Chewin' the News

Bomb Blame

Thu, 04 Sep 2003 08:55:52 GMT

Today is one of those times when commentary would seem unnecessary. On one hand, Al-Ahram, a major Egyptian paper, blames the US for the bombings of the Jordanian embassy and the UN headquarters in Baghdad and of the tomb in Najaf. The Syrian government media blames Israel. This information comes via the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Major Arab media want to say "look at whose interest these bombing serve." Indeed, the Syrian government daily accuses Israel of terrorism even before the country existed. Why not ask another question: what groups of people regularly use bombings - car and otherwise - to make their points?

Why Johnny Can't Work

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 23:12:35 GMT

Jobless Rate Falls to 6.2%, but Payrolls Slump. The unemployment rate in July dipped from 6.4 percent in June, but businesses unexpectedly cut 44,000 jobs. By Kenneth N. Gilpin. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I often find economic news odd and difficult to comprehend. The jobless rate falls, to some degree due to the over 470,000 people that the Labor Department estimates have given up on finding work. To some degree? What degree? Why doesn't the AP article (assuming this bit wasn't edited out) try to make clear what is otherwise muddy? What does an unemployment rate mean when it doesn't count on people who have come to the conclusion that they cannot find employment? It seems that in virtually every sector of the economy, corporations are, on the whole, eliminating positions. And, remembering my own experiences from a number of years ago, how many people who lost a job decided to start a small business? It's a confusing mishmash of decimal pointed percentages that add up to zero.

Fed chairman Alan Greenspan sees hope, expecting a rebound starting in the second half of this year which starts, oh, about a month ago. Tax cuts and low interest rates are supposed to fuel consumers and businesses to spend and invest more. But why doesn't someone mention that companies have spend the last 15 years trying to spend only when they really needed to, and not to build excess capacity and inventory, which are bad for business? It might be honest and right for those in charge to admit, finally, that they don't know what really makes the economy go. If they did, it likely would.

Bias or Bluster?

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 14:34:45 GMT

WorldnetDaily.com ran an article claiming that the media favors Democrats over Republicans, based on a report (link in PDF format) from the Council for Excellence in Government. Unfortunately, the article is a misrepresentation of what the data can support.

Overall executive branch positive ratings in the first year of their administrations (that's the only time that the study sampled) were 34% for Reagan, 38% for Clinton, and 36% for Bush II. The numbers are so close that it could reasonably be considered a statistical dead heat. As the report put it:

"Coverage of the executive branch was quite similar in tone for all three administrations, ranging from a low of 34 percent positive in tone in 1981 to a high of 38 percent positive in 1993. Personal coverage of the presidents was nearly identical: 39 percent positive evaluations of George W. Bush, versus 38 percent for Bill Clinton and 36 percent for Ronald Reagan."

Also: "The most obvious interpretation of these findings is that all three administrations received mainly (and almost equally) negative coverage. (cf., Farnsworth and Lichter 2003)."

"The three administrations received virtually identical judgments of their domestic agendas — 35 percent positive for Bush, 33 percent positive for Reagan, and 32 percent positive for Clinton."

As for Congress by parties, yes, it was 42% positive for Democrats and 26% for Republicans in 2001 - and it was 7% positive for Democrats and 30% for Republicans in 1981. But I don't remember conservatives complaining about media bias arguing that it was only a recent phenomonon.

Judiciary: 48% in 2001, 70% in 1993, and 60% in 1981. But why? According to the study, the Supreme Court decision giving the election to Bush tipped the judicial scales most recently, and the unusually high bump in 1993 was praise for two Supreme Court nominees. So, one or two stories can totally change the balance. It hardly seems like a designed bias towards a political viewpoint - unless someone might argue that the Gore v. Bush case was not worth the coverage it got.

As the report also says, when comparing issue coverage: "Thus, it is easy to see why partisans on both sides would perceive the media as biased against their party’s policies." So, again, no systematic and consistent support for Democrats. And, "The Congressional coverage showed greater evidence of partisan differences. But the same party was not always favored."

In other words, the article did a poor job of explaining the report and seems to have deliberately tried to skew the data to support a stance that its author wanted to take. The situation is complex, and some of the evidence could actually support the idea that networks work harder to make Republicans seem positive (when eliminating partisan sources, Democrats had a more favorable rating, but someone had to add the expectedly positive partisan sources that ended up evening the score). At best the posted account is shoddy work, and at worst, outright lying.

Instead of trying to shephard the faithful, the WorldnetDaily site would serve the public interest by being accurate.

