How Not to Slant a Story
Here’s the lede to Todd Allen Wilson’s Saturday on the General Assembly (emphasis added):
RICHMOND – After an early morning scare tactic used by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on Medicaid expansion that could have torpedoed any deals the General Assembly sent both the budget amendments to the state’s two-year spending plan and the comprehensive transportation funding plan to Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Rookie mistake! If you’re a reporter and you want to take a swipe at the AG, don’t come right out and say his advisory opinion is a scare tactic. That makes your opinion too obvious!
Rather, seek out a source who shares your point of view — a liberal Democrat in the legislature, say — and ask a leading question such as, “Would you say the Attorney General’s opinion on Medicaid expansion is a scare tactic?” The lawmaker will allow as how yes, some people might look at it that way.
Then you can write, “After an early-morning maneuver by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that some lawmakers characterized as a scare tactic… “
That way, you get your digs in, and you’re still only reporting what people said!
The ‘Lapdog’ Debate
Media Matters has a long post up arguing that anyone who thinks the media have been lapdogs for Obama must be nuts, because if you really want to know what a lapdog press looks like, take a look at how the Bush administration was treated - especially during the run-up to the Iraq war.
There’s some truth to this. But it’s far from the whole truth.
It’s interesting, for example, that Media Matters has to go back to 2002-2003 to find much media servility toward those in power. That was, as some might recall, not long after 9/11, the most horrific attack on sovereign American territory since Pearl Harbor. That certainly shouldn’t absolve the media for abdicating their role as skeptical interrogators, but it does put the abdication into context. Right or wrong, people tend to rally ‘round the flagpole on occasions like those.
However, it certainly didn’t take long for the kum-bay-ya glow to wear off. Indeed, all it took was a partisan election. The 2004 contest brought us, e.g., the infamous “60 Minutes” allegations about Bush’s war record, which led to the even-more-infamous NY Times headline concluding that the documents upon which those allegations were based were “Fake but Accurate.”
After Bush won re-election, the hostility in the establishment media continued unabated. And much of that hostile scrutiny was certainly well-deserved: The administration pushed the boundaries of executive power to frightening new lengths.
Yet despite promising to roll back those boundaries, President Obama has, if anything, expanded them. And with certain principled exceptions such as The Nation, he has largely been given a pass for it.
Example: The NY Times won a Pulitzer for exposing the Bush administration’s warrantless-wiretapping program. And bravo to The Times for doing so. Yet when the ACLU reported, last September, that “New Justice Department Documents Show Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance,”The Times did not bother to give this explosive news so much as a paragraph on page C-32. The newspaper eventually did get around to mentioning it — but only on its “Bits” technology blog, and not until Nov. 26 — well after Obama had safely won re-election.
And that “negative press” Obama has received? Much of it consisted of reporters reporting what GOP presidential candidates were saying about Obama during the primaries. That is rather different than, oh, Keith Olbermann screaming that George Bush is a fascist.
More broadly, media bias shows up in the use of terminology. Compare, for instance, how often the term “gun lobby” is used (very often indeed) with how often the term “abortion lobby” is used (practically never, and then only when it appears in an quote from an anti-abortion activist). This is telling, because we all know that “lobbies” are bad, whereas “movements” and “rights supporters” are good. We often read reports to the effect that “President Obama took on the gun lobby today.” You will never see a report outside of an avowedly conservative publication to the effect that “President Obama met today with leaders of the abortion lobby…”
I could go on and on — noting, e.g., the not-so-subtle iconography and whatnot — but there’s no need when the Media Research Center has done the legwork already (see here). Did the media give Bush a pass on the Iraq War? Sadly, yes — but that was an exception, not the rule. By contrast, they have given Obama a pass on just about everything.
Aside From That, the Story Was Accurate
The newspaper map of one New York county’s pistol permits was riddled with problems, thanks to inaccurate data in official records, acknowledges the paper that published it. Just 3,907 of the 16,998 permit-holding households displayed on the Journal News’ Rockland County map were current; the rest were classified as “historical,” with no updates in the past five years, explains Rockland’s county clerk. Some permits were issued as long ago as the 1930s; owners could have moved, ditched their guns, or died since then. (An additional map on the website isolates these older permits.) In other cases, the data was flat-out wrong, the Journal News reports. For instance, one man found his address on the map because his brother-in-law had used it in a 1997 gun license application. That brother-in-law moved to Arizona soon afterward. “Nobody ever called and verified the address,” said the local man.
