Discourse.net

Evidence of Media Bias

Media bias is real and pervasive. Here’s a great example: McCain compounds al Qaeda gaffe by repeating for a fourth time. Does this become a big story? Is it looped on TV? Does it get half the attention something a friend of Obama’s said? Nope. Nope. And nope.

CNN Sinks to a New Low

Wow, CNN doesn’t have much in the way of journalistic standards, does it?

CNN’s Idiot ‘is Obama really a Patriot’ Poll

Americablog calls it unforgivable.

Personally, I’d be willing to forgive if they behave decently for the rest of the campaign. Not that there’s much chance of it.

I thought CNN was supposed to be better than Fox? Then again, AP’s notorious far-right-leaning Nedra Pickler sunk pretty low yesterday too.

Update: Thanks to Firedoglake, you can take action against the Nedra Pickler smear factory.

Update2: Greenwald on Obama’s brilliant retort.

Update 3: Well, that didn’t take long, did it? CNN blows it again.

NY Times on Obama's Security: Clueless or Coy?

The New York Times’s Jeff Zeleny has a long article about people worrying about Barak Obama’s safety, In Painful Past, Hushed Worry About Obama.

In the past few days, a major Dallas-area paper ran a two inconclusive stories about the level of security at Obama’s Dallas rally. These stories were supplemented by a number of blog posts all over the place, many of which include eyewitness accounts of recent Obama rallies elsewhere which also seemed to have a level of security that was at best uneven. Given all that, you might expect that when the Times does a major article on fears for Obama’s security, something would be said about what happened in Dallas at the Obama rally.

You would be wrong.

Here’s all that the NYT has to say on the subject of Dallas security:

Here in Dallas, those memories were raised in conversation after conversation with several of the 17,000 people who came to see Mr. Obama at a rally last week.

“Right around the corner is the John Kennedy Memorial; everyone all around me was talking about it,” said Imogene Covin, a Democratic activist from Dallas. “In the back of my mind, it’s a possibility that something might happen because he’s something to gawk at right now. But you know why I think he will be safe? He has a broad range of people behind him.”

In fact, as readers of this blog or many others, or of the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, know “here in Dallas,” there was a lot more than “memories raised in conversation” — there were allegations by the local cops of bad security judgment. And the Secret Service’s response while not totally implausible, hasn’t been totally convincing either.

Should we expect better from the Times?

I suppose it’s possible the NYT is being coy as a result of a request from the Secret Service not to discuss operational details, but if that were the case you would think that they could tell us so. I can’t help but wonder if they just didn’t know about the controversy, or if this is another example of an article going into the hopper several days before its printed and being dated by the time it sees daylight.

I’ve written to Mr. Zeleny to ask, but don’t really expect an answer.

Related posts:

• Secret Service Says Low Security is All Part of the Plan
• Look, We Worry About This Stuff

We Write Letters

Just sent this:

Dear Mr. Hulse,

Thank you for your informative article “House Leaves Surveillance Law to Expire” in today’s paper.

I was struck, however, by the following sentence, and I wonder if you could help me understand the state of play. You write, “The main sticking point is a provision in the Senate bill that provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that, at the Bush administration’s request, cooperated in providing private data after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

I was under the impression that there was now substantial evidence that in fact these requests long pre-dated 9/11 (see, for example, [URL] and [URL])

You write with some authority that the issue is entirely post-9/11. Have these accounts been debunked, or is there some other reason to disbelieve them?

As I am sure you appreciate, the issue of when the requests were first made is not irrelevant to whether the administration and its enablers should get to prevent discovery as to what exactly happened.

Best regards,
Michael Froomkin
Professor of Law, University of Miami

Update: Reading Political Animal, I see something which makes me think that maybe Mr. Hulse had a good reason to write it the way he did:

The Senate version of telecom immunity in S.2248 applies only to activities taken after 9/11. There have been reports of possibly illegal NSA/telecom activities being initiated several months before 9/11, but S.2248 wouldn’t apply to them. Here’s the relevant text:

[A] covered civil action…shall be promptly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the court that (A) the assistance alleged to have been provided by the electronic communication service provider was (i) in connection with an intelligence activity involving communications that was (I) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007; and (II) designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation for a terrorist attack, against the United States….

So maybe Hulse got it just right? Note, however, that the evidence we have is also consistent with this scenario: the administration started pressuring the telcos for the wiretaps long before 9/11…but they only started cooperating afterwards.

NYT Times Waters Its Brand

Shorter David Brooks: I have finally achieved my ambition of writing a column as tactical and mendacious as William Safire.

Scott Horton deconstructs the NYT’s spinelessness when criticized by the Administration.

And this is our best newspaper….

Yesterday's News Tomorrow (Literally)

Today’s Washington Post web site has a story with tomorrows date, one that appears in tomorrow’s paper, about Obama’s attempts to woo the Latino vote in California. The tenor of the story, written by two reporters, is that it’s an uphill slog and things aren’t going well (it concludes by quoting an observer as describing Obama’s outreach campaign as “a little bit too late and not enough”).

Don’t these guys read even major blogs? Over at Daily Kos they’ve had this item since 2:08 pm DC time: Obama’s Piolín boost:

this is gold for Obama, with Ted Kennedy getting royal treatment on the El Piolín radio show today. This is significant for several major reasons. Hillary is leading Obama in southern California in huge part because of the Latino vote — helped in large part by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s support and machine. Big city mayors are some of the best endorsements a candidate can get because they have a patronage machine they can activate on behalf of candidates they support. Yet down in southern California, El Pioín owns the market and is the largest radio show in the country. Yup, that’s bigger than you-know-who.

Maids get out of bed and slip on their uniforms, landscapers load leaf blowers into rusty flatbed trucks before chugging up the freeway and cooks turn on restaurant stoves to make flapjacks. They, like other listeners, know [Eduardo] Sotelo as El Piolin, or Tweety Bird, and they regard him as a Mexican immigrant hero, someone like them, a role model. Twenty years ago, Sotelo sneaked across the Mexican border into California by hiding in the trunk of a car, and now his Spanish-language radio show, “El Piolin por la Mañana,” has made him a rags-to-riches story, a DJ who beats Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Joyner every weekday morning, according to Arbitron ratings.

Remember the big immigration protests last year? This was the guy who fueled them nationwide. So he’s not just a fun D.J., he can move people. And to this crowd, Sen. Ted Kennedy is a HUGE hero — the man who has been fighting to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate.

And today, his show was one big love note to Obama, featuring none other than Kennedy.

Maybe this isn’t quite as big a deal as the blogger would have it. But you’d think it was worth a mention somewhere in a long article on the subject, wouldn’t you?

Read the Post article carefully and it seems that many of the quotes were gathered earlier in the week. This ties into an increasingly common phenomenon for me: stuff I read online is either better than, or two or three days ahead of, what I read in the papers. (The papers are still best for big investigative stuff, and for routine coverage of setpiece government, like Congressional hearings. But they are surprisingly poor these days at anything complex, including Senate parliamentary procedure.)

I don’t know what the deadlines are at the print Washington Post, but more and more I have to think that Brad’s right: the print media are digging their own grave.

I’ll miss them.

Won’t I?

[Update: actually, by the time I posted this, it was “tomorrow” already, so I should have said, “Yesterday, the Washington post web site had a story with today’s date…” But the story had been up for a while.]

