Lazy, prejudiced reporting

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Oct 30, 2010 at 14:46:48 PM MST

The Democrats are using their own tactics to make this last week of campaigning miserable for everyone. In the wonderful world of campaign mailers a group called the Values, Energy & Growth PAC (which is indirectly funded by the Democratic Party) is sending out mailers quoting Montana Cowgirl. Montana Cowgirl might be a useful blog for bias, liberal leaning entertainment, but as a credible source endorsing candidates, try again.

Hm. You're probably wondering what the whole story is, aren't you?

Let's start with the flier the PAC sent out that Banks is criticizing. Too bad we can't it from a "real" reporter, because Banks didn't bother either to find an image or quote it. But...Cowgirl did:

Tom Burnett says...

...the Gay-Straight Youth Support Group meets to recruit members. Tom is against gay-straight alliance youth groups meeting at Bozeman High.

He asks on his blog: "Is it only a matter of time before the umbrella covers pedophiles, necrophiles, and zoophiles? When will the high school advertise a group called Bestiality Acceptance Alliance, BAA?"

Burnett is a divisive politician. With prejudices against his fellow citizens, he cannot be representative in Helena.

The flier also provides a link to the Cowgirl post where the Burnett quote appears. Again, you won't find that on Banks' post, either.

The quote on Cowgirl's webpage was a cut-n-paste job from Burnett's blog. And now the link is broken because Burnett took his page down. Cowgirl, again, explains:

The reason the mailer cited my blog, I presume, is that shortly after Tom Burnett wrote these despicable anti-gay statements on his own website, he removed them. He removed it because locals in Bozeman were horrified. A few local folks even ran ads in the Chronicle, denouncing him for the comments....

Got it? Cowgirl's post is the only record of Burnett's post. Of course if you discount the quote because of Cowgirl's "bias" as "liberal leaning entertainment," I suspect a quick call to Tom Burnett was in order, eh?

I'm guessing Banks didn't even bother to investigate the story here. Which is too bad. Because it could have been a story - "mailer reprints false attack that partisan blogger fabricated!" Or a ruminative story about the difficulty of sorting through campaign accusations, what with all the partisanship, citing the mailer as an example of an accurate attack stemming from an otherwise biased blog. Or something.

But Banks simply dismissed the quote because it appeared on Cowgirl's post. H*ll, I'd bet $100 bucks Banks didn't even read the post.

And that, my friends, is lazy, prejudiced reporting.

Update: Sheer comedy gold. The same reporter wrote this in a post entitled, "Expect more from television reporters":

I acknowledge most reporters, like myself, who run through this market stumble and make mistakes. However, I don't believe this should be the excuse for blubbering idiots and missing the point stories. After all, we did go to school for this, and Helena viewers deserve more.  Just because the viewers live in a smaller town, it doesn't mean they are any less educated or their issues matter any less.

So, as a consumer of news, I urge you to expect more... and if we aren't delivering you do have the remote.

About that Cowgirl post...

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Oct 23, 2010 at 13:19:22 PM MST

Everybody's talking about it. And you probably want to know what LiTWers think about it all, etc & co.

I'll start with the easy stuff first. The "man purse" post was unfortunate; Cowgirl got called out; she apologized. The incident is in no way representative of anything larger, unlike other recent homophobic comments that were representative of a movement's ties to anti-gay activists, militia groups, white supremacists, and other undesirables. The post isn't even representative of Cowgirl's views on LGBT rights, which she ardently supports. My only regret about the whole thing is that I wish I had the thoughtfulness to have called out Cowgirl before Jamee Greer did.

If Matt Gouras had written the incident up for the AP simply to "balance" the recent Tea Party comments, I'd call it bullsh*t journalistic hack-ery and false equivalency. But Gouras - clumsily - used the incident to unload everything he knows about Cowgirl onto the public. Posting the Department of Labor documents that weren't available to the public - the location of an Internet hookup in the state Capitol Cowgirl was using - etc & company. There are implications here - the worst being that Cowgirl is blogging on the state taxpayer dime for unnamed public officials in Helena - but no evidence. After all, Gouras' implications have explanations: Cowgirl's not a state worker; Cowgirl's a state worker, but blogging on personal time; Cowgirl's getting her "scoops" from tips sent her way, not fed to her by an overlord (lord knows my inbox is filled with innuendo, gossip, and tips); etc & co. That is, I don't know how, where, and when Cowgirl blogs. Unless there's proof of wrong-doing, I'm going to assume she's following the law and acting ethically.

