I have always wondered why some much time is wasted on the "bias discourse." The question is not really "does the press have a liberal/conservative bias?" (whatever those labels can be said to mean these days -- and I don't think they mean much at all.)

The interesting question is, if the press is biased, what difference does it make?. If the case is that the press has a liberal bias, then it is hard to look back on the Reagan Administration and the Bush Administrations and GOP majorities in the House and Senate and Governor's offices and imagine that it has made much of a difference.

If you are old enough to remember back to when the press was part of "the establishment" and viewed by many as conservative the whole business seems a little silly.

What we need the press to do is to tell the truth. The first step would be for the press and others to recognize that there is a truth to be told and this is harder and harder to do when so many respond with charges of agenda! agenda! to any set of facts that don't match their preconceived assumptions about the way the world works.

Oliver Cromwell said it: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, please consider that you may be mistaken."

Posted by: PRW at August 24, 2005 12:02 AM | Permalink

Jay,
I have a question for you. We both agree that a constructive discussion of the press involves what we want the big press to do. I would say something along the lines of Democracy Now! only with mass distribution so the truth is not a boutique offering , but potentially common sense for the country.

What I want to know is, where do you draw the line between constructive presstalk and dumb bias course?

I find myself quite mystified by how clear and intuitive the distinction seems to appear to you. From my perspective, Austin Bay is very articulate and he is very uncharacteristically diplomatic and inclusive. But at the end of the day, he is a man who makes his living as a professional right-wing media operative.

He is uniquely ambitious in the sense that he thinks from the perspective of someone like Karen Hughes--about how to shape the original message-- than he does like Hugh Hewitt, someone who is concerned with how to spin the message what brung ya. But the three of them share essentially the same goals and biases, and every word Bay has to say on your blog is toward the end of advancing the same agenda Hughes and Hewitt are advancing.

My question: Why are the neo-con trolls on your blog more annoying than Austin Bay? What makes Bay more than a super neo-con troll on steroids presenting his design for full-spectrum neo-con media dominance aside from his having better manners?

Where is this mysterious line between constructive discussion about how to build a better neo-conservative media system, and brain dead neo-con bias criticism?

Austin Bay is laying out his PR strategy for PROGRAMMING right-wing bias into press coverage. Why do you see Bay's PR strategy as a serious discussion about the future of the press and your commenters affirmation of the bias Bay self-consciously advances in his post--in precisely the manner he intended to elicit by what he wrote--as dumb bias discourse?

Wasting my time reading a respectful and articulate neo-con plan for full-spectrum neo-con media dominance that is not as immediately self-destructive and reality-challenged as Karl Rove's totalitarian approach bores me with its relentless "media not following my agenda are broken media" ranting.

Austin Bay's bias rant makes me feel dumber. Why do you post it? Why aren't you bored by it? Being annoyed with the commenters' bias-oriented responses to your posting Austin Bay's bias rant is like being annoyed that Yankees fans show up for Yankees games.

Bay is playing the bias game, and when you put his post on your site, so are you. Why the judgmental praise and blame about commenters playing the game you started with your conservative friend?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at August 24, 2005 3:11 AM | Permalink

Mark, the trolls are more annoying because they keep saying the same thing over and over while Bay just said it once, and because when you distill his opus down to its essence — "The press should be an instrument of government policy so long as it's a government and a policy of which I approve" — it's considerably more honest than most similar polemics. You had to run a lot of traditional, dishonest press-baiting through the still to get to the moonshine, but at least it was actually there to be found.

Jay's desire to find an honest debate with someone on the right is understandable. It's depressing that Bay chose to abuse Jay's hospitality, but oh well. Maybe John Cole will step up.

Posted by: weldon berger at August 24, 2005 5:26 AM | Permalink

Lesser of Two Evils?

So what about the rumors of Google or Yahoo buying that big classifieds outfit over in Europe? Maybe the two giants will battle it out, leaving a niche for those who put the citizens above the bottom-line?

One can hope, right? ;)

I mean, it's spooky thinking of Google or MSN as a huge local information player. The fact that Gannett and Knight Ridder (and Tribune?) bought into Topix.net is interesting. It's another 'journalism algorhythm' type of site.

Will the victor be the one who removes people from the process, from the newsroom? Or will the ones who include outside citizens in the process with the help of local people, human journalists, come out on top in the long run?

-kpaul

Posted by: kpaul at August 24, 2005 5:35 AM | Permalink

This is really an interesting blog to read, especially for someone without affiliation to the MSM. However, I often think about it as the "Buggywhip and Wagon Manufacturing Association" discussion about how they're going to reform their industry to get back the business from those upstart automobile makers. At times it's really kind of sad. If you want to change, yet fail to see that bias IS a big piece of your problem, the rest is futile.

Posted by: Mike in Colorado at August 24, 2005 9:01 AM | Permalink

FYI, you might want to fix two of the links in this post. First of all, the neo-neocon post you link to is a completely unrelated post on spambots, not either of the two recent posts that addresses these issues. Second, you give Neuro-Conservative's name as "Nero-Conservative," which I have to imagine would be a different kind of conservative entirely...

Posted by: alex at August 24, 2005 9:52 AM | Permalink

Whoops, I see you've already fixed the neo-neocon link. Thanks!

Posted by: alex at August 24, 2005 9:54 AM | Permalink

I don't have a problem with bias. We all have it. My only complaint about the MSM is they try to pretend they don't have any. I say, just let the reporters report, but also let them state their bias up front and let the readers decide. A democracy is best served by many voices, not a few. But it is also best served by truthfullness. If someone is reporting on the war that's fine. But they should also have a disclaimer about how they feel about the war. Much like a stock adviser on TV saying I think GM shares are a good buy and then in the same breath says, "I hold GM stock." That's just being upfront with people.

That's all I ask. Give me your reporting but also give me your disclaimers. Perhaps journalists could have a web site where they list their bias on Bush, the war, Cindy Sheehan, and alien abductions.

Posted by: Ted at August 24, 2005 9:57 AM | Permalink

"Instead you have driven yourself into a logic loop. Deep down, you don’t believe in an objective press. Deep down you don’t believe our press is objective." -- JR

Instructive on this point is Nick Lemann's profile of Hugh Hewitt in the current New Yorker.
One of Lemann's points is that Hewitt, a journalist-cum-political- operative, takes as a given that all journalists are journalists-cum-political-operatives.
It's the arrogance of the true believer: The unspoken and unexamined assumption is: I am this way, therefore others are this way.
A Hewitt can't even comprehend the idea that a political reporter (like Lemann) might be an apolitical creaure, for whom it's the journalism that counts, not the politics. Expecting him to comprehend that is like asking a Saharan camel driver to comprehend an Eskimo.
He would be stunned to listen in at, say, any watering hole popular with sports writers, where he would discover that they aren't talking about sports; they are talking about journalism -- who's good, who's bad, who's up, who's down.
Now, one might argue that such solipsism has its fatal pitfalls, and one would be right -- but it's not bias, it's self-interest in the old-fashioned sense of the word (i.e., interested most of all in one's self).

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 24, 2005 11:14 AM | Permalink

Jay,

I'll make my point short and sweet, because you've made it obvious that dissent and criticism are not welcome here.

"And here’s my suggestion to participants in the previous thread. The bias discourse, however justified you may find it, is making many of you dumber by the day. You should be concentrating on getting more of your people into the mainstream media, and making great journalists out of them."

I AM one of "my" people in the press (what are we, an ethnic group?). I tried to relate my impressions of someone who is IN THE BUSINESS who sees bias all the time.

What I got was dismissal as some sort of delusional nut-job, mostly from a guy who has shown himself to be wholly unobjective in his owns words, printed originally on this very site. We both know who we are talking about.

But I am not going to argue with you. There is no point:

"And you should be discussing the bias the press should, in your considered view, have."

This is a great example. It is a complete misrepresentation of what was written. Actually its worse then a misrepresentation. Its fabrication.

Again, I have no need to argue with you. Everyone can reread it for themselves. Let them decide.

The emperor truly has no clothes, but instead of no one willing to tell him, he is of no mind to hear it.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 24, 2005 1:33 PM | Permalink

This is completely an aside, but it has to be done.
Capt Wrath:
There's no point in your claiming that I'm not "objective."
Since I took my current assignment-- which is to have and publish strong opinions -- I've never claimed nor sought objectivity.
In fact, I have written at length that the traditional notion of "objectivity" is a false god that leads reporters and readers astray.
Try to pay attention.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 24, 2005 1:56 PM | Permalink

Wow. I feel that I've just stumbled into Delusion City. "Apolitical" reporters, indeed.

Posted by: mac at August 24, 2005 3:57 PM | Permalink

I'm with Mike in CO. This thread and the last one have the tone of buggy whip manufacturers debating how to improve their product.

Here's what Bill Quick had to say at his blog in response to our genial PressThink host: What I know about technology is that it destroys centralized systems... What will remain is the talents and the expertise of individuals, and the intelligent systems that will be developed to aggregate them and provide "trust product" to those who will consume news-based products.

The news information caravan of the future has moved on, and the bias and MSM dogs bark.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 24, 2005 4:52 PM | Permalink

Recognizing that you are biased is a good thing.

Doing your best to tell the truth is your (or our) intellectual responsibility. The way to reconcile those two points is not to say "I'm biased and I'm proud", but to say "I'm biased and so I must make additional effort to make sure that I'm confirming things that agree with my bias, make an additional effort to find sources that disagree with my bias, make an honest effort to report them fairly, and give thought to what must be done to be a trustworthy source in the face of that bias."

You got off on a better track this time: you quote Bay's point as: “The Bush Administration must revitalize its public diplomacy, and that means ‘rolling forward’ and establishing a new, more mature relationship with the press…But the NY-DC-LA axis must also ‘roll forward.’ It’s in their institutional interest as well as simple survival.”

I don't care if you think it's fair to criticize "bias", frankly. But it's in the profesional mainstream press's self interest to figure out why they have so lost the confidence of the people who are buying their output.

There are some obvious things that can be done:
- reveal your editorial and publishing staff on the masthead (are you blushing, Steve? You should be.)

- be careful that you aren't using the adjective "conservative" any more often than the word "liberal," (and for some instruction on that, look at how often Judicial Watch is described as "conservative" when attacking a Democrat, but merely as a "watchdog group" when attacking a Republican.)

- break the habit of thinking that because someone disagrees with you, they must be mentally insufficient (Jay, you might want to rethink "making yourselves dumber".)

- care more about trying to find truth than which side you're on; criticize Paul Krugman's falsehoods as well as Rush Limbaugh's.

If the mainstream press can put their greater resources and existing infrastructure to work in a way that increases the currently abysmal level of trust they receive, there may be a place for them. Otherwise, they're lost. If's come down to that: reform or die.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 24, 2005 5:02 PM | Permalink

The problem is not one of bias, but one of quality. We can all cite examples of they said this, but not that and then point to bias as the reason.

The second anyone points to bias they are inviting victim status. I believe that the MSM truly tries to validate everything they report to fit the story they are telling. They just don't tell all sides of the story. This is an example of poor quality journalism, not bias.

In my mind it is that journalists try to "make a difference". It is just as important to report the things you don't find as much as the things you do. However, the things you don't find don't sell newspapers or attract viewers. But not reporting them at all does not present a full picture of what is happening.

That is what is reflected in the lack of quality in recent reporting.

Posted by: Tim at August 24, 2005 5:06 PM | Permalink

One word: pitiful.

I didn't participate in the now-closed thread (too busy creeping out people other than Mr. Rosen), although I wrote about it with some amazement on my own weblog. To tell the truth I thought the ex-thread was getting a bit silly, especially once it got to the "press hates the military" thing. The only worthwhile thing about it was that it exposed the demons lurking inside the participants (including and especially Rosen), culminating in a weird display of pique.

Fine, we all have bad days. But then why open a thread to people he basically regards as sad dupes? Why the bitter, chiding intro to an open thread that he didn't want to open in the first place? Was he stung enough by criticism from the likes of neo-neocon and norma that he decided, grudgingly, he had to do damage control? And that he had to do it in such a way as to appear ridiculous?

Here's what he could have said: "This discussion hasn't been going in the direction I wanted and some of the important ideas are getting overlooked. I'm going to close this out and spend some time thinking over how to re-address the subject...blah blah blah." (Which he's done before.)

For that matter, if all Rosen wants to talk about is the stupidity of Bush's "rollback" strategy, he doesn't need Austin Bay, who did plenty of digressing of his own in his piece for PressThink (and also closed his thread, but without blowing a gasket). But if he wants to talk about rollback and have a very controlled discussion in which everyone genuflects at this utterly brilliant notion of Jay's, he should just change this to an invite-only roundtable or start banning people vigorously.

I'm not being facetious, I've seen forums that were ruled with an iron fist and benefited from that. I'm not sure Rosen has the temperament to do it well but at the very least people he doesn't like--people with that nasty right wing disease of the mind--will quickly get the message and go elsewhere. What frustrates people, including me, is to see the promise made of a really open exchange about the press (and that will include noise, it always does) and instead get "embarrassing" histrionics and condescension from someone who can't let go of the need to control the dialogue he keeps asking for.

Posted by: Brian at August 24, 2005 5:24 PM | Permalink

So here's a thought that crossed my mind during the cool-down phase. Many posters, here and elsewhere, seem to take it as a given that if soldiers report conditions in Iraq one way, and reporters see it another way, then the reporters are wrong. What makes that so obvious?

Clearly, soldiers have a better handle on certain aspects of war than reporters ever could. But it's not clear (at least to me) that they necessarily have a better handle on the war as a whole. Military historians have known for eons that individual soldiers' accounts of battle vary so widely that they can't be used reliably to trace the course of battle unless they are put in the context of numerous other accounts. That isn't because soldiers are incompetent or liars but because war is so complicated, scary and confusing that even soldiers a few hundred yards from each other on a battlefield may come away with vastly different experiences.

If that's true in a single battle, then it's true by many multiples in war as a whole. Soldiers are certainly no less biased, and not necessarily any better informed, than reporters who try to do on a daily basis what historians take years to assemble. So why assume that soldiers are more likely to get it right than reporters are?

Don't say it's because reporters never served. My three years of active duty did not even remotely prepare me to understand the shape of an entire war.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 24, 2005 6:00 PM | Permalink

OK, I'll bite.

Let's work on Mr. Bay's question, as Mr. Rosen frames it.

If the Bush administration believes the most important legacy they can leave is continuity in foreign policy, then they need to try to re-engage not only the institutional press, but a significant portion of the public.

Members of the administration may believe that they are communicating perfectly clearly. But as I'm sure any human has experienced, sometimes you understand what you're talking about but the listener doesn't. That's the signal to ask "Where did I lose you?" and start over again from there.

In a way, I think the bigfoot press is hungry for this sort of discussion. It's clear that there's a search on for people outside the administration who can explain the thinking of those inside it, because reporters can't get anyone inside to explain. (I saw a story on this somewhere recently, about the meaning of the phrase "a source close to the administration.")

There's a phrase I use for this when I'm dealing with newsmakers who refuse to explain themselves. "I'd like for you to treat me like a grown-up." When officials make an announcment and then act without much explanation, it's hard to tell their story well. It's much better if they explain their reasoning, tell you about the options they considered and discarded, share some background documents, etc.

Yes, treating reporters like grown-ups means you legitimize them.

This may not sound like a good idea to you if:
--You believe that reporters are mostly Democrats lying in wait to destroy a president they despise, and are thus incapable of listening.
--You believe that reporters are accidental or intential allies of the sworn enemies of the United States.
--You believe that big media will be dead in five years, replaced by an anarchy of bloggers.

Although if you believe the last, It would be interesting to hear what any administration's media strategy should be after the revolution.

Posted by: Jeff Amy at August 24, 2005 6:06 PM | Permalink

It's great you have an open thread here, Jay -- I really appreciate you putting up with the abuse your conservative readers, like me, give you. Dean Esmay's comments defending you, about being tired, were seconded by Steven Den Beste.

Please read David Frum's Another Lost Opportunity about how Bush failed to say much in his last big speech. Lots of emails complaining about Bush repeating repeated repeats being booooring. You'd like it!

Funny how Instapundit talks about Bush PR failing; and some Bush supporters almost echo Dean -- "he's tired."

I believe "objective" journalism is good, is worth striving for, and is difficult because of bias. However, I also believe, passionately, in "advocate" journalism, where the reporters/ paper is on a crusade to "make a difference." It's not honest to claim to be doing both types of journalism, in the same article.

Insofar as the press wants to "make a difference" in Iraq, there are these main possible measures. (1) US soldiers/ citizens killed; (2) all folk killed; (3) separate tallies of Coalition forces (possibly just US with notes on others), Iraqi gov't, terrorists (any young dead Arab men? how to know?), civilians.

You know that an honest, objective Free Press kills more US soldiers in Iraq than does Public Relations for Bush. I support such a Free Press, and the additional US deaths, but accept there is a cost. In lives.

But Public Relations against Bush kills even more US soldiers in Iraq. This enrages me, and makes it hard be anything but cynical about a press that won't even try to "measure the difference" they're making in Iraq.

Finally, a subversive thought. Reps have the House, the Senate, and the Pres.; they don't quite have the US SC -- though this is prolly coming. Still, many moderates do NOT think the Reps control gov't Branch #4 -- NY DC LA media. This allows us Reps to continue believing we're "victims" of the unjust oppression of Leftist news, and thus voting for Reps to stop the injustice of such news (plus NOT watching it anymore, now we got Fox! except not in Slovakia, except internet.)

I see on the right sidebar: Psst...The Press is a Player (in the campaign).
Yep. Also in the war on terror, and in Iraq.

As it was in Vietnam. Whose side is the Press playing for? How do know?

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 24, 2005 6:09 PM | Permalink

David Crisp asks: "So why assume that soldiers are more likely to get it right than reporters are?"

I think it might be because reporters in Iraq admit they are too afraid to leave their hotels and the Green Zone, and soldiers are out in the streets. But for some reason, reporters will try to convince us they have a better view of the war in Iraq reporting from their hotel rooms, than from being embedded with the military, because Gaia forbid, their "objectivity" might be compromised. What does this say about the press and their sacred "ethics?" Mostly that they don't give a damn about informing the public. A recent poll confirms this.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 24, 2005 6:26 PM | Permalink

Once again (how many times, O Lord ?)
Jay's original point wasn't that hard to follow:
Austin Bay has some interesting things to say that might move the conversation half-an-inch forward from the reductive "press bias" mantra. Let's talk about them.
Didn't happen.
Ain't never gonna happen.
No matter how often Jay tries to stretch the rubber band, it snaps back to its default position:
"Don't confuse me with nuance; the press is biased and I'm not."
End of story.
Dean Esmay said it best:
"I instituted comment account registration here on Dean's World for a reason: I got tired of taking personal abuse .... I also got tired of playing host to people who routinely mis-stated my opinion, accused me of believing things I don't believe, saying things I didn't say, questioning my honesty and my integrity, quoting me out of context, and questioning my motives. .... I have nothing more to say to you."

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 24, 2005 7:34 PM | Permalink

"So why assume that soldiers are more likely to get it right than reporters are?"

The point is not to assume that soldiers are more likely to get it right. The point is that what the soldiers think and see and know should be a part of the reporting mix. It's a huge part of the story. Talking once in a blue moon about how their families are coping back home and playing up the suffering angle is not sufficient and not doing them or the story justice.

Many of us who are critical of the press get accused of wanting the press to not report any bad news but just highlight good things. That is untrue. What we want, and what we've said over and over again that we want, is for the press to broaden their reporting way beyond the narrow scope they cover now. Why don't we regularly hear from U.S. soldiers, from Iraqis on the front lines both literally and figuratively, and from others risking everything to make that country a better place (including both the good and bad things they see)?

We need perspective, big picture perspective, to judge how things are going and mostly what we get is crisis-of-the-day body counts or "the country just might descend into civil war" type reporting. It's been "descending into civil war" for so long now that the term is meaningless. It's just Chicken Little stuff about the sky falling that's easy to tack onto the end of a news report but provides mostly heat and very little light. It doesn't give us enough material to decide for ourselves what the big picture means. That's why we need the soldiers and others. To round out the particular narrow perspective most journalists (perhaps by virtue of the logistics of their profession) are trapped in. Is that too much to ask for or too hard to understand?

Posted by: kcom at August 24, 2005 8:05 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady writes

No matter how often Jay tries to stretch the rubber band, it snaps back to its default position:
"Don't confuse me with nuance; the press is biased and I'm not."
End of story.

I don't know any other way to put this, so I'm just going to be blunt. This is a lie.

No one has ever said they aren't biased and the media is. No one! Only a fool would say such a thing. (Clearly Steve thinks many are fools, but that's only his opinion.) However, journalists' constant mantra, "We're not biased!", smacks of Macbethian blindness.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's see if we can begin a honest dialogue. (I have very little hope of it, but I am willing to try, one more time.)

What the (so-called) "right" is demanding is not bias, it's balance. For example - stop calling murdering thugs "insurgents". They clearly aren't. Any fool can see that, and using the word "insurgents" decreases the credibility of the story. "Insurgents" might have been the right word early on, but it clearly is not any more. They're also not "rebels", for God's sake! The use of these words implies an agenda. If your style guides are telling you to use those words, then get new style guides!

Stop using anonymous sources. Nobody believes them any more because it's obvious they have an agenda - both to promote the administration story and to denigrate it. Journalists might think it's "sexy", but it is not. If someone doesn't have the guts to put their name behind a story, then the story shouldn't be written. Period. Not using anonymous sources would probably increase press credibility 10 percentage points in short order.

Stop quoting political flacks and presenting it as "news". It isn't. It's political bs. Everybody knows it. Saying "Senator So and So said this" is meaningless. It's the Senator's opinion. Get some facts and present those as news.

And my personal pet peeve - stop reporting US military deaths as if they occurred in a vacuum. 7 Marines were killed in western Iraq when a bomb went off is meaningless without some context. Were they sitting around smoking cigars when a bomb suddenly appeared out of nowhere? Or were they fighting insurgents and 12 of them were killed in the same operation? (A big part of this problem is the media's completely irrational fear of "embedding". Some of the absolutely stellar reporting in Iraq has come from embeds because the story has context.)

That's a start. If this doesn't degenerate into another food fight, I'll add some more.

Posted by: antimedia at August 24, 2005 8:51 PM | Permalink

The reporter in the parable didn't need to go with the sniper unless he wanted to do a sniper procedural. Snipers shooting at unarmed and unknowing civilians don't have a particularly complex job, so there isn't much to report.
The result can be seen from the downrange end, as an earlier poster mentioned.

However, having gone, the reporter has no guilt at the sniper's actions. The sniper was going to kill whomever he was going to kill--whenever the whim struck him--and making the reporter feel guilty was just a little icing on the cake for the bastard.

If a reporter or a news organization claims to be internationalist, then they don't have much room to complain if somebody calls them un or non American.

The reason to mention Saddaam's crimes in the context of, say, Abu Ghraib, is not to say, he's worse. It's not to mitigate. It's not to excuse. It's not to say, what we did was bad but the result is a net improvement. It's to say, hey, you guys who are complaining about Abu Ghraib, where were you when Saddaam was doing his thing? Nowhere to be found? Then permit us to doubt the sincerity of your professed concern. Lacking such evidence, we must believe your concern is with something else, like trying to discredit the whole effort.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 24, 2005 9:02 PM | Permalink

Two questions, stemming from two distinct issues:

1) Is there no such thing as objectivity -- as opposed, i.e., to "bias" -- in any sense of the word, and even as an ideal?

2) Regardless of whether or not objectivity is possible, is in fact the "press", or -- slightly different focus -- the most culturally dominant or "elite" media, biased in a broadly systemic or patterned manner?

I realize that these aren't questions that Jay Rosen asked Austin Bay to talk about, but I think they get at issues that underlie the topic and that have inspired the most heated debate in the comments. And I think at least some of the waste heat derives from their confusion.

I also realize that the broad issues of bias, "mission", objectivity, "making a difference", etc. have been around a long time, and that Rosen has written quite a bit about them. I realize that they've become mere fodder in the various political and cultural wars. But I wonder, naively perhaps, if it really is beyond the scope of human intelligence to make any headway in at least clarifying the two questions posed above, in ways that that might be more or less agreeable across the board? And if we could do that, wouldn't we get somewhere?

Posted by: Larry at August 24, 2005 9:18 PM | Permalink

Steve, I'd dearly love to see what Austin Bay said get discussed. As I understand it, and as Jay restated his points, they would appear to be:

(1) Bush's interests will be better served if he does a better job of communicating through the press, but they are hindered in this because they (along with something like two out of three citizens, according to polls) no longer believe they can trust the press to present their side fairly.

(2) The press's interests will be better served if they can re-establish the trust they've lost, and thereby both have better access to sources in the Administration and have a product that more members of the public want to buy.

We can argue why the perception of bias exists, and if you'd like to go down that path, I suppose I'd go along. But I don't think that serves you or Jay well, honestly. While we had that argument, the press would still be losing mind-share and major newspapers and magazines would still be struggling for readership. The issue isn't whether or not there's bias: the issue is that the mainstream press doesn't appear to be trustworthy --- and trust is all you have to sell. Without trust, the mainstream press is poor blank verse.

You're on a sinking ship, man. You can argue about the unfairness of it later: you'd better figure out how to plug the leak.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 24, 2005 9:40 PM | Permalink

Kilgore Trout, What poll would that be?

Posted by: David Crisp at August 24, 2005 9:55 PM | Permalink

Larry, I'll take a stab at your questions.

1) Yes, I think there is, but not in the strained way that the present media defines it. For example, you can be perfectly objective about the fact that a man is a serial murderer if the facts support it. You can be objective about the fact that Islamists who murder women and children are not insurgents.

2) Frankly, I think the (what I call) old media is biased, but not the way that some would define it. I think their bias is toward two things that, in my view, are antithetical to good journalism - a) they want "to make a difference" when what they should be doing is reporting facts and b) they believe their role is adversarial when, in my view, it should be impartial. The former tends to cloud one's judgment about what matters in a story, and the latter tends to steer the story in the direction opposite from the perceived adversary.

Much of what people define or label as "bias" stems from these two, in my view, flawed visions of what a journalist should be, but is perceived as political bias. I'm not denying there is political bias in the media. There clearly is. Multiple polls and studies have shown this. But I think the political bias has been overplayed and the real root of the problem has not been addressed.

Posted by: antimedia at August 24, 2005 9:56 PM | Permalink

Automatic adversarialness [no trademark, use it if you wish] presumes the institution being reported upon is wrong, or at least fudging the facts about why it's doing whatever it's doing.

The problem: The institution might be right. The adversary position--paradigm--will not report that, because the facts don't fit the theory. And the facts have to give. It's not necessarily, stress the necessarily, that the journo is lying. It's that he has a paradigm, meme, template, and the facts will dammit fit.

Of course, us wingnuts think the choice of when to be adversarial is sort of predetermined. Just for the fun of it, during the last presidential campaign, while people were turning Bush's military records upside down and even forging the most desireable ones, did anybody in the MSM challenge Kerry to release his? Hmm?

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 24, 2005 10:39 PM | Permalink

"If someone doesn't have the guts to put their name behind a story, then the story shouldn't be written."
--antimedia
Bravo !!
I would add this addendum:

"If someone doesn't have the guts to put their real name behind a comment to Press Think, then that comment should not be written or posted.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 24, 2005 10:41 PM | Permalink

This came in the mail. Seemed pretty intelligent to me:

Many Americans percieve that the Main Stream Bi-Coastal Press acts as a fifth column irregardless of the intentions of reporters. Notwithstanding good intentions, it is the resulting product that matters to most Americans. Why do many Americans have this perception?

I think it is because the press holds itself out as "above the fray." In domestic politics, that might be sometimes appropriate. But in international politics, Americans want the AMERICAN press to be "on the team." Too often, reporters value their position of "objective" observer too highly when it comes to international issues, and not just in defense-related issues. Sometimes, its ok, and maybe even preferable to be a "homer."

I can abide what I consider to be the leftward leanings of the press. But I have no patience for those reporters and editors who consider themselves as "citizens of the world." There is no world organization that acts as the guarantor of freedom in the world. Politically, there is no "world" of which to be a citizen.

The EU, NATO, the UN, and other transnational organizations and NGO's are patently undemocratic. There is no popular election for the EU bureaucrats, or the Secretary General of the UN. They have no popular sovereignty, and are invested with no "moral authority."

You may think I'm setting up a straw man, but when the thrust of much reporting criticizes American officials for not being in step with World bodies, or with Allies, the question arises in my mind - just who voted to give these organizations the authority that much of the press assumes they have? Is it not better to be right and alone, than wrong with company?

In many eyes, the press has arrogated to itself the position of referee in the game of politics. Referees are participants in the game, not just objective observers. A referee has the authority to alter the game according to the rules. But in politics, who writes the rules? And just who voted to give the press the authority to act as referee? Herein lies the problem with the "speaking truth to authority" paradigm. I would much rather that the press be part of the crowd, actively rooting for one "team" or the other. This does not inhibit criticism. Many sports writers are very critical of the teams they cover. But it does invest the criticism with some purpose - seeking the improvement of "your" team. And criticism that is counter-productive to improving the team should be squelched (e.g. Koran flushing.)

