ncfocus

Eric Alterman takes note of Mooney's piece (post below) with a fine one of his own summarizing Mooney's reporting of irrationality and hubris on the editorial page:

...one would think those honest analysts who placed their faith in the administration's arguments for war and its ability to carry out a successful plan for Iraqi reconstruction would rethink that support as a result. This would be particularly true, one would imagine, for the editorial voices of America's major newspapers, whose roles in their respective communities -to say nothing of their charges under the First Amendment-depend on their established record for honesty and clear-sightedness. Alas, based on a thorough examination of the arguments of the editorial pages of four major U.S. newspapers by the journalist Chris Mooney in the new issue of Columbia Journalism Review, those newspapers that supported the Bush administration not only failed their readers during the run-up to the war; they have failed them ever since it ended as well.

and

...During the debate over the war, the [Washington Post] adopted the McCarthyite tactic-much in favor at the Journal as well-of accusing those who thought Bush's war plans [were unwise] to be "standing with Saddam."

We got a bit of that here at home too.

As for editorials closer to home, I'm still waiting to hear from The Union publisher Jeff Ackerman (for unknown reasons, could be email delivery failure due to Netsky B virus attack timing) answering my questions; editor Richard Somerville has responded with the succinct statement "The editorial speaks for itself".

I could use some help on the translation though, preferably into this language ("Imagine how different politics would be if debates were conducted in Tariana, an Amazonian language in which it is a grammatical error to report something without saying how you found it out") - which shares much with science language (with footnotes) and weblog language (with links). Not, alas, with newspaper editorial language.

posted by Anna at 3/4/2004 10:42:40 PM

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

We ought to do this more often

Excellent analysis by Chris Mooney of major newspapers' editorials from a year ago on the leadup to war:

of the six papers we studied, for the most part, the ones that supported war also accepted Bush's justifications for it.
...
The Wall Street Journal - whose editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, declined to be interviewed for this article - pushed questionable al Qaeda theories the hardest. ...
...
In examining the generally dismissive reactions to the UN's chief nuclear inspector, one comes face to face with the strongly nationalistic character of many U.S. editorial pages' writings in the run-up to war with Iraq. As the Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, a dissenter from his paper's editorial stance on Iraq, put it during the weeks preceding war, "Here in America, there is general agreement that we are right and everybody else on Earth is wrong."

The article is covered here too:

The only national news organization that emerges unscathed...is the low-profile Washington bureau of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain--which includes the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Jose Mercury News.
...
What do the editorial page editors say in their own defense? "We don't discuss the process that goes into writing the editorials," ... "I do wish we'd been more skeptical of Powell's WMD claims before the UN." Others remain faithful to their own discredited narratives.
...
it was too little, too late: When we needed [the press] most, they weren't there. CJR gave the last word to the intelligence writer Thomas Powers. "All these papers are on notice," Powers ["highly respected writer on intelligence issues for The New York Review of Books and author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda"] said. "They've seen what happened. They were hustled."

Also from the Mooney article:

In Powers's recent NYRB article "The Vanishing Case for War," he reached this jaw-dropping conclusion:
In the six months since the President declared an end to major combat in Iraq not a single one of the factual claims about Iraqi weapons and links to al-Qaeda has been robustly confirmed, and in most cases there has been no confirmation of any kind whatsoever.

posted by Anna at 3/3/2004 11:19:04 PM

stem cell update

100 bioethicists speak out against the sacking of May and Blackburn

17 new stem cell lines, albeit only for privately funded research.

After five minutes of long and arduous thought, I have come up with the solution to the stem cell controversy - make the federal funding voluntary. We already have a checkbox on our income tax forms to direct $1 of our taxes to the presidential campaign fund; have a second one for embryonic stem cell research. And, when this research yields cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes etc, reserve the 'tainted' cures for those persons who checked the box.

Update (why are we not surprised):
Washington Post article quoted in Amygdala:

Asked why Blackburn and May had been let go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said the two members' terms had expired in January, and they were on "holdover status." Asked whether, in fact, all the council members' terms had formally expired in January, she said they had.

Pressed on why Blackburn and May had been singled out for dismissal, she said: "We've decided to go ahead and appoint other individuals with different expertise and experience." She would not elaborate further.

posted by Anna at 3/3/2004 10:35:42 PM

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

On stem cell research

When new science ignites a firestorm - very nice piece in S.F. Chronicle, putting it into personal and historical context.

Talking to bioethicist William F. May (recently sacked by Bush) on priorities:(via)

...he does say that religious conservatives need to understand that one valid principle can collide with another.
...
He recalled what [May's] own doctor said to him about the question of stem-cell research.

"Bill," May recounted, "if you're in a burning building with a freezer full of hundreds of pre-implanted embryos and with a 2-year-old child, and you had to pick one or the other, which would you save?"

posted by Anna at 3/2/2004 11:49:14 PM

Monday, March 01, 2004

Echoes in the broader world

Haiku recipe for political rickets (not sure the link is still good):

bring discourse to boil
strain substance and set aside
garnish with discord

Slacktivist on schoolhouse logic:

...Mikey, one of your students, comes running into your office, visibly upset. You ask him what's the matter.

Mikey tells you that one of the other students, George, beat up his little sister as part of a racket in which he's been stealing lunch money from the first graders.

"I hate that guy," Mikey says, looking like he means it. "He oughtta be expelled."

So you send Mikey back to class and you call George into your office to confront him point blank about the accusations.

"Who told you that?" George asks, "Mikey? You can't trust what he says about me. He hates me. He thinks I oughtta be expelled."
...
If you're a good principal, you'll realize that you can't sort this out sitting at your desk pondering abstractions and getting "balanced" quotes from both sides to ensure fairness. The issue is not who said what, but the substance of the charges.

