Domino effect

Democracy is exploding in the Middle East. Pay attention. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt. I wonder who's next?

Here's a good roundup that ends with a question on all our minds:

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe happened after reformists first attained power through elections in Poland and Hungary. It happened rapidly, with no one comprehending the speed with which the old, corrupt edifices of power crumbled. Could the example of elections in one Muslim country in the Middle East have a similar ripple effect?

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Putin on the Press

The Drudge Report has a scoop forthcoming from Time Magazine. Apparently, Russian president Vladimir Putin thought President Bush fired Dan Rather:

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed, TIME magazine will report on Monday.

If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."

TIME's John Dickerson: The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides.

Crazy. That the president of Russia could be that far off base is almost incomprehendable.

UPDATE: Here are the Time and Newsweek articles.

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Gukertgate

First off, let me say this. The White House screwed up in giving press credentials to this Jeff Gannon/Gukert guy. I don't know much about the inner workings over there (watching the West Wing usually upsets me), but I can't imagine why a "news organization" that's clearly just a GOP front would get press credentials.

That said, this story's getting odder and odder because of the sordid gay angle. Where's the outrage? Andrew Sullivan sums it up best:

Just ask yourself: if a Catholic conservative blogger had found out that a liberal-leaning pseudo-pundit/reporter was a gay sex worker, had outed the guy as gay and a "hooker," published pictures of the guy naked, and demanded a response from a Democratic administration, do you think gay rights groups would be silent? They'd rightly be outraged. But the left can get away with anything, can't they? Especially homophobia.

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Oh, Ward!

Great developments on the Ward Churchill kerfluffle.

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Greg Jones' View on Capitalism, baby

My brother submitted this piece on our wonderful free-market system. I'm sure I'll be posting the link to his own blog soon.

Free market baby. That's the answer to everything. I too love a visit to my local Mega-Super-Duper-extra Large-In-Sam-We-Trust-Mart (see also: Cosco, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, etc..) to purchase household goods on the cheap. However, I do not frequent the store regularly because it's a hassle. You have to park in the next county, deal with the herd of stampeding value shoppers (I'm being kind with that description. Have you ever been to Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon?... I've never seen so many "I'm with Stupid" shirts in my life.....), and be willing to settle on only two choices of macaroni & cheese brands, one of which is in a green and light green colored box named "Sam's Cheezee Tubes" ... Now with more orange powder! .... (No offense Matt, but, Mac & Cheese is like dishwashing detergent, you gotta buy the name brand version).

The point is this. Our free market system gives me the choice to go to a warehouse to spend my money or to go to my neighborhood Ace Hardware and spend, perhaps a little more money, but with ample parking, less crowds and six different types of Toggle bolts to mull over as I enjoy a few free powder doughnuts and a cup of coffee from the table in the front of the store. Mmmmm.....Doughnuts.....

And, the free market also provides a solution for those concerned about late-night deliveries and traffic. If this is troublesome to you, you could sell your home (Note: a lot of home buyers want to be near businesses and major roadways, so don't assume this is a negative) and relocate to a more rural area. Do a little homework on the town or area you are considering. Find out what the town's governing body's position is on zoning and growth. There are tons of communities out there that pride themselves (to a snobbish degree in a lot of cases) on their opposition to any change, growth or development.

I realize selling your home and moving may not be very practical. But, it is the free market's answer to the problem. Try doing that in North Korea when the state puts its proletariat Ian "Clothing and Food Stuff Store Number 841" in your backyard.

One more thing. Wal-Mart and the like are nothing more than "mom & pop's" all grown up. They pay taxes, hire people and contribute to the community. Just on a larger scale. That larger scale allows them to leverage their buying power to lower the prices you pay. I think anti-capitalists like to assume that their power increases exponentially to the point that competition is all but extinguished. That's not so. There will always be niches in our free markets that encourage entrepreneurs to reach for the brass ring.

The company I work for, State Farm Insurance, started out insuring Illinois farmers because our founder thought they should pay less premiums than the city folk did up in Chicago. Up to that point in 1923, insurers lumped everyone together when pricing their products. The country folks drove fewer miles, the driving they did do was on rural roads absent of congestion and they had fewer accidents than did their city counterparts. Why then were they considered the same risk by the insurers and charged the same premiums as Chicagoans?

What a novel idea, a niche, if you will. Now, 80 years later, State Farm insures more cars than any other company in the nation. Are there other "start-up" insurance companies out there looking for and finding niche insurance markets and competing with State Farm? You bet. Ain't it great...

Well said, except for the bit about Mac & Cheese. This is the only product which forces one to avoid the generic brand. Guess I'm choosy.

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Taking Russia to Task

This was a very important move by President Bush.

President George Bush subjected Russia's Vladimir Putin to a public lecture on the fundamentals of democracy yesterday, injecting a chill into a relationship that has - until now - been characterised by bonhomie.

I was beginning to worry that we were pushing for Democracy everywhere in the world except for Russia. China should be next.

If we don't believe in democracy, what do we believe it?

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Peggy Noonan

Interesting read from Peggy Noonan on the blogosphere. She sums up a point I and many others have made recently:

(Bloggers) have the still pent-up energy of a liberated citizenry, too. The MSM doesn't. It has lost its old monopoly on information. It is angry.

Yes, information is no longer controlled by a central gatekeeper. That model is now dead.

