Jim Cramer = Tim Russert = Bad Journalism?

Read this excellent Salon article by Glenn Greenwald comparing Jon Stewart's take-down of Jim Cramer a bit back to the general failures of (US?) journalism. Specifically using Tim Russert as an example, from when he interviewed Cheney on the "Saddam had aluminum tubes for centrifuges to make nukes" leak that had come from within the White House itself (which, this example in turn came from Bill Moyers):

BOB SIMON: Remarkable. You leak a story, and then you quote the story. I mean, that's a remarkable thing to do. . . .

TIM RUSSERT (MEET THE PRESS), TO CHENEY: What specifically has [Saddam] obtained that you believe will enhance his nuclear development program?

BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.

BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?

TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-

BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?

TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't have the-- This is, you know-- on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September Eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES. And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

BILL MOYERS: Bob Simon didn't wait for the phone to ring.

Point being, Russert didn't have to, or shouldn't, "wait for the phone to ring" to do research verifying or disputing his interviewees' stories:

I'm under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I'm under the assumption that you don't just take their word at face value. That you actually then go around and try to figure it out.

What's interesting, among other things, is that Stewart never promotes himself as an arbiter of truth, he always says he's an entertainer and comedian, and I can't think of a single time when he implied, much less said, that getting information or informed comment from him was a good idea -- despite the fact that it is, especially in comparison to actual "journalists". Tucker Carlson, whose show Crossfire got canceled shortly after Jon Stewart made a mockery of it and Carlson (and Begala: "You guys are hurting America"), complained that Stewart "wanted to have it both ways", by having people take his concerns seriously, but also to say "he's just a comedian"; Carlson urged Stewart to stop criticizing them and just be funny, as if being a comedian means by default that he also can never say something serious. Here's the thing: even though Stewart is smarter than the average bear, his modesty, false or not, is the direct opposite of the Messianic or infallible impartial arbiters of news motifs of mainstream journalism. Stewart, in essence, ALWAYS implies, "check it out for yourself," because he never encourages the audience to take something on his authority (or, usually, his guest's either, since he usually asks -- *usually* asks -- questions that are intellectually critical focused on the author's work, and then of course, shills the book, but in Stewart's case, I feel like he himself actually read and processed the information in the book, so his shilling it rings much less hollow than, say, someone on The Today Show or Jay Leno would sound if he was hawking a book written by a think-tanker).

Intentional or not, Stewart's combination of intellectual analysis, critical thinking, and abject over-the-top "no, seriously, I am not that smart" comes close to the stance real journalists should have. And yet, it seems almost as if his protestations of not being a journalist in way is exactly what allows him the liberty to be as tough, intellectual, and thorough as he is... I mean, seriously, the world (or at least Sunday news) would be infinitely better with him as the interviewer on Meet the Press. With my admiration for him kept in mind, believe me when I say that I think that speaks much more negatively of the press than it speaks positively for him -- simply because the fact that he's doing a better job than they are is laudable, but the fact they do so poorly is simply inexcusable.

Racism, Terror, McCain and Palin: The Original Crypto-racists

Ok, McCain and Palin actually are not at all the original crypto-racists. But this excellent article on The Root points out the coded language being used by their campaign shows quite clearly what's going on and how it fits in a history of using the "he-said, she-said" mode of the press to legitimize and equate negative campaigning (arguably used by Obama) with inciting hate and fear (which The Root points out is at best being tolerated, and far more likely being fostered, by McCain-Palin).

I can hear several people, including friends of mine, asserting that McCain and Palin are not being racist, they're just playing hardball. Which may indeed be the case, insofar as explicit racism -- they may not think Obama is inferior because of his race, but they are exploiting the very race/class lines that come from those assumptions. Kai Wright:

""It's as if the usual rules don't apply," he huffed in complaint about Obama's refusal to respond to smears masquerading as questions. "What does he plan for America? In short, who is the real Barack Obama?!"

The crowd was ready with an answer. "A terrorist!" is the cry several observers heard from at least one McCain fan. Similar slurs flew at McCain camp rallies all week. Someone at a Sarah Palin event in Florida hollered "kill him!" when she repeated her now-infamous smear about Obama "palling around with terrorists." (It's unclear whether the supporter meant Obama or '60s-radical-turned-academic Bill Ayers, the terrorist pal in question.) The crowd eventually turned on the press galley covering the speech, shouting threats and taunts. A black camera crew member was told, "Sit down, boy."

By yesterday, Team McCain had cooled things down a bit. They at least kept the race baiting out of McCain and Palin's mouths—even if they still haven't stopped others on the platform from conspicuously repeating "Barack Hussein Obama." But the crowd's reactions this week lay bare the coded language McCain and Palin have deliberately used. The message from the McCain camp was clear: This Obama guy is different than you in "essential" ways. He represents people who aren't like you. Don't trust him. He is other."

