By Don | November 6, 2009
Forget the charges that there is a conservative or liberal media bias. According t media critic James Poniewozik the real bias is moderate bias.
From TIME
In the argument between the White House and Fox News over whether the cable channel is a conservative mouthpiece, you would think that Fox's viewers would have its back. Not entirely. In an Oct. 29 Pew Research Center survey, TV-news viewers named Fox the most ideological outlet — and 48% of Fox's own viewers called it "mostly conservative" (27% of Fox fans said it was "neither in particular," while 17% said it was "mostly liberal," suggesting that pollsters called G. Gordon Liddy's house more than once).
Now that's not exactly the same as the White House's charge that Fox is essentially a political operation. But it suggests that those "fair and balanced" ads don't fool the people actually watching the stuff. Fox isn't alone, though: the survey showed that far more viewers saw ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NBC as liberal than saw them as conservative.
All of which underlines the obvious: the news audience, if not news itself, is getting more polarized. But categories like Pew's "liberal," "conservative" and "neither" imply that our society is as simplistic about media bias as we are about politics (when in fact both involve nuanced positions), and they overlook the most significant bias out there: moderate bias.
As anyone following health reform knows, centrism is a political position too. And you see moderate bias — i.e., a preference for centrism — whenever a news outlet assumes that the truth must be "somewhere in the middle." You see it whenever an organization decides that "balance" requires equal weight for an opposing position, however specious: "Some, however, believe global warming is a myth." (Moderate bias would also require me to find a countervailing liberal position and pretend that it is equivalent to global-warming denial. Sorry.)
Often, moderate bias is just the result of caution, but the effect is to bolster centrist political positions — not least by implying that they are not political positions at all but occupy a happy medium between the nutjobs. Meanwhile, conservatives see moderate bias as liberal, and liberals see it as conservative — letting journalists conclude that it's not bias at all.
Often, moderate bias is just the result of caution, but the effect is to bolster centrist political positions — not least by implying that they are not political positions at all but occupy a happy medium between the nutjobs. Meanwhile, conservatives see moderate bias as liberal, and liberals see it as conservative — letting journalists conclude that it's not bias at all.
Moderate bias also grows from a related phenomenon: status-quo bias. Journalists, like anyone, have a built-in bias toward believing that what was true yesterday will be true tomorrow. Establishment news outlets grow cozy and comfortable with other establishments. One reason some journalists insufficiently questioned the run-up to the Iraq war and underestimated the housing bubble was that they listened to their usual, credentialed sources — and the history of the past decade is the history of the experts being wrong.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1934550,00.html#ixzz0W5cn1LTL
I only wish there was a moderate bias. It would be far better than the liberal bias that I have lived under for my entire life. There may be moderates in the press but their bias is liberal.
Post #2444
By Don | November 5, 2009
Florida Democrat Alan Grayson upped the ante in his rhetoric war by takig to the House floor to name the number of people who would die without health insurance in Republican districts and blaming those estimated deaths on the GOP representative.
From the Politico
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is taking the extraordinary step of reading off the number of people he calculates will die as a result of lacking health insurance -- in each district represented by a GOP member of Congress who opposes health care reform.
His approach: Name the district, then name of the Republican, then enumerate the number of people who will die without health insurance based on a Harvard analysis -- suggesting that the members were responsible for the body count.
As he began, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) asked for the clerk to take down Grayson's remarks -- a precursor to a complain about the tactic -- which caused the House to be adjourned for a short time.
When the House reconvened, he began reading again:
"Congressman Joe Wilson, 118 dead."
"Is it really asking too much of us that we keep people alive?" asked the Orlando Democrat, who rose to national attention earlier this year for suggesting the GOP wanted uninsured patients to die quickly. "We know according to the Harvard study we will keep these people alive."
The health insurance reform debate is complex and the Democrats have only made it worse by piling on more government programs into the nearly 2,000 page bill. It's not as simple as Grayson wants the public to beleive. What people want to know is why do the Democrats think the government can run health care better than private industry and how much is this really going to cost everyone not scare tactics by either side about who will live or die.
Post #2443
By Don | November 5, 2009
The Politico has compiled a list of the best and worst moves of the Obama administration to date.
Across Washington, political pros are quietly putting together their report cards on the first year of the Obama presidency.
On some issues – like Obama’s diplomatic overtures to Iran – it’s too early to tell whether they’re political wins or losses. On others – like Obama’s failure to break up the big banks – the judgment is hopelessly clouded by ideology. Where you stand, as in so much of life, depends on where you sit.