The Proprietary Media

I think people are often startled when I, a fairly mild-mannered mostly-establishment guy at heart, suddenly start sounding like a wild-eyed radical when speaking about the social consequences of the concentration of mass media in the hands of a few corporations, many run as personal fiefdoms by hard right figures such as Rupert Murdoch.

I believe that there is a multitude of evidence, however, that right-wing ownership of radio and TV skews content far to the right. And now, alas, we have one more: see Orcinus on what happened at KIRO. Note that KIRO is in Seattle, one of the more liberal towns in America. And it can happen there.

Dubbed Into Chinese

I was interviewed by the Voice of America Chinese News service the other day, and there’s now a web page to prove it: VOA News - 边界电脑æ�œæŸ¥ä»¥å�Šä¸ªäººéš�ç§�æ�ƒ.

When I'm a BigTime Columnist...

Dear Major Media,

Regarding that gig as a bigtime columnist I was saying you should give me? I have a few pledges to make. Unlike this character, I pledge that in my first column, I won’t do any of the following:

• Quote an author with a well-demonstrated track record of inaccuracy in the service of an agenda designed to justify an American horror such as the Japanese internment.
• Mis-quote that author
• Use lots and lots of tired cliches (I don’t promise to use none you understand, just to pace myself)
• Be boring.

Ten Tame Predictions (Plus Bonuses)

News that Billy Idol (or was it Billy Kristol, I forget) has been offered a op-ed slot at the New York Times brought home the fact that Brooks, Broder, Krauthammer, Hiatt, Novak are not aberrations, and that the standards for punditry are in fact very low.

So, what the heck, I gave myself ten minutes to come up with ten very tame predictions for 2008. Let’s see how I do. (I took extra time to add the links.)

International

1. We’ll still be in two wars at the end of the year. Iraq and Afghanistan are not going to end. US soldiers and many foreign and domestic civilians will die due to war-related injuries. (Confidence: total.)

2. The selloff of US assets, both financial and non-financial, will accelerate in 2008. Media commentary will continue to celebrate it as a solution to short-term problems (insolvency, trade deficit, falling dollar) without noticing that it is the cause of multiple long-term problems (structural trade deficit as revenues flow abroad; moving of never center of corporate control off-shore; strategic reduction in both domestic and international policy flexibility). (Confidence: very high.)

POLITICS

3. The Presidential election will not be the Democratic blow-out so many pundits are currently predicting. A Democrat will win, but not by a landslide. (Confidence: moderate.)

4. We will elect a Democratic Congress for the first time since 1994. (That is not a typo - what we have not is not in very many meaningful senses a Democratic Congress). (Confidence: moderate.)

5. The Republican party will adopt the Democratic tactic known as the “circular firing squad.” But the Democratic party will not learn to be as disciplined as the GOP of the 80s, 90s or even the first half of the 2000’s. (Confidence: very high.)

ECONOMICS

6. Contrary to the upbeat predictions in my local paper (“Horrible year for housing should not repeat in ‘08”), the housing market will tank worse in 2008 than it did in 2007. (Confidence: total.)

7. By the end of 2008,the US will be or will have been in a recession. (Confidence: very high.)

8. The Fed will respond aggressively, inflation will rise, and economists will be worrying loudly about stagflation. (Confidence: very high.)

9. Miami will have a worse hurricane season than in 2007. (Cheap prediction as we didn’t even have a real scare this year.) (Confidence: very high.)

10. There will be at least one coordinated botnet operation (fed by a worm or a widely distributed trojan) that will dwarf anything we’ve seen so far either in its size, or in the precision of its targets (e.g. banks).

Surely that major columnist gig is just around the corner?

(Additional predictions welcomed in comments.)

Bonus prediction: BK will be so bad, he’ll make Brooks look … no, never mind. Can’t be done. (Confidence: total.)

Whatssamatter? Those were too tame? OK I gave myself five extra minutes to come up with ten more in which I have moderate to low confidence — but I think they’re all possible:

11. Major new computer virus infection as virus writers (at least temporarily) outstrip antiviral software makers.

12. Record number of human deaths due to avian flu.

13. Record shrinking of arctic glaciers. GOP continues to deny global warming. US policies continue to allow foreign dirigiste economies to steal a march on solar and carbon-reducing technologies.

14. OLPC initiative creates new industry: networks of low-wage kids defeating “capchas” by hand.

15. Several governments act to “solve” the spam problem — by attacking online anonymity.

16. Good news: ICANN creates a record number of new TLDs. Bad news: you can’t have one — only governments can.

17. Someone will finally come out with an ultra-portable laptop with an adequate keyboard that also runs XP well. They will make a lot of money on it.

18. Guantanamo will not be closed, but the population will be lowered substantially.

And two wild predictions:

19. Someone will be prosecuted for contempt of Congress (or for inherent contempt if the US Atty won’t bring the charges).

20. I will produce a draft of my book.

(Actually, that took about seven minutes, but who’s counting?)

Miami Herald to Outsource Local News?

Businessweek says,

The Miami Herald is outsourcing some of its advertising production work to India, the newspaper’s editor said Thursday.

Starting in January, copyediting and design in a weekly section of Broward County community news and other special advertising sections will be outsourced to Mindworks, based in New Delhi.

I know Broward (the county north of here) feels like a foreign country, but really…

Glenn Greenwald's Favorite Quotes of 2007

I’m not much into compiling ‘top 10’ lists and ‘best of’ lists, but I enjoy reading the good ones. This one, from Glenn Greenwald, is one of the good ones: Favorite quotes of 2007.

Robert Waldmann Is Appalled

Poor Robert Waldmann, who has been living abroad for a long time, is now being exposed to US TV. Political TV.

And his reaction after a session of “Hardball”? “It is worse than I imagined possible.”

Then again, he admits he was warned:

The point, as has been explained to me by many on the web including Atrios and Yglesias, is to have dramatic conflict in which a tough journalist forces someone to answer questions he doesn’t want to answer. The fact that they are not important issues is irrelevant.

FISA: Where's the Coverage?

It may be only temporary, but the netroots and the civil liberties crowd won a big victory yesterday by derailing FISA. Senator Dodd spent about ten hours on the Senate floor talking against retroactive immunity. It’s the first sign of a Congress willing to stand up to the Bush/Cheney fear-mongering steam roller.

You might think some of this would be fairly big news?

But not much sign of it in the paper this morning, and nothing I can see on the front page of the electronic NYT or WashPost. There are small inside items: in the “Washington” section of the Times, and the “national” section of the Post (A02 of the print edition, which is better than nothing), but clearly neither paper thinks it’s that big a deal.

Someone Please Explain

Someone please explain how I can get a job as a columnist for a major newspaper.

I guarantee that no matter how badly I do I will never write the sort of ghastly risible utter tripe that appears to be in the new book by the LA Times’s latest addition to its pundit stable. See Sadly, No! for a sneek peek at Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”.

Post-Quality Journalism

Surely after the debacle of Robin Givhan’s inane essay on “Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory”, the Washington Post (DeLong deathwatch now down to four years) has learned its lesson, and would avoid wasting column ink on the candidates’ — and especially the female candidate’s — sartorial choices and perhaps instead try to write about their policy choices?

