Spinning and Being Spun: The Idea of Journalism in a Postmodern Age

Activism

Murdoch admits he tries to sway public opinion for political purposes

Pretty disquieting, even if he does think his efforts were less than successful.

Link: Crooks and Liars: Rupert Murdoch admits manipulating the media…Surprise…Surprise.

Link: Hollywood Reporter: Murdoch: Big media has less sway on Internet.

Murdoch: Big media has less sway on Internet

By Georg Szalai

Jan 27, 2007

NEW YORK: Big media companies and governments ultimately can't stop or reverse their reduced agenda setting power brought about by the Internet and digital media, but must learn to live with it and embrace it as an opportunity, a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland said Friday.

Big media conglomerates have less influence amid the continued explosion of news sites, blogs and podcasts, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in the session moderated by Charlie Rose and available via Webcast. "It's so pluralistic," Murdoch said. "We all have less power, much less...(we) the big companies."

Not only are there many more places from which to get news and opinion thanks to the Internet, he said. He said traditional media are also "put right immediately" these days when making mistakes, citing the example of the CBS News affair surrounding allegations against president George Bush last year.

Similarly, Murdoch said "government now has to be much more open" because of the Web and suggested, along with Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer and the possible future prime minister of the U.K., that governments should try to see it as an opportunity for them.

"We just have to let this go," Murdoch said. "We can't reverse it."

Asked if his News Corp. managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq, Murdoch said: "No, I don't think so. We tried." Asked by Rose for further comment, he said: "We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East...but we have been very critical of his execution."

The News Corp. CEO also once again signaled that he sees much more change ahead thanks to digital media. "We're in the very early stages of it," he said.

[...]

Juan Cole rakes Murdoch over the coals pretty good.

Link: Informed Comment.

Rupert Murdoch, who gives you Bill O'Reilly, Daniel Pipes, and other fantasists of the hard Right, by his ownership of a vast media empire, admitted at the Davos conference that his companies had "tried" to propagandize for Bush's Iraq War. He said that they were critical of the execution of the war, though. He doesn't watch or read his own media if he thinks that. It is never a discouraging word and 'what were the RNC talking points today?' over there in Foxland.

Murdoch's remarks are a good reason for which the news conglomerates should be broken up so that a wider range of views can be published. While Murdoch complains about competition from the internet, the fact is that far more people watch television than get their news from any blogger.

Murdoch's media have done more to cheapen American values and drive the country toward fascistic ways of thinking than anything since the McCarthy period in the 1950s. The airwaves belong to the public, and this man only licenses them. When will the public take them back and use them for purposes of which Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin would have approved?

 

Military bloggers: an interesting twist on citizen journalism

This comes from the Wall Street Journal, so it's not the most even-handed account of the military blogging phenomenon, nor does it really go into the influence zone of such military blogs (old media still only sees things in terms of the "broadcast" one-too-many moment, without understanding that interactive audiences participate and help shape the communities around these spaces, and the strength of such communities or blog-cites reflect the "sphere" of the military). Where's the mention of Technorati rank, attention to comments, anything that might reflect a wider view of the blogosphere than simply comparing it to MSNBC with Nielsen ratings-style information?

Personally, I think you can't chart this trend without going back to the former military colonel and often cable news pundit, the late Col. David Hackworth. A colorful character in his own right, Hackworth became a vehicle through which many soldiers could start thinking about getting their stories, their truths, out.

There are some neat bits to note in this story.

WSJ.com - Cry Bias, and Let Slip the Blogs of War.

Cry Bias, and Let Slip the Blogs of War

By MIKE SPECTOR
July 26, 2006; Page B1

J.P. Borda started a Web log during his 2004 National
Guard deployment in Afghanistan to keep in touch with his family. But
when he got home, he decided it was the mainstream media that was out
of touch with the war.

"You hear so much about what's going wrong," he says. "It gets hard to hear after a while when there's so much good going on."

