Category: Media

The FCC wants to give Big Media a big handout on December 18 – but we can stop them. There is only about one year left of the Bush Administration and they are rushing to give big rewards to there giant corporate friends. One of those big corporate friends is Big Media. And Kevin Martin, the chair of the FCC that deals with media policy wants to give another hugely unpopular giveaway to Big Media. Thankfully the democracy fighters at Free Press have assembled a massive coalition that is fighting back. It's called Stop Big Media and they've been doing great work. And now that there is only a week left until the ruling I decided to write a action diary because this is one of the most important issues out there for progressives and all who believe in fairness.

Unlike Time, which blocked all responses to Joe Klein’s factually challenged column on FISA, via Matt Yglesias, Slate has published a response by Stephen Metclaf to Will Saletan on race and IQ. The nuts:

Much of Saletan’s précis of the rest of the research surveyed in “Thirty Years of Research Into Race Differences on Cognitive Abilities” is highly questionable. His takeaway regarding the “admixture” studies is precisely the opposite of what an American Psychological Association task force concluded the studies show-that more “European” blood in a black American does not make him smarter. Saletan points up the problems with a favorite study of the environmentalists, into the IQ outcomes of children fathered by foreign soldiers and raised by (white) German mothers. This study showed that kids with African fathers scored the same as those with white fathers. But, Saletan says, it suffers from a fatal flaw: Blacks in the military had been screened for IQ. Saletan concludes, “Even environmentalists (scholars who advocate nongenetic explanations) concede that this filter radically distorted the numbers.” But this is flatly untrue. The two most prominent environmentalists, Richard Nisbett and James Flynn, have dismissed this very objection. Both have pointed out that white soldiers were also screened, and so had higher IQs than the general white population. James Flynn has argued extensively that the black-white gap in the military was the same as in the population at large.

In essence, Metcalf demonstrates that Saletan, like Joe Klein on FISA, simply did not know what he was writing about. It is to Slate’s credit that it was willing to publish such a demolition of one of its regular writers. Score another one for honesty for Washington Post Company, which allowed Krauthammer to be demolished today.

From Annie Hall:

. . .  MAN: Now, Marshall McLuhan–

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work–

MAN: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture, so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, do you? . . . Oh, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: — I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

WOODY ALLEN: Boy, if life were only like this.

Sometimes it is. Via Josh Marshall, Charles Krauthammer gets his comeuppance on some nonsense he wrote on stem cell research. Groundbreaking stem cell researcher James Thomson delivers it:

Krauthammer's central argument — that the president's misgivings about embryonic stem cell research inspired innovative alternatives — is fundamentally flawed, too. Yamanaka was of course working in Japan, and scientists around the world are pursuing the full spectrum of options, in many cases faster than researchers in the United States.

Ah, sometimes life IS like this.

Peter Baker of the Washington Post blogs in defense of WaPo’s spreading lies about Obama:

Two furors stoked by the blogosphere over the last 24 hours neatly illustrate the changing political climate in the United States these days and underscore the depths of suspicion, anger and hostility out there as the country tries to pick a new leader. . . . [L]iberal bloggers ripped The Washington Post for publishing a story on untrue rumors that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is secretly a Muslim.

. . . [A]ny legitimate criticism and sober-minded discussion of the issues raised get drowned out by the loudest, most vituperative voices. The net result is not dialogue, but a contest of outrage.

That, my friends, is a textbook red herring. And, last I looked, CJR was not a vituperative liberal blogger and the CJR writer stated that “In The Washington Post this morning, reporter Perry Bacon Jr. wrote what may be the single worst campaign ’08 piece to appear in any American newspaper so far this election cycle.” And indeed, Baker has little substantively to say in defense of the WaPo story. This seems his best shot:

The reporter wrote the story because a voter in Iowa told him that Obama is a Muslim and he was struck that people remain so ill informed. . . . But somehow a story intended to debunk the false claims, trace their origin and explore the challenge they present the campaign in trying to quash them spawned a furious eruption among liberal bloggers accusing the Post of spreading the rumors.

This is disingenuous to say the least. I feel confident that the Obama campaign wasnot pleased with the story. Does Mr.  Baker wonder why? Perhaps Lyndon Johnson can explain it:

[O]ne of Johnson’s favorite jokes is about a popular Texas sheriff running for reelection whose opponents decide to spread a rumor that he f[***]ks pigs: “We know he doesn’t, but let’s make the son of a bitch deny it.”