As for Cowgirl and Left in the West: well, we aired our opinion about freeing Cowgirl from our front-page status back in July on the blog. Basically we felt featuring an anonymous blogger affected our credibility. Our readers know who we are and our professional political relationships and can easily place our posts in that context. Throwing an anonymous blogger into the mix implied -- to our readers -- that we approved and abetted their views, and that their opinions were being elevated under our "authority." In reality, we don't have the time to impose strict editorial guidelines, and have no interest in dictating the ideology of diarists, and we liked Cowgirl because she wrote posts that sparked  controversy, not because of any camp or faction she may have belonged to. But we were called out by some folks we respect, so we decided to change our policy.

On a more general note, I still strongly believe in anonymity for bloggers. There are people who would face professional or personal retribution for expressing their opinions and deserve a shield for free expression. Some great, well-thought-out commentary comes from anonymous sources, and I'd hate to lose that. That said, I don't think anonymity should be used to free bloggers or commenters from issuing baseless accusations or rumor. But then, that should go for everyone.

But I do find all of this fascinating. The Internet is a big, chaotic place with all kinds of information, little of it regulated or policed. Imposing etiquette, standards, and ethics on all the various sites and writers the way we typically do in print media is impossible. That means the onus of sifting through information and enforcing an ethos of responsibility onto writers falls on us, the reader. We need to read everything critically and reward those who do well with our clicks.

Are we up to it?

Tell me sweet little lies

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 10:31:07 AM MST

There are scenarios in which tagging your political opponents with smears can be effective, but I don't see any evidence that the particular apocalyptic "my enemies are totalitarian madmen" strain of Birch/Beck/Goldberg conservatism has helped anyone win any elections....

This stuff doesn't win votes anyone because, after all, it's a form of preaching to the choir. Which is fine-the choir needs some sermons. But there's no real upside in lying to the choir. Political movements need to adapt to the actual situation, and that means having an accurate understanding of your foes. You need to see them as they actually are so that you know the right way to respond. Either underestimating or overestimating their level of viciousness and evil can lead to serious miscalculations. Which is just to say that getting this stuff right is more important than coming up with funny put-downs.

Er...come again?

Now, I'm not sure where Yglesias' attention is, but it seems to me the 2010 midterms are all about the kind of "apocalyptic" conservative rhetoric Yglesias claims doesn't win elections. Maybe Birtherism hasn't caught on, but you do get the sense that the recent health care reform is going to be judged by rightwing extremist rhetoric - a "socialist" program? -- and don't even get me started on climate change!

That's the thing, when extremist rhetoric is expressed "within mainstream discourse," as Tristero notes, it shifts "acceptable ideas further to the right."

Sure, it's silly to believe Obama wasn't born in this country, but having that idea out there enables "moderates" to declare, with something resembling a straight face, that they take Obama at his word when he says he's a Christian. By any rational standard, that's a wacky thing to say, but compared to out and out Birtherism - which, remember, was deliberately mainstreamed not by a raging lunatic but by the "well-respected" and "intelligent" Lou Dobbs - it's a somewhat reasonable position to hold in re: the "Obama legitimacy controversy."

Essentially that's what I was getting to the other day when I took offense at Sherry Devlin's false dichotomy, pitting "fact" against "opinion." Abandoning the factual integrity on the editorial page opens the door for rightwing extremist rhetoric and the "crazy lie."

Can you think of any "crazy lies" being discussed in mainstream discourse? Obama as socialist? As Kenyan? As Muslim? Health care reform as "socialized medicine"? The Tea Party isn't racist, Obama is? Climate change is a conspiracy theory? I'm sure I could reel off a half-dozen more if I put half a brain towards the exercise. The point here isn't that these are accepted, it's that the crazy lies sow doubt and uncertainty, and suddenly we're not debating Keynesian economics and strategies to extract ourselves from economic recession, we're debating whether Obama's a Muslim - which would grossly irrelevant even if he were. Which he isn't.

Tristero:  

One of the most useful techniques in the rightwing repertoire is The Crazy Lie. And we still haven't found any effective riposte to it - or at least, any effective rhetorical counter-strategy that mainstream politicians would be willing to use. Matt's failure to understand how incredibly effective this tactic has been for illiberals, and how debillitating it has been for liberals, is simply astonishing.

This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no serious effort to persuade based on the truth. This is, as far as the right is concerned, about getting power, holding on to power, and extending power.