No such luck. Robin Givhan is at it again, with an equally inane article on “How She Looks” headlined “Wearing the Pants: Envisioning a Female Commander-in-Chief.” It’s all about the colors of Senator Clinton’s pants suits.

To be fair, it begins as it means to end, with a signal that the author hasn’t got much upstairs: “The mind, so easily distracted by things mauve and lemon yellow, …” Um. Not the minds of most people I know.

Amazingly, given that start, it’s actually downhill from there.

It’s enough to make you channel Brad DeLong: Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps?

Kos to Be Assimilated by the Borg. Borg Will Never Be The Same

I imagine that this week Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, is thinking something like, ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’

Guardian America Launches

Say hello to Guardian America, a web launch intended to be

the US-based website of the Guardian newspaper of London and Manchester, which will combine content produced in the UK and around the world with content that we originate here to create a Guardian especially tailored to American readers. I am sometimes asked what, or who, this means we will try to be “like”; the questioner wants an American reference point the better to slot this project into a known category. The only answer is that we will try to be like … the Guardian.

Sounds like a nice idea, although I quite like the original.

Dinosaurs

Worth reading, Media Matters on its deliciously old-fashioned approach to news criticism.

At Media Matters, we go the extra mile and actually read and watch the news reports we critique. It isn’t quite as fast or easy as simply making things up, but we think it’s worth it.

What He Said

These days, the three bloggers most likely to produce a ‘what he said’ reaction for me are perennial favorite The Carpetbagger, Digby (although I sometimes also violently disagree), and Robert Waldmann (with two N’s!).

See, for example, Robert’s reaction today to the NYT’s latest piece of dangerous fluff, an article fuller of Republican spin than facts. Bait and Switch at the New York Times exactly captures my reactions when reading this thing over breakfast this morning.

That said, I am not endorsing the following statement, in an earlier posting, at least not without further testing:

This brings me to the best established hypothesis in the social sciences. The Romans had a theory that they won wars because the gods were on their side. They felt that so long as they performed traditional Pagan rituals they were fine. After converting Constantine as Pontifex Maximus ordered Romans to keep up the Pagan rituals then moved to Constantinople. For centuries Romans ruled and performed these rituals. Theodosius banned them from performing the traditional rites. Rome was sacked within 30 years. Sure it was just a coincidence suuuuuure.

Base Arguments

Political discourse continues to be further and further debased.

We get the government we deserve? A frightening thought.

Washington Post's Hirohito Moment

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell materially distorted reality in his testimony to Congress.

The milquetoast headline in The Washington Pravda Post is — brace yourself — Iraq Wiretap Delay Not Quite as Presented.

Not quite as presented!

Where have I heard something like that before? Hmmm….

Despite the best that has been done by everyone … the war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.”

– Emperor Hirohito, Radio Broadcast Announcing Japan’s Surrender, August 15, 1945

I’m actually starting to think Brad DeLong s right—surely the Post can’t survive if it continues like this? If people want this sort of work, they might as well buy the Washington Times.

Not In My House

Every so often I think, “maybe we should buy a TV”. Then I read stuff like this catch at Amygdala:

Katie Couric just led off the opening story on tonight’s CBS Evening News by announcing that “President Ahmadinejad of Iran, an enemy of the United States, arrived tonight….

That’s just the sort of neutral reporting I want to expose myself and my family to on a nightly basis.

As Gary Farber says, is there an official national enemies list somewhere?

Nixon must be smiling in his grave. Actually, you know it’s bad when the administration starts making you think Nixon was better than what you’ve got… After all, they stole both money and elections on a much smaller scale….

And CBS, even after he and Agnew broke its spirit, was never this deferential to Nixon.

Press as Poodle

The title of the blog post is overwrought, The Next Hurrah: CBS Collaborates in Torture, but with cause.

According to Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS, it didn’t torture anyone — but CBS let the US government talk it into first squeltching and then toning down the story of the torture at Abu Ghraib.

Shameful if true. (And, while nothing is impossible, it’s hard to see what Rather could possibly gain from making this up.) So much for the heirs of Murrow and Cronkite.

Bonus poodle example. And my apology to real poodles and their fans.

Lots We Still Don't Know About B-52 Live Nuclear Bomb Incident

I wrote the other day about the weird incident in which a B-52 flew over the US with five or six live nuclear bombs. (See My That's a Big Sabre You Are Rattling There)

Strangely, the incident was mostly a one-day wonder to our press, which is now busy worrying about whatever it usually worries about -- although you might think that misloading five (or was it six?) bombs -- each ten times as destructive as the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima -- might just maybe spur a follow-up story or two.

That's certainly what the good folks at Nieman Watchdog (where my brother is an editor) think, and I commend Nieman Watchdog > Ask This > A B-52 with six armed nuclear missiles flew over the U.S. for 3-1/2 hours. What's the story here? to you for a recap of the facts as we know them. And it's striking how little we know about certain key questions, which Nieman Watchdog thoughtfully provides for any reporter needing a little inspiration:

There are many questions the media should ask about this event. Without answers to them, no one can make positive recommendations for preventing such mishaps in the future.

Questions

Q. Why and for what ostensible purpose were these nuclear weapons taken to Barksdale AFB?

Q. How long was it before the error was discovered?

Q. How many mistakes and errors were made, and how many needed to be made, for this incident to happen. How many and which security protocols were overlooked and how many and which safety procedures were bypassed or ignored?

Q. How many other nuclear command and control non-observations of procedure have there been? Is there in the U.S. government a consolidated data base of such incidents so that they could be counted?  Who is responsible for such a data base?  A report for the Center for Defense Information some time ago said President Kennedy was told in 1961 that there had been 60 U.S. nuclear weapons accidents. How many nuclear mishaps have there been since 1961?

Q. What is the U.S. Congress going to do to better oversee U.S. nuclear command and control? Will there be an independent investigation of this mishap?

Q. How does this incident relate to concern for reliability of control over nuclear weapons and nuclear materials in Russia, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

Q. As some news reports suggest, does the Bush administration have plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons? What does the U.S. Congress know about this, and have they even asked to be briefed?

The last question made me laugh.

A Real Back-Handed Compliment

I can explain this.

You may think that this looks like media bias —

Crooks and Liars » Romney Fundraising Scandal Ignored By Liberal Media - Clinton Gets Hammered Over Hsu: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney’s national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.

It looks like the media protect Republicans and go after Democrats, right? Well, that may be true of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but I have a different theory as to why the rest of the media falls into this pattern.

You see, it’s not news when Republican officials are involved in sleazy financial deals. It is news when it happens to Democrats. After all, it happens to Republicans all the time and only happens to Democrats occasionally — despite the vast disparity in prosecutorial resources devoted to trying to find dirt on Democratic office-holders as opposed to that devoted investigating Republicans.

(And don’t even get me started on the frequency of GOP sex scandals.)

Super-Snark

FDL indulges in some super-snark regarding the WSJ sale at Blue Monday at the WSJ:

meeting with Rupert Murdoch to discuss journalistic integrity strikes me as kind of like meeting with the polio virus to talk about Dr. Salk

NYT Runs Correction on Gonzales Impeachment

I guess I should be grateful for minor victories. Today’s NYT has this correction:

A news analysis article yesterday about the testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee referred incorrectly to the power of Congress to remove an attorney general from office. Under the Constitution, civil officers of the United States government may be removed upon impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate. Congress is not powerless to remove the attorney general.