To really fully support such things requires a deeper exegesis than we have time for here. But I think the Southern Strategy that Daktari and I have been discussing is more alive and well than we suspected. I don't think it's such a conscious thing these days, but riling up an audience along the same lines as have been used for decades (and so aptly demonstrated in a key scene in To Kill a Mockingbird) can play into old, half-recognized prejudices and group-think that doesn't represent the feelings of the individual, but a less-rational, more hateful crowd-mind. We are very, very far from literal lynch mobs -- but the fact that McCain-Palin are playing on the same crowd dynamics that made such things acceptable for so long is nonetheless disturbing, whether they do it knowingly or not.

Media Bias (minus Linky Love)

Just a quick esoteric rant, with few links source material -- in a hurry, sorry.

Watching "Interviews: 50 cents," Alex Chadwick's occasional interview series on Slate V, Slate's Video feed, he interviews a young, sort of lost-seeming guy who is looking to go into journalism. The guy says something to the effect that he doesn't agree with most of the policies of the current heads of government (hence explaining why he might like to cover a war, but not be in one), and then says, "But I guess if I want to be a journalist, I'm not supposed to have... beliefs, right?" Long pause as Chadwick apparently confirms the duty of an objective journalist to not have thoughts by not expressing any thoughts about the guy's question (which actually is understandable as a good interview tactic in this case), and the guy continues, "Right? You can't have political beliefs?" Chadwick now jumps in -- "You can have them, you can't express them..." They chat a bit longer, but...

WHAT the FUCK? Doesn't Chadwick see how self-apparently nonsensical that is? OF COURSE journalists have opinions -- so how does it help objectivity if they don't voice them, thereby making whatever biases they may carry more apparent for the discerning reader/listener to evaluate for themselves, AND subjecting them to public scrutiny, which can hone, refine, challenge, and improve one's grasp of concepts and world events? And how does NOT SAYING WHAT YOU BELIEVE change your actual degree of objectivity? For the sake of all that's... That otherwise intelligent people can continue to believe that SECRET JOURNALIST OPINIONS are better/more impartial than OPEN JOURNALIST OPINIONS that you can take into account for yourself is sort of beyond me at this point. I just want to sit down with Chadwick and Lehrer and some of these other media fools and figure out what exactly they think they're playing at, other than trying to project false impartiality by not voicing their actually partial thoughts?

Solidarity Gone Awry

File it under yet another "Unbearable Lightness of Being Center-Left." Or perhaps just "The Unbearable Lightness of Analysis at Slate."

Whatever the case, Emily Bazelon's recent article disappoints. Me, at least.

Charitably, I can see how hard it is to watch a woman flub on the national stage and worry that we've all been set back some (well, all us feminists, but more importantly I suppose, women and specifically women feminists especially -- Wom Fems?). It is, similarly, hard for me to watch black people make a fool of themselves (See: All Wayans family members post-1995ish -- and no, it doesn't matter to me that they're suppposedly funny or just pretending, minstreling is minstreling, aiight? Though yes, it would be worse if it were a national politician.*) So I guess, just in this instant thinking about that, I can sympathize with her position.

But the thing is, Slate is not (nominally) a confessional -- it's a news outlet for analysis and debate and reporting. And while reporting the embarrassment wim-fems and their supporters might feel about Palin, she does seem to fail to engage much beyond that. Just as I don't believe Hillary Clinton did all that much to advance feminism or women's issues -- just being a woman close to the presidency was an important symbol, but one without substance, she being hardly a Shirley Chisholm or Ruth Bader-Ginsberg or Joan Williams, i.e., feminists I respect for their actual ACTIVISM and not just womanness -- I don't know how much Palin is taking away from it. It is, after all, institutional sexism as much as anything else at this point maintaining male dominance, and institutionalized discrimination relies much less on the outward symbols and prejudices that make up much of the substance of historical discrimination (which in turn allowed present discrimination to occur more discretely, once the institutions to maintain it were set up on discriminatory foundations).

Perhaps I'm wrong -- perhaps I'm underestimating symbolism. I sometimes/often do. But it shouldn't require me to ask Bazelon to do her job -- which is not just to sound agonized, indecisive and inactive (which I SWEAR, must be the Slate house style these days, except when they're being decisively smarmy) but to ANALYZE things. Get to the MEAT of it. Bazelon's lack of engagement in the deeper structures of sexism is nigh-unforgivable -- similar to the media's coverage of Iraq. Because I ask you, what would be more valuable to the American people -- coverage of the play-by-plays of politics in the Iraq war, and the body count, or actual substantive coverage of the HISTORY of Iraq, a major undertaking in educating the public about the culture and people of Iraq, such that we could responsibly interpret what's going on there? Or, to the point, a responsible history and analysis of sexism and progress in the US and, hey I know, it's crazy to even ask for it -- other countries (many of whom have already had female heads of state and so maybe could shed some light on... oh, never mind).

I'm not saying such an undertaking was ever likely to be in the offing in the US MSM; I'm just saying, people like Bazelon are smart enough to know it should be, yet so rarely use their pulpits to even CALL for such an undertaking; and if they do call for it, they would certainly do it in the best spirit of the Slate political gabfest and call for someone ELSE to do it...

Uggghhh, I'm spent.

