COMM 386: Palin as debater

Former Alaska state Rep. Andrew Halcro, who ran against Gov. Sarah Palin when she was elected governor in 2006, has an article at http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1001/p09s01-coop.html in the Christian Science Monitor. His head and subhead say it all:

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DEBATE SARAH PALIN
I know firsthand: She's a master of the nonanswer.

Halcro tells two little stories that capture what it's like. The first:

On April 17, 2006, Palin and I participated in a debate at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks on agriculture issues. The next day, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner published this excerpt:

"Andrew Halcro, a declared independent candidate from Anchorage, came armed with statistics on agricultural productivity. Sarah Palin, a Republican from Wasilla, said the Matanuska Valley provides a positive example for other communities interested in agriculture to study."

Note that the paper didn't list any of Halcro's specifics. The second story is even more telling:

On April 18, 2006, Palin and I sat together in a hotel coffee shop comparing campaign trail notes. As we talked about the debates, Palin made a comment that highlights the phenomenon that Biden is up against.

"Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I'm amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, 'Does any of this really matter?' " Palin said.

While policy wonks such as Biden might cringe, it seemed to me that Palin was simply vocalizing her strength without realizing it. During the campaign, Palin's knowledge on public policy issues never matured – because it didn't have to. Her ability to fill the debate halls with her presence and her gift of the glittering generality made it possible for her to rely on populism instead of policy.

Palin's question is a good one for us all: Does any of this really matter?

COMM 386: More on myths, archetypes, politicians

I don't want to get too pretentious and English major-y about this (even though, well, hell, after all I did major in English), but there's something about this year's presidential race that brings it out in me ... especially when the pundits start talking about myths, images, brands and symbols.

Here's an article on the Politico.com website by Mark Penn, who was behind Sen. Hillary Clinton's beer-and-a-shot imagery during the spring primary season. I think it fits in with the other "think pieces" we've been looking at -- when the day's headlines don't totally dominate -- about how Americans choose our political leaders, the wisdom of crowds and Todd Gitlin's thoughts about mythic leaders.

Penn argues that the economic meltdown augurs well for Democrat Barack Obama because his mythic persona (to use a really, really literary term) fits a multifaceted financial crisis better than Republican John McCain's John-Wayne-riding-over-the-hill image because "because the kinds of people we turn to in an economic crisis are very different from those we would turn to for a national security conflict." Adds Penn:

In the showdown with Russia [over the August invasion of Georgia], America was looking for someone who would be tough, knowledgeable and certain, and would strike enough fear in the hearts of the enemy to gain respect and maybe even stare down our adversaries.

With a sophisticated global economic crisis, the voters would be looking for nuance and mutual cooperation, someone who would reach out to the nation’s economic partners. Rather than calling for moral absolutes, the voters are looking for compromise — they know it’s morally wrong to bail out Wall Street, but they also know they have to do something or they will wind up paying an even bigger bill for this crisis.

So right now the former Harvard Law Review editor, the candidate who is ready to reach out to everyone across the globe and who has a head for sorting out complexity, is the kind of presidential candidate voters are seeking to solve this crisis. It seems like a great fit for Obama.

How well do these archetypes line up with Gitlin's idea of the "warrior turned lawman" and the "community organizer turned law professor ... who rode into town and made a place for himself?"

Or is that too English major-ish? I'm not sure what to think. What do you think?

COMM 207, 337: 'Working the edges'

If you haven't heard me talk about "working the edges of the crowd" when you're covering an event in COMM 209 (basic newswriting), you will. It's a key part of coming up with something that's a little fresh, unusual, something that surprises.

(You'll hear about surprises, too. I like surprises. So do small children and readers.)

Anyway, here's an example. It's at the bottom of a color story by Chad Pergram, senior produceer for Fox News, on the vote on the Wall Street bailout bill bill that went down in flames Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Not long after the vote, a toddler accompanied her parents on a tour of the U.S. Capitol. The three-year-old gleefully pushed her own stroller across the marble floors of Statuary Hall in the House wing of the building.

She had a ball. Even as chaos unfolded just steps away from her.

Then Steny Hoyer rounded a corner with a wall of reporters, camera crews and photographers in tow. The financial emergency bailout bill just melted down. And a galloping squadron of reporters barked at Hoyer to tell them what went wrong.

Oblivious, the girl ran her stroller around in circles. And the herd nearly stampeded her had an astute adult not scooped her up a nanosecond before the rolling throng bowled through the Capitol.

The toddler might not have been AIG or Bear Stearns. But after the $700 billion bill imploded, the tot become the only person to secure a Congressional bailout Monday.

I don't want to go overboard on any possible symbolic meaning, but it's a perfect "kicker" ... i.e. the little twist at the end of a good story that leaves you thinking.

COMM 337: Writers guidelines / WED. ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment: Go to the Magazine Guidelines Database on the Freelance Writing . com website. Find two (2) paying markets for: (a) the article you are writing this semester for COMM 337; (b) an article you are writing for another class or could write on your own: or (c) a story idea that never occurred to you before that strikes you, "hey, I could do something like that."

COMM 386: Palin to 'win' debate? You read it here first (well, not quite first).

I've been wondering about this since late last week when I noticed Barack Obama's campaign staff called GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a a "teriffic debater" in spite of the negative publicity she's been getting lately.

It's standard practice to lower expectations ahead of a debate, I thought, but maybe there's something to it this time.

Now comes the The Los Angeles Times' political blog saying the Democrats are setting Palin up to win Thursday's debate with Democrat Joe Biden. Fair enough, although I think it's more the media who are lowering the expectations.

Best take on Palin's expectation game is by Susan Demas, a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service.

Demas' column has two money grafs. First:

Not that the McCain folks wanted Palin to sound as unprepared and ridiculous as she has in interviews and the one time in a month she's taken a couple questions from reporters. But in politics, you take what you've got and turn it into a positive. At this point, if Palin doesn't drool on stage, they'll claim victory.

And this:

The Obama campaign's attempts to paint her as a skilled debater have been greeted with chuckles. But Palin has been underestimated in debates in Alaska and won.

Why? Lowered expectations. No one expects her to know as much as Biden. But traditional debates favor talking points, which Palin can memorize, and attacks, which she lands with glee. America might just love the comely mom of five telling off the blowhard senator. Stick it to the man, Sarah!

Stranger things have happened in politics.

COMM 386: Kurtz describes debate spin; Couric a winner

Howard Kurtz, media critic for The Washington Post, got away from the Beltway last week for the presidential debate at the University of Mississippi. The lede to his on-the-scene report, which gives quite a bit of atmosphere and describes how the post-debate spin operation works:

OXFORD, Miss. -- David Axelrod was surrounded by a pack of camera-toting, mike-wielding, pushing-and-shoving media types, one of whom asked whether his man Barack Obama had been "too nice" in the just-completed debate with John McCain.

"I don't think he was too nice. ... There were clear differences. ... He made a very strong case, absolutely," the onetime newspaperman said in his meandering style.

Twenty feet away, McCain operative Steve Schmidt was robotically hammering home a single number.

"Senator Obama was right tonight when he said John McCain was right 11 times. ... It was a home run for Senator McCain. ... The person who is losing the debate, the person who is on defense, is the person who says his opponent is right 11 times," the shaved-head strategist declared.

And so on ...

By the way, have I specifically assigned you to read Kurtz every day from now till the election? If not, I'm assigning him now. His blend of analysis and reporting is heavy on the latter, without which the former wouldn't be worth reading, and he's indispensable for keeping up with what's going on.

Couric 'wins' kudos. CBS anchor Katie Couric's handling of her interviews with Sarah Palin has drawn mostly good reviews. This after a year of second-guessing her performance as anchor and speculation she's on the way out after the election. Says Kurtz, "It may have been a turning point for Couric, who was persistent without being overbearing, in shedding early doubts about her ability to be a commanding presence in the CBS anchor chair."

Palin, of course, has hardly been winning kudos (as Kurtz notes). Even conservative pundits are piling up on her, leaving this old courthouse and county elections reporter to wonder if the spin on her performance in this week's debate is being set up to profit from what President Bush once described, in another context, as the "soft bigotry of low expectations." I'll bet 50 cents (a rather large amount of money for a classroom teacher) she "wins" the debate.

This is off topic, but ...

I've rediscovered how to upload pictures to the blog.

And no blog is truly a blog, I am told, unless it has cat pictures.

So here's a cat picture:



He's named Oley. Or, sometimes, for reasons we don't need to go into here, Fartblossom.

No home office should be without a cat. Or a cat picture.