There is a lot of room for criticism in the model of being an advocate for your "team." You might think the "coach" needs to be replaced. Or you might think that some of the "players" should play different roles, or even be retired. But let the bias be transparent. The rub is that biased observers cannot act as referees. The true referees are the American populace - not the world populace-- just Americans. It is we who set the rules. It is we who are invested with the authority to "judge" the game.

When reporters try to take our position, they are seen as usurpers. It really is allright to be an advocate - if it is done honestly. But trying to maintain the appearance of objectivity has become a non-starter for many Americans.

Having said all that, there are many areas of reporting that are somewhat immune to political bias. I think many of your critics overstate their case. In sum 1) strive to be seen as being on the team with the American people (this requires being POSITIVELY aquainted the whole of America, not just Coastal urban centers), 2) trust the American people to be able to judge rightly - even when you disagree with that judgment, and 3) be humble. Don't twist people's words to meet a preset agenda.

Regards,

Scott Harris

I made the same point about "citizen of the world" here, and I criticized the "make a difference" philosophy here.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 24, 2005 10:51 PM | Permalink

From a speech by Donald Rumsfeld in Dallas Aug. 2.

"Indeed, the murders of innocent Iraqi citizens now appear to be hardening the majority of the Iraqi people's determination to defeat al-Qaida and to defeat the insurgents, and to succeed in building a free country."

In June, Rumsfeld used 'insurgent' three times in brief remarks to the Senate House Services Committee.

Take it up with Rummy, antimedia. It's what the military and the government have used to refer to the forces opposed to a new Iraqi government since before there was one. Which is, by definition, what an insurgent is. Any press agenda is in your mind.

This is why I find the whole 'bias' argument empty. The press largely reports things as they are said. There is no quarterly meeting to determine which usage/facts will best further the cause of liberal ideology. If the commander at the press briefing or Rumsfeld or the president calls them insurgents, you write 'insurgents' in your notebook.

But because it doesn't fit your perspective of the moment, it's bias.

And, Kilgore, for your edification, life in the Green Zone is dangerous. That's where the car bombs go off. That's where journalists and diplomats are kidnapped and sometimes killed.

Yet they do go out with army patrols. They go to cities other than Baghdad, often traveling in packs for safety. Or they work with local stringers who can travel more easily. And reporters are the targets of IEDs. So they can do their job and you can take snotty shots at them.

To suggest they're reporting from their hotel rooms solely to avoid danger is a flight of fantasy I don't think you want to take.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 24, 2005 10:57 PM | Permalink

Jay's latest post is certainly an interesting one, and especially so in trying to come to grips with the meaning of "objectivity". There are still nation-states, after all, and cultures that adhere to them, or to particular groupings of them. And these cultures are all that we have to define the values and beliefs that we need to structure the world, which structures or conditions our perceptions. I.e., I doubt that you could tell a comprehensible story of any kind, however "factual", without making use of this to some extent always parochial cultural baggage, and to think otherwise is to believe in the fiction that there exists some supra-human stance outside of all actually-existing cultures. It's not just that there is no "world" of which to be a citizen, in other words, it's that there's no world culture of which to be a member.

This presents a real dilemma, and the necessity of a real decision, for news media that purport to serve the entire globe from a single, consistent stance. You can try to duck the problem for a while, but when war comes -- conflicts that involve whole nations and cultures, and their bedrock beliefs -- then you're in a spot. So maybe the real problem with people like Bob Franken is that they're pretending (to themselves, I don't doubt) that they can attain or even strive for an impossible, or inhuman, kind of "objectivity". And maybe that pretense, or bad faith, actually serves as cover for an underlying commitment to another aim altogether -- to what Richard Arbrey (see also antimedia) calls "adversarialness" within their own state/culture.

Posted by: Larry at August 24, 2005 11:50 PM | Permalink

Steve:

"If someone doesn't have the guts to put their real name behind a comment to Press Think, then that comment should not be written or posted."

Well, Steve, I'm not sure who you're referring to, but I'll note that my real name is Charlie, my real email address is part of the information I give this system, and from it and the name I use, you can deduce not only my real last name but where I live.

Now, have you simply decided to establish that you have no intention of dealing with the substantive comments of Austin Bay or anyone else?

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 25, 2005 12:13 AM | Permalink

Larry. Forgive me if I misunderstand your last comment.

If I get you right, you think journos may be using some pretense of objectivity, or bad faith, to cover up for or justifiy adversarialness. Or you think I do.

I think the use of adversarialness could be the cover for another agenda.

Reporting, say, Abu Ghraib on the front page daily for six weeks straight while missing stories on US soldiers helping Iraqi civilians and security forces. The excuse could be speaking truth to power, but the result/possibly genuine motivation could just as easily be to discredit the war effort. After all, if journos get out, or go with US troops, it's possible they could write about something favorable, if they wished or if they thought their editors would run it. Not to cheerlead for us, but not to cheerlead against us, either. What kind of adversarialness would generate a story on US medics treating terrorist wounded with professional care? Or Iraqi civilians? Geez. I can't think of any, either.
Odd how that works, say we wingnuts.
Oh. There's also the troops who don't think the journos are getting the whole story or even the right story. How are we going to discredit them? I mean, I know how, but how are we going to get the population to go along with it?

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 25, 2005 12:18 AM | Permalink

This presents a real dilemma, and the necessity of a real decision, for news media that purport to serve the entire globe from a single, consistent stance...

I agree with almost every word of that, Larry. You make excellent points.

It might interest you to know that in 1999 I wrote a book about the problem. It was called, What Are Journalists For? meaning: what do they affirm, stand for, and what are they willing, in the end, to stand up for? I added a question mark to the title of my book because I did not think it easy to give a good answer. For the reasons you mention. There's also a critique of "adversarialness" in there.

I questioned whether CNN's Bob Franken understood what he was saying, when he argued that as a journalist reporting in Iraq he operated as a "citizen of the world," because his statement (in the circumstances he was in...) struck me as absurd.

Any political sociologist or cultural historian would, I think, agree with several posters here that professional journalism is a national "formation" (an academic term), and so the question of its relationship--or loyalty--to the nation is deep, serious and unavoidable. If you blow it, you lose authority and ultimately market share. Technology can force these issues forward, and I think most of us feel it has lately.

I agree, in particular, that those who have tried to avoid it with various strategems of neutrality are paying the price. On the other hand they were also wary of some very real dangers in appearing to be "for" anything at all. The risks of claiming no position ("objectivity") never, I think, occured to them. But we can see them more clearly now. If you claim objectivity as basic to your authority, then every time you fail at it, you weaken your base.

I also think, reaching back to the previous discussion, that critics of the press--and any dissatisified citizen or user I consider a "critic"--ought to know what they want journalists to be for, and why that's a good thing to ask of the national or local press. Some disagreements that come out as "bias" may actually be about differences in what can and should be affirmed by journalists.

Anyway, the point of writing a book called, "What Are Journalists For?" was to raise these questions, and show how I answered them, in the years 1989-99.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 12:24 AM | Permalink

Steve wrote

"If someone doesn't have the guts to put their name behind a story, then the story shouldn't be written."
--antimedia
Bravo !!
I would add this addendum:

"If someone doesn't have the guts to put their real name behind a comment to Press Think, then that comment should not be written or posted.

Steve was referring to me, Charlie. He thinks he's being cute. For someone who claims to be a college grad and supposedly world-experienced, you would think the guy could figure out that, if you can visit my blog and read my posts, I'm not exactly an unknown person.

The difference between an anonymous source whose identity and credentials are never revealed and a writer using a nom de plume apparently escapes his sharply sophisticated mind.

However, if Jay wants to ban me for not revealing my real name, that's his loss, not mine. Readers know where to find me. As I've said many times, the reason I write anonymously is because it's the ideas that matter, not the identity of the writer. I have yet to see Steve engage those rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks.

Since every man puts his pants on one leg at a time, I don't see the point of knowing a man's name rather than his thoughts. If I was looking for friends, I'd ask their name. But Jay's blog and these discussions are supposed to be about ideas.

If we can get back to those it would be nice, but I somehow doubt it.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 12:32 AM | Permalink

Okay, I think I take your point, Richard. I'd say that the Adversarial Role is something journalism has adopted since, roughly, Vietnam. I think it's something journos are aware of, and in fact proud of -- perhaps, as you say, in the guise of "speaking truth to power" or some similar formula. But, since it conflicts with other commitments, to neutrality, "objectivity", etc., they can't really espouse it in an open or official maner (except those in fringe, advocacy media). Hence the need for some sort of cover.

This is distinct, however, from the whole more controversial issue of systemic bias, which, assuming it existed, would account for reporters looking, consciously or unconsciously, to find material that would discredit a war they perceive, for political/ideological reasons, to be wrong and doomed. That's, as they say, another story.

Posted by: Larry at August 25, 2005 12:39 AM | Permalink

I'd be interested, Jay, in your response to my two points above, namely that adversarialness and utopianism, if you will, contribute to the distrust of journalists by the public.

Agree? Disagree? Why?

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 12:43 AM | Permalink

I think that adversarial-ness, in the style employed by professional journalists, contributes to public mistrust (but then journalists know that: "they hate us when their ox is gored" is a common newsroom belief.) The view from nowhere--which is utopian, in my view--has also hurt.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 1:02 AM | Permalink

Then we agree.

What would be the solution? Do J-schools need to change what they teach? How they teach? Does the problem not originate in the J-schools? If not, can J-schools still contribute to a solution? How endemic is the problem? How likely is it that change can occur?

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 1:07 AM | Permalink

Another thought - "they hate us when their ox is gored" certainly applies to the one whose ox is being gored, but if journalists apply that thinking to the consumers of their product, then doesn't that tend to make them discount all criticism? For example, I've seen more than one journalist, in your comment threads, make the common statement along the lines of - both the right and the left critcize us, therefore we must be doing something right - which completely ignores the possibility that the basis of the criticism coming from opposite spectrums may have a common root.

Your thoughts?

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 1:13 AM | Permalink

I wrote a post about the failures of the Watergate myth and the implications for journalism education. So far that post is what I have to say on your questions.

I don't think the press is very adversarial, by the way. Not really. But there is no question that it thinks it should be. And there is no question that an adversarial style comes through the television set and at big press rituals.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 1:16 AM | Permalink

Thank you, Jay, for opening up this thread and especially for the rich set of links to go through. I have been working my way through them, but I have not had a chance to read them all (much less their subsidiary links), so please consider my comments provisional:

First off, I find myself in substantial agreement with your e-mailer, Scott Harris. The idea of the being a citizen of the world is: a) nonsensical, as there is no such world government issuing, passports, press credentials, or protection of free speech; b) intrinsically undemocratic if not anti-democratic; c) not likely to be popular domestically, as an overwhelming majority of Americans consider themselves to be citizens of the USA; d) not deserving of Americans’ trust in reporting on War on Terror, as most Americans trust that their country is morally superior to the enemy.

Most importantly with respect to the original topic of Austin Bay’s post, it would make absolutely no sense for the Bush Administration to entrust such an entity with special privileges in the setting of America’s destiny. To the extent the press holds this attitude, they should not expect to be treated any more warmly by George Bush than Jacques Chirac.

So, one aspect of the “religion” of journalism, as Jay has described it, is this “view from nowhere.” While this perspective is consistent with the dominant myth of objectivity, it is also important to point out that it is more consistent with left/liberal ideology than with conservative thought. (If this does not seem obvious, I would be happy to elaborate in future posts.) Note that I am specifically not trying to play “gotcha” in a bias game; I am merely trying to demonstrate one reason why many conservatives might observe the effects of the-view-from-nowhere religion in action and shout “liberal bias.”

Moreover, the objectivity religion seems more likely to be a comfortable fit for someone who views concepts like good and evil, as applied by George Bush (and most Americans) to the terror war, to be Manichean if not downright primitive. If you view the enemy as evil, certain “balancing” techniques, commonplace in the coverage of this war, would never occur to you. How often did the White House press corps challenge FDR with Goebbels’ perspective or with fears of inflaming the German street?

Again, forgive my reference to a website maintained by the players of the bias game, but I would interpret this report as an almost comical example of a bizarre ritual practiced by followers of the objectivity religion (in this instance almost literally a cargo cult religion):

(T)he Taliban . . . claiming, first, that the United States was trying to poison food. The United States, at its briefing, saying that in fact, the concern was that the Taliban would be poisoning the food so it could blame the United States. So you can see the kind of battle that was going on. The U.S. offers no proof of its claims, the Taliban offers no proof of its claim.

The reporter: Bob Franken!

If you believe, as George Bush and most conservatives do, that our Islamofascist enemies are morally equivalent to Nazi’s, then certain forms of reporting (including the sniper parable) become unthinkable. And many forms of reporting, such as the identification of heroic acts by American soldiers, would naturally occur to broaden the horizon of Iraq reporting (think Iwo Jima photo vs Eddie Adams photo). Ernie Pyle was not a citizen of the world.

I think there are several other governing myths in this religion, which perhaps Jay has also written about, which owe their intellectual provenance to the historical left. The so-called skepticism of the reporter (usually applied to American institutions, as opposed to say, the UN) actually seems to me to be a form of utopian cynicism, if I may coin a phrase. I believe that the tendency to somewhat relentlessly criticize the shortcomings of American policy and actions stems from a deeper utopian belief that man and his institutions are perfectible.

Similarly, the philosophical origins of the idea of “fighting for the oppressed underdog,” are certainly not to be found in Edmund Burke. More importantly, it begs the question of who is to be identified as the underdog. Who decides, for example, that the prisoners at Gitmo were the underdogs who needed defending?

To return to Austin Bay’s original post, he was operating under the principle that all participants shared an underlying set of goals, and needed to take steps to repair the dysfunctional relationship that impeded the achievement of those goals. It is not yet clear that his underlying assumption was correct. As a conservative, I do not believe, for example, that Bush should work more closely with the UN on terror policy – I believe that in many cases he should work around (where possible), and against (where necessary) the United Nations, which is demonstrably not seeking the same goals or valuing the same ideals as the US.

Finally, I know that I am far from alone amongst conservatives in thinking that the most decisive factors in the outcome of war are belief and will: belief in the rightness of your cause, and the will to keep fighting. I believe that Islamofascism represents an existential threat to our way of life, but that America will prevail as long as we maintain our belief and will. When Americans lost these two pillars of our fight in Vietnam, the war was lost, as General Giap has described in his memoirs. And many conservatives believe that the role of the American press was critical to that loss, as has been described here, here, and here. Please be aware that the passion of the bias gamers of the right derives in no small part from the fear that history will repeat, with much greater consequences.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 25, 2005 1:16 AM | Permalink

I also think [...] that critics of the press--and a dissatisified citizen or user I consider a "critic"--ought to know what they want journalists to be for, and why that's a good thing to ask. Some disagreements that come out as "bias" may actually be about differences in what can and should be affirmed by the press.

"Dissatisfied user" fits me pretty well. I know precisely what I want from the press, and I'm not getting it, so I don't consume or pay for its product. Instead I find other sources, or do without.

It comes to this: I can't be everywhere. Sometimes I need, and very often I want, to know what's happening in places I can't be, because I can't afford it or I'm in some other place that's also important or of interest.

So what I want of the press is to be my eyes and ears elsewhere. By aggregating all the contributions from advertisers of women's underwear and different sorts of soap, and all those quarters dropped in newspaper machines, the press can afford to send reporters who will then report back what's going on. It's also less intrusive on the scene to have one or two people, perhaps with cameras, than to have everybody who's interested go look for themselves.

And if you have any agenda or intentions other than seeing what went on and reporting back, you've failed me. Bias makes it worse, but the failure at the beginning is the "make a difference"/"speak truth to power" agenda, and fundamentally the whole "Fourth Estate" paradigm. If your self-image requires you to participate in the scene in any way, you are not a "reporter" -- you're an actor, and actors by definition have an agenda within the action.

What you should be teaching your journalism students is invisibility. It isn't truly possible, but it ought to be the ideal -- the reporter should not be attempting to influence the action, or participating in it in any way; he or she should be a fly on the wall, invisible and impalpable, simply telling the rest of us what happened and what is to be found there. We have to make decisions, and need data. Supplying data is what the press should be all about.

As I said, bias makes it worse -- but the opening wedge is journalist as participant. Several people have remarked that everybody is biased, reporters no less than anyone; that's true enough, but once the fatal decision to join the action is made, the journalist's bias leads him or her to choose a side and promote it. The data I get is then filtered through a model that includes the journalist as one of the actors on the scene, and that contaminates the data, often beyond usefulness.

Reporters are useful. They tell me what happened, and I can decide what it means to me. Journalists are an insult. They tell me what it means, implying that I'm too stupid to figure it out. We have a surfeit of journalists, but reporters are fairly thin on the ground. How about training up some reporters, Jay?

Regards,
Ric Locke

Posted by: Ric Locke at August 25, 2005 1:30 AM | Permalink

"I'm not exactly an unknown p"erson." Fine, then use your name here. It's not that you have to. The rules of the forum still allow for titles like yours. I know I would take what you have to say more seriously and I think most readers would-- including you, if the roles were reversed.

"The difference between an anonymous source whose identity and credentials are never revealed and a writer using a nom de plume apparently escapes his sharply sophisticated mind."

Mine too. But anyway, his point was not that there aren't differences between the two uses, but that we mistrust the two (or apply a discount rate) for the same reasons. Lack of accountability. Unwillingness to risk reputation.

Now I do understand that when you make these points you are dissing James Madison and the Federalist Papers and all, but that's the price Jim, John & Alex sometimes have to pay for being cultural reference points...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 1:39 AM | Permalink

Ric: Thanks for your post. Way more interesting than another bias rant.

Let me ask you a question: If you had the opportunity to advise Jim Lehrer just before he moderated and asked questions at a make or break Presidential debate, in addition to telling him to be careful not to take sides, would you say something like, "and remember this, Jim, you are not an actor in this event."

And if you did say something like that, would it be true?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 1:51 AM | Permalink

Jay, you wrote

"The difference between an anonymous source whose identity and credentials are never revealed and a writer using a nom de plume apparently escapes his sharply sophisticated mind."

Mine too. But anyway, his point was not that there aren't differences between the uses, but that we mistrust the two (or apply a discount rate) for the same reasons.

Somehow I think you jest. To be clear, you know nothing about an anonymous source except what the reporter tells you. You know everything you need to know about an anonymous writer because you can read what they've written. It's the difference between using a proxy to purchase an antique vase and buying directly from the seller.

If a man is not his thoughts, then what is he?

Would Jim, John and Alex's points have had the same power were their identities known at the time? They were very intelligent men. Their decision to use a nom de plume was deliberate and calculated, as is mine. (Not that I'm comparing myself with them, mind you.)

If anyone wants to correspond with me privately, they can email me. I will answer. If you want to know what I think, you can read my blog. Nothing is hidden. My agenda is out in the open, for all to see, expressed in the preamble of my blog. In fact, I repeatedly warn my readers that I am biased and they should not take my word for things but read the same stories I'm commenting on and make their own judgments.

How would knowing my name change a thing? (And just to settle any nerves, I am no one special. I'm not affiliated with any political party or journalism organization. I'm John Q. Public. No hidden agendas here. I have written professionally and been paid handsomely for it, but only in my field of expertise - computer security.)

However, out of respect for you, if it bothers you that greatly, I'll bow out and never post here again. I can easily read your articles and comment on them on my own blog.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 1:57 AM | Permalink

I forgot to mention - you're free to discount my thoughts as well, if you truly think my anonymity lessons their value. However, I would point out that the world in which we live places far too much emphasis on titles and appearances and superficial reference points that have little to do with true worth. Since I work in academe (but am not an academic) I am very familiar with the aggrandizement of position rather than accomplishment. (And no, this is not meant as a slight toward you whatsoever. What I know of you I've read here, and I like the critical thinking and observational skills very much.)

Your choice. I will leave if you so desire.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 2:07 AM | Permalink

Here is what I said: The rules of the forum allow for titles like yours. They are my rules. I would take your ideas a lot more seriously if you used your name. I don't think that's unclear at all.

Oh, and the point you made here is one I have made many times myself. It is a logical error (and a political blunder) to conclude that criticism from both ends proves you are doing something right. It could mean you are doing everything wrong.

Which is my final thought for the night.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 2:09 AM | Permalink

"It is a logical error (and a political blunder) to conclude that criticism from both ends proves you are doing something right. It could mean you are doing everything wrong."

That may be the single most intelligent observation I have ever seen on this topic.

Alas, it will likely fly right past a lot of people.

Posted by: Dean Esmay at August 25, 2005 3:31 AM | Permalink

However, if Jay wants to ban me for not revealing my real name, that's his loss, not mine. Readers know where to find me. As I've said many times, the reason I write anonymously is because it's the ideas that matter, not the identity of the writer. I have yet to see Steve engage those rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks.

Posted by: Pole at August 25, 2005 4:46 AM | Permalink

If you had the opportunity to advise Jim Lehrer just before he moderated and asked questions at a make or break Presidential debate, in addition to telling him to be careful not to take sides, would you say something like, "and remember this, Jim, you are not an actor in this event."

No, because in the circumstance it would be wrong. As somebody pointed out above, the referees are part of the game. I think there are journalists who are perfectly capable of serving as referees.

But remember: I can't attend that debate -- I don't have a press pass, and I'm not a member of any League of XX Voters. I need to know what's said there, how the candidates react to the questions and the audience. If the TV crew always focuses on Lehrer as he asks the question, then cuts to the candidate, that's one form of showing. If they show the candidate's expression as he hears the question, then cuts away to audience reaction as the response comes, that's another type. But if they always use one method with one candidate and the other with another one, then they're not reporting, they're participating, and distorting the data.

I don't mean "objective". I agree with the folks who say that opinions are inevitable. What I'm saying is, the ideal should be report before opining. The opinion is useful. It's more data on the subject. But the original data is necessary, or the opinion has no context and the entire presentation is useless.

If the ideal is the fly on the wall, "bias" will sort itself out. If the ideal is participation, bias inevitably and irretrievably corrupts the data and makes the press useless. Declining readership and viewership should tell you the public's judgement on how you're doing in that respect, hmm?

Regards,
Ric Locke

Posted by: Ric Locke at August 25, 2005 8:22 AM | Permalink

Bias/Schmias! The dissatisfaction with MSM is evident in the site meter readings of Blogs:

Belomont Club = 7.9 million
Nation of Riflemen = 2.4 million
Ann Althouse = 2.1 million
Betsy's Page = 1.6 million

This is just a quick sampling.

Posted by: Shekel at August 25, 2005 9:10 AM | Permalink

You left out PressThink: 1.0 million.

Here's Scott Johnson at Powerline today:

For a serious consideration of the press's Iraq war coverage, see Austin Bay's "Roll forward: Why the Bush White House needs the press to win the big one" at Jay Rosen's Pressthink. This is an important piece. In a message to us, Austin adds:

"I structured a response...that lays out the conservatives' case against 'the national media' (my NY-DC-LA axis) in a way that is tough for them to dispute. The usual suspects fail to address Gary Sick (1991 precursor to Joe Wilson) and 1983 (anti-Reagan rhetoric morphs into anti-GW Bush)."

Austin hopes that we or our readers might "expand on these historical points." As to Sick, Austin adds: "Sick had the SR-71 alegation -- that GHW Bush had flown in an SR-71 in 1980 to meet with the Iranians."

The point being that there seems to be a long-term agenda at work.

I don't think they got my memo. (Of course, Powerline doesn't allow comments.)

Ric: I asked my question because you wrote, "If your self-image requires you to participate in the scene in any way, you are not a 'reporter' -- you're an actor, and actors by definition have an agenda within the action." The case of Jim Lehrer and the Presidential debate suggests there are situations where the journalist is inevitably an actor even if the same journalist is careful not to advance anyone's agenda. (And if you've ever met Jim Lehrer, as I have, his passion for being agendaless is quite obvious.)

Saying, "I'm not a part of this event" doesn't help him know what to do, although saying, "I am not the star of this event" does.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 10:01 AM | Permalink

From antimedia: "To be clear, you know nothing about an anonymous source except what the reporter tells you. You know everything you need to know about an anonymous writer because you can read what they've written."

That is a bulls-eye in describing the apples and oranges difference between the two situations.

We don't need to know the identities of opinion writers to judge the logic and strength of their arguments. Their arguments will stand and fall on their own. I don't see how not knowing the true identity of a writer is going to weaken the logic of the argument he is presenting (as long as he is not introducting new facts into the argument). By definition, it can't.

However, when someone is presenting facts, the situation is 180 degrees the opposite. We have to know their identity because we have to know the reliability of the facts they are attempting to introduce into the public discourse. We need to know where they are coming from in both the literal and figurative senses. That is why anonymous sources are problematic and why discounting facts from them, to whatever degree, is entirely rational. That skepticism was proven entirely justifiable when the identity of Dan Rather's "unimpeachable" source was revealed, for instance.

What I don't understand is the confusion between the two cases. We are are not being offered facts from an opinion writer, we are being offered an argument. The logic of the argument wouldn't change even if another name was put on it. To use an analogy, Jay, are you saying all the great movies written by black-listed writers in Hollywood under other names (sometimes even award winners) were less good because we didn't know the true identities of the authors?

Posted by: kcom at August 25, 2005 12:02 PM | Permalink

I don't think it's humanly possible not to be involved in some stories. Recall Walter Cronkite announcing the news that John Kennedy was dead. Reporters are sometimes placed in ethical dilemmas the likes of which most people will never encounter. Do they try to save someone's life? Or report the story? If they get involved, will it color their report in a biased way?

To ask a reporter to always be dispassionate is to ask the impossible. Asking them to be fair and report the entire context of the story is another matter.....

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 12:14 PM | Permalink

Charlie --

Hold off on the life jacket. Fortunately, I'm not on the ship. I run a blog, which stalks the ship and chronicles the sinking.
Where we differ -- you and I -- is not over whether the ship is sinking, but over why.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 25, 2005 12:52 PM | Permalink

Well, I certainly appreciate the "up and coming" part :-).

And here's my response to the post itself.

Posted by: neo-neocon at August 25, 2005 1:05 PM | Permalink

after reading Bay's original polemic, I was going to comment on it, but it was obvious that the entire thread had been overtaken by ravening right-wing bias-mongers...

Personally, I think Bay exposed his own ridiculousness by making his #1 priority for the nyd-claw press the search for Lucy Rodriguez (of Killian memos fame.) Is this really what any serious media critic would suggest was a top priority?

Journalism, when its done well, is necessarily biased --- biased toward truth instead of lies, biased toward facts instead of spin, biased toward significance instead of triviality. Unfortunately for right-wingers, this legitimate bias works against the ideas and policies that they promote----and we get cries of "media bias" as a result.

The problem for right wingers isn't that the media is biased....its that reality is "biased" against the bigotry, greed, and prejudices of the right wing. Don't blame the media...blame reality.

(And it does appear that the right-wingers are getting around to "blaming reality"---now that they are insisting that "intelligent design" be taught in schools....)

Posted by: ami at August 25, 2005 2:38 PM | Permalink

I have finally slogged through the original posts and all the comments on both the earlier and current threads related to the Austin Bay- Jay Rosen dialogue. I have found them to be mostly interesting, insightful and informative. I think Jay should be applauded for hosting this important discussion. You know what I noticed, though? If a person just ignored or mentally deleted all the hostile- sounding and snarky posts by Steve Lovelady and also all the cheap, personal- sounding snarky posts about Steve Lovelady and in response to Steve Lovelady, not only would this excercise have been much shorter but also much more scholarly, adult and useful. I'm just sayin'

Posted by: Li at August 25, 2005 2:42 PM | Permalink

In a free, open society the government doesn't "use" the press. The government provides information, in the form of speeches, papers, press gatherings and press releases. The press chooses to use this information or not.

The question should be how does the administration effectively gets its message to the public, both here and abroad.

The national press would seem to be antagonistic to this administration, its goals and its message. Whatever the reason I believe it's a fair assessment.

If the administration dares question the negativity and defeatism of the press, we hear cries of McCarthyism, and reporters being called "un-patriotic." (If the shoe fits...)

The Presidents speech last night is a prime example. It was a careful, thoughtful speech, which outlined why we must fight, and how we are doing it. Aren't these the questions Cindy Sheehan (and her crowd) are asking? How much of that speech or the concepts in it were actually carried in a substantive way in the major media outlets?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force him to drink.

Posted by: Keith, Indy at August 25, 2005 3:48 PM | Permalink

Li --
Aww, shucks, I bet you say that to all the guys.
Me, I'm just trying to cover Jay's back once every 10th fusillade or so.
It's an odd assignment, since over the long haul he and I are at odds as often as we're in agreement. But somebody's gotta do it -- the poor guy is on vacation, you know, or at least trying to be.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 25, 2005 4:10 PM | Permalink

Here's what appeared at Michael Barone's blog today at the US News site. It's amazing to me how often this error--naming Jarvis when you mean Rosen--happens. The link goes not to Buzzmachine but to PressThink.

Anyone have an e-mail address for Barone for a fix? This being one-way Big Media, there are no comments and no e-mail address on the blog or the archive page for his column. And the address given at michaelbarone.com returns an error message.

The Bush White House and the press

Austin Bay, syndicated columnist, novelist, blogger, and reserve Army colonel who has served in Iraq, is always worth reading. Here, in response to a challenge by blogger Jeff Jarvis, he argues that the Bush administration should try to engage the mainstream media, despite its bias and hostility, rather than engage in what he and Jarvis agree is a policy of "rollback."

