Morons of the week

HONORABLE MENTION: Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, leader of the Republicans' xenophobe lobby, addressed at the Tea Party convention by calling for the return of Jim Crow-era voting laws. And Teabaggers wonder why anyone could possibly see extremism in their "movement."



WINNER: Georgia Sen. Saxby Chamblis, as quoted by The New Yorker:

“the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts” would be likely to create an atmosphere susceptible to “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art.”

Except in a few states, gays can't get married so they can't commit adultery.

And if you banned alcohol and tattoos from the military, you wouldn't have much of a military left.

Reflections on the state of journalism

While I generally discourage completely anonymous comments (I'd prefer people sign, if not their full name, at least a first name or nickname), I do allow them.

In one of several recent pieces I wrote exposing holes into the controversial anti-APA story written by The Post-Star's anti-APA reporter Will Doolittle, an anonymous commenter left the following observations:

The way I see it, in the most recent era of newspaper journalism, objectivity in reporting was considered the ideal and the goal of many organizations. In a nutshell: reporters reported news, and opinions were largely contained on the editorial page (columnists who often reported or broke news and laced their reports with their own points of view often appear outside the confines of the editorial page, but have always been identified as columnists).

This basic division between the newspaper's missions was as strong a firewall as the division between advertising (the other mission of the newspaper is to make money) and news/editorial content. The best example of the news/opinion firewall was the pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal--very conservative editorial page, but solid, straight-forward news gathering. (Naturally this ideal works for papers large enough to have separate Opinions page staff. Mom & pop weeklies simply cannot afford to build firewalls.) Whether or not the ideal of objectivity was ever attained, or even attainable is a side issue.

That era seems to have come to an end with the advent of new media—which are largely POV sources—and Fox News which is run by former political operator Roger Ailes. The emerging landscape looks a whole lot more like early nineteenth century partisan journalism than it does our more recent past.

For newspapers, the recent decline in their fortunes has led to greater experiment in format & content which often entails lowering the advertising or editorial firewalls.

What happened at the Post-Star: editorial page elements dovetailing so conveniently with news elements (as reported by a columnist) to create a thematic "synergy," had the general aroma of just such a barrier-busting stunt.

For an older generation looking for an honest broker in news reporting, this sort of experimentation is dispiriting.

And I would add: for a younger generation with far more exposure to punditry than quality journalism, this sort of experimentation is now accepted as the norm because they've known been given enough of the latter to know the difference.

I've noted with dismay for some time the tendency of The Post-Star and other papers to have an eerie 'synergy' between reporting and editorializing. A story on the bust of an underage drinking party on the front page of the paper is inevitably followed in that same edition by an editorial denouncing adult complicity with underage drinkers. That underage drinking news stories (one of the paper's overt editorial crusades) are inevitably given more prominent placement than comparable non-violent police blotter stories and that the names of underage drinkers are published even though the names of all other minors charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal offenses are not published are both examples of the twinning of the news and the editorial.

When I was a college journalist, we were taught that if the paper published a story on a topic, it should not editorialize on that topic in the same issue. The premise was to let the story (whose purpose is to be objective) speak for itself rather than having an editorial (whose purpose is to have a point of view) shove the paper's opinion down readers' throats before they've had a chance to properly digest it. Having editorials take positions in the same issue as purportedly objective investigative 'exposés' and then claiming that news and editorials are separate is way too convenient.

Post-Star managing editor Ken Tingley took a shot at readers for their poor spelling and grammar in letters to the editor and online comments.

The Atlantic's Michael Kinsley has his own thoughts on what ails newspaper journalism: verbosity and overhype. While his diagnosis seems more geared toward the country's most influential dailies, local papers being more known for excessive brevity, it's a worthy read. One complaint of mine he echoes:

There’s an old joke about the provincial newspaper that reports a nuclear attack on the nation’s largest city under the headline "Local Man Dies in NY Nuclear Holocaust." Something similar happens at the national level, where everything is filtered through politics. ("In what was widely seen as a setback for Democrats just a year before the midterm elections, nuclear bombs yesterday obliterated seven states, five of which voted for President Obama in the last election...")