I don't think Cute Overload has to worry about the competition, though.

COMM 207: 'Gray lady' and Taser death head

The New York Times isn't called the "Gray Lady" for nothing. Its headline for the story we looked at in class about the death of a Brooklyn man who was Tasered by police and fell from a ledge to the pavement below.

The Times' head:

Taser Use in Man’s Death Broke Rules, Police Say

It gets the job done, I think. The story begins:

By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: September 25, 2008
The firing of a Taser stun gun that led a man to fall from a building ledge to his death on Wednesday in Brooklyn appeared to have violated departmental guidelines, the police said on Thursday.

The department said in a statement issued by the chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, that according to policy, a Taser should not be used when a person could fall from an elevated surface.

The lieutenant who gave the order was placed on modified assignment, the statement said, while the officer who fired the device was given administrative duties.

The statement said that the officers at the scene had called by radio for an inflatable bag as the events unfolded, but it had not yet arrived when the man, Inman Morales, 35, was struck with the device and fell.

And so on.

It's complete, and accurate ... and a little gray? But they don't call the New York Times the gray lady for nothing.

Some other heads, courtesy of a Google news directory:

• NYPD Officers Involved in Taser Death of Nude Man Disciplined -- FOXNews
  
• Readers' Comments: Tasered naked man plunges to death -- Melbourne [Australia] Herald Sun
  
• Cops: Taser on nude man apparently violated guidelines -- Newsday
  
• Naked man falls to his death after cop uses stun gun -- USA Today

COMM 386: Myths and elections. Paul Bunyan, meets Little Red Riding Hood?

Todd Gitlin, who teaches journalism at Columbia, has an an op-ed piece in Sunday's Los Angeles Times that says a presidential election is about myths, about "not only how [America] wants to be led but what it wants to affirm, how it wants to be known -- really, what it wants to be." Kind of hokey? Well, maybe. But maybe he's onto something. Read it, and let's talk about it.

Let's talk about it especially in terms of how it might relate to not to mention our earlier discussions of Alan Ehrenhalt's article "In Search of Rational Voters" and wisdom of crowds. Does Gitlin's talk of myths suggest a way we might analyze big national elections as ways we collectively, all of us no matter how well- or ill-informed, come to some kind of national consensus about who we'd like to be (or who we'd like to be like), what myths we want to follw?

Here's Gitlin's money graf. Like so many journalists, he spreads it across two short grafs at the end:

So that's the clash. McCain, the known quantity, the maverick turned lawman, fiery when called on to fight, an icon of the old known American story of standing tall, holding firm, protecting God's country against the stealthy foe. Obama is the new kid on the block, the immigrant's child, the recruit, fervent but still preternaturally calm, embodying some complicated future that we haven't yet mapped, let alone experienced. He is impure -- the walking, talking melting pot in person. In his person, the next America is still taking shape.

The warrior turned lawman confronts the community organizer turned law professor. The sheriff (who married the heiress) wrestles with the outsider who rode into town and made a place for himself. No wonder this race is thrilling and tense. America is struggling to fasten a name on its soul.

Gitlin is an interesting guy. He started out in the anti-Vietnam War movement, later went back to grad school and became a public intellectual in the mold of William F. Buckley or Al Gore. Gitlin writes on politics, foreign affairs, cultural issues and the arts. His analysis of the two main American political parties is also worth thinking about. He's how Wikipedia (accessed today) summarizes it:

Gitlin ... emphasizes what he sees as the need in American politics to form coalitions between disparate movements, which must compromise ideological purity to gain power by working together within the two major political parties. He argues that the Republican party has managed to accomplish this with a coalition of what he calls two "major components - the low-tax, love-business, hate-government enthusiasts and the God-save-us moral crusaders" but that the Democratic Party has often been unable to accomplish a pragmatic coalition between its "roughly eight" constituencies, which he identifies as "labor, African Americans, Hispanics, feminists, gays, environmentalists, members of the helping professions (teachers, social workers, nurses), and the militantly liberal, especially antiwar denizens of avant-garde cultural zones such as university towns, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and so on. (The categories obviously overlap somewhat.)" (from The Bulldozer and the Big Tent, pp. 18-19). He adds that "it is easier [for Republicans] to coax one of two ideological tendencies (usually the Christian right) to compromise for the greater good of conservatism than it is to persuade an identity-based group (feminists, gays, African Americans) to make concessions on what is, after all, their identity as they see it.”

That's also worth thinking about. Does it hold water? Does it explain, for example, why some Hillary Clinton supporters had trouble supporting the Democratic ticket when she lost the nomination? Are the Republicans moving into identity politics with their nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president? What do you think? All kinds of interesting issues here for your class blogs.

COMM 386: Scribes ink meltdown train wreck

Today's news -- and yesterday's -- has been like one of those mass market political novels you can buy for a half dollar at the Goodwill or Salvation Army store. You know, the ones where a CIA agent whose ex-wife who just happens to be Secretary of State, and drop-dead gorgeous, too, races against time to defuse a terrorist bomb set to go off in the subway from the Senate Office Building to the Capitol on inauguration day. Et cetera, et cetera, et action-packed cetera.

And when you finish the novel, you realize you wasted your 50 cents.

Still, it's good theater. In another class, I've been talking about "headlinese" and why to avoid it. So I guess it's only natural a cliche-filled "headlinese" head popped into my mind that perfectly fits the hyperventilating drama of the day's news.

As the late Neil Postman might have added in times like these: Now ... this.

As Americans psychologically prepare ourselves for tonight's off-again, on-again presidential debates, let's stop and read a story by Politico.com's John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei on the underlying dynamics of the campaign. They conclude, with good evidence to support it, as the dust settles from each "game-changer" of a pyschodrama that has marked the last month of campaigning, "most things have stayed drearily the same." Who's to blame? We all are, they say. Including the media, perhaps especially the media.

Some other bits, pieces and straws in the wind:

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, whose roundup of today's media is must reading, given the complexity of today's news. Almost in passing, he mentions a content analysis that documents the gee-whiz, fawning coverage of Sarah Palin:

Now for a new study, unveiled here for the first time, that counters the impression the media have been kicking the stuffing out of Sarah Palin. The Center for Media and Public Affairs says Palin got better coverage than Obama and McCain from Aug. 23 to Sept. 12 -- at least on the three network newscasts and Fox's "Special Report." On the ABC, CBS and NBC programs, 74 percent of the evaluations of Palin were positive, as were 60 percent on the first half of Brit Hume's show (the study evaluated only the first, news-oriented half of Humes's show).

CBS's Chip Reid, for instance, reported that Palin "has earned a reputation in Alaska as a tough and fearless reformer."

By contrast, McCain's coverage was 40 percent positive on the nets and 55 percent positive on the Fox show. Obama stories were 56 percent positive on the networks, and just 29 percent positive on Fox. That means, according to the center, that McCain's coverage was nearly twice as positive as Obama's on "Special Report."

During that period, Palin was the subject of 77 network stories, McCain 71 and Obama 39. Joe Biden: 5.

Alessandra Stanley, writes the TV column for The New York Times, was even-handed, even kindly, about Palin's interview with Katie Couric of CBS News.

The Z on TV column for The Baltimore Sun, written by TV critic David Zurawik, deconstructs the GOP ticket's bad day with CBS as presidential candidate John McCain blew off the Letterman show a couple of days -- and psychodramas -- ago.

Finally, a story with some substance. In spite of the political grandstanding, the ongoing financial crisis is clearly the most serious since the 1930s. A by Liza Featherstone tells how to read the polls on the financial meltdown and why to take them with a grain of salt. The head: "Do We Love the Bailout? Behind the gaps in opinion polls."

COMM 386: Media bias? You bet! But ...

In a post on the McCain campaign's latest attack on The New York Times, Newsweek political blogger Andrew Romano says the national media are biased, but not in the ways we usually think of political bias. In my opinion, he's right on the money.

In a column that ran Monday under the headline "How the Media's Real 'Bias' Works in McCain's Favor," Romano says:

For the record, I think there's a lot of bias in the mainstream media. It's a huge problem, in fact. But the issue isn't ideology. No reporter I've ever met sits around scheming about how to get his or her favored candidate elected. Do they have private political beliefs? I'm sure. Do these preferences occasionally skew their work? No doubt. But as a rule, reporters spend too much time with politicians to feel anything but skepticism. The really damaging bias is narrative in nature--bias for tension, bias for conflict, bias for drama.

Romano's context is a conference call (audio embedded in the column) in which McCain strategist Steve Schmidt said the Times is ""not by any standard a journalistic organization" but instead is "completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate."

