Wednesday, July 28, 2004

The Real Threat to U.S. Elections This frontpage piece from today's NYT is yet more evidence that terrorists are not the real Election-Day threat. Journalists should investigate and editorialize until something is done.   Lost Record '02 Florida Vote Raises '04 Concern By ABBY GOODNOUGH Published: July 28, 2004 MIAMI, July 27 - Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near. The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election. 11:06:15 AM     comment []

Conventions Wish I could say my absence has been due to an exciting research project or trip, but alas, I am just dealing with allergies and the usual malaise that comes with it. I have been paying attention to the political coverage, and there are a few things on my mind: Anyone who has  written a "compare and contrast" essay for a classroom assignment knows how difficult ( and incorrect) it would be to write an essay without critiquing and naming names. Yet any efforts to critique the Bush record seems to be accorded the status of "hate speech" by Republicans and some journalists. Granted, Kerry and Edwards are wise to spend more time talking about what they can do for the nation; they should not get bogged down in name-calling. Nevertheless, it is quite frustrating to hear people like Katie Couric raising the question of whether Jimmy Carter and others went over the line when they critiqued aspects of the Bush record. Makes me want to yell something like "Shove it" to the TV. Speaking of TV: I have not made up my mind about whether the networks erred in their decision to cutback on convention coverage. As you may know, the networks allocated an hour each night to the convention. My initial reaction was that the general lack of news coming out of conventions warranted the decision to pull back; I felt reporters have been playing along with the political parties for too long. Yet I appreciate the fuller coverage on CNN and C-SPAN; I am getting more of a feel for the range of speakers, even though it is highly orchestrated. There are more journalists than delegates up in Boston. Unfortunately, the coverage is predicatable. As the headline on this piece by Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, notes, "15,000 journalists and still a dearth of coverage." Rutten blames corporations’ treatment of news as a "business unit" and the subsequent behaviors that encourages. He also addresses the Ann Coulter-USA Today flap. The paper hired her for convention commentary, but she quit in the midst of an editing dispute in which some of her mean and nonsensical prose was challenged. And, of course, there’s the whole issue about why USA Today thought it should hire the right-wing hit woman. I'll have to take up this "more balanced than thou" problem soon. "Balance" is not as journalistically sound as many people seem to think. 10:37:23 AM     comment []

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