(*I'm not sure if I'd count, say, Alan Keyes. He's horrible, but he's obviously intelligent -- just IN-SANE. So I guess I don't have a ready straight parallel to Palin in mind... though is that because I can't think of any, because there are more black "embarassments" in entertainment than politics, and/or because there aren't ENOUGH blacks in US politics to have much of a diversity of them...? Oh, actually, there was William Jefferson...)

Slate Idiotically Conflates Lack of Style with Substance

Christopher Beam's brief dispatch for the debate exemplifies much of my problem with Slate these days. Depth of analysis, they don't got.

Beam makes the rather inarguable point that the debate was boring, along with the pretty uncontroversial point that boring can be good in comparison to hair-trigger idiotic mud-slinging. He comments that boring is good because, nominally, the evening was heavy on substance.

WHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT?

While substance may be boring (especially to the news media), it is NOT the fact that boredom means you're getting some substance vegetables in your presidential election dinner that you have to finish before you get to the dessert of irresponsible speculation and obsession with personal details. BORING does NOT equal SUBSTANCE!!!!

Is that really all that hard to realize? The fact that they talked a LOT about the issues in excruciating detail doesn't actually mean that they talked about the issues substantively -- the details were puffery, distortions, and contextless factoids. Indeed, I think it was boring largely because they did all they could to not dwell into substance -- despite Lehrer's occasional helpful suggestion of substantive topics, which they talked around such that he returned to his initial question around 5 times subsequently. If you have to say a lot without saying anything, a sure way is to be boring. They didn't tell us their economic strategies (other than "Yes tax cuts" "No on loopholes" "His plan is more expensive" "No, HIS plan is more expensive" "Freeze spending" "Invest in our future and alternative energy" -- nothing I couldn't have guessed or told you about BEFORE the debate). Bland generalities is not wonky, it's politically expedient.

I'm sorry. It just drives me crazy -- the immediate assumption that substance is hard and boring and that's why it's avoided so much by the mainstream news, all the more reason to avoid it in favor of "Gotcha!" news reporting, except for the fact that, at least Christopher Beam, doesn't even seem to understand what substance is. I'll give you an example -- saying that you might meet with Iranian President Ahmedinijad, but might not, as the situation calls for it, is not wonky, substantial, or interesting. Saying, for example, that there is much pro-American feeling in Iran, but far far more anti-intervention feeling, and as such you will be pushing for cultural missions and person-to-person exchanges in return for trade concessions (something I just made up whole cloth and not necessarily suggesting) would be substantial -- it's a plan, with details, that you can then debate. Whether or not Obama's theoretical plan that is only referred to obliquely despite the fact that I doubt the general public is familiar with it is better than John McCain's theoretical plan that is only referred to obliquely despite the fact that I doubt the general public is familiar with it is not vegetables. It's just really, really, REALLY bad tasting fast food. The fact that one would even briefly confuse the two is the most distressing thing I've heard all day.

A Cogent Analysis of MSNBC's Olbermann/Matthews Bullshit

Read here.

And of course, the worst of it is that the most rightward folks, from the Falwells and Dobsons and Norquists through the David Brookses of the world gets time on TV, far more often than the Amy Goodman, Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, or Ralph Naders of the world. As I've long maintained, there is no far that is too far Right to be on TV (except, I suppose, people who openly advocate killing, say, blacks, Jews, and gays -- though especially the latter is only sometimes considered unacceptable), but woah-ho-HOOO! Chris "Mission Accomplished Gave Me a Woody" Matthews and Keith Olbermann -- left and an intelligent and sharp critic, but no Goodman, Ali, Chomsky, Nader or Moore -- they got to GO! Way too left!

What the fuck.

If She Can See Farther Than Others... Daktari on Palin

If Daktari can see farther than others, it's because she's sharp like woah.

Go read Daktari's blog. There've been a series of sharp and probing posts recently that I really haven't had the time to fully process and react to. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go read her excellent summary post of VP Nominee and Republican Wackaloon Sarah Palin. Daktari's rounded up a good number of links and primary/secondary sources about Palin's abject horribleness by any progressive feminist standard.

Apparently Daktari will not be part of Samantha Bee's Love Pitas for Palin, the gynecologically-inclined issue* voters, those women voting not with The Big Head, but The Little Hood.
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*Apparently that issue is: "Does someone on the ticket have a vagina?", not "Does the Party/Ticket/Nominee represent anything I believe in?" Substantive issues, it seems, are NOT for pussies.

Hah! I slay me.

But seriously: even J-Fave Slate's Today's Papers jumps on the pre-determined narrative bandwagon, saying that

"Choosing Palin undercuts the argument that Barack Obama is too inexperienced, raising questions about John McCain's age and judgment. But it could pay off: Palin—an NRA member and staunch pro-lifer—is energizing evangelicals and tempting Hillary Clinton voters to defect."

If one bothers to read the linked WaPo article, a paragraph worthy of note (more than halfway through the article, natch) reads

"Interviews with women who supported Clinton suggested that the fact that McCain picked someone as conservative as Palin will be reluctant to vote for McCain, even for those who have been flirting for months with the idea of defecting to the GOP ticket"

only then followed by a quote from one Clinton supporter who has decided to defect. It could be a real phenomenon, but they don't know -- Slate, and to a lesser extent, the WaPo here are making up the narrative before the facts. Not new for The News, but nonetheless, egregious. Objective media my left ass cheek.