Mr. Borda, a specialist, read other soldiers' blogs and found he wasn't alone. Hundreds of other troops and veterans were blogging world-wide, and many focused on a common enemy: journalists.

The 31-year-old software analyst, who now lives in Dallas, wanted to make it easier for people to read soldiers' accounts. So he started a Web site, Milblogging.com, to organize as many blogs as possible by country, military branch and subject matter. Today, the site links to more than 1,400 military blogs world-wide and was recently purchased for an undisclosed amount by Military.com, a Web site catering to soldiers that is owned by Monster Worldwide Inc.

Now, Mr. Borda finds himself at the center of a growing blogging movement. Military bloggers, or "milbloggers" as they call themselves, contend that they are uniquely qualified to comment on events in armed conflicts. Many milbloggers also argue that the mainstream media tends to overplay negative stories and play down positive military developments. For many of these blogs, says Mr. Borda, "the sole purpose is to counteract the media."

[...]

The backlash takes many forms. Some bloggers point out what they see as inaccuracies and post lengthy critiques of current reporting. Others post their own stories. Some simply sling arrows.

[...]

Not all milblogs wave the flag. Some have drawn attention for posts that irk the chain of command. Jason Hartley, a National Guardsman from New Paltz, N.Y., caught flak for posting comments on his blog, "justanothersoldier.com" that he said were satirical. Mr. Hartley, who served in Iraq, wrote that he loved dead civilians and wished he could shoot children. He claimed the comments were meant to highlight what he sees as the military's nonchalant attitude toward civilian casualties, but his superiors weren't amused. Mr. Hartley was eventually demoted to specialist from sergeant, and his commander, Capt. Vincent Heintz, wrote in a sworn statement that the blog "disparaged the Army in a manner unbecoming of an NCO (non-commissioned officer)."

[...]

The Pentagon, taking notice of the impact of such writings, has a committee studying military blogs over the next several months. In the field, the Army has issued formal guidance about blogging, reminding soldiers not to post information that might tip off the enemy. And U.S. Central Command officials in Florida have started contacting bloggers -- military and civilian -- when they come across posts that contain what they view as inaccurate or incomplete information. But overall, military blogs remain independent, with little organized oversight.

Military blogs receive a fraction of the hits generated by mainstream news Web sites. Mr. Burden's site, for example, receives about 210,000 unique visitors per month, he says. In comparison, Nielsen/Netratings data shows MSNBC.com got 24 million unique visitors last month.

But milbloggers, who only began online postings in earnest within the past three years, have become increasingly energized and organized in their efforts to counteract existing media coverage. In April, bloggers convened in Washington, D.C. for the first ever milblogging convention.

[...]

What's the future of military blogs? Mr. Borda would like to see milbloggers get their own TV shows or have their entries printed in major newspapers. The goal, he says, is to "continually be blurring that line between the media and blogging."

 

Dan Gillmor ripping on "objectivity" and touting diverse media

Took me a while to get caught up with Dan over at Backfence.com. BTW, dude, tell the Backfence folks to fix their page titles, because they don't work well with the permalinks. Some usability problems here.

Anyway, I just found a few paragraphs in Dan's rough transcript of his Hearst New Media Lecture on May 2nd. Want to highlight them, and mebbie comment a bit. This is out of context, because I'm jumping in on the objectivity discussion in the middle.

Bummer, the stuff he says is going to happen to the San Jose Mercury News. Market forces killing public service in media, if you ask me. "Creative destruction" is the Tower card too, Kali the Destroyer. Pele the volcano goddess. Whoo hoo, let's go, but remember too that the so-called "Dark Ages" in medieval times were also a period of creative destruction. A lot can be lost with fruit basket upset, like literacy levels, or the kind of brain-change ratios that you think about when you read McLuhan along with Plato's Phaedrus.

