Category Archives: The Media

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.)

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?

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.

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.

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.”