Romano's discussion of this is too nuanced to be easily paraphrased, but he says all the ink that Schmidt got for this blast at the Times -- which was a lot -- itself disproves his contention the media are ideologically biased. He suggests that with Wall Street in chaos and McCain losing ground in the polls over economic issues, Schmidt wanted to "distract the press from reporting on McCain's economic struggles by dangling a shiny object in front of their faces--in this case, a melodramatic attack on the media itself (incidentally, the media's favorite subject to cover)."

According to Romano's analysis, the gambit played to the media's well-documented "bias for tension, bias for conflict, bias for drama." And, said Romano, it works every time.

"Which is why when Schmidt and Co. release a misleading ad about Obama that's not actually airing on TV, the cable newsniks air it for them," he said. "Or why we jump to cover Schmidt's histrionic attack on the Times instead of focusing on McCain's economic speech in Scranton. Schmidt knows how the MSM works, and he's doing a brilliant job--far better than Team Obama--of capitalizing on its weaknesses. I'd tell him to stop whining if it weren't such an effective part of his strategy."

COMM 337: Snarky, snarky ... classic, classic Chicago journalism

Roger Simon, who writes a political column for Politico.com called "Simon Says," is a product of Chicago who wrote for the Sun-Times and the Trib before serving as political editor of U.S. News & World Report and writing books. He says he was taught "the only way for a journalist to look upon a politician was down" and adds when he dies, "he intends to be buried in Chicago, so he can still participate in the politics of that city." Today's column is headlined "Can't we just hold the election now?" It reminds me of Mike Royko, another Chicagoan who wrote a legendary column for the Trib and the Sun-Times. Which is just about the highest praise I can give a print journalist.

Here's Simon on the way Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin upstages GOP running mate John McCain:

She energizes the Republican base! She can draw the Wal-Mart moms! She is so energizing, in fact, it is not clear who is at the top of the ticket and who is at the bottom.

In Palin’s interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, he brings up the small fact that McCain doesn’t want to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Palin does. So how does Palin feel about that?

The traditional script says the vice presidential candidate gives in to the presidential candidate. The script says that Palin should say she has had differences with McCain in the past, but now she is part of a team and McCain is the head of that team and it is her job to make sure his agenda gets enacted.

Except she doesn’t say that. She says that McCain is wrong and that she is going to get him to change his mind. “I’m going to keep working on that one with him,” she says of ANWR. “We’ll agree to disagree, but I’m gonna keep pushing that, and I think eventually we’re all gonna come together on that one.”

The base is electrified. Finally, a vice president it can trust: one who isn’t that thrilled with John McCain, either.

And so it goes. Still using the present tense for its immediacy (and no doubt its big-city, wise-guy tone), Simon continues:

This, preceded by Palin’s great speech at the convention, causes the pendulum to swing to the Republicans.

And then the economy tanks.

On Sept. 15, Black Monday, the day the stock market has its worst loss since the Sept. 11 attacks, McCain goes on the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Fla., and says, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Whoops. Rewind.

And then the bloom starts to fade from the Palin rose. Maybe she isn’t so in sync with blue-collar families, especially those who can’t afford tanning beds that may have cost as much as $35,000. True, Palin bought that tanning bed and had it installed in the Alaska governor’s mansion at her own expense. And the Indoor Tanning Association sent out a press release defending the purchase by saying, “In the bleak winter months, many Americans experience vitamin D deficiency, and the best way to manufacture vitamin D is through exposure to UV light.”

But it turns out you can also get vitamin D by eating things like salmon. Which is why bears in Alaska don’t need tanning beds. They just go down to a stream and scoop up some vitamin D. And how come tanning beds cost that much anyway? Do they come with an upstairs and a downstairs? Or a Prius?

Maybe these questions will be explored at the debates. I almost forgot about the debates. They really might swing the pendulum.

And so on. Royko couldn't have done it any better if he were writing today. Here's Royko on how (and where) to kiss Mayor Richard "Boss" Daley. (Scroll down to the Feb. 16, 1973, column headed "What's Behind Daley's Words? If this whets your appetite for the finer things in life, keep reading and the next story explains what does -- and what does not -- go into a classic Chicago hot dog).

COMM 207: Pun-ishing copydesk humor ...

It's in The Guardian (U.K.), with a real groaner of a pun in their technology section.

The head:

Google aims to take a bite out of Apple with new G1 phone

· Company unveils its first mobile in New York
· Search giant's handset designed to rival iPhone

And the story, at least the lede:

Google is taking on the might of Apple and the world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia in a three-way battle for the Christmas market with its first handset, the G1.

Launched in the US yesterday and coming to the UK with T-Mobile in November, the G1 is larger than the iPhone but has a touchscreen which flips out to reveal a full keypad. Its launch comes after a prepay version of the iPhone - aimed at the festive market - and just days before Nokia unveils its first touchscreen phone.

* * *

And so on ...

Richard Wray of the Guardian's New York bureau wrote the story. While the writers of headlines are never identified, an unsung hero on the copydesk in London would have written the head.

COMM 337, 386: Op-ed columns in Wall Street Journal, in-class reading assignments

Two recent op-ed columns from The Wall Street Journal ...

Jargon alert! An "op-ed piece," for those who aren't yet familiar with newspapering jargon, is an opinion piece. Long, long ago in the olden days of print journalism, opinion pieces used to run on the op-ed page ... which was called that because it was always opposite the editorial page. Most op-ed pages try to offer a balanced variety of viewpoints, from liberal to conservative, often disagreeing with the paper's editorial policy.

Certainly the Journal's does. And the columns linked below are typical.

One is by Peggy Noonan, a contributing editor of the Journal. A speechwriter for President Reagan and author of "What I Saw at the Revolution" (which may be the best memoir by any speechwriter anywhere, ever), Noonan is reliably conservative with a populist streak. This week, she sounded like she didn't know what to think about the week's events on Wall Street:

The financial crisis changes the entire shape and feel of the presidential election. It isn't just bad news, it's bad news that reveals what many people deep down feared, and hoped not to see revealed: that the huge and sprawling financial system of Wall Street is maintained essentially on faith, mood and assumption; that its problems are deep; that at some level the system looks to have been a house of cards. It isn't just bad news; it's deep bad news that reaches into the heart of widespread national anxiety.

Everyone is afraid—the rich that they will no longer be rich, the poor that they'll be hit first by the downturn in the "last hired, first fired" sense, the middle class that it will be harder now to maintain their hold on middle-classness.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans spent the week treating the catastrophe as a political opportunity. This was unserious. A serious approach might have addressed large questions such as: Was this crisis not, at bottom, a failure of stewardship?

Nor did she know what to think about how presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama were handling it:

Open question only history will answer: President Bush did not address the nation on the crisis until Thursday of this week, almost a week after it began, and Democrats are going to try to paint this as 9/11 times Katrina: Where was he? Will this work? Will it stick? They're going to try to turn Mr. Bush into Herbert Hoover. Hoover was not good for the Republican brand.

The economic crisis brings a new question, unarticulated so far but there, and I know because when I mention it to people they go off like rockets. It is: Do you worry that neither of them is up to it? Up to the job in general? Is either Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama actually up to getting us through this and other challenges? I haven't heard a single person say, "Yes, my guy is the answer." A lot of shrugging is going on out there. This is a read not only on the men but on the moment.

Noonan, in my opinion, is always worth reading. She writes well, and she expresses a populism that has given the Republican Party widespread appeal since Reagan's time.

In both classes we'll look at some of of the stuff in Peggy Noonan's archive on her personal website. She's a good writer, with a succinct way of summing up complex human emotions. Too, she has some keen insights into American culture, and when the insights go against the grain she admits it. Students who have heard me talk about Don Murray and the "little green book that wouldn't go away" can guess what's coming next: She surprises. And that's always worth coming back for. In a word, she's important.

Back to the Journal. Near the other end of the spectrum is a piece by Thomas Frank called "Get Your Class War On." Frank is the author of a book documenting what he sees as the Republicans' appeal to class resentments to gain votes. This column, which I suspect was written before Wall Street imploded, sees in Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy more of that tactic:

Now comes the fall culture-war offensive, catching the Democrats by surprise as it always does and spreading panic and desperation among their ranks. As the depth of the Republican breakthrough becomes apparent to Democrats, they launch the same feeble counterattacks that failed them last time, prudishly correcting misleading GOP advertisements and crying for the recess monitor when the other side plays dirty.

And none of this works.