There's the rub. Republicans are good at treating elections and policy as a game that has winners and losers, and progressives still, for the most part, consider politics as a civic exercise in governing. Yglesias thinks that will enable us to prevail in the future. I wish I were so optomistic.

Helena IR Editorial Board and the Curriculum of Doom!

by: Montana Cowgirl

Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 16:44:16 PM MST

And now, this past Sunday, this nonsense appeared.  Heads up Helena, it seemed to scream, scary progress is about to be made.  The proposed health curriculum update is driven by science, concern for students' health, and public safety. And, even the IR was reluctantly forced to admit (though it hurriedly ran the above referenced editorial first) most people are in favor of it.

But dude, the important, seasoned education experts on the editorial board seemed to say, there's lots of anonymous online comments from the same three people Harry Potter book-burning crowd about it.  These Harry Potter book-burners seem obsessed with forcing an outmoded, dangerous social agenda grounded in the social morals of the 1800s on students.  But hey that's better than anything that might rile up our sacred cows.  

What sacred cows, you ask?

In our state's capital city there are three entities above all else that essentially produce their own news.  

First, the Carroll College/Helena Catholic Diocese Public Relations Office will issue sometimes two or three "articles" a week that get republished by the Helena IR, and subsequently local television.  While these tend to paint the school in a good light, they are often not relevant to non-Catholics or those not living on campus. The other entities are the St. Peters Hospital/Helena Catholic Diocese Public Relations Office and of course, the Montana Meth Project.  There certainly isn't anything untoward about glorifying the Meth Project while Mike Gulledge, National Vice President of Publishing for Lee Enterprises serves as Chair of the Montana Meth Project board.

Give us a reason to accept that you're for real

by: Jay Stevens

Wed May 26, 2010 at 19:21:45 PM MST

But, frankly, until results or ability or integrity trump loyalty as the most valued characteristic in party politics, no political functionary is going to step up, even if she doesn't like what she sees, for fear - and a very real fear - of retribution. And no story is going to be written. Don't blame the reporter for letting a story die when no one has the guts to come forward.

It doesn't have to be that way. It takes - what? three? - independent, credible anonymous sources to support a story. If you're sickened by, say, rigged bids on public buildings or public offices for sale or elected officials getting caught up in prostitution rings, you can do something about it. Tell someone.

In the meantime, maybe the legislature can work on a bill that protects state-level whistle-blowers.

Montana press no engine of speed, efficiency or thoroughness

by: Montana Cowgirl

Tue May 25, 2010 at 17:11:24 PM MST

For example, when the press "broke" the story about Max Baucus having recommended to the White House that they hire his secret paramour for a job at the Department of Justice, they were reporting something that had been known for probably a good year or so by just about everyone in state politics, by all the writers, all the editors, all the pols.  The same thing was true of the John Morrison affair. Morrison's extracurricular activities and excessive hormones were well known, but for a long time the press just didn't want to report it and had it not been for some crafty work on the party of pro-Tester partisans to keep the story bubbling on blogs and in mailings, it might well have gone unreported until the general election, which would have meant humiliation and (probably) defeat for Dems had Morrison won the primary.  And when Denny Rehberg got drunk and fell off his horse in Kazakhstan back a few years ago, it was ages before the Montana press felt it necessary to report it, even though the story was well known around town.  In fact, it was not until the story appeared in the Washington Post much later that the Helena IR and other esteemed media institutions considered that it might be news at all. And to this day, it appears that not a single writer can be bothered to get Denny Rehberg or Dustin Frost on the record to confirm whether they have submitted, or plan to submit, work comp claims (i.e., millions of dollars of socialized reimbursement) for Denny's white-trash binge-boating wreck injuries. Whether, in all of these cases, it is the writer or editor's fault, I don't really know.

At any rate, my favorite one of these is the Bozeman prostitution ring, and it's supposed connection to a high ranking political official.  This story, mind you, was broadcast on ABC's Nightline, and yet it was virtually a complete censorship job here in Montana.  A small story, buried in the paper, off topic, with no subsequent investigation, was pretty much all we got.  

Last year, Nightline reported that the DOJ was investigating the involvement of political figures in a Bozeman prostitution ring.  (As clients and not as pimps, we should pray.) You'd think Nightline's mention of such a thing, in and of itself, would be news here.  

