The news this evening is that the latest report on US intelligence failures in Iraq is scathing in its condemnation of those failures. Translation: The CIA didn’t know that Iraq had gotten rid of its WMD, didn’t know anything, really, but pretended to know.
CBS says the President is terribly concerned. He will study the document to see what more can be done to bring US intelligence up to speed.
Well, that makes it clear, doesn’t it? I’d call it a slam-dunk. President Bush – poor guy - attacked Iraq under the mistaken impression that it possessed those weapons.
Bosh.
But that’s how that story will play for many Americans who don't remember and are not reminded of the facts by TV news.
They probably don’t remember, for example, Paul Wolfowitz trying to tell the Congress that WMD was not the "real" reason for the preventative war, (To his credit, he tried. To his shame, he never quite get it out.)
If you have followed the story closely, read the 9/.11 Commission report and the relevant books, you know the Administration had a pre-existing strategy - they would oust Saddam Hussein and thereby change the Middle East. That 9/11 gave them the pretext. All they had to do was wrap Iraq and al Qaeda into a single enemy and launch a phony "War on Terror."
Today’s report says, I gather, that the CIA told George W. Bush what George Tenet knew Bush wanted to hear. Anybody surprised? Why else was Tenet treated as a hero when he fell.
Incidentally, the Albuquerque Journal carried a different kind of story on the Iraq war today on its "state news" page.
Seymour Hersh spoke to hundreds at NMSU about the war. Hersh, who termed his talk a "downer," said, among other things:
"Iraqi elections, boycotted by the Sunnis and managed by a huge military presence, were not a triumph of democracy…." (That’s a Journal paraphrase.)
What? Disagreeing with the consensus? Who does he think he is?
Hersh also said the guerrilla war isn’t over, that Abu Ghraib and similar scandals have alienated many in the Muslim world and that President Bush is " …not reachable…He sees what he sees he believes what he believes, he’s in his own world."
Who are you going to believe, the Administration (and its Democratic sycophants) or Hersh. Well, they did commit Abu Ghraib, Guantamano and such. And denied responsibility, leaving a few non-coms to take the fall.
Hersh? He broke the Abu Ghraib story.
Your choice.
Me, I just thought I would offer some context for that "scathing" intelligence report..
NPR reported this morning that President Bush, talking up his Social Security "reform" in Iowa, said opponents who deny the the program needs to be fixed may pay a price at the pols
You know and I know that his critics do not deny that Social Security has problems; most argue, however, that his "reform" will not solve them.
But the NPR story did not include that information.
This is a serious problem for journalism, conveying statements without context or rebuttal. I am tempted to call it malpractice.
Once a month I treat myself to the Sunday New York Times. The meal is too much, of course - I have leftovers for days - but the tastes and smells are inspiring.
Yesterday, Daniel Okrent, the Public Editor appointed after a Times' crisis - remember the lying reporter, arrogant editor, the credulity with which the Times bought Bush's blather on WMD? - wrote about the varieties of stories in the newspaper. He cited news analysis, columns, opinion, reviews, editorials and straight accounts. Okrent said he'd like to see more and better labels attached, but he sees these forms as the basis of "the newspaper of the future."
And what's that? It's where "writers' authority of voice and disitinctiveness of thought will distinguish great newspapers from the rat-a-tat of more conventionally iterative (and instant) forms of journalism," Okrent argues.
I told you the Times provided food for thought.
Before reading his ideas, I had come upon Winthrop Quigley's long Op-Ed feature in the Albuquerque Journal on the "health care industry."
If this kind of journalism is what Okrent is talking about, I want seconds.
Quigley is a Journal business reporter specializing in health care. He knows a lot abut the medical business and is dynamite at telling us what he knows in words we understand.
This piece, no exception, winds up with a reminder that health care is "more than science and economics." It is about "culture, society and values," too. Quigley goes on to suggest that we defer the debates on financ ing Medicare and Medicaid to first address questions like:
"What is the role of the elderly in our society? What is our collective responsibility for children? ..."
Makes sense to me, though i would add the query, what's the meaning of calling health care an industry? (It used to be a profession.)
Still, Quigley's voice requires attention and his thought is distinctive enough to
demand respect. Maybe Okrent is on to something.
I was reading the morning newspaper, which included several stories and Op Eds on the Schiavo case, when "Face the Nation" came on. It dealt with the same story. So did "Meet the Press."
