Courtney has a whole Palin section in her E. Night coverage, but what I noticed today was Fox News airing the Palin-is-a-diva-bitch-Medusa story. Interesting. Also the part about Africa.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Strictly for my anchors
So tonight I was watching all of the networks try to cover issues of race. At one point ABC, I think, pointed out how much the electorate had changed since 1976 when 90 percent of the voters were white. Now it's down to like 74 percent.
And suddenly it struck me that Katie was talking to Jeff Greenfield, Brian to Chuck Todd and Charlie to George Stephanopoulos. You know? There was this very keyed-up discussion of race being conducted entirely by white people
I have never liked the "well, why aren't more(or any) of you black?" question ... at least not in certain contexts. I faced it recently in a public setting and it irritated me.
But we have an African-American president, and still the face of network television DOES seem to lag behind. On cable...well, there are experts like Juan Williams and Eugene Robinson, but since the departure of Bernard Shaw, it's not THAT much better. It's one of the ways, I think, in which TV is pretty conservative. In fact, they were all sitting around talking aout how the Republican party has failed to show an inclusive picture of itself, and I kept thinking: you guys are just as far behind as they are.
What do you think about that?
Have the mass media failed, in certain ways, "to look like America?"
And suddenly it struck me that Katie was talking to Jeff Greenfield, Brian to Chuck Todd and Charlie to George Stephanopoulos. You know? There was this very keyed-up discussion of race being conducted entirely by white people
I have never liked the "well, why aren't more(or any) of you black?" question ... at least not in certain contexts. I faced it recently in a public setting and it irritated me.
But we have an African-American president, and still the face of network television DOES seem to lag behind. On cable...well, there are experts like Juan Williams and Eugene Robinson, but since the departure of Bernard Shaw, it's not THAT much better. It's one of the ways, I think, in which TV is pretty conservative. In fact, they were all sitting around talking aout how the Republican party has failed to show an inclusive picture of itself, and I kept thinking: you guys are just as far behind as they are.
What do you think about that?
Have the mass media failed, in certain ways, "to look like America?"
Monday, November 03, 2008
E. Night -- what you trained for
A few last thoughts about E. Night!
Why the exit polls get used.
To do so, the networks now follow strict rules that govern projections,And a plea to the networks.
examining not only exit poll data but actual vote tabulation and turnout
information. NBC -- which keeps its decision desk isolated from the calls made
by competing networks -- will only call a winner once its statisticians conclude
that the chance of an error is less than 1 in 200. And no calls will be made
until all the polls have closed in a state.Extreme measures are taken to ensure
that early data from the exit poll does not leak out, as it did in 2004, when
the first wave of surveys showing John Kerry in the lead rocketed through
cyberspace.For much of the day, only a small group will have access to the exit
poll, which is being conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky
International for the National Election
Pool, a consortium of the networks and the Associated Press. Three members
from each outlet will be sequestered in an undisclosed location in New York,
where they will analyze the results of questionnaires filled out by 100,000
voters nationwide. Their cellphones and BlackBerries will be taken away until 5
p.m. ET, when they will be allowed to share the data with their newsrooms.It's
the same procedure that was used in the 2006 midterm elections and effectively
prevented the release of incomplete data, much to the relief of network
executives."Exit poll information in the hands of trained professionals is
perfectly fine," said Sam Feist, CNN's political director. "Exit poll
information in the hand of the general public, who may not understand what it
means or stands for, can be dangerous."That's because exit polls are designed to
provide a demographic portrait of voters, not to predict the winner of a close
race. The early waves of data can be especially misleading because they do not
necessarily reflect an accurate sample of the electorate
Why the exit polls get used.
I was told there would be no math
We need to make Rich explain this more.
Could be the week's most intriguing post!
Could be the week's most intriguing post!
Hope you had a nice weekend, Megan
I have all kinds of questions on this clip from Rich. But I'll let the class discuss it. We won't watch the whole seven minutes of bickering.