For some unexplained reason, the DOJ settled for nailing a woman who was the mistress of Bill Martel (as in Martel Stadium where the Bobcats play). Martel had been sleeping with her and supporting her, with a car, money for her children's school, medical care, etc.  Then he got tired of her, so he stopped paying her and kicked her out. She went broke, and began demanding from Martel that he continue funding essentials like her kids' medical care which he had been paying for. For this, she was arrested for extortion.  She moved to Vegas, and has never talked to a reporter.  Martel got off free, of course.

The extortion part was half-assedly reported in the Montana papers. What was never examined at all was the bigger question: what was this prostitution ring, and what politicians were suspected of being involved in it?

It gets better.  There was no investigative followup by the Montana press, no phone calls to the US Attorney's office or snooping around for some answers, or even editorials or op-eds asking why there were no answers, and what the initial suspicion about a politician might have been.    Nor did anyone ever get an interview with the woman's attorney, who gave a long and impassioned speech in court explaining how his client was a scapegoat for the bigger game that the DOJ tried and failed to catch.  This attorney, it should be noted, fingered Max Baucus in the courtroom as the target of the DOJ investigation (transcript here). Since it was never exactly clear whether the attorney had anything to back it up, the press did not report on the attorney's comments in the courtroom. Perhaps that was the right call. It's a tough one.  (My bet has always been that it was Rehberg. He is super-close with Martel, and, as we know, likes to party and, from what I am told, likes to clean the plumbing every so often.  Max is a little long in the tooth for high-priced call girls, plus he seems to prefer females who work in his office.)

Nevertheless, there is a story here, full of sex,  intrigue, and politics. What could be better?! At a minimum, why not look into what the hell Bill Mercer was looking for? The Montana press, in its chronic state of laziness and apathy, might need some help in looking into it. Perhaps the Billings Gazette should contract out to Left in the West for some investigative journalism.

Rehberg Slams Small Town/Local News

by: MTDems

Mon May 03, 2010 at 10:28:05 AM MST

"...[Rehberg] also criticized the mainstream print and electronic media, but then told rural residents that with the advent of Blackberry palm devices and social networking sites, Twitter and other programs, citizens no longer have to rely on TV or print journalism for their news."

http://www.choteauacantha.com/...

Sorry, Dennis Rehberg, but a lot of folks in Montana still DO rely on TV and print journalism for news.

And journalists are still the people who fight for freedom of speech, for transparency in government, and for holding elected officials accountable for their actions.

It's easy to see why Dennis would be encouraging Montanans to stop reading unbiased reports of his performance as their congressman. His track record is full of flip flops and voting against Montana in Washington, D.C. while telling folks at home he's acting in their best interest.

Montanans are smarter than Dennis, and will keep reading local papers, tuning in to morning talk shows on AM stations, and watching the evening news. Because we know that 140-character limit on Twitter doesn't do any story worth reading the justice it deserves.  

I don't think that word means what you think it does

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 06:59:27 AM MST

I linked to a Jamelle Bowie post that said immigration law doesn't affect the demographic group that composes the Tea Party "movement," but it isn't just that these folks only fight for the "liberties" that primarily affect them, it's also that the use of the words "freedom" and "liberty" are code words for a conservative political agenda, not actual belief in, you know, liberty or freedom.

Reckless Writing by Dennis Rehberg

by: Montana Cowgirl

Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 18:48:54 PM MST

In the most baffling attempt to score political points based on a tragedy I've ever seen, Rehberg attempts to lure in readers to his hypocritical op-ed that claims he's against government spending by reminding readers of the boat wreck he shirked responsibility for by refusing to designate a sober driver.  Read it online in the Clark Fork Chronicle.

Rehberg: Reckless speeds in dangerous waters

by Rep. Denny Rehberg

Long after the unsinkable Titanic settled at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, people asked whether the disaster had been avoidable. Titanic had been the greatest ship the world had ever seen, but hubris excused reckless speeds in dangerous waters and critical warning signs were ignored.

Is it just me, or is this a recklessly bizarre way for Dennis Rehberg to begin an editorial.

Not to mention the fact that--in Rehberg's own words, on his own website--Rehberg has recklessly posted a whopping 406 press releases in support of earmarks during his 10 years in congress: for example here, and only 9 claims that he will supposedly hold the line on spending over the same 10 years.

To put this in perspective, he has 26 press releases tooting his own horn (for example this or this), 80 on ribbon cutting and fluff like this ridiculousness or this, or this, and 5 taking credit for the work of others (claiming to sponsor legislation he only co-sponsored), when the facts show otherwise, on legislation so unpopular that it failed anyway no less.  