But on much of Obama’s presidency, there is a surprising bipartisan consensus on what has worked well and what has not. POLITICO spoke to a dozen political insiders and pulled together this list of Obama's ten best, and ten worst, moves of the year.
The list is too long and detailed to post here so you will need to go to the article to see the enitre list. Please post your comments about the list here though.
Post #2442
By Don | November 4, 2009
White House press secretary gives the White House line on yesterday's election results.
From ABC News' Jake Tapper
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today said that Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey do not portend anything for President Obama, but the dynamics and the Democratic candidate's success in the special election in Upstate New York has ramifications for the GOP.
"I think the data from the gubernatorial races demonstrates that voters went to the polls in those two contests to talk about and work though very local issues that didn't involve the president," Gibbs said, invoking exit polls indicating that most voters in those two states said that President Obama was not a factor in their votes.
In the New York race, Gibbs said, "we watched a party pick a candidate and then purge that candidate. And I think the result was an election (in which) that district sent its first non-Republican to Congress since before the Civil War."
Referring to tea party activists and other conservatives supporting Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, Gibbs said the result of the race "proves that anger can get you 45% of the vote."
Gibbs said that President Obama did not watch election returns. He called Democratic losing candidates Creigh Deeds in Virginia and Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey, but has yet to call the victors in those two races, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Governor-elect Chris Christie of New Jersey.
"He wanted them to enjoy their night with their families and supporters but will talk to them today," Gibbs said.
The White House spokesman also took an opportunity to take a shot at the wording of an exit poll question that resulted in almost 90% of respondents in Virginia and New Jersey saying they're "concerned" about the economy.
"There was a question on the exit poll – I think it was worded, ‘are you worried or not worried about the economy,'" Gibbs said. "Ten percent said they weren't worried – I've not the slightest idea who those people are. If the President has been asked by an exit poller yesterday ‘Are you concerned about the economy' he would have said, ‘Yes.'"
Yes the Democrats captured a Republican seat but it that was due more to the failings of the GOP leadership in NY who picked a liberal candidate to run rather than holding a primary to see who the voters preferred. For a guy who had no party support until Scozzafava dropped out Hoffman's showing may be indicative that the Republicans will be able to retake that seat next year.
As for the exit poll question I'm glad to know that the president is concerned about the economy, it's just too bad for the country that he doesn't have a clue on how to fix it.
Post #2441
By Don | November 4, 2009
As newsrooms shrink one little noticed by valuable part of the staff is rapidly disappearing leaving papers with typo strewn copy.
From Editorsweblog.org
Readers who have come to rely on sports journalist Tom Boswell's quality baseball coverage for the Washington Post, might not have been quite so impressed with Monday's offering: His column, covering Sunday's World Series game, was sent to the printers awash with typos, grammatical errors and misspellings; generating a number of complaints.
Some readers asked for full 75 cents refund, whilst one reader hit the nail on the head, writing: "Please, rescue Mr. Boswell from the pressure of the midnight deadline. Give him, and your readers, back your copy editors." Another added: "There is no excuse for such a shoddy product. It's completely unprofessional; more errors than one would see in a high school or college newspaper."
Inexcusable such mistakes may be, but what are the direct causes of such a piece being sent to print?
It would appear that Boswell's typo-strewn column is symptomatic of the Post's various attempts to curb spending. Having recently closed its
College Park printing facility and consolidated operations with its other printing plant in
Springfield, the paper has been forced to inch deadlines forward in order to ensure the paper reaches commuters setting off earlier and earlier due to worsening traffic, as well as doing away with many copy editors.
Sunday's big game wound up just before midnight, and by 12:25 am - a mere five minutes before the 12:30 am final deadline - the story was written and ready for publication - or so it seemed. The piece had been crafted throughout the game and though editors were aware of the fact that it had only received minimal editing, the only other option would have been to hold it out of the paper, disappointing the large number of fans who follow Boswell's column.
That's not to say that the pressure to meet deadlines hasnt always existed- of course it has - and forms part of the very nature of journalism. It's just that a year ago, had Boswell not met the first deadline he could have still made the publication's more widely circulated second edition, giving him a further 45 minutes to play with. With Monday's deadline met - more or less, Boswell then set about producing a fine tuned version that ran online.