Things would go better for Democrats if they recognized the culture war for what it is: a debased form of class war, a false populism in which an "authentic" America rises up against its would-be masters, an effete bunch of arugula-eaters who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." But a visceral feeling of class conflict is what lies at the core of the whole thing: a righteous grievance against wrongful, pedantic rulers. It is so attractive emotionally that I often wish I could sign up for it myself.

Both have a point to make. Both write well. Both are worth reading.

COMM 207: Playing it straight as man stuck on stopping exploding blue cow

Some headlines just make you want to read the story. Here's one from The Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel that pulled me right in.

First, the headline. It's a two-decker:

Man stuck on stopping exploding blue cow
Attempt to enter museum via vent fails

The story is almost mild by comaprison. A guy, Richard Anthony Smith, 25, of Knoxville, to be exact, got stuck in an air vent while he was trying to break into an art museum. News-Sentinel staff writer reported: "Upon his rescue, Smith told police 'he was a special agent with the United States Illuminati' who had rappeled from a military helicopter to the roof of the museum, according to a Knoxville Police Department report. Smith said his mission was to defuse a Russian nuclear device that 'was concealed in a blue plastic cow sculpture in the basement of the museum,' the report states."

There's more. Smith told the cops he was in the wrong museum, the blue cow (or whatever it was) was really in Memphis. And the museum people told them he was also in the wrong flue. It was an exhaust flue leading away from a stove in the catering area.

Read the story. There's still more!

But with all those opportunities for a wisecrack, the Sentinel's copydesk did exactly the right thing: They played it straight down the middle, and took the head right off the police report.

COMM 386: More on Surowiecki's 'wisdom of crowds' ... see? It didn't go away after all

Unless there is another game-changing development in the presidential race, we may get back to the "Wisdom of Crowds" in class tomorrow. Monday, after all, is traditionally a slow news day. It may work.

To recap, last week we were assigned to read a website promoting James Surowiecki's provocatively subtitled 2004 book "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations." Surowiecki covers the stock market for The New Yorker, and his theory boils down to this -- "large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future." He sums up his theory in the website's Q&A page and adds:

I think the most important lesson is not to rely on the wisdom of one or two experts or leaders when making difficult decisions. That doesn't mean that expertise is irrelevant, or that we don't need smart people. It just means that together all of us know more than any one of us does.

OK. It certainly worked on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." But how well does it apply to elections?

Let's recap a little further, because I think there's an important point here, and we're kind of coming up on it sideways. What got me thinking about the wisdom of crowds was an op-ed piece on Newsweek's website Sept. 10. In it Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine, argued:

An electorate, in other words, is something like a jury. It's a panel of ordinary people, limited in their knowledge and training, who combine to produce a judgment of greater wisdom than any of them could make alone. The crowd, in some mysterious way, is wiser than the individual. The average voter may be no genius, but the electorate as a group is no fool. So the theory goes. It is a theory that allows candidates, scholars and journalists to get through the day without having to question the fundamental tenets of American government.

But, taking into account the amount of exaggeration and outright lying that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he added an important qualification:

I don't contend that the theory is groundless. There is something in the wisdom of crowds. What seems to me inescapable is that the past few years have not been kind to those who accept the rational voter idea as an article of faith.

So the question I have for all of us in COMM 386 is this: What happens to this premise of American political life when voters and citizens are not given the truth? I don't have a good answer to that. I have, at best, more like half a dozen.

What follows can best be considered as ammunition -- things you may want to take into account as you wrestle with these questions.

The first is a comparison. Surowiecki's thesis reminds me a lot of 18th-century economist Adam Smith's theory of an "invisible hand" regulating free markets for the common good:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

(Quoted in Wikipedia [itself an example, by the way, of the wisdom of crowds] from Smith's "Wealth of Nations.") Is it a coincidence Surowiecki covers the stock market?

Next, links to some reviews of "The Wisdom of Crowds" ... most are mixed:

• Richard Adams, in The Guardian (U.K.), found it a limited but "valuable counter-argument to the contempt for the crowd that dates back to the Victorian era." Adams added, "The average of a sufficient number of guesses will get the number of jellybeans right. But supplying distracting or misleading information can easily skew the individual's responses. Collect enough people on a street corner staring at the sky, and everyone who walks past will look up. Show a voter enough political broadcasts or commentaries and she may be persuaded to vote against her interests."
  
  
• Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, a self-described as "writer in the very crowded city of New York" named John Freeman found a "hopeful ... whiff of populism" in the book. "New York, Boston, and Los Angeles might remain our nation's cultural capitals, Surowiecki suggests, but the rest of the madding crowd knows a thing or two. If for that reason alone, one hopes the group approves of his book - and in a big way." Sounds good to me here in Springfield, Ill.
  
  
• Eric Klinenberg, assistant professor of sociology at New York University, reviewed the book for The Washington Post. He said Surowieki "pushes market populism and the case against pundits in new directions" but his argument "ultimately unpersuasive, largely because his theory suggests that the conditions that foster collective wisdom are hard to come by, and his research turns up so many examples where groups go awry."

Klinenberg adds:

Capital markets also crash regularly, with recurrent booms and busts that experts -- officials, economists and specialized policy analysts -- scramble to manage. Although Surowiecki does a fine job of showing how business reporters, money managers and media-anointed industry experts helped inflate the recent dot-com bubble, he treats cases of such collective madness (and the disasters it generates) as "rare historical moments," rather than as systemic flaws in market-based forms of social organization.

Markets, crowds and democracies work well under the right conditions, and Surowiecki has identified them remarkably well. The trouble is that the right conditions are so difficult to produce and sustain. And, as the history of markets, crowds and democracies shows us, small bursts of collective stupidity can do permanent damage.

Law prof Obama's advice for Democrats, Republicans and (especially) people who think like me

I'm not going to comment on this one. I'll just link to it and quote it. It's a Sept. 19 article by Alexandra Starr in the International Herald Tribune, on U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's days as a law professor at the University of Chicago. Link to http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/19/america/pragmatist.php

The headline: Students saw in Professor Obama a pragmatist, not an idealogue

A couple of quotes: The first one sums up his teaching style, and the second one
* * *
Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School for a decade before he left in 2003 to run for the U.S. Senate. He emerged as one of the Senate's most liberal members, and his voting record is often invoked in the current campaign, especially by his opponents. But the men and women who studied with him at Chicago echo [U of C law graduate Jaime] Escuder's observation that Obama was much more pragmatic than ideological. Even as his political career advanced, Obama's teaching stuck to the law-school norm of dispassionately evaluating competing arguments with the tools of forensic logic.

"It was drilled into us from Day 1 that you examined your biases and inclinations," said Richard Hess, now an attorney at Susman Godfrey in Houston. "And then, when you made decisions, they were based on sound empirical reasons."

Escuder saw his professor as "a street-smart academic."

* * *

When Obama was promoted to the senior lecturer position, he had only taught his seminar on racism and the law. While his teaching schedule expanded to include constitutional law and voting rights, it was his original seminar that left the greatest impression on his students. In the class, Obama emphasized how people's experiences and backgrounds could influence their perceptions of prejudice and the possible need for government action to curb its effects.

"He wanted us to be aware of our biases so we could better avoid the pitfalls they can bring," said a former student, Bethany Lampland, who now practices in New York.

He did that in part by sharing personal stories that revealed preconceptions he himself harbored. In the autumn of 2003, for example, he told of an uncomfortable encounter he had one evening on Lake Shore Drive. An Asian driver in a souped-up Honda cut him off; when the two men reached a stoplight, Obama shot him a dirty look. The driver's response was to roll down his window and yell "nigger" at Obama before speeding off.

The professor described himself as initially shocked. But as he reflected on the episode, he told the class, he realized that the other driver wasn't the only one harboring stereotypes. "I was thinking, 'Here's some Asian kid on his way to a club,"' Obama said, according to Richard Hess, who was enrolled in the course. Obama had stereotyped the driver as the kind of person who would never call him "nigger."

Hess, who worked in Democratic politics before attending law school, told me he was impressed by his professor's ability to coolly analyze such an unpleasant confrontation. "I thought it displayed a thoughtfulness," he said. "He would talk about race in a way that I doubt anyone had heard from their professor before, or I had heard from a politician before."

COMM 386 Friday: Linkers, thinkers and stinkers

Somebody once said weblogs come in two categories -- "linkers" and "thinkers." Today I'm going to be a linker.

A better name for that kind of blog is "aggragator," by the way. Fark is an aggragator. So is Real Clear Politics, at http://www.blogger.com/target=.

Today I'm going to link to four stories in The Washington Post.

