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.

Don't Juneau? Link to a link to an Alaska blog

Actually, links to a couple of blogs ... over the holiday weekend, I've been chasing the Sarah Palin story. Two or three reasons, not necesarily in order of importance: (1) I'm a political junkie at the best of times; (2) I've been fascinated with Alaska politics ever since I started tagging along several years ago when my wife was invited to speak at human services conferences in Anchorage; and (3) I think Palin's selection as this year's Republican vice presidential candidate illustrates some important points we're studying in COMM 386 (media and government) and other courses.

So I've been checking the blogs in addition to more sober-sided news sources like The Washington Post, The New York Times and BBC.co.uk.

The first one is The Swamp, put out by The Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau. It's probably my favorite source of political chit-chat, including this colloquy by corresponents Jim Oliphant, who is following the Obama campaign, and Jim Tankersley, who is covering the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. (Full disclosure: The awful pun in my headline, I stole from Oliphant and Tankersley, whose two-way piece was headlined "Doubletake: Juneau what I mean?"

And the second blog, called Mudflats: Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics. The subtitle says it all, although I am also impressed by the very attractive photo of the mudflats along Cook Inlet near Anchorage. The Trib's review of Mudflats says, with more alliteration than I might choose to use, "Palin pick makes Alaska blog a must-read." Here's the Trib's take:

Now that Sen. John McCain has decided to turn his presidential campaign into a sequel of "Northern Exposure," the all-things-Alaska hit 1990s TV series, an essential guide is needed to Gov. Sarah Palin's Alaska and can be found on the Mudflats blog.

Written by an East Coast transplant to Alaska who goes by the moniker AK Muckraker, the blog gives an Alaskan eye view of Palin's political career and the state's rather colorful politics.

One warning. Mudflats is biased. "AK Muckraker," the author, is one of Alaska's few Democrats. He flat doesn't like Palin. He doesn't like any of the Alaska Republicans. But he writes well. And he seems to know the state's "rather colorful" political flora and fauna. If you know where he's coming from, you can sift through the partisan rhetoric and get an interesting take on things.

Alaska papers: Nuanced picture of Palin

Over the weekend, newspapers in Alaska have continued to offer perspective on Gov. Sarah Palin, now tapped as Republican John McCain's vice-presidential candidate and the beneficiary of breathlessly superficial reporting in the national media of what Alaskans call the "lower 48" (states) or, perhaps more tellingly, "Outside." Since it's second nature in the news business to consult with local reporters for background on a story, the trade magazine Editor & Publisher has been running excerpts from the papers in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Among the most interesting stories are these:

• Tom Kizzia of for The Anchorage Daily News, has a balanced assessment of Palin's fiscal record as governor and mayor of Wasilla (pop. 9,000), the other elective she has held.
  
• The Juneau Empire in Alaska's state capital interviewed legislative leaders in both parties about her "sometimes rocky relationship with the Legislature" and got decidedly mixed reviews.

The upshot: Reporters from Alaska so far have been able to give a more nuanced, balanced picture of their governor. That's hardly surprising, since they know who to talk to. And they've hardly even mentioned Hillary Clinton!

(Kizzia, whose stories in the ADN I've been linking to the last couple of days, wrote a book on Alaska Natives based on his reporting for a series on rural Alaska and Native villages in 1990. He has been reporting for the ADN since 1982. His stuff is a model of good journalistic writing.)

COMM 337, 386: Sarah Palin bio in Anchorage paper

When Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate today, The Anchorage Daily News
linked a two-part series from her gubernatorial campaign in 2006.

Written by senior reporter Tom Kizzia, it gets into such details as why she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" as a high school basketball player at the same time she was named "Miss Congeniality" in a beauty contest in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. A good reporter with an expert eye for detail, Kizzia also explains her success in overthrowing established Republican officeholders that has earned her a reputation as a GOP maverick.

Upshot: There's more to her than you'd think, and Kizzia's series explains where it came from.

I'm linking here because the ADN has taken off the links from its front page. The first part ran Oct. 23, 2006; and the second part ran a day later.

More 'prepared remarks' before a political speech

Posted to a blog on The Denver Post's website an advance copy of Democratic nominee Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I'll cross my fingers, give you the link and hope they're still archiving the speech when class meets tomorrow.