I tend to agree with those that charge McCain with thinking Women Candidates Are Interchangeable, though of course as with any modern "identity politics" argument, somehow those who see sexism in the events of the day are themselves charged with misunderstanding feminism.

(Hillary) Clinton's Speech and News Media

The event reported in Language Log about Clinton's speech -- a CBS analyst asking an FBI profiler if he thought she was being sincere when endorsing Obama. The dude -- Navarro -- apparently has a book out bout this stuff. Of course, according to Language Log, he not only contradicted the pertinent entry in his own book, but seemingly didn't even correctly analyze the evidence he presented.

The comments section gets into the interesting (to J) debate about media and its attitude (or complete disregard for) actual facts.

J Mother might be happy to see this blog entry; 3/4 of the J Family was nonplussed by the fact that, to us, Hillary's speech was fine and did everything it needed to, while the entire media seemed to be pretty sure that she did it wrong. I know that they would critique it no matter what she said -- but that's the point, if it's wrong no matter what she does just so a more interesting story can be generated, that's to J the media equivalent of criminal negligence.

Yikes. Hillary Clinton's vagina unexpectedly ate someone on South Park. I am amazed by their ability to constantly find new ways to not just go over, but build a nice summer home over the line. Considering that it was an effectively anti-racial-profiling 24 rip-off, I'm trying to decide if I can overlook the lurking misogyny. South Park's trying-too-hard-by-half take-downs of everyone and everything are perceived by some people as spreading it around fairly; this ignores the fact that attacking discriminated against groups really isn't the same as attacking the hegemonic groups in POWER, but I might get past my curmudgeonlyness this time.

On the other hand... is it a coincidence Comedy Central re-ran this episode today...?

Do you like the crotch on my blog?

Read about the R. Kelly-inspired 00's version of "I like the cut of your jib." Apparently it's just the one dude, and Language Log, using this meme, but I like its moxy.

In other news, I like how Slate's XX Factor manages to work a mention of "the glint of [Michael Phelp's] hairless body in the spotlight" into a piece on the pretty inarguably sexist request for skimpier Olympic Table Tennis uniforms (no irony intended). Next, the Ping Pong Politburo will appeal to our lower denominators via an overhyped appearance by Christopher Walken. That seemed to work well enough for distinctly not Olympic-grade movie making.

Finally: I am also totally gay for Rachel Maddow. Despite some distinctly less stellar analyses here and there, she's an excellent analyst, kind of in the Jon Stewart mold of a) know what you're talking about, b) if it's crazy shit happening/being said by politicians, don't be afraid to call it crazy shit.

I liked her before it was cool.

RIP, Unfiltered! What what! [poors a beer on the ground]

P.S. 80 points to anyone who can turn "Gotcha so wet, it's like a rainforest/ Like Jurassic Park except I'm your sexasaurus" into a viable meme.

On The Media should get On Its Knees and blow me

OTM is apparently "the weekly, one-hour program [that] is America's only national radio program devoted to media criticism and analysis." But is it criticism if they end up condoning, tacitly or explicitly, whatever practice any given outlet engages in?

Case in point: I recently was annoyed and disappointed to learn more and more of the heavy hand of editing and "fiction" in the primarily and nominally non-fiction "This American Life." (There is apparently also a growing -- and by growing I mean I've now heard it from 4 people rather than 3 -- backlash against the "cool" ironic hipster style of TAL. It never occurred to me to be bothered by this, because I felt that Ira Glass was knowingly twee and ironic in a way similar to that of many people I know -- indeed similar to many of the people who dislike him/TAL so. I didn't get it, but I'm starting to -- I think it's because he is always twee and ironic, and that he makes all the stories twee and ironic, so that not only does it ring false, it IS false, because all of life is not composed of arms-length irony, and such a diversity of stories can't all be meant to be told in the same way. But I get ahead of myself.) I have read that Glass edits the pieces down to the exact number of seconds or parts of seconds that makes the perfect ironic pause, the ideal hesitation, the most of the recently revived art of discomfort humor from preternaturally long awkward pauses. That rather bothered me, but I managed to ignore it. But then came Malcolm Gladwell.

In this piece, Gladwell comes across as a big bit of a dick to me, a feeling I shared with a friend on Facebook, who rather felt that people should know enough not to trust reporters, and that as a reporter his particular or special obligation to clarify when he's joking/lying and when he was less significant than the idea that "we" shouldn't take "anything at face value." The real shame was on us for believing, and anyway, Malcolm Gladwell (and James Frey) didn't really matter in the scheme of things.

Ok. So I admit I may be an over-serious killjoy. Check, moving on.

I feel that as a big-name star reporter, Gladwell has obligations. Journalists are, after all, a specially Constitutionally protected group. Rights have responsibilities with them, imho. So Gladwell had a segment on TAL where he basically said that as a cub, naive reporter he found out he could influence events and have fun by making up bits of stories -- that he once (accidentally) caused a 10-point fall in a stock by misreporting a company's earning, and that he realized he could do whatever he wanted, like fabricating possible sights for convention so that he could go on vacation where he wanted to covering said convention.