I'm not sure I entirely agree. But as Instapundit says, read it all. Especially if you're on the White House staff.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 5:07 PM | Permalink

Couldn't find an email address either. That's bad for a blog.

Only found their main contact info.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/usinfo/infomain.htm

Editorial Offices:
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street NW
Washington, DC 20007
202-955-2000

You might try this page at Creators Syndicate...

http://www.creators.com/opinion_writetheauthor.cfm?pg=write&columnsname=mba

********

BTW I'm not really anon, for some reason my typekey wont allow me to log in for posting on your blog. Works over at Roger Simons though. Strange.

Posted by: Keith, Indy at August 25, 2005 5:21 PM | Permalink

I have the same problem with TypeKey at this site. I also have no problem logging in at Roger Simon's website. Sounds like a technical problem.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 25, 2005 6:15 PM | Permalink

Jay,

I was kind of surprised that you posted my email to you without emailing me to let me know. I'll keep that in mind if I ever email you again. Emails are subject to publication without notification.

It didn't really bother me. I don't send inflammatory emails, so I am not afraid of being embarassed by their publication. I do think the MSM has a huge credibility issue with at least 62 million Americans (Bush voters). And once trust is lost, it is very hard to regain.

BTW, Ann Coulter has a column today that argues that the MSM is moving to the right, no toward the left. Go figure.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 25, 2005 6:24 PM | Permalink

Every time Jay talks about left/right politics he's got to fend off the Media Bias hounds. Imagine if every time a biology teacher talked about complex human systems some students in the class insisted that everything can be explained by Intelligent Design. "That's nice," he might say the first time, "this is why I think you're wrong." But each time teacher talks about the eye or blood clotting or cutting edge research, the ID fans remind everyone that everything can be explained if we just accept a few divine facts. Perhaps at some point the professor would like to discuss the material at hand. And he might even kick those single-minded conversationalists out of the room.

Posted by: Mavis Beacon at August 25, 2005 6:33 PM | Permalink

Jay, please consider answering two questions I really don't know your opinions on.
1) Did the mainstream press support withdrawal of troops from Vietnam while Nixon was President?
2) Was this a good policy for the press to support?

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 25, 2005 6:34 PM | Permalink

The case of Jim Lehrer and the Presidential debate suggests there are situations where the journalist is inevitably an actor even if the same journalist is careful not to advance anyone's agenda.

::sigh:: well, yes. But in that case Lehrer is not acting as a journalist; he's acting as a referee. The reason he got picked as referee is because he has a reputation for not having an agenda, which if true makes him an above-average reporter; but while he's acting as a referee, he isn't acting as a journalist of the debate. He might be collecting data for an article on how one goes about being a debate referee, but that's at least one step removed from the debate itself.

You asked, further up, what you and J-schools could do to get me back as a customer. It will be a long process; but it would begin with your teaching your students that they are reporters first. The reporter is not my representative, authorized to act according to his judgement on my behalf; he is my deputy, authorized to act as I would, if at all. Since he cannot (and probably would not) act as I would act, the best he can do is report the data to me, so that I can act accordingly.

The ideal report is a transcription of the event, with the context fully described and nothing left out. That will never happen; reporters are human beings. Here is the priority list.

1. Correct -- the report faithfully describes the event, without manufacturing anything.

2. Context -- the report specifies the context of the event, rather than describing it as occurring in isolation.

3. Complete -- the report fully describes the event, such that the consumer of the report can make the same decisions and judgements as he would have made had he attended in propria persona.

Number three is the goal. If the report gives me enough data to act just as I would have if I had actually attended the event myself, it serves the purposes I require. If it does not, it is either defective (incomplete, poor depiction, etc.) or corrupt (intentionally misleading), and in either case I won't be back for more.

As for ami --

...reality is "biased" against the bigotry, greed, and prejudices of the right wing...

Yeah, sure. Y'know, you make me nostalgic. Your discourse has gotten to the point where it sounds precisely like beer-joint and porch conversation among my Southern Cracker friends, relatives, and neighbors circa 1962, with a few of the proper nouns changed via search and replace. Anybody whose basic fixed position is that we shouldn't be in Iraq because the Iraqis aren't worth it and are too stupid to benefit anyway has nothing to say to me about "bigotry".

Go tell somebody else, hey? It's off topic.

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke at August 25, 2005 7:13 PM | Permalink

David Crisp

You bring up some good points about perspective and limited human analysis abilities.

While it is true that war is complex, and the soldier on the ground, however virtuous, is limited by his perspective. It is not true that in the overall picture, the news from soldier blogs are incorrectly assumed to be more accurate in the bigger picture than the news from reporters and editors.

The reason for that is because many retired officers, current active officers, aswell as linked units are represented in the MilBlog subsector.

That means if you want to know about Fallujah. You can hear some tidbits from an officer in charge of a platoon, maybe a Major in charge of Intelligence, or the grunts at the ground level, people in Armored Platoons firing main tank rounds in Fallujah, and so on. From those sources, you piece together a complete picture. From those sources, you gain the image of the ground pounder and that of the officer, whose job is to think of the big picture.

You would have to actually peruse and look around the various MilBloggers.

There is actually some Special Forces blogs. They say nothing about current or past operations, but you can tell a lot just from their training stories alone about how Special Forces operate.

How does a reporter report "news" about a Special Forces Operation btw?

I can say without a doubt, that it would be far inferior to finding out yourself by reading milblogs and piecing together the clues. Because self-taught information is always superior to distilled and osmosed information from a tv set or a press report.

It's a lot better to be on the attack, so to speak, than to be on the defensive.

Posted by: Ymarsakar at August 25, 2005 7:34 PM | Permalink

How does a reporter report "news" about a Special Forces Operation btw?

Well, if you're like Linda Robinson of US News & World Report or or Steve Walsh of the Post-Tribune, you get assigned to a SF unit. And you report. There are others today reporting military news in a way you won't find on the blogs.

By all means, read the milblogs. But do so with the same grain of salt you reserve for any opinion piece or war story.

If the report gives me enough data to act just as I would have if I had actually attended the event myself, it serves the purposes I require. If it does not, it is either defective (incomplete, poor depiction, etc.) or corrupt (intentionally misleading), and in either case I won't be back for more.

Well, yes. That's the goal, isn't it: to give as complete and factual an account of things with the facts available to meet deadline.

But this 'complete' thing has me concerned. By definition, 'news' is an on-going process. New facts come in, different context arise and the old news becomes transformed to, well, news. That whole 'first draft of history' thing.

So how is it you expect completeness? As for corruption, exactly what intentionally misleading report have you read or seen - with the possible exception of Judith Miller's?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 25, 2005 8:30 PM | Permalink

Wow, Neuro-conservative and neo-neocon. I would like to compliment you both on your writing ability, even setting aside the merits of your messages (which I think are just right) - - Absolutely Exquisite! I wish I took the time to write so well when I contribute here.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 25, 2005 8:32 PM | Permalink

"The ideal report is a transcription of the event, with the context fully described and nothing left out. That will never happen ..."
-- Ric

You're absolutely right, Ric -- it will never happen -- but not for the reasons you think.
Example: a transcript with "nothing left out" of, say, your basic three-hour Thursday night zoning hearing in Anytown, USA, would probably take up a full page of any given newspaper.
And that's before we get to "the context fully described" part.
So the reporter at said hearing is forced into condensation, and someone or another who spoke at that hearing is bound to be royally pissed off that his own views were not reported in the newspaper.
And that's just the newspaper; at the TV station it's going to be even worse. (Walter Cronkite once observed that the entire transcript of the 22-minute [30 minutes minus the ads] network evening news could be printed in one column of a six-column page of the New York Times.)
That's why journalism as stenography will never fly. If it would, publishers would long ago have replaced reporters with stenographers.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 25, 2005 8:47 PM | Permalink

Hey, here's something to mull over:

During a recent report on Fox News, made an astonishing announcement.

In what Fox News officials concede was a mistake, John Loftus, a former U.S. prosecutor, gave out the address Aug. 7, saying it was the home of a Middle Eastern man, Iyad K. Hilal, who was the leader of a terrorist group with ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.

Except it wasn't. Hilal had moved three years ago. And a nice unsuspecting family had moved in. Since their report, their life has been hell.

Now, my question: Was this simply a 'mistake' or was it an example of bias? If consistency is a key, I'd think most of you would say the latter. If not, why?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 25, 2005 8:47 PM | Permalink

Well, Dave, if the story printed in the LA Times is accurate (and there's plenty of reasons not to trust the Times to be accurate), then the announcement was made due to bias.

Loftus is quoted as having said, "I thought it might help police in that area now that we have positively identified a terrorist living in [Orange County]".

That's bs. If he wanted to help the police, he would have called them and told them, not announced it on TV for everyone to hear.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 9:07 PM | Permalink

Dave --

Of course it was bias.

Fox News trying to prove its macho chops by "exposing" the location of a terrorist harbor -- facts be damned.

But you know the depressing part these days ? It could just as easily have been CNN, which is on its own desperate search for ratings.

They're all searching for eyeballs, not truth. (Truth is often uncomfortable, and drives eyeballs away.)

Get the eyeballs and the producer of the segment gets his year-end bonus. If he doesn't get the eyeballs ? The producer is out on the street.

That's the real bias -- and it's a function of corporations seeking a more favorable opinion of their stock price on Wall Street.

Any journalist who has ever worked for a publically-held company knows that. The stock price trumps all; most of all it trumps an editor who spends extra money (thus driving down quarterly earnings) trying to get it right for the sake of his readers or any producer trying to get it right for the sake of his viewers.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 25, 2005 9:29 PM | Permalink

Dave writes

As for corruption, exactly what intentionally misleading report have you read or seen

Do we really need to provide examples? You could start with the obvious ones - Jayson Blair, and his compatriots.

Then you could get in to the million stories written claiming that Sadaam had no ties to terrorists as if it's an established fact and compare them to what the very same media wrote about Sadaam while a Democrat was President. What changed? The facts? Or the focus?

Or you could compare the "news" stories about shariah law being written in to the Iraqi Constitution when it guarantees human rights, freedom of religion and a 25% representation of women in the parliament and compare those to the stories written about the Afghani Constitution which makes Islam the law of the land. What changed? The facts? Or the focus?

The examples are too numerous to discuss in the comment section on Jay's blog. Not to be facetious, but if you're really serious (and pardon me for doubting that you are), read my blog.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 9:29 PM | Permalink

Steve writes

They're all searching for eyeballs, not truth. (Truth is often uncomfortable, and drives eyeballs away.)
Get the eyeballs and the producer of the segment gets his year-end bonus. If he doesn't get the eyeballs ? The producer is out on the street.
That's the real bias -- and it's a function of corporations seeking a more favorable opinion of their stock price on Wall Street.
Any journalist who has ever worked for a publically-held company knows that. The stock price trumps all; most of all it trumps an editor who spends extra money (thus driving down quarterly earnings) trying to get it right for the sake of his readers or any producer trying to get it right for the sake of his viewers.

That's a nice sounding theory but it doesn't appear to fit the facts. The facts are that media, in general, are losing market share and stock prices are going down despite a focus on the trivial and an abject failure to get the facts right.

If the theory were true, the facts wouldn't matter and the stock prices would be increasing, wouldn't they?

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 9:37 PM | Permalink

Austin Bay's assertion that the media can serve as institutional memory across multiple administrations might hold water.

If, as others have said here (in previous discussions of bias,) that a purpose served by media is the creation, sustenance, and evangelism of a local, national, (multinational?) dialog - then the dialog would preserve concepts, positions, and narratives across administrations.

The carrying on of a dialog does assume that points-of-view are an acceptable part of reporting. I'm not a believer of the "view-from-nowhere" set. The respectful presentation of facts, context, in as complete a fashion possible given point-in-time constraints - with a point-of-view - is acceptable reporting.

Civility in considering other points-of-view that reasonably and morally deserve consideration should be included in such positional reporting.

Critical thinking and writing -- both early courses in any degree program -- teach that when positions are taken then supporting evidence should be presented (with attribution) as well as contrary positions considered and addressed.

In comparing the current state of the DC-LA-NY axis of reporting to such an idealistic state of reporting, several necessary elements appear missing.

I'm not sure that the hyper positioning of the new media move us closer to the idealistic state, but they do seem to be moving the overall discussion along in some (very) limited fashion.

Posted by: John Lynch at August 25, 2005 10:00 PM | Permalink

I just have on question for the press people on this board--why is the on-the-ground war reporting that is not just the best, but interdimensionally the best, coming not from you, but from this guy. Jay may think the "bias" in the press argument is making its proponents dumber--and I think he is probably right--but the bias in the press is making the press dumber too and a poorer information source, let alone good read.

Posted by: Lee Kane at August 25, 2005 10:01 PM | Permalink

"That's a nice sounding theory but it doesn't appear to fit the facts. The facts are that media, in general, are losing market share and stock prices are going down despite a focus on the trivial and an abject failure to get the facts right."
-- antimedia

Exactly ! At last we agree. The cost-cutters have it all wrong.

No matter how much Tony Ridder cuts costs, the stock price of Knight Ridder Newspapers still sucks.

No matter how much CBS slashes its news budget -- it has all but eliminated foreign correspondents over the past 20 years -- Viacom's stock is still in the toilet.

But that doesn't change the fact that those corporate overlords seeking Wall Street's approval are the reason you get the media that you get.

And it has nothing to do with "bias;" it has everything to do with milking every cent they can from an asset that they have starved for years. They even have the nerve to have a word for it; they call it "harvesting the assets."

And as long as they can squeeze a 25 to 30% margin of profits as a percentage of revenues out of those properties, they will continue on their long, slow, intentional path to suicide.

It's actually not a bad business strategy; when the asset is finally sucked dry, dispose of it and move on to something else.

But in the meantime it results in lousy journalism that gets lousier every year.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 25, 2005 10:27 PM | Permalink

Whoa, AM, Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly, et al, practiced journalistic fraud. They fabricated facts, entire story lines to benefit their careers and egos. Not out of some ideological intent. And they were fired.

Let's not conflate corruption journalism with intentional bias, which was the subject of the complaint expressed above.

You're right. This isn't the place to carry on an extended discussion on Saddam's al Qaeda connections. Let's just say no one has reported there was never any contact with terrorists. But questions were raised - and reported - that called into question the Administration's contention of a more direct link, citing a senate committee report, the CIA and State Department officials. Were the media supposed to ignore it.

That you don't like the information reported is obvious. That doesn't make it bias. Or corrupted reporting.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 25, 2005 10:39 PM | Permalink

Dave, I give up. You win. You'll continue to lose readers while you insist there's nothing wrong, but I guess that's what you want.

Posted by: antimedia at August 25, 2005 10:49 PM | Permalink

That you don't like the information reported is obvious. That doesn't make it bias. Or corrupted reporting.

There is a meme in the reporting that appears contrary to record

Posted by: John Lynch at August 25, 2005 10:49 PM | Permalink

... journalism as stenography will never fly. If it would, publishers would long ago have replaced reporters with stenographers.

Steve, I know that, I even said it, perhaps too elliptically. That's why "Complete" is priority 3 rather than priority 1 -- it's important, but it isn't possible, and would be boring if it were possible. How many viewers does C-SPAN have, compared to the majors? And if nothing else, quantum effects can't be described fully except as probabilities and categories.

I'm groping for simple ways to express a complex concept, and clearly failing.

My touchstone is this: When I read a newspaper story or see a television report, what I do in response to the story should be the same as what I would do if I had experienced that event in person. And an habitue of Democratic Underground should also do the same thing in response to the story as he or she would based on personal experience of the event.

That's the goal. If journalism does that for me, it does me a service. If it tries to teach me a different set of attitudes, or to influence me in any direction including a direction I would approve of, then it is corrupt. It's not providing data; it's seeking its own power within the power structure, and all power-seekers are equivalent -- and suspect.

If you are pushing your own agenda by corrupting the data you deliver to me, there is no difference between you and Carl Rove or Howard Dean. You are all brothers under the skin, lying (whether by commission, omission, or obfuscation) to gather power to yourself and perpetuate it. And if the data are corrupt, why should I pay for it, even to the extent of enduring the condom ads?

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke at August 25, 2005 11:05 PM | Permalink

Ric: I didn't ask what I and J-schools could do to get you back as a customer. I'm not sure what you are referring to there.

This is an aside, not directed at Ric: I am not the press. I don't work for the press. I am not the official defender of the press, either. Nor am I in charge of getting its customers back.

I did put ten years of my professional life into working with journalists to alert them to the disconnect between themselves and the public; but in that work I was coming at the problem as an outsider who had studied their ways, and what democracy requires of journalists.

In fact, I'm the only faculty member in my department without an extensive background in professional journalism. (On the other hand I have a PhD, and my colleagues do not.) I'm like the guy in a film school who has never made films but did a doctorate in cinema history, teaches film criticism and writes about movies, often making the point that filmmakers have lost touch with audiences.

Now imagine that guy getting blasted by angry movie goers--or people who no longer go to the movies--for the crap that Hollywood churns out (when he issues some of the same blasts in his own reviews) and you will have some feel for the absurdity of my online experience.

It occured to me the other day that part of the vehemence of the bias discourse is that people who are passionate speakers of it want someone to stand and be judged guilty of all that bias, or take responsibility for it, own it, and since this never happens, they take the tools of justice into their own hands, and use them on whomever "represents" the absent offenders. Possible?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 25, 2005 11:13 PM | Permalink

Oh, for heaven's sakes, AM, who's saying nothing is wrong? Not me.

We're losing readership due changes in the marketplace, multiple (and frequently free)sources of news and opinion, slipped standards, management that can't figure out the world has changed and ownership that puts 30 percent profit margins over reporting.

It's only in the b/w world that sees bias as the cause.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 25, 2005 11:14 PM | Permalink

Steve --

It is true that most people in most professions, including journalism, worry about what their bosses and the bean counters in the back office will think about their work vis-a-vis the bottom line. But that only goes so far in this dialogue because:

1) It is not a given that the corporate masters will necessary want to "prove [their] macho chops," especially if they have the majority of their eyeballs coming from overseas. When CNN runs a viciously anti-Israel piece, are they proving their "macho chops" to their intended audience? How does Al Jazeera fit into this debate -- what is its PressThink, and should they be granted the same professional and social status as American press outfits?

2) Moreover, sometimes the top of the corporate culture is run by elites who do not well understand the American public: Indira Nooyi may know a lot about which artificial sweeteners taste better but she does not exactly have her finger on the pulse of American public attitudes; more directly, I'm not sure that Pinch Sulzberger is strictly interested in maximizing the bottom line if it leads him too far away from his social goals. From accounts I have read, the NYT has tried to eat its cake and have it by attempting to find more like-minded readers in other cities rather than diversify their content.

3) Even the best corporate bean counters cannot instantaneously alter the accreted rituals of a professional religion which limits creativity and diversity of thought. This is why much of the freshest reporting and commentary today is coming from sources who are not indoctrinated in this religion. And the audiences have responded, while many oldthinkers can only scratch their head; it is literally unthinkable.

4) One approach, comforting only in the short run, is to blame the audience for being so dumb and/or primitive as to not understand the teachings of the priestly class. Patronizing the audience is the one intellectual space where both the “clerics” and the bean counters (who form an often-misguided corporate elite) can see eye-to-eye, although each may seek a different means of redress.

In sum, I don’t doubt that there are considerable financial pressures that affect moment-to-moment decisions every day. But that hardly explains the story of how Americans have lost their trust in conventional media, or how Fox News has built its audience starting with cheap sets and second-rate talent.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 25, 2005 11:20 PM | Permalink

Jay --

I, for one, don't hold you accountable for the content of the media. However, I would like to hold your feet to the fire on the consequences of your ideas.

In the last two days (actually nights), I have spent a fair amount of time perusing your archives. And I think it is clear from my comments that I find your approach to the press "religion" quite insightful. But I find that some of your essays stop just short of drawing a full conclusion.

For example, your discussion of the contasting coverage of Abu Ghraib (wall-to-wall pictures) vs the Nick Berg video (self-censored) very skillfully demonstrates the logical inconsistency at play. But you then express a hope/expectation that the media might show the Berg video after a brief delay for "absorption," and then launch into a lengthy attack on the bias-hunters.

You conclude with a diagnosis with which I fully agree (quoted below), but I would like to hear your thoughts on possible prescriptions for the patient, Dr. Rosen:

"Way, way underneath these debates I find a disturbing fact. Even the smartest people in the major news media—and this is especially so in television news—have not really determined for themselves or explained to us exactly what their role should be in the worldwide fight against terrorism...Terrorism can be many things, but it is always an attempt at communication; and a free press in an open society “completes” the act."

I would argue that this problem goes far beyond the airing of a single gruesome video, into just about every decision that the political and international press must make everyday, including the conduct of White House press conferences. In this context I would like to ask you to respond to my comments about Vietnam and Tet, to which you refer in passing in the Nick Berg essay.

More broadly, do you have any thoughts on the following observation?: Many core precepts of the press religion that you have identified are actually intellectual residua of the last two centuries of Leftist thought. Thus, is it possible that the bias-hunters, while perhaps focusing too much on the ephemera of specific "gotcha" moments, are actually pointing towards a deeper phenomenon?

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 25, 2005 11:46 PM | Permalink

Jay,

You are due an apology: I'm sorry. Looking back, it turns out to be antimedia who posted

What would be the solution? Do J-schools need to change what they teach? How they teach? Does the problem not originate in the J-schools? If not, can J-schools still contribute to a solution? How endemic is the problem? How likely is it that change can occur?

I will say, though, that given that you're a professor at a school of journalism (or do I have that wrong, too?) you might be expected to be interested in answers to those questions. What you teach now will influence journalism in the years to come. "Teach up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke at August 26, 2005 12:13 AM | Permalink

The objection that I think many conservatives and moderates have with our dominant media is not so much open bias in their journalism. We know, for example, that op-ed columnists can be read with any appropriate discount factor applied. Instead, much of the dissatisfaction results from the mantle of objectivity (i.e. denials of ideological bias) with which our dominant media often cloak themselves, annointing themselves rightful gatekeepers and impartial referees of the news agenda.

Based on the attitudes expressed by players in the media and it's sphere of influence (including occasional participants in PressThink comments), too many journalists (and their acolytes) seem have this condescending and preemptive attitude:

I, journalist, am endowed with a special power to impart truth and wisdom to you, gentle reader. Any question of my accuracy stems from your inability to grasp reality; any question of my fairness stems from your own politics; and any discussion about either one of the foregoing makes you dumber. Trouble me not with trifles, can't you see how important I am to our nation's governance?

To borrow a quote that seems all too apt for some journalists:

"I always thought you needed a little humility... or was it humiliation? Either would do..."

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 26, 2005 12:50 AM | Permalink

A dialogue with conservatives about the press isn't going to work right now. Their motives are purely politics, as a political gambit their strategy works perfectly, and they are going to keep at it until it fails. The best possible thing journalists could do would be to ignore them.

A useful response to the question of "why is the mainstream media so liberal" is "why is the rightwing media so crappy, so devoted to the ruling party's propaganda and so little devoted to the truth." Pointing out that the right-of-center press in other countries is capable of doing good journalism, that you have no trouble seeing that the Telegraph is a much better paper than the Mirror and the Economist is a better magazine than almost any in the U.S., also helps to some degree sometimes.

But you've done a fair bit of this; it only works on people who care at least a little about journalism and have at least a little shame, and not so many of your commenters seem to. So the best thing is probably to ignore the people who don't actually engage your arguments.

I get frustrated here too, frankly, in that the comments of people on the left who actually care about journalism--were journalists and left the field because they were disillusioned by it in my case--are completely ignored in the vain hope of engaging people who will never, ever listen to what you say.

As far as objectivity: it seems to me that if objectivity is worth something, it means not assumming your conclusion. You will have opinions of your own of course, which may predispose you to sympathize with one side or believe certain things, but those should stay out of your story unless independently confirmed by factual reporting & should not be a reason to skip steps in your story.

As far as which stories to run, I think there is no better alternative than going with those you consider most important, asking yourself "would I consider this equally important if the party affiliations of everyone were switched" if needed.

What "objectivity" usually means in practice, is one of three things:
a) failing to come to a conclusion, instead just transcribing the "he said she said" and skipping the part where you actually look at the evidence and see what is actually true.
b) assuming in advance that the Democratic and Republican arguments are equally truthful, equally reasonable, equally moderate or extreme, equally right or wrong. This is assuming the conclusion in advance as surely as, and no more likely to be accurate than, assuming that the Democrats are right and the Republicans wrong or vice versa.
c) covering stories not based on your own judgment of their importance--actually thinking would be far too subjective--but based on how many people are talking about them at what volume.

Posted by: Katherine at August 26, 2005 2:09 AM | Permalink

I have a question. Why is it that whenever the MSM covers relatives of those who have died in Iraq or on 9/11 it's always someone who hates Bush?

Posted by: joe at August 26, 2005 2:14 AM | Permalink

Another example that gets people who have any shame to concede that even if newspapers are not objective they are more or less so, and that truth and quality matter more than bias, is comparing Ha'aretz to the Egyptian press. It is quite likely that Ha'aretz is at some level biased towards Israel, and that the Egyptian press' ideological views are more representative of the region as a whole's than Israel, and yet it is also quite obvious that Ha'aretz is a better newspaper that is more objective and gives its readers a more truthful and accurate view of the world. And that is the important question about newspapers, not whether one "pretends to be objective" while the other admits he is not, or whatever the usual mumbo jumbo they roll out to excuse the pathetic standards of journalism in the U.S. right wing press.

Posted by: Katherine at August 26, 2005 2:22 AM | Permalink

As for the desire to "make a difference" versus
"just reporting the truth" (or "reporting the facts" if that language is too highfalutin), they are just not at all contradictory for many journalists. I always believed that if I reported and wrote about the truth/the facts about important subjects, that would make a difference.

It's not just journalism, by any means. Scientists and historians and academics in general are trying to discover & inform people of "the truth" and "the facts." Many of them probably believe their work makes a difference--they might not use that hokey language*, but they generally believe that their work is a useful contribution to humanity's knowledge and that pursuing knowledge for its own sake is both worthwile in itself and useful in other important goals (like curing cancer and that sort of thing). Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seek to improve human rights, and their single most effective means of doing so is reporting on human rights violations with as much accuracy and as much detail as they can. (Whether they live up to that goal is another question--I think HRW is a bit better than Amnesty but both are certainly useful--but in any case that is clearly their chosen goal and chosen goal and approach.) Most non-fiction authors do the same. When Samantha Power and Philip Gourevitch wanted to convince the American public to stop another genocide, their chosen means were to report as exhaustively and accurately as possible about past genocides.

"Reporting the facts objectively" and "making a difference" are not contradictory goals for a scrupulous journalist.

If you doubt any of this try reading about Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Science Monitor. Her response to an incident where she felt unfairly treated by the press was to endow a newspaper, not to defend her or proselytize or teach for her religion, but simply to be an independent newspaper to report accurately and avoid the sensationalism, commercial pressures, and other perceived flaws of the regular press. And it's a hell of a newspaper, completely independent of the Church except for one daily opinion column called the "Home Forum", maybe the most underrated paper in the U.S.

The contrast between this approach and the Hugh Hewitt & pals approach could not be more stark.

*the newsroom "religion" that Jay talks about strikes me as more a collection of cliches embroidered onto pillows than anything else at this point. "Religion" is actually a poor choice of words I think--it implies a well thought ideology that does not exist, in addition to opening yourself up to misrepresentation by the usual suspects.

Posted by: Katherine at August 26, 2005 3:06 AM | Permalink

For those of you interested in cultural analysis of our common "media problem," Digby has an interesting discussion of Gary Hart's recent editorial that morphs into a reading of the reigning political and media elites as an insular club. This theory parallels the right-bias story in some respects--even agrees with some of the premises--yet ends up in a completely different place.

Digby
"In other words, the elite "liberal" media --- and the Democratic establishment --- all seem to be battling personal demons that they are taking out on Democratic politicans. And they live in this little DC bubble that resembles nothing so much as a royal court where palace intrigue is beamed out into the rest of the world and called "politics." It's infected how we all interpret political matters --- I have only recently realized just how much it infected me."

Posted by: Mark Anderson at August 26, 2005 3:39 AM | Permalink

Joe,
It just seems like everyone who lost a relative in Iraq hates Bush because that is the only occasion on which the media allows the 50% of Americans who have justified contempt for Bush's lack of judgment to approach a microphone with the camera rolling.

You should be asking yourself the reverse question--why don't I ever hear from people who disagree with Bush on the MSM unless one of their relatives died? Why aren't they even allowed to attend our boy-king's taxpayer-funded promotional appearances?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at August 26, 2005 3:45 AM | Permalink

"It just seems like everyone who lost a relative in Iraq hates Bush because that is the only occasion on which the media allows the 50% of Americans who have justified contempt for Bush's lack of judgment to approach a microphone with the camera rolling."

Wait a minute, you're saying that the MSM never allows people on who criticize Bush? And are you implying that 100% of people who lost relatives on 9/11 or in Iraq are against Bush? Every single one? This sort of wishful thinking by you, and the Leftists who dominate the MSM, is exactly why the MSM is on the decline.