I turned off the Tube. In the beginning, I followed the case with interest, but it's been all-Schiavo-all-the-time and I cannot take any more.
The story will go from everywhere to nowhere soon, when Terri Schiavo dies. Right now, however, you cannot escape it for ther simple reason that our corporate news mediums (and pretend-mediums) love to wallow in a dramatic story, splashing it all over us.
It's a good story, of course, but not just a story. It's a chance, too, for newspapers and networks to satisfy our appetites for human misery. For cable to satisfy its huge hunger for raw material. And for talk radio to exacerbate social tensions.
Did I hear you say, "Bread and circuses?"
Yeah.
So my first point is that the Schiavo case is both more and less than a story. It's a mammoth entertainment.
Point number two - this case should spur newspapers, broadcast and other so-called news organizations to report on religion regularly.
To its credit, the Albuquerque Tribune runs a weekly religion column that is informative and well-written. And most newspapers offer sporadic coverage, with features on major holidays.
But the print press does not treat religion the way it does politics, courts, cops, sports, science, schools and such.
Those are beats. Reporters cover them daily, learning a lot about the subject matter and the players. So their work better informs us.
Given the menace to our lives of Islamic fundamentalism, the menace to American democracy of Christian fundamentalism and the explosion we will see in "right to die" episodes that will accomplany the graying of America, it seems clear that religion will provide lots of events and issues to report.
All the more reason for a religion beat.
Bill Raspberry brings a lack of pretention to his syndicated column that may be self-defeating. He writes so plainly that I fear I've sometimes underestimated his abililty to identify what's crucial.
This morning's column (Albuquerque Journal) on the "all-or-nothing syndrome" is a case in point.
Raspberry bemoans what he calls, at one point, "the death of nuance." I might have said "a refusal to see complexity."
Semantics aside, Raspberry is complaining about citizens and news organizations, so-called, that mindlesslessly distort reality. He warns that "all or nothing at all is a pretty good path to nothing at all."
I could not agree more.
I would go deeper, though, arguing that the "all-or-nothing syndrome" is the imposition of a moral framework to obscure reality as well as an assault on rationality.
I think that's going deeper, but Raspberry might call it pretention.
I post my monthly Albuquerque Tribune column here after it's published. This was in yesterday's Tribune:
USEFUL TV NEWS?
Maybe back in the ignorant, clueless ‘60s when the tube wasn’t committed to maximum profit
By Arthur Alpert
I fear looking back. Might get stuck there. But an email – subject Dong Xoai – just knocked me smack into 1965. Dong Xoai, you see, is a hamlet northeast of Saigon where we shot a TV documentary once.
A guy in Texas wondered - did I know his Special Forces dad there? (No, but I’ll send him the film when I dig it out.)
Wow! Suddenly I’m observing a younger, very ignorant me. So clueless that he produced a Rorschach film – hawks found it pro- war, doves, anti.
No, it wasn’t great journalism, but I learned lots. First, respect for the GIs, confused and scared but soldiering on. Second – suspicion that they were sacrifices. As White House and Pentagon briefers described a simple war we were winning, these combat engineers and Special Forces waded through rice paddy Hell. (Plus ça change, eh?)
Lastly – told you I was young - I concluded TV news could be useful.
On retreating from his anchor chair, Dan Rather said something similar about making a difference, reminding me that the notion TV journalists might aid and abet American democracy wasn’t always laughable. The TV business wasn’t always committed to maximum profit.
Warning: I must commit history here to back that up:
1920s- 1930s: The first Radio Act sets up regulation "in the public interest, convenience and necessity."
Why? Chaos rules radio, a new technology that cannot make a buck. Businessmen demand regulation! Finally, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover accedes, telling them where on the dial they may broadcast and how powerfully. Dollars flow.
1940s-50s: Visionary, brawling pioneers like Bill Paley and David Sarnoff hire Murrow, Severeid, Brinkley, Cronkite (from print journalism, mostly) to do serious news on radio and, after WWII, television. Local stations follow in the early 60s.
Plus, the FCC creates educational TV "in the public interest."
1981 to today: Deregulation and its fruits - seven Colossi own the industry. Radio news - gone. Poisonous talk - swelling. TV news - empty calories.
For lack of a book on that decline-and-fall, here a few milestones in the evolution of the business, technology and politics:
Item: Networks discover "opportunity costs." Murrow’s "See It Now" makes money, but a sitcom at that hour could rake in bigger bucks.