Remember this quote that I like from Stephen Colbert (the same one I link to- yay Frederick!)?

… let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!

Glenn Greenwald likes it too-

Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Tuesday November 27, 2007 18:46 EST

In this twisted view, that is called “balance” — writing down what each side says. As in: “Hey – Bush officials say that there is WMD in Iraq and things are going great with the war (and a few people say otherwise). It’s not for us to decide. It’s not our fault if what we wrote down is a lie. We just wrote down exactly what they said.” At best, they write down what each side says and then go home. That’s what they’re for.

…

In reality, they don’t even usually fulfill this clerical role fairly or well. After all, Klein’s entire column presented only the lies from the Republicans about this bill as fact, and didn’t even mention that there was another side (just as Time, in a lengthy article by the now-promoted Tyrangiel, presented only the Bush view to its readers about Saddam’s scary stockpiles of WMD and didn’t bother to mention that there was another side).

…

So to Time, Klein’s so-called “reporting error” wasn’t that he falsely described the bill. No; describing the bill accurately isn’t the role of a journalist. Klein’s only “reporting error” was that he only wrote down what one side said (the Republicans). He “forgot” to write down what the Democrats said. Now that the Editors noted in passing that the Democrats disagree, everything is fixed. Their job is done. That’s what they just said about explicitly as it can be said. And they don’t even realize that saying this is a profound indictment on what they do. They think that’s what they’re supposed to do.

I can’t recall a recent incident that has shone as much bright light on the ugly, vapid, propagandistic practices of our national media. The more they speak, the more they reveal what they are.

But it’s not just that- it’s that they’re such bad stenographers-

Bad stenographers

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Wednesday November 28, 2007 06:41 EST

…

I worked for years with highly professional stenographers in hundreds of depositions and court proceedings. Their defining trait is that they have a fierce devotion to transcribing accurately everything that is said and doing nothing else. It’s not uncommon for lawyers, in the heat of some dispute, to attempt to recruit the stenographer into the controversy in order to say who is right.

Stenographers will never do that. They will emphasize that they are only there to write down what is said, not to resolve disputes or say what actually happened — exactly like Time Magazine and most of our press corps. If someone in a court proceeding voices even the most blatantly false accusations, stenographers will faithfully write it down and publish it without comment — exactly like Time Magazine and most of our press corps, at least when it comes to claims from the government and its GOP operatives.

But there’s a fundamental difference: stenographers are far better at their job, since they give equal weight to what all parties say. But Time and friends exist principally to trumpet government claims and minimize and belittle anything to the contrary, and they pretend to “balance” it all only when they’re caught mindlessly transcribing these one-sided claims and are forced to write down what the other side says, too. The bulk of our establishment journalists aren’t merely stenographers. They’re bad stenographers.

For that reason, when establishment journalists are called “stenographers,” the real insult is to professional stenographers, who are scrupulous about recording what everyone says with equal weight. But our media class gives enormous weight to government sources and, correspondingly, GOP operatives. If anyone doubts that, just look at our establishment media’s forced confessions of their most consequential stenographic errors over the years:

It’s really worth a look just for the linky goodness I’ll not attempt to dupicate here except for this one to Markos.

Yesterday, well-

Time tries again

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Wednesday November 28, 2007 17:54 EST

But by noting merely that the bill does not “explicitly” include what Klein (and his GOP source) claimed it did, and thereafter quickly noting that “Republicans believe it can be interpreted that way,” Time actually compounds Klein’s original error by now misleading its readers into believing that there is some genuine dispute over whether the House Democrats really did give the same rights to foreign Terrorists as they gave to American citizens. Time is thus encouraging its readers to believe that perhaps Klein was right — that the Democrats’ bill does exactly that which it explicitly says it does not do.

Finally, Time leaves uncorrected the multiple other errors in Klein’s piece, including his bizarre claim that there was some great bipartisan bill agreed to by the House Intelligence Committee which Nancy Pelosi “quashed.” Nobody has any idea what Klein is talking about, including Intelligence Committee member Rep. Rush Holt (who would obviously know), because no such thing ever happened.