I doubt that everyone who works for a newspaper is actually angry. I'm sure many aren't all that aware of blogs -- yet. But there's no turning back. And the editors and reporters that have been burned by blogs, are certainly aware, and I'm sure they aren't happy.

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Hey man, I love Wal-Mart

The New York Sun reports that Wal-Mart has ended its bid to open a store in the Big Apple. That's a shame. Having recently purchased a pack of Camels in New York, I can tell you they could really benefit from some low prices.

And in my Atlanta suburb, all my neighbors are in a tizzy because Wal-Mart wants to expand their existing store. They're going to turn it into a SuperCenter and sell groceries. My neighbors object for the usual reasons -- loud late-night deliveries, more traffic, etc.

We've already got two grocery stories a block away, they argue, why do we need another? Not me, baby. I'm looking forward to a gigantic grocery store war. Yes, 49 cents is too much to pay for a box of generic macaroni and cheese.

I'm not alone. We all love low prices. But, we tend to hate the businesses (and free-trade policies) that bring us these low prices.

I bought a clothes iron at Wal-Mart the other day for $6. For six dollars! I haven't bought an iron in 20 years. I figured it'd cost $30. That's $24 that Wal-Mart put into my pocket.

Critics complain that Wal-Mart drives Mom-and-Pop Stores out of business. No, it's the people shopping at Wal-Mart that put the Mom-and-Pop Stores out of business. Blame your neighbors, not Wal-Mart.

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Jarvis on blogs

Anyone interested on the future of blogs and journalism should read the Keller-Jarvis exchange over at Buzzmachine. Here's a great suggestion from Jarvis:

This is why I suggest that news organizations should put full interviews and source material online -- not because the public is dying for more (they aren't!) but so those who want to find the context can. If your speech were online and if The Times story about Eason Jordan had linked to my fuller quote, readers could have judged the context (and thus, our reporting and editing).

What a great idea. Jarvis is right, few people are really interested in reading the full text of some speech or all 200 pages in a report. But by making sure it's out there, it keeps the reporters honest.

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NY Times editor's take on blogs

PJnet offers a nice summary of the latest dialogue between the NY Times' editor Bill Keller and BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis.

Here's a quote from Keller:

...I regard the blogosphere as both a treasury from which we draw ideas and information, and a stimulating bull session where our work lives on. It's only natural that in the blogosphere, a medium with a very low threshold, you find a lot of self-indulgent nonsense, misinformation, propaganda and paranoia...

Perhaps this Ward Churchill debacle would be an example of what Keller would call "mininformation, propaganda and paranoia." But, the beauty of the blogosphere is that it's self correcting. Look at how quickly the truth about Churchill's comments were uncovered.

This contrasts starkly to the mainstream media. Opensource journalism is a beautiful thing.

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Nevermind

The Denver Post reports that Ward Churchill did not admit to any lack of Indian heritage. My apologies to Mr. Churchill.

Here's the correction in the Honolulu Star.

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Too easy

While speaking in Hawaii, Ward "Lil' Eichmanns" Churchill has admitted that he doesn't have any American-Indian heritage:

"Is he an Indian? Do we really care?" (Churchill) said, quoting those he called his "white Republican" critics.

"Let's cut to the chase; I am not," he said.

According to some, Churchill would never have gotten his position at the University of Colorado if not for an effort to increase the diversity of the faculty. Churchill hasn't earned a Ph.D. but was allowed to chair the cultural studies department. His revelation would seem to provide grounds for firing.

In fact, it seems a little too easy. Perhaps he's offering the university a reason to fire him. The move would cement his role as a leftist martyr. He'd be a hit on the talk circuit for years if he was dismissed while excercising "free speech." That his dismissal was because of lying, not for political speech, will be quickly forgotten.

Maybe Churchill has figured out he'd be far happier denouncing America as a celebrity on a permanent worldwide tour rather than just from a Colorado classroom.

If the University of Colorado wanted to make a move against Churchill, this may be their best opportunity. But perhaps they should avoid taking the bait.

ADDENDUM: Some have commented correctly that Churchill may not officially be guilty of fraud, a point Paul Campos made in the column I cited above. However, people have been fired for similar offenses before. Remember the Toronto Blue Jays manager who told everyone he was a Vietnam Vet?

But what Churchill has done is admitted to one of the most serious charges thrown against him. He's thrown down the gauntlet and asked, "Now, what are you going to do about?"

UPDATE: Instapundit is reporting that questions about the accuracy of Churchill's quote have been raised. The neo-neocon makes a great point about the blogosphere's ability to weed out the truth.

MORE GRIST: A telling link via Powerline. Building a career based on a huge lie would be grounds for dismissal in any other field.

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Washington the General

Nice post on George Washington over at Powerline. I just finished reading a great historical novel about the Revolutionary War, "The Glorius Cause," by Michael Shaara. (His father wrote "The Killer Angels," an excellent account of Gettysburg.) I knew next to nothing about the Lexington, Valley Forge or Yorktown before reading the book, and its prequel, "Rise to Rebellion."

Washington's exploits as a general are often overshadowed by his presidency. Shaara makes one point very clear: Washington was the right man at the right time. We'd still be an English colony if not for his leadership. A ragtag colonial government gave Washington a downtrodden army with no experience. They then offered him the barest of financial support and constantly maligned his decisions while debating his removal from command. Faced with this situation, Washington managed to defeat the much-larger army of the greatest empire of the day.