Update: The continuing speculation over the fate of Gov. Paterson is yet another example of 'mainstream' outlets adopting the standards of trash journalism. Wild rumors circulated Albany that The New York Times was going to reveal some damning scandal about the governor who was supposedly going to then resign. No one could say for sure what the story would be about, only that it was supposedly going to be worse than previous admissions about his personal life made by the governor.

According to reliable sources [sic], the 'bombshell' was supposed to run in the NYT last Monday, then yesterday, then today. It has yet to be published.

Apparently, the Associated Press' Albany bureau wrote a story on this rumor based on the celebrity gossip-based Page Six of The New York Post. It used to be that in serious journalistic outlets, until there was a story, there was no story. Is there really much hope for the future of serious journalism when the AP is relying on the Post's Page Six?

Money for nothing

While a wage freeze prevents most ordinary workers within the Tribune Company from getting even any raise whatsoever, a judge authorized that executives of the bankrupt company receive some $45.6 million in bonuses. Apparently, Tribune is following the Wall St. model of completely eliminating any relationship between a bonus and good performance. Corporate executives of a company IN BANKRUPTCY get "historic[ally] high" bonuses. Ordinary workers who perform well get no raise whatsoever.

The $45 million in bonuses for a tiny cadre of executives is actually lower than the company's original spending spree of $70 million.

This is the same media company whose flagship newspaper editorialized against huge bonuses paid to AIG executives.

The plan was objected to by some groups including labor unions but their pleas were ignored by the bankruptcy judge.

You'd think a media company based on selling image and branding would be a little less tone deaf on potential public relations disasters.


Update: Not surprisingly, the story was apparently not reported by Tribune's two most prominent newspapers, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Maybe this is their notion of 'crisis management.'

Fluff(ball) stories

Some free advice to the brain trust at The Post-Star. If you worry about the decline in people actually paying for your product, don't make them feel like they wasted their money!

I'd suggest that if you insist on running stories about felines of death in Rhode Island and dogs jumping off a bridge in Scotland, that you not put this on the FRONT PAGE of the paper!

It's debatable whether wire stories like this should be in the paper at all but if they do, the FRONT PAGE is most certainly not the place for them. If papers are going to distinguish themselves in a media environment that largely disadvantages them, then they need to maximize the one potential advantage they have, if they choose to use it: good, in-depth journalism. I wonder how the daily's in-house reporters feel about having their hard work bumped in favor of an out-of-state, yawn-inducing story about a "furry angel of death."

Upstate NY shafted on rail and electric

So apparently New York, the third most populous state in the country, got a mere $151 million out of the Obama administration's $8 billion allocated for rail improvements. Planet Albany wonders if this is due to New York not being a swing state (Obama beat McCain in the state 62-36 pct) or due to the ineffectiveness of the state's Congressional delegation (29 of its 31 members belong to Obama's Democratic Party).

For its part, the Herkimer County Progressive places the blame on the state itself for not investing enough in rail. Presumably, this was seen by the feds as lack of interest in much needed upgrades to the mass transit system in upstate NY.

Lack of reliable public transit is one thing holding back economic development in upstate. Sky-high electricity costs are another. And it's only going to get worse.

The giant power monopoly National Grid wants to raise its electric rates by 20 percent. National Greed already has among the highest power rates in the nation, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard.

As I've written about several times before, the power monopoly regularly gouges customers with its nebulous "delivery charge." I personally have had several months where the "delivery" for my electricity cost at least twice as much as the actual power itself. Can you imagine if a pizza place charged you an extra $20 to deliver a $10 pizza? But apparently National Greed can get away with it, all with the collaboration of the state's dubiously named Public Service Commission.

At least you can say one thing about National Greed, the monopoly open about their intent. The Post-Standard article said Tom King, president of National Grid in the United States, said the company needs to make higher profits in order to attract money from shareholders.

The purpose of the military

So with the president promising in his State of the Union to end the Don't Ask Don't Tell fraud, the policy is not back in the headlines.

I hate to be blunt but this needs to be said.

The sole purpose of the military is (in theory at least) to defend national security.

Not social engineering. Not religiosity. Not about making people feel comfortable or accepted.