And then there’s Klein’s claim, citing Chris Dodd, that “when the President takes the oath of office, he (or she) promises two things: to protect the Constitution and to protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic.” Klein warns Democrats that to win in 2008, they must “find the proper balance between those two.” But the oath of office which the President takes actually says nothing of the kind:

Each president recites the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Directly contrary to what Klein said, Presidents only swear to “defend the Constitution,” not to “to protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic.” So that was completely wrong, too; all those serious errors packed tightly into an 855-word column.

Don Imus, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh.

Hope you dig your new career in standup Joe.  What’s it like writing for People?

In a piece yesterday digby outlines the genesis of ‘The Village’ label (you can call it a frame if you like) as a catch-all for the petulant whiny inbred incestuous elitist idiots who populate the festering swamp (there is a reason the blog is called Swampland) that is the Beltway.

It is rapidly becoming my favorite phrase next to ‘blogtopia’ (thank you skippy) and ‘pre-Whoring’.

Now I didn’t know that we had Sally Quinn to thank for it-

In Washington, That Letdown Feeling

By Sally Quinn, Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, November 2, 1998; Page E01

When Establishment Washingtonians of all persuasions gather to support their own, they are not unlike any other small community in the country.

…

But this particular community happens to be in the nation’s capital. And the people in it are the so-called Beltway Insiders — the high-level members of Congress, policymakers, lawyers, military brass, diplomats and journalists who have a proprietary interest in Washington and identify with it.

…

“This is our town,” says Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Democrat to forcefully condemn the president’s behavior. “We spend our lives involved in talking about, dealing with, working in government. It has reminded everybody what matters to them. You are embarrassed about what Bill Clinton’s behavior says about the White House, the presidency, the government in general.”

…

NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell adds a touch of neighborly concern. “We all know people who have been terribly damaged personally by this,” she says. “Young White House aides who have been saddled by legal bills, longtime Clinton friends. . . . There is a small-town quality to the grief that is being felt, an overwhelming sadness at the waste of the nation’s time and attention, at the opportunities lost.”

…

“We have our own set of village rules,” says David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, who worked for both the Reagan and Clinton White House. “Sex did not violate those rules. The deep and searing violation took place when he not only lied to the country, but co-opted his friends and lied to them. That is one on which people choke.

“We all live together, we have a sense of community, there’s a small-town quality here. We all understand we do certain things, we make certain compromises. But when you have gone over the line, you won’t bring others into it. That is a cardinal rule of the village. You don’t foul the nest.”

Yup.

Just a pack of filthy hippie barbarians storming the village we are, ready to pillage and burn.  Their lamentations music to our ears.  I’ve carried my shield a long time and the axe is sharp enough.

Now I happen to think it’s going to take a long time, but revolutionary change is all around you- the world will be a very different place in 5 years.  What I do know is this- without our effort to change things for the better, they won’t.

Maybe what we do won’t be enough to change things as much as we hope in the direction that we want but the one thing I don’t want to live with is regret.  I regret nothing.  The good.  The bad.  It’s all the same.

Do they know when I get up?  This morning my wife while watching WBZ TV morning “news” told me to wait for the story about the government wanting the reading habits of Amazon.com customers.

http://www.pr-inside.com/us-wi…

They usually repeat the very same stories again by the time I actually leave for work.  It is after all mainstream media and in the interest of keeping my soul pure and uncontaminated I have refined a sophisticated in one ear and out the other technique.

Hon, methinks the censors woke up, a story about government intrusion into private lives, the political officers stifled it.

The local network has also chosen to ignore something like this also and favor the manufactured diversionary local issue of the state legislature taking up the question of outlawing corporal punishment for your kids.

I would put further media consolidation as a more pressing issue than spanking kids.

http://www.usalone.com/stop_me…

And finally the last find of the day is yet another sieg heil related to “terra” bill.

A republic, if you can keep it.  Another day and another Apocalyptic horse practice ride.

Bob Herbert provides must reading today, especially for Brad DeLong, Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Brendan Nyhan, and of course, David Brooks.

Herbert writes:

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

. . . Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.

Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.

And while I expect nothing better from Brooks, Nyhan and Sullivan, I do expect better from people like Drum and Yglesias. And maybe now DeLong sees some value in Herbert's work.