By the way, the book also details the heroics of two foreign officers who I knew little about: The Marquis de Lafayette and Baron Von Steuben. Lafayette disobeyed his king (before France entered the war) in order to serve with Washington. His cool-headed leadership under fire was sorely needed. Von Steuben receives much less credit (note how many places are named for LaFayette, but just a couple Steubenvilles), but his role was just as important. He brought much-needed training to the men at Valley Forge and turned them into a real army.

So on his birthday, a moment of thanks to Washington and all the people (even Frenchmen!) who led to the formation of our country.

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Sack Summers?

This Harvard flap continues to escalate. Here's a good summation from one of the best little newspapers in the country, The New York Sun.

Apparently, Summers will likely survive a no-confidence vote. But the faculty are quite upset with him for a variety of reasons, not just his comments regarding women in science. Presumably, his stance with Cornell West and the ROTC has caused some disfavor among the academia.

Here's a kernel that's pretty ironic:

Of the faculty members who responded to the survey -- a number that ranged from 268 to 283 depending on the question -- 55 percent opposed calls for Mr. Summers to resign. However, a majority of similar size, 56 percent, also said they believed that he has tarnished Harvard's image.

No, Larry Summers didn't tarnish Harvard's image. The Harvard faculty did that. Summers is trying to bring back some decorum to an institution that has seen its reputation fade.

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Tainted ball

Here's a great post about the steroid scandal. It could easily be on the front page of any sports section in the country.

The piece puts the whole steroid thing into perspective. I think we baseball fans went into a collective brain freeze during the 90s and pretended that what was happening was natural.

I remember standing around a TV at a newsroom in Jackson, Miss., when McGwire hit No. 62. It was an electric moment. I don't recall hearing the word steroids that night or any other.

The heroics of McGwire and Sosa rescued baseball from the effects of the 1994 strike. They mirrored an earlier hero who brought fans back to baseball after the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

But now it's more than clear. There's only one Babe Ruth.

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NY Times editor engages debate

The editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, and newspaperman/blogger, Jeff Jarvis, are having an email conversation about newspapers, blogs and the future of journalism. Quite interesting reading.

Choice quotes from Keller:

We both understand that the media world is changing in profound and exciting ways -- although you seem pretty convinced that you know where it ends up, while I'm not so certain of the trajectory...

... And, in any case, what's the point of negotiating a compact with an institution you -- or at least your more theological brethren in the blogosphere -- regard as irrelevant? ...

While we probably have our differences on the role of the MSM (btw, I personally favor "elite media," at least as it pertains to the NYT) I would like to make clear that I consider blogs relevant and important. I do not hold them in disdain, as you imply. I won't risk embarrassing my favorite bloggers by identifying them (except to say that buzzmachine is bookmarked in my office and at home) but I find the best of them to be a source of provocative insights, first-hand witness, original analysis, rollicking argument and occasional revelation.

Jarvis responds:

As for "MSM," I object to the view that established media is mainstream. You're right -- it's elitist. It's the blogs that are the mainstream. I prefer to call what we do in suits big media...

... I do earnestly believe -- as someone who straddles both worlds: mediaman by day, blogboy by night -- that we must work together to improve news, inform the public, and even save journalism...

... It's about changing the relationship of news to the public -- getting past the idea that news is done and fishwrap when we're done with it and realizing that publishing is the start of the conversation, for that is when the public corrects us and adds information and perspective we did not have. It's about extending the newsroom in ways we cannot afford to do, as our revenue shrinks. It's about recapturing credibility, respect, and humanity for journalism. It's about changing news together (and, no, I don't know where this trajectory takes us, but we both certainly know it's not going to stay the same)...

Great stuff. Keller obviously doesn't hold any disdain for bloggers which, quite frankly, I wouldn't have believed before reading his email. Most of the reaction I've seen from both journalists and academia is that they don't appreciate the intrusion into their club. In addition, Keller recognizes that blogs will fundamentally change the way journalism works -- not a small admission from the editor of the most prestigious newspaper in the world. I disagree with him that bloggers see the mainstream (or elitist?) media as irrelevant. Not irrelevant, just out of touch. A profession that has long forgotten that their readership doesn't agree with them on everything. Blogs provide ink for the masses.

Jarvis makes some great points, too. I agree that journalism needs saving. I'm not sure that blogs are the way to do it, but I don't see any other great ideas coming down the path. Blogs certainly speak to Jarvis' complaints about the media -- which also seem to be the same complaints voiced by our readers.

So what should we make of this meeting of the minds? I'd call it a great start.

By the way, I should offer a hattip to pjnet, a blog from the Kennesaw State University journalism department. The KSU program is dedicated to the field of citizen journalism. Certain tenets of that journalistic philosophy appear to mesh quite well with blogs. Interesting to see where this school of thought goes.

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Regarding Summers

Hard to argue with this point regarding the kerfluffle over the Harvard president's comments:

Larry Summers made some suggestions about the causes of female underrepresentation in the "hard" sciences. They were based on research, more than adequately caveated, and eloquently put. The hysterical reaction to his remarks by women at the conference, followed by the indignant bluster of Mr Summers' colleagues, make Harvard, and academia, look more than a little bit silly.