Goodbye, Ed.
Item: Local stations employing show biz tools (attractive anchors, flashy video and graphics) win ratings.
Item: New technology (videotape, microwave, satellite) brings stories faster. Does zero, zilch, nada to improve content.
Item: Companies go public, responsible now to Wall Street. Bigger fish swallow them. And lo, broadcasters exit. Enter mega-corporations pushing "product."
TV news is now a "profit center." The "public interest?" Words.
The blessed First Amendment just celebrated during Sunshine Week restrains government, not the corporations processing whatever it is we flounder in daily. Media muck? Info-sausage? . Maybe Newszak. As Muzak’s elevator music is to real music, so is Newszak to real news.
1965 was eons ago. The idealist in TV news today - sorry, John Donne – that man is an island.
Surely news must make money, but if that’s all it does, it’s a commodity. Still, before you stone a broadcaster remember we buy the product. The Tube is our drug of choice.
Sad story but it’s not over. Remember the little flower in Picasso’s Guernica; there’s hope for journalism, too. Let’s ponder print and cyberspace in future columns.
For recommended reading on broadcast history, email Alpert, a semi-retired newsman from Albuquerque, at ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column appears in Insight & Opinion the fourth Thursday of the month.
In last night’s Albuquerque Tribune, the horoscope reading for Aries – that’s me - read:
"Nothing is written in stone right now. Even your opinions are subject to radical swings, as new information comes in…"
A horoscope defining intellectual honesty? That’s odd.
It’s a subject I return to often these days, because of the political right’s bitter, cruel, immoral tactics. The more they cheat and deceive, the less desire I have to stay open, adjust to new realities, concede my own fallibility and play fair. Instead, I want to fire back, which makes me feel better but risks bringing me down to their level.
Speaking of the sub-basement brings me to Linda Chavez, who almost became President Bush’s Secretary of Labor. Her latest syndicated column also appeared in yesterday’s Tribune. Her theme = clobbering organized labor for its support of the Democratic Party.
Chavez opened by reciting the most recent declines in union membership, making the point that the labor movement is shrinking. That’s true, but if so why call it "Big Labor" in the very next paragraph?
Her next argument is that today’s unions, unlike your father’s or grandfather’s unions, are more interested "in politics than collective bargaining." Is that ignorance or does she mean to distort history? I don’t know. I do know it's historically flawed. How does Chavez think labor got the right to organize, no less bargain collectively, if not through electoral politics?
She next offers a long list of big sums of money organized labor has given to Democrats. Fine. She never mentioning corporate contributions to the GOP. Space limitations, no doubt. .
She notes, further, that labor has helped "union friendly Republicans" like Senator Arlen Spector "who…beat back a primary challenge from a conservative. That’s a doozy. First, because Spector is a conservative and his challenger was from the extreme right. Second, because – I’m sure it was an oversight - she doesn’t mention that her hero, George W. Bush, also helped Spector. That might complicate her simple world, I guess.
But Chavez gets better. She charges the Democrats’ "willingness to block Social Security reform…" …is a "direct payoff to the unions…" This is an impressive sentence; I love the subtle suggestion that Social Security reform is on the table. It isn’t. President Bush is proposing to divert Social Security taxes to Wall Street, thereby undermining Social Security. It takes skill to cloak subversion in the word "reform."
As for the "payoff" to the unions idea, that’s imaginative.
You get the idea. Chavez is an apparatchik in the service of her political superiors. She would have prospered in the old Soviet Union. (And, come to think of it, in the present Russian government.)
I have strong biases. It’s tempting to organize the world accordingly. So easy. The example of Linda Chavez’s intellectual dishonesty should, however, help me stay on the straight-and-narrow. The way we Aries folks should.
I do wonder what her sign is.
I have fallen into the habit of assuming the honesty, while doubting the political conclusions of Christian rightists like Cal Thomas. This morning, however, his column on the Schiavo case suggests I may have to rethink my assumptions.
Thomas contrasts a materialist philosophy with another that says "...we are created by an infinite, personal God who has a plan for every life in every situation and circumstance and that no one should take a life except under the most extreme circumstances and only through due process or in self-defense."
Oh, yeah? Where did he read that? In the Torah? The New Testament? I've found his formulation in neither. Just, "Thou shalt not kill."
Could it be that Thomas distorts religious doctrine intentionally, introducing caveats in order to justify capital punishment and war while taking up the cudgels for Terri Schiavo and the unborn? That is, coincidentally, how the White House sets out to win elections.