If Rehberg's priorities line up with what he says is important enough to put out a press release about, holding the line on spending ranks fairly low, down with taking credit for the work of others on failed legislation (both have single digit numbers of releases).

Perhaps Rehberg has been too reckless to realize what message he's been sending out over the years.  He certainly doesn't seem to realize the bizarre message he's sending this week.

Nobody loves a centrist

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 06:59:54 AM MST

Take Evan Bayh's sudden gut shot to the Democratic party and president Obama. Read Charles Lane's analysis:

Millions of Americans long to tell their bosses "take this job and shove it." Hardly any have the power and money to do so, especially in these recessionary times. Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana, however, is the exception. His stunning retirement from the Senate is essentially a loud and emphatic "screw you" to President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. For months now, Bayh has been screaming at the top of his voice that the party needs to reorient toward a more popular, centrist agenda -- one that emphasizes jobs and fiscal responsibility over health care and cap and trade. Neither the White House nor the Senate leadership has given him the response he wanted. Their bungling of what should have been a routine bipartisan jobs bill last week seems to have been the last straw....

Quitting the Senate was a no-lose move for the presidentially ambitious Bayh, since he can now crawl away from the political wreckage for a couple of years, plausibly alleging that he tried to steer the party in a different direction -- and then be perfectly positioned to mount a centrist primary challenge to Obama in 2012, depending on circumstances.

For Lane, Bayh's sudden departure was a noble, gutsy maneuver that should propel him into the middle of a primary challenge of Obama, as if he's become a "centrist" rebel. Daniel Larison picks that notion apart, nothing that party voters tend to eschew losers like Bayh who quit the team and over issues they actually like. But even if Bayh, say, chose to run as an independent, he'd probably run into the problems that NYC mayor Bloomberg did when he put out feelers in '08:

Centrists" do not run insurgent campaigns very well....There are no passionate, vocal groups of voters eagerly demanding that government be more solicitous of corporate interests and more willing to start wars overseas. There are not many large voting blocs requesting the offshoring of whole industries. To be a "centrist" is necessarily to champion the interests of concentrated power and wealth and to ignore and deride as "populist" insanity anything that stands in the way of those interests. Who has ever heard of an explicitly anti-populist political insurgency? Insurgents always set themselves up as the independent outsiders who will stand up for the people against the establishment. Just imagine Bayh trying to sell himself as the establishmentarian who wants to tone down the "radicalism" of Obama's Rubinite economics and his Clintonian hawkish foreign policy. What Lane proposes is that an old DLC-type Democrat will be positioned to win over a party that is increasingly disgusted by the overrepresentation of DLC-type Democrats in the current administration. This misreads the mood of the party and the substance of administration policy very badly.

Good bye, Bayh. Don't let the door hit you in the *ss on the way out.

The rehabilitation of Sarah Palin

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 08:36:50 AM MST

Take his paean today to Sarah Palin:

Her invocation of "conservative principles and common-sense solutions" was perfectly conventional. What stood out in the eyes of TV-watching pols of both parties was the skill with which she drew a self-portrait that fit not just the wishes of the immediate audience but the mood of a significant slice of the broader electorate.

Freed of the responsibilities she carried as governor of Alaska, devoid of any official title but armed with regular gigs on Fox News Channel and more speaking invitations than she can fulfill, Palin is perhaps the most visible Republican in the land.

More important, she has locked herself firmly in the populist embrace that every skillful outsider candidate from George Wallace to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton has utilized when running against "the political establishment."

Let's get this out of the way. Palin is about as popular as toxic waste with American voters. Her latest poll numbers are in the tank. Over 70 percent of Americans don't think she's qualified to be president, including 52 percent of Republicans. The more she's in the spotlight, the less people like her.

But Broder thinks she's got what it takes to woo voters! Even though voters really hate her!

So...you've got a conservative, establishment insider who hearts big-business Republicans, swooning over Sarah Palin because she's an anti-establishment, anti-insider populist hero? And to further complicate matters...she's not actually, you know, popular with the people...

Worse still, Broder actually represents inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom. This is what DC insiders actually think what we want.

But worst of all, there's a danger that this kind of "conventional wisdom" will echo throughout the traditional media:

...As I say, it's clear that most mainstream journalists are totally over Obama, the Democrats, and any sense that Republicans have demonstrated that they can't be trusted with power. That's just so 2006-2008. Stimulus? Health reform? Financial reform? Cap and trade? They're much more interested in that issue right-wingers love to use as a frame -- deficit reduction.