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Wikipedia

The free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is awesome. (I always wondered about Columbia.)

The site is a testament to the Internet. Participants can write articles on any subject. Falsehoods and bias are weeded out by the combined editing of all the readers. Sort of an open-source encyclopedia. Linux meets Encyclopædia Britannica.

How will we ever explain to our kids that a world of knowledge wasn't always at our fingertips?

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Going back to Cali

Here's a reason blogs are so great. This post examines the transcript of an exchange between a California Congresswoman and Secretary Rumsfeld. Pretty funny stuff.

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Don't forget Togo

Democracy's even spreading to the country with the coolest name in the world:

Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe has bowed to pressure from West African neighbours, declaring that presidential elections will be held in 60 days.

I believe Bush deserves some credit, but I'm sure many would just call it a coincidence.

But please, don't confuse Togo with this ageless band or with this beloved pet.

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Not Much Left

Pretty good read on the death of liberalism. Don't roll your eyes -- it's written by the editor of The New Republic. Here's a great quote:

This patronizing attitude is proof positive that, as deep as the social and economic gains have been among African Americans, many liberals prefer to maintain their own time-honored patronizing position vis-à-vis "the other," the needy. This is, frankly, in sharp contrast to President Bush, who seems not to be impeded by race difference (and gender difference) in his appointments and among his friends. Maybe it is just a generational thing, and, if it is that, it is also a good thing. But he may be the first president who apparently does not see individual people in racial categories or sex categories. White or black, woman or man, just as long as you're a conservative. That is also an expression of liberation from bias.

The New Republic is a great publication. It's unabashedly liberal, but not in the knee-jerk way that annoys most conservatives. I don't like knee-jerk conservatism either. (For instance, I don't understand why conservative bloggers waste their time defending this idiot Jeff Gannon, and the faux news organization for which he once worked.)

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Greenpeace meets oil traders

You really can't make up something this hilarious.

London -- When 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”

Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force. ...

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”

Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.

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TFA

My wife once worked for Teach for America. A great organization, but this is admittedly pretty funny.

Quotable:

Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."

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Verizon rings

Received a sternly worded email (certified letter is on the way, I'm told) that alerts me I have 7 days to give up my newly acquired Web site or face legal action.

I've talked to a couple of lawyer friends who assure me I have little legal footing on which to stand. Even if I won the right to keep www.mciverizon.com, I would be barred from using it commercially.

So, alas, it looks as though I'll be buying no small islands. Of course, I have 7 days, so I think I'll wait a while longer ... just to make Verizon sweat.

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Conservative Bias!

One of my biggest pet peeves as an editor is a trend known as "story creep." After a big story dies down, journalists try to sum it up quickly in one paragraph. In the rush to simplify, they get it wrong.

Here's a LA Times correction from a few days ago that illustrates my point:

An editorial Saturday about children’s literature and cartoons erroneously stated that James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that SpongeBob SquarePants is a homosexual sponge. Instead, in a speech last month, Dobson criticized as pro-homosexual a tolerance video featuring SpongeBob, Big Bird and others.

The offended aren't always conservative. From a Reuters story:

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, whose baffling explanation of votes on Iraq war funding hurt his 2004 White House bid, said on Tuesday he would back President Bush's new $81.9 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Baffling explanation" is too harsh and subjective. It wasn't baffling to Kerry or his supporters, many of whom maintained he remained perfectly consistent on the issue.

My rewrite:

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, whose explanation of votes on Iraq war funding drew criticism during his 2004 White House bid, said on Tuesday he would back President Bush's new $81.9 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Home Depot

Home Depot is aiming to boost Hispanic hiring:

Partnering with labor groups can often help retailers find talented workers -- and boost a company's sales at the same time. The Home Depot Inc.'s latest hiring initiative targets Hispanic employees, who represent a fast-growing customer segment.

The media should adopt a similar strategy by reaching out to find conservative reporters and editors. They would find talented workers and the improvement in coverage would boost sales.

Stop snickering.

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What do we do with the UN?

Mark Steyn indicts the U.N. and the media's reaction to its child rape scandal. Remember this: "If you're going to rape prepubescent girls, make sure you're wearing a blue helmet."

Here's the problem.

We'd all love for the U.N. to be a great institution. In an ideal work, the United Nations would be a true guardian of peace and happiness.

However, we live in a world where half the members of the U.N. are countries run by dictators who are niether elected nor accountable.

The result: The U.N. looks like a democracy. Representatives sure do a lot of voting at the U.N. But it's not. Let's quit pretending the U.N. holds some high moral ground. And let's quit pretending that troops wearing blue helmets aren't raping defenseless kids.

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Teaching teachers

Another great article on academic bias from the New York Sun.

A Columbia University professor who has called Israel a "racist" state with an "apartheid system," and who has supported attacks by Palestinian-Arabs on Israelis, is scheduled to lecture a group of New York City public school teachers on how to teach Mideast politics to schoolchildren.

Now that's a great New York newspaper.

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Ward

Interesting column from a faculty member of the University of Colorado:

Academics claim to despise censorship, but the truth is we do a remarkably good job of censoring ourselves. This is especially true in regard to affirmative action. Who among us can claim to have spoken up every time a job candidate almost as preposterous as Churchill was submitted for our consideration? Things like the Churchill fiasco are made possible by a web of lies kept intact by a conspiracy of silence.