The first is on today's bailout of financial markets, headlined "Citing Grave Financial Threats, Officials Ready Massive Rescue." The subhead gives the angle I find most remarkable: "Lawmakers Work With Fed, Treasury To Try to Restore The Flow of Money." It's bipartisan, and it involves several government institutions that don't always work together. Link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091804200.html

The second is a very good writeup on the bureaucrats who cobbled together the deal. Link to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091804211.html

And now for the campaign news. The headline says it all. "Obama, McCain Trade Shots Over Responses to Financial Meltdown." No, it doesn't say it all! It gives the tone of the article. Read it and see if it's called for. Link to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091803822.html

Finally, Howard Kurtz' media roundup, "In Search of Fighting Words." Link to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

I think there's something trivial and about the campaign stories. Or is there? Is it my imagination? You decide. What do you think? If there is, whose fault is it? The candidates? The media? The system? All of us? To borrow a phrase from Matt Frei of BBC World News, Blimey!

COMM 386: What does this mean?

In one of the 20th century's better quotations, Sir Winston Churchill once said Russian foreign policy was "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." I've also heard it said of the Illinois Legislature. So my conclusions about the following story, if I had any, would be tentative.

But now comes this item from Lynn Sweet, political columnist and Washington bureau chief for The Chicago Sun-Times. Senator Obama has used his presidential campaign clout with state Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, to convince him to call the Senate back in session to override Governor Blagojevich's amendatory veto of the "Pay to Play" ethics bill.

I'm not up to speed on the issue, and I'm not sure why Obama would want to get involved with a state issue. National political figures don't usually do that.

But he did.

Sweet thinks a Sun-Times story had something to do with it. She writes in her blog:

The call to Jones came after my colleague, Dave McKinney, the Sun-Times Springfield bureau chief, wrote about the impending death of the [ethics] bill.

McKinney reported how a good government activist suggested Obama should help and how Obama's campaign ducked questions from the Chicago Sun-Times about whether Obama should intervene to save the ethics bill.

Obama made the right call. Jones, who is going to retire soon, was easily pressured to call the Illinois Senate back to work.

The Chicago Tribune's Washington blog, called "The Swamp," reported the development without mentioning the Sun-Times.

COMM 337: Clear writing on a complex topic

I'll just link to it, since I'm running out of time before class and I haven't had lunch yet, and we can talk about it when class meets.

BBC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., has the best explanation of the worldwide investment banking crisis that I've seen so far. It's clearly explained, it covers both financial and political aspects and it's written in crisp conversational English.

Especially cogent, I think, is BBC World News America presenter (announcer) Matt Frei 's take on the credit crisis' effect on the "rolling, rollicking ballad that is American politics." A model of good writing, even making allowances for occasional Briticisms like "Blimey!" and words like "High Street" where we'd say "Main Street" in the U.S.

COMM 386: Link to candidates' Wall Street ads

The Washington Post's campaign blog, "The Trail" has linked to TV ads on economic issues that the McCain and Obama campaigns are putting up today.

Quite a contrast in styles. What do you think of them?

COMM 386: The disappearing 6-point economic plan

Since the turmoil on Wall Street went ballistic over the weekend, I've seen a couple of passing references to a six-point economic plan of Sen. Barack Obama's, but they didn't didn't say what the six points were. Frustrating.

Typical of the coverage we're getting from the national media was today's (Tuesday's) campaign story on Politico.com headlined "Obama, McCain duel over market turmoil." The lede:

GOLDEN, Colo. — The presidential nominees escalated their fight Tuesday to gain an edge in light of the economic downturn, as John McCain called for the creation of a commission to probe the financial market crisis and Barack Obama rejected the proposal as an attempt to “pass the buck.”

It was the second consecutive day that the campaigns sparred almost entirely over the economy, ratcheting up the pressure on McCain and Obama, neither of whom has established dominance of the issue, to gain the upper hand on a top concern for voters.

Then at the very end, beginning at the 35th to 40th graf (by my rather cursory and increasingly frustrated count), this summary:

The differences between McCain and Obama on their approach to the crisis became only bit more clear Tuesday.

McCain’s remarks focused on encouraging transparency, fighting speculation, and hinted at consolidating regulatory agencies along the lines that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has proposed.

The Republican nominee essentially blamed the regulatory agencies — not the administration — for failing their mission.

“And there are so many of those regulators that the responsibility for oversight is scattered, unfocused and ineffective,” McCain said. “Among others, we've got the SEC, the CFTC, the FDIC, the SIPC and the OCC. But for all their big and impressive-sounding names, the fact is they haven't been doing their job right, or else we wouldn't have these massive problems on Wall Street.”

Obama offered an indictment of deregulation and conservative economic policies. Like McCain, he advocated transparency and anti-manipulation measures, but he also called for increased oversight and capital requirements for investment banks.

The six points were summed up, as I later discovered, in the last graf.

Turns out Obama mentioned them when he spoke in Colorado. Here's how The Rocky Mountain News covered the speech. The lede:

GOLDEN — The federal government must adopt much stricter regulations of financial markets in order to stop the collapse we are seeing now, Barack Obama told a crowd at the Colorado School of Mines today.

The Democratic presidential nominee offered more specifics than he has in months on the kind of government oversight he said is needed to deal with the problems that wracked the housing and investment banking markets and which came to a boil this week.

Obama also drew sharp contrasts between himself and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, who has described himself as "fundamentally a deregulator."

"We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations," the Illinois senator said. "Yet, Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong."

Obama laid out a six-point regulatory plan. It would subject all financial institutions that can borrow from the government to more oversight, crack down on trading practices he said border on market manipulation and create a financial advisory group to discuss potential problems with the president.

And so on. Long on substance, although it did get into the obligatory tit-for-tat "gotcha" games in the third and fourt grafs.

So why didn't the nationals get into the substance?

My guess: It's old news inside the New York-Washington Beltway axis. Obama, you see offered his six-point regulatory plan in a well-received speech at New York City's Cooper Union in March. If I noticed it at the time, when after all the headlines were full of the upcoming Pennsylvania primary and incendiary remarks by Obama's pastor, I forgot it. But I found it when I Googled, uh, performed a Google search engine keyword search on "Obama" and "six-point economic plan." It's archived in The New York Times (March 27). Worth a read sometime.

Later. This morning's Wall Street Journal had a decent overview of both candidates' proposals on the credit crisis. Specific. Balanced. Basically fair to each candidate. Its lede:

Whoever wins the presidency in November likely will turn a more skeptical eye to U.S. financial institutions. The candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, differ on their plans and their regulatory philosophies, but both are talking about shaking up Wall Street.

Amid the credit crunch's most wrenching phase, both support boosting the regulation of banks, investment banks and other financial institutions. Both say regulators should tighten rules on the type and amount of funds financial institutions should hold. Both say the government must consolidate the patchwork of financial regulators into a more streamlined system.

Sen. McCain emerged with tougher-than-usual rhetoric, including seeking the end of "wild speculation" in the market, which suggested a diversion from his deregulation record.

And down toward the end of the story (the 16th graf), this:

The Obama team reiterated steps Sen. Obama outlined in a speech in March after Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed and the Federal Reserve opened its lending facility to investment banks. He says the Fed should have supervisory authority over any institution with access to its funds, and that regulators should set standards for how much liquidity financial institutions have, not just how much capital.

The Journal, of course, is a specialized publication covering, well, yes, Wall Street.

COMM 386: Pundits counterattack?

I'm not even going to try to put all this in perspective ...

In today's Washington Post, media critic Howard Kurtz answers a charge of bias from right-wing pundit William Kristol.

When I say the media are going after false or questionable claims by the [John] McCain camp, Kristol retorts: "In other words, the media are going after McCain. ... 'Why? Because McCain is doing well. And because Sarah Palin is surviving -- even flourishing -- in the midst of the liberal media onslaught. When the media get mad, they don't just pout. They pounce."

Kristol takes issue with some of my examples, which is fine, and then says Obama also distorts, noting his accusation that McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq. But here's the difference: When the press called him on that, Obama stopped saying it. Sarah Palin said again yesterday that she'd said thanks but no thanks to the Bridge to Nowhere -- after every major news organization showed that she originally supported the project. (It's even on videotape.) You'd think she would at least modify her language. But no.

Kurtz' column is worth reading in its entirety, since it consists mostly of quotes from other writers and offers a snapshot of media commentary at this point in time.

Two other columns in today's Post, on more or less the same theme, got a lot of attention. In one, that got 1,411 comments (as of 4:30 p.m. Central time), Richard Cohen says McCain to task for violating what he understands to be his own standards:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. ... No more, though.