Posted by Michael at 01:53 PM | Link | Comments (3)

One More Update

Got a nice email from Sheryl Gay Stolberg acknowledging the error and saying she’s asked for a correction to run.

Times Update (& More About the Belknap Case)

Well, the NYT has silently corrected the online version of the Stolberg story I complained about this morning in my posting “Times Reporter Forgets That Gonzales is Impeachable”. When I correct stuff here (more than five minutes after posting it), I indicate the changes with strikeout or “update”. The online NYT seems to operate by different rules. Something to keep in mind when citing it.

The old version can (for the moment at least) be viewed at the International Herald Tribune.

Meanwhile, I’ve found an interesting article by John Dean which discusses the (hitherto unknown to me) details of the impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap,

Impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is the only precedent for using these proceedings against subordinate executive officers. Belknap was said to be involved in a kickback scheme involving military contracts. Just hours before the House was to vote to impeach him, Belknap resigned. Nonetheless, on March 2, 1876, the House impeached the former cabinet officer, and the five articles of impeachment were presented to the Senate.

The Senate trial lasted five months. (Today, such a trial would likely be handled by a trial committee of twelve senators, with a final debate and vote by the full Senate.) A central issue in the Belknap case was whether his resignation had terminated the jurisdiction of the Congress, and whether impeachment was still appropriate when his removal was no longer at issue. The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative J. Proctor Knott, who was trying the case before the Senate, explained the controversy as follows:

“Was the only purpose of this disqualification simply to preserve the Government from the danger to be apprehended from the single convicted criminal?” Knott rhetorically asked. “Very far from it, sir. That in reality constituted but a very small part of the design. The great object, after all, was that his infamy might be rendered conspicuous, historic, eternal, in order to prevent the occurrence of like offenses in the future. The purpose was not simply to harass, to persecute, to wantonly degrade, or take vengeance upon a single individual; but it was that other officials through all time might profit by his punishment, might be warned by his political ostracism, by the ever-lasting stigma fixed upon his name by the most august tribunal on earth, to avoid the dangers upon which he wrecked, and withstand the temptations under which he fell; to teach them that if they should fall under like temptations they will fall, like Lucifer, never to rise again.”

By two votes, Belknap escaped conviction in the Senate. Had he not resigned, however, there is little question he would have been found guilty, removed and disqualified. Belknap’s proceedings are a clear precedent for impeaching and disqualifying “civil officers,” but the case has not resolved the issue of merely disqualifying an official who has resigned from holding future office.

There’s lots of other interesting stuff about the politics of impeachment in Dean’s Findlaw article too.

Too Little, Too Late

The Miami Herald did something weird this weekend. After weeks of totally ignoring the story about the homeless people forced to live under a bridge because they are sex offenders who are barred from living in the housing they might afford, the Herald finally published something about it. The story was first exposed by the New Times, the local alternative weekly (see How Can We Tolerate This? and Bridge to Nowhere) about a month ago. This weekend the Herald finally published something — the AP version of a national story. And nowhere does the Herald mention that it was scooped weeks ago by its local rival. [Note: above edited for clarity.]

I presume the Herald ran the AP piece since it was running nationally. But that doesn’t explain the shameful total lack of interest for an entire month. Surely the Herald ought to have someone on this story?

Lower than Low

How loathsome is Fox’s totemic Bill O’Reilly? Bill O’Reilly is so loathsome that he’s too disgusting even for Geraldo Rivera.

Warning: if you watch the video you will never again be able to feel as smug about Geraldo. He has a name for what O’Reilly does, and it’s one of the right ones.

Marketplace

Marketplace just interviewed me about COPA so I may be on the radio this evening. Or I may be on the cutting room floor.

Update: Here it is.

Which Metaphor Works Best Here?

A good rant from The Carpetbagger Report about the media’s tendency to focus on trivia at the expense of what matters.

Read it, then help me out: is this the modern equivalent of bread and circuses? Or the opiate (or is that Oprahate?) of the masses?

Real Funny

Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Or goes to hell in a hand basket, as the case may be.

He Who Wields the Hatchet

Mike Allen is a journalist rich in education and experience:

• Served a Time magazine’s White House correspondent
• Six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush’s first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000.
• Stints at the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, The Free Lance-Star (VA)
• Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post.
• Covered parts of Connecticut for The New York Times.
• B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.

He has a c.v. as good or better than most in the business.

So how have we come to a place where a guy with this much experience can do something as stupid and evil — or is it just lazy and ignorant? — as this?

Update: Could it be petty, personal pique?

Journalism 101

My brother has an article up at Nieman Watchdog entitled How the press can prevent another Iraq. It’s nothing more than a reminder of basic journalism: don’t believe everything a government official tells you; ask for proof. Use common sense.

It’s absolutely amazing that any of this needs to be said to professionals. We knew this kind of stuff when we were high school journalists.

And yet, it does need to be said, because for some reason most reporters these days don’t do their jobs.

This Calls for Outsourcing

In a budget notable for cutting hospitals for the poor and indigent while not raising taxes for billionaires, the Bush budget proposal contains the familiar assault on domestic public TV and radio. The foreign broadcasting arm, long a home for a strange mix of dedicated professionals and far-right propagandists, is slated for a hefty increase. (See MediaCitizen: Bush Calls for Propaganda Surge, Slashes PBS.)

Here’s my modest proposal: given how generally lousy so much of foreign propaganda is, why not outsource the job to the BBC World Service, which, despite its effectiveness, continues to suffer the death of a thousand cuts.

Is This the Start of a Student Media Revolution?

This announcement from the Washington Post is interesting on several levels.

High School Newspapers on washingtonpost.com: washingtonpost.com and the Washington Post Young Journalists Development Program are now enabling local high school journalists to put their school newspapers online, free of charge.

Our goal is to create a thriving virtual community for high school journalists and their peers, a place where students and other washingtonpost.com readers can see what schools are writing and comment on their work.

High-schoolers, with the aid of faculty advisors, use easily accessible blog software to publish articles and photos to a washingtonpost.com server. The blogs can be updated from any computer at any time, allowing student journalists the freedom to post stories outside of their traditional publication schedule.

We are launching the new feature in collaboration with three local high schools - located in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, respectively - and are actively recruiting more participants. The program is open to public and private high schools in The Post’s circulation area.

While it appears that the newspaper faculty advisors will have some role, I wonder how that will work in practice. The Post says that “The blogs can be updated from any computer at any time, allowing student journalists the freedom to post stories outside of their traditional publication schedule.” Does that mean true freedom from the school’s control? In other words, will the faculty advisors have to sign off on every posting, or just initially authenticate the students (and perhaps pull credentials)? There’s a real potential here for this resource to become a liberating back-channel around the censoring grip of high school principals. Can that really be what the somewhat conservative Post has in mind?

And how about the comment sections? Presumably these will be moderated like the Post’s own comment sections, but by whom? Will these become real independent forums for kids (and parents?) to talk about school issues? That would be a potentially transformative political resource as so much of family life is organized around schools.

Then there’s the revenue issue. Will the Post run ads in these sections? Will it kick back any of the money to the students? Will they be recruited to sell ads for their sections and given commissions?