Except that his story, this part and others, are largely untrue. And he has the flimsy but real excuse that he told the story in a place where people often spin tall tales. But Glass put it on TAL in front of 1.7 million listeners.

In an article I largely agree with, Slate's Jack Shafer reports:

This American Life host Ira Glass gives no indication that any part of Gladwell's performance is fictional when he breaks in to end the Gladwell segment. Instead, he encourages young listeners not to follow Gladwell's example.

"By the way, if there is any ambiguity in here at all, young journalists, please note, putting false information into the newspaper is wrong," Glass says.

Gladwell... adds that they promised to run a disclaimer.

<...>

Ira Glass of This American Life says via e-mail that the show agreed to include a comment at the end—about The Moth being a place where "people come to tell both true stories and occasional tall tales"—to indicate that the talk "contained elements of exaggeration or untruth."

As disclaimers go, Glass' is weak, something he acknowledges.

"It seemed best for the story if this were kept a little vague," writes Glass. "I thought it would be lousy and undermining and killjoyish if—at the end of a story—a radio host came on and said 'that wasn't true.' Seemed nicer and more artful to simply raise the possibility that it might or might not be true. I figured: the audience is smart. A little goes a long way."

So what's got my boxers in a bunch? This constant pedantic "I know better than thou,"-cum-inverse condescension. "People are smart enough to know better" -- which has the quite clear converse that if you don't, you're not smart. "On the Media" -- the original target of my rant -- pulls similar and quite annoying shit:

NPR's Executive Producer for Training Jonathan Kern is overseeing a year-long project on news standards, which will likely result in the network providing listeners with more information on production techniques. But he doesn't see much utility for the public in adding transparency for transparency's sake.

JONATHAN KERN: Do they really want to know how we edited every actuality and whether there were internal edits? I would say no, they probably don't want to or need to know that. Would it be a good idea occasionally to explain how it's done? Absolutely.

FUCK YOU! "Transparency for transparency's sake?" Isn't that the point of transparency? Simply to be open with what you're doing? It's not as if transparency is meant to be reserved for only when you actually HAVE committed a crime or impropriety; the whole point is that one shouldn't be forced to let YOU (in this case, NPR) decide for yourself what's proper. Transparency is for the sake of others to make their own decisions about methods and approach; when you start picking and choosing based on your perception of what we "need to know," that's hardly transparency any more. RRrrrgh. I mean, no one/nothing can be completely transparent, but this attitude of "Well, only a pedant would find this concerning" when quite clearly that's not so (earlier in the article on OTM, it's mentioned that "NPR's Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin believes trust in television news has declined in part because viewers see it as over-produced entertainment. Is it possible that the fact listeners are unaware of how much production is involved has helped retain their trust in NPR News?"). It can't possibly simultaneously be a cause for a decrease in trust in television news, and unworthy of being transparent about. (For the other reason OTM pissed me off, see this PoorMojo rant by Pappy Hants here, titled "NPR Allows Caller to Put His Dick in My Ear, Parts I & II.")

That's what gets me, in the end. Glass, Gladwell, and OTM act as if they KNOW that what they're doing is as least plausibly questionable. But they cover it with the concept that anything questionable they do is either already known by or irrelevant to the audience... without explicitly asking the audience. (Certainly a colleague of mine buys into their world view; I leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess my stance.) As Shafer says in his piece:

Gladwell's spiel works not because the stories are particularly funny but because of his reputation as a reliable, meticulous journalist. Puncture the illusion that he's telling the truth, and the laughs leak into the ether.

A storyteller can't have it both ways, instructing listeners to "look it up" while stretching the yarn beyond the breaking point or claiming that smuggling the "baffling" phrase into Post copy became "literally" an "obsession." Gladwell's method, and his decision to let This American Life air his tale, raises … well, new and troubling questions about his attitude toward his audience...

On March 13, after I interviewed him, Gladwell had second thoughts about his Moth talk, qualifying it on his blog with these words:

There is a disclaimer at the end of the This American Life broadcast, to the effect that the Moth is a place where "people come to tell both true stories and occasional tall tales." As I think should be obvious if you listen to it, my story definitely belongs to the "tall tale" category. I hope you enjoy it. But please do so with a rather large grain of salt.

Virginia Heffernan of the NYT makes what I believe is the unwarranted assumption that since most random people don't tell interesting stories, and since Glass works so hard to mold "everyday" stories into amusing ones, that perhaps indeed, "[A]lmost no one has a bona fide story, though most have arguments to make, consolations to offer and widgets to sell." (I think this is bullshit, but it would take too long to get further into it here.) BUT Heffernan's point that Glass' methods on TAL are "A way to take the wheel of stories when it’s clear that the everyman he’s recruited isn’t saying exactly what the producers want him to." As she says of the TAL story she reviews, "Ultimately it’s maddening to watch Mr. Glass force this point on Ralph and Sandra, two fascinating people whose dual intimacy with the fading art of ranching and the ascendant art of cloning should have earned them the microphone for the full hour. But Mr. Glass apparently can’t help himself. Only one person really has a story to tell here."