Media analysts and publishers alike have long debated the role of copy editors (sub -editors) in today's struggling industry. Indeed,
the Guardian's Roy Greenslade deemed them "a layer in the publishing industry, which can be "eliminated"." Various models have been implemented, reducing the traditional three step article writing process to just two, and thus
doing away with subs entirely. Whilst the financial benefits are apparent, it does beggar the question (which Boswell's column no doubt answers) as to the effects of such a move on the actual quality of journalism - which coupled with increasingly tighter deadlines, surely makes for a significant double threat ... and something's got to give.
With newspaper circulation slumping the last thing the Post and other papers need to do is give readers another reason to drop their subscription. But who wants to read a paper riddled with typos when you can get a spell checked copy online for free?
Post #2440
By Don | November 3, 2009
The Tribune newspapers are experimenting to see if they really need the AP.
From the Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Co. newspapers plan to utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical during the week of Nov. 8.
The goal, as the papers review costs and needs, is to see whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option, the Chicago-based media company confirmed Monday.
The trial is scheduled to be conducted almost 13 months after Tribune Co. gave the AP a required two-year warning that it might drop the news service, effective Oct. 15, 2010. Tribune Co. said at the time that it was keeping its options open while weighing what role, if any, the AP would play in its future.
Some content Tribune Co. papers get from the Associated Press, such as sports statistics, will still be published during the experiment. The company also said that if the AP is the only available source for a report considered vital, it will use that AP coverage. But the company wants to see to what kind of void the absence of AP stories and photos would have.
Besides the content provided by the staff of its own titles, Tribune Co. newspapers will draw from such news sources as Reuters, the Washington Post, New York Times, Agence France Presse, Cable News Network, Global Post, Bloomberg and McClatchy newspapers during its AP-less trial. Not all of those sources are normally available to Tribune Co. papers.
Some newspapers have determined that shared wire content that is available to readers from many other outlets is worth less to them than unique, proprietary content, especially online. Coupled with reductions in the space allocated for news in print, papers are weighing whether there’s the same need for Associated Press content as in the past.
"The Associated Press has been working with all members of the cooperative, including Tribune Co., to ensure that the AP news report retains its value to member newspapers and their readers," AP spokesman Paul Colford said in a statement.
The AP Board of Directors in April announced a new $35 million in rate reductions for 2010 for its member newspapers on top of $30 million in rate reductions for 2009 announced a year earlier. AP expected that the total assessment decreases for papers would average a little less than 20 percent, although it would vary widely for members depending on their services levels.
Tribune Co. TV stations will not participate in the experiment, which falls during the November ratings period. Tribune Co. newspaper Web sites also will not be affected, the company said
Thanks to the advent of social media tools the pressure has increased on the AP to prove its relevance and worth as newspapers shrink or fold reducing the customer base for their services.
The AP provides depth and breadth that others will be hard to match. The Tribune may be able to get along without them but will the remaining readers find the paper worth the trouble,
Post #2439
By Don | November 3, 2009
With unemployment remaining stubbornly high President Obama continues his search for job growth.
From the Politico
In the face of increasing heat from Congress for decisive moves to create jobs, President Barack Obama on Monday pushed his economic advisers to come up with job-generating ideas that can be hustled up to Capitol Hill.
With unemployment rising and expected to be in double digits as lawmakers run for reelection next year, Obama conveyed a sense of urgency as he met with business executives, labor officials and economists who sit on his economic advisory board.
“Congress is going to be looking to act,” Obama told the committee during an hourlong meeting in the Roosevelt Room. “To the extent that we have very clear, crisp recommendations that we can present before them and do so soon, the better off we’re going to be.”
While the administration has fended off talk of a second stimulus bill, Obama made clear he’s concerned that the stimulus legislation passed in February won’t do enough to turn the jobs picture around.
“Given the severity of the job losses that took place at the beginning of the year and the need for us to make up a whole lot of job loss, [it] is going to require, I think, some bold, innovative action on our part and on Congress’s part and on the private sector’s part” to boost employment, the president said. “This is my administration’s overriding focus. ... We will not rest until we are succeeding in generating the jobs that this economy needs.”
Panel members told Obama that the administration should look to three areas to spur job growth: exports, infrastructure and energy-efficiency technologies.
While Obama talks almost daily about green jobs and green technology, one panel member argued that such a transition may not benefit the United States unless policies spur American companies to become stronger competitors in the area.
“We’re home to only two of the top 10 solar companies and only one of the top 10 battery manufacturers,” Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr said. “We have to change dramatically. ... We’re now not on a path to be the worldwide leader in those businesses.”
It is now time for Obama to step forward and look to tax cuts and other incentives for businesses to create jobs, The stimulus did absolutely nothing for solving long term unemployment and throwing more money at the problem won't help.