The other, by Eugene Robinson, with 1,180 comments, notes that McCain's running mate Sarah Palin still says she said thanks-but-no-thanks to that bridge in Alaska after she confessed on national television she was for it before she was against it ... or something like that. If you're confused, Robinson helpfully adds:

In her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Palin 'fessed up. It was "not inappropriate" for a mayor or a governor to work with members of Congress to obtain federal money for infrastructure projects, she argued. "What I supported," she said, "was the link between a community and its airport."

Case closed. Except that on Saturday, days after the interview, Palin said this to a crowd in Nevada: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves."

That's not just a lie, but an acknowledged lie. What she actually told Congress was more like, "Gimme the money for the bridge" -- and then later, after the whole thing had become an embarrassment, she didn't object to using the money for other projects.

I'm not sure all this answers Kristol's point. Would the pundits be as vigilant if McCain and Palin were way down in the polls?

COMM 386: 'Wisdom of Crowds' / ASSIGNED READING

Following up on Monday's discussion of "wisdom of crowds" theory as it applies to elections, I found out where the theory comes from (maybe you already knew this), a book called (what else?) "The Wisdom of Crowds" (2004) by James Surowiecki, who covers financial markets for The New Yorker magazine. The Wisdom of Crowds Website defines it as a a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications:

... large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

The website has all the bells and whistles we'd expect from a good website -- blurb quotes (disgused as quotes from a "Press Room"), the author's schedule (this weekend he'll be in Washington, D.C.), FAQs, an excerpt and a link to the Random House catalog so we can buy the book. You're not assigned to buy the book (although I think I may want to from what I've seen of it), but you are assigned to read the Q&A with Surowiecki and the excerpt in which he explains some of the basic theory behind the book.

COMM 337:

How's this for cheesy? Links below to two stories I found over the weekend ... but I didn't have time to say anything about them ...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gourevitch

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/September-2008/The-Critter-Hunter/

COMM 386: Narrative straws in a media wind?

Signals are mixed as this year's presidential election saga continues to play out. Have John McCain and Sarah Palin changed the "narrative" of the election? Or is Palin's new-found celebrity status a repeat of the "celebri-fication" (if I may be permitted to coin the word?) of Barack Obama back during the primary season?

Darned if I know. I suspect the latter. But politics is unpredictable, and there's still time for the narrative to change -- a couple of times -- before the Nov. 4 election.

In the meantime, here are a couple of straws in the wind ...

The first comes from Charles Krauthammer, a neo-conservative pundit for The Washington Post, who tracks what I'm going to call for lack of a better word the media narrative for this year's political celebrities:

... Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain's Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama's meteoric rise was based not on issues -- there was not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues -- but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.

Krauthammer has partisan axes to grind, as you'll see as you read the rest of his column, but he has a good point here.

On the other end of the political spectrum Michael Tomasky, writing in the center-left British newspaper The Guardian (U.K.), blames McCain's campaign for what he calls the "number and intensity of outright lies" heard lately. But he says the media are complicit in almost the exact language of Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." He says:

McCain and Palin are engaged in serial total fabrications. And almost no one calls them on it. The New York Times, which found the space to run a puffy piece on Palin's family on its front page the other day, hasn't found similar space to run a story under a headline like, "McCain-Palin Claims Stretch Credulity, Some Say."

CBS and CNN have finally gotten around to running reports that pretty much state outright that Palin is lying about the bridge. ABC's Jake Tapper plainly called out the "truth squad" on the lipstick story. McClatchy did a strong fact-check of the McCain education ad. But for the most part, the media treats it all as entertainment, a matter of which side has seized the offensive.

[Boldface added.]

Finally, media writer Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post cited this week's "lipstick-on-a-pig" kerfuffle as evidence the right-wing talk shows are driving the narrative. He said in Wednesday's column:

The lipstick imbroglio is evidence that the Drudge/Fox/New York Post axis can drive just about any story into mainstream land. Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig? What about the fact that McCain has used "lipstick on a pig" before? What about the book by that title by former McCain aide Torie Clarke? Never mind: get the cable bookers to line up women on opposite sides of the lipstick divide and let them claw at each other!

Well, he's right. It is good for ratings. Entertainment. Right?

In today's Post, Kurtz reviewed Palin's interview with "Flag-pin Charlie" Gibson of ABC News. He gives Gibson high marks. Says Kurtz:

What the ABC newsman conducted yesterday was a serious, professional interview that went right at the heart of what we want and need to know about the governor: Could she be president? Does she understand the nuances of international affairs? Does she have a world view?

He was all business, respectful but persistent.

Kurtz' assessment of Palin:

Even Palin's critics should admit that, in terms of demeanor, she handled herself well for someone who three years ago was worried about the books in the Wasilla library. She projected confidence and was not openly rattled.

Well, not quite: It was more like 12 years. Palin asked the librarian about banning books when she was elected mayor in 1996. But otherwise Kurtz, I think, is right on the money.

Vocabulary time. Two very good words here. "Imbroglio" is standard English. It's a $13.95 word, but has so many lovely connotations that I find it practically irresistable sometimes. "Kerfuffle" sounds Yiddish, but I just looked it up and it's Scots Gaelic.

COMM 386: Let's take the high road (for a change)

ASSIGNED READING ALERT! The link below may be hazardous to your preconceived notions. In class Friday I will hand out a three-page handout [duh! I guess that's what you always do with handouts] ... I'll distribute a three-page hard copy printout of an article on Newsweek's website that discusses some of the questions we are asking ourselves this semester: In it Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine, says we "want desperately to believe that the American voters, whatever mistakes they may make, are at bottom rational and competent." Ehrenhalt's essay is thoughtful and nuanced, and I can't do it justice with a paraphrase. But he comes close to his main point when he says:

An electorate, in other words, is something like a jury. It's a panel of ordinary people, limited in their knowledge and training, who combine to produce a judgment of greater wisdom than any of them could make alone. The crowd, in some mysterious way, is wiser than the individual. The average voter may be no genius, but the electorate as a group is no fool. So the theory goes. It is a theory that allows candidates, scholars and journalists to get through the day without having to question the fundamental tenets of American government.

But, he adds immediately:

I don't contend that the theory is groundless. There is something in the wisdom of crowds. What seems to me inescapable is that the past few years have not been kind to those who accept the rational voter idea as an article of faith.

Ehrenhalt cites the false assumptions behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he also cites cites misleading campaign rhetoric from both camps in this year's election. He concludes, we can have an informed electorate that "won't require candidates to give stump speeches berating the voters as fools. But it will require some painful thinking about what a "rational voter" really is and how we might go about making more of them."

Ehrenhalt's essay is not comfortable reading, but I think it's vitally important for us to read it and discuss it.

Student Blogs -- Fall Semester 2008

Lauren Burke http://laurenburke.blogspot.com/

Laikyn Cheffy http://lak22.blogspot.com/

Cassie Dahman http://cassie-media-gov.blogspot.com/

Katie Davis http://katiedaviscom387.blogspot.com/

Jeff Hall http://www.scijournalism.blogspot.com/

Alyssa Kauffman http://alyssa4387.blogspot.com/

Claire Keldermans http://clairekeldermansblog.blogspot.com/

Megan Meeker http://meeker22.blogspot.com/

Dani Menser http://danimensersblog.blogspot.com/

Nikkie Prosperini http://nikkieuntitled.blogspot.com/

Becky VanDyke http://journlit.blogspot.com/"target="_blank

Jill Bigelow Watkins http://comm386jill.blogspot.com/

Caleb Young http://calebyoungspring08.blogspot.com

Archives

Jeremy Dixon http://jeremy-dixon.blogspot.com/

Whitney Drobnack http://whitterk5.blogspot.com/

Zach Kirchner http://com317law.blogspot.com/

Mitch Ladd http://thebestblognamesaretaken.blogspot.com/

Jocelyn McDonald http://jannmcdee.blogspot.com/

Gina Moscardelli http://ginaslitofjblog.blogspot.com/

Marqueta Stewart http://queta-marqueta.blogspot.com/

Jill Watkins http://jillsblog-watkins25.blogspot.com/

COMM 386: Narratives, politics, PoMo and buzzwords

Here's a fun game anyone can play. How many times do you catch the punditocracy talking about the "narrative" of a campaign? Here's Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post: "[Sarah Palin] has mounted an assault on the narrative of this election ..."

And here's Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Reagan who writes a very interesting conservative column for The Wall Street Journal, who she didn't know the TV mike was on when she said: "[Is Palin] [t]he most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives."