Note: The reference to due process is precious. Too bad this Constitutional scholar didn't cite other elements of the Constitution, like federalism or state's rights or individual rights. Of course, they all make it clear that the President and the Congress are in violation of the spirit as well as the letter of the nation's basic law when they intervene in this sad family tragedy. Guess he hasn't read that far.
I have consistently found the Christian right neither Christian nor right, but I have assumed its leaders were honestly wrong. My mistake.
Et tu, New York Times?
In a story about news organizations buying Topix.net, Katherine Q. Seelye of the Times writes, "The three newspaper publishers have joined together for two other online projects..."
Joined together?
This redundancy is so common it may be foolish to quibble with it. Like the misuse of "unique" - which has long since surrendered its one-of-a-kind meaning and come to signify "unusual" - "joined together" may have achieved such currency as to be acceptable.
But I still wonder - might the three organizations have joined apart?
How many times have I made the point that the White House - and the leaders of the Republican Party - are not conservative? I know - too many. But the Congressional vote to intervene in the Schiavo case reminds me just how un-conservative these folks are,
This was the federal government overrulling the state. Like when the Supreme Court elected George W. Bush by stomping on Florida's rights. Conservatives would have respected federalism and states' rights in both cases.
I understand, though, how irresistible the action was. Imagine House GOP "exterminator" Tom DeLay, taking all kinds of heat, even some from Republicans, and facing - maybe - indictment from a Texas DA on criminal charges. How wonderful to change the subject. Even better, to change it to an issue of human compassion and right to life!
Mind you, he was but one of hundreds of politicians choosing to play doctor or religious authorit where common decency demanded only passivity.
But my point deserves repitition - the press's failure to accurately describe conservatism biases the public dialogue in favor of the rightist radicals in charge.
PS Rep. Tom Udall, who missed the vote, used the episode to remind people to execute a living will. Good point.
PPS The phrase "right to life" reminds me - according to former Governor David Cargo, a Roman Catholic, it is Church doctrine that it's wrong to use artificial means to prolong life.
I am not quite sure why the Albuquerque Journal used its "Career Marketplace" section today to present two stories on the courts vs. the press ( "...a trend that is making the new media nervous...,") but it did. Maybe it's the Journal's way of marking Sunshine Week,.
In any case, the basic story explains that the courts are going after reporters for information, with reporters most often ducking or resisting to protect their sources. It notes that several reproters have recently been found in contempt of court.
The story mentions New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, who are appealing their contempt convictions for refusing to name their sources in the Valerie Plame case. And there's a big color photo of the pair.
Keeping people up to date on the isue of courts vs. reporters is praiseworthy
I do notice, however, that the stories - there's a sidebar listing cases where news people have been jailed or fined since 1994 - ignore the politics of the Miller/Cooper subpoenas.
Miller never wrote about Valerie Plame. Nor, I think did Cooper; I am not absolutely sure in his case. What I do remember clearly is:
• Valerie Plame, wife of a critic of the President, was outed as a CIA agent by rightist columnist Robert Novak, who relied on White House sources for his information.
• It's illegal to blow the cover of a CIA operative.
• The special prosecutor recruited to determine the identity of the White House leaker has interviewed Novak.
• Novak is a friend of the White House.
• Novak has not been cited for contempt.
• The special prosecutor was named by former US Attorney General Ashcroft almost a year before the Presidential elections of November 2004, yet he did not finger anybody before the voting. (He still hasn't.)
OK, this is not the story of the courts vs. the press. It's a tangent. But it's hardly unrelated. And it's juicy, no?
Why not go after Novak? Why go after newspeople who got the dirt but decided not to write stories? Why is it taking so long to finger the White House leaker?
(Aside: Plame's husband opined that it was Karl Rove or somebody in his office. A Vice-Presidential aide has also been mentioned.)
Sounds like a coverup to me. And I wonder why the press doesn't pursue it vigorously.
The April Atlantic carries a long, long report on talk radio, "The Host", by novelist David Foster Wallace. It is a brilliant dissection of what talk radio has come to, and thereby offers what I found to be a scary insight into American culture.
Caveat: The layout - influenced by "Wired" and other hip publications - puts material usually contained in parentheses or relegated to footnotes alongside the main text. And the author also uses that border area to think out loud. It's all very creative and it makes reading the piece a trial.
But it's an extraordinary bit of journalism.