Posted by: joe at August 26, 2005 3:55 AM | Permalink

If two thirds of the country don't trust the press because they're all liberal hacks, and two thirds of the country think Bush is doing a lousy job on Iraq, then there's a dangerous third out there who appear to be thinking for themselves. I say we hunt them down and kill them before they strike again.

Posted by: weldon berger at August 26, 2005 4:32 AM | Permalink

I dunno about this discussion. Although the elephant in the living room has been mentioned, it hasn't been dissected. It's still there, its presence barely remarked and its meaning either unremarked or assumed.
Let me be a bit clearer.
Before the last presidential election, CBS connived in the promulgation of bogus documents wiht the clear purpose of swinging an election. Whether you think Rather was actively involved or he was too eager to check; whether you think his immediate staff was guilty or were too eager to check, whether you think the entire news division was guilty or just too eager to check...the fact was, they fought the obvious as long as they could.

Here's the point: If they'll do this, what less obvious and less egregious but still dishonest stuff will they do? What is the cumulative impact of scores of efforts one-tenth or one-fiftieth as bad as Rathergate?

Following that was the untended ammo dump, about which CBS and the NYT had intended to write, but maybe a week later than they could have, but, strangely, closer to the election, which, coincidentally, meant too little time for the administration to respond before the election and, which, coincidentally, became a non-story just after the election.

Now, I understant that CBS didn't stand up and say, "We lied like rugs in order to swing an election." In fact, they denied it.
Where is the rule that we have to believe them about their pure motivation?

If a major news outlet will do this on the eve of a presidential election, what smaller things are they doing daily?

Well, some of us catch them at it.

Maybe it's not bias. Maybe it's a...umm..., a banana.

The problem is that the presence of the banana means lots of people don't trust the media. And no amount of chin-pulling by journos is going to change that until the banana goes away.

It's up to the media. Don't expect to keep the banana around and simultaneously use your mythical authority to keep the rest of us believing in your mythical authority.

Your choice.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 7:50 AM | Permalink

Oh, how good it is!!!!

Speaking of bananas, Powerline has a link to an piece wherein a comparison of a transcript of an interview with Condi nails, absolutely nails, the NYT report. Lying sacks.

No bananas here. Nossir.

Somebody want to explain this?

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 8:02 AM | Permalink

any discussion of media bias must begin with its most obvious example -- the "nationalistic" bias of all media. The reaction to two of Rosen's most recent pieces ("The View From Nowhere" and "The Abyss of Observation Alone"---both linked above) demonstrate the overwhelming demand, especially among the right-wing, for a biased media. Any reporting from the US media that takes a truly unbiased (i.e. internationalist) perspective is damned as "unpatriotic", and any foreign news outlet that mirrors the nationalistic approach taken by the US media is deemed hopelessly biased.

The bias-mongers urge us to read the "miliblogs" for the "truth" about the Iraq war, telling us that if we really want to know about a special forces operation, we should read the blogs of the participants. Unsurprisingly, these people don't urge us to read the view of the Iraqis who are subjected to these same special forces operations---the Iraqi perspectives, their opinions, indeed their basic humanity are regarded as irrelevant to "the truth."

For the right, reporting that isn't about "us against them" and that doesn't assume that "us" is always in the right is "biased" reporting.

At least the left has a far more nuanced view of "bias" --- seeing it not as ideologically driven, but as institution bias.

Posted by: ami at August 26, 2005 8:57 AM | Permalink

There! That's what I meant: Somebody want to explain this? (Where "this" is CBS peddling bogus documents "with the clear purpose of swinging an election.")

It means: "Is anyone going to take responsibility for these facts, which are so overwhelmingly obvious in the conclusion they support (liberal bias)? No one? I didn't think so...."

Which is enraging, of course. So the game goes on. And this, I suggest, is what's making people dumber by the day. Thus:

Part of the vehemence of the bias discourse is that people who are passionate speakers of it want someone to stand and be judged guilty of all that bias, or take responsibility for it, own it, and since this never happens, they take the tools of justice into their own hands, and use them on whomever "represents" the absent offenders.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 9:01 AM | Permalink

"There! That's what I meant: Somebody want to explain this? (Where "this" is CBS peddling bogus documents "with the clear purpose of swinging an election.")"

Speaking of the CBS phony memos, what's the point of a news division having "layers" of people to fact check, when those "layers" consist of people who all think alike? Maybe if the Leftsream media wants to avoid such future embarassments and salvage some credibility, they could start by hiring some non-Left wingers to work in positions of importance. Now before you guys go nuts I'm not saying that a whole bunch of Republicans should be hired, I'm just saying a couple of people who might challenge the groupthink that led to such disasters in the first place.

"The bias-mongers urge us to read the "miliblogs" for the "truth" about the Iraq war, telling us that if we really want to know about a special forces operation, we should read the blogs of the participants. Unsurprisingly, these people don't urge us to read the view of the Iraqis who are subjected to these same special forces operations---the Iraqi perspectives, their opinions, indeed their basic humanity are regarded as irrelevant to "the truth."

In other words if it doesn't conform to your idea of how the story should be told it's just lying military types. Iraqis that, regardless of their motives, hype what you want are to be given as much exposure as possible. Ding din ding, I think we have found Dan Rather's long term replacement, assuming there will even be a CBS news in 10-20 years time of course.

Posted by: joe at August 26, 2005 9:38 AM | Permalink

Neuro: Here is part of what I think, in reply to your questions. It's material for a whole post, which I hope to draft some day.

At some point in the evolution of the current (but dying) professional model in journalism--which stresses objectivity, neutrality and being a watchdog or adversary of those in power--the press lost the capacity to think politically about itself and what actually connected it to the country, including the two-party system, including the drift of things in the electorate.

Journalism schools were complicit in this. We should but we don't teach courses in the politics of the press, for example, where students might be asked to think about how, say, a consensus in mainstream journalism is shaped by political consensus in the country. When one shifts the other is affected. But they don't know that. What is the relationship between the political class and the class of journalists reporting on politics? They should be able to think about this, but in fact what we teach them (the "religion") disables them.

I believe that without quite realizing what it was doing, the press slipped into rationales and routines that blithely (superficially) accepted "pariah" status for itself within American society. This became one of the theories connecting professional journalism to the American people. It's a very serious thing--actually being a pariah--but if it's accepted superifically one might not realize the consequences of thinking that way.

If you think, for example, that people resent you and always will because you tell the uncomfortable truths they do not want to to hear, you have said to yourselves, "we will always be a pariah." A softer version of it is when a journalist says about criticism, "well, we're not here to be loved."

I equate this with the incapacity to think because it set out before journalists a false choice-- striving for adulation vs. accepting pariah status--neither of which is wise, sustainable or in the interests of a mature institution.

One may interpret what is happening today (where journalism is caught up in the culture war) as: American society is actually granting to the press the "pariah" status it unwittingly took on in its own mind. One may interpret the bias wars as: critics are "thinking politically" where journalists failed to do so.

When September 11th happened, these deeply-set weaknesses burst forward. As I argued here ("What if Everything Changed for American Journalists on September 11th?"):

"On the whole the American press has not seen fit to start its own story over after the attacks of 2001, just to see if 'journalism' comes out in the same place, if 'ethics' are the ones that were adequate before, if duty to nation looks the same, if observer-hood still fits."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 9:52 AM | Permalink

"As for corruption, exactly what intentionally misleading report have you read or seen"

This subject might qualify.

Posted by: Mike in Colorado at August 26, 2005 10:01 AM | Permalink

Mike in Colorado. That won't do. The reporter has been said, by people familiar with his work, that he's not at all bright and his experience is in other fields. So it's because he's dumb and incompetent, not deliberately trying to make the US military look bad.
The good ones are all in Iraq, which is why this third-stringer is covering such issues.

So say even people who think the NYT screwed the pooch on this story.

Crap. They're even biased in the morons they pick.

As to Iraqi views, there is a website linking to lots of them. Nobody's hiding this stuff. Problem is, many of the folks are glad SH is gone and we're there.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 10:16 AM | Permalink

"If a person just ignored or mentally deleted all the hostile- sounding and snarky posts by Steve Lovelady and also all the cheap, personal- sounding snarky posts about Steve Lovelady and in response to Steve Lovelady, not only would this excercise have been much shorter but also much more scholarly, adult and useful. I'm just sayin'"

I totally agree with this, and plead guilty in part to succumbing to that urge. My apologies. I pledge to henceforth do exactly what Li suggests. As an experiment, why doesn't everyone, and let's see how well the conversation holds up.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 26, 2005 10:44 AM | Permalink

Joe asks: "Why is it that whenever the MSM covers relatives of those who have died in Iraq or on 9/11 it's always someone who hates Bush?"

Answer: It isn't. Just yesterday, NPR interviewed a woman who met with Bush after her brother was killed in Iraq. She said he was sympathetic, sensitive and genuinely moved by her loss.

Sorry that doesn't fit with your own biases, but sometimes that's just how reality works.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 26, 2005 11:06 AM | Permalink

"Answer: It isn't. Just yesterday, NPR interviewed a woman who met with Bush after her brother was killed in Iraq. She said he was sympathetic, sensitive and genuinely moved by her loss.

Sorry that doesn't fit with your own biases, but sometimes that's just how reality works."

And that one example disproves the fact that the MSM gives a disproportionate amount of time to relatives who are critical of Bush?

Posted by: joe at August 26, 2005 11:24 AM | Permalink

"And that one example disproves the fact that the MSM gives a disproportionate amount of time to relatives who are critical of Bush?"
-- Joe

No, it doesn't "disprove" the allegation. On the other hand, neither have you "proved" it.
Calling a belief "a fact" doesn't make it so.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 26, 2005 11:44 AM | Permalink

"As far as objectivity: it seems to me that if objectivity is worth something, it means not assumming your conclusion. You will have opinions of your own of course, which may predispose you to sympathize with one side or believe certain things, but those should stay out of your story unless independently confirmed by factual reporting & should not be a reason to skip steps in your story.

...asking yourself "would I consider this equally important if the party affiliations of everyone were switched..." - Katherine, above.

I think there's some common ground here on these points.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 26, 2005 12:03 PM | Permalink

Joe: "Why is it that whenever the MSM covers relatives of those who have died in Iraq or on 9/11 it's always someone who hates Bush?"

David: "It isn't. Just yesterday, NPR interviewed a woman who met with Bush after her brother was killed in Iraq. She said he was sympathetic, sensitive and genuinely moved by her loss."

Joe: "And that one example disproves the fact that the MSM gives a disproportionate amount of time to relatives who are critical of Bush?"

Good example of what I mean: the bias discourse is making you dumber.

Here, "Joe" starts off with a "whenever" and an "always," the categorical terms that charcaterize bias talk.

A counter-example is provided, which is exactly what's invited by a categorical term like "always."

Then "Joe" shifts his claim from the original "always" to a very different proposition, a "disproportionate amount of time..."

Of course he's just as outraged as he was before, but now openly jeers at the example he invited.

It's the kind of thing that makes everyone cynical.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 12:07 PM | Permalink

Prof. Rosen.

I don't know if I understand your point about someobody owning the CBS fraud.

Are you saying that if CBS 'fessed up, we wouldn't be so mad at all the other media?

If so, I disagree. Just for grins: Our local paper did a smear job on my daughter--which the AP picked up--on account of being lazy, incompetent, and stupid. The truth was available on The Day, but the SOB reporter didn't bother. The eventual story got out but it was a classic rowback. Nowhere would you believe that my daughter wasn't the ignorant doofus that the original story painted her.

The good part about it was that it was an institutional activity, and all those involved knew the truth and, watching the Flint Journal, saw how the Flint Journal handled it. I would guess that the Flint Journal got caught by about two hundred adults, which in our area is a pretty good chunk of the population.

You don't think, do you, that I'm going to cut them some retroactive slack if Rather confesses?

Of course,referring to the case under discussion, the outrage that CBS continues to insist they did nothing wrong can slop over onto other outlets. But that CBS won't come clean doesn't mean the other outlets are pure as the driven snow. It just means that they get some of what CBS earned, while CBS gets some of what other outlets earned.

Most of the time, they earned it fair and square, in a manner of speaking.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 12:20 PM | Permalink

Joe,

I have to agree with Jay that you made an illogical jump there. One instance of anything cannot prove an overall pattern in any way.

You made one assertion that someone disproved with an example, and then you challenged his example because it did not refute your new assertion. Not fair.

Jay,

While you also explained to Joe what he did wrong, perhaps referring to someone as "dumb" or as "getting" dumber is not the best way to point that out.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 26, 2005 12:59 PM | Permalink

"It's the kind of thing that makes everyone cynical."

See when you use the word "everyone" you are using a categorical term that characterizes bias talk. Clearly this discourse is making you dumber. See I can nitpick and be a wise ass too just like a Leftist, all while ignoring the larger point that is being made. Forget enrollment and going to class, just hand me my journalism degree right here and now.

"Of course he's just as outraged as he was before, but now openly jeers at the example he invited."

Outraged? Jeers? Wow, that's a way to put a negative spin on things. Now all you have to do is call me "shrill," because after all only right wingers are "shrill."

Basically you're just making everyone cynical. See I can condescendingly talk down to you just like you did to me. All I need now is a "no blood for oil" bumper sticker and I'm set for life with job opportunites from the MSM.

Posted by: joe at August 26, 2005 1:02 PM | Permalink

Jay,

I understand your frustration with the accusations of bias. Many of them are unfair, but...

Consider a wife who catches her husband cheating on her. Even if she continues in the relationship, it has been unalterably changed. Her trust in him has been shattered. She will inevitably be suspicious whenever he is alone with another woman - no matter his innocence. And perhaps, some of the time, she is right. Maybe he still does play aroung a little on the side. Even if her specific suspicions are provably false in individual circumstances, her general suspicions may be correct. He still has a roaming eye, and maybe sometimes other roaming body parts.

That is exactly the situation the MSM in which finds itself in regards to conservatives. We feel, heck we know, that we have been betrayed in the past. So your protestations of media innocence may be correct in a technical sense, but our suspicions may also be warranted at the same time. There are just too many examples of the MSM continuing to betray conservatives for us to justify reinvesting the MSM with the trust it once enjoyed.

Trust, once lost, is very difficult to restore. You may not personally be guilty of any violations, and there may be many journalists who are also not guilty. But you suffer from guilt by association. Unfair? Sure. But are conservatives necessarily "dumb" because they withhold their trust? I don't think so.

Also, I think that we get caught up in labels - conservative vs. liberal, Republican vs. Democrat. But those labels are just shorthand for how people view issues. The defining image of the press is where it comes down on issues on a case by case basis. The real damage to press credibility is that on issue after issue after issue, the press, taken as a whole is almost completely disconnected from the values of the average American, and even hostile to "conservative" positions on issues such as

1) Abortion (Parental Notification)
2) Economics (Socialism vs. Free Market)
3) Business (Profit motivations)
4) Feminism (denigration of Men)
5) Racism (false charges and race baiting)
6) Family (gay marriage)
7) Public Morality (sex on TV, and in the movies, local strip clubs)
8) Energy Policy vs. Environmentalism (conservation vs. preservation)
9) Affirmative Action (racial preferences, quotas)
10) Multiculturalism (American exceptionalism, melting pot assimilation vs. identity politics)
11) Internationalism (Using foreign platforms to criticize our elected officials)
12) Patriotism (Citizen of the World)
13) Religion (most Americans are religious and specifically Christian)
14) and many others.

When the slant of writing comes down again and again and again on the opposite side of the issue from conservative positions, is it wrong to recognize a pattern and call it out? "The press is biased" is just shorthand for "we don't agree." And that disagreement is widespread on issue after issue.

It seems that the press isn't as concerned with what American really think as compared to trying to tell us what we should think. And when we refuse to fall in line, we are called morons, misogynists, homophobes, morons, racists, bigots, and yes, "dumb."

The "citizen of the world" position is just the most eggregious example of the MSM philandering. The press claims to represent our interest, but seems to have no interest in us. We are left at home taking care of the kids while the philandering press is out bed-hopping on almost every issue that matters to us. And like the philandering husband blaims his wife, we are also blaimed.

In this environment, is it really any wonder that we cry "bias?" We feel betrayed. Our trust has been shattered. You are correct in saying that we need to cut the press some slack if the relationship is ever going to be repaired. Some, like Austin Bay think the relationship needs repairing. But just as many, if not more, are considering "divorce." Can you blame us? Sure. But that doesn't solve the problem. The real question is who gets custody of the "kids" (the issues.) That is the actual battle being fought over in the alternative media.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 1:36 PM | Permalink

By the way, I believe that TRUST is the biggest electoral issue for Americans. A Republican Senator from Arkansas lost his seat to a Democrat in the last election primarily because he had cheated on and then left his wife. I think Americans trusted George Bush more than John Kerry. Indeed, many of Kerry's supporters were counting on the supposition that many of his positions were just necessary campaign lies in order to get elected. That salute at the DNC was just awful. The "voted for it before I voted against it" was a parable.

Trust is the reason why I personally would vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain. McCain is the Terrell Owens of Republican politics - talented, but completely untrustworthy.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 1:48 PM | Permalink

Note: I am not saying that all Americans agree on all the issues I listed above. But the homogenity of the press on these issues is remarkable - and predictable.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 1:55 PM | Permalink

One other comment: You are very correct when you assert that many of the cries of "bias" are completely irrational. But going back to the betrayed wife analogy, do you really think it is productive to accuse the outraged wife of being irrational? While it may be true, so what? You are trying to rationalize an emotional response. It just won't work. Rationally speaking, humans are very emotional beings. Discounting those emotions is short-sighted and useless.

I'm done now. Thanks for the forum.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 2:06 PM | Permalink

ZZZzzzzzzz

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 26, 2005 2:16 PM | Permalink

While we're interpreting and counter-interpreting the ideological tenor of media reports, let's breath some truth in the form of an admission against interest:

"Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions" ... The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race." - ABC News The Note, Mark Halperin, et. al, February 10, 2004.

And in the same Note one may find the following, which seems quite appropos of the discussion here at PressThink the past couple days:

"That means the President's communications advisers have a choice:

Try to change the storyline and the press' attitude, or try to win this election without changing them." - ABC News The Note, Mark Halperin, et. al, February 10, 2004.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 26, 2005 2:17 PM | Permalink

I agree with Kilgore.

Common ground at last

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 2:51 PM | Permalink

Do you have any previous posts where you have responded to liberal critiques of the press as well as or in addition to conservative ones?

As far as I can tell, a hell of a lot of journalism professors and media critics and reporters themselves agree with us to some extent. And yet, NOTHING AT ALL happens in response. No one tries to actually serve this market--which is a minority but which is a huge % of the country. And it's like we're completely invisible, here as everywhere else. I've participated in a lot of threads here. I have not once seen you respond to anyone who is neither a professional reporter nor a conservative with the usual litany of complaints. It's like we don't exist. More and more I think that we have to just start our own press and do our own reporting, and weblogs provide a possible way--and yet, you won't even discuss that with us; you act as if Michelle Malkin and Powerline are all weblogs, and hold conferences to which no liberals are invited. And I'm getting fairly obnoxious about it and repeating myself, only because obnoxiousness and repetition seem to be the only things to which you or anyone else in the press ever responds.

Posted by: Katherine at August 26, 2005 3:12 PM | Permalink

And if the lack of acknowledgement of their grievances is the problem, why does every acknowledgement of their grievance just become a club that they use as proof that they are right?
Why are they whining louder now than ever before? There is no amount of data you can give them or argument you can make that will change their view. When the hell is the paid media going to learn this? And if the answer is never--if you insist on choosing your enemies over your natural allies, again, and again--how are we going to start a new press?

Posted by: Katherine at August 26, 2005 3:15 PM | Permalink

"Do you have any previous posts where you have responded to liberal critiques of the press as well as or in addition to conservative ones?"

Do you mean something like this?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 3:52 PM | Permalink

Katherine,

I think your comment illustrates my point. We have gone past the point of rationale discussion. We, like divorcing spouses, are just hurling accusations at each other. People like Jay and Austin Bay want to try to patch things up. But many are waaaaaaaay past any hope of, or even desire for, reconciliation. What you are recommending is going forward with the "divorce." So as I suggested, the real argument is not whether the press and conservatives can kiss and make up, but who gets custody of the issues. And just as in many custody disputes, accusations, true and false, are being hurled back and forth with abandon.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 3:54 PM | Permalink

Katherine is asking the questions posed by Scott's theoretical spurned wife.
Of course, in Scott's analogy, the spurned wife is conservatives -- and the philandering husband is the press.
Whereas, to Katherine's mind, the spurned wife is liberals -- but the philandering husband is still the press.
Since, as Jay has noted before, the accused husband never drops by here to defend himself, we're left with a debate that devolves into who is most persuasive in claiming victimhood.
It's not a pretty sight.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 26, 2005 3:57 PM | Permalink

If this is sort of like a divorce, and we're talking about preventing it, doesn't at least one party have to vow to change their ways?

Start right in.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 3:58 PM | Permalink

Steve,

I would suggest that one side is the wife, and the other is the mistress. The mistress might complain that the husband is trying to reconcile after promising to divorce the wife and marry her. Of course, that is just my perspective.

But there are hints as to who the press has been "sleeping with" for some time now.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 4:08 PM | Permalink

To Katherine:

What you mean by "we" kemosabe?

What does this mean: "...a minority but which is a huge % of the country" mean? I do hope you are not an accountant.

And this: "if you insist on choosing your enemies over your natural allies...how are we going to start a new press?" Who are the "enemies" and who is "we"? Just askin' Not everyone here visits DU.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 26, 2005 4:14 PM | Permalink

OK, better yet, I'll ask Jay: who are your "enemies" and who are your "allies".

Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 26, 2005 4:26 PM | Permalink

Katherine's "natural allies" statement belies her complaint. Even she is acknowledging that the "natural allies" of the press are on the left, and their "enemies" are on the right.

*****

On another level, back to my analogy. Maybe the press has been a bygamist, trying to be married to both left and right. As long as the press was perceived to be "servicing" both wives, we were happy with the relationship. But when in became obvious that the left wife was getting a lot more attention, and when the press started favoring her children/issues over ours, we started getting upset.

In either scenario, many on the right are clamoring for a "divorce." Perhaps a better press model is where both wives have their own husbands. Perhaps, as Katherine suggests, the press needs to choose sides and quit with the pretense of objectivity. And whichever side loses out can go searching for its own husband.

Or perhaps that has already happened. Perhaps the right has already gotten "married" to talk radio, Fox News, and the internet, and we are just in a custody battle over the issues. If that is true, the Austin Bay's entire argument is invalid.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 4:30 PM | Permalink

I believe, Richard, that there is usually a recognition by both parties of a willingness to change.

We will work at emphasizing facts and a clearer assessment of events, cut through the bullshit from whoever is in power and report what's going on.

You guys can acknowledge that it's not automatically bias because news reports dont support your ideology.

Then maybe we can sit down over a cup of coffee and talk about what's really bothering us.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 4:32 PM | Permalink

I guess the point of my analogy in this discussion is that Jay and some others are tired of the "bias" accusation. They are promoting a rational discussion of the problems with a view towards reconciling with the American public. But what if the press model of "objectivity" is unsuited for such a reconiciliation.

The emotions on both sides seems to run very high. The press, like either the philandering husband or the bygamist husband is caught in the middle wondering how it all went wrong. They liked the set-up of being able to play both sides according to whatever their whim was back when they were the only "man" available. They cannot understand the irrational emotions of either side, and are pleading to just go back to the good old days when we were satisfied with whatever "he" gave us.

But now that there are other "men" available, i.e. new technology and avenues for communication, that scenario is no longer viable. I hear Katherine saying, "Yes that's right. Come over here to Momma. You don't need that nasty old girl over on the right anyway. I've got all you can handle." Meanwhile, many on the right have already decamped and moved on. They are only interested in heaping scorn on their old mate. The press, like the oblivious husband just wonders where it all went wrong.

So the question is, Is a rational discussion even possible.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 4:45 PM | Permalink

Scott Harris is so right when he says that many of us have "decamped and moved on."

Who cares if the MSM has a liberal bias or not? Will MSM change? Their credibility is in the tank but they still blame others.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 26, 2005 4:54 PM | Permalink

Dave. You have some denial to get past.
Your characterization of our view of bias is way off the mark.

In addition to the vows you offer, is your side going to quit making stuff up?

If your side goes after Bush's military records, would you feel that a covenant has been breached if nobody goes after Kerry's records? And how are you going to characterize somebody who complains you didn't go after Kerry's records?

You seem to think your side has a couple of technical issues to overcome and all will be well.
I recall that the NYT's public editor said the piece which deliberately turned a soldier's comments by 180 degrees by, in part, inserting something an editor made up, was a technical error. You gonna give up even those technical errors? It could really hurt to do without that, you know. If you don't want a divorce, you're going to have to give that up. Maybe you ought to find that lawyer's card again.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 4:54 PM | Permalink

Scott asks

So the question is, Is a rational discussion even possible.

To which I reply, apparently not.

Posted by: antimedia at August 26, 2005 4:56 PM | Permalink

I suppose the other point that Jay is trying to make is that the press, the husband in my analogy, does have some value and some redeeming qualities. That is certainly true. The press provides a service that would be sorely missed in many cases. But as Kilgore says above, "who cares" if the old guy has some good traits?

In a rational moment, the spurned wife might intellectually acknowledge that fact. But the emotional impact of the perceived betrayal overwhelms all of that.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 5:17 PM | Permalink

As for "decamping and moving on," I honestly cannot remember the last time I watched the Network News. It was probably sometime back in 2001 around the time of 9/11. I don't miss it at all. I get my news from cable, and the internet. I take the newspaper, but only for the Sports Section and the crossword puzzle. The other sections go unread.

Apparently, Cindy Sheehan has been big news on the networks, but I wouldn't know about her if it wasn't for folks on the internet discussing it. And I am immune to the daily drumbeat of news because I am not addicted to the 24-hour news cyle. In my opinion, the rush to press mostly distorts the important issues.

I do watch Chris Matthews on election night because he is the best "sportcaster" in politics, but his Hardball Schtick got old when he kept ranting and raving about "the Arab street, the Arab street." I like Joe Scarborough and Brit Hume, but have watched them precisely once each in the past three months. Talk radio bores me, and the "he said, she said" format of shows like Hannity and Colmes and Crossfire is tedious, at best. Ruch Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken are too arrogant to stomach.

Because I know I am conservative, I try to read centrist blogs like this one, Roger Simon, Instapundit, and all liberal blogs like Washington Animal by Kevin Drum just to keep myself informed. I tired long ago from visiting too many conservative blogs because there is only so much "preaching to the choir" that a person can take. But there are a couple of columnists I read regularly because I like their writing sytle, and their wit.

In other words, I am ordering from the menu, not eating at the cafeteria. It is more satisfying.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 5:39 PM | Permalink

You see, Richard, that's what I'm talking about. CBS screwed the pooch royally on the Bush NG letter. Major League. A little more skepticism and Dan Rather would still be on the air, annoying the crap out of you. But they didn't. And in your mind, it has to be bias. Couldn't be anything but.

Yet when some right-wing ideologues and some angry vets go after Kerry's war record with innuendo and half-truths, that's fine to you. That's 'facts.' But you also want equivalency. Much of the information in Kerry's combat record came out in news reports, substantiated in interviews with boat crew and, for heaven's sake, old Vietnamese. But it's media bias because the press didn't force the issue on revealing his papers.

Once Kerry released his papers, the information confirmed his service and his heroism and made the critics look silly. But it's still bias to you.

Be careful what you ask for. The media, warts and all, may not be the prettiest thing at the dance. And the mistakes media make are stupid and costly, caught up as it is in the old model that they can make corrections in the next edition.

But if you take news coverage down the path you want, you're going to take all the propaganda you can eat.

Enjoy. This conversation has gone beyond boring. It's futile. Believe what you want.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 5:49 PM | Permalink

Steve, where do you think Kevin Drum, Simon, Instapundit, etc. get the news they provide you? From the Washington Post, NYTimes, LATimes, CNN and others. They are screening the news through their opinion, liberal or otherwise, in ways reporters don't.

And once the media well dries and we've all become focus-driven affinity group 'content providers,' where is the news going to come?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 5:56 PM | Permalink

I apologize if I'm not following the soap opera narrative here. (Who's the wife, husband, mistress, cuckhold, whatever).I don't have to give a damn about what the MSM thinks because there is diversity in the press today. Many lament that fact---I'm not one.

A while back, I think it was during the Sinclair kerfuffle, some cohort of Jays, a typical East Coast Liberal Elite, supported Sinclair saying, we need more diversity in the press, not less. There are a few things I've learned here, and that is one.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 26, 2005 5:57 PM | Permalink

Damn. I really should preview before posting. I meant to address the above post to Scott, not Steve.

Mea culpa.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 5:58 PM | Permalink

we need more diversity in the press, not less. There are a few things I've learned here, and that is one.

Lordy, twice in one day I agree with Kilgore. The more sources of facts and opinion, particularly that cut across various points of view, the closer we come to understanding events and the people that cause them.

It's never been a case that Old Media are the sole providers of news. The more the merrier. But the triumph of ideology over thought is a concern.

I believe the more we learn and the more we challenge our beliefs and, yes, our biases, the better off we are.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 6:15 PM | Permalink

Dave,

I don't deny that the blogs are parasites on the MSM. But I prefer to choose my own filters. By reading left, right and center, I get a sense of the issues from different points of view. But unlike with the contrived congeniality of shows like Crossfire, I prefer my bias undiluted.