And for the record, I was pretty cheesed off at the "creative destruction" that hit this field, in both print and radio particularly, in the late 80s. Dan, you had your good job, but good people started losing their media jobs and finding other work, or, in the case of radio, not going into the field altogether (the only choice, unless you were a tape deck) by 1987. That particular "brain drain" has hurt the field more than anyone realizes.

Bold emphasis below is mine.

Link: Dan Gillmor | Backfence.com--My NYC Talk on Journalism Principles and Future.

My NYC Talk on Journalism Principles and Future

Dan Gillmor's Blog, Posted 05/02/06 by Dan Gillmor

[...]

I am here to say a few obvious things. One is the blatantly observable fact that the practice of journalism is evolving -- and at a pace so quick as to be stunning for such a conservatively run business. I'm also hoping to stretch some definitions, and maybe some boundaries, all in service of better journalism for the future.

On my blog in early 2005 I posted an essay-in-progress. It was called "The End of Objectivity (Version 0.91)." I suggested that the journalism of the new century would be better served if we all considered abandoning the worthy ideal of objectivity and replacing it with a collection of honored principles, only one of which was not already embedded in tradition. Now, by reinforcing those principles with the emerging tools of a Digital Age, we can create something even better.

[...]

This is increasingly doable in part because of what has changed so much for so many: the collision of technology and media, which has helped democratize communications and is turning traditional notions of journalism in new directions. Now, I don't mean democratization so much as in the sense of voting -- though collective community thinking is an intriguing and valuable part of what's coming. I mean it in the sense of wide participation.

The democratization starts with the tools of creation. They're widely available -- the computer I carry around came off the shelf with media tools that were simply unavailable a few years ago except to a highly skilled and well-paid professionals. These tools are increasingly powerful and decreasingly expensive, thanks to technology's relentless progress, and getting easier to use all the time.

They're also connected to a somewhat democratized digital communications system. I say "somewhat" because two of America's most control-freakish businesses -- namely the phone and cable companies -- are working hard to hijack the Internet for their own purposes, in ways that are flat-out dangerous to innovation and, I'd argue, our very future. I'll come back to this a bit later.

Today, at any rate, the democratization of tools and distribution has led to a related opening: of access.

[...]

The least important major constituency of journalism is, well, us: the journalists. That is NOT do say we don't matter. We do matter -- a lot. Journalism is an honorable and vital craft. It's essential to the welfare of a self-governed people, at least when we do it right. But we also know that journalism is about service. The public trust is a deeper calling than merely diverting readers, listeners and viewers from their everyday existence. At its core journalism must be about helping them conduct democracy's crucial conversations.

Trying for objectivity makes some sense in a media ecosystem that lacks diversity. If a few voices overwhelm all the others, there is a public interest in playing stories as allegedly down the middle as possible. That means not favoring one side over the other -- or others, to be more precise, as there are rarely just two sides to any issue. There have been sound business reasons to try to be "objective," too, not least that a newspaper or network didn't want to make large parts of its audience angry. No doubt, too, the lawyers have an easier time defending against libel suits when the organization can point to a process that aims for objectivity.

[The question in my mind is whether a diversity of sources and voices, along with increased interactivity and dialogism, turning our media landscape into more of a Bakhtinian carnival, will actually serve the public trust or harm it. I like the shakeup of entrenched and overly powerful monopolistic interests, and just as there was a great release of creative energies with the Enlightenment and the Renaissance. A lot of people were upset and threatened by all the change at that time, which was socially disruptive. Traditional authorities did not hold. However, as anti-foundationalist as I wanna be, my sense is that this wild cacophony can morph into "barbaric" chaos and mob rule purges just as easily as it can evolve into more open and dialogic systems working out more open and contingent epistemologies of public discourse and reasoning.