In a nice feature by Rozanna M. Martinez of the Albuquerque Journal, we learn that "Taking a horse by the reigns, in Hudson’s view, means providing it comfort and security…."
Reins, rains, reigns.
I guess this kind of spelling mistake is trivial; we certainly understand the meaning of the sentence. But they happen often and I think they are worth noting every once in a while because they raise the question - who’s editing?
Thursday, March 17, the Albuquerque Journal reported that police thought exposure was the cause of the death of a 39-year-old Zuni resident whose body was found in a lot near a motel in Gallup.
How it was found?
"…someone walking in the area spotted Niika’s body in a hollow hidden from sight."
Not easy.
I have just visited an Albuquerque blog offering very intelligent commentary by a fellow named Greg Burton. It’s at www. gregnburton.com. I recommend it highly.
This past Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal carried a political profile of GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist by James Kuhnhenn of Knight-Ridder. Informative, yes, but stupid, too, in its misuse of language. Yes, Mr. Kuhnhenn comitted what I have complained of umpteen times in this web log. (I guess he doesn't read it.)
We learn that Frist says he has 750 days to push the Bush agenda through the Senate, a job made difficult by - the reporter tells us - "conservatives who insist on prompt action, moderates who urge caution and Democrats who, at any moment, can get in the way."
You see?
The reporter is calling the White House and many Republicans in the Senate conservative when their agenda shows they are anything but. Call them neo-cons, right-wingers, the far right,Bush loyalists, whatever. They're not conservative, though.
(Also, he calls the minority of Capitol Hill Republicans who differ "moderates." Given their caution on foreign policy and affection for balanced budgets, I would say they are conservatives.)
Why get so excited? Because the chickens come home to roost some paragraphs later. "Conservatives," we read, "are pressuring Frist to quash any potential filibuster by changing longstanding Senate rules...etc., ettc."
Conservatives against the traditional institution of the filibuster? Nonsensical.
But that is what happens when reporters don't think about the meaning of words. They produce idiocies.
So much for the bad news.
The good news is that it probably matters not a whit For fewer citizens read newspapers these days.
Sick joke, huh?
Bernalillo County Probate Judge Merri Rudd appears regularly on Comcast's Gov Channel (16) to educate the public to probate law. Often she has guests on her program. Having run out of rational, coherent folks to talk with, she conversed with me last week.
Judge Rudd's program will run often, but unpredictably, over the next couple of weeks.
You have been alerted. Or is the word "forewarned?"
I agree with the critics who say Dan Rather was miscast as an anchor.
He was, however, the best TV reporter I have ever seen.
That is a tough job, you know. The TV reporter must see what is happening, consider possible implications and relate it – succinctly and clearly - all at once. That is beyond most reporters’ abilities. Rather did that and managed to be aggressive, too. Aggressiveness is part of the job description. Or should be.
He and his helpers messed up on the Bush-Texas Air National Guard story. I still do not understand why they invested so much in retelling an old tale Molly Ivins and other Texas news folks explored years ago.
But Rather’s punishment seems out of whack to me when I weigh it alongside, say, the free pass given to Fox, a news operation that retails daily a kind of fiction pleasing to the White House.
Happily, Rather plans to keep reporting for Sixty Minutes II. And if he lives long enough, he will some day get his due.
Veeery interesting, this growing consensus that the Bush attack on Iraq has succeeded in promoting democracy in the Middle East.
I turn to this subject, having read the morning newspapers. Democratic Governor Richardson of New Mexico, I learn, has complimented the Administration for "sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment." Conservative David Brooks praises Paul Wolfowitz for his consistency in pushing democracy. And conservative John Leo clobbers Teddy Kennedy and other liberals for not seeing the great progress in the Mideast and elsewhere.
I also listened to "Counterspin," the syndicated press review radio program that speaks from a leftist point of view. ("Counterspin" lives up to its name, offering a P-O-V 180 degrees from the Establishment media P-O-V. Keep in mind that the exact opposite of untruth is not automatically truth.)
Still, on this morning’s program, a freelance American news guy – not imbedded - said the reports we get from Iraq are generally "hotel" journalism.
Backward reeled my mind to an adventure in the Dominican Republic during a mini-civil war in the late 60s. A French "journaliste" and I left the bulk of the press corps at the hotel and made our way through the "enemy lines" to talk to the left-wing faction. (The US considered them Communists, which may have been so.)