When I read Kevin Drum, I know where he stands and can compensate. Likewise for Glenn Reynolds, or Ed Morissey. When I read John Hinderaker at Powerline Blog, I can compensate for him as well.

As I said in my original email to Jay, there is much in the press that is immune to political bias. I used to read the Washington Post everyday. I think it is a decent paper, sometimes.

But increasingly, much of what is reported on weblogs bypasses the MSM completely. A lot of reporting on the Iraq War is only available online. Kevin Drum likes to link to government documents. And all bloggers link to other bloggers as much or more than they link to each other.

A single MSM story may be a catalyst for discussion, but the discussion threads are much more interesting because you get to see what real everyday people think about the issues of the day. And they are usually much longer and more detailed than the original story.

As a consumer of news, I prefer to know up front what the ideologies of my screeners are. The filters I use help me screen out the noise and separate the information from the raw data.

Also, newsmakers, the wholesalers of news, as opposed to retail news deliverers, are learning how to deliver their message directly to the consumers, bypassing the middle man. That is not necessarily a bad thing for the consumer. It is not such a good thing for the retailer.

You might say that wholesale newsmakers have an agenda and might trick the unsuspecting consumer of news. That's the "value-added" argument for the MSM. And there is some validity to that argument.

But I would argue that when news organizations engage in "investigative reporting," they have themselves become newsmakers on the same level with other newsmakers like companies, politicians, and PR firms. We, as consumers have every right to consider the agenda of the "investigative reporter" as we do the agenda of any other newsmaker. And we are not so gullible as you might suppose. As much as we are critical of the performance of the press, we can be just as critical of the performance of other actors in the news.

But when the MSM denies being an actor, it loses all credibility. We might read the report, but the game of trying to claim the moral highground of "objectivity" is pretty much discredited.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 6:43 PM | Permalink

McLemore,

I am willing to acknowledge that it's not automatically bias because news reports don't support my ideology. Philosophically, I absolutely accept that (being conservative, I often think truly objective news should please my political sensibilities half the time, but offend them the other half).

As a gesture of good faith in return, I hope you might acknowledge that the dominant media's reporting is occasionally slanted in favor of issues of the left.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 26, 2005 7:11 PM | Permalink

Color me clueless.

It seems to me that the "media" has less interest in determining why are our "numbers" shrinking or why is our credibility decreasing, than in defending why they know better/are more knowledgable than the great unwashed.

Heads up. Journalist are inadequately prepared/educated to cover technical or complex issues (global warming, military stategy, stem cells, etc)WHEN they've taken it upon themselves
to interject "opinion" into their pieces or decide to fairly present only one view; most often by deciding which view/concept/etc is correct or best promulgates "their" (uneducated) of what's "best" . Yes, the slant counts.

If "journalist" would restrict themselves to reporting the facts, from all perspectives, rather than from their limited (educationally) perspectives, we'd go a long way towards rehabilitating the "media".

All you knee-jerk defenders of the "media" who perceive the Internet and bloggers as only capable of a parasitic relationship with the "legitimate" media, think again. You keep refusing to admit the power of these "new media".
Where did most of the news come from about the Orange or Cedar revolutions? How about the best coverage in Iraq? Your citizen correspondent! Smirk if you like, but these models/examples will expand in the future.

Oh, maybe now I see. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Technology is slowly relegating you to irrelavancy, whether you reform or not. Hey, so why not just splinter into "partisan" publications (like in the UK). Maybe, but I'd hate to see the fine tradition of the independent American Press lost.

Your future is in your hands - choose wisely.

Posted by: MaDr at August 26, 2005 7:43 PM | Permalink

"Also, newsmakers, the wholesalers of news, as opposed to retail news deliverers, are learning how to deliver their message directly to the consumers, bypassing the middle man. That is not necessarily a bad thing for the consumer. It is not such a good thing for the retailer."
-- Scott

There is no such thing as a "wholesaler" of news. There are only wholesalers of PR, right, left, or center.

It's the job of the retailer to actually collect the news, compare it to the vision offered up by the "newsmaker," and try to reconcile the two.

Granted, many of the retailers fail miserably at that task. But that doesn't change the fact that the day that any of us relies only on the version of events offered up by the "newsmaker," whomever that might be, is the day that darkness descends upon the land.

You are right, however, when you say it's past time for the MSM [whatever that is] to deny being an actor. That's a fiction, and they ought to drop it. I'm sick to death of reading stories that say ""This [whatever 'this' is] has attracted considerable attention," as if the attention didn't come from the guy who wrote the story.

But that's hardly a novel observation -- Jay has been making it for two years, and CJR Daily has been pointing out examples for nearly as long.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 26, 2005 8:13 PM | Permalink

See, for example, Psst.... The Press is a Player

... and, in a similar vein:

Players: Toward a More Honest Job Description For the Political Press.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 8:36 PM | Permalink

Sure, TA, I agree that reporters generally have more liberal social values that the general public.

That varies, of course, depending on where you work, where you live, etc. But generally, yeah.

And I think that sometimes results in a form of arrogance or cluelessness. But because you may support federal housing for the poor doesn't mean you're not going to report malfeasance in the housing office. And a contempt for politicians and political things.

As has been said here before, gatherings of reporters are notoriously apolitical. Reporters are much more concerned with getting Page 1 space, bigger stories and a more prestigious beat than they are furthering a political ideology.

Doubters will scoff. I don't care. I'm fascinated when people tell me how I really think.

Someone mentioned journalistic 'liberalism' in covering abortion. Frankly, it's a topic reporters hate to cover. Whatever facts are involved have long been overshadowed by the ideological hardening of the debate.

I'll give the anti-abortionist crowd points, however, for coming up with the descriptive 'pro-life.'

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 9:10 PM | Permalink

Dave M. You make a couple of my points for me.
The professional journos demanded Bush release his military records. They did not demand the same of Kerry. The inadvertent and occasional leaks of same did not count, because the issue was whether the media was asking for them.

The Swiftboat Vets were not professional media.

Some time back, a moron judge allowed convicted drug dealers to live in public housing in our area. The headline called it a victory for the residents of public housing. So, favoring public housing doesn't skew one's view of such things?

I called the paper and they admitted it was a flush of enthusiasm which should have been revisited. But, as Freud should have said, when you blurt out something, it's probably what you mean.

Posted by: RIchardAubrey at August 26, 2005 9:38 PM | Permalink

I'm telling you, someone must pay for all this bias. Or at least be forced to admit it. The impulse is juridical.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 9:44 PM | Permalink

No, richard, the point was the facts, not who was asking for it. The information about Kerry's service was there - and was eventually substantiated. You chose to disbelieve.

These anecdotes of press coverage in your hometown obviously mean something to you. But I don't know the details, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

But remember: Freud also said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 26, 2005 9:59 PM | Permalink

Jay,

It is amazing that the best discussion about the role of the news media comes on a open thread without an opening topic. Could it be that having an opening topic limits the discussion and "frames" the outcome?

Could the same thing be happening when the public sees any news?

I just have questions, I have no answers.

Posted by: Tim at August 26, 2005 10:10 PM | Permalink

"Could it be that having an opening topic limits the discussion and 'frames' the outcome?"

I would hope so, yes.

In one of the blog commentaries written about the last post (there were several, which is good) someone said that I don't know how to moderate a forum like this.

They're absolutely right. I have no idea what works in a forum like this. I try different things; and I expect a high failure rate. I discover how blogging works by doing it, just as users discover what a weblog is good for by using it.

Philosophically, I am a pragmatist-- but not a "moderate." As many regular readers have noticed, my views are often very immoderate. Pragmatists believe we improve our knowledge when we have to solve the problems that result from trying to improve things in the world. They tend not to engage in battles over first principles, but like to do things--experiment--and see what happens.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 26, 2005 11:08 PM | Permalink

Hold off on the life jacket. Fortunately, I'm not on the ship. I run a blog, which stalks the ship and chronicles the sinking.
Where we differ -- you and I -- is not over whether the ship is sinking, but over why.

Okay, Steve, what's your opinion of why the traditional media earns less trust than used car salesmen and is haemorrhaging readership?

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 26, 2005 11:20 PM | Permalink

Dave.

Missed again. The issue is press bias. Whether the Swiftboat vets got it right or not is not the point. Since they are not the media, they don't count. Not part of the discussion.

The press demanded Bush's records and didn't demand Kerry's. That some of Kerry's leaked doesn't change the fact that the press didn't demand his records--which, I repeat, is the issue.
The press was demanding Bush's records until some folks were going through the ANG's root cellars looking for any scrap of paper that could possibly be related and released.
The press was not asking for Kerry's records.

I can't be clearer--not because I am inadequate but because no more clarity is possible. If you refuse to address this issue, it's not because you don't understand it. It's because you do.

Now. Let's presume you refuse once again. Let's presume somebody who is agnostic on the subject of press bias sees you dodging once again. Think they'll be impressed by the defenders of the MSM?

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 26, 2005 11:21 PM | Permalink

Dave McLemorewrites

Yet when some right-wing ideologues and some angry vets go after Kerry's war record with innuendo and half-truths, that's fine to you. That's 'facts.' But you also want equivalency. Much of the information in Kerry's combat record came out in news reports, substantiated in interviews with boat crew and, for heaven's sake, old Vietnamese. But it's media bias because the press didn't force the issue on revealing his papers.

Once Kerry released his papers, the information confirmed his service and his heroism and made the critics look silly. But it's still bias to you.

This made me laugh so hard it hurt.

I won't bore you with all the details. Two examples will suffice. The Rev. David Alston was a speaker at the Democratic Convention. Spoke eloquently of his service with John Kerry on the day he got his Silver Star. Very inspiring. Kerry bravely beaching the boat, running through a hail of enemy gunfire, killing an enemy before he could kill Kerry's men, etc., etc.

Once, he even directed the helmsman to beach the boat, right into the teeth of an ambush, and pursued our attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty and courage. Even wounded, or confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool.

These are Alston's words, referring to the one incident in which Kerry beached his boat - the day he won the Silver Star.

Only one problem. David Alston wasn't on the boat with John Kerry that day. In fact, he was wounded in action before Kerry took over the boat and was on the hospital ship being treated for a severe head wound when Kerry's Silver Star incident took place. (Whether he served a single day with Kerry is still an open question. Alston isn't talking. Neither is Kerry.)

But don't take my "biased" word for it. Call Alston and ask him to release his records or provide on iota of proof that he ever served with Kerry.

Jim McDevitt, one of Kerry's "Band of Brothers", a brave Swiftee, appeared with Kerry at the DNC.

Only one problem. McDevitt was a US Marine. Never served a single day with Kerry. Kerry met him in a hospital stateside after Kerry had returned stateside and had already joined VVAW.

But don't take my "biased" word for it. Call McDevitt up and ask him where and when and with whom he served. Ask him to release his military records.

Know how many major media outlets reported this? Not one.

So when you say "made the critics look silly", I don't get angry. I laugh. Because it's so silly you can't get angry.

To Dave McLemore, the media professional who insists there is no agenda and no bias, I issue a direct challenge. Prove me wrong, and I will reveal my identity right here on Jay's blog. I will shed my anonymity right here (and make Jay a very happy man, apparently.)

If you can't prove me wrong, then apologize publicly, on this blog, for smearing the good men of the Navy who stood up for the truth and publish an article revealing the facts of David Alston's and Jim McDevitt's service records and the lack of veracity of their and Kerry's words.

If you don't do one or the other, then you have precisely zero public credibility here, Dave, because I have just called you out. You have all the resources of the professional media at your disposal. It will take two simple phone calls to at least get your investigation going. Do you have the courage to seek the truth, Dave?

One of us has to be wrong. You can convince Jay's readers, right here and right now, that the media isn't biased, Dave. All you have to do is prove I'm wrong.

Kerry has "released" his records to three, sympathetic outlets; The Boston Globe, The LA Times and The Associated Press, not one of which has produced a single article discussing the records except to say, "Yup, looks good to us."

I'll let the readers of this blog decide if the above facts make "the critics" look silly.

Posted by: antimedia at August 26, 2005 11:26 PM | Permalink

Which is enraging, of course. So the game goes on. And this, I suggest, is what's making people dumber by the day.

Jay, this whole discussion would go a lot more smoothly if you could manage to stop and rephrase every time you want to suggest the discussion is making someone (generally those who don't agree with you) "dumber".

It seems to conflict with your continued insistence that you want eveyone to be civil.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 26, 2005 11:30 PM | Permalink

Jay, you wrote well and repeated:
"Part of the vehemence of the bias discourse is that people who are passionate speakers of it want someone to stand and be judged guilty of all that bias, or take responsibility for it, own it, and since this never happens, they take the tools of justice into their own hands, and use them on whomever "represents" the absent offenders."

Previously you had mentioned that nobody seems able to fire the News Anchors.

I'm sure enraged by Americans who supported a policy but then deny responsibility for the results of that policy.

I supported Bush going into Iraq, I oppose "torture", yet I know from the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment that under-trained guards will likely commit abuses. To me that's part of the "hell of war." One of the almost inevitable bad consequences of a policy whose good benefits I think outweigh the costs.

I'm enraged by the policy of the Press on Sudan, today -- where are the interviews with UN officials about dealing with weekly, daily, slow-genocide levels of death? Or interviews with Chinese officials?

And of course, Vietnam. Where America failed to do nation-building, and let S. Vietnam lose the war.

Katherine, where is your complaint that the press fails to discuss the facts about Vietnam? That Cronkite opposed the war (~= OUT NOW); that the US got out (failed to build democracy); that SE Asia suffered genocide.

Cindy says Bush killed her son, when obviously it was terrorists/ insurgents (if Rummy calls them insurgents it IS unfair to complain of press bias for not calling them terrorists). But the logic that says Bush killed, or supported the death of Casey is true in the sense that, had Bush not ordered the Iraq invasion, it's almost certain Casey wouldn't have been killed there. (The fact that there have been some 18 000+ service men die in accidents between 1983-2000 is also underpublicized; Casey was nearly as likely to die in an accident.)

That logic says whatever caused the US pullout caused/ supported the SE Asian genocide.

The double standards on applying accountability and responsibility keep enraging me.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 26, 2005 11:37 PM | Permalink

I think Jay is correct. Charges of bias are overdone. The point of my analogy was to try to understand the emotion of the situation. Jay gets it right when he says many want an accounting - they want someone to pay. That is an emotional position.

Where he and I may disagree is whether or not that emotion is justified. Ultimately, our agreement doesn't matter. From for a Journalism School professor, the question of how to adapt to the new environment and teach new students appropriately is a wee bit more important than my take it or leave it attitude.

I'm way past getting all upset about journalistic bias. I have accepted it as a self-evident fact, and adjusted my expectations accordingly. But it is somewhat gratifying to know that someone like Jay DOES care enough about it to put himself through what must be rather tortuous for him in this thread. Kudos to you, Jay, for even being willing to address the issue.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 26, 2005 11:57 PM | Permalink

I don't want anyone to pay for anything. I just want the media to tell the truth. To do their research and reveal all the facts, not just the one they agree with. To cover the whole story, not just the part that reinforces their views. To gore all the oxen, not just the one they think deserve to be gored. You can call it bias, malfeasance, laziness, incompetence - I don't care. Just fix it, whatever it is, and start telling the truth again.

If we Americans are going to make intelligent choices about our leadership, we must know the truth about them, the good, the bad and the ugly. And not just some of them - all of them.

There are some in this thread who have tried to say that the press is no longer relevant. They're kidding themselves. The reason Bush's approval ratings on the war are at an all time low is because the "news" out of Iraq is unrelentingly, unceasingly negative. And the reason the news is that way is because that's what's being reported, not because that's the whole story. Because "if it bleeds it leads" is the driving force behind press coverage. Good news isn't news, according to them.

It needs to change.

Posted by: antimedia at August 27, 2005 12:15 AM | Permalink

Jay, this whole discussion would go a lot more smoothly if you could manage to stop and rephrase every time you want to suggest the discussion is making someone (generally those who don't agree with you) "dumber".

But the bias discourse is making you dumber, too, Charlie. All of us, in fact. And when you drop it, you might well become smarter. If this is my considered belief, I should not say so? At my own blog? That doesn't accord with my understanding of what a weblog is.

You think, Charlie, that my habit of saying bias talk is making you dumber--about the press--fits poorly with a "continued insistence that you want everyone to be civil." Where at PressThink did I ever say that-- "be civil?" Have a link for us, a quote?

I am way more interested in stopping stupidity than I am committed to enforcing civility.

And I am trying to stop every discussion that happens at PressThink from devolving into a single discourse-- about bias. That's a dumb pattern. Calling it dumb is, I think, helping the situation.

...Someone is gonna pay for all the bias I've seen. Someone is going to answer for it, too. You, sir, how can you sit there and say...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 27, 2005 12:39 AM | Permalink

AntiMedia

Wrong, wrong ,wrong. ""if it bleeds it leads" is the driving force behind press coverage." Then where was the "media" outrage (or coverage) of Clinton's indiscrimate bombing of Bosnia or Kosovo? Bombing from 60,00 ft with less than current "smart" munitions that results in countless civilian deaths (and Chinese embassy destruction)- no big deal, no story, he's a Dem.

There's no bias or double standard here. Only our "betters" decision of what is the "righteous"
use of the US military.

Posted by: MaDr at August 27, 2005 1:23 AM | Permalink

This obsessive quality of yours is disturbing, AM. I never took Kerry's reference to McDavitt, Alston, et al as his 'band of brothers' as anything more than a metaphor for surviving a tough battlefield. Where ever it happened to be

I believe he included Jim Rasmussen - the man whose life he saved on the river - as a brother in the band. Are you going to call them frauds because Rasmussen was Special Forces? Oh, wait, you already did, didn't you.

Brave men performed extraordinary things under fire and you want to pick at nits solely because you don't like their politics? You're shameless, antimedia.

Try to imagine just how little I care what you think about me. Got an image? Well, it's even less.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 1:30 AM | Permalink

Jay,

Ever since I got a little bit of philosophy I sort of lost any faith that journalism can report "truth" because, in the philsophical sense, there's no one truth. At least when it comes to something as complex as "war" or even "what is the right policy solution for XYZ problems."

I feel like the American press's ideal is set up to be some kind of perfect good. In antimedia's world (or others) a true press is omnipresent. It is all-knowing...it knows the exact "truth" of all situations (the exact status of the war) and it the exactly balanced and fair judge of how much attention to dole out to everyone. The "perfect" press, for example, would know exactly how many column inches are "due" to Cindy Sheeshan and how many are "due" to Tammy Pruitt. It would always knows the exact amount of time to give to "each" side of a policy debate and when not to give time to some sides are aren't "truth."

Tell me there isn't some secret longing for this omnipresent, all-perfect press in those that hate the press the most in these threads. As if this version of the press I presented is really some achievable goal. It does remind me a lot of a religious faith "Man is imperfect but God is not...some day we all will achieve perfection just like God...its only our own imperfections which make the earth bad." If only the PEOPLE weren't so bad JOURNALISM would be perfection!

When I think about the "first" types of press. Those newspapers in the 1600s which were little more than basically whitehouse.gov as a place to publish public notices. Early newspapers editors were just printers who were solely indebted to their patrons I thought? When I think of journalism growing out the THAT to some kind of perfect ideal...how is that even possible?

Other countries don't struggle like Americans do with their ideas of the press. Its probably too late for the U.S. to public to embrace British-views of journalism but perhaps that is what will replace our current system. My understanding of British Press (not sure about British TV because its state-financed) is that each paper is well understood and therefore either "accepted" or discounted based on its editorial viewpoint. Everyone retreats to their own comfortable media sphere. We're sort of going that way as Fox News became the "official" network of the Republican Convention. Everyone assumes by 2008 CNN will be the "official" network of the Democratic one by necessity. Perhaps soon presidents will only speak to one network and only "certain" newspapers.

Posted by: catrina at August 27, 2005 1:35 AM | Permalink

Jay,

As someone who has engaged in his share of bias-hunting, I know that there are many sources of the passion on this issue. But the one that I think is most relevant to our discussion here, is the effect of journalism/the media on national security.

This is why you will constantly see references to Tet from those of us on the right. I think there is a strong desire to hear that mea culpa. Obviously, there were many, many factors that contributed to the Vietnam debacle. But, as I noted above, all wars ultimately hinge on one side or the other losing the will to continue the fight. From that perspective, the media will always be a critical agent (weapon?) in war.

One observation, directly relevant to the original (and seemingly forgotten) Austin Bay post, was made by Tim, a commenter in your Sept 11 thread:

The American press is already hostile to the American Powers That Be, with a skewed social liberal-Democrat groupthink among its members. The Islamists are also hostile to the American Powers That Be. [But] the American press feels no obligation to be the watchdog press of Islamists with a bias for their bad news.

Again, I don't think this is directly attributable to liberal bias, so much as the limitations of the PressThink religion of "watchdog"-ism.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 27, 2005 1:35 AM | Permalink

Yikes. What a lot you all seem to have to say.

Jay Rosen asks simple question, "In the global arena where the war on terror is actually being fought, in what sense is a weakened, discredited, co-opted, or truth-starved press in the strategic interests of the United States?"

Let me answer directly. This isn't rocket science.

There is ample evidence that the press is pulling for a defeat of America's president--and therefore, unavoidably, of America. Therefore, the more weakened, discredited, co-opted, and truth-starved the press is, the better for America. It isn't just that the press isn't the people's tribunes or the fourth estate; it is that the press is the enemy.

Austin Bay is right that the press could choose not to be the enemy. I advise him not to hold his breath waiting.

Posted by: R. Alazar at August 27, 2005 2:16 AM | Permalink

I'm glad Dave M. is here. If he weren't, those who insist the press is biased would have to invent him.

Fortunately, we don't have to invent anything, just take our choice from an excess of examples.

He has ducked the press' performance regarding Kerry so many times that it follows that he knows exactly what he's doing. The problem for him is that he thinks we don't.

For "Dave", substitute "MSM" and see if it makes any difference.

Dumdedum.
Rented a tent, rented a tent.
Gettin'down with ma funky bad self.
Dumdedumdum.
"Oh, thanks. Cream and sugar please."
Dumdedum.

Nope. Makes no difference.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at August 27, 2005 8:59 AM | Permalink

I think there is a strong desire to hear that mea culpa. Indeed. Very strong. And I should respond to it? PressThink should be the forum where a confession of bias in coverage of the Tet Offensive 37 years ago gets demanded? Why? That strikes me as quite crazy.

It's juridical, friends.

I tell you someone is going to pay for all that bias. Someone is going to stand up and take responsibility. You, sir, how can you sit there and say...

Here's anti-media at his blog: "It's really a pain trying to have a discussion with self-righteous, smug media types, but I keep trying. (Don't ask me why. I guess I'm Don Quixote reincarnated.)"

Anti-media the idealist, toughing it out with the crazies because he believes in honest discussion. Nice, huh?

Richard: The bias discourse is making you dumber too. Very much so. No one here is going to respond to your mind-numbing repetition of culture war complaints on coverage of the 2004 election. No one cares. No one is foolish enough, thank god, to encourage you on that one,. And, though you don't realize it, you're arguing with a phantom, someone who thinks the press is magically "unbiased." That person isn't here. So why don't you go somwhere where you can find him?

catrina: in a word, yes. I think bias discourse involves what one writer I know calls "the god trick." Only god can provide a complete view, without any position, perspective or interest entering into it. Demanding this of the press is dumb (also sacreligious), and a good example of what I mean by the discourse making speakers of it dumber.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 27, 2005 9:35 AM | Permalink

Jay--

I don't think you need to respond to the mea culpa demand directly, unless you were writing Walter Cronkite's copy as a child. However, I think any meaningful analysis of the media's role post-Sept 11 would take into account historical examples including WWII, early Cold War coverage, Vietnam, and post-Vietnam Cold War coverage. I don't think that case studies are to be avoided, just because they happen to also be incorporated into the bias-hunters' discourse.

Similarly, I also would be interested in your thoughts on the fundamental role of belief and will to the outcome of war. If I am right (and you might disagree), such an understanding of war also cannot be avoided in any post-Sept 11 rethinking.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 27, 2005 9:50 AM | Permalink

Thank you for reopening the thread. I've found both your comments and those of the readers enlightening. It won't change minds, however. Events do that.

Posted by: nbruce at August 27, 2005 10:09 AM | Permalink

"Only god can provide a complete view, without any position, perspective or interest entering into it. Demanding this of the press is dumb..." - Rosen, above.

Yet many of our dominant media friends say their work-product is unbiased, objective; and if we disgree with that we're unannounced political operatives or morons. Again, it's the false credibility provided by self-certified "objectivity", claimed by news referees, that is most dissatisfying.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 27, 2005 10:20 AM | Permalink

Dave,

Didn't the Swifties accuse Kerry of lying when he claimed, numerous times, that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968?

Didn't the Kerry campaign, and his own biographer, finally admit that he was "mistaken" about that claim?

Unless I am wrong about the first two questions, how were Kerry's critics proved to be silly? Especially when you consider if Kerry was proved to have lied in a big way about part of his service, maybe there was more.

And, if the first two points are correct, how is that you are still perpetuating the idea contained in the third?

Just asking...

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 27, 2005 10:26 AM | Permalink

There is a reason why the press asked for Bush's military records in 2004, and was far less concerned with Kerry's records --- and it has nothing to do with "bias."

There had been questions and rumors surrounding Bush's military service from the time he entered Texas politics. That is a simple fact.

No one had credibly questioned Kerry's military service throughout his political career, and it was not an issue. That is a simple fact.

During the 2000 election campaign, the Boston Globe FOIA'd Bush's military records, and found a number of surprising gaps and anomolies --- and the explanations of the Bush campaign was untruthful and evasive. Private citizens like Marty Heldt and Gerald Lechliter did their own FOIA requests, and received the records as well --- and Heldt was instrumental in keeping the issue alive among liberals until the 2004 campaign.

Then, in early 2004, one of the right's favorite targets made a disparaging comment about Bush's military service in introducing Wesley Clark at a political rally. The right-wing went crazy, and made Michael Moore, and his relationship with Clark, a major issue. It was actually the efforts of the right-wing to discredit Clark and Moore that refocussed attention on Bush's military records -- the "mainstream media" was doing nothing on that front until the right-wing went nuts over Moore's comments.

There was never any media obsession over Bush's military service --- the Globe articles from 2000 drew scant national attention, and no one was looking into Bush's records in 2004---until the right made Michael Moore's comments an issue. And, when Bush's records were finally released "publicly", the mainstream media made no effort to seriously examine their content.

Posted by: ami at August 27, 2005 10:28 AM | Permalink

I'm trying hard not to laugh, ami. You've presented very well the NPR version of the Kerry-Bush military files history. Would someone help her with the other side of the history that she may not have heard from our dominant media?

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 27, 2005 10:53 AM | Permalink

Ami,

Sorry, but you are living in an alternate universe.

"There was never any media obsession over Bush's military service --- the Globe articles from 2000 drew scant national attention, and no one was looking into Bush's records in 2004---until the right made Michael Moore's comments an issue"

I have worked in television for over 10 years. I obvserved how much attention was paid to those records. They were made an issue in the 2000 race, even no credible evidence surfaced.

Then they were made an issue before the 2004 election. There was weeks and weeks of coverage on this, and I watched the press conferences where question after question was asked about this.

Mary Mapes, of the CBS forgeries fame, was described by as obssessed by the story by CBS's own report on the event.

And, the fact that the press would take the lead of Michael Moore, a person who I hope everyone can acknowledge is not a objective observer and lacks honesty, is telling in itself.

As far as questions about Kerry's service and questions about that, you are also wrong. Ask John O'Neil and the thousands of other vets who heard themselves slandered by him whether is service is what he said it was. The fact that they did not really get the same forum as Kerry to spout says alot.

Kerry was also involved in the Winter Soldier 'hearings' in which many if not all of their outrageous allegations were proven to be without merit. Some of them turned out to have never served.

Yet, Kerry used those hearings as the basis for alot of his testimony before Congress.

Finally, Kerry, at those hearings, claimed to have committed atrocities while serving in Vietnam. How does this NOT raise questions on his service? He is, by his own admission, a war criminal, but yet there is no question regarding his service?

Think, Ami. John Kerry in large part promoted his military service in the campaign.

"Reporting for Duty!"

Yet, the press focused on his daring exploits, and then his brave testimony before Congress, but how much attention was paid to the war crimes he committed? How many press people asked, "Do we want a war criminal for President?"

Now before you, and everyone else, goes off on me for right-wing nuttery, just take a breath. I am not saying anything in this last part that was not claimed by Kerry himself.

Anyway, as they say in the military, incoming...

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 27, 2005 10:56 AM | Permalink

Richard, Captain, et al, a free hint. Kerry lost the campaign. Clinton is no longer president.

I am truly fascinated as the obsessive energy you guys expend on the past. How you fixate on continuing to beat up on the guy who lost the election.

There is more than a little self-righteousness to it all. A strident need to convince everyone else how right you are.

Now that's a way to build political momentum.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 10:57 AM | Permalink

Dave,

Now you've lost all credibility for me and you are on the ignore list for me as well.

I was responding to a particular claim YOU made, and ones Ami made, not trying to rehash the election, or beat up on the Kerry. You are deflecting attention away the issue in an attempt to duck owning up to your own statement.