The NY Times Thinks Virginia Is Being Very Naughty
The Obama administration is unhappy that about half the states, including Virginia, have exercised their option to let the federal government set up an insurance exchange rather than go to the trouble and expense themselves. Washington didn’t plan on that, and is having a hard time putting together the infrastructure to get the exchanges done in time. (It may also be worried about lawsuits challenging subsidies for insurance arranged through federal exchanges.)
So, once again, the administration is extending the deadline for states to set up their own exchanges.
You know who else isn’t happy that states are doing what they are entitled to do? The New York Times. Reporting on the latest deadline extension, the paper says
A political benefit of this strategy is that it allows the administration to keep working with even the most recalcitrant states.
Recalcitrant!
Watchdogs of White House Press Corps Now Lapdogs
Twitter: The media’s id.
The Suck-Up Press
Obama has enjoyed every benefit of every doubt from the press every step of the way. Candy Crowley even broke character in the middle of a presidential debate to defend him… .
For Obama, treatment like this is standard. Remember his last press conference? On August 20, the president made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room. (Obama has held fewer press conferences even than George W. Bush.) The first question went to Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press. Here’s what Kuhnhenn asked, in full and unedited:
“Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for being here. You’re no doubt aware of the comments that the Missouri Senate candidate, Republican Todd Akin, made on rape and abortion. I wondered if you think those views represent the views of the Republican Party in general. They’ve been denounced by your own rival and other Republicans. Are they an outlier or are they representative?”
In other words: Just how horrible are your opponents? That’s not a question. That’s an assist.
Most telling of all, nobody in the press corps seemed to find Kuhnhenn’s suck-up remarkable, much less objectionable. Reporters who push Obama for actual answers, meanwhile, find themselves scorned by their peers — as we discovered the hard way when our White House reporter dared ask Obama an unapproved question during a presidential statement in the Rose Garden. Months later, longtime Newsweek correspondent Jonathan Alter confronted us on the street and became apoplectic, literally yelling and shaking and drawing a crowd, over the exchange. His complaint: our reporter was “rude” to Obama.
- An account of what happened when Barack Obama got off a zinger about his and Mitt Romney’s respective pension portfolios.
I’m just shocked to see yet more evidence of liberal media bias in favor of Obama. Shocked, I tell ya.
How to Argue Against Ever Cutting Taxes Without Coming Right Out and Saying So
Step One: Follow the lead of The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, et al., by complaining that tax cuts would disproportionately benefit those at the top of the income ladder.
Step Two: Neglect to mention that roughly half of Americans — the lower half — pay no federal income taxes in the first place. Also: Omit any reference to the fact that the top 20 percent of tax filers pay roughly 70 percent of all taxes.
If the vast majority of taxes are paid by those in the upper income brackets, then even a progressive slashing of tax rates — say, cutting taxes in half for the poorest Americans, and cutting taxes by 10 percent for the richest — still will produce a disproportionate benefit for those in the upper brackets, owing to the simple fact that…
Tax cuts are most beneficial to people who actually pay taxes.
If you don’t mention who pays the taxes, then it’s quite easy to make tax cuts look like sops to the rich. Congrats! Mission accomplished.
Aurora, Abortion, Guns, and Bias
Since the horrific shooting in Aurora, we have heard a constant drumbeat of news analysis, and news stories posing as analysis, asking whether the episode will spark a renewed campaign to toughen gun-control laws. The general consensus seems to be: no, it won’t — and isn’t this a horrible shame?
The underlying premise is that even though less than 3/100ths of 1 percent of gun owners use their weapons in a murderous manner, all of them should have their rights circumscribed in order to prevent the abuse of those rights by a tiny minority.
Funny how this analysis never gets applied to abortion.
Anybody remember Kermit Gosnell? Last January, the nation learned that the Philadelphia abortionist ran what was described as a “house of horrors” and had “been charged in the deaths of one woman and seven babies who prosecutors say were born alive then killed with scissors.”
What about Dr. Stephen Brigham? In December, the Maryland doctor who performed late-term abortions was charged with 11 counts of murder.
These are not isolated incidents. You can find examples going back many years.
And yet (a) they receive only brief, cursory coverage, and are soon forgotten. What’s more, (b) they never produce the same sort of hand-wringing, why-doesn’t-America-do-something-about-this? news “analysis” that shooting sprees do.