But I'll copy and paste the heading and the first few grafs, too. Here's the header:

Excerpts of the Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
"The American Promise"
Democratic National Convention
August 28, 2008
Denver, Colorado
As prepared for delivery

Compare the tag in the AP pre-story on vice presidential candidate Joe Bidens' speech that I posted last night -- "Biden said in excerpts of his prepared remarks." It's basically the same formula as the one used here -- "As prepared for delivery." Whenever you see something about "prepared remarks," it means an advance copy of the speech that likely will be changed, at least a little, as the speaker ad libs during delivery.

Obama's speech, the one he'll give tonight, was posted to the Post's blog at 4:54 p.m. Mountain time (which was 5:54 our time), and Obama isn't scheduled to speak till 8 MDT (or 9 our time). Here's his opening:

"Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

"It is that promise that has always set this country apart that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

"It is why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

"We meet at one of those defining moments a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

"Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay and tuition that is beyond your reach.

"These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W. Bush.

"America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

The rest, I guess, is history. Or will be. But in the meantime, the guys who have to write something intelligent about the speech can get a running head start on it.

And that in a nutshell is why public officials give the media pre-written copies of their speeches, or "prepared remarks," before they give the speeches.

Sharp-eyed readers will no doubt notice Obama's speechwriters -- or the candidate himself, since he typically drafts his own speeches -- weren't using AP style when they mentioned the 232 years of American history. (You did notice that, didn't you? Right. Of course you did.) But when you're writing a speech, you write it to be read aloud. It's like broadcast writing, and you write out the numbers.

COMM 207: The 'Six Reading Myths' I mentioned in class (won't hurt other COMM students to know it too)

This is worth the price of this semester's tuition --

It's a handout from the Academic Skills Center at Dartmouth College titled "Six Reading Myths." It makes the point that we read most effectively if we take it in two stages:

• Skim once as rapidly as possible to determine the main idea and to identify those parts that need careful reading.
  
• Reread more carefully to plug the gaps in your knowledge.

If I had to boil it down to one word, that one word would be: "Skim!" You're playing a sucker's game if you read every word. Here, in MYTH 5: IF I SKIM OR READ TOO RAPIDLY MY COMPREHENSION WILL DROP, is the money graf:

Many people refuse to push themselves faster in reading for fear that they will lose comprehension. However, research shows that there is little relationship between rate and comprehension. Some students read rapidly and comprehend well, others read slowly and comprehend poorly. Whether you have good comprehension depends on whether you can extract and retain the important ideas from your reading, not on how fast you read. If you can do this, you can also increase your speed. If you "clutch up" when trying to read fast or skim and worry about your comprehension, it will drop because your mind is occupied with your fears and you are not paying attention to the ideas that you are reading.

If you concentrate on your purpose for reading -- e.g. locating main ideas and details, and forcing yourself to stick to the task of finding them quickly -- both your speed and comprehension could increase. Your concern should be not with how fast you can get through a chapter, but with how quickly you can locate the facts and ideas that you need.

Well, OK, two grafs. Calling something a "money graf," by the way, is another way of saying it's the key paragraph, the point that sums up all the rest of it.

A note for COMM 207 students (and a refresher for everybody else): Follow the link above and go back to the Dartmouth College handout. You'll note that they typed in two spaces after each period. Just like Miss Thistlebottom told you in high school English class, right? Well, I don't want you to ever do that! In an age of computerized typesetting, obeying Miss Thistlebottom's rule will only mess up the justification. It took me a couple of years before I trained my thumb to not hit the space bar, but you'll have to do it sooner or later if you're going to be a professional writer. Might as well start now!

COMM 207, 337, 386: Prepared speeches

In class (I forget which) the other day, a student asked how reporters get the text of a public official's speech -- or a candidate's speech (the techniques are the same in both cases). My answer, which wasn't backed up with good examples, was that usually a prepared text is given to the media shortly before the speech actually takes place. It will have a heading like "Prepared for delivery at _______ (whatever the event is)". Lately it's been political speeches. But the process is the same for the State of the State, the budget address or other political speeches with high news value.

That gives us a chance to write a story based on the prepared text and file it as soon as the speechmaker starts speechifying. During the speech, we'd follow it in the text and note ad libs as we heard them. Often the ad libs, for a variety of good reasons, would be the most newsworthy part of the speech.