The problem isn't just that, as my TAL-loving friend asserts, that there is artistry in Glass' manipulation that has its own worth, different (greater than?) the worth of true stories told truly without an overriding outside point of view, it's that Glass seems defensive about this idea, that not only is it true but that it doesn't matter. It's more fun if you believe it's true and not heavily filtered, and it's unimportant or killjoyish to let you know that it's not and it is, respectively. It's that this point of view doesn't seem restricted to Glass; it's the official point of view of NPR. They admit that, unlike TV, you can't even see the cuts, deceptive or not. But ultimately, they assure us, their version of reality is close enough, that we should know it's reality presented with their own opinion of fealty to the source, and that -- this is my favorite (ugh) part -- not only do we not need to know that explicitly, but truly, we don't want to. Of course, that's just their opinion -- but what does that mean when they feel that their point of view is more important than reality?

*****

One might ask "What's the alternative?" -- to which I would say that at least as far as "real news" goes, journalistic integrity and the advantages of the web would mean that they could post full, unedited versions of interviews -- raw transcripts, as are published for such venerable and truthful institutions as Fox News for many of their shows. True, they do this primarily for Talk Shows -- news-light angry folks like O'Reilly -- but NPR could innovate it with raw transcripts of interviews, at least, if not audio and/or video of interviews and raw transcripts for their reporters. (The OTM piece reveals that they sound so intelligent, urbane, pithy, and concise because the reporters are also edited such that the "uhs' and "ums" come out; apparently this is what some people "appreciate" about NPR -- it's polishness. I could give two shits for polish -- I'd rather see it as it was. All communication is a lie, in a way -- nothing can be communicated in absolute true purity -- but that doesn't mean all alterations are the same, or irrelevant. In general, the more alteration, the further one gets from reality, so it seems to me that a minimum of editing and alteration should be the goal. I'll give you editing for time -- an artifice but a necessary one. But not "polish", which is pure aesthetics. Beauty may be truth to some, but I prefer my truth with morning breath and frizzy hair, not truth that's been groomed enough to appear on America's Next Top Model.)

Oracular? Obscurantism! This ain't Delphi, mother fucker.

A response to an article by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, here, essentially arguing how much journalism should penetrate the façade of the Supreme Court's inscrutable wisdomness. [bleeargh]
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The idea that we must maintain a layer of inscrutability in order to maintain the respect for the court is, in a word, anti-democratic. The Enlightenment values upon which our country is based (as much if not more so than the specifically Judeo-Christian values) emphasized comprehensibility and rationality. The fulfillment of the dream of the US' founding requires not ceremony and respect for ceremony and respect's own sake, but rather knowledge, and as a stance towards our government equal parts questioning and deferential.

It *is* important to maintain a respect for government -- something that has been undermined as much or more by the Republican's efforts to portray government as inherently incompetent, inefficient, and vaguely menacing as it has been by de-mystification -- but respect is earned, not given by virtue of an institution.

Perhaps my history is off, but my impression is that oracular prognostications were as often as not used to justify decisions of an imperial or royal ruler, rather than true statements from on high -- unless we're going to believe in Jupiter, Juno, and their lot now. The Godliness of the sovereign, and his/her right to proclaim what was right for the people was another iteration of this same theme; the idea that this kind of oracular, priestly deference is due automatically to the Supreme Court, or even desirable is a dubious one, indeed, and truly, deeply repugnant to democracy (and to me).

Watching the sausage get made can be an unsettling process, but when there's a problem, a contaminant, an error, we damn well better see how it gets made -- the world is better for Upton Sinclair, not worse. And any plain knowledge we gain of the court that detracts from their Wise and Wizened Aura is the fault of those who hold the office, and not of the knowledge itself -- are we to view them as Oracles and simply hope we're right, with continued obscurantism to preserve our cherished illusion, or should we have all the facts possible in order to know, as best as possible, if they deserve the deference we give them?

I understand the desire to maintain some things in a special place, a superior place, and ideal -- but with government as with a parent, spouse, or child, these things most coexist when looking at government with an eye to reality, lest we be a permissive parent, a battered spouse, an abused child. And above all, do not confuse respect and deference due the institution and office with what is due to to those who happen to hold said office at this point in history. Anything less is an infeebilization, an infantilization of the American people, and a betrayal of all we hold dear, if what we hold dear are the ideals of Constitutional government.

In a phrase: don't treat us like f*cking kids.

-HopefulCynic

(see also: The Case for Full Disclosure, by James Poniewozik)

Video Games DO Cause Violence: Slate's Iconoclasm is Convincing for Once

It was with a disproportionately heavy heart that I finally gave in and read the recent Slate article, Don't Shoot: Why video games really are linked to violence by Amanda Schaffer. Not because I'm not willing to believe there is some link -- there is certainly some link in such a complex causal chain as personality and behavior. But Slate tends to preemptorily declare "That's it, the answer is wrapped up" in any number of scientific arguments, most especially their execrable "Economics" articles, often by taking one study and generalizing it to be "the answer" (Steven Landsburg and Tim Harford being the "execrablers" in most cases). So I assumed the game-violence article would be along the line of a different recently published article by Slate I'm refusing to read, "Whose life is worth more, a drug dealer or a prostitute?" (Answer: "What the fuck is wrong with you, what kind of assclown asks that?" If there is an answer that doesn't make me feel bad about the human race, I'm rather sure it won't be written by Tim "Scientist" Harford.)