McComedy
I totally agree with Cheyenne that McCain seems more comfortable doing this kind of comedy than ...being a candidate. It sort of inspires recollections of Teddy in 1980.
Teddy got better when the pressure was off.
Teddy got better when the pressure was off.
Sudden Death Overtime
Joe D. had an interesting week. (You should also check out his amusing post on the way Obama disrupted football priorities.) But I'm flagging this post not just because it mentions a developing story about Pslin, but also because it reminds us to talk specifically about the nightly newcasts. I've watched A LOT of them since September and -- setting aside my occasional, warm feeling that Katie is talking directly to me -- I can't realy see any obvious tilt in the three network 'casts. Am I wrong? I mean, Katie was kind of the undoing of Palin, but not in a way that seemed like bad journalism.
Jabba's Straight Talk Hovercraft
Providently, Kasey has framed one of the OTHER pressing questions: which is more important to reporters -- ideology or access/success?
I guess one of my problems here is the fallacy of treating all the reporters the same way. Age and pecking order come into play. Joe Klein can afford to develop biases. The struggling, relatively new beat reporter may want access a lot more.
When I was starting out in the business, I would have written up Jabba the Hutt's views if he gave me access.
Cheyenne looked at the question of McCain and reporter access here with CLIP.
I guess one of my problems here is the fallacy of treating all the reporters the same way. Age and pecking order come into play. Joe Klein can afford to develop biases. The struggling, relatively new beat reporter may want access a lot more.
When I was starting out in the business, I would have written up Jabba the Hutt's views if he gave me access.
Cheyenne looked at the question of McCain and reporter access here with CLIP.
Caveat Harry
Harry has a nice way of framing one the big questions in the bias debate.
I'm sticking his part of it up here because last week his plug-ins didn't work on the TC system.
I'm sticking his part of it up here because last week his plug-ins didn't work on the TC system.
We give up
Julia has a bunch of interesting posts on bias, but I was most drawn to this bizarre decision by a Colorado newspaper chain.
Welcome back Lauren
Here she delves into a kind of chicken and egg argument about media bias. In other words, do McCain problems engender bad coverage, or is it the other way around?
The clip is also from Lauren and, coming on the heels of devastating impersonation of Olbermann on SNL and coming in the context of our bias conversation, it kind of bears talking about.
The clip is also from Lauren and, coming on the heels of devastating impersonation of Olbermann on SNL and coming in the context of our bias conversation, it kind of bears talking about.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Yes we have no bias
This week we will consider, over-archingly, the question of media bias.
The accusations in this area have a way of canceling each other out.
Here is a left-leaning watchdog.
Here is a right-leaning one.
See what I mean? It's like off-setting penalties in football.
But please do click around on these watchdogs and consider the kinds of cases they make.
The accusations in this area have a way of canceling each other out.
Here is a left-leaning watchdog.
Here is a right-leaning one.
See what I mean? It's like off-setting penalties in football.
But please do click around on these watchdogs and consider the kinds of cases they make.
Neal Conan's Rules of Debate
National Public Radio takes such pains, at times, to live down its reputation as a basically left-of-center forum that it chokes off reasonable debate.
I think that happened several times, on Thursday, in this program about white supremacist activity during the campaign season.
If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, at least drag the cursor over to about 12:30, when a guy named Tom from Smithfield, R.I. phones in. Tom has a pretty reasonable question which has been asked many ways in recent weeks: is there anything about some of the recent Republican rallies that might give encouragement to hate groups? Note that host Conan treats the question almost as if it is out of bounds. He first insists that the caller can not possibly be suggesting that either McCain or Palin have ever said anything of this nature. He then insists that the only relevance of the question would be in the case of hate groups hearing something that's not really there in the rhetoric of these rallies.