Now, a couple of days later, here's an excellent example.

It's in an Associated Press story on Sen. Joe Biden's speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. Here's the lede, by Walter Mears, who has covered presidential politics for AP for years and is one of the best reporters around. I'll quote several grafs, since I doubt it will be archived for long and it's worth coming back to and studying:

DENVER – Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday night that the challenges America faces require "more than a good soldier" in the White House and called Barack Obama a wise leader who can deliver the change the nation needs.

In a single sentence, Obama's new running mate complimented John McCain's years of military service and slapped his claim on the presidency.

The Delaware senator told the Democratic National Convention he'd learned a lot about Obama by campaigning against him for his party's presidential nomination. Biden was an early dropout in that campaign, quitting after he managed only 1 percent of the vote in Iowa's opening caucuses.

Biden said that in debating Obama, watching him react under pressure, he learned about the strength of the Democratic presidential candidate's mind and his ability to touch and inspire people.

"And I realized he has tapped into the oldest American belief of all: We don't have to accept a situation we cannot bear. We have the power to change it," Biden said in excerpts of his prepared remarks. He was poised to receive his party's nomination for vice president Wednesday night.

"The choice in this election is clear," he said. "These times require more than a good soldier, they require a wise leader. A leader who can deliver ... the change everybody knows we need. Barack Obama will deliver that change."

There's a lot to admire in this lede. Mears works in a lot of background without bogging us down in details. But what I want you to notice is the reference to "excerpts of his prepared remarks." For those of us who know how to read the signs -- and that's a category that should include all of us as professional writers -- that tells us Mears was working from an advance copy of the prepared remarks.

Why do that? Let's look at the numbers. In this case, the numbers on the clock. According to the notation on the Yahoo! news page where I found it at 9:30 p.m. Central time, the story moved "24 minutes ago." By my calculation, Biden would have still been speaking when it hit the AP wire. But 9:30 our time is 10:30 on the East Coast, and a lot of smaller papers -- who tend to rely on AP for national news coverage -- are on deadline at that time of the night, i.e. filling their last few pages before they go to press. Filing the Biden speech story based on the prepared text would allow these AP clients to consider it for tomorrow morning's paper.

COMM 337, 386, 207 / READ!

A very good column by a senior reporter with Fox News, about how he got a story wrong -- and one of the worst ways an old-fashioned beat reporter can do it -- by reporting a person's death prematurely. I'm not always a big fan of Fox News, at least not when they blur the line between reporting and commentary, but this guy clearly knows the ethics of the craft.

COMM 207: Some "AP Stylebook" things to know

Here's a list of earth-shaking revelations you'll find in the "AP Stylebook." It won't be the last I give you, but it'll get you started. We'll add others later.

I've tried to pick out the points of AP style that cause the most trouble -- in other words, the ones that are most different from the standard English style we learn in school. You're not going to want to sell the Stylebook back to the bookstore anyway, so I'd circle the keywords at the beginning of each entry and paperclip the pages together. I circle the page numbers too.

For several years, I kept an extra copy of the AP Stylebook in my bathroom ... for those moments -- we all have them -- when we'd like to read something but don't have enough time to read a whole article. I don't expect you to learn all of this stuff at one sitting, but I do encourage you to pick up AP style over time ... almost by osmosis ... because it's the most noticeable thing that demonstrates the stuff you write is by a professional.

So let's get started. I added my helpful hints to some, just listed others. Here they are:

abbreviations and acronyms. Doesn't have a page number in my book, so I didn't circle it. But it's important. And tricky. Oops! It goes on to a second page. That's page 4 in my edition. Circle it, clip it or whatever. And keep coming back to it.

addresses. Are you beginning to notice we're not dealing with deep philosophical issues here? Every publication has its own local style. When I was at The Rock Island Argus, we went to Duffy's 4th Avenue Tap after work. And we abbreviated it that way, with the numeral followed by "-th." But in Springfield we'd write it out -- like this: "Fourth Avenue" -- because that's local style at the J-R. Luckily, we don't have such a street in Springfield. But if we did, the local paper would write it out.

capitalization.

