A textbook case of media bias (Post-Star style)

(Ed. note: My friend at Planet Albany blog used that title for a recent entry so I offer this title not as plagiarism but as an hommage)

Last night, New York Libertarian state chair Eric Sundwall was in Glens Falls to talk about his participation in the race for the state's open 20th Congressional District seat, vacated by US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

I will have a report on the event hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. I was the only journalist in attendance for the whole event, as the two members of the local commercial media left after 15-20 minutes and missed 75 percent of what happened.

I am not yet endorsing a candidate, as I know little about Democrat Scott Murphy (though I've been very unimpressed by what I've seen so far).

However, this blog has taken a consistent position in favor of real multipartyism. This blog has also consistently advocated in favor of smaller party and independent candidates getting comparable media coverage to Democrats and Republicans, for such candidates to be included in all debates and for electoral law to be unrigged to allow more candidates to make the ballot without gigantic and unreasonable hurdles. I maintain it is indispensible to our democracy to reintroduce real choice to our democracy. There is no reason why Americans can handle 50 different choices of white bread in the supermarket but will faint with confusion if they have more than two political candidates.

When I report on such "third party" candidates or post information about them or their websites, it's not necessarily because I endorse them (unless I explicitly say so). I do so because I believe that voters should have as much knowledge as possible so they can make an informed decision. And if the corporate media is going to refuse to provide that information, I will fill in that gap as much as I can as a non-professional blogger.

For example, last year, I provided information about and websites for ALL the smaller party and independent presidential candidates on the ballot in New York. I did so as a public service, even though it was clear I only endorsed one. I did so because even though I believed one was the best candidate, I wanted to make sure everyone had access to the same information so they could make that decision. I am a citizen first and a partisan advocate after. I didn't decree who was "serious" or not. I provided the information and let people make up their own minds.

I believe that voters alone should decide who is viable. When the mainstream media blackout "third party" candidates decreeing them "not viable," it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... especially since the media inevitably give oodles of free coverage to Democrats and Republicans.

I will always bang the drum for the right and the rightness of any smaller party or independent candidate to get a decent amount of coverage from and to be included in any debate sponsored by any media outlet that pats itself on the back as fair and claims some sort of public service role for itself.

If you want us to think you are fair, then don't tell us. Show us!

The local Post-Star hasn't learned this lesson.

In his blog, the daily's managing editor Ken Tingley wrote of the 20th CD special election:

With two new candidates from last fall’s election, we want give our readers a chance to get to know the candidates. We are planning on doing personality profiles on each of the candidates. In our Sunday meeting, we were already discussing in what order and how far removed from the general election the profiles should run.
We really do try to be as fair as possible. We plan out our Sunday stories three and four weeks in advance in an effort to have our very best stories in the Sunday newspaper.

I wrote a comment on the blog pointing out that there were not two candidates for the seat, but three. Democrat Scott Murphy, Republican Jim Tedisco and Sundwall.

Tingley pointed out that right now, only the first two were on the ballot. Sundwall has to get signatures to make that happen, while Murphy and Tedisco were anointed by a couple of party bosses.

Usually, the mainstream media's bias against smaller party candidates isn't overt. You have to read carefully to notice the obfuscation and rationalization. The typical arguments against such candidates are...

-"They have no chance of winning" (which becomes true when the media blacks them out... the media here makes news rather than just reporting it)

-"People aren't interested in 'third party' candidates" (which is impossible to determine if people aren't made aware anything about them)

-"We DO give them coverage" (almost always a token sentence at the end of an article about the Dem and GOP stating 'Conservative Party candidate Jim the Electrician is also running.')


The 'people aren't interested' myth is also belied by evidence. In a Zogby Poll last year, 44 percent of those polled agreed that the United States' system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections.

Some of my friends attribute this bias to a corporate conspiracy against smaller-party and independent candidates. And frankly I think there is some truth to that at the higher-level races. I'm not so sure about the local races, though it's possible. Frankly, I'm reminded of the phrase "Never attribute to malice what can easily be ascribed to incompetence."

I think much of the bias is down to pure laziness. Professional journalists intone that there are two sides to every story. That's not true. For most stories, there are more than two sides. That takes a little digging. That takes a journalist who's willing and able to venture from the standard narrative to give a fuller, more nuanced picture. Giving 1 tablespoon "establishment liberal" plus 1 tablespoon "establishment conservative" plus "mix well" is a much easier recipe. Varying from the Script and offering alternative points of view takes a little more work.

But in reality, this is a pathetic excuse because it doesn't take much more work. If a reporter is going to call up Tedisco and Murphy and get their views on stimulus or agriculture or whatever, is it really that hard to phone up Sundwall and get his views on the same issue? ESPECIALLY in a special election like this where there are no other races to spread thin the paper's resources.