Note something else as well: A Google News search for the terms “Aurora,” “shooting,” and “gun lobby” turns up 2,900 results. A Google News search for the terms “Kermit,” “Gosnell,” and “abortion lobby” turns up … 0 results.
This isn’t isolated, either. Search the major media outlets for uses of the terms “gun lobby” and “abortion lobby.” You’ll find that “gun lobby” gets used a lot, and “abortion lobby” gets used — well, never.
Just so there’s no misunderstanding: I support abortion rights. I also support gun rights. I don’t think the crimes of isolated individuals, no matter how heinous, justify abrogating either kinds of rights for countless other law-abiding citizens.
But I do find it fascinating — and extremely telling — that the establishment media’s knee-jerk reaction to one kind of offense is so markedly different from the knee-jerk reaction to the other.
Washington Post: Always Helpful With The Context! (Except When It’s Not)
“Though potentially damaging in isolation, the president’s words taken in context refer to the idea that the groundwork for success is laid by others.” So says this Washington Post story about President Obama’s biggest campaign gaffe (you know which one!).
Mighty nice of The Post to put the comments in context so nobody jumps to the wrong conclusion,* isn’t it?
And after all, that’s what The Post did with Mitt Romney’s worst gaffe — the one about how “corporations are people” — right?
“I don’t care how many ways you try to explain it — corporations aren’t people. People are people,” Obama told the crowd about halfway through his 35-minute remarks.
He also tied Romney to congressional Republicans. As he has in previous campaign-trail events…
Wait — what happened to “though potentially damaging in isolation, Romney’s words taken in context…” ??
Guess you’ll just have to try to figure out what Romney was trying to say all by yourself….
_____
* (“wrong conclusion” = “the one Mitt Romney wants you to draw”; “right conclusion” = “the one Barack Obama wants you to draw”)
Rich People Stink (When They’re Republican)
Mitt Romney held a fundraiser in the Hamptons on Sunday, during which wealthy people who drive very nice cars and chomp cigars demonstrated their disconnect from the working classes, according to three reliable news sources.
Let’s first establish the relevant facts. Just how did all of these 1 percenters transport themselves from their expensive city apartments to the “pine tree-lined” estate where the fundraisers was held? The Associated Press discovered that donors arrived driving “Mercedes, Bentleys — and, in one case, a candy red 2013 Ferrari Spider.” The Los Angeles Times, also noting that rich people tend to own expensive cars, reported on the “line of Range Rovers, BMWs, Porsche roadsters and one gleaming cherry red Ferrari” waiting to get into the fundraiser. The New York Times spotted—you guessed it!—“a line of gleaming Bentleys, Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes” queuing outside the venue. This reminded me of a San Francisco Chronicle headline from last year, during the height of the media’s mania for all things Occupy Wall Street-related: “Mercedes hits 2 Occupy Oakland protesters.” Imagine, if you will, a slight twist on that headline: “Ford Focus hits 2 Occupy Oakland protesters. Yeah, didn’t think so.
But just in case you were still unclear on the income level of those who attend fundraisers for Republican presidential candidates, TPM stresses that they are “rich,” “super-rich,” “mega-rich,” “well-heeled,” and “moneyed,” as distinct from the suburban moms and union stiffs present at Obama recent Manhattan fundraisers.
The Associated Press spoke with an investment banker who “chewed a cigar in his black Range Rover”— because that’s what rich people do — while praising candidate Romney. The New York Times interviewed a woman “in a blue chiffon dress [who] poked her head out of a black Range Rover” to declare that she was a “V.I.P.” and wondered if there was “a V.I.P. entrance.” And in one succinct sentence, Romney is established as the candidate of the nouveau riche. Indeed, this was likely the same déclassé women highlighted by the Los Angeles Times: “ ‘I don’t think the common person is getting it,’ she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits.” In case you didn’t get the irony, it’s the uber-wealthy who are allowed to roam East Hampton beaches, not the “common person.”
By way of comparison, have a gander at this New York Times story on a fundraiser held by President Obama last month in Manhattan, hosted by actress Sarah Jessica Parker and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, a woman so notoriously unpleasant to the plebs that she inspired the book “The Devil Wears Prada.”