Done right, this could be the start of something big.

Fourth Estate or Simply Fourth Rate?

I believe that there is only one thing that can stop a Democrat — any likely Democrat — from being elected President in 2008: the propensity of the mainstream press to make stuff up.

Beyond Parody (Hall of Mirrors Dept)

In the course of recounting some media stupidity so dumb I don’t even want to write about it, The Carpetbagger Report asks,

I can’t help but notice that Stephen Colbert’s over-the-top parodies of right-wing blowhards is looking less and less like a parody all the time. As Kevin Drum put it, “Parody is going to become a lost art if the blowhard brigade keeps trying to top itself with stuff like this. I mean, what could I possibly write that was any more ridiculous than the thing itself?”

I think I’ve got the answer: O’Reilly, Colbert to trade appearances.

On the Severabilty of the Habeas Corpus Provisions of the Military Commissions Act

About a month ago, the New Yorker published Killing Habeas Corpus, Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Senator Specter’s take on the Military Commissions Act (aka ‘The Torture Bill’). It contained a revealing fact about the Senator, a fact whose significance Toobin seemed to have missed. Toobin quotes Specter as saying,

Specter is hoping the courts will restore the rights of the detainees to bring habeas cases. “The bill was severable. It has a severability clause. And I think the courts will invalidate it,” he told me. “They’re not going to give up authority to decide habeas-corpus cases, not a chance.”

Trouble is, the final version of the Military Commissions Act — the one the President signed — doesn’t have a severability provision, although some earlier versions did. In theory, that usually means that the bill stands or falls as a whole — if one part of the bill is unconstitutional, the whole bill is void. (There are exceptions, for when the courts find Congress couldn’t have intended that.) So my colleague Steve Vladeck and I wrote the New Yorker a letter.

To the Editor:

In Jeffrey Toobin’s marvelous profile of Senator Arlen Specter (“Killing Habeas Corpus,” Dec. 4), the Senator reveals that he labors under a fascinating misapprehension regarding potential judicial review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Senator Specter states that the Act contains a severability clause, and that, therefore, excision of the controversial (and, in our view, unconstitutional) habeas provision would have no implications for the continuing force of the rest of the Act.

In fact, as anyone who reads the Act will quickly discover, the statute as signed by the President contains no such provision. As a result, if the Supreme Court were to strike down any part of the statute, it would have to consider whether the rest of the Act can survive the loss. As the habeas-stripping clause was the subject of its own vote in the Senate, and the legislative history shows that the severability clause was removed during the consideration of the bill, it would be very difficult for the Court to find legislative intent supporting severability.

We draw some comfort from this observation, although not from the apparent failure of one of the bill’s coauthors to understand what he was voting for.

A. Michael Froomkin, Professor
Stephen I. Vladeck, Associate Professor

The New Yorker just published it, in a version that keeps the essential point but edited all the cute out of it:

Toobin’s profile reveals that Specter labors under a misapprehension regarding potential judicial review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Specter states that the Act contains a severability clause, and that, therefore, excision of the controversial habeas provision would have no implications for the rest of the Act. In fact, the statute contains no such provision, and, if the Supreme Court were to strike down any part of the statute, it would have to consider whether the rest of the Act can survive the loss. Since legislative history shows that the severability clause was removed during the consideration of the bill, it would be very difficult for the Court to find legislative intent supporting it.

A. Michael Froomkin, Professor
Stephen I. Vladeck, Associate Professor
University of Miami School of Law
Coral Gables, Florida

Of course, both Steve and I have complete faith that the Supreme Court could, if it wanted, find some excuse to sever the habeas provisions of the MCA from the rest of the bill — all they’d have to do is change current severability doctrine to fit. Whether it could be done in a principled way, on the other hand…

Language Note: "Escalation"

The Media are full of articles discussing "the surge" proposal which is frat boy talk for sending more troops to Iraq.

For today, at least, we will pass over the minor fact that the The Decider™ has told us over and over that he doesn't actually decide troop levels, he leaves that to Generals, and try not to figure out why we are discussing sending more troops over the objection of the Joint Chiefs with no reference to this oft-cited rule.

Rather, I should just like to point out that sending more troops into a war is properly called "escalation." Yet, somehow, this term seems to have eluded much of the major media.

I Am TIME's Person of the Year

And so are you.

Time Magazine's "person of the year" is ... everyone who uses the Internet.

I think this means we're riding for a fall.

Manatees? Yes, Manatees

Old media meets new media: an adlib, a domain name acquisition, a web site, three million hits.

Yes, Mr. Jones, something is happening...

Forgot to Mention I Was on The Radio this Morning

Forgot to mention that I was on Marketplace Morning Report today, since everyone else who knows about ICANN was already on a plane to Brazil. The item is just a “teaser” for the upcoming meeting, so it’s very short.

Here’s the transcript:

SCOTT JAGOW: Internet domain names are big business. The company Verisign makes $6 dollars a year off every name ending in dot-com. There are 59 million of them. Yesterday Verisign signed another five-year deal with the government’s Internet watchdog group. That group begins a week-long meeting in Brazil. Brian Watt has more.

---

BRIAN WATT: The group is called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN.



Its agenda this week will include renewing the contracts on other popular domains like dot-org, dot-info, and dot-biz. ICANN’s critics say the bidding process for those contracts should be more open.



University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin:

MICHAEL FROOMKIN: “ICANN and Transparency are kind of like oil and water. They just haven’t mixed yet. It’s a real shame, too.”

Froomkin says another issue on the agenda is customer privacy:

FROOMKIN: “Right now if you want to register a domain name, it is next to impossible to keep your contact information private. Which means people have been stalked. They get marketed to. They get junk mail. And that’s a big concern for many people.”

ICANN will also discuss how to use characters from languages like Chinese and Arabic in Web addresses.



I’m Brian Watt for Marketplace.

There's Gold in Them Thar Hills ...

My brother has a fun (and pugnacious) column up at Nieman Watchdog Blog bearing the gentle title of On Calling Bullshit:

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.

What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.

Calling bullshit, of course, used to be central to journalism as well as to comedy. And we happen to be in a period in our history in which the substance in question is running particularly deep.

…

But here’s the good news for you newsroom managers wringing your hands over new technologies and the loss of younger audiences: Because the Internet so values calling bullshit, you are sitting on an as-yet largely untapped gold mine. I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.

NYT Needs Regular Coaxing

Looks like I'm not the only person to have been writing to the New York Times about how it mis-characterizes Sen. Lieberman. And it looks like it's not an isolated problem. Matt Browner-Hamlin records his exchange with the Times in two parts: his letter and Adam Nagourney's response.

The New York Times Bobbles Sen. Lieberman's Party Affiliation

This morning I sent the following email to the corrections department, nytnews@nytimes.com, with the title "error in today's paper":

In "Enter, Pariah: Now It's Hugs for Lieberman" by Mark Leibovich, Sen. Lieberman is described as a member of the Democratic party.

E.g. "the Democratic Party he still belongs to"

This is not accurate: although he caucuses with them, he's in his own party, either "Connecticut for Lieberman" or "Independent Democrat" as he has recently apparently renamed it. Even Sen. Lieberman doesn't claim he's rejoined the Democratic party, nor has the party accepted him back into full membership.