I hope it's down to laziness or to small minds refusing or unable to think outside the corporate box. I hope that's the case because if it's not, then maybe there really is something more sinister.

But while such contempt toward "third parties" (either conscious or through sloth) is usually more subtle, Tingley has decided to come out and admit his bias. When I asked him to promise a profile of Sundwall should he make the ballot, the Post-Star supremo responded:

If a third candidate makes the ballot that has a legitimate chance or seems like an interesting candidate, we would always consider doing a profile on them as well.

So in order to get a profile, you have to be seen as legitimate (hard to do when the media consciously ignores you) and you have to be 'interesting' (Scott Murphy doesn't seem to fit this bill).

I take that back.

You need those things before they will CONSIDER giving you a profile.

Translation: Sundwall has no chance in hell of getting the hagiography that The Post-Star has promised to Murphy and Tedisco.

Even my father, an old-school journalist and establishment Democrat with little sympathy for smaller parties, described Tingley's comments as unprofessional.

Tingley is openly admitting that he has differently rules for how "third party" candidates are treated than for how Democrats and Republicans are treated, the very definition of the phrase 'double standards.'

"We really do try to be as fair as possible," whined Tingley in his blog entry.

Openly admitting you have double standards does not fit most people's definition of "as fair as possible."

"We really do try to be as fair as possible."

Refusing to give comparable coverage to all the candidates, when it's quite easy to do so, does not fit most people's definition of "as fair as possible."

"We really do try to be as fair as possible."

Clearly they're need to try a lot harder.


Update: In another blog entry on the topic, Tingley reiterated that they "do try to be fair and balanced and we talk about how to maintain that balance all the time. And that includes third-party candidates as well."

The very definition of the word balance requires that his paper give equal (I'd settle for comparable) coverage to all the candidates.

If he's going to pat his paper on the back for these qualities, he has to expect others to hold the paper to the standards they set for themselves! The paper demands accountability of others. Readers need to demand the same of the daily.

There's only one thing better than beating Mexico

And that's beating them again and again and again.

Oh yea... and again!

Updated blog policy on commenting

Here's a hopefully clearer explanation of this blog's policy on commenting. Thanks for reader feedback on this issue.


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Tabloidism vs journalism

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


The Post-Star is on a crusade to (hold hand over heart) protect the taxpayers. Nothing else matters in local quality of life except (hold hand over heart) protecting the taxpayers. And the paper gets annoyed to no end when locals think of themselves as citizens or parents first rather than only caring about their wallet.

Their most recent whipping boy is the Glens Falls school district's (GFSD) board of education and teachers' union for approving a new contract which gave the teachers 4 percent annual raises but forced them to contribute more to (always skyrocketing cost of) their health insurance.

The monopoly paper has two objections.

The first criticism is that the board and union refused to release details of the contract until AFTER it was approved. This made it impossible for the public to comment on it.

Many local school districts have followed this same, wrongheaded route. They claim they want the public's input but deny the public the information they'd need to formulate any input one way or the other. It's one thing to not publicize every crossed t and dotted i of the negotiations. But once a tentative agreement has been approved by the union and makes it to the board's agenda, it must be made public well-enough in advance for the public to scrutinize it if they so choose.

Teacher salaries make up a huge chunk (I want to say around 70 percent, but don't quote me) of the typical school district's budget. A budget which is funded in large part by local property taxes. The public ought to be given a chance to comment on that contract before it becomes written in stone.

As the last eight years have shown, secrecy is the enemy of democracy and good government.

On this, The Post-Star is spot on.

But the second objection is more interesting. After bungling numerical analysis in the original article, they ran a corrected piece claiming that the new pact would add up to an extra $1.4 million to the local tax burden.

'$1.4 MILLION' screamed the headline!!!

But a little math puts it in a different context.

There are about 14,000 residents of the city. This number isn't perfect because it includes residents of the Abraham Wing district on the city's east side but excludes residents of the GFSD who live in the town of Queensbury. But this is a good approximation of the number of residents in the GFSD.

$1.4 million divided by 14,000 works out to an increase of $100 per resident divided by the four year length of the contract works out to an extra $25 per GF (at most) resident per year or a little more than $2 a month. So for a household of four, it would work out to around $2 extra per week... or the cost of one Sunday Post-Star (maybe that's why the daily is so worried!).

Then again, $1.4 MILLION (OMG!!@#!) makes for a more dramatic headline than $2/person/month.

But what really gets The Post-Star's goat is that people are not as outraged as the paper's ivory tower editors think they should be.