The leftist leaders were friendly to us, though, and we prospered. That despite a scary moment at night when a rifle-toting rebel teenager doubted that we deserved to leave. We confused the kid in French and Spanish and lived to tell the story.
My point? International reporting is tricky. Fear of dying can affect your work. Language and culture act as restraints, too. There’s often censorship, too. (In Vietnam the Pentagon brass told one story at the famous "Five O’Clock Follies" in Saigon, the grunts in the field gave us another.)
Editors can make mistakes when far away from the scene. And, of course, news consumers cannot check reports from overseas against reality as easily as when the story is down the street.
So we do well to be just a bit cautious when consuming reports from afar.
To these considerations, add that the White House has a vested interest in persuading Americans and the world that its latest rationale for the war – spreading freedom abroad - is paying dividends.
Broadcasting’s "news product, " meanwhile, heavy on celebrity anchors and packaging,light as a feather on content, conveys very little news at all, no less the kind that diverges from the consensus.
As for serious news people, the very appearance of consensus should raise the caution flag. It wasn’t that long ago, remember, that everybody from the New York Times to Fox knew Iraq possessed WMD. Knew!
So, as the White House, the GOP, its allies in the corporate Democratic Party and much of the press come together on all this good news about democracy in the Middle East, it’s just good common sense to remember:
o Not one Middle Eastern nation has, in fact, gone democratic since the US went to war. (What about Afghanistan? Kabul, maybe, but no, not Afghanistan.)
o.The much-ballyhooed Iraqi elections, while positive, do not come close to making that state a democracy.
o Democracy may not equal freedom. If Pakistan, for example, were to go democratic tomorrow, we would face another radical Islamist regime with nuclear weapons ready to fire.
What was that old saw about being careful what you wish for?
• In the Mideast, the spirit of democracy probably burns brightest in Iran, which has been the case for several years. We do not kow if it will survive the Bush policy on Iran.
Warning: Consensus may be dangerous to your grasp of the truth. As for this specific consensus, that the Bush war on Iraq has ignited a new democratic flame in the Mideast, it may turn out that way.
But, to say the least, it’s premature to proclaim it as truth today. Unless, of course, you do so as a White House apologist.
Last night I attended a lecture at Albuquerque Academy by Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center.
She’s a brilliant observer of the press and the public dialogue. She intervenes to improve both through her books, reports, appearances on TV and via factcheck.org.
So why was her presentation on "Fact and Politics" so sad?
First, she talked about educating the voters to see through the "labeling" of bills and issues, to defend themselves against "facts" that are fictitious and to be wary of "scare" tactics.
Also, she lamented journalists’ habits of using "balance" in lieu of fact-finding as well as portraying elections as "horse races." (Rightly so, though she failed to put those bad habits in the context of corporate news mediums.)
Her goal, she said, was more "critical thinking" in the electorate.
In other words, Jamieson was unfailingly rational.
What’s wrong with that?
I will die before the electorate becomes rational. So will Jamieson. You, too.
Surely after this last election, in which the True Believer (aided by cynics, true) defeated the Rationalist, it should be clear that humans do not choose their leaders by a rational process.
They respond to emotion, to will, to vibrations negative and positive, as well as to rational argument.
George W. Bush believes in himself (the power of religion?), in corporate ownership of America and in an imperial foreign policy. That belief – not the specific policies - is the fundamental reason he won.
This assault from True Believers (on the right) is why liberals are now in some disarray. True, liberals can get as lost in ideology as anybody else, but they are – by definition – dedicated to rational problem - solving.
Sorry, but the forces of Belief are stronger than the forces of Disbelief. Always have been. Consider the history of religion. Not just the godly kind, but the secular (Communism). Even the Enlightenment rose on the wings of Belief.
So liberals are torn. They can reply to the Thunder of True Believers with rational (read, timid, emotionally unsatisfying) arguments. Or they can commit to their own Gospel and throw their own Lightning Bolts. But that makes them feel as if they are being irrational, simplistic, opportunistic, even True Believers!
So they dither – see the Kerry campaign – and they lose.
I appreciate Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s mind and spirit and idealism. It’s just that her approach – misstating the nature of humans - cannot prevail.
Which is why it was a sad evening.
A few days ago, I noted an AP story on the Medicaid budget battle that was so conventional in language and construction that I found it hard to understand. I said most readers probably would not finish the account, which I described as news nobody can use.