The University of Colorado hired Churchill onto its faculty because he claimed to be an American Indian. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with research universities can glance at his résumé and state this with something close to complete confidence.

Churchill thus represents the reductio ad absurdum of the contemporary university's willingness to subordinate all other values to affirmative action. When such a grotesque fraud - a white man pretending to be an Indian, an intellectual charlatan spewing polemical garbage festooned with phony footnotes, a shameless demagogue fabricating imaginary historical incidents to justify his pathological hatreds, an apparent plagiarist who steals and distorts the work of real scholars - manages to scam his way into a full professorship at what is still a serious research university, we know the practice of affirmative action has hit rock bottom. Or at least we can hope so.

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Media bias

I read with great interest the comment made to my earlier post concerning lack of diversity in the newsroom. I agree with most of it.

Yes, Fox News is biased conservatively. They have gone out of their way to hire conservative journalists to present the news from that viewpoint. Just how conservative it is, we probably differ. I'd say it's as conservative as the average member of the House of Representatives. Which would be just barely right of center. Critics would argue that it's to the right of Pat Roberts.

But when I talk about media bias, I'm not talking about the few conservative voices that liberals can point to: Fox News, Washington Times, New York Sun. I'm talking about the mainstream, traditional outlets that dominate how the news is covered: New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNN. Their combined coverage dwarfs the viewership of Fox News. It's not that I "don't care about bias unless it's liberal bias." Fox News doesn't come anywhere close to influencing news coverage as the other outlets do. Thus, I talk mainly about reforming these outlets, and I ignore the bias of the far less-influential outlets.

Am I for ideological quotas? Absolutely not. I'm not for race-based quotas, either. However, as I pointed out earlier, editors could make hiring decisions with the understanding that both diversity of culture and ideology can add something to the newsroom. That's all.

Yes, newspapers are businesses and they can do what they want. But, public pressure has always been an acceptable way to change the policies of private business.

As for the lack of objectivity in the newsroom, I agree that this is the biggest problem. Yes, the term news judgment is jargon for "what's your opinion about what people want/need to know." But, when the majority of the people making those decisions are liberal, they make assumptions about what the public wants to know that are wrong.

"There can't be objectivity, but there can be fairness." I agree with that as well. But fairness isn't just getting a quote from the other side. It comes from truly understanding the opposing position and presenting their position in a non-judgmental fashion. This is incredibly hard to do when no one on your staff thinks that way.

But we first must agree that there's a problem. And no liberal in academia or the traditional press (including my critic) seems prepared to admit that there's anything wrong. Check out this quote from Howell Raines, the ex-editor of the New York Times:

Our greatest accomplishment as a profession is the development since World War II of a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan, and non-ideological, and that strives to be independent of undue commercial or governmental influence....But we don't wear the political collar of our owners or the government or any political party. It is that legacy we must protect with our diligent stewardship. To do so means we must be aware of the energetic effort that is now underway to convince our readers that we are ideologues. It is an exercise of, in disinformation, of alarming proportions, this attempt to convince the audience of the world's most ideology-free newspapers that they're being subjected to agenda-driven news reflecting a liberal bias.

This attitude sums up the attitude of most of the liberals who work in my profession: "Overall, we're doing a fine job, and most everyone's satisfied. We, as individuals, are overwhelmingly liberal, but these complaints about bias are unfounded." Until that's no longer the conventional wisdom, nothing will change -- except for the continued declines of circulation and ratings.

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I love newspapers

After all this media bashing, I feel the need to restate something that I assume my readers already know:

I love newspapers. I miss working at a newspaper greatly. There's nothing better than standing around with a bunch of reporters and editors whenever news is breaking. It's a wonderful, stimulating environment.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton: There's nothing so wrong with newspapers that cannot be cured by what is right with newspapers.

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It's official

OK, Verizon bought MCI. I should be hearing something soon: www.mciverizon.com.

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Bloggers and the NY Times

Great post from Jeff Jarvis over at Buzzmachine. He points out how the Times' story about the Eason Jordan story oozes contempt for blogs and how the Times' coverage of the whole episode is non-existant.

The truth is this. If you read the New York Times as your main source of news (as many newspaper editors and journalism professors still do) you're getting an incredibly skewed version of reality. Ask a New York Times reader how long the Rathergate story was brewing. Or what the Swift Boat veterans' charges actually were. Or whether the Australian Prime Minister's re-election had anything to do with support for the Iraq war.

If you read the NY Times in a vacuum, you're simply ill informed.

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And I have you

by Nikki Giovanni (1943-)

Rain has drops   Sun has shine
Moon has beams   That make you mine
Rivers have banks   Sands for shores
Hearts have heartbeats   That make me yours

Needles have eyes   Though pins my prick
Elmer has glue   To make things stick
Winter has Spring   Stockings feet
Pepper has mint   To make it sweet
Teachers have lessons   Soup du jour
Lawyers sue bad folks   Doctors cure

All and all this much is true
You have me   And I have you.

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The Correct Way to Fix Mistakes

Take the time to read this column. It strongly supports my call for more ideological diversity in the newsroom. The author points out three (admitted) errors published on the front page of the L.A. Times. He notes that all three carry the same ideological bent. He then makes my oft-cited point:

All humans have opinions and beliefs, and with them come ideological blind spots. Most people are better at catching errors when the errors conflict with their own point of view. Journalists are no different. This is why newspapers should strive to have a mix of viewpoints in the newsroom. If The Times staff reflected a wider variety of political perspectives, the errors cited above might never have appeared.