They continue to bang the drum to whip up outrage that isn't there. In addition to two articles on the topic (one bungled and one apparently correct), they've published an indignant editorial (Update: now two indignant editorials), an indignant opinion column by the always-pompous Managing Editor Ken Tingley and several blog entries (alternatively indignant and defensive) by Tingley.

The tone of all these pieces is that we should be outraged because the eminent newspaper told us to be so. And if we're not, it means either that we're rubes or that we're secretly in league with the leeches in the teachers' union.

There is a reasonable debate to be had on this issue, but the arrogant tone of The Post-Star's brain trust prevents this from happening. They insist on perpetuating the simplistic dichotomy that the only way to alleviate the overwhelming tax burden on local property owners is to target teacher salaries. It's either well-paid teachers and overtaxed residents or underpaid teachers and slightly less overtaxed residents.

A more reasonable debate would ask whether the fundamental structure of education funding in New York state is broken. It would ask why so much of the mandatory education programs is funded locally when the crushing majority of mandates for those programs come from state and federal authorities.

But such a debate requires more nuanced discussion, less scapegoat and faux indignant outrage, fewer tabloid headlines and less reporting driven by editorial positions.


Update: And as some commenters to the paper's website have pointed out, their $1.4 MILLION (!!!!) figure is a maximum. According to the daily's own reporting, the figure assumes that no higher-paid experienced teachers will retire or leave the district to be replaced by lower-paid, less experienced teachers. Given the near impossibility that no teacher will leave the district in the next four years, the $1.4 million ($2/week/family of four) figure will almost certainly be lower.

20th CD report

There hasn't been much of substance to report on the race for the vacant 20th Congressional district seat, vacated by now Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Mostly just the usual negative, personal attacks that have little relevance to anyone other than partisans. Planet Albany blog runs sympathetic toward Republican Jim Tedisco. Matt Funiciello endorses Libertarian Eric Sundwall and notes that the candidate will be making a public appearance on Wed. Feb. 11 in Glens Falls. I haven't read much in the blogosphere about Democrat Scott Murphy, whose disorganized campaign recalls clueless Democratic efforts of the pre-Gillibrand era. Gov. David Paterson still has not set a date for the special election.


CANDIDATE WEBSITES
Scott Murphy: www.scottmurphy09.com
Eric Sundwall: www.sundwall4congress.org
Jim Tedisco: www.jimtedisco.com

Albany's attempt to asphyxiate the Adirondack Park

In this entry, I denounced the plan proposed by NY Gov. David Paterson to refuse to pull full property taxes owed on state-owned land in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks, a plan that would asphyxiate the Parks' municipalities, counties and school districts.

Bear in mind, we're not talking here about cutting state AID, but about refusing to pay the full amount of property taxes the state rightfully owes on land it owns... a luxury no other property owner has. Bear in mind also that these Parks are subject to restrictions on economic development imposed on them by the state legislature, executive agencies and the state constitution. And now Albany wants to refuse to pay the local taxes it owes, taxes that pay for the mandates on localities and schools that Albany imposes! And of course, this will cost even more taxpayer dollars when the localities inevitably and rightfully file a lawsuit against this proposal.

John over at Adirondack Almanack blog also heaps scorn on the unconscionable proposal. Almanack noted that in 2007, the state paid $69 million in property taxes to localities in the Adirondack Park alone. He points out, like I did, that if the state can refuse to pay the taxes it owes because its finances are tight, then why can't every other taxpayer do the same?

John concludes quite succinctly: I understand we are facing difficult economic times and I'm not one to raise the flag for program after program in tough times, but this is going way too far. A fair system of taxation ranks at the top of the list of American values.

The fight against toxic nationalism in Kosovo

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine, Iraq, North Korea and Iran. A list of all pieces in this series can be found here.

The Christian Science Monitor has a good piece on reconciliation in Kosovo, location of a genocide in the late 90s.

Soft power works. So do democratic elections. And it is possible to de-escalate longstanding violence and hate... [Serbia's] new government, while still insisting that Kosovo's independence is illegal, has detoxified this issue and is now acting pragmatically rather than ideologically. It has renounced the use of force. It has moved the dispute from the hot political to the cool legal arena by appealing it to the International Court of Justice.

Sundwall seeking Congressional seat

I've been informed, not by the local press of course, that Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall will be running against venture capitalist Scott Murphy and used car salesman (sometimes referred to as Assembly minority leader) Jim Tedisco for the 20th Congressional district seat vacated by now-US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. With Murphy lacking name recognition and Fucillo... oops I mean Tedisco, not even living in the district, the time seems ripe for a strong showing for a smaller party candidate.

(Sundwall's website can be accessed by clicking here... Apparently his campaign's on Facebook too)