I'll let what I wrote, and what you wrote in response (or lack thereof) to speak for itself.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 27, 2005 11:09 AM | Permalink

Now you've lost all credibility for me and you are on the ignore list for me as well. - Capt. Wrath

I believe I can struggle on.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 11:13 AM | Permalink

Again, it's the false credibility provided by self-certified "objectivity", claimed by news referees, that is most dissatisfying. - trained auditor

Actually, you're pretty much the one who keeps briging up 'objectivity.' I've seen enough accounts by Lovelady, Jay and others working in the media or nearby who don't claim any godlike objectivity. We all bring our experiences and knowledge to the table.

What the media types do say is that there is some effort taken to minimize personal opinion in the news reporting. Nothing springs full-blown into print or on the screen until it passes through the editing process at several levels.

Do mistakes happen? Sure. Reporting is a messy, imprecise and very human venture. Time pressures, the demands of writing shorter/tighter stories and sheer human frailty are barriers to perfection.

But the accusation by many here that there is an overt and intentional bias by the media against conservative political and social values is simply not true.

Your strongest argument, frankly, is the unintentional bias, the stuff that seeps in. I'd be wrong to say that doesn't happen. Not as often as some might think, but it happens. And as long as I've been in the business, writers and editors have struggled to correct it when it does and take steps to limit it happening again.

But if we're to be condemned for not being perfect -- a view that those in the media share some responsibilty in creating - than I'm going to plead guilty. But 'objective'? Never said it, TA. And I'm not sure who you've heard say it.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 11:34 AM | Permalink

McLemore, here's one claim of objectivity / non-bias:

"There's another reason to get to the bottom of the scandal. It's the perception problem — a perception of liberal bias for which I haven't found any evidence after checking with editors at the paper." - Byron Calame, NY Time Public Editor, in Web Journal, August 17, 2005.

Here's some more.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 27, 2005 12:01 PM | Permalink

Just to be clear, I refer to ideological bias above...

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 27, 2005 12:06 PM | Permalink

Dumber, and dumber... and dumber. With every post.

I tell you someone is going to pay for all that bias. Someone is going to have to step up and take some responsibility. You, sir--yes, you, the one reading the newspaper--how can you sit there and say...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 27, 2005 12:09 PM | Permalink

Plenty here to get the blood boiling, but nothing got to me more than this: "I get my news from cable, and the internet. I take the newspaper, but only for the Sports Section and the crossword puzzle. The other sections go unread."

I don't know where the writer lives, but he is awfully lucky if he lives someplace where he can find comprehensive coverage of local affairs on internet or cable. The web is great for national and international news, and cable is fine for what happened today, but if you want to know what your city council is up to, or the school board, or in many cases the state government, you have to turn to a newspaper.

If all politics is local, as I suspect it is, then large numbers of Americans are giving up their opportunity to be useful and reliable citizens by ignoring local papers and depending on TV and the web. Nothing drove me crazier (and a lot drives me crazy) in the last election than hearing people say they didn't vote because they didn't like either Bush or Kerry.

What about governor? What about Congress? What about your state legislator? What about (here in Montana) the initiative to legalize medical marijuana? They were willing to pass all that up just because they didn't want to vote in a race that, in this state, was dead certain for Bush no matter what they did. If you pressed them, I imagine they would say, "Oh, I don't read the papers. I get my news from cable."

Sorry to interrupt. Back to the bias wars.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 27, 2005 12:50 PM | Permalink

TA, are you seriously saying that an article by the Times' public editor which chastizes his own paper for not timely reporting on the Air America financial investigation is evidence of ideological bias?

I fail to see any claim by Time or Calame of 'objectivity.' The Times screwed up, Calame wrote, and they need to do better. He cites some managemenet inefficiencies - a story assigned to three desks, etc.- but says that's no excuse. (I paraphrase.)

How is this bias, liberal or otherwise? What is your point?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 2:33 PM | Permalink

To get back to the central question: Austin Bay was arguing that it is important for the President to engage the press in a better way. The "bias" issue comes into play for those who take exception to Austin Bay's premise. Both Jay and Austin Bay are convinced that the national press plays a vital role in the functioning of government. Hence the assertion the Bush needs to do a better job dealing with them.

But what if the credibility of the national press is already shot? If so, the natural question is why. And the answer is the perceived bias of the press.

It is almost impossible to refute Austin Bay's argument without bringing up the bias issue. So if you want to foreclose the opposing argument, you can call the bias issue "dumb."

Jay,

How would you suggest a way to refute Austin Bay's argument without bringing up bias? I could just say, I don't agree with that argument because I don't think the national press is credible. Wouldn't you naturally ask Why? What am I supposed to answer. "Well, that just what I think." That's would be pretty lame answer.

You don't seem to want to accept our answer at face value. Quite simply, we don't trust the national press. So the argument that Bush needs to engage them more falls flat with us. You can say we are being unreasonable, and maybe we are being so. But how does that solve the problem of your industry?

We don't have any obligation to give credence to any particular organization. The national press once had our trust. Now they don't. Is that our fault? Another word for bias, and perhaps a better word, is dishonest. Another word might be unfair. Or haughty. Or antagonistic. Or arrogant. Or unresponsive. Or bullying. Or destructive. Any of those words could apply to different situations.

But the big word is not "bias." The big word is "Trust." How do the press restore trust? And if the people don't trust the press, what value is it for President Bush to spend time engaging them?

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 2:46 PM | Permalink

Dave,

In the recent movie, "Hitch," there was a line where Hitch's character says that 80% of communication is non-verbal. We can tell which stories journalist pursue with gusto and which one they pursue grudgingly. Its not just what is reported, it is how it is reported.

If the reporters of the NYT had any enthusiasm for exposing the financial shenanigans at Air America, it stands to reason that the story would not have gotten lost in the confusion. If anything, there would have been three separate stories for editors to choose from.

We are all human. We all work in jobs where some tasks are pleasant and others not so much. It is rather obvious when journalists are exciting about a story or not.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 2:53 PM | Permalink

We can tell which stories journalist pursue with gusto and which one they pursue grudgingly. Its not just what is reported, it is how it is reported.

I got to say, Scott, that makes determination of bias sound very subjective.

While not excusing the media from any of their manifest sins, don't you think there's a real possibility that some folks read a wee bit too much into it?

So how do you get non-verbal cues from a newspaper.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 3:20 PM | Permalink

Dave,

Of course it is a subjective judgement. As for newspapers, column inches are a good indicator. Story placement is another indicator. Emphasis is another indicator.

Take Cindy Sheehan for example. I agree that her protest was newsworthy. But the enthusiasm after which the press is pursuing the story is revealing.

And its not all about political bias. Take the Scott Peterson case, or the Natalie Holloway case, or the Gary Condit case. I never could understand the wall-to-wall coverage of any of these stories.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 3:35 PM | Permalink

Dave,

As for subjectivity, isn't the judgement of what is newsworthy and what is not newsworthy also very subjective. Editors are required to make these judgments every day. What some of us are trying to communicate is that we think those editors are exercising bad judgment.

Also, since subjectivity in choosing how to pursue and report stories in inevitable, wouldn't a better model be transparency. The myth of objective reporting is not the only issue, but it is a big part of the problem.

When an editor gives one story front page above the fold treatment, and another story he chops down and puts in the back of the paper, he is exposing himself/herself on what he/she believes is important. After a while, patterns become obvious to readers.

If a particular editor has a soft spot for stories about pets, or particular crimes, or stories about women, or kids, or any other topic of interest, that inclination becomes obvious to the regular subscribers over time. Its not just about politics. The tendency to highlight stories that are of personal interest to the editor - even non-political stories - is inevitable. Why does Fluffy the Cat get more prominent placement than Fido the Dog? Because the editor likes cats.

Now if you pointed out to the editor that he/she was giving Fido the short end of the stick, how likely would it be that the editors first response would be to look at you as if you were "dumb," and provide evidence that he/she had indeed run numerous stories on Fido. And the evidence would support the editor. But does that mean that Fido is getting equal treatment with Fluffy?

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 3:52 PM | Permalink

As to expand the analogy of Fido and Fluffy, if it turned out that a national poll of editors exposed the fact that over 90+% of editors prefered cats over dogs, while the general population favored cats and dogs equally, wouldn't you find that odd? Wouldn't dog lovers potentially have a legitimate complaint?

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 3:59 PM | Permalink

And if reporters come to learn that their stories on Fido get worse treatment than stories about Fluffy, might not their professional ambition lead them to neglect stories about Fido in favor of stories about Fluffy? After a while, wouldn't there just naturally be more Fluffy stories and less Fido stories?

It has been argued here that professional ambition plays a bigger role than bias, but...

If better story placement is more rewarding, might not those reporters, over time, develop their own fondness for Fluffy, and perceive a story assignment about Fido as a bad thing.

There is not necessarily any requirement for a grand plot or scheme. There is not even a requirement for any malice at all for the development of "Fluffy bias" to naturally occur. Editors and journalists might even be shocked to find out that anyone had any problems at all with their stories. After all, they never had any malice toward Fido, and they certainly never even heard of any Grand Plot against Fido. But if all those Fido-lovers keep attacking them, they just might start disliking Fido.

And so it goes, that quite naturally, without any plan or intention, journalist develop an aversion to Fido and an affinity for Fluffy. And they call anyone who points this out "dumb."

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 4:13 PM | Permalink

"Okay, Steve, what's your opinion of why the traditional media earns less trust than used car salesmen and is haemorrhaging readership?" -- Charlie

I'll take a shot at that, Charlie.
* A loss of national unity, signified by fragmentation of of the citizenry into niche interest groups and demographic pockets.
* A shortening national attention span (signified by the universal popularity of the television remote and a median duration of visit at most websites and blogs of less than two seconds).
* Declining literacy. (Forty-two percent of adults in Philadelphia, a city of nearly two million, are functionally illiterate -- and Philadelphia is no dumber than Detroit, or Dallas, or Los Angeles or East Cowflop, Arkansas.)
* An increasing preference for electronic delivery, which caught the morons who run the business sides of most print outlets flatfooted.
* A "harvest the assets" mentality which prevents reinvesting in the product itself in favor of boosting this fiscal quarter's profits.
* And an abysmal failure by too many publishers on the local level to keep readers informed of the goings on of the body politic.
* Bias (whatever that means) ? It isn't even on the map.
And that's just chapter one of the book. (The book, by the way, or at least the best book, is "The Vanishing Newspaper," by Philip Meyer, University of MIssouri Press, 2004.)
As for the trust question, it's true the most recent Pew survey shows "the press" is less trusted than your average used car salesman, but, let us note, still more trusted than lawyers, or doctors, or politicans.
Furthermore, there's an odd local/national disconnect going on here.
The percentage saying they believe most of what they read in their daily newspaper dropped from 84% in 1985 to 54% in 2004. But the number expressing "a favorable opinion" of their own newspaper declined just eight points over the same period from 88% to 80%.
We hate "the press," but we like "my press." Just as we trust neither the American Medical Association nor the American Bar Association, but we like our own doctor and maybe even our own lawyer. (Okay, the lawyer part might be a stretch.)
Further complicating the matter for publishers is the fact that -- as any pollster and many a rueful businessman well knows -- it's entirely possible for people to express a "favorable opinion" of an institution at the same time they are abandoning that very institution.
Still and all ... I'll hold my crocodile tears until the time Gannett, Knight Ridder, Tribune Co. and other purveyors of mass media stop reporting obese profit margins to Wall Street (20 to 30% of revenue still drops to the bottom line as pure profit).

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 27, 2005 4:33 PM | Permalink

Of course story selection is subjective. That's why they call it news judgment. And I'll be first in line to agree editors make bad judgments.

It's good to remember, however, that it is editors plural. They sit around in meetings several times each day to assess the myriad news stories - local, wire, national, international, etc. and pick those that will run Page One and on section fronts, etc. So cat lovers and dog lovers hash it out and make their selections.

From what I can tell, though, if the dog is doing something familiar and usual and the cat is picketing the president or holding up a bank, the cat will get the better placement. Doesn't matter of the big editor likes dogs better.

In some circles there is something called 'the mix.' It's an alchemy we lesser reporter beings aren't privy to, but is has something to do with trying to guess which mix of stories - hard news, crime news, features, community news, etc. -- that will fit on the front page. And more importantly, will snare the interest of the reader. Readers that have a much more diverse set of interests than the usual blog reader.

And, of course, news is an ever-continuing event. New facts, new topics, new cats and dogs arrive every news cycle that change the dynamic.

Why does a murder in Aruba or yet another "missing pretty white woman" become an obsession? I have no idea. Notably, it's a offense committed more by cable TV news and talk shows. But print makes plenty of its own miscues and errors of judgment.

So, yes, story selection and placement is subjective. And frequently haphazard. But my experience tells me it's driven more by tradition and an ever-changing effort to grab reader attention than it is the personal bias of the reporters and editors.

If they were going to select and print news based on ideology, newspapers would look more like Daily Kos or Powerline. Is that what you really want?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 4:36 PM | Permalink

Scott -
There's something to what you say re Fido/Fluffy.
It's a cliche in the business that, God help you if one day the editor is out taking a walk and inadvertently steps in some dog poop. The next thing you know, some poor reporter -- or team of reporters -- has been assigned to do the definitive series on Dog Poop in River City !
Next comes the editorials demanding a resolution to the dog poop crisis, letters to the editor decrying dog poop, city council hearings seeking blame.
And the previously obscure city bureaucrat in charge of keeping dog poop down to a dull roar is suddenly left wondering why the ceiling fell on his head.
(I could give you real-life examples, but they would be more tedious.)
Which all gets to the point of subjectivity. Of course editors are subjective. From the time the editor gets to the front door of the building to the time he departs the premises, he is making subjective decisions -- no doubt 100 of them a day. Take one story alone -- the editor has to decide whether to assign the story or not, to whom to assign it to, where to play it, how much space to give it, how it stacks up against other stories of the day, and finally, whether at the end of the day to kill it outright in favor of something else. Now -- multiple those decisions by the number of stories in the paper and all you have are decisions, decisions, decisions.
And every one of them is a judgment call, even perhaps a hunch.
That's why all this longing for "objectivity" is pointless -- as if stories can be weighed like canteloupes, or grapes.
They can't, and never will be.
And that's true whether you're running a newspaper, a magazine, a network -- or a blog.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 27, 2005 4:59 PM | Permalink

Just so Steve, just so.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 27, 2005 5:37 PM | Permalink

Dave M., you support Kerry and attacked Kerry critics at least twice before being called on it.

Kerry LIED about being in Cambodia at Christmas. Then you're amused, on a blog about Press (& bias!), that kerry-haters respond to your troll-support

Earlier you said:
We will work at emphasizing facts and a clearer assessment of events, cut through the bullshit from whoever is in power and report what's going on.
Please show me the MSM link that emphasizes how Kerry's 1986 Senate testimony (in opposition to Reagan fighting communism) was a LIE.

If the press really attacked both sides equally (Marc Cooper is best I've found), that would be OK with me. But they don't.

Dave, you lie again (or is it merely wrong?):
But the accusation by many here that there is an overt and intentional bias by the media against conservative political and social values is simply not true.

If any "accusation ... is simply not true", such an accusation can be refuted with simple facts. Bias is not such an accusation.

What IS true is, for instance, that in the first Bush-Kerry debate, ALL the questions were about (against) the President. As you would expect if bias was true, but would NOT expect if the press was making any effort to cut through Kerry's bullshit.

Similarly, unemployment and inflation, the two most key "misery index" numbers, are very low now -- the economy is great, by the numbers. (Housing bubble bust coming? Prolly. Sell now????) (When did the dot.com bubble become a "fact"? Dec. 96 was too soon...)

Jay, here is something else to think about.

What if Bush and the Reps do better, in elections, because the press is biased against them? What if they've figured out that when Reps are upset at a press they can't vote against, it means the Reps will vote against the Dems? Like you say, somebody must pay!

What if, despite leading in the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and soon likely the US SC, as long as Reps are the "underdog" in the Press, they can get MORE VOTES, more passion, & more contributions from their base -- so they actually win more often?

In a certain sense I'm more angry at the press than I am at Kerry. My perception of unjust, unfair press bias against Reps has helped me switch from Libertarian into Republican. And as long as I stay as filled with my "righteous anger" angainst the press, I'm pretty likely to keep voting for Rep / against the Press=Dem candidate.

It might be that the dysfunctional Bush-hating press actually helps Bush, in the voting crunch.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 27, 2005 8:27 PM | Permalink

Tom, we disagree.

Neither of us has a lock on the truth. That you resort to calling me a liar over disputed details of a past presidential campaign speaks volumes about you. It's not a pretty picture.

I'm more than happy to let this forum read my words and make their own judgments about my views. But I got to tell you, I don't much care what you think.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 27, 2005 8:58 PM | Permalink

Scott Harris: "But the enthusiasm after which the press is pursuing the [Cindy Sheehan] story is revealing."

But Scott, you don't read newspapers. So all you really know about how the press has pursued the Sheehan story is by the way it has been reflected (distorted) in other sources. Are you sure you really know what you are talking about?

I'm not trying to attack you. I really would like to know what you base your judgment on. I do read newspapers, but I don't read enough of them often enough to have a genuine feel for how much play they have given the Sheehan story. My local paper hasn't given it much coverage at all. Most of what I've heard about it has come from Sean Hannity, and I don't presume that he accurately reflects what has appeared in the press. NPR has given the story a fair amount of coverage, but the coverage has seemed quite fair to me and proportionate to the story's significance.

Today, for example, NPR gave considerable coverage to counter protests in Texas. NPR also interviewed newspaper editors about their readers' attitudes toward the war and war protests. The editors gave what struck me as a quite diverse and balanced view. But then, that's a judgment call.

Then, of course, there's the question of what coverage of a story like this one really reveals. Many protesters get disproportionate news coverage because they have learned how to push the buttons that spur coverage. That may tell us something about how editors make decisions about what to cover, but I'm not sure it enlightens us much about liberal bias.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 27, 2005 8:59 PM | Permalink

We may be at the point of a teachable moment here.

Jay and Dave have reproached me for worrying old news to death, such as the 2004 election.

There are a couple of problems. One is that we can't use as an example of media bias something that hasn't happened yet, so we're stuck with things that have already happened. So anything is "old news" if that's what it takes to dismiss its utility. "Old" is however long ago whatever it is happened if it's inconvenient and needs to be discredited. A month? Two years? Makes no never mind.
The last presidential election was a pretty big deal--it was in all the papers--and so issues surroundng it shared in the pretty bigness.

Now. I have not been harping on about the actual facts of Bush's service or Kerry's service. I have merely stated that, while savaging Bush's records and demanding that every scrap of paper ever suspected be released, the media did no such thing to Kerry. The difference is, I submit, an example of bias. What the actual issues were--could have been controlled substances or illegal gambling--is immaterial. It's the point that one was asked and the other was not.
So far, no excuses have been satisfactory, especially considering that Kerry made a big deal of his service, and had used it, in some vile ways, to further his career in the past, while Bush had not.
This does not necessarily require MORE scrutiny of Kerry's records, but having less is diagnostic of, it looks pretty clear, bias.

Let's review the lessons, class:

Was Aubrey primarily concerned about the facts of the candidates' service?
No.
Did the Swiftboat Vets' accusations enter Aubrey's calculations?
No.
(But journalists who are supposed to be interested in discrepancies ought to have used these as a starting point to find out who was discrepping.)
Have any of the reasons put forth for the difference made any sense?
No.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 27, 2005 10:09 PM | Permalink

I have merely stated that, while savaging Bush's records and demanding that every scrap of paper ever suspected be released, the media did no such thing to Kerry. The difference is, I submit, an example of bias. -- Aubrey

Or could it be because Bush's records were (and remain) strangely incomplete ... whereas Kerry's were voluminous, even before he finally released the final segments, which were, to the everlasting disappointment of those looking for something incriminating, utterly unremarkable ?
(Ya think ?)
And none of that mattered a whit to the electorate. Which only goes to show the press can only raise the questions. It can't assure the issue will have any traction whatsoever.
Which is as it should be.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 27, 2005 10:44 PM | Permalink

Steve. How do we know Kerry's were complete? Voluminous is not the same thing, as you know but hope we'd miss, I'm sure.

How do we know whether Kerry's had any discrepancies unless somebody looks at them? How can you look at them if they're not released?

How come no journos asked for them to be released so they could be reviewed and you would know they are both voluminous and complete?

It seems an example of bias to presume Kerry's records were in such good shape that they didn't need to be looked at. I mean--this is going to be a toughie--how would you know?

You got the time-sequence thing wrong. Earlier stuff comes before later stuff.

Kerry's records were complete--for the purposes of discussion--and so they didn't need to be released so that people could find out they were complete and didn't need to be released so people could see if they were complete because they were complete. Which you knew how?

You're telling me that the important people in this situation knew--without the records being released--that the records were complete and uninteresting and so didn't need to be released.
How much do you think you could sell that for?

And, in fact, Kerry's frequent references to his military service didn't mean somebody ought to look? I recall a local pol in the Pacific Northwest getting caught having falsely claimed to have served in Special Forces. Somebody must have thought his bragging merited being investigated.

Kerry?

Try again.

You want to try something else?
Chelsea's treatment by the press and, say, Cheney's daughter, or Bush's kids.

Don't bother, I'm just making the point that there are more. If you waste your entire substance vainly trying to excuse not having journos ask for Kerry's records, you'll have nothing left for other issues. And there are other issues.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 27, 2005 11:28 PM | Permalink

This is beginning to get hilarious.

Dave McLemore writes

This obsessive quality of yours is disturbing, AM. I never took Kerry's reference to McDavitt, Alston, et al as his 'band of brothers' as anything more than a metaphor for surviving a tough battlefield. Where ever it happened to be

And we readers thought you were reporting facts. It would be nice if you could let us know, in the story you're "reporting", that the "facts" you've giving us are actually metaphors.

I believe he included Jim Rasmussen - the man whose life he saved on the river - as a brother in the band. Are you going to call them frauds because Rasmussen was Special Forces? Oh, wait, you already did, didn't you.

Actually I haven't said anything about Jim Rasmussen here. But since you bring him up, one point will suffice.

Rasmussen was widely reported as "a lifelong Republican", yet when he was questioned about his voting patterns (by a small, local, southwestern media org) he stated that he voted for Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Gore. The major media never changed the tagline - "lifelong Republican" and never reported Rasmussen's real voting record, even though he freely admitted it.

Perhaps you could explain, Dave. Is that bias? Or incredibly sloppy and unprofessional journalism? Or perhaps you have some other explanation? The vaunted layers of fact checking somehow broke down? Or the importance of presenting Rasmussen as a "lifelong Republican" overrode any desire to be factual about his voting patterns?

Brave men performed extraordinary things under fire and you want to pick at nits solely because you don't like their politics? You're shameless, antimedia.

And you're silly, Dave, for if you had even bothered to read my blog, you would know that I was originally opposed to the Swiftvets. I wrote several articles about what a horrible idea I thought the 527 orgs were and how it would unleash worse attack politics than we had ever seen.

I even decried their use of a detective to dig up information on Kerry and his "band of brothers". Yet, when I began to actually investigate the story, (something you might actually consider doing some day), I discovered more and more discrepancies in Kerry's version of events.

And after the campaign was over, I wrote of my mixed feelings about 527 orgs, since they had been the source of tremendously negative advertising, even though they gave a voice to the Swiftvets which they might not otherwise have had. (The media didn't even bother to cover their first press conference. It was apparently not deemed newsworthy.)

John McCain is a brave man. He endured captivity in North Vietnam. Yet I've called him "the world's biggest hypocrite" on my blog because I investigated his "non-profit foundation" and discovered information which I think proves he is extremely hypocritical about campaign finance reform.

Is that "picking nits because I don't like his politics", Dave? You've already put me in a neat little box and you don't know anything about me except what I've written here (and at my blog if you've ever bothered to go there.) What does that say about your bias, Dave?

It's all there on my blog. If I'm lying about it, it can be easily refuted. I have nothing to hide.

Try to imagine just how little I care what you think about me. Got an image? Well, it's even less.

But you see, Dave, it is not me that has a reputation to worry about. It's you, your industry and your career.

And it's a sad commentary that you haven't the guts to accept my challenge and prove me wrong, when it would take you just a few minutes to do so, if I'm wrong. That you can't be bothered with such "nits" speaks volumes.

The readers of this blog will judge your words, just as you have asked them to, and they will decide whether or not your words are credible. My only purpose was to give you the opportunity to prove the cry of "bias!" wrong. Since you're so thoroughly convinced there is no bias in the media, most rational people would think you would jump at the chance to disprove such a bold and specific claim.

The challenge remains. Unanswered so far. I will now make the same challenge to anyone reading this forum. Prove me wrong.

Steve Lovelady writes

Or could it be because Bush's records were (and remain) strangely incomplete ... whereas Kerry's were voluminous, even before he finally released the final segments, which were, to the everlasting disappointment of those looking for something incriminating, utterly unremarkable ?
(Ya think ?)

Again, this is hilarious.

Bush's records are not strangely incomplete. The media understanding of them is. I can explain where Bush was for his entire Guard service. I can explain what he was doing. I can explain how he got in the Guard, whether or not he was "helped" and whether or not he got "special treatment".

Can you?

On the other hand, Kerry's military records, which he "released" on his website during the campaign, were strangely incomplete and included combat reports (which he claimed were his) that actually belonged to Ted Peck (David Alston's skipper on PCF-94). Curiously, it was those very combat records that "proved" that Alston and Kerry served together and saw combat together. When Peck pointed out that those records were for his service not Kerry's, they myseriously disappeared from the Kerry campaign site.

Furthermore, no one has seen his "released" records except some people at the Boston Globe, the LA Times and the Associated Press, so we have no way of knowing what is in those records and whether or not the support or weaken any claims that either Kerry or the Swiftvets made. And if you think we're going to take the word of the Globe, the Times and the AP for what's in them - after Rathgate, you must be delusional.

We do know that Kerry lied about being in Cambodia on Christmas eve. Both his own biography and his campaign admission prove this. We also know that Kerry wrote things in his diary (revealed in his biography) that cast doubt on some of the claims that he has made about his service, including some of his medals.

None of this will ever be resolved by the media because it's peculiarly unimportant to them, just as Bush's Guard Records seem peculiarly important to them.

And none of that mattered a whit to the electorate. Which only goes to show the press can only raise the questions. It can't assure the issue will have any traction whatsoever.
Which is as it should be.

Again, this is hilarious.

Kerry's poll numbers dropped precisely when the Swiftvets' claims began to gain traction in the blogosphere and their book was released. Kerry never regained his footing after that, and the subsequent media focus was on how Kerry should respond to charges they had reported only partially and grudgingly, which must have made a major-media-only consumer wonder what in the world they were talking about.

I do have to credit you media folks for one thing, though. You sure can toe the party line!

Posted by: antimedia at August 28, 2005 12:28 AM | Permalink

Jay Rosen writes

Here's anti-media at his blog: "It's really a pain trying to have a discussion with self-righteous, smug media types, but I keep trying. (Don't ask me why. I guess I'm Don Quixote reincarnated.)"

Anti-media the idealist, toughing it out with the crazies because he believes in honest discussion. Nice, huh?

You may not like it, Jay, but it expresses my sentiments exactly, and I stand by the comment. Furthermore, anyone who disagrees or takes issue with it is free to comment on my blog. I allow comments and I do not censor opposing views. (I do reserve the right to remove hateful or disgusting comments, but opposition to my opinions does not fall into that category.)

You and I have agreed on some things through discussion. The same cannot be said for others who are in the profession of journalism. So the comment is directed toward them.

I keep hoping against hope that we can actually have a substantive dialog here, but the dismissiveness of some does not contribute to that at all.

Posted by: antimedia at August 28, 2005 12:41 AM | Permalink

For example - stop calling murdering thugs "insurgents". They clearly aren't. Any fool can see that, and using the word "insurgents" decreases the credibility of the story. "Insurgents" might have been the right word early on, but it clearly is not any more. They're also not "rebels", for God's sake! The use of these words implies an agenda. If your style guides are telling you to use those words, then get new style guides! - Antimedia

Yoohoo. You wrote this a little higher up (August 24, 2005 08:51). I mentioned later (August 24, 2005 10:57) That Rumsfeld had used the the term 'insurgents' numerous times very recently.

So is it a sign of agenda when Rumsfeld uses it? Or when you do - oddly enough in the same message in which you say 'insurgent' is a loaded media word? Or is this only a media sin? I'm just trying to keep up with the substantive dialog.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 28, 2005 2:47 AM | Permalink

Oh. Just so you won't remain confused, antimedia, et al. I certainly want to opinions to be based on fact.

I've never reported on John Kerry, Swifties or all the ensuing hoorah. Never written a word on it for paid publication.

Certainly, I talked about it last year. Shared my views and such. But long ago lost interest in the obsessive never-ending loop of minutia over claims and counter-claims.

It's like wrestling with a pig. You both get messy and the pig likes it.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 28, 2005 2:56 AM | Permalink

For maybe the 20th time, folks, it's the bias discourse--a specific way of talking, and thinking--that is making you dumber. I could put it a different way: most bias talk is bad pressthink. But I don't feel like it. (And the evidence for the "making you dumber" proposition keeps pouring forth in this thread.) If you think that sentence means "you are dumb," and you're offended that's your problem. Easily solved by a critical re-reading.

