Blog: Journalism

The Boston Globe attended a bar where Duke alumni and fans watched the pivotal game against UNC, and interviewed Jamie and Erika:

"I think people just want to be around that same energy," said Erika Alders, class of '04, who runs Duke Club activities with her husband Jamie, class of '02.

Hooray!

Unfortunately, they got the graduation years mixed up. Is this a consequence of reporter expectations that wives are always younger than husbands? In only 13% of married couples is the woman more than one year older. Did this reporter write down Jamie '04, Erika '02 and assume she must have switched them?

It's sad when journalists do a hit piece on bloggers. It's triply sad when the group tut-tuts on camera after the reportage about those silly bloggers' low ethical standards, only to have it turn out that the reporter who did the piece didn't read his sources, nobody fact-checked anything, and as a result the capstone accusation that justifies the piece is entirely false. And then it's quadruply sad when the media outlet in question issues a correction, and continues to get it wrong, only a little less wrong.

Here's the backstory: The New York Times did a fairly shoddy expose about how some bloggers get paid, and in response, Jonathan Singer of MyDD wrote a tongue-in-cheek post where he claims that he is really Jerome Armstrong, and so are Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller and Scott Shields. "Thought you met Matt, Chris or Jonathan at Yearly Kos or some other event? Most likely you met one of the young fellows I paid to play those roles. They're just out of work, dime a dozen actors from Los Angeles. Anyone could have played them." A local Boston commentator/tool named John Carroll then reported it as fact that Jerome was really all these other people.

After much well-deserved criticism and ribbing, they posted a correction on their show blog, but... wait for it... they still didn't read the post, saying that Jerome was kidding, when in fact Jerome didn't write the joke in the first place (Jonathan did, claiming to be Jerome)!

This would all be merely funny if it weren't for the extraordinarily self-righteous tone of the original piece, saying in effect, "these bloggers think they are journalists, but look, they aren't up to the same standards." No, they're above, at least above the standards of this particular show.

I just couldn't help but laugh at this post from The Politicker, summarizing recent political appearances with a sentence structure that turned out a plethora of silly misplaced modifiers.

Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman releases a report showing that Nassau residents are being shortchanged on their STAR rebate checks at his office in Mineola.

Ouch, his own office is shortchanging Nassau residents? Big black eye for the comptroller!

Tom Duane condemns the state's order that city HIV/AIDS Services Administration increase rent contribution requirements from clients in government funded housing in front of their headquarters.

There's government funded housing in front of the HIV/AIDS Services Administration's own headquarters building? And clients there are subject to higher rent contribution requirements? If I were Tom Duane I'd be upset about that too.

Common Good and United Federation of Teachers hold a panel discussion on bureaucratic rules and regulations in public schools at the Harvard Club.

The Harvard Club must be bigger than I thought if it has public schools there. Too bad they're bureaucratic.

Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone endorses Nick Spano and announces a new advertising campaign at Spano's Campaign Headquarters in Yonkers.

I'd guess that most of the people at Spano's campaign HQ are already on his side. Perhaps advertising there isn't such a good use of money.

A Massachusetts state legislator and outspoken opponent of gay marriage has changed his mind about banning the state's same-sex unions. He says he was "influenced by constituents, including a gay friend whose wedding he attended last year."

Meanwhile, in the face of mounting evidence (and, more importantly, plunging poll numbers), the Washington Post abandons its practice of parroting all Bush Administration propaganda and relegating truth to "administration critics argue that...". Instead, on today's front page, the paper runs an article that actually rebuts, point by point, the latest bald-faced Administration lies. Go mainstream media!

The political media is widely criticized from all sides. One of the most common valid complaints is the tendency of reporters to focus on the horse race, the story of how much a piece of news is affecting candidates and in what way, and the strategy angle, the story of what candidates or interest groups plan to do about the issue. Frequently lost is a discussion or analysis of the issue itself, whatever it might be. In the end all actions, thrifty or wasteful, corrupt or honest, helpful or harmful, good or evil are too often reduced to gambits in an intellectual chess match, the sole effect of each to simply raise the popularity of one side or provide ammunition for attacks for another side.

For the first time, I completely understand why they do it. Because I've started to find those stories more interesting.

Every day brings another awful, corrupt, damaging action from the Bush Administration. I'm tired of it - I've been tired of it since the very beginning, but I'm also tired of reading about it. I already know it. I know they're politicizing intelligence. I know they're twisting the facts and outright lying to win. I know they're running smear campaigns against anyone who dares to expose their deception. The general public needs the media to remind them that these things are happening, but for me, I more and more skip over the actual outrageous behavior and just read about how people are reacting to it.

I want to know if it's fooling the public or not. I want to read about how effective the progressive counterattacks are. I want to hear how people are mobilizing to stop it. In other words, I want to see the horse race stories and the strategy stories.

This is the fundamental problem. Those who write the news are seeped in it, and anyone who reads enough news doesn't need to hear about the issues because we know about the issues. But for the people who aren't what political scientists call "elites", the horse race and strategy coverage just strips the issues themselves of any real-world moral import. If politics is just a game, then the cleverer, more organized players will win. But it's not just a game, and the strategically adept players just happen to also be destroying our country.