Thus, he's no more (or less) a Democrat than Bernie Saunders -- a distinction the Times makes clear in the case of Vermont's Senator. Connecticut deserves equal clarity.

Please correct the error.

If this is not accident, but a deliberate policy choice on the part of the Times, then I think an editorial note explaining why the paper treats the two Senators differently is in order. Connecticut's Democrats, who rejected Lieberman both in the Primary and the general election, will read that note with some interest.

Very promptly, I received the following reply from Greg Brock:

Dear Mr. Froomkin:

This issue was raised immediately after the election. We have talked to Senator Lieberman's office more than once now and he assures us that he is still registered on the voter rolls in Connecticut as a Democrat and as of now, he has no plans or reasons to change that registration.

When it is on point to our coverage -- a vote he casts in the Senate or other issues he raises -- we will, of course, reflect that he is an Independent Democrat or a similar designation.

But saying that he is a member of the Democratic Party is not incorrect. At least according to Mr. Lieberman.

Best regards,
Greg Brock
Senior Editor

I was appalled, as this appeared to me to take stenography to a new level of credulousness. I wrote the following note:

Thank you for the prompt reply. But now I'm even more puzzled.

Why on earth is Senator Lieberman's opinion definitive? Surely it is the *Party's* view that matters? Why not find out what, say, Howard Dean says on this (I don't myself know what he'd say).

Nor is the issue Lieberman's registration, but rather what line he got elected on. And that is a matter of public record. It was not the Democratic line.

I can claim to be President, and I doubt the Times would take my word for it. It's quite surprising to see that you took his self-serving word as the final answer on this obviously controversial issue.

It of course serves Sen. Lieberman's interests to claim to be a Democrat. And it is good to quote him and reflect his views. That is not what is at issue. If in fact his view is erroneous -- which it pretty clearly is -- then it does not serve the public interest to repeat that claim as fact if it is not actually true.

I wonder if I could have your permission to share either your comment [above] or some other statement (your choice), with readers of my blog, http://discourse.net?

After a little more to-and-fro, Mr. Brock responded with an email giving me permission to quote his message above and adding "I had discussed this with our Washington editors and reporters and the consciousness has been raised that we need to be more precise in all references in the future." He also noted,

... that just because I explained that his office confirmed that he is still a registered Democrat does NOT mean that we will call him that in the paper every time we refer to him. ... we plan to give the specifics:

He is an independent. He caucuses with the Democrats. . and where applicable, we will remind readers that he was elected on a specific independent line on the Conn ballot.

I suppose in some technical sense, if Lieberman is still registered as a Democrat that could be said to be "the party he belongs to" -- but I still think that's really misleading in the context of an article about his relation with Senate Democrats in which Lieberman is called a "wayward Democrat" and which refers at one point to "every Democrat in Connecticut's Congressional delegation except Mr. Lieberman."

It doesn't seem that I'm going to get my correction. But I hope that Mr. Brock's note means that the Times is going to be more careful about Lieberman's party affiliation in the future. If not, my next step will be to write to the Public Editor (ombudsman).

Still in the Dark

Having read this New York Times article, Tennessee Controversy Shaped by Spin Expert, twice, I'm still in the dark as to the identity of the mystery man in charge of the GOP's racist ad campaign.

This follow-up piece identifies the author of the commercials as one Scott Howell, a man described as having a "history of bare-knuckled tactics and close relationship with Karl Rove."

But is the producer the head honcho? This we are not told, only the following,

Yet if angry voters are looking for a place to direct their anger, they may have a hard time.

Mr. Howell did not produce the spot for Mr. Corker, who has disavowed it. He produced it for a quasi-independent organization that is financed by the Republican National Committee but operates wholly out of the committee’s control or direction.

Does Mr. Howell run that body? Does it even have a name? We are not told.

Maybe the head guy is "Terry Nelson, another consultant affiliated with the spot"? He's now working for Saint McCain, so it couldn't possibly be him, could it?

Mr. Nelson's firm, the Crosslink Strategy Group, employs as a consultant Chris LaCivita, who worked with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that produced negative advertisements about Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign, according to the firm's Web site.

Is there no level to which McCain won't stoop? We're not told that either, although here we can guess.

The First "W" Is Missing

I am not now and have never been a professional journalist. For a while, however, I was a pretty serious amateur, ending up as News Editor of the Yale Daily News. Back in the day, perhaps because we didn't know any better, we believed in traditional news gathering and reporting: the "six W's" -- Who, What, Where, When, Why and (W)How Much.

How odd, therefore, to read so much of the coverage of the dust-up over the RNC's racist ad in the Tennessee Senate race, and to find that the very first "W" is missing.

First, a quick review: The national Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, Ken Mehlman proprietor, paid for a rather unsubtle racist ad in the Tennessee Senate race. Like much of the old south, the racist vote is small than it used to be, but still far from negligible, and it seems the GOP's Nixonian "southern strategy" still lives. Times have changed, though, and rather than accept it, many public figures, including to their credit several (mostly retired) Republicans, balked.

So Mr. Mehlman was asked to explain himself on national TV. His answer was breathtakingly disingenuous. He personally saw nothing wrong with the ad, it's fair he first said, so what's the problem? (Today's spin version, heard no NPR, is more cautious -- some of his friends don't like it and he (now) respects that).

In response to requests that the GOP pull the ad, Mehlman stated that he lacked the power to do so: the ad was an "independent" expenditure by an arms-length body created to act independently of Mehlman's Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the national GOP, and the local GOP Senate candidate, Robert Corker (who also asked that the ad be removed).

Strangely, no one in the media seems to have asked for the name of the person Mehlman believes is responsible for the ad and presumably would have had the power to pull it. Who is in charge of the independent expenditure unit? Who are these rogue figures who would ignore a call by Mehlman to pull the ad -- had one in fact been made (it wasn't)? Who are these shadowy figures who would run a supposedly supportive ad in the teeth of a call by the local candidate to pull it?

"Who" -- the first "W" -- is missing. And if we knew who we might know something about just how independent they really are.

And speaking of missing W's -- where's George W. Bush on all this? Has he condemned this ad? Why not?

UPDATE: See what W's spokesperson, Tony Snow, had to say, via Media Matters.

Compare and Contrast

Billmon notes that capitalism can tolerate dissent -- when it is popular -- quoting from a news report about Olbermann:

Whiskey Bar: The Price of Dissent -- Olbermann said he hasn't spoken to NBC Chairman Bob Wright or anyone at corporate owner General Electric Co. about his commentaries. No one's asked him to tone things down; in fact, "I've had to calm them down a little bit," he said.

Such is the almighty power of the Nielsen meter.

"As dangerous as it can sometimes be for news, it is also our great protector," Olbermann said. "Because as long as you make them money, they don't care. This is not Rupert Murdoch. And even Rupert Murdoch puts `Family Guy' on the air and `The Simpsons,' that regularly criticize Fox News. There is some safety in the corporate structure that we probably could never have anticipated."

Meanwhile, back at Reuters, they just canned a guy who wrote a book critical of a right-wing extremist. Apparently, the fact that this person routinely calls for her opponents to be killed does not suffice to make criticism of her conform to Reuters's policy that "that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved."

Too soon to say before we see the book, but you have to wonder if Reuters are just frit. I suppose we can explain it as non-camera employees not having much market power. Which should give most of us great comfort, shouldn't it?