Scott:

You don't seem to want to accept our answer at face value. Quite simply, we don't trust the national press. So the argument that Bush needs to engage them more falls flat with us. You can say we are being unreasonable, and maybe we are being so. But how does that solve the problem of your industry?

We don't have any obligation to give credence to any particular organization. The national press once had our trust. Now they don't. Is that our fault? Another word for bias, and perhaps a better word, is dishonest. Another word might be unfair. Or haughty. Or antagonistic. Or arrogant. Or unresponsive. Or bullying. Or destructive. Any of those words could apply to different situations.

No, Scott. I know you want someone to answer for it, but first off, it's not my industry. "We don't trust the press" is an answer I do accept at face value. I believe it's true, and sincerely stated. It says what it means. Many people don't trust the national press any more, and this is a problem journalists cannot ignore. If they do, they're in trouble. For a long time they did, and there's now big trouble because of it. With this part of your message I agree.

It's the answer, "we don't trust the press because it's a fifth columns for the Democrats," or "we don't trust the press because it's run by the left," or we "we don't trust because look at how it tried to get John Kerry elected" that I do not take at face value. I would be a fool to do so.

Here's Rick Ballard in the previous thread making the same argument you did: it would do the Bush team no good to engage the national press, as Austin Bay recommends, because it cannot be trusted.

What objective, concrete goal of this administration could a press that promised 15 points to John Kerry possibly be expected to advance?

Face value? Ballard's fantasy proof is a bizarre comment on CNN from a Newsweek editor, Evan Thomas, saying that reporters want Kerry to win and that's worth 15 points in the election. As if the press held that kind of power over voters! Thomas later said was a stupid thing to say, and then changed his idiotic estimate to a slightly less idiotic but still fantasized, "maybe five" points. They were just numbers pulled out of his ass, but here's Rick a year later making stuff up (the press "promised" Kerry 15 points) using those numbers.

Face value? This, in my view, is wholly characteristic of the bias discourse, which in the main isn't truth-seeking but point-scoring. Listen to Richard crowing about his unanswered charges (...the winner and still champion, Awesome Aubrey!), or anti-media with his absurdly macho, WWF-style "challenge." ("You haven't the guts to accept my challenge and prove me wrong.")

He'll speak for himself, but Steve Lovelady would probably admit that the bias discourse, as practiced here, can bring out the worst in him, too. In that sense it's making everyone dumber. It's also, as I have said, a victim's discourse, which is both pathetic and dangerous to the quality of one's judgment.

Now to return to Austin Bay's argument: to win the "war on terror" (an insidious phrase I don't like even though I don't dispute that we are at war with what Paul Berman calls Islamofascism) you need to engage the press. You say: no, we don't trust the press. Question: wouldn't a worldwide war on terror require the people fighting it from the White House to sometimes engage with people they don't fully trust?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 28, 2005 8:56 AM | Permalink

When one hears accusation of media bias from people who claim to know things that are simply not explained (or explanable) by the record, the issue is no longer "media bias", its the question of how the accuser could become so divorced from objective reality.

Bush's records are not strangely incomplete. The media understanding of them is. I can explain where Bush was for his entire Guard service. I can explain what he was doing. I can explain how he got in the Guard, whether or not he was "helped" and whether or not he got "special treatment".

really? Where was Bush on October 28-29, 1972, Nov. 11-14, 1972, Jan 4-6 and 8-10, 1973? We know he wasn't in Texas. We know there is not a single shread of evidence that he requested and was granted the REQUIRED authorization to perform training with a unit other than his own for those days. We know that there is not a single credible witness to his showing up for training on those days. And, except for a rather questionable and incomplete record of a dental examination, we know there is not a single piece of evidence which tells us "what Bush was doing" on any of those days.

And where was Bush on April 7&8, 1973? Not even the most imaginative partisan hacks have been able to explain how Bush was paid for those days, when his supervising officers signed a report less than a month later stating that Bush had not been seen with his unit for the previous year.

No real "trained auditor" would ever make the kind of claims you make with regard to a company's finances based on this kind of "data." Indeed, a "trained auditor" would question why someone who was no longer doing the job he was paid to do continued to draw a paycheck for over a year.

Posted by: ami at August 28, 2005 9:28 AM | Permalink

Jay, have you looked into taking a sabbatical of some sort? I think you could benefit from it. It seems obvious that you're tired in a way that goes beyond specific threads and comments. Just adding ever more "er"s to the word "dumb" is not showing you in the finest light and not up to the standard I have seen from you in the past. Everyone deserves a break now and then to recharge their batteries. Maybe now is your time.

Posted by: kcom at August 28, 2005 12:03 PM | Permalink

Ami, I haven't looked into the dates.

But there is a problem and if it applies to you, I hope it's because you don't know what you're talking about. 'Cause otherwise, you'd be a liar.

There are provisions in the regs having to do with efficiency reports (done by an officer's superior and the commander next level up). These are to be done when the officer leaves a position and annually if he hasn't left.
However, due to people coming and going, it is possible that the individual in the position to write the report has not "seen" the officer in question long enough to write a useful report. In that case, one submits paperwork saying that the officer has not been seen long enough to merit, say, me, writing a report on him. Either I just got here, or he hasn't been here long enough or for some reason I--the officer writing the report--can't do a useful report.
Now, we know that there was at least one occasion when that happened. In no way does that mean Bush wasn't there performing his duties. You know this, right?
You wouldn't be referring to this, would you?
You wouldn't be trying to confuse us, would you?

Given, as I say, the coming and going of people during that, or any, period, it's entirely possible the same thing happened to Kerry--and no discredit to him--but we won't know because hobody's bothered to look.

The point, as I keep saying, is not the details in the records but the differential in interest.

Still, from time to time, details need to be cleared up.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 28, 2005 12:08 PM | Permalink

Sadly, ami's understanding of Bush's guard service is all too representative of a large segment of the population that relied on 60 Minutes and the like for their information on that subject. I think that is emblematic of the disservice our dominant media provides to the bulk of their audience. (Not to mention, some of the population may have reading/listening comprehension challenges as, for example, ami appears to be confusing antimedia's comments in this thread with mine.)

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 28, 2005 12:35 PM | Permalink

Bush's records are not strangely incomplete. The media understanding of them is. I can explain where Bush was for his entire Guard service. I can explain what he was doing. I can explain how he got in the Guard, whether or not he was "helped" and whether or not he got "special treatment". -AM

Please do.
God knows the rest of us can't, and not for lack of trying.
A breathless world awaits.

Furthermore, no one has seen [Kerry's] "released" records except some people at the Boston Globe, the LA Times and the Associated Press, so we have no way of knowing what is in those records and whether or not the support or weaken any claims that either Kerry or the Swiftvets made. And if you think we're going to take the word of the Globe, the Times and the AP for what's in them - after Rathgate, you must be delusional.

That's quite a conspiracy theory -- the Boston Globe, the LA Times and AP band together to hide ... what ?
Perhaps a story that would that would make front pages worldwide ?
That would certainly take a super-human effort of self-abasement -- to ignore a story that could advance your career and make you a household name.
Maybe there's another explanation. Maybe -- just maybe -- they each in their own way examined the newly-released records, realized they didn't add anything not already known from the file cabinet full of records already on file and freely available at the U.S. Navy, and reported that.
Nahhh, couldn't be that -- implies no agenda.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 28, 2005 2:38 PM | Permalink

Jay,

The "bias discourse" is an attempt to answer a question before it is asked. "Why don't we trust the national press." I am not particularly fond of many of the comments in this thread that are rehashing old issues. But my interpretation of these comments is somewhat different than yours.

Beating a dead horse is not the issue. The issue is trying to give examples of WHY the trust has been lost. Those professional journalists who want to argue the minutiae of the specific examples provided are missing the point. In this respect, your are correct. Trying to invalidate the bias argument by objecting to the specific details or perceptions of any particular story is making everyone look stupid.

It is the pattern that counts, not the individual examples. We can argue all day about individual examples and get nowhere.

And as for myself, I am past the point of wanting someone to "pay" for the sins of the press. Both hatred and love are strong emotions. Those who hate the press still care deeply. Indifference is the ultimate position of being disconnected. I find myself becoming more and more indifferent. It is why Rush Limbaugh, and others like him on TV and radio have lost their appeal for me, as well.

I don't have the emotional energy to maintain any outrage anymore. So increasingly, I just tune out. That tuning out process is the ultimate enemy of the press. As the old question goes, "Does a tree falling in the forest make any noise if no one is around to hear it?"

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 28, 2005 3:23 PM | Permalink

The bias discourse in this thread has become comical.

People who argue that there is bias, are saying, "Look, there is the forest."

And others are replying, "What forest?"

Then Bias people say, "What do you mean, what forest? Look at that pine tree."

And the others reply, "Wait a second. That's just a tree, not a forest. And besides, that's not a pine tree, it's a spruce tree. Can't you tell the difference, you idiot."

And then we have a big argument about whether that particular tree is a spruce tree, or a pine tree, when if fact, both types of trees are conifers, and the real issue is not any particular tree. The real issue is the forest.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 28, 2005 3:34 PM | Permalink

We'd have to invent Steve, too.

While talking about the differntial interest DURING the campaign, Steve tells us that what's happened long AFTER the campaign is relevant.

Maybe the aforementioned papers could let the stuff out so the rest of us could see.

But that's hardly the point. As Jay said, the election was so long ago that this particular example of press bias no longer counts. He didn't actually say that, but being a journalist, he won't mind having his own words misrepresented.
What he said was something about this being so long ago that something something something.

However, the point, as so many continue to pretend not to notice, is about the difference in interest during the campaign.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 28, 2005 4:50 PM | Permalink

BIAS DISCOURSE IMPROVES NEW YOUK TIMES JOURNALISM

Excerpts from an interview with the NY Times' public editor Byron Clame (emphasis below is mine):

Q. How have reader expectations about the paper's standards changed over the past few years?

A. It's a very hard question to answer because with the blogs out there drumming up opposition to the "mainstream media," and with the Bush administration and some of its most fervent supporters drumming up contempt for the news media - for the Eastern liberal news media, so called - it's very hard to tell which expressions of reader sentiment are genuine. You obviously pay more attention to a one-of-a-kind letter than you do to one that comes in all full of phrases repeated off some pressure group's Web site.

Readers are certainly suspicious of the news media these days. And you realize that some readers have formed the conclusion that nobody at the newspaper cares what they think or what they say. It's both gratifying and dismaying when you get back a letter that says, "I never expected you to answer me."

Q. What have been the most important changes in the standards editor's job?

A. The big one that I've mentioned is the degree of scrutiny and our awareness of the scrutiny from the blogs, and the degree of expectation on the outside that we must be doing something wrong and we're not to be trusted. So we have to explain ourselves and prove we mean well, and in ways that we once probably wouldn't have had to.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 28, 2005 5:18 PM | Permalink

I'm no fan of multi-culturalism, postmodernism or moral equivalence, but the only way I can reconcile all the comments on this post is the old bromide of "there are different truths."

As long as everyone is given a respectful hearing here, maybe we can achieve some sort of detente.

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 28, 2005 5:23 PM | Permalink

Jay wants the discourse to go away from "bias" because he thinks it's making everyone "dumber". But the task is made much more difficult because the media folks refuse to admit that there is any bias at all.

Here's a clear example:

Steve Lovelady writes

That's quite a conspiracy theory -- the Boston Globe, the LA Times and AP band together to hide ... what ?
Perhaps a story that would that would make front pages worldwide ?
That would certainly take a super-human effort of self-abasement -- to ignore a story that could advance your career and make you a household name.

Maybe there's another explanation. Maybe -- just maybe -- they each in their own way examined the newly-released records, realized they didn't add anything not already known from the file cabinet full of records already on file and freely available at the U.S. Navy, and reported that.

Nahhh, couldn't be that -- implies no agenda.The fact that you find this impossible to believe says something about your perspective of the problem, doesn't it?

First, you assume facts not in evidence. You assume they've actually examined the files when in fact we don't know that. But you're not alone. Many media people seem to assume that.

Second, no records were "freely available" at the US Navy. Kerry had to specifically authorize their release, and he has only recently done that and then only to hand-picked outlets.

Finally, how do you explain the fact that the media made FOIA requests to get Bush's records yet not one media outlet even bothered to do the same with Kerry's records?

I submit to you that they, like you, "knew" he was a "war hero" and "knew" there was no story there.

But let's get away from Kerry, since no one seems to have the guts to tackle simple questions and answer them, and address a very current problem.

Air America has recently been revealed to have some very serious financial problems - problems that have motivated Elliot Spitzer to investigate. Yet the New York Times hasn't even bothered to carry the story until very recently and even then in a timid and less than enthusiastic way.

I'm willing to entertain any plausible explanations for the Times ignoring a blockbuster story in their own back yard in what everyone claims is "the slow news month" of August and Cindy Sheehan is dominating the headlines.

Can you explain it Steve? Can anyone?

It's impossible to deal with every example of curious coverage or lack of coverage in Jay's blog, and I don't think it's even fair to him. But something clearly makes some stories "more important" to the major media than other stories, and frequently that "something" smells a lot like, well, bias.

Yet you can't even seem to wrap your mind around the possibility that at least some of what goes on in the media could be driven by a perspective that is not designed to maintain balance!

All I can say is, the (as complete as I can make it) story of both Bush's and Kerry's service records is available on my blog to anyone that wants to read it. I allow comments, so you can prove that I've gotten my facts wrong, and I will correct the articles and give you prominent credit. I defy anyone to read what I've written and find anything substantial wrong with it, and I can assure you it will not agree at all with the "official" media versions.

I could care less about Bush or Kerry. My interest isn't politics. It's the media. The media got both of these stories so completely wrong that, if there were laws against malpractice, some reporters would be in jail now.

Posted by: antimedia at August 28, 2005 6:18 PM | Permalink

The Times coveage of Air America was touched on earlier.

Byron Calame, the Times public editor took the Times to task for it's lackluster coverage. Didn't serve the readers' interests, he said. And he was correct.

Why didn't they report on it sooner and better? Calame points to some internal failings but stresses they aren't good excuses. But the fact that crap happens doesn't satisfy the need that there be an agenda, right?

Steve Harris' metaphor of the forest or the tree works only if his premise is the only one. But it isn't. Bias or the perception of bias isn't the only factor in the media's loss of relevance. Slipped standards. Sloppy, lazy reporting. A sharply reduced news budget. Less and less news space and air time. A decline in nuance and context in the reporting. The consolidation of media ownership into ever fewer hands. And corporate decisions that favor profit over news.

So, when you guys see Steve Harris' bias forest, the media sees something else. Or, to mix metaphors, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 28, 2005 6:43 PM | Permalink

If if makes it more palatable for the bias-discourse-haters, why don't we call it "group-think" instead? Sounds less deliberate or conspiratorial, hmm?

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 28, 2005 6:45 PM | Permalink

Now to return to Austin Bay's argument: to win the "war on terror" (an insidious phrase I don't like even though I don't dispute that we are at war with what Paul Berman calls Islamofascism) you need to engage the press. You say: no, we don't trust the press. Question: wouldn't a worldwide war on terror require the people fighting it from the White House to sometimes engage with people they don't fully trust?

Jay are you asking why they White House isn't engaging with the "world press" as opposed to the the US press? I've felt like they are two separate entities (although if anything the Bush White House seems even more enicmical to the foreign press than US.) My understanding of the "war on Terror" was convincing Americans to sign on (using the press to run the propaganda) was kind of unnecessary. The bigger issues was using the foreign press to win hearts and minds (in non-battle sites). Sort of like convincing Soviet-era spies and scientists to defect by convincing them America was a great place.

If you think of the War on Terror as more of an international plan than a national one, then using the US Press may seem uneccessary. But the way the WH treats Al-Jazeera as nearly an enemy makes NO sense whatsoever. US Armed forces have captured Al-Jazeera reporters and there have been reports of one being tortured in Abu Garib. (at least one I know of). This is not the kind of behavior likely to get you favorable coverage.

The White House looks at the nat'l press role in winning US hearts 'n' minds as uneccessary...at least as long as there's so many outlets they have no problem being heard (directly, as they want to be heard). But this is not true overseas. US-backed media are held in deep suspicion by those who aren't US citizens which is why Al-Jazeera has so much more credibility.

So as to why the White House feels like it doesn't need the foreign press to win this war? The only guess is that they've proven to be monsterously short-sighted and why should this be any different I suppose. They feel that they don't need to "recruit" Al-Jazeera because they can set up their own Mideast news network.

Posted by: catrina at August 28, 2005 7:22 PM | Permalink

"group think" or not-quite bias -- I want the press to pay for it!
So, until they apologize for their bias, and stop supporting Dems (implicitly), I'm gonna punish them by voting Rep!

[to parallel their own desire to punish Bush, demand that he apoligize, and in their punishment support Dems.]

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 28, 2005 7:33 PM | Permalink

If Calame tells us the NYT's reasons for spiking Air Enron stories are not good excuses, that means they weren't GOOD. They were BAD or inadequate.

In other words, it wasn't a matter of not being able to get a visa in time. Nor of not hearing about it. Nor of runnning out of ink. Nor of having too few reporters.

It was sloppiness--at best. But, given the performance of the NYT to date, one has to wonder at the stories toward which their sloppiness is deployed and those toward which it is not--Augusta Golf Club, or Abu Ghraib--which were meaningless and grossly unrepresentative, respectively. No sloppiness there.
Lying, cheating and stealing, probably. But run tight as a drum.

Makes you wonder.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 28, 2005 7:39 PM | Permalink

Dave writes

Why didn't they report on it sooner and better? Calame points to some internal failings but stresses they aren't good excuses. But the fact that crap happens doesn't satisfy the need that there be an agenda, right?

Dave, you are surely familiar with "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me"?

Fool me a thousand times and what? I'm still supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt?

If the media repeatedly "makes mistakes", as you so quaintly call them, and the "mistakes" keep getting made in the same "direction" (aggressively reporting A, timidly reporting B), what would you call that?

If it was incompetence, wouldn't the failures be equally in both "directions"?

Or to be it in a contemporary way - why is it that Cindy Sheehan gets wall to wall coverage yet the story of her son's heroism (he did win a medal you know) and his volunteering for a dangerous mission seldom get mentioned? Why is it that Cindy's anti-war sentiments prior to her son's re-enlistment seldom get covered? Why is it that Cindy's anti-semitic comments don't get covered?

Is it balance? A simple mistake?

The constant excuses stretch credulity.

Posted by: antimedia at August 28, 2005 8:04 PM | Permalink

kcom: "Just adding ever more 'er's' to the word 'dumb' is not showing you in the finest light and not up to the standard I have seen from you in the past."

My standard, as you kindly put it, didn't work for this particular pathology.

I decided to try something else, and express how I feel in blunter terms. You're probably right--it's not putting me or my blog in the best possible light, but you aren't thinking about all the people who have chosen to stop participating in these threads because of bias monomania from the Richard Aubreys of the world. They're gone. Who speaks for them?

By the way, I just took a vacation and I have been on sabbatical for a year. I feel fine. It's the bias discourse that is exhausted-- and exhausting.

AM: "But the task is made much more difficult because the media folks refuse to admit that there is any bias at all."

I tell you it's making you dumber, and dumber, and dumber, Mr. Anti. That was one of your dumbest bits yet.

Sick of hearing that? Excellent!

"I defy anyone to read what I've written and find anything substantial wrong with it."

We get it, Mr. Anti. You and your facts will take on all comers. Mano a mano, etc. Please repeat your "challenge," if it needs more reiteration, at your own blog. If you keep going with your "I challenge you..." spam, after receiving fair warning, I will start erasing your posts. Then you can crow about censorship. Deal?

The Air America story was a very good story, and as soon as it became known that Spitzer and New York City officials were investigating the story should have been covered in the New York Times, especially considering how much ink the network got before. I figured Calame, the ombudsman, would have to address it, and that he would probably find for the bloggers who were pushing the story; he did-- more or less. (Link.) I don't have a good explanation for why the story was ignored.

Similar thing happened with the Downing Street Memo story (much closer to a "blockbuster" in my view.) I don't have a good explanation for why it was pretty much ignored by the Times. The ombudsmen looked at it, and agreed with the bloggers and critics on that one, too. (Link.)

I think he was right both times.

That is why it's so difficult to draw hard conclusions from a case, as Scott said.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 28, 2005 8:10 PM | Permalink

If it was incompetence, wouldn't the failures be equally in both "directions"? antimedia

To here the left side of the blog, the media has.

But while I have your attention, AM, have you given any more thought to whether it's OK for the media to use 'insurgents' since Rumsfeld and you do? Or is it just bias when the media uses it?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 28, 2005 8:18 PM | Permalink

Air America has recently been revealed to have some very serious financial problems - problems that have motivated Elliot Spitzer to investigate. Yet the New York Times hasn't even bothered to carry the story until very recently and even then in a timid and less than enthusiastic way.
I'm willing to entertain any plausible explanations for the Times ignoring a blockbuster story in their own back yard in what everyone claims is "the slow news month" of August and Cindy Sheehan is dominating the headlines.
Can you explain it Steve? Can anyone?

I can't "explain" it, AM, but I can and did point it out and call the Times (and others) to account for it several days before the Times finally did reluctantly lurch into action. To wit:

http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001733.asp

Dang -- time to rework that conspiracy theory, eh ?

Trained Auditor: You have that Q&A wrong. It isn't an interview with Byron Calame, the public editor, but rather an interview by Calame, who is questioning Al Siegal, the Times' standards editor.
It helps the dialogue to get it right who is saying what.

And now back to Antimedia: To repeat your words: I can explain where Bush was for his entire Guard service. I can explain what he was doing. I can explain how he got in the Guard, whether or not he was "helped" and whether or not he got "special treatment".
And I repeat: If you can do that, then you deserve the fame and fortune that awaits you because no one else has.
Find an agent and a publisher -- I'm not kidding -- because you have a best-seller on your hands. And since the research -- the hardest part -- is already done, the writing is all that's left
I can put you in touch with the people who can make it happen, if you wish. ( I won't even insist on a cut of the take.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 28, 2005 8:30 PM | Permalink

I agree. It's a book. My agent would be interested, I bet. Get a proposal together.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 28, 2005 8:38 PM | Permalink

Jay has made a crucial point.
Calame, the Times public editor, took a look at the Times' late and lame coverage of the Downing Street memo -- and agreed with the leftwingers who were deploring that coverage.
He also took a look at the Times' late and lame coverage of the Air America financial hijinks -- and agreed with the rightwingers who were deploring that coverage.
Imagine if you can (I confess, I can't) that the White House staff had a Calame on the payroll monitoring their misstatements and mistakes -- and publishing his results ?
Then, for the first time in five years, we'd have somebody (anybody would do) admitting a mistake.
And finally we'd be gettting somewhere.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 28, 2005 9:02 PM | Permalink

Quite right, Lovelady. I regret the ambiguous description...

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 28, 2005 9:02 PM | Permalink

But the bias discourse is making you dumber, too, Charlie. All of us, in fact. And when you drop it, you might well become smarter. If this is my considered belief, I should not say so? At my own blog? That doesn't accord with my understanding of what a weblog is.

Jay, I didn't say you couldn't or shouldn't say it. I just suggest that if you're so thin-skinned that you closed off the last comment thread it a fit of victorian vapors, you might find a more politic word than "dumber" better serves your purposes.

You might also wonder if using the same typographical convention to indicate two different people, without attribution, thereby conflating a relatively calm and politic comment with a rather more inflammatory one, is merely stupid, or a purposeful cheap trick.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 28, 2005 9:54 PM | Permalink

I don't agree with Jay. But I take exception to the tone of some of the comments opposing his position. This is, after all, Jay's blog.

If you were invited into someone's home, would you feel so free to be rude. Would you call someone thin-skinned in his own home.

And even if your host was rude, wouldn't the proper thing be to wish them well, or change your tack of conversation.

The personal attacks are unwarranted. Argue the issue all you want for as long as Jay allows it to continue. But have the common courtesy not to call our host names, or impugn his integrity on his own site.

If you want to call names, host your own site.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 28, 2005 10:21 PM | Permalink

I can think of a reason to keep the Downing Street Memo from being reported widely.
It's not useful. It shows, for example, the British command wondering how the WMD would affect their plans. They certainly thought the stuff existed. And since the mantra is "Bush lied" instead of "everybody made a mistake", evidence showing that everybody made a mistake is not welcome.
It also shows that planning for the invasion was underway before the invasion--as an ex-lieutenant, I don't find that surprising--and there was some confusion about "fixed" which, since the Brits were using it may as well be assigned the Brits' usage, which is closer to "affixed" than to "fiddled".
This is why the DSM didn't get much coverage and never developed legs.
It's like finding a secret survey disclosing the current administration is full of republicans. No matter how often you retail that info, and no matter in what tones of horror, it will never reach escape velocity.
It was tried.
Still, people throw into arguments 'DOWNING STREET MEMO" as if merely mentioning it trumps everything. So the effort is there, but the material is weak.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 28, 2005 11:20 PM | Permalink

Charlie: The way this blog works (typically one comment thread at a time) I can't really "close off" a discussion unless I either stop posting (quit) or change to a "no comments allowed" policy. For as soon as there is a new post the discussion begins again. I can, however, punctuate it-- put a period on things. I can say: time's up for that one. New page. But then the story goes on.

All posts close by software setting a week after publication. By then another one has usually started. Sometimes not.

In fact, the Austin Bay post has now generated by far the most comments (400+) of any post in two years of PressThink. You might want to re-consider... closed off the last comment thread in a fit of victorian vapors. I like "fit of victorian vapors." Apt, colorful, fair. But closed off? I don't think I closed off a thing. I ended one post that had 168 uncensored comments, and started another that has so far 237 uncensored comments on the same matters as the first (closed) post.

you might find a more politic word than "dumber" better serves your purposes.

I didn't choose "dumber" because it was the politic word, Charlie, but because it was an accurate one, and for me expressive. My purpose was to tell you and others what I think the bias discourse is doing to your ability to think new and true thoughts about the press, and talk about it with others in this forum. I wrote: "The bias discourse is making you dumber, too, Charlie. All of us, in fact."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 28, 2005 11:49 PM | Permalink

It is unfortunate that so few of the 400+ posts have gone so far as to address the original topic. While I do not agree with Jay that the bias discourse is without merit, it is more than obvious at this point that it is not going anywhere in this forum. It is disheartening, though, to see such a gap in the lived experience of left and right.

Which brings us back to the original post. How did we get here from there? Austin Bay suggested that the White House needs to work with the press to ensure the success of the GWOT across future generations. Many conservatives would disagree with Bay's assessment, as they feel the MSM as currently constituted cannot be entrusted with this responsibility. Hence, the desire to demonstrate in this forum the reasons for that loss of trust.

My opinion is that this discussion is more fruitfully conducted at the level of ideas first. Ideas form the template through which the press (and the rest of us as well) interprets the war to create a narrative. In the hands of individual reporters who might be biased, lazy, uncurious, poorly educated, rushed to deadline, limited by archaic column-inches, or merely human, that narrative too often devolves to the Vietnam template, which is architectonically bounded by the sediment of left-wing ideology. These ideas, and this template, have not been carefully rethought by the MSM in the four years since 9/11, at great disservice to the nation, and at great peril to its own future.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 29, 2005 12:54 AM | Permalink

Steve writes

And I repeat: If you can do that, then you deserve the fame and fortune that awaits you because no one else has.

That's simply untrue. Many bloggers have put various pieces together, and I'm certain I'm not the only one who has all the pieces. Furthermore, I have no interest in fame or fortune.

Jay writes

I agree. It's a book. My agent would be interested, I bet. Get a proposal together.

The information is on my blog. The book will write itself. You're welcome to it. All you have to do is credit the blog and the sources it uses for the information.

But who's kidding whom? Neither of you believes a word of it, so it's pointless to continue the charade.

Dave writes

But while I have your attention, AM, have you given any more thought to whether it's OK for the media to use 'insurgents' since Rumsfeld and you do? Or is it just bias when the media uses it?

1) If I used the word without quotes, it was a mistake. 2) Rumsfeld uses the word because it has entered common usage. Whether or not he agrees it's the best way to describe the terrorists he would have to answer.

Finally, I did't say that using the word "insurgent" instead of terrorist was due to bias. I said it "decreases the credibility of the story."

Clearly nothing is going to be accomplished here, and I have better things to do with my time, so I cede the argument to the "pros", who will continue to scratch their heads wondering why no one believes them any more when they are so clearly objective.

Posted by: antimedia at August 29, 2005 1:03 AM | Permalink

Neuro-conservative:

"Many conservatives would disagree with Bay's assessment, as they feel the MSM as currently constituted cannot be entrusted with this responsibility. Hence, the desire to demonstrate in this forum the reasons for that loss of trust."

Desire to demonstrate. I agree with you there. There definitely is that.