I’m going to be charitable and assume that this type of bias is largely subconscious; a nonsense distinction between “good” (actors, musicians and artists) and “bad” (finance people) wealthy. There is something cool about Aretha Franklin and Meryl Streep shaking the cup for President Obama in the West Village, surrounded by other hopelessly cool, if slightly vapid, Hollywood types. It’s difficult to imagine major newspapers and wire services producing similar scene reports for Obama fundraisers. “Ms. Streep, after climbing from her chauffeur-driven Range Rover in a stunning Marc Jacobs dress, spoke of her concern for the growing economic divide in the United States.” Yeah, I didn’t think so.
When It Comes to Crime, Minorities Are Treated as Mere Numbers
Yesterday’s column on the subj.:
People across the country also know about Love — from stories in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, from CNN and Sports Illustrated, from ABC News and USA Today, and many other sources besides.
Not many have heard about Amilkar Figeroa. The 26-year-old was shot and killed in South Richmond in 2009. A year later — the last time it got any coverage — the case remained unsolved. Ditto for Levon Alford and Jomond Lightfoot, two other open-case homicide victims in Richmond. And Ashraf Alatiyat, who was killed during a robbery at the Come and Go Food Market he owned on Jeff Davis Highway. During the past five years, Richmond alone has racked up 31 unsolved homicides of black men and women. When was the last time you saw one of them on TV?
We hear a lot about the disparate treatment of minorities in the criminal-justice system. Young blacks are arrested for drug crimes 10 times more often than whites, even though five times more whites than blacks use drugs. But there is widely disparate treatment of minorities in nonjudicial realms as well.
Remember Laci Peterson, who disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002? Her case received saturation coverage in the U.S., and widespread coverage elsewhere. You could follow it in the Taipei Times if you cared to. By contrast, Evelyn Hernandez — like Peterson, very pregnant at the time of her disappearance — went missing seven months before Peterson did. Her torso was later found in the San Francisco Bay. The case got a few mentions here and there, but was largely ignored….
This drew a number of rebuttals. Here’s the best so far:
Thank you for your article in Sunday’s TD on minority murder news coverage. No doubt pretty white women who are killed or who disappear get more coverage then black children or white men. But then, in the media pretty women generally get covered more for everything, sports, movies Etc, etc. So, sex sells in all media - even some depraved sado masochistic criminal stuff. Any mystery there? By itself, no racisim yet; sexism and psychopathology pretty likely. So, I’d like to put that category aside as we look at the problem you raise.Is there really no coverage of black deaths, and other crimes against blacks, and is that because of racism as you suggest? Not all crimes against blacks are neglected, of course. One thing that is clear is that when it is white on black crime, ex Trayvon, or the Duke lacrosse team attacking a poor black women, the media are all over it, and covering the story as a racist crime non stop for months. All other news stories are crowded out.The white public watches nothing else. The media loves to prove that white racism suppresses blacks. So, how can reporters who love to cover a white, particularly a rich white, on black crime somehow flip all they believe in and become racists who don’t care when a black child dies? Why the silence. And speaking of another dog who doesn’t bark, how come the black leadership that is front and center on white on black crimes is missing in action when dozens of black children die.The silence in the media exists not because we the white public is racist. It exists because virtually all those black people who die are killed by other blacks. Usually blacks with crime records. It is very inconvenient to report that a dozen black youths in Los Angeles died last month at the hands of their peers. Nobody in the media has the courage to stir up a story that might suggest there is some accountability in the black community to deal with it’s cultural problems. Destroys the whole liberal story that blacks are victims of racism. So, I’d say you’re right, the story doesn’t get reported because of racism, just not the racism you described.
Still doesn’t explain the Laci Peterson / Evelyn Hernandez dichotomy, though.
Bias? What Bias?
NPR, this morning:
From the retired librarian in Kentucky who gave President Obama’s campaign $19 to the Arkansas investment banker who gave the superPAC backing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney a half-million dollars — it’s all there at the Federal Election Commission website.
That’s the offical narrative: Obama gets support from ordinary Americans while fat cats bankroll Romney. We’ve heard this tune before, and now, as then, it leaves a lot to be desired.
NPR just as easily could have referred to a small donation to the Romney camp and the million-dollar donations going to the Obama super-PAC, or Obama’s big-dollar fundraisers with Hollywood celebs. But that would confound the expectations of its progressive listenership. Mustn’t do that!