They're going to follow Broder's lead. Just as they've surrendered to the tea parties, they're going to surrender to the demagogic populism of the next crop of GOP presidential aspirants.

Now, this may not benefit Palin specifically, because every Republican candidate is going to hit the same populist/demagogic/know-nothing notes she hits. Broder and the rest of the media mandarins may develop a much bigger crush on demagogic populist Mike Huckabee or demagogic populist Tim Pawlenty or demagogic populist Newt Gingrich.

But they all may decide Palin's the one. They all may decide that her flat vowels and inept syntax are the realest. And that media consensus may, paradoxically, create a populist wave that delivers the GOP nomination to Palin, if not the election. The people will hear "Take Palin seriously!" so often, they'll start to believe it's true.

And, as Glenn Greenwald points out, it has already begun.

Most egregious demonstration of cronyism in the history of the state went unreported

by: Montana Cowgirl

Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 21:20:08 PM MST

This $31,000 raise is more than most Montanans make in a year and bumped Iverson's salary up to nearly $160,000.

The most egregious raise and instance of political cronyism in monetary terms in the history of Montana was never reported by the press.

Yes, even the biggest recession of most of our lifetimes wasn't enough to get the press to print about the taxpayers' largesse toward Rehberg's political friends.  Even the fact that Erik Iverson was simultaneously serving as chair of the Republican party didn't seem to bother these papers who now feign such concern over cronyism.  

Take the Helena IR, which claims to have such significant new storytelling capabilities, why can't you, I don't know, put some of these stories in your paper?

Perhaps Erik Iverson realized that his boss's cronyism may now be exposed.  Could that be the reason why Erik Iverson was busy defending Max in the press last week for involving the senate staff in planning the divorce? (Iverson's input made many people nauseous.)  Iverson must be hoping that he'll get his back scratched in return when the Baucus staff get calls asking whether a $31,000 raise and a $160,000 salary for Rehberg's (inexperienced) political hack is out of line.

Lucky for Rehberg, the press exercises selective coverage.

"Regression toward a phony mean"

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 16:17:20 PM MST

Here he quotes former WaPo reporter, Paul Taylor:

Sometimes I worry that my squeamishness about making sharp judgments, pro or con, makes me unfit for the slam-bang world of daily journalism. Other times I conclude that it makes me ideally suited for newspapering- certainly for the rigors and conventions of modern 'objective' journalism. For I can dispose of my dilemmas by writing stories straight down the middle. I can search for the halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone (or some policy or idea) and write my story in that fair-minded place. By aiming for the golden mean, I probably land near the best approximation of truth more often than if I were guided by any other set of compasses- partisan, ideological, pyschological, whatever... Yes, I am seeking truth. But I'm also seeking refuge. I'm taking a pass on the toughest calls I face.

I'm reminded of this concept by the coverage of Tea Bagging and the protests and disruptions so frequently covered this summer, culminating today in a protest in Washington DC.

Big news, right? Huge demonstration? Michelle Malkin says, OMG, 2 million!!! except high estimates put the crowd about about  60,000, and David Shuster says Freedomworks - who organized it - put the number at 30,000, and a "park official says this is being 'generous.'" Devilstower: "More people showed up for the Apple Butter Festival in Kimmswick, MO -- a town with a population of 93."

Compare the coverage these people get with other, past demonstrations. Like the Million Man March (1995 and 800,000 participants), March for Women's Lives (2004 and 1.1 million participants), the antiwar protests on the eve of Iraq (2003 with a million protesters in New York, San Franciso, and Los Angeles). Clearly it's only news if conservatives protest.

Really, have so few, acting so poorly, and with less understanding of the issues, ever swayed the media so much? Not since the Brooks Brothers riot.

Somehow, the millions without health care in this country, and very conservative reform proposed in this Congress, have been "balanced" all summer with the outrageous and false claims of the Tea Baggers, a small, if fanatic, group worked up into a froth by cable news pundits...

Journalism doesn't pay

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 21:03:57 PM MST

The world looks on, incredulously.

ESPN, almost two days later, finally reports the news.

What was ESPN's reasoning? Well, from ESPN:

"Based on the sensitive nature of the story and other factors we mentioned, we initially exercised caution and did not report it," the statement reads.

"Since then, we've been observing how the story has progressed, monitoring other news outlets, and doing our own reporting. We decided to report the story tonight."