The military is being asked to do a lot of things supposedly to do with national security. If those things are as important as claimed, the military can not arbitrarily exclude able and capable people and still pursue that very complicated task. It does not need gay people. It does not need blacks. It does not need women. It needs human beings who can do a needed job and do it well. The rest doesn't matter.

The military does not exclude blacks and Hispanics and Asian-Americans just because their presence might make bigoted soldiers "uncomfortable."

It does not exclude women because it makes sexist soldiers "uncomfortable."

And it should not exclude gays because it might make homophobic soldiers "uncomfortable."

It may not be politically correct but it's the truth: all soldiers need to get over their personal preferences and biases and realize they are there to serve the greater good. Let's be serious. If a GI cried that he didn't want to go to Iraq because hot weather made him "uncomfortable," do you think the Army would cater to his whining?

If the bigots or anyone else want to let their personal biases preclude them from dealing with people they deem inferior, they should not join the military. Soldiering is a profession where dealing with people different than yourself and taking orders from them is an absolute requirement of the job. You know this going in. If you're too weak to handle it, find another job.

Update: Joint chiefs' chairman Adm. Mike Mullen explained to a Senate committee why he supports Don't Ask Don't Tell's repeal.

One less truth teller

Noted historian Howard Zinn has died at age 88. Zinn was both celebrated by some and reviled by others for the exact same reason: his accounts of American history took the unusual and politically incorrect path of trying to tell the whole truth, rather than the convenient, sanitized version. Needless to say, his voice will be missed.

Journalist continues to poke holes in questionable Post-Star anti-APA series

Another followup* on the controversial two-part series on the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) written by The Post-Star's Will Doolittle.

(Note: I've offered Doolittle the opportunity of a rebuttal to be published here but he's so far not done so.)

North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann has continued to fill in a lot of the holes that plagued Doolittle's pieces. Mann, a reporter without an open, long-standing contempt for the APA, has provided depth and context that was sorely lacking in the original piece. Mann asked questions where Doolittle accepted answers uncritically from anti-APA interviewees.

Mann's latest piece is definitely worth a read.

Maybe this is why I'm a paid member of NCPR but no longer subscribe to The Post-Star.

**

Update: When I questioned the wisdom of assigning Doolittle (who's well-known for his outspoken and regular criticism of the APA) to do this purportedly objective story about the APA, most people, including Brian Mann himself, dismissed my concerns. These concerns which were less about overt bias (at least at the time... now I'm starting to wonder) but about less conscious decision making based on the assumptions and preconceived notions of someone who's firmly established that he's one on side of the issue. I remember explicitly wondering if Doolittle had failed to ask follow up questions or pursue further, perhaps not consciously but because he assumed that any accusation against the APA was in and of itself credible, because of his own notions about the Agency and what it represents. The excellent follow up reporting done by Mann makes me feel completely vindicated in my concerns. I know self-appointed watchdogs generally bristle at anyone watching them, but I'm glad NCPR's Mann is performing that service to the public. It's just unfortunate that the excellent journalism in NCPR's blog will get only a fraction of the audience as the daily's piece.

Further update: I've refrained from using the phrase 'hit job' to describe the original piece, but some are less circumspect. One anonymous poster at NCPR's blog writes:

While I'd like to commend you on excellent investigative reporting on this post, the sad fact is that this contradiction to Douglas's claim should have been paragraph 2 in the original Post-Star story. And not so hard to dig up, at that.

What disturbed me all along about the series in the P-S was how thoroughly orchestrated it was: first the series, then the story about reaction to the series (with no reaction from the organization the original story had defamed); then the editorial; then the online poll: "Should the APA be disbanned (sic) ?" Even that peculiarly emasculated Don Coyote had something to say. So over-the-top, you half expected Mark Trail to chime in from the funnies page.

This was a crusade, pure and simple. It left me feeling like I'd been bludgeoned by a Pulitzer medallion.

Thanks for exposing the rot at the core.

Anonymous should be reminded that the paper's Pulitizer was not for journalism, but for editorial writing.

**


*-OTHER PIECES ON THIS BLOG ABOUT THE SAME SERIES
-My original critique of the series and the journalistic ethics involved;

-The piece in which the Nature Conservancy refuted accusations of criminal collusion in a letter to The Post-Star;

-Questioning why the daily's website has exceptionally failed to publish an online version of said letter.