Someone explain to me (without the usual knee-jerk referral to Fox News, please) what's wrong with this suggestion?

By the way, props to the L.A. Times for publishing the column. That's a move in the right direction.

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Death of the traditional gatekeeper

Here's what mass media theorist Pamela Shoemaker said in a 1991 paper about the concept of the media as a gatekeeper:

Thus we see the complexity of the gatekeeping process. The individual gatekeeper has likes and dislikes, ideas about the nature of his or her job, ways of thinking about a problem, preferred decision-making strategies, and values that all impinge on the decision to reject or select (and shape) a message. But the gatekeepers is not totally free to follow a personal whim; he or she must operate within the constraint of communication routines to do things this way or that. All of this also must occur within the framework of the communications organization, which has its own priorities but also is continuously buffeted by influential forces from outside the organization.

The media are made up of a lot of individual gatekeepers who operate within larger organizations. Despite this variety of personnel, the major media outlets are often criticized for acting in unison. Major stories aren't major until broken by one of the big newspapers or TV networks, and then the rest jump on the bandwagon. They act collectively as powerful gatekeepers, determining what stories are important by their own collusion of thought. Individual gatekeepers can serve as collective gatekeepers if most of them look at the world the same way.

The blogosphere has changed that. In the last six months we've seen several major stories gain traction outside of the satisfying model. Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz pointed out that few traditional outlets chose to cover the most recent example, the Eason Jordan story.

As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC but not on CNN.

Despite the collective decision of the gatekeepers to ignore the story, Eason resigned mainly because of the pressure exerted by the blogosphere. There was a time when only the largest of newspapers and the Big Three networks wielded such power.

Those days are over.

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Brave New World

Five years ago, in the pre-blog era, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Jeff Gannon would all still have jobs. The paradigm shift has occurred. Traditional media outlets can no longer serve as gatekeepers.

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Who makes money off domain names?

A quick investigation of the above question yields the following results.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization formed in 1998 to take over government control of the Internet, grants licenses to sell domain names. According to this story, it costs $4,000 to get a license. The firm then pays 25 cents for each domain name it sells. So far 359 companies have paid the yearly $4,000 fee.

Obviously, volume is the name of this game. Yahoo! has to sell about 800 domain names at $4.98 each to recoup its accreditation fee. After that, it's big time gravy. So, if Yahoo! sells 10,000 names, it makes $50,000 (revenue) - $4,000 (fee) - $2,500 (25 cents each) = $43,500. Pretty good return for a $4,000 investment.

Small potatoes for Yahoo! though; maybe they sell 100,000 a year.

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The problem isn't Fox News

In response to a comment about the declining credibility of the media, take a look at this study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism. A content analysis shows that coverage of President Bush during the last campaign was twice as harsh as coverage of his rival. I conjecture that the increasingly partisan coverage from the left has attributed to the decline in credibility.

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The Pope

William F. Buckley argues we should pray for the pope to die. Only a writer of his ability could pull that one off.

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Sorry state of affairs

Here's some stats from the Project for Excellence in Journalism study on the state of the media. The following figures chronicle changes in public perception between 1985 and 2002:

The number of Americans who think news organizations are highly professional declined from 72 to 49 percent.

Those who think news organizations are moral declined from 54 to 39 percent, and those who think they are immoral rose from 13 to 36 percent.

Those who feel news organizations try to cover up their mistakes rose from 13 to 67 percent.

The number of Americans who think news organizations generally get the facts straight declined from 55 to 35 percent.

Those who feel who feel news organizations care about the people they report on declined from 41 to 30 percent.

Those who think news organizations are politically biased rose from 45 to 59 percent.

Troubling.

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Abbas

Here's what Yasser Arafat never did:

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Reacting forcefully to Hamas rocket and mortar fire in the Gaza Strip in defiance of a cease-fire with Israel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas dismissed his top security commanders Thursday and sent a message to the militants that he will not tolerate further truce violations.

Among about 20 senior officers who lost their jobs were the top two commanders, Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaidie, chief of public security, and police chief Saeb al-Ajed, security officials said, a clear sign that Abbas is serious about enforcing the two-day-old truce.

Abbas is serious about peace. I think Sharon is too, which makes sense in a crazy sort of way. These are historic times.

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The Jam

This is good writing.

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More on Social Security

This Web site is reporting that the FDR quote I linked to earlier takes the former president's statement out of context.

But Roosevelt was not advocating that the present system of guaranteed Social Security benefits "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." Rather, he was proposing that both mandatory contributions and voluntary annuities would eventually eliminate the need for a different fund which was established to provide pension benefits to Americans who were already too old in 1935 to contribute payroll taxes to the Social Security system.

But no matter how you read it, FDR was for some privatization -- a.ka. voluntary annuities.

That's all Bush is advocating. Under his plan, I'd have a chunk of cash that's really mine at the end of my life. Money that I can spend as I see fit and that I can pass on to my children. Imagine that.

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See you, suckers

Verizon just made an informal offer to buy MCI. I heard a couple of weeks ago that this was a likely move so I went out in search of Web site names to buy. Someone far smarter than I had already purchased www.verizonmci.com, but the name www.mciverizon.com was still open. So for $4.98, I bought up the latter.