Or was it because of ESPN's investment into the NFL?

Anyway. You hear a lot about the decline of traditional media because of the proliferation of free content online, the competition from blogs, etc and co, but this story reminds me of the real challenge to a viable and healthy media: money. That is, too many "media" companies are entangled in too many deals - ESPN of course allows itself not to report on a story that threatens one of its prime investments...but that's because the network doesn't really see itself as media, but as entertainment.

And ESPN isn't hurting financially.

Who's going to stop watching football games on ESPN for trying to bury the Big Ben story? That is, it doesn't really pay to have objective standards for journalism, does it?

Froomkin's last day at the WaPo

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 13:38:01 PM MST

You have to question the paper's decision to drop Froomkin: he was a voice of clarity during the Bush years, always ready to criticize the press -- especially the WH correspondents -- for not reporting the news, perhaps the real scandal of the last decade. And he hadn't gone easy on the Obama administration, either.

True to form, Froomkin pulls no punches in his last column:

How did the media cover it all? Not well. Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long. The handful of people who did exceptional investigative reporting during this era really deserve our gratitude: People such as Ron Suskind, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Murray Waas, Michael Massing, Mark Danner, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (better late than never), Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Charlie Savage and Philippe Sands; there was also some fine investigative blogging over at Talking Points Memo and by Marcy Wheeler. Notably not on this list: The likes of Bob Woodward and Tim Russert. Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

Your guess is as good as mine why the Post would want to drop Froomkin. Was it an economic decision? Was the blog seen primarily as an "anti-Bush" site rendered obsolete by the Obama presidency? Or did Froomkin's unflinching reportage of American presidents cut too close to the quick for a newspaper that in large part went along with the madness?

James Fallows:

We all have heard the reasons that the press is under pressure by forces not of its making. This is an example of a self-inflicted wound. Are papers like the Post under suspicion for being too insidery and old-media-y? How does it make sense get rid of an independent minded, new media, presumably not-that-expensive, non-Washington-cliquey voice on politics and the media and leave... well, the full opinion and media lineup the Post is sticking with? Some people tell me that it's a mistake to say that the Post's editorial page (and the weight of its op-ed lineup) has "become" neo-con and establishment-minded under its current editor, Fred Hiatt; the argument is that this is the Post's long tradition, which its anti-Nixon crusade concealed. I don't know. But I would have liked to have heard the argument about why Froomkin was the necessary next person to cut.

I'm sorry to see Froomkin leave the paper. Here's to hoping he sets up shop somewhere else, and soon.

Matthew Koehler leaves comments on websites

by: Jay Stevens

Tue May 05, 2009 at 11:31:50 AM MST

Matthew,

I am not going to post your comment sending Missoulian readers to New West. We wrote many stories on this press conference and the fallout, and you are free to direct them to those archived accounts -- which are very complete.

Matt commented on another story today, including a link to a Missoula Independent story, but that link was approved.

I honestly doubt there's any sort of guiding policy at the Missoulian that dictates references to competing media not be allowed. Rather, I think the editor probably felt a little annoyed by the fact the paper's writers had done a decent job of covering the story Matt referred to, and that the decision to deny the comment was made because Matt is a known and frequent contributor to the Missoulian in letters, comments, quotes, and editorials. I doubt the editor would have denied a comment to a new or infrequent user.

Still, it's interesting, isn't it? In the "old" days, you could effectively starve out the competition by pretending they didn't exist. The key to becoming known was controlling distribution; if you didn't have the means to produce and widely distribute your newspaper or newsletter, you were slave to word-of-mouth to get people to seek you out.

But nowadays, the reverse is true. To gather readers, you've got to connect to other media. Reading news online isn't about sitting down with a single periodical and reading it cover-to-cover, it's about following links and reading a broad selection of stories about topics of interest. That is, the best way to draw readers is to lead readers elsewhere. If you're a dead end, a self-contained entity that leads nowhere, Web surfers will avoid you. (And that's doubly true if your web page is ugly and difficult to navigate.)

In short, if the denial of Matt's link is a policy at the Missoulian, it's incredibly antiquated and short-sighted.

Aren't they worth three-fifths, or something?

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Apr 30, 2009 at 07:15:11 AM MST

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

You know, because black people don't really count.

Unbelievable.