The effect is one of intellectual cowardice. Tom's question is not at all exotic. A lot of us have wondered whther some of the rhetoric, especially Palin's, has implicitly invited the audiences to indulge their darkest and most sinister fantasies about who Barack Obama is and who he isn't. The talk about "real America" doesn't even seem that subtle at times. I don't mind saying that, watching some of those clips, I have found myself thinking: if some idiot shoots Obama some day, we're going to look back at these rallies and wonder whether if they gave encouragement and nourishment to the American monster of virulent racism. I think McCain has had the same thought, which is why he went through that stretch where he at least made an effort to cool down some of the hottest heads at his speeches (only to find himself getting booed by those hotheads).
Conan is clearly afraid of the whole topic. Seconds later, his guest from the Southern Poverty Law Center talks about nasty racist imagery including nooses around Obama's neck. "To be fair," Conan jumps in, there have been Sarah Palin nooses. Well, one, says the guest. But Conan's desire is pretty clear. We must at least pretend that these problems are roughly equivalent. One campaign can not possibly be more appealing to noose-sketchers than the other.
It seems to me that one of the most important questions in this whole story is the one Conan is determined to avoid. What's the overlap between the crazy, dangerous people and the people showing up and yelling back at these rallies? Do the crazy and vicious people feel emboldened when mainstream political figures say things that don't sound all that different from what the fringe groups say? Does the McCain campaign have some responsibility to worry about this? Does Palin, specifically, seem indifferent to the problem or is she now acknowledging that she might have to be a little more careful? (Even though Palin has apologized for any misunderstanding she might have created, I think we know the answer to that. Palin said last week that any criticism of her campaigning style infringes on her First Amendment rights.)
Anyway, we're apparently not going to find out on Talk of the Nation.
I think that happened several times, on Thursday, in this program about white supremacist activity during the campaign season.
If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, at least drag the cursor over to about 12:30, when a guy named Tom from Smithfield, R.I. phones in. Tom has a pretty reasonable question which has been asked many ways in recent weeks: is there anything about some of the recent Republican rallies that might give encouragement to hate groups? Note that host Conan treats the question almost as if it is out of bounds. He first insists that the caller can not possibly be suggesting that either McCain or Palin have ever said anything of this nature. He then insists that the only relevance of the question would be in the case of hate groups hearing something that's not really there in the rhetoric of these rallies.
The effect is one of intellectual cowardice. Tom's question is not at all exotic. A lot of us have wondered whther some of the rhetoric, especially Palin's, has implicitly invited the audiences to indulge their darkest and most sinister fantasies about who Barack Obama is and who he isn't. The talk about "real America" doesn't even seem that subtle at times. I don't mind saying that, watching some of those clips, I have found myself thinking: if some idiot shoots Obama some day, we're going to look back at these rallies and wonder whether if they gave encouragement and nourishment to the American monster of virulent racism. I think McCain has had the same thought, which is why he went through that stretch where he at least made an effort to cool down some of the hottest heads at his speeches (only to find himself getting booed by those hotheads).
Conan is clearly afraid of the whole topic. Seconds later, his guest from the Southern Poverty Law Center talks about nasty racist imagery including nooses around Obama's neck. "To be fair," Conan jumps in, there have been Sarah Palin nooses. Well, one, says the guest. But Conan's desire is pretty clear. We must at least pretend that these problems are roughly equivalent. One campaign can not possibly be more appealing to noose-sketchers than the other.
It seems to me that one of the most important questions in this whole story is the one Conan is determined to avoid. What's the overlap between the crazy, dangerous people and the people showing up and yelling back at these rallies? Do the crazy and vicious people feel emboldened when mainstream political figures say things that don't sound all that different from what the fringe groups say? Does the McCain campaign have some responsibility to worry about this? Does Palin, specifically, seem indifferent to the problem or is she now acknowledging that she might have to be a little more careful? (Even though Palin has apologized for any misunderstanding she might have created, I think we know the answer to that. Palin said last week that any criticism of her campaigning style infringes on her First Amendment rights.)
Anyway, we're apparently not going to find out on Talk of the Nation.
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