Just don't hold your breath for the White House to do the right thing.
Post #2438
By Don | November 2, 2009
Fox news has taken a lot of criticism from President Obama but they aren't really any different than their cable news brethren when it comes to partisanship.
From the New York Times
The Obama White House’s decision to challenge Fox News appears driven equally by strategy and frustration. It is also a test case for politicians in both parties.
That is because partisan fragmentation throughout America’s news media and their audiences has grown significantly. Future Republican presidents will have to decide, as Team Obama has, how to buck or accommodate that trend.
Fox News has attracted the most attention because of its “fair and balanced” challenge to its competitors and its success. But the audiences of its competitors have tilted sharply in the other direction. (This reporter is chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and hosts “The New York Times Special Edition,” a program on MSNBC.)
Press critics worry that the rise of media polarization threatens the foundation of credible, common information that American politics needs to thrive. Will Feltus, a Republican specialist in voter targeting, does not.
If it complicates the choices facing leaders in Washington, Mr. Feltus argues, it also decentralizes political communication in a way that is both inevitable and healthy in the information age. “I feel no hand-wringing about it,” Mr. Feltus said. “People are smart enough to understand what color filter is over the lens.”
Roots of a Trend
The evolution of political news on television, in print and on the Internet has a certain back-to-the-future feel. As the American Revolution approached in the 18th century, wrote William David Sloan and Julie Hedgepeth Williams in the book “The Early American Press, 1690-1783,” journalists “were expected to be partisan — intensely partisan.”
Mr. Feltus charted the rising partisanship of television news audiences using data from Scarborough Research, a partnership of the Nielsen Company and Arbitron Inc.
In audience surveys from August 2000 to March 2001, Fox News viewers tilted Republican by 44.6 percent to 36.1 percent. More narrowly — 41.4 percent to 39.4 percent — so did the audience for MSNBC. The audiences of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central leaned Democratic.
Four years later, amid the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, the audience data had shifted. Fox News viewers had become 51 percent Republican and just 30.8 percent Democratic, while MSNBC viewers leaned Democratic by 41.7 percent to 40.4 percent. Viewers of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central grew slightly more Democratic.
By 2008-9, the network audiences tilted decisively, like Fox’s. CNN viewers were more Democratic by 50.4 percent to 28.7 percent; MSNBC viewers were 53.6 percent to 27.3 percent Democratic; Headline News’ 47.3 percent to 31.4 percent Democratic; CNBC’s 46.9 percent to 32.5 percent Democratic; and Comedy Central’s 47.1 to 28.8 percent Democratic.
The fact that the cable networks tilt to one side or the other really isn't that surprising. Fox is clearly conservative overall though they have peppered the network with liberals to give the appearance of being even handed. While the White House dismisses this as just sugar coating at least they have aired people with different points of view. That rarely happens on the other cable networks particularly their opinion shows.
Obama came into office promising not just hope and change but what he referred to as the need to heal the country after some acrimony during the Bush presidency.
However by calling out Fox News he and his aides look more like a bunch of whiny kids that didn't get their way. Fox would have been a minor annoyance during his presidency but now they have taken center stage and supplanted more important news. Or maybe given the problems the administration is having with health care and climate change legislation that was the point. Create a new villain and make the administration the victim to garner sympathy.
Based on the results so far all this strategy has achieved is to divide liberals and conservatives further apart which doesn't bode well for the administration or the Democrats.
Post #2437
By Don | November 2, 2009
The recession may have forced students to curtail or change their college plans but it hasn't affected college presidents all that much.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Shirley Ann Jackson had big plans when she was hired as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute a decade ago. Shovels hit the ground soon after as part of a wide-ranging strategic plan that she directed. Ms. Jackson's compensation matched her ambition, and just two years into her presidency she was the highest-paid private-college chief.
Now, after a decade on the job, she's back on top again with a pay package of $1,598,247 for the 2007-8 fiscal year, the most recent data available. Throughout her tenure, Ms. Jackson has consistently been among the top earners.
Ms. Jackson joins 22 other private-college presidents with compensation above $1-million, according to an annual survey of the compensation packages of private-college chiefs (a companion survey of public-college presidents will be released in January). A total of 110 presidents of the 419 private colleges included in the analysis reported total compensation of more than $500,000.
The median pay for those reviewed, which was $358,746, increased 6.5 percent from the 2006-7 fiscal year. Presidents at research universities fared even better, with a median of $627,750, an increase of 15.5 percent.