I'll now await contact from the combined firm. I'm sure that I'll be able to name my own price for the rights the site. Please let me know if you know of any islands for sale.

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Social Security

Interesting column that points out the FDR always intended for Social Security to evolve into more than just a pay-as-you-go system:

"In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities that in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." [emphasis added]

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Be like Rice

Some call this a slight:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made no acknowledgement of Yasser Arafat's grave when she met the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah on Monday before concluding a whirlwind trip to Israel and the PA.

I call it great diplomacy.

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Thank You

The Superbowl ad thanking the troops was incredible. Impossible to watch without getting choked up.

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Plastic Surgery

Story on Burt Reynold's recent plastic surgery. Disturbing.

I predict that history will look back on this era of plastic surgery as we look upon the era of powdered wigs. Historians will ask "What were they thinking?"

Take a step back from society and think about this fact: Right now, there's a show on prime time television in which "regular" people vie for plastic surgery. Then after an operation has changed the way they look they compete to see who is most "beautiful."

I don't get it.

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On diversity of thought

Here's a correction in today's Washington Post:

A Feb. 6 story incorrectly quoted James G. Watt, interior secretary under President Ronald Reagan, as telling Congress in 1981: "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Although that statement has been widely attributed to Watt, there is no historical record that he made it.

A wildly inaccurate quote which was largely the basis of the whole article. The article was based on a widely read commentary by retired "journalist" Bill Moyers in which he accused conservatives of opposing environmental regulations because they're all Christian wingnuts who think the Judgment Day is imminent.

Moyers attributed the quote to James Watt, so this Washington Post figured it was as good as gold. Unfortunately, Bill Moyers was wrong.

Now, no one even pretends anymore that Moyers is -- or was -- objective. Most acknowledge that he practiced journalism with a liberal bent.

That said, perhaps news reporters using his material for news articles should double check his facts. If Karl Rove had made an equally ridiculous claim, I'm sure it would have been vetted. The problem at the Post is likely that the reporter, the editor, and the copy editors who read the story actually do believe that conservatives oppose environmental regulations because they're all Christian wingnuts who think the Judgment Day is imminent. A little diversity of thought would help tremendously.

By the way, does anyone else find the title of his PBS show amusing.

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All Hail the New York Sun

The fastest-growing newspaper in New York City is quickly becoming known for covering stories that other media outlets won't touch.

Today, the paper covers the Eason Jordan story. Blogs have been going crazy for a week after the CNN exec implied at the Davos forum that American troops targeted journalists.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.

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More on Columbia Journalism Review

Here's a great column on what's wrong with the CJR.

The CJR bias holds great importance for me because the Review purports to be the overall referee for our business. An answer to the question: "Who watches the police?" It's become increasingly clear that although newspaper readership has declined dramatically over the last 30 years, the journal of my profession isn't interested in truly examining the problem.

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Welcome to the game

Another old-school journalist enters the blogosphere.

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Etymologies

I just spent entirely too much time reading this.

Who knew that Daewoo means "Great Universe" in Korean?

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Social Security

Interesting column from a leftist calling on his party to stop opposing Social Security reform outright. He quotes President Clinton: "We all know a demographic crisis is looming. ... If we act now it will be easier and less painful than if we wait until later."

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Hail the Star-Ledger

A quick search shows that a few papers decided to play up the anti-Hoover angle to the latest jobs report. The Newark Star-Ledger apparently just rewrote the original AP's story:

President Bush has narrowly escaped becoming the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch.

These other papers wrote their own versions that mentioned Hoover.

The Contra Costa Times:

Herbert Hoover can keep his place in the history books, because President Bush's first term produced a gain in jobs -- barely.

The Boston Herald:

President Bush won't be haunted by economic comparisons to Herbert Hoover on the jobs front - at least for now.

The Washington Post didn't reference Hoover specifically, but alluded to the overall issue:

The nation's longest job slump since the Depression ended last month when U.S. employers hired enough new workers to boost total payrolls above the level before the 2001 recession.

These papers aren't right-wing propaganda pieces out to protect Bush's record. Nor are the other papers paragons of leftist thought. But the different ways this story was presented shows how much influence journalists have in framing the news.

Obviously the issue was debated in a lot of newsrooms last night. In the end, I don't really care which way it was decided, I'd just like to know the debate was fair and no one's view was dismissed too easily.

(By the way, the New York Times manages to write the entire story without referencing anything about the overall job numbers for Bush.)

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They're creepy and their crawly

A story on the large number of creepy movies out there. I guessed it had to do with the success of "Signs." Apparently, that's not all.

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One way to fight terrorists

The Christian Science Monitor is a helluva newspaper. Here's a neat story that slipped below the radar. Yemeni clerics challenged Islamic militants to a debate of theology. The clerics won, and the militants renounced violence.

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Ossie

Ossie Davis just died. He was 87. One of his last roles was in this underrated film. Great performance.

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Great coverage

NY Times went to Boston to interview a representative sample of y0ung people on the future of Social Security. Click here to read the surprising results.

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Targeting journalists

Interesting story that's been brewing in the blogosphere. Wonder when it'll break into the mainstream. Apparently, a CNN exec alleged the U.S. troops targeted journalists. A seriously skewed accusation backed by no fact at all.