More evidence against "Intelligent Design"

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 08:03:57 AM MST

Picture an upside-down pyramid with its narrow tip at the bottom and its base on top. The only way the pyramid can stand is by spinning fast enough or by having a wide enough tip so it won't fall down. The federal version of this spinning top is the tax code; the government collects its money almost entirely from the people at the narrow tip and then gives it to the people at the wider side. So long as the pyramid spins, the system can work. If it slows down enough, it falls.

It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand.

If the premise feels skewed, that's because it is. Fleischer, for example, argues that the top 10 percent of earners "pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes," and represents the "tip of the triangle" of his oddly unbalanced pyramid metaphor. But...every table and piece of data I can get my hands on shows that the top 10 percent of earners has more than 72.4% of the wealth...which makes the figure Fleischer quotes...reasonable -- until you realize that payroll taxes, which aren't counted as "income taxes," drive up the tax rates of anyone making under $90K, so that an average earner actually pays a much higher tax rate than the upper income brackets.

But the oddest thing about Fleischer's proposal is that he favors the elimination of the payroll tax and a straight, loophole-free progressive income tax as a solution. Which would dramatically reduce the tax burden of the poor and middle class and jack up the rates on the very people he claims are being oppressed in our system...

And you wonder why the "Tea Parties" make so little sense. According to Fleischer, most of the people out on the streets are protesting taxes and government spending of which they are the ungrateful recipients of their betters' largesse. Not that there's much reason behind the protests, which appear to have gotten a friendly boost from FoxNews, whose media personalities are hawking the protests as if they have a financial stake in the whole deal. (Oops! They probably do!) But...why would a bunch of people stand out with signs protesting to protect the tax rates of the ultra-wealthy when those rates are at a historical low, and the distribution of income historically lopsided. If anything, the government distributes income upwards.

Whatever. I'm still waiting for a rational response from the right on how to steer the economy out of the recession. Not that I'm unwilling to listen: I'm personally abivalent about the massive bank bailouts and doubtful about the efficacy of the recently passed stimulus bill, when so many of the bankrolled projects were things like massive and unneeded highway projects...

Encouraging the crazies

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 19:48:08 PM MST

Dave Niewert is all over this story, writing, "We've been reporting for a while on the surge in gun sales, and how the paranoia around guns is making the more unstable elements of the right particularly edgy. Inevitably, that edginess is going to break out into actual violence -- as it appears to have done today."

Of course, it's not ju st extremist rhetoric on firearms -- it's all over the place lately, even extending to calls to arms over sparkly dishes and embodied by the weird rantings that Glenn Beck has engaged in since getting his Fox News gig. But Poplawski obviously had mental issues. Kicked out of the Marine Corps. Arguing with neighbors. Shooting cops in the head. Is it fair to blame talking heads for this incident?

John Cole, in a post entitled "Glenn Beck's America":

...when you point out that certain individuals with all their talk about "revolution" and "armed insurrection" are inciting this kind of behavior in unstable people, you will get howls of protest about the 1st Amendment and what not. Sure, crazy people do crazy things. But that doesn't make it responsible to encourage them, which is what a lot of really foolish people are doing right now for purely political reasons.

And that's a legitimate point, I think. This kind of insane chatter used to be reserved for late-night AM shows and obscure online forums, but mainstream media has abetted, even encouraged this kind of rabble-rousing. Just think of Dan McGee's recent rant over abortion:

McGee said Republicans attempted to work with Democrats on these issues but it did not seem to take. He also compared abortion with slavery and predicted an upheaval comparable to the Civil War. "You bet there will be," McGee said.

Certainly (I hope) this was overheated rhetoric -- start a war over abortion? -- but if a Montanan lays waste to a health-care clinic that provides abortions to women who want them, how responsible is McGee? Wouldn't the senator deserve some censure?

And yet...there is no reprimand for McGee from anyone, neither his fellow legislators, nor the newspapers that are supposedly serving our communities. Shouldn't someone -- besides a partisan hack blogger, I mean -- step forward and let McGee know that a violent solution to a political problem won't be tolerated and demand that he recant his statement? Shouldn't we let these people know that extremism won't be tolerated in a democratic society?

Texas' million-dollar Murrays

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 09:40:39 AM MST

Just nine people accounted for nearly 2,700 of the emergency room visits in the Austin area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report....

Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless. Five are women whose average age is 40, and four are men whose average age is 50, the report said, the Austin American-Statesman reported Wednesday.

Reminds me of the social services program described by Malcolm Gladwell of giving the chronically homeless apartments and full-case managers, and a version of which Billings was going to try...

Does anybody know how that program is going?