But in actuality, the article (on violence) convinced me. I feel Michael Moore's "Bowling for Colombine" was unfairly lambasted on a number of levels (though he does make it easy for people by seemingly making a number of lazy incorrect assertions and sensational claims in his movies, I think), as it really was a movie that set out to test a series of ideas, and came up with a counter-intuitive (or at least, unexpected from Michael Moore) conclusion: guns really DON'T kill people, violent culture does. That is, he went through a variety of theses, from video games (nope: Japan has more violent video games and less violent crime) to gun ownership (nope: a variety of countries have more firearm ownership and lower crime) and settled on the violence at the root and promoted by any number of facets of US culture (as reflected, perhaps, in our continued imperialism and relatively blasé attitude towards, for example, the 20 to 50 times more Iraqis that have died than our own troops). It really was quite clever and, to me, well done and convincing (though undermined, most agree, by picking on Charlton Heston at the end, especially since Heston's NRA had more to do with the thesis he discarded, that of gun ownership itself being the problem). The point here is that Moore discarded video games as a prime factor, and prima facie at least, I agreed with him. But Schaffer's article reviews three seemingly-prominent studies (as an academic, I can't really trust them 'till I read them myself) with three different methodologies, bolstering her case from longitudinal, comparative, and experimental perspectives.

Nicely, as well, she bothers to distinguish between types of video games, and (seemingly a-purpose) parallels the useful aspects of video games to the downside of violent video games:

"When video games aren't about violence, their capacity to teach can be a good thing. For patients suffering from arachnophobia, fear of flying, or post-traumatic stress disorder, therapists are beginning to use virtual realities as a desensitization tool. And despite the rap that they're a waste of time, video games may also teach visual attention and spatial skills. (Recently, a study showed that having played three or more hours of video games a week was a better predictor of a laparoscopic surgeon's skills than his or her level of surgical training.) The games also work for conveying information to kids that they will remember. Video games that teach diabetic kids how to take better care of themselves, for instance, were shown to decrease their diabetes-related urgent and emergency visits by 77 percent after six months."

The implication here, which I think Schaffer intentionally includes (though oddly doesn't spend a lot of time playing up) is that these useful effects of games work on the same principles that make violent games harmful -- they decrease arachnophobia via desensitization (parallel: violent games desensitive kids to violence), they teach and emphasize a skill set (hand-eye coordination etc. useful for surgery or, unfortunately, assault and murder), and impart information (how to keep up with your diabetes, or how funny and easy it is to beat someone to death witha baseball bat). And it's worth noting, though Schaffer does not, that the military is increasingly using video games to train soldiers (or so I hear) and there are anectdotes of Iraqi soldeirs, especially younger ones, comparing the killing and blowing-up of people and things to games they've played at home. As Schaffer does point out,

"The connection between violent games and real violence is also fairly intuitive. In playing the games, kids are likely to become desensitized to gory images, which could make them less disturbing and perhaps easier to deal with in real life. The games may also encourage kids (and adults) to rehearse aggressive solutions to conflict, meaning that these thought processes may become more available to them when real-life conflicts arise, Anderson says. Video games also offer immediate feedback and constant small rewards—in the form of points, or access to new levels or weapons. And they tend to tailor tasks to a player's skill level, starting easy and getting harder. That makes them "phenomenal teachers," says Anderson, though "what they teach very much depends on content.'"

Of course, she doesn't go into remedies, which is where the whole thing often goes off the rails, as most agree adults have the right to play whatever the hell game they want, and most agree parents should be the point-guards for what their kids play, not stores or the government. And if parents have neither the time, knowledge, or inclination to keep the kids off Grand Theft Auto, well, where does that leave us... (plus the fact that of course it's not one to one, so how do you choose which kids are "mature" enough to kill drug dealers in video-game-land and which aren't? I've always found it interesting that even though I occasionally like to indulge in playing GTA and its ilk, I often feel a deep, deep discomfort or disgust at even the pretend mayhem I'm causing... which I think is likely a good thing...)

Schaffer has a very reasonable wrap up, saying:

"Given all of this, it makes sense to be specific about which games may be linked to harmful effects and which to neutral or good ones. Better research is also needed to understand whether some kids are more vulnerable to video-game violence, and how exposure interacts with other risk factors for aggression like poverty, psychological disorders, and a history of abuse. Meanwhile, how about a game in which kids, shrinks, and late-night comics size up all these factors and help save the world?

A little trite, but all in all, not a bad place to start.

Episode 9: Wherein I can't even maintain a token protest

After reading the headline only of what was bound to be another execrable article by Slate's Steven Landsburg, I had had enough:

Dear Editor,

I am afraid I will have to launch a personal -- and, I realize, merely symbolic -- boycott of Slate as it continues to publish columns by Steven Landsburg.