Olbermann Unchained

Watch Keith Olbermann as he calls out Bush for all but accusing his political opponents of treason. (No, not in the Constitutional sense; in the more rhetorical sense of wanting to leave the country undefended.)

Olbermann is just sanctimonious enough that I sometimes have to fight off the urge to grind my teeth while also wanting to cheer.

I do, however, think that it’s a terrible shame that you can’t see anything like this on a network that someone actually watches. Let’s face it, excluding the Internet re-runs, most of the time basically nobody is watching MS-NBC.

So here’s a little of the transcript to read while waiting for the video’s long slow download from Crooks and Liars:

The President of the United States — unbowed, undeterred, and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: The Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona Congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.”

The hell they did.

177 Democrats opposed the President’s seizure of another part of the Constitution*.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears… what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said “Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we’re attacked again before we respond.”

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind-reader.

“If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party,” the President said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, “it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is — wait until we’re attacked again.”

The President doesn’t just hear what he wants. He hears things, that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this President and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Yet they do.

It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any President of this nation.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders; Democrats; the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies — of treason.

But it is the context that truly makes the head spin.

Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, quote, “we must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us.”

Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.

If your commitment to “put aside differences and work together” is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they’ve said, then the questions your critics need to be asking, are no longer about your policies.

They are, instead — solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office.

Shock waves Can Form Due to Steepening of Ordinary Waves

Shock waves can form due to steepening of ordinary waves. And I see steepening waves popping up all over. For example, they're getting a little shrill over there at Hullabaloo:

America was once a vibrant and vocal enterprise where prominent people spoke with courage and conviction. We are now a muted and sublimated culture where the opposition is cowardly, and too afraid they will be ostracized if they speak out. A once participatory and opposition-minded mainstream press is now preponderantly part and parcel of the largest institution, that amalgamation of powerful forces referred to earlier. The most influential reporters (Russert, Brokaw and their ilk) are millionaire staffers, corporate automatons, and vanity authors who have become inured to the ways and customs of their employers. The elite way of living that goes along with their wealth and social status make them less likely to question the actions of government tyrants. Yet they are the very people with the responsibility to do so, and they are the people who are in a position to do so.

Yes, they're getting very shrill:

Now, for those of you clinging on to the delusion that what is happening isn't what actually is happening, let me spell it out. Gingrich is floating out there the very real possibility that Bush will not abide by any Supreme Court judgment he doesn't like. Suddenly the idea that the Supremes aren't the final arbiter on constitutionality is something that "merits discussion" and if you don't think this notion is going to dominate the discourse if the Supremes strike down the torture bill, well, I hate to be so blunt about it, but you are completely, totally wrong.

I expect we'll see lots more of this before it's over. (And if we don't, that's even worse.)

ESPN Fakes GOP Crowd Cheers, Dem Crowd Boos ?!?

Please, someone, say it ain't so!

Daily Kos: ESPN FAKED STADIUM CHEERS FOR BUSH SR.: For several years, ESPN has been manufacturing fake cheers and fake boos for politicians. It's a very simple rule. If you are a Democrat not named Joe Lieberman, ESPN will play a tape of boos previously recorded and insert them into the audio after the Democrat is announced. If you are a Republican and ESPN is expecting boos, ESPN will play a pre-recorded tape of cheers unrelated to the Republican.

I'd really, really like this to be tin-foil. There's something pathetic and offensive about the idea that the propagandists are taking over the national pastime. And yet, in our debased discourse, one no longer knows how low we can go. Circuses indeed!

Don't Know About the 'Bread,' But We've Got 'Circuses' Down Cold

Under the headline HOW THE M.S.M. KEEPS THE U.S. PUBLIC IN LINE, the Cosmic Iguana points out the disconnect between, on the one hand, Newsweek's cover for the three zoned editions sold in Europe, Latin America, and Asia and on the other hand, the edition sold in the USA:

And we wonder why the public seems so poorly informed?

AP's Not Responding

Looks like my e-mail to AP (see AP Blows the lede) will never be read by them. This evening I got a bounce message:

Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 21:23:39 -0400
From: Postmaster@ap.org
To: Michael Froomkin
Subject: DELIVERY FAILURE: Router: Failed to connect to SMTP host ROAM.AP.ORG because : Server not responding
Parts/Attachments
Your message

Subject: Biased lede in Anee Plummer Flahety article

was not delivered to:

feedback@roam.ap.org

because:

Router: Failed to connect to SMTP host ROAM.AP.ORG because : Server not responding

Why it's dated yesterday, when all the headers say it was sent late today, I don't know.

AP Blows the Lede

Here's a slightly reformatted version of what I emailed the AP just now:

---

I have rarely seen a more transparently biased lede than one that appears on Rumsfeld reaches out to Democrats by ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY.

She writes "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats late Friday, opening up the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief."

The clear sense of this opening is that Rumsfeld has performed a gracious action, kindly allowing the Democrats to return to the path reason, away from some horrid corner they have painted themselves into. It fails utterly to reflect the reality that the Democrats (and indeed, the majority of the American people) were compared to appeasers of Hitler, and more or less accused of treason. And it leaves out the key fact that Democrats are organizing to pass a motion of censure against Rumsfeld.

Contrary to this biased lede, it is Rumsfeld who has painted himself and his country into a corner. And the Democrats have neither need nor desire to retract their indictment of him -- nor their motion to censure him.

Suppose the lede had been "Running scared from Democratic condemnation of his attack on their patriotism last week, Rumsfeld furiously backpeddled from his divisive remarks earlier this week."

That would be biased too (although it would also be closer to the facts in the article).

A more neutral lede would have described what Rumsfeld did today in the context of what HE did in his previous speech, and would not have accepted his office's spin on what his motives were or on how Democrats were supposed to react.

Incidentally, one party doesn't need the "door opened" by another to take a position. And any rational person would know that the Democrats are not about to suddenly embrace Rumsfeld or his war because he issues a new statement which not only fails to retract his earlier attacks but actually in substantial part endorses them.

I really expect better from the AP.

---

OK, maybe that's not strictly true: I hope for better from the AP, but I've stopped expecting it.

Update: And, naturally, the Washington Post just printed the whole thing.

Update 2 [Sept. 2]: The Horse's Mouth -- an absolutely wonderful blog for any politics junkie, by the way -- deconstructs Rumsfeld's latest statement and accurately describes it as "pure bullshit" in light of his earlier remarks.

Olbermann's Edward R. Murrow Moment

On the basis of this savaging of SecDef Rumsfeld, Keith Olbermann would have a strong claim to be the Edward R. Murrow of our day -- if only he weren't so self-conscious about it.

Update: Robert Waldmann makes a convincing case that Olbermann slanders Neville Chamberlain in the clip I linked to above: "He was a truly aweful prime minister but comparing him to Donald Rumsfeld is going too far."

A Sign of the Times

Want to know why political journalism is such a mess? A piece of it is that they don’t do their homework. (Another piece is that they used to be the intellectuals of the working class; now they are professionals who went to college with the people they cover.) It’s gotten to the point that it’s news when a political reporter actually reads to the end of reports, as can be seen in this profile of (obsessively) hard-working NYT reporter Sewell Chan:

NYO - Off the Record: “The story I like to tell about Sewell is you hand him the M.T.A. budget, and two days later he’s digging through it and he’s finding B1 story leads on page 250,” Mr. Jamieson said. “I think he’s home in bed reading it. He flips through it and finds things like they’re going to take conductors off train lines this year. It’s just classic good reporting.”