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When good numbers go bad

So the new job numbers are out. The addition of 146,000 jobs means that President Bush saw a net gain of jobs during his term. Of course, John Kerry led a chorus of Democratic critics who predicted that Bush would preside over the first net loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover.

But, the Associated Press doesn't think that's very important. Here's their lead:

America's employers added 146,000 jobs in January -- a pickup from the previous month but still a somewhat lackluster pace that underscores the slow recovery as the nation's labor market tries to get back to full throttle.

The author, Jeannine Aversa, waits until the fifth graph to begrudgingly deliver the good news:

President Bush's first term in office, however, ended up showing a net gains in payroll jobs. From January 2001 to January 2005, the economy generated a net gain of 119,000 jobs. That allows Bush to escape being what Democrats and other critics had projected as the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs on his watch.

I don't recall any critics who weren't Democrats invoking Herbert Hoover to disparage Bush.

Since Aversa is the AP's economics writer, I'm sure she's aware of Germany's dismal unemployment numbers that came out earlier this week. A paragraph noting the stark difference would add some interesting background. The German unemployment rate rose to a 70-year high and now sits at more than 12 percent. Our unemployment rate dropped to 5.2 percent but its growth is deemed "lackluster" in the AP lead.

An study released last year (by a conservative organization, albeit) noticed similar biases in business reporting.

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Pointing fingers

Here's a discouraging nugget from a columnist in Kansas City who offers this reason that the public's perception of the media has dropped so precipitously over the last three decades:

But as for the mainstream media question, guys like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and whining Bill O'Reilly have built careers denigrating the press. We're all a bunch of libs, they say, out to push an agenda that's hurtful to the well-being of mom, apple pie and the Republic. Day after day the message is repeated, and it's had an effect.

Truly unhelpful, but representative of many of the journalists with whom I've worked. Mr. Hendricks fails to accept that his own performance and the performance of his colleagues may influence the public's opinion. (He shrugs off the damaging effects of Dan Rather's fraudulent newscast with one sentence.)

Hendricks also implies that the people who listen to conservative commentators are mindless idiots who simply parrot what they hear. A popular refrain from many liberals who believe that people who disagree with them must just be stupid.

Both opinions won't help the press reclaim lost audience or respect.

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Straight from the source

Inspiring story from an Iraqi blog.

I guess we'll always need a media filter, but I'm becoming increasingly addicted to first-hand accounts like this.

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The Stumble Gods

I'm glad I hit my Stumble! button one last time.

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Just three letters

I miss the practice of giving a rock band a name with three words, and then referring to it with three letters.

Bands like B.O.C., E.L.O., and E.L.P. will be recognized throughout time by their abbreviations. Not every three-word band made it to abbreviation notoriety. T.D.N. never really caught on.

Like so many trends, I think it was a reflection of Elvis. He was always T.C.B.

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A defense of MSM

Great post over at In the Agora defending the mainstream press.

I'm all for pointing out the foibles of my profession, but trying to find fault in this toy soldier story doesn't stick. Media outlets never reported the story yesterday as anything more than an unsubstantiated claim.

Some of the responses to the story have been hilarious. But, we should be laughing at the desperate nature of these terrorists, not the press.

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He gets it

Great interview over at Pressthink with David Akin, a Canadian journalist. Here's his take on blogs:

I write; I publish. And that used to be the end of it. Now, I write, I publish and a community of people who have special knowledge or who are deeply interested in the topic amplify, correct, modify, or extend the reportage. For a beat reporter, this is fabulous, because I now have more knowledge about my beat.

All journalists must adopt this philosophy. Blogs are not your enemy; they are your ombudsmen. They keep you honest and fair.

Akin surmises my earlier post about the beauty of links.

That's because the blogs that are challenging mainstream thinking are blogs full of links. Someone had to create those things to link to. (Oddly, most often, they are links back to mainstream media.) The best blogs link to primary documents and primary sources. But most bloggers (and many journalists, for that matter) have trouble distinguishing primary sources from secondary sources.

He's right that many bloggers often link to mainstream media. But many also do their own reporting. The link might go back to the actual transcript of an interview or press conference to show how the reporter took a quote out of context or misrepresented what was said. The industrious blogger may also link to the valid work of other bloggers. Soon reporters and editors may have to stomach the fact that bloggers are journalists as well.

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The problem

Missed this article in the Washington Post about the CBS report. Nothing much new, but this is an interesting nugget:

Media credibility has been declining for years. In 1988, 58 percent of the public found no bias in political reporting, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. By 2004, the figure had dropped to 38 percent.

Now that number should be a giant red flag for anyone in the business. I find it interesting that so little is being done to try to combat this decline.

No journalism schools have classes dedicated to identifying bias or mastering objectivity. In fact, academia's response includes the creation of the hostile media effect, which holds that partisans always see the media as biased against them. The theory, in essence, tells journalists that readers will always perceive bias, so there's no reason to try to avoid the perception.

At the newspapers where I've worked, most reporters and editors shrug off complaints of bias as expected criticism from a few partisans. Nothing to dwell upon. You'll find no weekend course in overcoming personal bias at the Poynter Institute.

With newspaper circulations declining and the popularity of blogs soaring, perhaps we should start by admitting that there's a problem.

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Rethinking Iraq

A war-critic wonders, "What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along?"

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