Yep. He did. And he says Kevin Drum agrees with him. Oh, Brooks starts by the standard unsourced argument that Ronald Reagan really did not mean to send a message to white Southerners on civil rights when he gave a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi where defense of “states rights” figured prominently. He calls those of us, including his colleague Bob Herbert, purveyors of a “heinous conspiracy theory.”  But the truth is Brooks has been a pernicious, mendacious apologist for the GOP throughout his career and this is no different.

Brooks provides NO evidence to buttress his claims. Indeed the version he provides buttresses the argument that the Philadelphia speech was in fact an exercise in dogwhistle politics in the Deep South:

Lou Cannon of The Washington Post reported at the time that this schedule reflected a shift in Republican strategy. Some inside the campaign wanted to move away from the Southern strategy used by Nixon, believing there were more votes available in the northern suburbs and among working-class urban voters.

But there was another event going on that week, the Neshoba County Fair, seven miles southwest of Philadelphia. The Neshoba County Fair was a major political rallying spot in Mississippi (Michael Dukakis would campaign there in 1988). Mississippi was a state that Republican strategists hoped to pick up. They’d recently done well in the upper South, but they still lagged in the Deep South, where racial tensions had been strongest. Jimmy Carter had carried Mississippi in 1976 by 14,000 votes.

So the decision was made to go to Neshoba. Exactly who made the decision is unclear. The campaign was famously disorganized, and Cannon reported: “The Reagan campaign’s hand had been forced to some degree by local announcement that he would go to the fair.” Reagan’s pollster Richard Wirthlin urged him not to go, but Reagan angrily countered that once the commitment had been made, he couldn’t back out.

Well, that settles it no? Sheesh. Brooks ACCEPTS that Nixon ran a Southern Strategy, ACCEPTS that the Reagan campaign was looking to make inroads in the Deep South against the Southerner Carter and even accepts that:

You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase “states’ rights” in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. And it’s obviously true that race played a role in the G.O.P.’s ascent.

So this is the “evidence” that absolves the Reagan campaign? This is what allows a man with a history of mendacity to slur people like his colleague Herbert as “heinous?” Oh and what of the evidence that Brooks ignores? Like this:

Ronald Reagan on the subject of welfare. He cited a Chicago “Welfare Queen” who had ripped off $150,000 from the government, using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards, and four fictional dead husbands. The country was outraged; Reagan dutifully promised to roll back welfare; and ever since, the “Welfare Queen” driving her “Welfare Cadillac” has become permanently lodged in American political folklore.

Unfortunately, like most great conservative anecdotes, it wasn't really true. The media searched for this welfare cheat in the hopes of interviewing her, and discovered that she didn't even exist.

As a bit of class warfare, however, it was brilliant. . . .

Except in was not class warfare only. It was mainly RACE warfare.

And this:

Ronald Reagan was key to the South's transition to Republican politics. Goldwater got the ball rolling, but Reagan was at his side from the very beginning. During the 1964 campaign, Reagan gave speeches in support of Goldwater and spoke out for what he called individual rights — read that also as states' rights. Reagan also and portrayed any opposition as support for totalitarianism — read that as communism.

In 1976, Reagan sought the Republican nomination against the incumbent President Gerald Ford. Reagan's campaign was on the ropes until the primaries hit the Southern states, where he won his first key victory in North Carolina. Throughout the South that spring and summer, Reagan portrayed himself as Goldwater's heir while criticizing Ford as a captive of Eastern establishment Republicans fixated on forced integration.

. . . After he defeated President Carter, a native Southerner, Reagan led an administration that seemed to cater to Southerners still angry over the passage of the Civil Rights Act after 16 years. The Reagan team condemned busing for school integration, opposed affirmative action and even threatened to veto a proposed extension of the Voting Rights Act (the sequel to the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed a year later and focused on election participation). President Reagan also tried to allow Bob Jones University, a segregated Southern school, to reclaim federal tax credits that had long been denied to racially discriminatory institutions.

Of course this is just a sample of what Reagan said and did on race issues throughout his political career. But Brooks would have it that the Phildelphia, Mississippi speech was NOT intended to be consistent with Reagan's entire political history. It was just an accidental bit of “callousness.”

David Brooks has been a mendacious and despicable charcter in our political discourse for many years now. But this column today sinks him to a new low.