Let's keep looking for this buzzword. It's trendy. It sounds postmodern (or "PoMo," if you really, really like buzzwords). It has its origins in marketing. Or not.

Here's what a considerably more humble commentator said about political narratives back in January.

And here's what an British writer I never heard of before has to say about it:

Narrative’ is a marketing buzzword, and it still has some leverage because it has only been doing the rounds for a few years.

It is a response to people’s growing resistance to marketing of all kinds. They are exposed to subtle and clever messages almost all the time they breathe: they don’t trust slogans, they ignore advertisements – but they do listen to stories.

It's by David Boyle, a freelance author who stood for Parliament on the Liberal Democrats' ticket. Let's try out the idea. Let's read Boyle's column "In search of a political narrative" and see if it fits what's happening on this side of the pond.

COMM 386: Read yesterday's story (below) first ...

Jonathan Martin, who blogs on the Republican presidential campaign for Politico.com, has a couple of trenchant reports on the politics of personality -- in terms that will be familiar to us after reading about show-biz and political coverage -- in today's and yesterday's editions of the Web-based newspaper.

But first, please read yesterday's post by Martin and Jim Vandehei. This year's election coverage is all about "narratives," and yesterday's article headlined "COMM 386: Politics, personality, polls ..." launches this narrative.

September 9th may mark a turning point in this contest when the inevitable finally arrived.

A high-stakes campaign fought in the modern media environment between tickets featuring an African-American, a former POW and a woman made it such that the personal would become the political.

That it has seemingly happened so soon, though, presages an ugly two months.

Blame can be shared between both campaigns. But thanks to the anchor of Bush, a devalued brand, the compelling stories of McCain and Palin and the cultural vulnerabilities of Obama, Republicans plainly have more to gain by making the race about character and identity.

So they've begun to engage in what is effectively a campaign of baiting and exploiting. And Tuesday, Obama played right into their hands.

COMM 386: Politics, personality, polls, lipstick, pigs ...

A story by Jonathan Martin and Jim Vandehei in Politico.com headlined "McCain, Palin push biography, not issues" oughta be required reading for us. In fact, it now is: I just assigned it.

[I posted this yesterday, and had to update it this morning when the day's news was full of, yep, biography ... not issues. Howard Kurtz, media columnist for The Washington Post, summarized it nicely when he said GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has "mounted an assault on the narrative of this election, dumbfounding all the pundits who said McCain's pick was "desperate" ... Now it's the media who are scrambling to explain how Hurricane Sarah has transformed the political landscape."]

The original biography-vs.-issues lede, by Martin and Vandehei, that got me started on this tangent:

When John McCain’s campaign manager said last week that this presidential election “is not about issues,” it wasn’t a Freudian slip. It was an unvarnished preview of McCain’s new campaign plan.

In the past week, McCain — with new running mate Sarah Palin always close by his side — has transformed the Republican campaign narrative into what amounts to a running biography of this new political odd couple.

In the duo's new stump speech and their first post-convention ad, the impression campaign strategists hope to leave is unmistakable. McCain is the war hero. Palin is the Every mom. And together, they will rattle Washington.

Considering the big challenges the country faces — two wars and a wobbly economy, for starters — the focus on personal narratives might strike some as jarringly superficial for the times.

How does this fit with what we've been reading in Neil Postman this semester? The Politico story continues:

But the McCain campaign is betting its best chance to win is by aiming for the gut, not the heads, of voters.

This should not come as a huge shock. For one thing, the political climate pretty much demands it.

The Republican brand is in the tank. And despite all his talk about independent-mindedness, McCain actually differs very little from President Bush on the serious issues of the day: Iraq, taxes, trade and health care.

This dastardly emphasis on branding, on image, shouldn't be blamed entirely on the dastardly Republicans, though:

... they got a solid clue on the best way to pull this off from none other than Barack Obama. They saw how his generalized message of change resonated. So while Obama was busy soft-selling the change portion of his campaign at his convention, McCain was busy stealing it — and busy downplaying the sort of issue-by-issue laundry list Obama delivered in his State of the Union-like acceptance speech.

So ... how does this play with the voters? A poll of previously undecided voters CBS News and The New York Times is well worth studying for what it tells us about how voters make up their minds and what it suggests about how they react to issues, "narratives" and political coverage. But first, a couple of key findings:

Among previously uncommitted voters who have decided to back a candidate, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin has been well received: 52 percent have a favorable feeling towards her, while just 18 percent view her unfavorably. Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden is less well known: 54 percent say they don't know enough about him to have an opinion.

When asked directly what helped them to choose a candidate, 28 percent of these previously uncommitted voters volunteered Sarah Palin, making her the top reason. Sixteen percent volunteered the speeches at the conventions.

Previously uncommitted voters have been paying more attention to the campaign. Thirty-nine percent of all previously uncommitted voters say they have paid a lot of attention in the last few weeks, and 46 percent have paid at least some attention. When they were originally interviewed in August, just 21 percent of these same voters said they had been paying a lot of attention to the campaign in recent weeks.

Interesting. And now, to borrow a transition from Neil Postman, "now ... this" --

Previously uncommitted voters who have made up their minds are far more likely to say Biden is prepared to be vice president (71 percent say that he is) than to say the same of Palin (just 47 percent say yes.) But Palin is far more relatable to these voters, with 71 percent saying they can relate to the Alaska governor compared to 36 percent for Biden.

Hmmm. Why do voters (viewers, readers, media consumers, whatever you want to call us) relate to Palin more than Biden? Does it have anything to do with the politics of personality? Does it have anything to do with Postman's thesis that we cover politicans like we cover showbiz?

COMM 337: Links to today's reading, epigraph

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." -- Elvis Costello, quoted by Timothy White, "A Man out of Time Beats the Clock" Musician No. 60 (Oct. 1983): 52.

Hey, the reading is just a few items down. Here's the permalink ... which I formatted, no less, so it'll open in a new window. We'll listen to the NPR interview with the reporter, Evan Wright who covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq for Rolling Stone magazine.

* * *
Elvis Costello's words of wisdom about writing about music -- which I think apply equally as well to writing about writing -- are traced to their source by Alan P. Scott, who once used a video display terminal that students of ancient history will no doubt be glad to know showed green letters on a black screen like those we used at The Rock Island Argus in the later Paleolithic Age.

Why copyediting is important ...

An Associated Press story In this morning's Washington Post. The lede:

WASHINGTON -- People calling a federal phone number to order duck stamps are instead greeted by a phone-sex line, due to a printing error the government says would be too expensive to correct.

The carrier card for the duck stamp transposes two numbers, so instead of listing 1-800-782-6724, it lists 1-800-872-6724. The first number spells out 1-800-STAMP24, while the second number spells out 1-800-TRAMP24.

People calling that second number are welcomed by "Intimate Connections" and enticed by a husky female voice to "talk only to the girls that turn you on," for $1.99 a minute.

Duck stamps, which cost $15 a piece, are required to hunt migratory waterfowl. The government uses nearly all the revenue to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 2006-2007, the latest figures available, duck stamp purchases brought in nearly $22 million. ...

No comment on my part is necessary.

Palin on Wal-Mart wedding

Editor & Publisher, the trade magazine for the newspaper business, has been reprinting items from Alaska newspapers on Sharah Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee. Included was this item from The Anchorage Daily News, which I offer without comment:

Palin Presided Over a Wedding at a Walmart. He worked in the pets department. She was a cashier. A romance blossomed. And when it came time to say ''I do,'' they chose -- where else? -- an aisle next to menswear. Sandwiched between racks of cotton pants and surrounded by ''Back-to-School Specials'' signs, Jake McCowan and Rosalyn Ryan exchanged vows last week at the place where they met, work and fell in love: the Wasilla Wal-Mart. A crowd of 200, including passengers from a tour bus and several dozen curious shoppers, watched the two employees tie the knot in an afternoon ceremony officiated by Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin. ''It was so sweet,'' said Palin, who fought back tears during the nuptials. "It was so Wasilla." [ADN, Aug. 28, 1999]

Wasilla, a hour's drive north of Anchorage, looks a lot like North Dirksen Parkway ... but surrounded by snow-capped mountains, birch trees and Sitka spruce. It's considered kind of a scruffy little town, and people there take pride in that -- in a way that would be instantly recognized by Chicago Cubs fans or Illinoisans talking about Illinois politics.

COMM 337: Craft, writing

Elvis Costello, the British punk rocker who has now become something of an elder statesman in the music industry, once said "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Impossible, in other words.

So, perhaps, is writing about writing.