This is unusual? Ouch. No wonder Murray Waas is such a standout.

I think the problem is particularly acute among reporters who cover “politics” which they see as somehow divorced from underlying realities of governing. The reporters with more specialized beats are sometime impressively well informed. Certainly quite a few of the Washington Post and NYT tech journalists I’ve spoken to had done real homework, as had the main AP guys. But, in my admittedly limited experience, pound for pound the real standouts in terms of preparation are the Wall Street Journal reporters. Either they routinely read in depth or I’m just the last guy they call when no one else is around.

Decoding the Media

Brad DeLong explains how to maximize your chances of getting accurate information if you are among what Jay Rosen calls The People Formerly Known as the Audience and are restricted to the traditional media. Brad's focus is on economic reporting where the problem is especially large, but I think it's more widespread than just economics:

If you want to understand Washington DC, the American government, and American economic policy, then: trust the news pages of the Wall Street Journal, trust the Financial Times, trust the political and lobbying coverage of the National Journal. Trust Bloomberg and Knight-Ridder to try as best they can to get the story straight under immense time pressure. Trust nothing else until it is verified. Use yesterday's *Post* for fishwrap. Use today's *Post* to line the kitchen floor while you continue to housetrain the new puppy.

Why is the Washington Post so bad? Because too many of the big hitters at the Post (on the National desk as opposed to, say, Metro) are not actually particularly interested in policy reality but rather are focused on its first derivative, which is politics, and its second derivative, which is inside-the-Beltway chatter about the future of politics,

The problem is not that the Washington Post hires people who are unintelligent or lazy while the Wall Street Journal hires whip-smart workaholics. The problem is that conveying accurate information about the economy is high up on almost all the *Journal's* news reporters' and way down on almost all the Post reporters' list of priorities.

Making a splash--yes. ... Saying who is one-up politically inside-the-beltway today--yes. Pleasing your editors so they'll give your stories better placement--yes. Pleasing your sources--like Denny Hastert--so they'll keep talking to you first--yes. Informing the public about the functioning of the economy and about the dilemmas of economic policy--what's that?

All of this seems very sad and largely true, although there still are some terrific reporters on the print Post who are still doing great traditional reporting (e.g. Pincus), not to mention several folks at the online washingtonpost.com. But it's striking how often the Post's editors bury some of their work deep inside the A section...

Reading Brad's media guide, though, I was struck by how it felt like half of a Europe joke.

The classic Europe joke goes something like this:

Hell is a place where ...

the police are German;
the British are the chefs;
the Norwegians are the singers;
the French are in charge of repairs;
the Swiss provide the night-time entertainment;
the Belgians put up the signposts;
all the comedians are Swedish;
the Irish provide the birth control;
the speech therapists are Scottish;
the Italians run the postal service;
the tour companies are run by Icelanders;
the Spanish are the priests;
...and the common language is Dutch;

Heaven is a place where ...

the Germans make repairs;
the police are British;
the environmentalists are Norwegian;
the French are the chefs;
the Swiss are the bankers;
the Belgians make the chocolate;
the Swedes are the models;
the storytellers are Irish;
the distillers are Scottish;
the opera singers are Italian;
the fishermen are Icelandic;
the Spanish run the holiday resorts;
and the Dutch are the merchants.

Brad's decoder reminds me of half the joke because the heavenly news diet he prescribes bears so little relation to how even most elites consume their news, not to mention the mass audience. That's the hell...

What Does it Take to be a Pariah?

Apparently, if you write the following about the widows of the people killed on 9/11:

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much.

... that does not make you a pariah. Instead you get to repeat it on the Today Show.

What Does it Take to Get Fired from Fox?

Apparently, merely slandering US WWII troops and being a Nazi (and McCarthy) apologist isn't enough. (Spotted via Hullabaloo.)

Good News from the NY Times

There's a piece of really good news buried at the very end of today's "White House Letter", for years now a none so blind captive of the Standard Narrative:

This is the last White House Letter by Elisabeth Bumiller, who is going on book leave.

I should know better than to tempt fate, but unless they give the job to Katharine Seelye, they could hardly do worse, could they?

Say GoodBye To 'The Economist'?

If I understand this post of Brad DeLong's, a magazine I used to like but recently have had doubts about just slit its own wrists. Apparently, The Economist just appointed the guy who has been writing the Lexington column for the past few years to be the Editor in Chief. (I say apparently, because the entry for John Micklethwait at the Economist web site says he previously edited the US section of the newspaper which may or may not have included writing as Lexington.)

I've explained my problems with the modern Economist before (too little about Albania, too much that sounds like the GOP), but now I have to add that the Lexington column has for years, without exception, been the most pathetic part of the magazine. For years it has been the predictable and unoriginal regurgitation of the most pedestrian GOP talking points. Ken Mehlman with a very slight British accent. Appointing Lexington to run the thing would be so stupid that although I reluctantly renewed recently, I'd be tempted to ask for my money back.

Fortunately, this Penguin blurb says "Adrian Wooldridge writes its Lexington column", although it's undated. So maybe there's still hope. Although if he was editing Lexington and didn't recognize for the warmed over spin points that it was...

Photo Kremlinology

One thing that's struck me about the NY Times for well over a decade is the extent to which they manipulate the sorts of photos they run of people. When they like someone, they run flattering pix; when they don't like someone, they pick photos that make the person look bad. And there are so many ways to do it, too.

A particularly striking example of the genre appears on both the front page and page A18 of today's paper, in which GOP Senate candidate Katherine Harris is portrayed as even dopier-looking than normal.

NYT Caption: Representatives Katherine Harris and Adam H. Putnam, both Florida Republicans, with Governor Bush at MacDill Air Force Base.

Admittedly, I too think she's awful, but I'm sure that the paper wouldn't permit such overt editorializing in a news story. And yes, I do get the argument that since the picture is factual, it actually happened, it's not editorializing. I just don't buy it.

More on Rumsfled

I was quite struck by two features of this AP article, Rumsfeld Is Confronted by Antiwar Protesters, on Rumsfeld's encounter with Ray McGovern.

Consider the first three paragraphs:

ATLANTA, May 4 -- Antiwar protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday, and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him in a question-and-answer session of lying about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

First, note that neither here nor elsewhere in the article does the reporter note that McGovern read Rumsfeld his own statement. The result is to suggest the trading of accusations, not the allegation of a fact and the failure to respond to it.

Second, and most shocking of all, the reporter seems utterly unfazed by the idea that asking a tough question in a public meeting might suffice as grounds to have security wrestle McGovern away. Only Rumsfeld's indulgence, he 'waved off security guards' saved him.

How have we come to this?

I'm Afraid That It's Called "Modern Reporting"

There is a rather major disconnect between, on the one hand this this insipid New York Times account of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner and this almost as pointless account in the Washington Post, and on the other hand, Peter Daou's take which left in the venom. Truth or truthiness? See the video and you be the judge. (The video is in three parts; the third IMHO is sort of a waste of time.)

Who Got Rolled?

In the old days, I'd bet on AP to ge