cents. See also dollars and percent. They're related. Write it like this: $4 without the zeroes if it's a round number, $4.15 of whatever if it isn't. Cents like this: 15 cents. Percents like this: 30 percent. Got that? Try writing it that way a few times and you will.

composition titles. Basically you put titles in quotes for a newspaper that you would ordinarily underline or put in italics for college papers.

directions and regions. It's all about when to capitalize something like "central Illinois" and when not to.

fewer, less You'll make fewer mistakes if you know this, and you'll be less likely to get it wrong, too.

governmental bodies. Newspapers are full of government news. I know, I know. That's why they're losing readers. But till the last dying newspaper goes out of business, you'll be writing about governmental bodies. This item tells you how.

it's, its It's essential for you to put apostrophe in its proper place.

midnight. Also see noon. The only times of the day you don't use "a.m." or "p.m." with. You don't use numbers, either. The Stylebook explains why.

millions, billions.

more than. Also see over. Use "more than" with numbers of things, "over" with heights.

numerals This is probably the one that's hardest -- and most important -- to learn in the whole book. Keep it in the bathroom so you'll have it whenever you're looking for a few minutes of light reading matter.

plurals. Did I say numerals was the hardest? Maybe it's plurals. What's worse, numerals and plurals come up all the time. You'll never run out of fun stuff to read in the AP Stylebook!

possessives. AP's rules regarding defy logic. So you'd better learn them. More reading for the bathroom.

state names. The tricky part is the abbreviations, which are not the same ones the Postal Service uses. Learn a few you're likely to use, like "Ill." and "Mo." Look up the rest. I guess you could memorize them, but do you really think you'll be writing that much about Casper, Wyo.?

time element, time of dayand times. Picky, picky. But the rules make sense once you get used to them.

titles. Don't try to learn them all. Just know this section is there when you need to know how to abbreviate the lieutenant governor's title. And you'll need it often.

trademark.

COMM 386: 'Capitol Fax' blog w/ Obama story

Link here to the story on Barack Obama's event Saturday in downtown Springfield. Rich Miller, who writes the blog, is one of the best political reporters in the business. The State Journal-Register also has a pre-story (or -stories) by J-R political columnist Bernie Schoenberg. He is also a very good reporter. We'll be keeping up with both this semester, especially when the state Legislature comes back for the "veto session" in November.

I will be assigning you to compare the coverage of Obama's campaign event in local, state (in other words Chicago) and national news media. Details to follow. If your schedule permits you to attend the rally, tentatively scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Old State Capitol, I strongly encourage you to do so.

COMM 386: Basics on polling / PLS READ!

Here's an op-ed piece on polls by Steve Kircher, longtime research manager at the St. Petersburg Times, in yesterday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It includes this evaluation of the polls so far in the presidential race:

Why conduct surveys so far in advance of the election? Cynics will say it helps fill the cable news channels and political columns of newspapers. While that's a likely factor, more important is that polls generally are accurate, and even this far out they are helping to track the dynamics of the presidential race, even if the dynamics today are quite a bit different from what they will be in November.

There's an interesting paradox here: We usually compare poll data to election results in order to evaluate a poll's acccuracy, but there's a down side to that because it tends to emphasize "horse-race" reporting. That's one of the issues we'll be looking at this semester.

COMM 386: 'Thumbsucker' by Brownstein

Here's a term you won't find defined in the AP Stylebook. It's what is known in newspapering as a "thumbsucker" or a "think piece." It's an analytical, thoughtful article that really explains a current issue. Think of a deep thinker sucking his thumb while he tries to think deep thoughts and you'll get the metaphor behind it.

I think it's a word that was used by hard-news guys who didn't necessarily appreciate the ivory-tower types who wrote for the edit page.

But I digress ...

The article is titled "Reconcilable Differences," and it's by Ronald Brownstein in the current issue of The Atlantic at http://www.theatlantic.com/ ...I'm linking you to the magazine's home page because I want us all to be familiar with the publications that run quality public affairs journalism by the end of the semester. The Atlantic has been one of the best magazines in America for more than 150 years, and Brownstein is one of the best political reporters in the business. His take on this year's presidential election is the best I've seen so far.