Coulter Criticizes Criticism

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 14:26:57 GMT

I've wondered why I bother to even occasionally look at Ann Coulter's site. There is a combination of fascination and horror that is like an intellectual train wreck. Currently, she criticizes Democrats for, in turn, criticizing Attorney General John Ashcroft's policies that have resulted in the detainment of about a thousand people originally from the Middle East. After all, she argues, it was Democrats that started the Japanese interment camps during World War II. True, they did - but she failed to say whether Republicans protested or supported the measure. Perhaps Republicans rose up to denounce the action. If not, it would seem that there would be blame for all. Also, there is inherent in the argument the assumption that because a party supported a type of action at one point that uninvolved matters at latter time have no right to oppose a similar action. That is effectively saying that people cannot change their opinions - and so, does that mean that it is only right to assume that politicians, including Republicans, who once supported segregation still do?

Coulter claims that "...Ashcroft's modest, carefully tailored policies have prevented another attack for almost two years since Sept. 11, 2001." Well, perhaps is as close as you can get. If a gap in time is enough to prove that activity creates deterrence, then should we credit the Clinton administration because there was no foreign-directed terrorist attack after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993? Is it a Bush administration fault that the same building was destroyed eight years later? There is a danger in assuming causality from timing. Why not, for example, credit a lack of attack with the disruption that was the attack on Afghanistan?

As for Democrats being "short in the particulars as to how Ashcroft is trampling on anyone's rights," perhaps the question is not whether he has actually done so, but whether the Justice Department under him is supporting legislation and abilities that could signfiicantly open people to investigation and oversight on the basis of accusation, and not proof. A reading of the two Patriot Acts can shed light on this for the interested.

Aside from questionable applications of logic, there are also some statements that are factually wrong. For example, she writes: "Albasti told PBS - that's right, PBS, the television network owned, operated, and funded by the very same federal government Abasti now claims is oppressing him..." Pure rhetoric, as PBS is a non-profit corporation owned by its member stations. It does receive funds from the federal government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - which was created by Congress and which perhaps a confused Coulter really meant. Much larger amounts of its funding come from member donations, corporate underwriting, foundations, and universities. Perhaps Ms. Coulter was confused and didn't have time to check her work, as seems to often happen with her, at least in the times I've read her work.

Although she wants to claim that "the left's principal evidence of a civil-rights crisis in America consists of a one-week detention of eight Egyption immigrants," this smacks of deliberately misreading and misunderstanding what people are saying, when, indeed, she even pays attention.

She ends by saying that people claiming that there is a civil liberties crisis in the country at the moment are traitors. Unfortunately, she provides no evidence of treason: the attempt to overthrow the state. What else can you say about such a person but that she is a liar?

Kelly Countered

Sun, 20 Jul 2003 20:33:13 GMT

And here is a BBC recounting of what Kelly actually told members of Parliament, which does seem to differ from the BBC correspondent's account.

Sexing Up Reporting

Sun, 20 Jul 2003 20:24:55 GMT

BBC Says Arms Expert Who Died Was Source for Contested Report. The announcement cast doubt on the network's credibility since the arms expert said two days before his death that he did not provide the report's central contention. By Warren Hoge. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

There is no news that news is nudged. Reporters find the most striking quotes and facts to present - it is part of the craft of story telling to convey information in as compelling a way as possible, so that people will want to read or listen or watch. If not, no one pays attention and the journalist might as well do something useful, such as digging a necessary ditch or emptying garbage cans.

Editors select a collection of stories for any given broadcast or publication issue, and that is part of both story telling and business, because if people don't pay attention, you can't tell them anything and you won't have a job for long.

But the idea of journalism assumes that in this mix of commerce and narrative technique, there remains an abiding respect for the story itself, for the concept that there is something noble in understand what the truth is and explain it. No, these are not the great truths of philosophy and religion, or even the interesting principles of science. But on the scale of existence, we must acknowledge that even with all the falling and petty evil that all of us undergo, that trying to devote oneself to something higher - even when the choice of subject is off - is an admirable attempt.

Complete evidence is still out, but there seems to be some indication that people at the BBC might have misrepresented what Kelly said, and that they certainly initially misrepresented the level of source providing their information. I don't think it is fair to blame the network for Kelly's apparent suicide, as we all have pain to bear in this life, and how we deal with it is our responsibility, not someone else's. But they are responsible for what they broadcast, and they are responsible for any fracture of the journalistic canons. The weight a journalist bears is not to a printed code of ethics, but to the concept of truth and the idea that there are things worth fighting for. Perhaps its time for some governing the BBC to consider some more useful occupation, like disposing of trash instead of creating it.