Heh. That's what I wanted to say, above. The journalists I work with these days would gag on the insider academic terms I reference there, so maybe I should do some kind of capsule translation. I think the Enlightenment and Renaissance stuff is pretty self-explanatory, but to non-academics, this idea of "dialogism" and a "carnival" or you'll also hear people talking about "heteroglossia" or the unbridled language of the streets (where they don't say things like "dialogism," but instead enact it) invoke an entire mode of thinking linked to this dude Mikhail Bakhtin. He's a fun Russian scholar who likes to think about novels, and I enjoy his book "The Dialogic Imagination." There's a whole bundle of people who respond to references to him as a kind of shorthand for contingent, interactive thinking, outside the authoritarian "monologic" modes that brook no argument or "conversation." Here endeth the quickie explanation.]

I'm in a mood, as the media ecosystem grows more diverse, to rethink all of this. I'd propose replacing the ideal of objectivity with some principles that may be easier to achieve. When we combine and augment them with new ways of presenting and discussing the news, they will be useful to journalists and news consumers of all kinds.

Incidentally -- apparently I have to say this in these kinds of settings -- I am not, contrary to some suggestions, out to boost citizen journalism by tearing down the traditional model. I hope to help create the conditions for a media and journalism ecosystem that's more diverse, vibrant and competitive, that includes all of the above, and not replace one flawed system with another. We need all, and they all need to be better.

The principles that collectively go beyond objectivity are thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, independence and transparency. Of course, they tend to bleed into each other, and in a several cases can even conflict or at least be somewhat orthogonal. I put this problem into the category of "Life is messy."

We all know what it means to be thorough, to keep digging and never assume we know everything. We know that accuracy is getting our facts straight. We know fairness -- however more difficult to quantify -- when we see it. Independence can include being financially independent, or having independence of thought and an eagerness to challenge our own assumptions. Transparency, the quality least in evidence in traditional journalism, though it's at long last coming into its own, is revealing biases and connections where they exist -- a crucial feature of a citizen media where true independence from the topic may likely be rare -- and exposing our inner workings to some sunshine.

[...]

Let's focus on the word "updated" for a moment. In the journalism of tomorrow, as I noted earlier, we don't need to think in the publication or broadcast metaphors from the age of literally manufactured media, where the paper product or tape was the end of the process.

If Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood folks can create directors' cuts of their movies, why can't journalists do keep updating and improving some of their own works?

Ah, you ask, what about the historical record?

[Yes, those of us who read Orwell often think about these things]

That's an easy one. Over at the much-criticized Wikipedia, every version of the article -- and I mean everything, down to the version where someone added a comma and hit the save button -- is available to anyone who wants to see it. You can even compare adjacently edited versions side by side.

[...]

The idea isn't new, really. The Associated Press has been using what's called the "write-through" forever -- adding new information to breaking news and telling editors what's new in the story. Let's do that for everyone, on the Web page and in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand way.

[...]

Earlier, I mentioned a clear and present danger to the open Internet that has nurtured a more diverse media ecosystem. The threat, in America, is the dominance of the cable and phone companies in what we laughingly call broadband data connections. I say "laughingly" because the U.S. is falling way, way behind the rest of the developed world in providing broadband access, and one reason is the dominance of companies that grew up in an environment where they dominated their worlds, and really preferred it that way.

The cable and phone companies want to control not just the pipes through which our data moves. They also want to decide what will get delivered, in what order, and at what speed. They haven't pulled this off yet, but they're getting closer every day.

Yesterday, a committee in the House of Representatives voted down an amendment to a new bill that would have required what many of us call "network neutrality." This is the idea that the people getting data -- you and me -- should make the decisions on what we get and in what order, and if necessary pay more for higher speeds. It should not be a decision made by Verizon or Comcast or Time Warner or the fake new ATT.

If they succeed in capturing the kind of control they want -- and they're closer than I would have believed possible -- we'll all be harmed.

[...]

I've started a new Center for Citizen Media, affiliated with the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and I have lots of ideas and plans. But I also need lots of help. If you're interested in working on projects with me, please let me know.

Happy to pass on the plug too, and eager to see where it goes.

What universe did Tim Russert waltz in from?