Light at end of tunnel

Seen in "The Vent" today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's daily collection of wit, wisdom, wisecracks and -- oh, you read it and fill in the blanks -- this gem:

Due to the recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Nothing further to add.

Link: National Journal and Hotline

A must for political junkies (belatedly acknowledged by a political junkie who surfed into it today) is The National Journal which includes not only commentary by Ronald Brownstein, formerly of The Los Angeles Times and one of the best White House reporters in the business, and longtime consultant Charlie Cook, but also a link to The Hotline, the daily newsletter. Here's the blurb on the "About Us" page:

National Journal Group is the leading source of nonpartisan reporting on the current political environment and emerging policy trends. Our print, online and broadcast properties include National Journal, CongressDaily, The Hotline, NationalJournal.com,The Capital Source, The Almanac of American Politics, Convention Daily, "National Journal On Air" and "Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal ."

With 110 editors and reporters focused solely on Washington, National Journal Group's publications provide unmatched insight and set the editorial bar in political reporting. As a result, National Journal Group enjoys unparalleled readership loyalty from decision makers and policy influencers across the nation. National Journal Group's publications have become trusted professional resources for Members of Congress and their senior staffs, the Executive branch, federal agency executives, government affairs professionals, corporate and association leaders, and the political news media.

(Italics omitted.)

ABC bias? A comment and a mea culpa

Well, now I've up and done it. I've posted to the comments "forum" on an online political column. It's by Jake Tapper of ABC News, and it chronicles another "pastor disaster" in Barack Obama's campaign. Except it turns out to be the same "disaster" that had been reported before. In today's column, Tapper linked to a second YouTube snippet from Fr. Michael Pfleger's May 25 sermon "from the pulpit of Sen. Barack Obama's now former church."

Here's the timing. Sunday, May 25. Fr. Pfleger, of St. Sabina Church on the South Side of Chicago, preached at Trinity United Church of Christ. At week's end the first YouTube snippet, in which the visiting priest mocked Obama's opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton, started rocketing around the Internet -- and the mainstream media. Saturday afternoon, May 30, at a campaign stop in South Dakota, Obama announced he had submitted a letter of resignation from the church. (Protestants often join a specific parish by signing a membership book and transfer membership by letter, so the procedure isn't uncommon.) Then on Sunday, May 31 (today) at 10:46 p.m. (Eastern time), Tapper published the new snippet under the headline "Rev. Pfleger: "America is the Greatest Sin Against God." I don't question the accuracy of the snippet. Fr. Pfleger is a well-known firebrand, and, well, YouTube is what it is. Nor did I question Tapper's license to editorialize. His column, a blog, really, is called "Political Punch: Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper." It carries his picture, and that, too, identifies it as an opinion piece.

But I did question Tapper's timing. So I wrote in the comments field:

How, exactly, does this qualify as news since Obama already resigned from the church during yesterday's news cycle?

Why, exactly, did you not mention his resignation till the fifth graf?

Where are your journalistic ethics?

How, exactly, can I explain this to my students?

Posted by: journalism t\Teacher | Jun 1, 2008 11:42:27 PM

Here's the mea culpa: When I read Tapper's 45-word-long lede, I didn't notice he'd tucked away a reference to "Obama's now former church" in the middle of all the verbiage. So when I wrote my comment, I thought he didn't spell that out till the fifth graf.

Another reason, I'd say, why we really ought to keep our ledes down to 20 or 25 words.

Obama pix in Alaska Democrat's ezine?

Reading up on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's resignation from Trinity United Church in Chicago, I noticed a picture of Uncle Sam in The Alaska Report that looked a little different ... yet somehow familiar.

Take a look for yourself! See if it doesn't look like Obama.

The Alaska Report, an online magazine available at http://alaskareport.com/index.htm is published in Palmer, a town in the Mat-Su valley just north of Anchorage. It covers Alaska news, especially fisheries, and tracks the "Corrupt Bastards Club," the ongoing fraud investigations of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and other Alaska wildlife from a gleefully unabashed Democrat persepctive.

Central Illinois PRSA blog

Useful link: The central Illinois chapter of the Public Relations Society of America has a blog with links and promotional material about PRSA. Liz Kerns, who teaches public relations at Benedictine, is webmaster. (logmaster?) Good resource for students. Or anyone else who wants to keep up with the state of public relations in downstate Illinois.