Saturday, March 6, the Albuquerque Tribune ran a story by Gail Russell Chaddock (Christian Science Monitor) on the same topic. She did it the right way.
The key difference between Chaddock’s account and the AP’s is that her first paragraph isn’t the latest development, but rather a set-up for what follows.
She tells us that Medicaid, slated for the "single largest cut" in the Bush budget, will be the "bellwether for how Washington will cope with an increasing share of the nation’s health costs."
Her second graph explains the Bush rationale for the cut – the need to reduce the federal deficit, mostly. That leads logically to the adverse reaction of many governors in paragraph three.
And so her story proceeds, touching on Washington’s role in health care, why Medicaid is expanding so quickly, improving the states’ administrative flexibility and the governors’ need to balance their budgets.
The story ends as it started, with the tension between reducing the deficit and shredding the medical safety net.
Also, while Chaddock never gets folksy, she does write simply.
Bottom line? I learned something. In fact, I will now better understand New Mexico’s struggles with its Medicaid budget.
And while I cannot prove it, I suspect more readers who embarked on the Monitor’s story finished the voyage.
One of my purposes here is news interpretation. It's also a lot of fun. Filling in the blanks, that is, that conventional stories cannot.
Like this morning’s New York Times story on the seizure, by the Food & Drug Administration, of millions of tablets of two medicines from GlaxoSmithKline plants in Tennessee and Puerto Rico.
The FDA said it’s been trying to get Glaxo to solve quality-control problems for two years without success.
Here are two paragraphs from the story:
"The FDA said that neither pill was medically necessary and that many
alternatives existed for both. It added that it knew of no patients
harmed by the poorly made pills and said patients could safely take any
pills they had left.
Despite the absence of evidence that the pills had harmed anyone, the
agency said, a drug maker must be able to assure the public that its
products are properly made."
And one more that begins with a quote from the FDA:
"’FDA and the Department of Justice will not allow drug manufacturers
to ignore our high public health standards for drug manufacturing,’ said
John M. Taylor, the agency's associate commissioner for regulatory affairs."
OK. You have the picture. The FDA is clamping down on the industry.
Based on what I know about the relationship between FDA and Big Pharma, that picture has been doctored. (Pun intended.)
I see the FDA’s action as a cover intended to persuade the ill informed that FDA really regulates the pharmaceutical industry.
First, look at the FDA’s own information: The FDA said that neither pill was medically necessary…" So why is it on the market?
"…and that many alternatives existed for both." Forgive me, but why is it on the market?
Another point – the FDA opposes re-importation of drugs from Canada on the grounds that it cannot guarantee their safety. But Glaxo has been manufacturing these pills badly, according to the FDA, for two years. In Tennessee and Puerto Rico! Why single out Canada? Hmm. Might that have something to do with the price differential? Yeah, Big Pharma’s pills are so much less expensive north of the border that an American consumer can have them sent back here and still save money.
Incidentally, the Times says the drugs are "the antidepressant Paxil CR, which had $725 million in sales last year and is used by some 450,000 patients in the United States each month; and Avandamet, a diabetes medicine, whose sales are undisclosed but are far smaller."
Paxil CR is a controlled release version of plain old Paxil; Glaxo marketed it to blunt generic competition for plain old Paxil.
Now add to this what you already know about how the FDA researches drugs (mostly, it lets manufacturers do that job). Season with the fact that many FDA officials and consultants get freebies and/or big consultant fees from Big Pharma. Stir in what you remember about FDA approval of drugs that kill people who take them. And the FDA’s after-the-fact decisions to take drugs off the market that they’d previously approved.
I rest my case.
PS Critics have long noted that regulatory agencies set up to play watchdog play lapdog instead, thereby protecting those industries from the public’s scrutiny and wrath.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.
It’s traditional. Reporters write their stories pyramid-like, sharp and pointed at the top and broadening out at bottom. They put the newest and most crucial information first, leaving background for later. Editors know this, so when space is tight, they trim the story from the bottom. That way, they know that the latest developments are not lost
This, I surmise, is what happened to an AP story on Sen. Byrd's defense of filibusters that the Albuquerque Tribune carried Thursday, March 3. Carried, that is, with unfortunate consequences.
The lead told us that Sen. Byrd says he meant his description of Hitler’s rise to power as a warning to heed history; he was not comparing Republicans to Adolph. Also, in the second paragraph, we read that two Jewish groups and a pair of GOP politicians nevertheless chastised the Senator. And that one of those critics – it’s not immediately clear which – referred to Byrd’s membership as a youth in the KKK.