From Nate over at Dan Gillmor's -

It's a common dishonest argumentative technique, used by all sides in all contexts when you don't have an answer for the key issues, to pick on small errors on the edges while ignoring the elephant in the middle.

That's what the anti-[X] crowd is doing. Unable to face up to the [elephant], they are reduced to waving their hands and saying, "Oooh, look at this error over here."
I've seen this technique used over and over again. The most effective rebuttal is either to ...keep on pounding away with facts ... or confront...with variations of, "Yes, but you ignored the main point of the article. Please respond to that."

From Busy Busy Busy, the Shorter Charles Krauthammer on The Democrats' Smear Race:

Democrats ruthlessly critique Mr. Bush's policies and actions, making him look bad, yet they say Republicans are mean!

Name that religion -
Andrew Sullivan shares the spiritual teachings of Mel Gibson
(and, speaking of spiritual teachings...)

posted by Anna at 3/1/2004 10:47:36 PM

Sunday, February 29, 2004

If God had wanted us to subscribe He would have given us a [real] newspaper

Arggh. Yesterday's editorial in The Union (to paraphrase: "All the candidates are competent but a couple of them played dirty by pointing out that their respective main opponents are a) funded by development interests and b) two-faced") was a bit over the top (as was this post, 24 hrs ago; italics indicate further editing)

For background info, Friday article: Beason: Diaz got negative (not "Diaz: Beason is negative"?):

Recent rain showers in Nevada County moistened the earth and left plenty of mud for slinging ...
[Diaz's campaign sent out a mailer covering ground similar to the Straight Talk post below - and no, I had no idea it was coming]

[Diaz:] "I have conducted my campaign on three principles: Say what is in your heart, run on what you believe, and let the people know what the other guy is doing."

The mailer says Beason claims to be "a man who listens to both sides and tries to find common ground (but) his own words tell a different story."

It's a pity The Union couldn't link to the stories in its own archives, thus helping its readers to make up their own minds.

Saturday's editorial, Solid list of candidates to pick from [but]

District 1 supervisor candidate Olivia Diaz's recent mailer misuses* partial quotes by her opponent, Nate Beason. Some are blurbs from columns written for The Union two years ago, which, by design, were point-counterpoint comments about opposing columnists' views**, not about Diaz or issues relevant to 2004...Others are...

I'm not going to defend all of the quotes; some are relatively weak. But the substance of the mailer is correct; the writings of the pre-campaign Beason and the recent Beason do not appear to come from the same person. And this speaks to the issue of integrity; a person with integrity is not a chameleon.

*And to argue, as the editorial board does, that exposing Beason's "effluvium-laden columns" commentary is a "misuse" of the quote because it doesn't directly impact Diaz or the current "on the table" campaign issues is either naive or disingenuous. Character matters. Judgement matters. Being able to disagree amicably and constructively with civil people matters. Beason's columns (links in Straight Talk) demonstrate a glaring deficit in this area.

I've sent the following questions to The Union's editor and publisher; I hope they will have the grace to respond:

[quote from editorial:]
"District 1 supervisor candidate Olivia Diaz's recent mailer misuses partial quotes by her opponent, Nate Beason. Some are blurbs from columns written for The Union two years ago, which, by design, were point-counterpoint comments about opposing columnists' views, not about Diaz or issues relevant to 2004. Others are taken from Beason's recent interview with the Editorial Board which, when read in context, offer a different meaning. No doubt the same results could be achieved by selecting "sound bites" from Diaz's transcript."
When I read this passage, the impression I get as a reader is that you [editorial board of The Union] believe that Diaz and Beason are no different in tone, and that if anything, Diaz is a bit more slimy (or has received poor campaign advice) since she is trying to insinuate that there is a difference.

Is this the impression that you wished to convey?

Do you believe that the quotes used in the mailer do not accurately reflect the tone of Beason's past writings?

Do you believe that the tone of Beason's past writings is no different from the tone of Diaz's past writings?

Do you believe that good planning, civil civic discourse, and maintaining Nevada County's quality of life are not issues that are "relevant to 2004"?

** Do you believe that what someone says in their "point-counterpoint comments about opposing columnists' views" - especially when compared to those opposing (and infinitely more civil) columns - is not relevant to judging the integrity of their character and their fitness for office?

Do you believe it is the duty of The Union (and, by extension, its editorials) to accurately reflect reality? (still over the top; sorry)

Do you believe that the reader would have been more accurately informed if you had provided links to the writings in question, rather than just quoting a single paragraph?

Do you consider what The Union does to be journalism?

Was this an editorial column that you, personally, feel you can be proud of? Did it meet your standards for quality, fairness, and accuracy?

And, not in the letter, but fundamental: What are the ground rules? - when a candidate does grossly misrepresent himself in an attempt to fool the voters, who has the responsibility to bring this to light, and how? Is there a way to do it that is not "mud slinging"?

My limited personal experience:
The only District 1 supervisor candidatethat I've actually spoken with has been Nate Beason. Early in the campaign, he came to my door, and said he was running for Supervisor. I said "Sorry, I'm voting for Peter" [Van Zant, one of the "leftist and left-leaning functionaries of the Board of Supervisors spewing, to wretched excess..." in Beason's words]. Mr. Beason smiled a polite smile and said "Well, if he doesn't run, maybe you'll vote for me?", giving no indication that there was any difference in political outlook between them.

There are times when this movement just looks better and better.

posted by Anna at 2/29/2004 10:45:18 PM

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