I'll just post Liz' Who is PRSA Central Illinois? blurb in its entirety.

Chartered in 1979, the Central Illinois Chapter brings together people who are involved in public relations through professional development and advances the profession through public education, service and high standards of conduct.

The Central Illinois Chapter is part of the Public Relations Society of America, the world's largest organization for public relations professionals.

PRSA represents a great value to its members who represent business and industry, counseling firms, government, associations, hospitals and other professional services. PRSA stands behind its new code of ethics, which was approved at the Fall World Congress in Chicago in October 2000.

We have developed strong ties with PRSSA chapters in Bloomington-Normal, Charleston, Peoria and Macomb which depend on us for professional guidance and upon which we depend for fresh new ideas and youthful vigor. Illinois State University, Eastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University and Bradley University maintain active student chapters which contribute to the strength of our region and other universities throughout the region offer students strong PR education. Regardless of a student's affiliation with PRSSA, we welcome all communication students to our meetings from throughout the region. Other universities who have had students participate in our PRSA meetings but without a PRSSA chapter include Millikin University, Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University, Eureka College, and Illinois College.

Please look through our web site to learn more about the Central Illinois Chapter and all that we have to offer.

Marketplace of ideas in Post-Dispatch column

One of the better discussion of the marketplace of ideas I've seen lately doesn't even use the term "marketplace of ideas." It's in today's column by Bill McClellan in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on anti-feminist firebrand Phyllis Schafly, who is about to get an honorary degree from Washington University at this year's commencement. Students and faculty are outraged at what they see as the school's honoring her "polarizing, anti-intellectual positions."

McClellan made it clear he doesn't agree with Shafly very often. But he doesn't agree with the outraged students and faculty, either.

"As a latte-sipping, tree-hugging, peace sign-flashing, gay rights-supporting liberal, I just hate it when my comrades play to stereotype," he said. "You know the stereotype. Conservatives are mean. Liberals are whiny. And right now a very audible whine is emanating from the campus of Washington University."

Schafly, 83, is an alum, and a highly successful one at that, so honoring her makes sense. "I think she honors the university by accepting an honorary degree," McClellan added. He explained:

That is not to suggest I approve of her ideas. I disagree with most of them. Nor do I like the way she expresses herself. She, too, sometimes plays to stereotype. She can be mean. She can get down in the mud. But like it or not, that is the way of things in the Great Debate that defines this country. Voices rise and tempers flare, but in the end, the ideas rise or fall on their own.

Some of the loudest criticism for awarding Schlafly an honorary degree is coming from the law school. Fourteen members of the law school faculty signed a letter to the chancellor: "We are fully committed to the principle of free speech, and we believe the University should encourage a discussion of diverse viewpoints. Commencement, however, is first and foremost a time of celebration of the intellectual accomplishments of our students. It is, we believe, a disservice to those whom we honor to inject into the proceedings a person who has devoted her life to staking out and promoting polarizing, anti-intellectual positions."

On most ideological issues, I'd be aligned with those professors, staking out a position somewhere left of center. But I think they're missing the point on this issue. The real disservice to the students would be to act like the university sanctions one set of ideas over another. Students should be exposed to all sorts of ideas — even polarizing, anti-intellectual ones. If the education has taken hold at all, the students will reject those ideas.

Tongue planted firmly in his cheek, McClellan concluded by quoting the "Great Helmsman" (Mao Zedong), "Let a thousand flowers bloom!" He added, "Personally, I raise my vanilla-flavored, low-fat, no-foam latte to Schlafly. She is a remarkable woman and a splendid opponent."

Work(s) Cited
McClellan, Bill. "Thought you'd never hear me praise Phyllis Schlafly?" St. Louis Post-Dispatch 14 May 2008. 14 May 2008. .

Communications 317: Media Law

Benedictine University at Springfield

Spring Semester 2008

"So as grave and learned men may doubt, without any imputation to them; for the most learned doubteth most, and the more ignorant for the most part are the more bold and peremptory." -- Sir Edward Coke, Institutes of the Lawes of England (1628) Sect 338a.
Final Exam – May 8, 2008

FINAL EXAM -- May 8, 2008

Below are one 50-point essay question and two 25-point short essay questions. Please write at least four pages (1,000 words) on the 50-point essay and two pages (500 words) on each of the 25-point essays. Due at the regularly scheduled time for our exam, 1:30 p.m., Thursday, May 8.