I was just listening to the "Meet the Press" podcast today, and I gotta tell you, I'm just scratching my head on his line of questioning with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

I mean, I've listened to him softball pitch politicians (largely GOP spinners) for the past year, which is when I started paying closer attention (when things started getting interesting because there was more than goose-stepping going on).

I've watched some of the most absurd questioning I've ever seen of Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Tom DeLay, where he lapped up everything they said without question, and when he did question them, it was to push them FURTHER in the direction they were already leaning, like "why aren't you doing MORE of this?" as if the unthinking assumption were that what they were promoting was of course the right thing, and there should be more of it and why wasn't there? This is how you hold politicians accountable for what they do?

So today with Nancy Pelosi, what I heard was a deliberately obtuse and unbalanced line of reasoning, with no sense of proportionality to the issues he was raising. I didn't mind that he kept interrupting Pelosi with questions, but his questions kept changing the subject or coming in from left field. You know, the equivalent of busting in accusingly and saying "Yes, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China, and why aren't you answering that?!"

Where I've heard him repeatedly draw conservative leaders further toward their own fringe, as if that is where the majority of their own criticism comes from (effectively ignoring most Democratic criticism as irrelevant), in this interview he continually threw general criticism of the Republican-tyrannized and dominated Congress at Pelosi as if she were responsible for the scorched-earth, no-compromise corruption tactics of her GOP colleagues. Now if that doesn't beg the question, I don't know what does.

Thing is, Russert and others are faced with the prospect of the Democrats taking over at least one and possibly both houses of Congress, and Russert at least appears to be responding to this possibility with an odd premature adjustment (Democrats instantly become responsible for all the Republican screw-ups, as if the mid-term elections were already over and won, and "Blame the Democrats" for everything, the old Newt strategy, is back on the table) along with a parallel refusal to accept that when Pelosi does become House Majority Leader, she will be entitled to set the agenda and frame the debate in the House.

So Russert kept jumping to a number of premature conclusions about what Pelosi was proposing to do if she were Majority Leader, each question as if to say, "Aha! I've caught you now! You really want to tax the tea in China, don't you? Admit it! Why won't you admit it?" I didn't have the visual on my podcast, but I can just imagine Pelosi kind of furrowing her brow and looking at Russert like "Whose ass did you just pull that out of?"

I really can't complain at the idea of a journalist actually doing his job, because that has been so much in short supply in the past 5 years or so. I do want to encourage the trend. Critical thinking and questioning is a good thing, for members of both parties. Thing is, there's a pretty clear distinction between critical questioning and ACTUAL critical thinking BEFORE questioning. You know, like working out a real and genuine line of reasoning where the ideas follow or are at least related, rather than just firing unrelated thoughts from left field.

Here's a silly theory I just made up on the spot (it probably isn't true, in other words): Maybe after operating for so long with spoon-fed and highly nuanced and pre-digested spin and talking points, members of the press have forgotten how to think critically and reason stuff out for themselves. They know how to read the questions they've got written down, but if faced with leaders who aren't also reading from the script (or perhaps some who still are running scripts, but have a new perspective for their spin), they stumble, mumble, and can't even think on their feet or ad lib questions.

Framing the debate

What we are seeing, or will see more of as the mid-term elections heat up, is a debate over who gets to frame the debate. The slick GOP framers are in apparent panicked disarray, with so many of the bosses and power-players facing indictments or the threat of indictment for corruption on a scale it's hard to imagine. People are talking out of turn, and the Dems are trying out their new message-framing power (instead of talking honestly themselves, what I, and maybe many other people would like).

The craziest thing said was when Russert tried to equate 3 incidents, Rep William Jefferson, Rep Cynthia McKinney, and Rep Patrick Kennedy as a balanced EQUIVALENT to the K-Street Project, Duke Cunningham, and Abramoff, not to mention Libby and Rove. Like I said, WHAT PLANET DID HE WALTZ IN FROM? Or rather, whom is he taking orders from? Just imagine a set of balance scales, and put these things on opposite sides and try to figure out what Russert was doing, because I sure as hell can't.