I cannot complain specifically about the most recent Steven Landsburg article because I refuse to read it. I have, however, read all of his previously published Slate articles as far as I know, as I have read Slate devoutly since 2002.

Do not think this is fretting about something I haven't seen. I have seen, and commented on, Dr. Landsburg's articles any number of times. I have read perhaps one article by him that I didn't consider to be purely amateurish, poor science, provocative just to be provocative and without any sound evidence or reasoning to back up its contrarian argument. It seems as if Dr. Landsburg gets up and decides to write an Everyday Economics article by thinking "What can I prove using 1 or 2 studies that will surely piss off at least half the readership enough to angrily slobber over my article? I know! 'Is it in the economic interest of black people to eat lots of watermelons and fried chicken, while dancing entertainingly for white people?' Of course it is! Not just before the end of Jim Crow, but now as well!"

As a recent example, view the responses to his prior article, "Women are chokers." I direct you to a post at least nominally by a fellow scientist, Ian T. Ellwood. He reviews how thoroughly poor a study it was that Landsburg relied on almost entirely for his argument. Sure, Slate is not an academic journal, but single-sourced non-peer-reviewed "science" article? No, thanks, that's alright, I'll pass.

If you were to look in the Fray, you'd see that Dr. Landsburg has consistently been critiqued there on scientific sloppiness, sloppiness that goes beyond merely being "casual science" to "almost pure contrarianism with poor scientific reasoning added for rhetorical value."

I cannot for the life of me fathom why Slate continues to publish him, except for the possibility that his provocative churlishness brings in readers and ad revenue. In any case, this issue and Slate's lack of response to readers -- to defend Landsburg, or any other reaction from the top, really -- speaks doubly ill of the Editors, both in terms of publishing tripe and in terms of utterly wasting the Fray, which was notably largely unmentioned in Slate's anniversary self-congratulations. It seems to be a place where we readers can talk to ourselves (and the Freditor), but neither the quality nor quantity of our postings have any effect or elicit cogent responses from those we are writing most often to or about.

Perhaps it's time for Slate to get a Public Editor? That's something I'd like to see, if and when I come back.

Sincerely,

"J Continuum's name"

(This post was greeted by a resounding lack of caring on anyone's part.)

I'm sad to say, I am indeed back, I couldn't keep myself away from Slate for reasons I haven't entirely grasped. I guess because it is the most tolerable -- at times, enjoyable -- way to get a sense of mainstream thought. I love me some Counterpunch, but they are laughably, unfortunately far from mainstream consciousness, and though their articles usually do take mainstream thought into account (and to task), it is not the same as reading and attempting to understand mainstream thought. Which, by the way, is very important -- that is, to understand how people other than those who agree with you think. I'm still occasionally horrified by a liberal who says "Oh, really? I don't really follow mainstream news." WHAT???!! As Chris Rock said about women (and implied about men) who don't give head, "They still MAKE you??" I mean, if you want to effect change, you can't do that. If you're a "Fuck 'em, they're going to screw it all up and kill us all anyway" liberal, then fine, whatever.

I'm drifting away here into digression, so I'll finish with a SNAFU that happened while I actually was (mostly) observing my Slate boycott:

Thursday's headlines here on Slate featured a story, beneath Barack Obama's image, described as "Why Obama is Like a Serial Killer." The featured article, by Jacob Weisberg, was entitled "Candidates and Killers." Generously, we could say it was a light-hearted piece sending up the vapidity of childhood clichés. Somewhat more awkwardly, we could acknowledge that its tentative concluding note about Obama's lonely childhood, in tandem with our promotional headline, struck some readers as downright racist... I'm a scrawny white guy, so I can't speak from a black perspective (I'll leave that to BLACKMOSES). But, aside from the guys talking about God knows what, I can say we created a pretty grumpy mood in The Big Idea Fray.

Is it just me, kiddies, or is Jacob Weisberg's Slate ever-increasingly, if not circling the (toilet) bowl, at least drinking out of it?

Jon Stewart: Hero of Democracy?

The WaPo apparently was pulilng it out of their ass when they alleged last year that The Daily Show may be bad for democracy (by making young people cynical, and -- in WaPo's unsupported, fevered conservative imagination, less likely to vote), but you know, it helps when your proof means what you think it means.

Let me sum up: Apparently, viewers of The Daily Show tend to be cynical about candidates, the electoral process, and the media -- which MAY lead to lower voting and apathy -- but no direct evidence of this was shown. Indeed, the actual study author's the WaPo was drawing from say that it could have such negative effects, but the researchers also mention the (also untested) possibility that TDS-inspired discontent may get people more involved. And indeed, studies in 2004, as I recall, showed that TDS viewers tend to be more informed than young viewers of other news programs, so, as the study said, "Participation breeds more participation and informed participation," and TDS may help viewers become more informed as they strive to "get" Stewart's humor.

Who knows, but the conservative WaPo apparently wanted to jump to a conclusion about Jon Stewart and whether he was hurting America.

No, wait, that was CNN's Crossfire, Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala.

n.b. Do you think WaPo will decide The 1/2 Hour News Hour (T1/2HNH), the conservative "answer" to The Daily Show, is also bad for America? Or is it too wretchedly bad to matter?