All that information was in the first two paragraphs. The story, as published, ran 11 paragraphs. But guess what? Neither Jewish group was identified. Nor was the source of the KKK reference. And only one Republican Senator is quoted.
I guess the editor cut from the bottom, leaving those references near the top as orphans.
This is not a quibble. As I read the story, I see that GOP Senator Santorum engaged in an old political trick, intentionally misconstruing what a critic says so as to accuse that critic of – in this case – lessening "the decorum of the Senate." Horrors!
(In fairness, Democrats often employ the same gambit.)
Knowing what I know, however, I want to know more - like the name of the other Republican Senator. Like who cast the KKK stone. And, crucially, which Jewish organizations?
It would be useful to know, you see, if they are broad-based or narrow. Orthodox, conservative or reform? Aligned with the GOP or non-partisan?
Heck, in this day and age, when front groups claim center stage – think USA Next - I want to be certain that those Jewish organizations upset with Sen. Byrd ...well, that they exist.
I was saying yesterday that conventional newswriting repels readers.
This morning, the Albuquerque Journal offers (page C2, Around the Metro Area) a four-paragraph story on a meeting about the future of Santa Fe's Armory that...well, that puzzles me.
The first graph - which says veterans will get together in Albuquerque today to consider a pending bill to transfer ownership of the property. It ends with "according to a news release."
The second graph tells us where and when.
The third, which explains where the Santa Fe Armory is (Old Pecos Trail) how big its acreage (7.5 acroes) and names three organizations housed in the building, ends "the release states."
The fourth tells us those entities lease space from the Department of Military Affairs, "according to the release." It explains the Legislautre is considering a bill to move the property to ther Department of Cultural Affairs.
The phrases around which I have put quotes are atrributions. My problem is that I don't understand why they are there.
News organizatiosn attribute information or statements routinely. First, to be clear and accurate. The second aim is to deflect criticism - "Hey, Joe Blow said that, not the Journal." And the third is to defend against legal action.
You find lots of attribution in stories where there is controversy - criminal trials, political disputes, neighborhood dustups and such. Or uncertainty, as in the first account of a crime, where you do well to say "Police said...."
But why here? Why spend so much space attributing this story?
Perhaps the reporter could not reach the source of the release; that might justify the first attribution. But the others relate to information that isn' controversial and that may be easily confirmed with a phone call or two.
These attributions do serve, however, to slow and muddy the story, making it longer and less interesting. Which is why I bring up the subject. Newspapers need to be more reader-friendly, not less.
Or am I missing something?
Newspapers are going nuts these days trying to find a formula for keeping readers. That may not be in their power; as this society continues to atomize, why keep abreast of the community?
Having said that, I suggest you look at an AP story in today’s Albuquerque Journal (Govs Shift Medicaid Focus to Congress, p. 9). I have read it twice, all 14 paragraphs. And despite my long-standing interest in Medicaid and Medicare, I have only a tenuous grip on what it is about.
Frankly. I don’t see how anybody else would get even that much out of it. In fact, I don’t see why anybody else would plow through the whole story.
The story represents traditional journalism. That is to say, first, that it uses a special language. And, secondly, that it's constructed with the "background information" at the very bottom.
No wonder, then, that nobody - except students of health care, of politics or of journalism - will grasp what the reporter is saying.
I have just looked at the story again. It’s about the gap between what President Bush proposes and what most state governors want to fund Medicaid and reform it. It is also about how the Congress views that dispute. It touches on the differences between Senate and House, too.
Complicated, huh? Sure is. Which is why the reporter needed to start his story by explaining Medicaid’s crisis, noting that funding is a big problem for the states and becoming one for Washington. Then he should have told us how the President addressed the problems in his budget, followed by reactions from the governors. That would have led logically to Congressional attitudes.
And all this should have been translated from governmental gobbledygook to American English.
There is no theory of journalism, as there are theories underlying medicine or psychology. If, however, such a news philosophy existed, surely it would contain the idea of usefulness to readers. To be useful, news must be readable.
To more folks than the aides at the White House and Capitol Hill, I mean.
Newspapers can do better.
And that is my sermon for the day.
PS I have just reread the headline and the first paragraph, where headline writers most often find the lead. That paragraph is so muddy I would have lost my footing. Hat’s off to the headline writer for coming up with something plausible.