1. Essay (50 points). In his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. U.S. (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. defined the “marketplace of ideas” under the First Amendment as a realization that “the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas ... [and] the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.” guarantees a free market of ideas. What is the ethical responsibility to the marketplace of: (a) political candidates; (b) the news media; and (c) professional advocates working for campaigns. How well, in your opinion, have this year’s presidential primary elections functioned as a marketplace of ideas? Do professionals, both working for the media and in the campaigns, have a greater ethical burden under the respective codes of ethics for journalists and public relations people than the candidates? Be specific!

2a. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What do you consider the most important thing you have you learned in COMM 317 that you didn’t know before? Why do you say it is the most important? Be specific in your discussion of how it might fit into your career plans, or your plans for further study. Consider it in the context of what you knew at the beginning of the course and what you know now. In grading this essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the specific detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the specific connections you make.

2b. Short essay (25 points). As the newly appointed travel editor for The Prairie Clarion in Clarey’s Prairie, Ill., you receive the offer of an all-expenses-paid weekend visit to Anthracite Acres, a tourist resort built on top of a reclaimed strip mine in beautiful Hogscour, W.Va. Ever mindful of the SPJ Code of Ethics, you’re a little nervous about conflicts of interest, but the PR guy for the resort says you’re free to write anything you want about your visit, even if you discover the mountaintop was improperly reclaimed. After deadline, you are sharing a pitcher of the beverage of your choice with Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant (hey, this is a hypothetical case). What does the Code of Ethics say about situations like this? What would Aristotle, Kant and Bentham say? How would they explain their reasoning? What principles would they cite, and why?

COMM 387: Literature and Journalism

Benedictine University at Springfield

Spring Semester 2008

FINAL EXAM – Monday, May 5, 2008

Please answer all three questions below. While I will not grade on the length of your answers, you should write at least two to three pages on the 50-point question and a page to a page and a half on each of the 25-point questions. Your exam paper is due at the regularly scheduled time for our class, at 1:30 p.m., Monday, May 5.

1. Essay (50 points). In 2002 John Carroll, then editor of The Los Angeles Times and a member of the Pulitizer Prize selection board, said all 21 of that year’s winners shared “a moral vision … an ardently held view of what constitutes right in this world and what constitutes wrong.” In much the same vein, BBC news presenter Fergal Keane in 2005 said the best reporters “had in common an ability to use words in a manner that brought the listener into the picture, and they were engaged, not as partisans, but with a clear sense of astonishment at the wrongs they were witnessing.” Evaluate Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe and one other journalist of your choice in terms of his/her ability to (a) use language that puts readers on the scene, and (b) express a moral vision that aims to right, or at least expose, the wrongs of society. How important, in your opinion (backed up, of course, by evidence), is that moral vision to a journalist’s overall quality?

2a. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What have you learned in Communications 387 that surprised you the most? How, specifically, did it surprise you? What was your overall impression of the journalistic writing -- as writing -- before you took the course? How has that changed as a result of your reading, class discussion and research for the course? Consider it in the context of what you knew at the beginning of the semester and what you know now. In grading this essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make. Be specific.

2b. Short essay (25 points). According to conservative opinion writer P.J. O’Rourke, “Satire is technically comic writing with a moral point of view, and I think that that it is hard to do because not many people have the confidence in their moral point of view anymore.” Considering the satire on the newspaper business in the movie “His Girl Friday” and Carl Hiaasen’s novel “Lucky You,” do you find a clearly expressed moral point of view expressed in the satire? Does one stand out more than the other? What is the point of view regarding the newspaper business in each? Do you find one better than the other? If so, does your enjoyment have anything to do with moral point(s) or view, or is it just based on the comedy?

COMM 317: Making the marketplace work

Evening up the balance, giving credit to the media where credit is due ...

After shooting rockets at the media Tuesday for superficial "horserace" coverage of this year's presidential campaigns, I went home and read Newsweek. On the last page was something that made me stop and think a little harder about what I'd been saying.