But in the next few days, we're going to try to take what Don Murray in writes about writing in "Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work" and compare it to what more recent writers say about their craft and what happens when they actually practice it -- which may not be the same thing always.

National Public Radio aired a series in 2004 called "The Craft of Writing" ... featuring the work of three prize-winning magazine writers. Over the weekend, read the stories by Evan Wright in Rolling Stone.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post has skewered both Obama and McCain in his coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Read both (we want to be fair and balanced, right?) What kinds of things would have gone into his notebook (cf. Murray 49? He's trying for edge, not empathy, in my opinion. And not all of Murray's questions would apply to Milbank's way of reporting/writing. But some of them may. On your blog, compare and contrast what Murray says and what Milbank does.

Palin -- quotes and links

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090300711.html

In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels "under siege" by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child's parentage.

Arguing that the media queries are being fueled by "every rumor and smear" posted on left-wing Web sites, Schmidt said mainstream journalists are giving "closer scrutiny" to McCain's little-known running mate than to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The McCain camp has been unusually aggressive in pushing back against the media, and it seems to hope to persuade journalists to back off in their scrutiny of Palin. Obama campaign officials have complained to news organizations that their man has been subjected to considerably more investigative reporting than McCain has, but they have done so in more low-key fashion.

By contrast, Schmidt spoke on the record in denouncing as "an absolute work of fiction" a New York Times account of the process by which the McCain campaign vetted Palin. He also charged that Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman was predicting that the governor might have to step down as McCain's vice presidential choice.

Fineman said that he has "never, ever said that," and that he has pointed out positive aspects of Palin's candidacy. "They decided a long time ago that they were going to work the refs," he said.

Susan Reimer, a columnist for The Baltimore Sun, also reports a level of anger she hasn't experienced before:

The things that were said about me, my personal appearance and my children - as well as Barack Obama - were beyond the bounds of decency, and many were said in language that might only be seen in a bathroom stall.

Generally, the comments were not made behind the veil of anonymity the Internet can provide. The writers signed their names. And they revealed what I think has become the bare-knuckles nature of our national conversation.

So much pent-up anger, so much barely concealed hate was released in those e-mails and those postings. I wonder where next they will find a vent.

It is still two months until the presidential election. Things could get really rough out there.

On the other hand Jack Shafer of Slate.com, whom I consider one of the best media analysts in the business, sees an tried-and-true GOP gambit and thinks the coverage of Palin's family life was over the top, yes, but predictably so and entirely legitimate. Well, maybe not entirely:

Journalistic mayhem is a fine description for the last couple of days of Sarah Palin coverage. Starved to the point of collapse from the restricted-calorie diet served at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the press needed a news feast to restore its powers. With the Republicans' convention lite staring them in the face, the ravenous press corps decided to switch the menu from St. Paul to New Orleans. The evening news anchors—NBC, CBS, ABC—were all defecting to the Gulf Coast over the weekend. But then the press scented the lard-fried Snickers bar that was Palin.

Irresistable. Right?

Maybe it is just politics as usual.

An ABC News poll finds a partisan split in reaction to the media coverage:

The public divides on whether the news media have treated Palin fairly -- half say yes, four in 10 no -- and among those who do fault the coverage many more blame political bias than sexism. In this there is a difference between the sexes, with men (55 percent) more apt than women (46 percent) to say she's been fairly treated. But more women are undecided, rather than saying the media have been unfair, and the far sharper divisions are partisan again. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans see the coverage as unfair; that declines to 27 percent among Democrats.

Among those who see unfairness in the news coverage, 39 percent mainly blame partisan bias, 15 percent sexism and 10 percent both equally. The rest, 34 percent, cite some other cause. Women who fault the media are slightly more apt than men who do so chiefly to blame sexism, 18 percent to 10 percent, but substantially more women and men alike mainly perceive political bias.

METHODOLOGY -- This ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 4, 2008, among a random national sample of 505 adults. The results from the full survey have a 4.5-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa.

Finallly, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post files this video report on the "Eastern media elite." I think Milbank, who has skewered both Obama and McCain, treats the brotherhood and sisterhood of the elite media -- and himself -- with the degree of high seriousness they deserve.

COMM 207: Short list of AP style

Here's a California ag extension style sheet that incorporates most of the main points in the "AP Style Manual." I'm including it here for convenient reference for times you don't have the stylebook with you.

Some entries you may not use too often. For example the one on scientific plant names (alphabetized under "order, family, genus, species, variety") or creating the proper accents in Spanish words (more important in California than perhaps it is in Springfield). But it includes simplified explanations of AP style on bugbears like epipsis marks (which working press usually call "three dots"), gender neutrality, numbers, plurals, telephone numbers and trademarked names.

It's published by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), a statewide network of researchers and educators.

COMM 337: More questions -- art v. craft

1. What does Don Murray mean by "craft?" What do you mean by it? How does "craft" differ from "art?"

2. What the @#$%!& does that have to do with writing?

3. What is the relationship between the craft of reporting and of writing? To Murray? To you?

COMM 337: Discussion questions

Discussion questions -- COMM 337

1. What does Don Murray mean by "surprise?" What do you mean by it?

2. What the @#$%!& does that have to do with writing?

3. What about reporting? What is the relationship between reporting and writing? To Murray? To you?

4. How do you go looking for surprise?

COMM 386: Did McCain campaign orchestrate pregnancy story?

An interesting theory by Andrew Malcolm of The Los Angeles Times that the GOP presidential campaign has orchestrated the release of damaging information about vice presidential designee Sarah Palin. Too Machiavellian to be true? Especially when it exposes a 17-year-old to the glare of national media attention at the same time it calls on the media to respect her privacy? I don't know, I just don't know.

Malcolm takes as his starting point an "availablity," an apparently imprompteau press conference by McCain-Palin campaign manager Steve Schmidt, who just happened to walk into a print media area Monday. He answered questions about Palin's daughter Bristol, whose pregnancy had just been announced a half hour before. Malcolm continues:

Finally, after nearly a half-hour of pushing and shoving and competing to get questions in, Schmidt said he had to go. And walked off with a squad of newly-appointed Palin aides who'd been standing by not smiling.

The excited media, now fed new details, rushed off to write their stories and flash them out to the world.

Precisely as Schmidt hoped they would.

It was a classic, illustrative and instructive case of political damage control. ...

I thought it seemed a little over the top when I first read it, but Malcolm argues a good case -- if you have damaging information, release it on your own timing, preferably when no one is paying attention. And if you want to bury a news story, Labor Day is as good a time as any to do it. Adds Malcolm:

Now we all know why Gov. Palin had no public events scheduled for Monday and why her husband Todd took all the children back home away from the spotlight Sunday night.

Monday morning, when least expected, the news release about the pregnancy went out, causing quite a commotion and extinguishing the planted online rumors that Sarah Palin's recent pregnancy was faked to cover up the pregnancy of her daughter, now a reported five months along on a real birth.

Schmidt's seeming spontaneous appearance in the convention's media area allowed him to elaborate on the news release the way he wanted to elaborate on it with his carefully formulated responses.

Some conservative family groups, now with their own stake in Palin, issued immediate statements of sympathetic support. And even Obama, noting that his mother had him as a teen, said family matters should remain private and out of political bounds.

Millions of Americans were closing up summer homes, preparing for school this morning, returning from the beach and generally paying no attention at all to the news on the last holiday of summer.

And because Schmidt's press encounter occurred unannounced in the print area, there were no TV cameras to create those annoying video loops for replaying a thousand times later as negative reminders.

Playing the story -- and the media -- this way does something else, as well. It keeps the focus on Palin's daughter, whom we can all sympathize with, instead of the mounting evidence coming out of Alaska that Palin either lied or flip-flopped about the "bridge to nowhere" and she is under investigation for abusing her authority as governor of the state in a personal vendetta.

Later: As I was finishing this post, I noticed an update to the LA Times' blog carrying the news that Palin's daughter and her fiance will attend the GOP convention. Says Malcolm, who sounds like he might be getting a little tired of this soap opera:

So much for family privacy: Imagine the attention this couple will confront in the media-filled Excel Energy Center arena where the hurricane-truncated convention is playing out.

The Palin family already has captured the attention of this hall, after Sarah Palin and husband Todd announced Monday that their daughter plans to have the baby and wed the father. They also asked the media to respect the young couple's privacy.

Good luck with that this week, as the small town hockey player makes his national TV debut.

But it does keep the media's attention where the McCain campaign wants it. And it is consistent with Schmidt's ability to use the media like a cheap screwdriver.