I replied to your argument with a question. You didn't like my question? I liked my question. And I would be interested in what you think, Neuro:

Austin Bay says to win the "war on terror" you need to engage the press. You say: no, we don't trust the press. Fair enough. But wouldn't a worldwide war on terror require the people fighting it from the White House to sometimes engage with people they don't fully trust?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 1:08 AM | Permalink

To answer your question, Jay, for my part: I think the White House does have to engage people they don't fully trust (our dominant media) - - but engage them in ways those people may not like, as a matter of necessity.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 29, 2005 1:55 AM | Permalink

Jay,

The answer to your question is that the White House does, from time to time, engage with people the do not trust. White House press conferences are still daily events, and Presidential press conferences, while rare, have not been non-existent. Also, the President engaged the local press during his re-election campaign, sometimes to the dismay of the national players. But the President has a right to try to shape the message he delivers rather than have it be modified by a hostile press.

Part of the problem we as consumers have is the notion among many press types that we Americans as so gullible that we cannot see through blatant propoganda - even the propoganda that is promulgated by those with whom we agree.

The BS detectors of most Americans are pretty good. It is rather arrogant for members of the press to think that without their valuable cynicism, we would be suckers for the latest press release that comes down the pike.

We KNOW to take the words of even those we with whom we nominally agree with a grain of salt. But the press treats us as uniformed, gullible children who need to be told what to think. One of the most obvious examples is the commentary that inevitably preceeds and follows a televised Politcal Speech - as if we Americans are incapable of interpreting the words we just heard.

I'm sure you remember the Zell Miller/Chris Matthews confrontation during the Republican National Convention last year. Matthews tried to twist Miller's words and recharacterize his speech. Miller came awfully close to challenging him to a dual - and many Americans cheered for Miller. The arrogance demonstrated by Matthews was stunning, and he deserved to be brought up short - and I sometimes like Matthews.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 29, 2005 2:29 AM | Permalink

There are provisions in the regs having to do with efficiency reports (done by an officer's superior and the commander next level up). These are to be done when the officer leaves a position and annually if he hasn't left.
However, due to people coming and going, it is possible that the individual in the position to write the report has not "seen" the officer in question long enough to write a useful report. In that case, one submits paperwork saying that the officer has not been seen long enough to merit, say, me, writing a report on him. Either I just got here, or he hasn't been here long enough or for some reason I--the officer writing the report--can't do a useful report.

Mr. Aubrey....

The individuals responsible for writing the annual report on Bush which cited him as a no-show for a year were named Harris, Killian, and Hodges---Officers who had been with Bush's TXANG unit for years, and who had written the two previous reports. So please don't make up potential "problems" that do not exist. These men were Bush's direct superiors, and were individually responsible for ensuring that Bush met his training standards.

Additionally, any time training was accomplished somewhere other than a Guardsman's home base, a report (Form 40A?) was required to be issued by the training unit (signed by the officert that supervised that training) that was required to be sent to the "home unit" within 48 hours that the training was accomplished. (It was from this report that a Guardman was paid). Not only are there no such reports in Bush's files---- based on the payroll records, it is glaringly obvious that these mandatory reports were not issued at the time Bush supposedly did the training.

Finally, when Bush's immediate superiors submitted their "not observed" evaluation, they were instructed by the Air Force to contact the unit with which Bush supposedly had been training. The response from Bush's unit ("no report is available") indicates that either Bush's unit did not follow the Air Forces instructions, or did so but received no response that would have allowed an evaluation to be issued.

In other words, rather than suggest that I'm a liar, I suggest that you cease your profoundly ignorant speculation about possible explanations (such as the complete bullshit that maybe the person assigned to evaluate Bush was new at his job), and make an effort to determine the facts.

Posted by: ami at August 29, 2005 7:55 AM | Permalink

Dave,

"But while I have your attention, AM, have you given any more thought to whether it's OK for the media to use 'insurgents' since Rumsfeld and you do? Or is it just bias when the media uses it?"

Given any more thought to the Kerry in Cambodia questions I asked you? No, of course not. You are above defending your own posts, right?

Yeah, I know, I was supposed to ignore you, but it looks like this thread is winding down. When the foreign spam hits, the fat lady is singing. Plus, you seem so comfortable demanding answers from people, asking them to defend statements they made. I thought you might have had a change of heart.

But probably not. What applies to others does not apply to you. You are special. You are in good company here, then.

So what have we learned from this discussion? Half the people say there is media bias; they see it everyday. They've stated their case, and given examples.

Half the people say there is no such thing. They are further divided between the "we're not biased, we're making a difference" crowd, the "its not bias, we're just incompetent" crowd, and the "how dare you say that you right-wing, Bush-loving Neanderthal!" crowd.

We also learned that bias or not, many people who claim that the press are true to the facts have a hard time doing it themselves. Some of these people ARE in the press, which is certainly enlightening. When shown their facts are wrong, they will either ignore those pointing it out, or attack them on irrelevant matters, or personally.

This has indeed been a sad display, but for the reasons many of you can even imagine. Some of you have no idea how bad you have come off, and that is the truly astounding thing.

Spare me the smart-guy responses and keep this in mind. The viewing/reading/listening public does NOT need to convince you that there is a problem. They don't. Repeat it to yourselves.

YOU need to convince them you are responsible and fair, because you can't compel them to watch, read or listen to you. You need to convince them that you are worth their time, or they will spend it elsewhere. If they spend it, then you are out of a job. As it is, its probably too late anyway. But, we can at least said we tried.

But why did we try? Why bother? It was not to beat up on the Press, or Kerry, or because we are mean, "dumb" people. We tried because, believe it or not, we did think Austin Bay had a very good point. We do think that a less confrontational or hostile relationship between the government and the press might be a very good thing. We would certainly welcome it, as a matter of fact.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to discussing the problem. The "pro-press" crowd, if I may call it that for convenience, was really receptive to the idea that the administration needed to change its ways. "Yes," they agreed, "Bush and the administration has rolled us back and locked us out, and they need to rethink that horrible policy. It is wrong, and it is not helpful to the country as a whole." When it came to blaming the administration, they were all behind that, fo' shizzle!

But when it came to Austin's other points, the ones where the press's behavior and responsibilities are questioned...

Well, that was acknowledged not at all by Jay originally, and when it was raised by others, then we saw anger, resentment and a good amount of arrogance on the "pro-press" crowd. The responses varied a bit, but a lot of it seemed to boil down to "I don't want to hear it!".

Well, you don't have to hear it, I guess. I have seen for myself how skilled some people at tuning things out. You can go on blocking it out as long as you like. That's your choice. Just don't surprised when the general public decides to tune you out as well. They've already started to do so in large numbers, have they not? You expect that little trend to reverse anytime soon?

Well, at least you have your smug comments to keep you warm at night...

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 29, 2005 8:48 AM | Permalink

Ami. You make my point.
Bush was "not observed" once or possibly twice.
That has been taken to mean he wasn't there, which, as you admit, is not true.
If he hadn't been there, the ANG would have generated a "he's not on duty where he's supposed to be" positive report. That is completely different from not replying.

I once did a practice--we would now say "virtual"--exercise for a reserve unit. Having completed all the simulated paperwork, my superior had me report to the commander and his exec, "Sir, the battalion is complete." The guys practically had tears in their eyes. Turns out the last time it had been done, the ops officer lost the entire package and the unit could not prove it had been done.
One of my colleagues, not able to account for a generator, pulled the page out of the property book and the inspecting officer didn't notice either the missing page or the missing generator.

In the good old days of the early Seventies, lack of paperwork was manifestly different from positive reports of anything at all, and that includes the issue of "not observed" as opposed to no reply or no information.

As you know. But hope we don't.

Nevertheless, you know whatever it is you know about this because the press was all over Bush's records. Whether anything like this happened in Kerry's career--and there's no reason to suppose he was immune to screwed-up paperwork--is unknown because the press was not all over his records. And that's my point.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 29, 2005 8:57 AM | Permalink

Got to go chase Hurricane Katrina, so I'll be away from the bias wars for a few days. Just a last note or two:

Kerry told a war story about being in Cambodia at Christmas. As I recall, his campaign acknowledged that he had 'misspoke' on the issue.

Frankly, I don't care. As a recall, Kerry fought with some courage in Vietnam - something you guys ignore. He lost the presidential election but his message appealed to about half the electorate. Something else you guys want to ignore.

Speaking of ignoring, antimedia, you're ignoring your own words. You said using 'insurgent' indicated an agenda. Now it's not about bias, but about credibility.

You made a big deal about, so I did. If you're uncomfortable with your own words, I'll drop it. Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at August 29, 2005 9:18 AM | Permalink

anti-media, Aug, 24:

"Insurgents" might have been the right word early on, but it clearly is not any more. They're also not "rebels", for God's sake! The use of these words implies an agenda.

anti-media Aug. 29:

I didn't say that using the word "insurgent" instead of terrorist was due to bias. I said it "decreases the credibility of the story."

I wrote:

Austin Bay says to win the "war on terror" you need to engage the press. You say: no, we don't trust the press. Fair enough. But wouldn't a worldwide war on terror require the people fighting it from the White House to sometimes engage with people they don't fully trust?

Scott's answer is he already does from time to time engage the press. He talks to the local press while reporters from the big national organizations cool their heels; he gives an occasional press conference. And he has a right to get his message out.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 9:55 AM | Permalink

Dave,

First of all, why couldn't you have answered me in the first place? Wait, let's take a look why...

"Kerry told a war story about being in Cambodia at Christmas."

The 'war story' involved tales of an illegal, clandestine mission, and he told it multiple times, including on the floor of the Senate. It was not just some tall tale he was telling his campfire buddies.

"As I recall, his campaign acknowledged that he had 'misspoke' on the issue."

His campaign acknowledged it only after the accusations of the Swift Boat Veterans finally made it into the MSM, and discrepencies were found. This was months later. And, however his campaign characterized it, it was a lie, because he told it several times on the record over the years. Misspeaking the same thing a number of times is not telling the truth.

"Frankly, I don't care."

Apparently not, but why? You should. It speaks directly to your claim that Kerry's critics, the Swifties in particular, had no credibility. The one I challenged you on. The one you claimed proved there was no bias when it came to press reporting on Kerry's record.

"As a recall, Kerry fought with some courage in Vietnam - something you guys ignore."

Kerry's courage is not the issue here. It was his honesty. His courage is irrelevant to what we are currently talking about. That is why I am "ignoring" it right now. Why are you bringing it up?

"He lost the presidential election but his message appealed to about half the electorate. Something else you guys want to ignore."

His appeal is also irrelevant to the point, so again, I am indeed guilty of ignoring it right now.

Dave! Please, PLEASE! Can you not understand that;

-your misstating of facts that are clearly in the record which present person A in a better light, and persons B in a worse one

-your refusal to acknowledge your error when confronted

-your later spinning of information by providing only part of the story above in order to mimimize the impact for you and Kerry's reputation

-your attempt to deflect from the error by bolstering Kerry with irrelevant information

Is emblematic of some of the very problems we have been arguing over here for days? THIS IS THE KIND OF THING SOME OF US HERE ARE TALKING ABOUT!

Sorry to "shout", but I am hoping, hoping that you can at least acknowledge that behavior like this would lead people to see an issue with fairness. C'mon, Dave. Think about it, would you? Its right there in front of you. You might not even realize, but try taking a look at it while you are away.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 29, 2005 9:59 AM | Permalink

I have never seen--not even once--any hit of a resolution of any factual dispute involving the Swift Vets. In fact, over hundreds of posts I have never seen any outcome other than the outcome seen here: continued shouting, mutual incomprehension, reciprocal disbelief, etc. The subject, it appears, is literally undiscussable. I'm not interested in proving so once again. DM and CW: take it to e-mail, please.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 10:47 AM | Permalink

Jay,

This is your site, so I will respect your wishes, and I will drop this with Dave. If Dave wants to continue to e-mail me. However, I cannot believe that you hold the position above.

1) Kerry claimed for years to have been in Cambodia on New Year's of '68 on some sort of secret mission.

2) The Swift Boat's claimed that was not true, and pointed out factual discrepencies with his account.

3) The Kerry campaign and his biographer admitted, after the story was actually investigated, that Kerry had, in fact, not been there.

All of this is readily available on the record, in major publications. The fact that you are somehow unaware of this is not my issue. I frankly find it stunning that you do not, and you so readily dismiss it. I'm sorry, but it actually just reinforces my perception that there is a serious issue here with press fairness.

"The subject, it appears, is literally undiscussable."

So, apparently, are a great many things here when it slaughters certain sacred cows. I am finally, truly disgusted with this whole thing.

You have my word that I will not post here again. Its a waste of time.

Posted by: Captain Wrath at August 29, 2005 11:27 AM | Permalink

Thank you for respecting my wishes.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 11:36 AM | Permalink

I wonder if the bias mongers ever consider the possibility that their position might backfire. Alterman and others have written about the advantages conservatives have gained by "working the refs" to slant coverage their way.

But there's a point at which that becomes counterproductive. One small instance: When I became editor of a small Texas daily, I began getting phone calls complaining that we had downplayed coverage of a pro-life rally in Washington.

I told the callers that I couldn't vouch for what might have happened before I became editor but that we were committed to treating boths sides of the issue fairly. After the third or fourth call, I went to the morgue and looked to see how the paper really did cover the rally. It was on the front page, under a six-column headline. Obviously, my callers hadn't been reacting to evidence at all; they were simply repeating myths, or talking points.

Practically from the day the small weekly I now operate went into business, we began getting complaints that we were too "liberal." This could not have been based on evidence because we hadn't been around long enough for meaningful evidence to even exist. Yet we have had advertisers almost from day one refuse to run in the paper because of the "liberal" perception.

I see much of the same thing here: Harris complains about press coverage of the Sheehan case but admits he doesn't read the press, and he doesn't tell us what amount of press coverage would be proper. Anti-media sees bias in the use of "insurgent" but offers no better term, except the obviously neutral "murdering thugs." It's too discouraging to go on.

I talked to a fellow editor yesterday about this disappointing thread, and she said she simply ignores the debate. It's too pointless, too hopeless, too far beyond meaningful resolution.

It made me rethink something that has often come to my mind before: If I'm going to get beat up for liberal bias no matter what I do, then why not go ahead and just be liberal? At least that way, my liberal friends would quit complaining.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 29, 2005 11:47 AM | Permalink

As long as you admit it openly in your newspaper, Dave, more power to you...

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 29, 2005 12:53 PM | Permalink

... my message above is directed to Crisp (plenty of Daves/Davids around here. It's a good name, but common...)

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 29, 2005 12:56 PM | Permalink

David Crisp.

It appears you have some difficulty distinguishing between legitimate and spurious claims.

Not all folks do. Geneva Overholser, when WaPo ombudsman, scorched the paper for grossly differential coverage of pro-choice and pro-life rallies. She could tell when it was really happening, and she's no conservative.
The NYT's ombudsmen have found cases which they consider to be errors, which is to say they won't admit bias but will admit something got screwed up. It really happened.

IMO, if you have a problem like that with the pro-life rally coverage, you should do two things. One is to discover you covered it big-time in an issue and then see if you did three times as much for a pro-choice rally. If you did cover both the same, SAY SO. Loudly and repeatedly and use the complainers' names. Don't take no crap. It will provide you with more credibility when you insist you aren't biased, and it may cause the myth-callers to desist.

The other is to not consider all complainers as nutcases.
As far as I can tell, most journos consider all complainers as nutcases. Thus, all complainers are nutcases. Since they only get complaints from nutcases, all their complaints are nutty. If they had any legitimate complaints, they'd act. But all they get are nutcases, presumably because anybody who would dare to question a journo must be a nutcase.
Sure makes their job easier.

You don't have to try to be liberal to impress people as liberal. If you are in the business of comforting the afflicted, you need a villain, a comfortable to be afflicted. Since most journos don't know much about business and tend to a jumpstarter compassion for the weepiest subject of the story, they may well screw over the business part of the issue. Now, having screwed the businessowner, we have an angry businessowner who, so far as the journos are concerned, is mad about being found out and so his complaints don't count.
Really simple.
And this doesn't need a single drop of intent to deceive.
But the businessowner, for some screwy reason based almost certainly on ignorance, may put his advertising money elsewhere. No accounting for nutcases.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 29, 2005 1:07 PM | Permalink

Crisp reminded me of something I've been thinking about for a while: Wouldn't the perfect way to defuse the "bias" charge in the press be to state upfront your biases?If you are reporting about opposition to school vouchers, shouldn't you say that your kids are in private school? If you are reporting about anti-abortion demonstrations, shouldn't you say you have had an abortion, or that you paid for someone to have an abortion? If you offer a continual drumbeat of anti-Bush invective, like The Froomkins, shouldn't you disclose your voting habits and personal likes and dislikes? I'm sure the press balks at this type of disclosure because they think their reporting will be discounted---but isn't it anyway? What would be the harm in displaying the same transparency they demand of others?

When I read that major media outlets claim they are "too afraid" to say X or cover Y because someone might say they are "biased", I don't see them as victims(which I'm sure is their aim), I see them as organizations not capable of reporting news.

Even though Siegal indicated in his "conversation" with Calame (have you ever had a "conversation" where only one person was asking questions?) that Bush operatives and right-wingers were the only ones criticizing the Times-Democrat, doesn't that show the Times-Democrat as clueless? Extreme leftists like Kos, and more recently Cindy Sheehan who said that MSM was a tool of the government, have criticized MSM. At the Times-Democrat, why is it that only "right-wingers" complain about their content?

Jay would say this is the view from nowhere, but wouldn't a view from somewhere help the bias wars? Just askin'. What will it take?

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 29, 2005 1:29 PM | Permalink

"At the Times-Democrat, why is it that only 'right-wingers' complain about their content?"

That's not true at all, Kilgore, and you know it. Hell, Jay had a whole thread earlier about the failure of the Times and others to cover the Downing Street memo -- and the Times got plenty of complaints over just that from the left.
In fact, earlier in this thread, we discuss Barney Calame's reponse to that issue -- he agreed with the left-leaning who were complaining that the Times blew off the DS memo, just as he later agreed with the right-leaning who were complaining that the Times blew off the Air America financial hijinks.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 4:30 PM | Permalink

What a hoot! Being a well-trained journalist, Lovelady twists my comment to fit his preconceived view. You can't make this stuff up!

Take another look, Lovelady, and you'll see I was commenting on what Siegal said (only Bush/right criticizes Times-Democrat), not what I believe. I know context is a bugger for you press types.

You just can't help yourself, can you? Reading comprehension classes for you!

Posted by: kilgore trout at August 29, 2005 4:47 PM | Permalink

I apologize, Jay, but I simply cannot resist.

anti-media, Aug, 24:

"Insurgents" might have been the right word early on, but it clearly is not any more. They're also not "rebels", for God's sake! The use of these words implies an agenda.

anti-media Aug. 29:

I didn't say that using the word "insurgent" instead of terrorist was due to bias. I said it "decreases the credibility of the story."

You have just provided the quintessential example of media bias. By "cherry-picking" my words, you make it appear that I said something that I did not say. This is common practice in the media, and whether it's bias or standard practice or voodoo or whatever name you want to give it it distorts the truth and gives a false impression.

The "these words" referred to "rebels" not "insurgents", as I made clear by stating (as you accurately quote) that the use of the word "insurgents" "reduces credibility".

Now, you can argue that you quoted me accurately, and that is true. You took part of what I said and quoted it accurately. But you did not accurately reflect my thoughts on the matter as a complete inclusion of the context would have reflected.

Now I could care less what name you give it, but it needs to stop. Can you not see that the reason the industry is going in the toilet is because everyone universally despises the selective quoting that distorts the interviewee's comments?

It's common knowledge among those who get interviewed that their interviews will never accurately reflect what they said. So common that people simply accept it as established truth.

Please, for just one moment, put aside your industry hat and put on a consumer hat and ask yourself this one question. If everyone who is interviewed expects the story to inaccurately reflect what they said, then what is the problem?

If you can answer that, you'll go a long way toward moving past the "dumber and dumber" bias dialog to something substantive that might actually save the industry from complete collapse.

Posted by: antimedia at August 29, 2005 5:43 PM | Permalink

No, Kilgore, that's not what Siegal said; that's your paraphrase of what Siegal said.
Big difference.
What Siegal actually said was:

Q. How have reader expectations about the paper's standards changed over the past few years?

A. It's a very hard question to answer because with the blogs out there drumming up opposition to the "mainstream media," and with the Bush administration and some of its most fervent supporters drumming up contempt for the news media - for the Eastern liberal news media, so called - it's very hard to tell which expressions of reader sentiment are genuine. You obviously pay more attention to a one-of-a-kind letter than you do to one that comes in all full of phrases repeated off some pressure group's Web site.

Readers are certainly suspicious of the news media these days. And you realize that some readers have formed the conclusion that nobody at the newspaper cares what they think or what they say. It's both gratifying and dismaying when you get back a letter that says, "I never expected you to answer me."

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 5:49 PM | Permalink

Kilgore Trout, I don't think disclosing biases upfront is a bad idea, but it has never seemed terribly practical for a newspaper. Many of the bias claims relate to frequency of coverage, which usually is the call of the news editor or managing editor; to placement of a story on a page, which is the call of the page editor or wire editor; to the headline, which is usually written by the copy desk; or to internal balance within the story, which is the reporter's responsiblity but which should be carefully monitored by the city desk. That's an awful lot of biases to disclose.

Another problem is that, as I have argued elsewhere on this site, the liberal vs. conservative bias is far from the most important bias that jouralists deal with. Yes, I do have some built-in political biases (I was born deep in Yellow Dog Democrat country) but those are relatively easy to keep under control. As a business owner, I struggle not to be biased in favor of people who advertise in my paper, and I struggle to avoid bias against people who refuse to buy ads or who have cheated us on a bill. As a reporter, I fight bias in favor of people who treat me kindly, give great quotes and who return my phone calls. That may be the most difficult bias of all to fight.

Again, one example: The new Democratic governor of Montana is a charming and smart fellow. He is quick on his feet, bursting with ideas, and a master at schmoozing up reporters. Occasionally, he calls me on the phone just to ask what I think about what's going on, and he gives his own opinions with amazing candor.

For a newsman, this is extraordinarily seductive stuff, far more enticing that whatever sympathies I may share with his actual political positions. I try to be a principled fellow and set this sort of thing aside when I write about the governor. By and large, I think I succeed. But how do I really know?

The biases I can recognize I usually can deal with. It's all those internal biases, inevitable and natural to all humans, that give me a devil of a time, and I don't know how in the hell you could disclose all of that.

Posted by: David Crisp at August 29, 2005 5:56 PM | Permalink

Jay: "I have never seen--not even once--any hit of a resolution of any factual dispute involving the Swift Vets."

[I think you mean hint of resolution?]

Anyway, I'm waiting for Kerry to sign ... the Form that must not be named! Oh he did? But not yet, not really -- neither Jay nor Steve nor Dave can do a FOIA and get a copy of Kerry's, but they CAN get one of Bush? (Including some missing time...)

The resolution waits for documentation against the critics, including some explanation (or apology?) for the deceitful 1986 Senate Testimony about Christmas in Cambodia.

It seems Bush-haters don't understand why Kerry-haters (PressBias-haters?) are upset at official, on-record mis-representations (lies?) of service in order to gain Moral Superiority for their views.

One thing I really appreciate, Jay, is how Cap'n Wrath's rant echoed so many of your own prior complaints/ questions about the press. (Though he then complained about you.)(It IS hard to keep disagreeing; glad you had a nice sabbatical)

Your post about the Persistence of Memory, newly searchable, comes to mind.

David Crisp asks about what if bias-bashers could be causing a backlash? Backlash should mean, in effect, more Dems (those who the bias-bashers bash) getting elected, and more market share to the bias-bashed media.

David instead talks about pro-life coverage at the paper. I think coverage is a reasonable measure, but elections are more important. (Coverage is more clearly under control of the media.)

I asked, earlier, what if a biased pro-Dem media is actually to the Reps favor? That should mean more Reps getting elected, and only a very slow market share decrease of the biased media. (Don't want to lose this secret "underdog" advantage too quick.)

A youth variation: what happens when it becomes "cool" in college to dismiss the biased PC views of the professors (& media) "establishment"?

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 29, 2005 6:33 PM | Permalink

I will be winding this thread up tonight by midnight. It's certainly gone on long enough. Just putting everyone on notice.

Austin Bay and I have interest from Hugh Hewett's people in doing his radio show together. There we will be able to address issues that do not come up here-- if it happens.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 7:29 PM | Permalink

Tom (and fellow travelers):

What is with you guys about John Kerry ? Can't you find a more current target than that ?
Here's a news tip: Kerry lost ! He's not even considered a player in his own party any more. He's been reduced to an irrelevance.
So what is it with this obsession with resurrecting the straw man to burn him at the stake one more time ?  
I can think of only one motive for this bizarre compulsion to keep kicking a corpse  -- it serves to change the subject whenever you guys find yourselves backed into a corner on the subject supposedly at hand, which is, lest we forget, Austin Bay's theory on the press and the Bush administration.
But, I gotta tell you, it's a more transparent dodge than you realize.
It's unseemly, and, I have every faith, it is not what your mother had in mind when she gave birth.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 7:51 PM | Permalink

antimedia, you remind me of Michael Corleone in "Godfather III":

"Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in."

It's one of your more endearing qualities. Admit it: You love it.
You love it more than (to fall back on another great movie quote) you "love the smell of napalm in the morning."
Welcome back.
(But I still think you're shortsighted to pass on the book deal.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 8:16 PM | Permalink

Some comments relevant to original discussion by Austin Bay, concerning the media's template for the war on terror, are written here - - also interesting is that the lede taken there from Austin Bay's Roll Forward comments differs, again, from the meme perceived by the left here at PressThink.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at August 29, 2005 8:43 PM | Permalink

Steve. By this time, I have concluded you're not dumb. You're welcome.

You're disingenuous.

The fellow-travelers are not talking about Kerry. We're talking about the differential interest in military records during that campaign as a sure and certain example of howling media bias.

It was your side that decided to fight it out on the Swifties and missing pieces of paper.

Our view was, as you know, about the difference in attention paid then and now.

This is so clear that you still feel obligated, one more time, to try to misdirect the discussion.

I believe you're a journalist. That means you think people believe you.

After all, there's never been a complaint that was legitimate, was there?
Always wingnuts and whackjobs.

Oh, well.

Posted by: RichardAubrey at August 29, 2005 8:46 PM | Permalink

I would love to see the next thread open up with Jay's take on the article that TA linked above. I think that would also be a useful starting point for me to provide a more thorough answer to your question, Jay.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 29, 2005 9:22 PM | Permalink

Richard --
I'm disingenuous ?
Please. It's intellectual dishonesty in the extreme to ignore evidence that doesn't fit your own template -- and it demonstrates an astonishing ability to turn a blind eye to any fact that puts the lie to your thesis of the moment.
Example:  Both CJR Daily's scolding of the NYT for under-reporting and underplaying the Air America fiasco, and the subsequent admonishment of the paper for same by its own public editor, go utterly uncommented upon, even when you are guided to them.
I'll repeat my earlier observation: the day that the one-trick-ponies among the bias warriors show 10% of the honest effort that a Barney Calame shows to get the story right is the day that I'll start taking them seriously.
But, frankly, I'm not holding my breath

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 9:49 PM | Permalink

Neuro-conservative:

There's lots of stuff out there that Jay could link to for his next thread.
Unfortunately, Scott Johnson's article isn't one of them.
Johnson is what he is: part of the Bush-Daily Standard PR apparatus.
PR has its uses; but getting to the bottom of things isn't one of them.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at August 29, 2005 10:20 PM | Permalink

Curses, Steve! You've foiled my diabolical plan! And I haven't cashed my check from Karl Rove yet!

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at August 29, 2005 10:38 PM | Permalink

Steve. One reason to look at the Kerry/Bush military records issue is that it's the last presidential election. We haven't had one since.

We don't need to be a one-trick pony. It's just handy to pick one whose details are well known so we don't have to explain it all over again.

The Air Enron issue is kind of neat. The CJR accused the NYT of something, and the public editor said it was a mistake. Both true, more than likely. Unless the public editor was wrong and it was on purpose.

But, anyway, what they both said was that the NYT was screwing the pooch. Which is what lots of us have said. So you're saying that, because certain people agreed that the NYT was deficient, then....? What? That the NYT wasn't deficient? That the media corrects itself by leaning on the NYT until it does what it should have done? Key word, "should have done". All it proves is that the NYT, with enough pressure, can be forced to report something it clearly would rather not.
That's like saying a bully can be made to leave people alone by threats of being beat to hell. Doesn't mean he's not a bully or won't try it again when he gets the chance. The NYT had to be dragged into doing the right thing, which is the point. Dragged, is the point.

Calame's honest effort amounted to what? Coercing the NYT staffers to come clean? Sneaking around among the files? Embarrassing people? Threatening to write a really, seriously damning story if they didn't do something right? Let's agree he put in the honest effort to get the NYT to do something it wouldn't have done otherwise. That tells us about Calame. It also tells us about the NYT. Without Calame, not only would nothing have happened, we'd never know it was a series of errors, not bias. Coughbullshitcough.
That's the point. It takes a serious threat to get the NYT to do what it ought to do because, as we keep saying, it won't do what it ought to do and that is the GD POINT!
You can get a broken-down car to move by pushing it with a bulldozer, but that doesn't mean the thing will run without the bulldozer. If it needs the bulldozer, it's broken.
I know you get this stuff. It's just that you don't think the rest of us can see through your brilliant misdirection.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at August 29, 2005 10:46 PM | Permalink

The hour of mercy is upon us. Goodnight, thread, goodnight.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 29, 2005 11:01 PM | Permalink