Counter that with Senators Saxby Chambliss and Dianne Feinstein on ABC's "This Week" actually having a real conversation, with the two of them throwing just a few talking points in here and there. I was pretty amazed at their civil and responsive discussion as much as I was even listening to WHAT they had to say. See, when these folks throw around their talking points, my eyes (ears?) glaze over, and I just sort of mark time until something interesting shows up, if it does.

That's the skill I'm hoping all people will develop, but mostly I work on listening and discerning talking points from talk as much as I can myself. I listen faithfully to these Sunday morning shows, and most of the time I am amazed still to hear some of these talking heads basically pull a "Scott McClellan," if I may call it that. They were doing it before Scott stepped up to the podium, and they'll be doing it long after, but Scott deserves to have it named after him, since he did it so badly. I'm referring to the PR tactic of deliberately repeating a non-sequitur answer to any given question on a topic because it is the direct wording from one's talking points.

The tactic would usually give a unique flavor to any given "debate" exchange on the Sunday shows, because all you have to do is inject one person doing a "Scott McClellan" and you think the debate has suddenly moved to Mars. If there are only two debaters and a questioner, it just turns into two unrelated discussions taking place simultaneously. If you have a foursome and a questioner with one "Scott McClellan," you can have a debate, with interjected non-sequiturs. In these instances, you sometimes see the other members shake their heads briefly, and then go on as if that odd person hadn't spoken, their point is so irrelevant. That would be a disciplined attempt to reframe a debate in spite of its apparent failure, an inability to acknowledge any other viewpoint than one's own pre-set disciplined POV from outside the "reality-based universe."

The strategy in continuing to hold a made-up viewpoint as a talking point in the absence of real support for that view or that message frame, is that rather than winning debates, one just gets enough people on disciplined message control and the new frame simply replaces any other frames.

I know both sides use talking points and spin because they've found it is effective and gets results. Much of the criticism leveled at Democrats by outsiders schooled in GOP PR tactics (which have rewritten all the textbooks, I'm sure) ASSUME that the best PR has limited topics, is repetitive, and doesn't stray from particular pre-scripted language.

While Democrats (and the GOP right now, perhaps) can be in REAL disarray, sometimes they may just be in PERCEIVED disarray because they are not employing this particular set of PR tactics. The received wisdom is that these tactics are an unqualified good for all messages at all times. In other words, a "universal rule" all PR and message consultants must apply at all times.

They also could be NOT employing the tactics, or could be employing the tactics badly, or could simply have poor discipline in forcing the membership to goose-step properly with the top-down agreed messages in hand.

What's interesting to me is that no one seems to be questioning the use of the tactics as the ultimate tool for framing debates and managing messages. They work too well, perhaps.

I'd like to raise a different possibility. Yes, I will admit that the tactics work with mass audiences who perceive unity as an unqualified good, debate as unpleasant, disagreement as bad manners, and thinking out loud as a sign you don't have your shit together.

But in my ideal world, goose-stepping masses with group-think unity are simply frightening and incline me to run screaming out of the room, lest I think I've accidentally stumbled into a world where everyone is a Stepford Wife. ANY party with that kind of message discipline is going to make me feel that way, AND lose my vote.

So to me, a party where people have similar goals, but don't agree on all of them, or have widely varying reasons for those goals, a party that is open to reasoned questioning both within and from without, and gives reasoned answers that are contingent on the situation at hand and what is possible with the tools at hand and the cultural contexts involved, that to me is a sign of wisdom and a signal of a party I'd be inclined to trust.

A party based on top-down authoritarian control, message discipline, NO questions that were not pre-written and digested in advance, and worst of all (in the context of authoritarianism), based on right-wrong black/white thinking that allows NO debate or contingent thinking will make me break out in hives.