Receding Recession?

Sat, 19 Jul 2003 00:12:12 GMT

The New York Times quotes the National Bureau of Economic Research to say that the recession that started in March 2001 ended in November of that same year, but that jobs never recovered because of the effect of increased productivity.

However, let's examine the concept of recession. It was only in November of 2001 that the same group even suggested that there was a recession, according to this column from a Purdue professor. Why did it then take the NBER until now - midway through 2003 - to report that the recession ended about the time that the group seemed to identify it?

And does anyone remember all the stories pointed to the disagree among economists of whether we technically were in a recession? This story from the Industry Standard - and I'm surprised that anything from that publication is still available on the web (It go out of business, right? Who's paying the bills?) - made that point in May of 2001.

So, was there no disagreement? Some? When did things change? Is there some reason that the doom and gloom set up by the story - everyone is doing fine except for the people - is not challenged by the questions economists had at the time? Or is this a case of reporters and editors being memory challenged?

Opposites Attract?

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:27:50 GMT

I'm not sure there is anything to add to an article called Neo-Nazis, Extremist Jews Unite.

Count Down

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:47:22 GMT

It's been a busy week here in real world media land, with pile ups, screw ups, and coffee cups. Now that I have a moment to breathe and read, I notice that the press has largely been reporting an increasing death figure from the Iraq smaller than the official number. First, congratulations to Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine for the newspaper industry, for recognizing the problem, and a disappointed shake of the head to the reporters who lack enough enterprise to do some digging. I still remember the nightly body bag counts from national television during the Viet Nam war. No, the numbers in Iraq cannot compare by orders of magnitude, but people should know what this recent and continuing action has cost, in lives and in money, so they can decide whether continuing is in their best interest. Death, whether from a bullet or an auto accident, is as final, as uncompromising, and as grievous. It does leave one with the question of why many media outlets would look only at combat deaths. Could it be that to please readers, thereby selling publications, writers and editors unconsciously mimic the tastes and preferences of the general public? If so, might a "liberal bias" in the past to some degree represent a national mood, and when the collective opinion seemed different, could the sense of media kinship be shifting?

A Faith in Tenet

Sat, 12 Jul 2003 16:12:39 GMT

CIA director George Tenet has admitted that the organization long had doubts about the supposedly proven claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Africa. Furthermore, he has admitted that the CIA reviewed President Bush's claim in the State of the Union address, that he is responsible for the approval process, and that he, ultimately, is responsible for the failure to warn the administration. Fair enough, and, yes, he is responsible. This isn't a political point, but an organizational one. In our culture, the person who runs a group is responsible for what the group does. A CEO generally claims credit for the success of a business, so it would seem that the leader is also responsible for the failure. This would seem a prime element of personality responsibilty. Yet we see George Bush say that he has confidence in Tenet. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says, "The president has moved on."

The main argument for the invasion of Iraq was the imminent danger the US faced because of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's willingness to work with terrorists. If the underpinnings of this argument are cracking under the pressure of supporting the rationale, then we must look at whether there needs to be some change. Saying that the president has moved on smacks of the arrogance of a major corporate CEO, except without the reasonable excuse that the CEO is the one to make such a call, assuming that corporation's board of directors agrees. In Bush's case, he serves because of the vote of the public. There is no excuse for trying to gloss over a serious problem in the security and decision making processes of this country. The issue should be bigger than politics, and it is receiving criticism from both sides of the aisle. Why would Bush protect someone who was, after all, a Clinton appointee? I can see two answers. One is that he agreed to keep the man on, and so feels loyalty. Such feelings are commendable, but they are not acceptable when they subvert proper attention to the public good. The other reason would be politics, of course. Bush took a serious step by involving the country in a war and claimed a secret provocation. To take action would be to emphasize that perhaps other areas of intelligence have been shoddy, and that much of the reason he could get reelected might rest on a sham. For that reason, Bush should follow Tenet's example and get to the bottom of the problem, bring it out in the open for the people to see, admit wrong, and then to apologize for it.

George Bush may have moved on, but he might find that the country and leaders in both major political parties may not have.

Even so, the Guardian has taken a biased spin on the entire affair. Look at the lead:

The CIA chief, George Tenet, yesterday took the blame for President George Bush's discredited claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure uranium from Africa.

The paper eventually did remember that the claim was actually that of Britain in the fourth paragraph. But by then, the emotional cast had been made. Those looking for an unbiased view of US policies and activities should remember that just because a publication is in another country is no guarantee that it can be, or even wishes to be, objective.