Tag Archives: Media

On Reagan And Our Faith In The Nation

The other day I was browsing the headlines on my homepage when my attention was caught by a stunning pronouncement; “Ronald Reagan Restored Faith in America“. The singular fact of an opinion piece given a banner headline is, regardless of the ideological leanings, a major point in the decline of American democracy. But beyond the media commentary, the piece intrigued me. The writer of the column, Ed Rollins, is one of the few political operators still in the game who worked for our 40th President. And while I have no major issues with someone writing from a position of love and loyalty, the tenor of the column, and the tone of today’s political debate, raise some interesting questions.

The notions of American pride, faith in the nation, and American exceptionalism are common themes in today’s often vapid political conversation. Why, after all, talk about substantive policy points when you can hammer away with sexy and easy to digest soundbites? But this issue has some compelling and relevant points worth considering that depart from the quantitative discussions I normally embrace. What does it mean, for example, to believe in American exceptionalism? What does it say about a nation, or a subset within the citizenry of a nation, that “faith” needed to be restored? How far from the reality of President Ronald Reagan does the mythology of Saint Ronnie the Gipper reside?

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On Journalism, Olbermann, And The Corporate Media

One week ago today, Keith Olbermann recorded his last words as the host of Countdown. The very minute he left frame, the blogosphere and Twitter world caught fire as millions expressed shock, sadness, anger, and for the conservatives of the nation, delight. Conspiracy theories raged across the ether as corporate giant Comcast, whose merger with NBC technically started that day, was assumed to have ordered K.O.’s firing. Supporters quickly drew a line from Olbermann’s axing to Comcast and thence to the Citizen’s United ruling by the Supreme Court one year prior. Boycotts of MSNBC and NBC were planned and indeed demanded.

Liberals who have watched conservative commentators and bloggers burst into flames at the smallest hint of potential liberal scandal, have now (seemingly) adopted the same strategy. The worst possible conclusions of every event are automatically drawn, without corroborating evidence, and draconian solutions are immediately pushed as the only true liberal reaction. Liberals shocked at the reactionary and often violent rhetoric of the right, have decided to adopt a similar tone and trigger pressure in their own dealings with the worlds of politics and the media. We have seen the pattern repeated many times after; the decision to abandon the public option, the decision not to sanction Israel during the Gaza War and blockade, the decision to select the not liberal enough Elena Kagan, the decision-making before and after the Big Spill, the decision to adopt the plan that included a consumer financial agency inside the Fed, the decision to make a deal on taxes with Republicans, Tucson, and the firing of Keith Olbermann.

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Science, Celebrity, And The Media

Jenny McCarthy is still railing against vaccines in her crusade against autism, and the media is still covering both her efforts and the questionable scientist who fueled the debate in the first place. What we Americans are ready to believe is often and interesting study in contrast. Literally thousands of long term studies of historical CO2 levels, temperature records via thermometers, temperature records via proxies (like corals and tree rings), direct observation, and simulation, have concluded that this planet is experiencing damaging anthropogenic climate change. But because the fossil fuel industry refuses to look out of its box, and a handful of fundamentalist Christians think science is an attack on God, this overwhelming argument still struggles for public credibility.

When an ex-Playmate and her comedian domestic partner however, raised the alarm based on one exceptionally flawed research paper, vaccination rates for newer diseases and in some high-risk communities fell. The medical community, fueled by a rigorous ethic of peer-reviewed reporting on long-term clinical studies, has managed to steadily control or destroy major diseases that devastated communities as recently as 60 years ago, . This history, however, slid to the background after Dr. Andrew Caulfield did a study of 12 children whose parents reported behavioral problems after they received vaccines. Jenny McCarthy and the good doctor believed that the parent’s association of behavioral difficulties and the MMR vaccine constitutes proof of a causal relationship between the two. Many parents around the world seem to have agreed with the pair.

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Mike On Sports: Curious Standards And The NFL

I have often wondered about the influence of the media on decision making in Congress, but I have no doubts about how much influence is wielded by the fourth estate on professional sports. Otherwise qualified general managers and coaches regularly make poor decisions in response to, or in the hopes of avoiding, media attention. In baseball, the trading deadline has become such a media frenzy that teams and their fans now see a lack of action by competitive teams as a failure. In football, the media hype surrounding the so-called major colleges and the draft has limited the abilities of some teams to acquire talent in an age when the real talent pool has never been larger.

The media puts enormous pressure on team decision makers by stirring up the mob. Sports editors, beat writers, and the prancing fools of sports television use this pressure to try and be the team decision makers. Why buy a team or work your way into team management, when you can write columns and “break” stories, using “anonymous sources” of course, that steer teams into the directions you desire? Fans like to play this game on bar stools and in living rooms; they have for years. But I would argue that fans have a right to this playacting; the media does not. The sports media in 21st Century America has an awful habit of anointing players, professional teams, and colleges; those anointed live and play by different standards than their peers.

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Much Ado About Nothing

With all of the talk about bias in the media and the decline of American journalism, I think it is important to point out how difficult it is to decide what to cover. Sports is easy; just print box scores and stories that summarize the games from major professional sports and the local high school and college events. The opinions flow from previous games, upcoming games, or upcoming seasons. To be certain, there is garbage in our sports coverage now, mostly as a result of writers doing their best to keep up with the hyperbole of ESPN. News, and politics in particular, have become a very different animal.

The difficulty with covering our democracy lies in the difference between actual actions and behind the scenes maneuvering. The House of Representatives is in almost constant activity, operating as they do without the procedural encumbrances of the Senate. The House actually votes on issues, and majority rule directs the outcome. The Senate, at least in view of the public, works on one or two issues at a time. In today’s climate of Republican obstructionism (that isn’t a political label, it is a fact), bills take months to reach an up or down vote. The space in between is filled by commentators, ex-politicians, and opinion-makers who prognosticate and pontificate on what is really happening. Writing or producing a story that accurately summarizes the major facts of a given issue boils down to figuring out which voices to record, and which sources to believe.

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Rational Politics Chapter 5: Bias, Balance, And The Media War

Early in the Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh began building his reputation as a kind of Lone Ranger in the wilderness, proclaiming the truth while battling the forces of a one-sided national media elite. Towards the end of the Clinton years, and at the outset of the Lewinsky Affair, Hillary Clinton went forth with a description of the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” designed to bring down her husband’s presidency. We Americans have certainly not lost our flair for the dramatic or tendency towards the oversell. Today, all Conservatives are racist, warmongering, wingnuts; all Liberals are socialists intent on erasing God and banning Christmas, and there is such a thing as a liberally-biased “Mainstream Media”.

I put that last phrase in quotes, because it has become a sort of title used by a growing segment of the population to explain network news, some cable outlets, and a large array of print journalism. The human need to categorize and label has been taken to heights (or depths if you prefer) by the modern art of branding. Now, our political parties and their partisans have taken to lumping any organization that develops research, writes a report, or reports on findings that are contrary to their particular belief system, as biased and unworthy of credibility.

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