I don't care if fascism plays well with the masses and is remarkably effective. As a message consultant, I would refuse to employ such tactics for the primary reason that I could not bear to contribute to engendering such an unthinking society that could be the death of our freedoms, possibly the death of us all.

Horse-race journalism tends to also be unthinkingly critical of parties or candidates who don't ascribe to that unified message-discipline philosophy above, since they interpret the lack of authoritarian control as a sign one is running a bad campaign or losing a horse race. They don't see such assumptions as bias or a lack of balance at all.

Seems to me it's hard to win a horse-race when the ultimate race adjudicators may say you're losing when you are really winning by the standards of critical thinking and respect for voters, for your audience. Journalists presume you're losing the less like a fascist you behave.

I think the PR industry and spin-doctors need to acknowledge exactly WHOM they are getting in bed with, if they want to make these particular message tactics their unquestioned article of faith.

I believe the same sort of acknowledgment of playing to xenophobes, bigots, and cultural fears as an message tactic means that one is directly SUPPORTING the ideologies and beliefs of xenophobes and bigots. To use these people in this way is to SUPPORT their belief system, and if spin doctors (or mass media corporations) employ these techniques to win elections or ratings wars, they might as well get out their white sheets and pointy hats and march with them, burning crosses. What is it they say? You dance with the one that brung you?

Crass message management wisdom says to use whatever it takes to win. So if the tools of fascism can be effectively employed to win, will anyone complain when we discover we are living in a fascist system?

The tools of democracy value critical thinking and debate, and they don't look at such things as bad manners that cause discomfort. GOOD REASONING helps, to be sure, and the lack of widespread education and understanding, the lack of discernment in argument, leaves debate in the land of a crap shoot.

An audience that can't tell better reasoning from poor reasoning can't evaluate the results. Journalists who don't understand how to think and reason can't formulate and ask good questions, and instead become the ultimate tools of the PR industry. We all become Stepford Stenographers following a script.

And perhaps a mass media industry that repeatedly cleans out news staffs with layoffs and attrition may be employing a deliberate strategy to ensure that newsrooms are populated with more Stepford Stenographers than with critical thinking journalists. Many reasons are given for the layoffs in one of the MOST profitable industries in the U.S., but how often do you hear that one mentioned? Yet it seems to be working, doesn't it?

Have we forgotten logic and Aristotilian Venn Diagrams in these Dark Ages?

One of the most take-my-breath-away examples of journalists swallowing a big one was during the run-up to the Iraq War. I heard the Bush administration put out one of the most logically absurd lines of reasoning as a retort to Iraq's 1,200-page report to the U.N. detailing why it did not have WMDs.

First, the U.S. somehow waylaid that report on its way to the U.N. in the name of national security. Then within minutes of its arrival at the U.N., the U.S. was trotting out talking heads at press conferences, dismissing everything in the 1,200-page document as bogus. But the main thrust of their reasoning was this:

This document fails to PROVE that Iraq doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. We know they have them, therefore this document is a lie. We don't have to prove how we know they have them. Iraq has not proven that they don't have them, which means they MUST have them.

I actually heard them say this.

Now how do you prove that you don't have something? Send lots of photographs of absence? Empty spaces? Like when the president went crawling around in his office looking for the WMDs? Nope, none here.

Besides that gaping hole in logic, Logic 101 would tell you that the reasoning above conflates two unrelated premises into a false conclusion. It does not NECESSARILY FOLLOW that not proving one thing essentially proves its opposite. Proving the opposite is an entirely separate case and argument.

Imagine that you're a teenager and your mother has accused you of having drugs. Somehow you have to prove that you don't have drugs, so you take your mother on a tour of your bedroom, the closet, all the shoeboxes, under the mattress, in your bookbag, the underwear drawer. Nope, no drugs there.  You show her all kinds of places where there is an absence of drugs. And your mother's response is this:

I know you say you aren't doing drugs, but you could still have them SOMEWHERE, and since I'm not convinced by what you've shown me, THAT MEANS YOU DO HAVE DRUGS.

