That she called the war in Iraq ‘a task from God.'”

I think Jacoby is right in calling this a stretch, though reasonable people — including a Pentacostal scholar — believe otherwise. But she did ask people to pray that a natural-gas pipeline would be built in Alaska. Is it somehow better to refer to a pipeline as a gift from God than it is to call the war in Iraq a task from God?

9. “For months they [the media] refused to mention the infidelity of John Edwards, yet they leaped with relish onto Bristol Palin’s pregnancy.”

What the media refused to do was pass along — or at least investigate and verify — stories in the National Enquirer about Edwards’ infidelity. Now the media are ignoring stories in the Enquirer that Palin had an affair with an ex-business partner of her husband’s, and that her two oldest kids have a thing for OxyContin and weed. Sounds pretty even-handed to me.

10. “Yet the more she has been attacked, the more her support has solidified. In the latest Fox News poll, Palin’s favorable/unfavorable ratio is a strong 54-27.”

Polls prove nothing. But for what it’s worth, her favorability/unfavorability ratings are down 10 points in the past few days, according to Newsweek.

Jacoby also passes along some pretty nasty comments from the likes of Randi Rhodes and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. I’m not sure what that proves. We’ve also heard Obama referred to as “uppity,” and recently a waffle mix featuring Obama as Uncle Jemimah was spotted at some sort of “values” conference.

The point is that Jacoby has gathered together essentially the entire indictment of the so-called liberal media with respect to Palin. And every bit of it is either wrong or distorted.

More: Sean Roche has similar thoughts at Blue Mass Group.

Update: Media Nation reader J.S. passes along this link, which shows that Palin does indeed believe contraception should be part of sex education. So yes, Jacoby is right about that. Not sure what Palin believed she was responding to when she also said she supported abstinence-only programs.

Thursday update: The NPR story on which I relied was imprecise. Palin did indeed slash the Special Olympics budget request by $275,000, but the program will still receive slightly more money than it did the year before. Thanks to Media Nation reader P.S.

“The media” cheer Obama (II)

More-direct evidence of how silly The Hill’s item was concerning people with press passes cheering for Obama: Charley Blandy of Blue Mass Group saw my post and followed up, noting that BMG bloggers were among those wearing green press passes and cheering.

Blandy writes: “In other words, the reporter at the Hill may well have seen partisan bloggers like us, who had green press credentials, whooping and cheering for Obama. That’s a problem because … ?”

“The media” cheer Obama

From The Hill:

Several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for Barack Obama as the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday.

Standing on the periphery of the football field serving as the Democratic convention floor, dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd.

Is it possible that some members of the media behaved unprofessionally? Of course. But there were 15,000 people in Denver with media credentials, and to tar “the media” with an item like this is ridiculous.

Having covered four national conventions, I can tell you that there are plenty of folks at these things from one- or two-person newsletters for farmers, accountants and the like, blatantly partisan outlets and — in some cases — organizations with no obvious tie to journalism at all. A friend of a friend comes up with a media credential, and there you go.

If you want to make the case that the mainstream media are in the tank for Obama, be my guest. But this non-item proves nothing. (Via InstaPundit.)

More on Fournier and the AP

Some years ago I remember reading a profile of Ron Fournier, who was then fairly new as a political reporter for the Associated Press.

It’s not likely I’m going to find a link at this late date, so I’ll have to rely on my memory. What I recall was his saying he’d never been all that interested in politics, an attitude he thought had helped him break some stories. He was a hard-news reporter, not a partisan.

Well, now. I want to follow up my post of earlier today, because I think Fournier’s “analysis” of the Joe Biden pick is remarkable enough that we shouldn’t let go of it too quickly. It’s not that Fournier’s anti-Obama bias is so obvious, though it is. It’s that his take is embarrassingly dumb and shallow. A news analysis is an odd duck; neither a news story nor an opinion piece, it is supposed to make sense of the news. Fournier’s attempt fails dismally.

Steve Stein has posted some terrific links, and I recommend the Washington Monthly item he flags. What I like about that item, written by Steve Benen, is that it gets to the heart of how lazy Fournier is to suggest that Barack Obama’s choice shows a “lack of confidence” in his reformist, outsider message. As Benen notes, you could say that about any vice-presidential pick: if Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton, it would show a “lack of confidence” that he could win the women’s vote without her. You get the idea. Benen also notes that Fournier nearly took a job with the McCain campaign in 2007.

Drilling down a little further, Eric Boehlert’s excellent overview — which gathers everything from Fournier’s inappropriately supportive e-mail to Karl Rove to his supplying McCain with his favorite donuts (ooh, sprinkles!) — links out to a Politico piece that explains Fournier’s rationale for the AP’s increasingly edgy, opinionated journalism. Michael Calderone writes:

Fournier is a main engine in a high-stakes experiment at the 162-year old wire to move from its signature neutral and detached tone to an aggressive, plain-spoken style of writing that Fournier often describes as “cutting through the clutter.”

In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay.

So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

I’m not buying it. I’m no fan of traditional objectivity and its passive reliance on official statements. But we need tough, fair, neutral reporting more than ever, and it seems to me that the AP ought to be at the forefront of providing it. With regional newspapers cutting back on their national and international coverage, this should be a chance for the AP to shine.

In an e-mail to Media Nation, Stephen Burgard, director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University (i.e., my chairman), writes:

I read Fournier’s “analysis” before checking your blog today and was independently appalled. Since when is choosing somebody knowledgeable in foreign affairs and the Senate Judiciary Committee, who balances a ticket as well, a sign of lack of confidence or weakness?

The suggestion that the confident move would be to bring in somebody inexperienced who represents the “politics of change” and “hope” is ludicrous; it’s something you might expect to see in a student lefty publication, not from the AP, which is supposed to understand how presidential politics works.

I can’t help remembering that the AP’s Walter Mears wrote the book on the journalistic form “news analysis.” In addition to writing good ones, he was able to explain what they were when done right. Not straight news stories. Not opinion pieces. But somehow interpretive in a way that shed an informed reporter’s light beyond just being a stenographer of events.

Perhaps Fournier thinks he was being “intrepretive.” He wasn’t. Fournier may well be in the tank for McCain, but I would feel only slightly better if he were dishing it out equally to both sides. The fact is that Fournier’s “analysis” is a piece of pure opinion, unsophisticated and uninformed.

It’s not just that it should have been better. It’s that we depend on the AP to provide us with something fundamentally different.

Photo of Fournier by Josh Hallett and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Beyond convention wisdom

Jack Shafer of Slate and Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine are both arguing that the media ought to stop covering the national political conventions.

Their reasons are obvious. The nominees have been chosen entirely through the primaries since the 1970s, so there is literally no news coming out of them except for the acceptance speeches of the vice presidential and presidential candidates. I understand the point. But I would make two counterarguments.

First, what better place is there for the three cable news networks to be? The prime-time line-ups of Fox News, CNN and MSNBC consist mainly of talk shows with a heavy political bent. The conventions give them a chance to do what they do, only at a higher level and with a larger audience. Nothing wrong with that.

Second, the conventions are filled with interesting stories, though very few of them take place inside the hall. Yes, I’d agree that having 15,000 reporters on hand to cover the same thing is nuts, but that’s not what they ought to be doing. Maybe 10,000 of them ought to go home (perhaps I don’t disagree with Shafer and Jarvis after all), but the other 5,000 ought to get outside and look for stories.

In 2000, I was at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, on assignment for the Boston Phoenix, when similar complaints arose about the news-free nature of the event. I wrote about what the media should have been covering rather than whining about the dullness of the proceedings. I’d say the same thing today.