It was a set of questions for Democratic front-runner Barack Obama in George Will's opinion column. They were solid, substantive, detailed questions ... althought they did have a partisan edge to them. Fair sample: The last two questions:

• You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet you vow to use a metaphorical "hammer" to force revisions of trade agreements unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor, environmental and other domestic policies to suit you. Can you define cognitive dissonance?

• You want "to reduce money in politics." In February and March you raised $95 million. See prior question.

But coming next, questions for John McCain.

Now George Will is a partisan Republican who delights in showing off his vocabulary. Unless he's writing about the Chicago Cubs (he grew up in Illinois, and he's a diehard fan), his column usually gives me heartburn. I don't even think his promise to take on Republican nominee-to-be McCain shows much objectivity -- McCain isn't conservative enough for him. Sometimes I think Will is the last of the 18th-century Whigs, born 200 years too late. But he does write about issues. And he's an important voice for the old-line right wing. Since he's writing an opinion column, he's allowed to do that. In fact, the system wouldn't work if guys like that didn't do that.

So ... score one for the marketplace of ideas. George Will is out there selling his product.

On the liberal or progressive side of the political spectrum, one of my favorite columnists is E.J. Dionne Jr., who writes for The Washington Post and Commonweal (he's a liberal Catholic). On Tuesday, his column in The Post lamented the trivial tone of recent election coverage. Dionne said:

Before the battle for Pennsylvania, the 2008 presidential contest looked as big as elections get. The country's deep disillusionment with Bush, akin to the disillusionment with Jimmy Carter in 1980, portends a wish by voters to move in a different direction, albeit one quite unlike the path chosen 28 years ago. The issues discussed in debates and on the stump were the important ones: an Iraq war in which victory is elusive, an economy falling into disarray, a health-care system failing employees and employers alike.

No one benefited more than Barack Obama from this sense of historic moment. Change, not experience, was the order of the day. Sweep, not a mastery of detail, was the virtue most valued in campaign oratory. A clean break with the past, not merely a return to better days, was the promise most prized.

Then something happened. Specifically, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And he keeps happening ...

Dionne's premise, which is very partisan, is that a "big" election oriented to big ideas will help the Democrats this year. He concluded:

Contrary to those who are cynical about democracy, voters themselves are rarely manipulated into thinking that big elections are actually small ones. But the candidates and the media, with some help from Jeremiah Wright, are doing all they can to run this election through an Incredible Shrinking Machine. Obama and Clinton should not make it harder for Americans to have the election they want.

Agree with him or disagree with him, Dionne is out there in the marketplace of ideas. In fact, it may be the only free market he really approves of!

There's no lack of substantive stories in the papers, either. They don't all make the front page, but they're there. I just looked at the Google news page, and it displayed stories on an airstrike in Somalia, a car bombing in Baghdad, the disputed election in Zimbabwe, developments in Pakistan, Exxon profits and, yes, the election (two headlines tell that story: "Obama says public tired of hearing about his former pastor" and "[Hillary] Clinton Talks to Fox TV about Obama and Wright"). If we have time left after reading the stories on incest in Austria, "American Idol" and a TV actress who posed nude for a magazine spread, there are plenty of what Dionne would call "big" stories to choose among.

One particularly courageous effort by a newspaper, and one that takes maximum advantage of "new" media, is a forum on race and racial attitudes moderated by columnist Dawn Turner Trice of The Chicago Tribune. When Obama delivered his March 18 speech on Rev. Rice and race, Trice, who is black, wrote:

Barack Obama'srecent speech about race touched on a number of important themes: The fact that in America there is still so much about race simmering below the surface; that we have for years chosen to go into our respective corners rather than really deal with what lies beneath; and the fear that where race and opportunity intersect, the tide will lift one group, but only at the expense of another.

Over the last several months, Obama's campaign has revealed a side of the race picture I never thought I'd see during my lifetime. (I'm 42.) A man of color with a real shot at becoming the president of the United States? This still blows me away. Some folks younger than 35 seem to be less shocked by this. That in itself is interesting.

So I wonder: Where exactly are we with race relations in America? Is it possible that what we see of racial matters highlighted in the media is a distorted picture?

Let's start a discussion. ...

That forum is called "Exploring Race." It's still running on The Trib's website, and it's well worth checking out.