Salary increases have probably leveled off since then, with some presidents even taking pay cuts this year. More college leaders could see their compensation dip next year, according to a recent survey of 259 private colleges by Yaffe & Company, a consulting firm specializing in executive compensation.
Ms. Jackson, for example, took a voluntary pay reduction of 5 percent for the current fiscal year. University officials defend her pay, pointing to the success of her Rensselaer Plan, which included a $1.4-billion fund-raising campaign, more than $690-million in new building and renovation projects on the campus, an influx of star faculty members, and steady improvement in the academic achievements of incoming students.
A former Clinton-administration official, Ms. Jackson, 63, served as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when she was recruited to lead Rensselaer in 1999. A world-renowned physicist, she was the first black female doctoral student to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Despite her glowing résumé and strong track record, Ms. Jackson's tenure has had its share of controversy.
She serves as a director on six corporate boards, earning at least another $1.3-million annually, according to a Chronicle analysis of corporate filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Critics say her board work takes her away from the campus, but Rensselaer's Board of Trustees sees it as time well spent and key to raising the institution's public profile.
Several faculty members also criticize the university's spending practices and her compensation. And they point to what they call her "top down" system of governance, and a lack of communication between administrators and faculty members.
In 2006, Ms. Jackson narrowly beat a faculty vote of no confidence by just six votes. The faculty-governance system has not included a senate since Ms. Jackson's office suspended it in 2007.
Don Steiner, an emeritus professor who taught at Rensselaer for 27 years, has been an outspoken opponent of the president. He sent facultywide e-mail messages raising questions about the suspension of the faculty senate.
"There is a pretty high level of fear among the faculty that if they speak out there will be retaliation," he says.
Maybe Obama should appoint a college pay czar.
Post #2436
By Don | November 2, 2009
Democrat contributors on Fox News resist calls to quit the cable news giant from party loyalists.
From the Politico
Democratic pundit Bob Beckel has been under contract with Fox News for six years. And in the midst of the White House war against the cable network, some of his liberal friends think that’s six years too many.
They invited him to lunch the other day for an intervention: Why is Beckel — a true-blue Democrat who worked for Robert F. Kennedy and ran Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign — giving comfort to the enemy?
Beckel’s response: “I talk to more persuadable voters in a month than anybody on MSNBC and CNN talks to in a year.”
In the eyes of some of their party brethren, Beckel and other Democratic strategists and pundits who appear regularly on Fox News are traitors to the cause. Or at least gluttons for punishment.
And some of them feel that way, too.
“It sucks,” says Democratic direct-mail consultant Liz Chadderdon, a regular on the network. “It is very, very tough to be a Democrat on Fox.”
During an October 2007 hit on “The Factor,” Chadderdon referred to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay as “victims.” It was a verbal faux pas, and she knew it. But no sooner did she get off the air than she received a death threat — the first of a handful she says she’s received after appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show.
More recently, Chadderdon has been invited to talk business with Fox’s Neil Cavuto — on the main network and on the two-year-old Fox Business Network — even though she readily admits that she has no background in economics.
“Speaking about those issues is not my forte,” said Chadderdon. “And I’m getting the tar kicked out of me.”
So why does she keep doing it? For pretty much the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. Fox is where the viewers are — No. 1 in the prime-time news ratings and drawing more than twice as many viewers on weeknights as either MSNBC or CNN.
“You know how I know nobody watches CNBC?” said Chadderdon. “I compared the pope to my 11th-grade algebra teacher, and nobody sent me a letter.”
Lanny Davis, former White House counsel for Bill Clinton, says some of his fellow Democrats privately encourage him to keep appearing on Fox — even as they boycott the network themselves.
“I get very positive but whispered reinforcement,” he said.
Davis made news during last year’s Democratic presidential primaries when he said that Fox was the fairest of the cable networks in its treatment of Hillary Clinton.
And now, he insists, the claims of bias directed at Fox are overstated, at least insofar as they come from devotees of one of its competitors.
“Is there a difference between Fox and MSNBC?” he asked. “You count the number of guests on Rachel [Maddow] and Keith [Olbermann] who are conservative Republicans. If you get to double digits, I’ll buy you dinner for each one.”
Susan Estrich is perhaps the most identifiable Democratic pundit on the network. She’s been on the payroll for more than a decade, having first gotten to know Fox News President Roger Ailes when they were working on opposite sides of the 1988 presidential campaign.
The Fox audience does dwarf the competition but it doesn't hurt that the Democrats are being well paid for providing some balance and in some cases cannon fodder for Fox shows.
Post #2435
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