If your mom used that line of reasoning, you'd be pretty upset, right? Depending on how confident you were in logic, and how scared you were of her reacting badly to being proven logically spurious, you'd probably call her out on it. I mean, this kind of reasoning is just one step away from the mother who buys you two shirts, and as soon as you wear one of them, she says "So you didn't like the other one, huh?" When people use that kind of logic against you, there's no winning move, unless you know how to parse logic.

Somehow that idea, that spurious line of reasoning, has multiplied, so that we saw another variant of it in the government's case against Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. In the sentencing trial, prosecutors said, with a straight face, that Moussaoui was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people on 9/11, while he was in jail, because of something HE DIDN'T DO.

The jury seemed to see through a bit of that wacky idea, which gives me some hope for the world.

But in both cases, no actual person in the media that I saw, questioned the lines of reasoning as patently silly, as logically peculiar.

Is there a law that requires an arrested terrorist wanna-be to rat out his co-conspirators? No. As a matter of fact, the fifth amendment to the Constitution makes it quite clear that an arrested person is under no obligation to incriminate himself.

So far as I know, thought crime, being punished for thinking about doing something illegal, only comes close to being illegal in cases of conspiracy, but even then, all other laws still hold. While not preventing a deadly terrorist attack may be morally questionable, there's nothing illegal about NOT doing something, sins of omission (unless you happen to be a bartender who lets a shitfaced drunk person drive, a local law in many places, I think, and some places still have laws on the books requiring motorists to stop and help people in distress, although most have changed to acknowledge that that's a good way to get carjacked).

My point is that some really odd logic is being bandied about these without anyone in the media or politics calling BS. For the life of me, I can't figure out why.

Public Citizen: "One of the biggest con-jobs in recent history"

Are 18 of the richest families in the United States trying to create a feudal aristocracy, a private "club" that will only accept them as elite members?

I'm finding this on the Public Citizen (www.citizen.org), a public-interest watchdog organization founded by Ralph Nader. I'll dip back and forth from the press release and parts of the full report.

Link: Public Citizen | Press Room - Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax.

April 25, 2006

Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax

Report Identifies 18 Families Behind Multimillion-Dollar Deceptive Lobbying Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups.

[...]

“This report exposes one of the biggest con jobs in recent history,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “This long-running, secretive campaign funded by some of the country’s wealthiest families has relied on deception to bamboozle the public not only about who must pay the estate tax, but about how repealing it will affect the country.”

[...]

While they extol the hard work of individual farmers and small businesses, most of the 18 families have been wealthy for generations; only five still include the people who first earned the family fortune. Members of the families are far less likely than most Americans to have paid taxes on their wealth; to a large extent, that wealth lies in assets that have appreciated but, unlike paychecks, have never been taxed.

These super-rich families have spent millions in personal wealth and used their companies’ resources and lobbying power in repeated attempts to influence members of Congress to repeal the tax.

[...]

The stakes of the campaign are great, not only for the super-wealthy families, but for the public. If the families’ repeal bid succeeds, it will cost the U.S. Treasury a trillion dollars in the first decade – roughly what it would cost to provide health insurance for every uninsured person in the United States.

“The estate tax should be regarded as just paying back to the country for all the wonderful things it’s made possible for the people who have that wealth,” said Bill Gates Sr. in an audio statement played at the press conference. “I don’t think there’s any great societal goal being served by inherited wealth. And certainly there’s no sensible argument that I can think of for insisting on being able to pass the last penny of $100 million on to your three kids.”

[...]

Paul Newman, actor and founder of Newman’s Own food company, agreed in a separate statement: “For those of us lucky enough to be born in this country and to have flourished here, the estate tax is a reasonable and appropriate way to return something to the common good. I’m proud to be among those supporting preservation of this tax, which is one of the fairest taxes we have.”

OK, so I'm wanting to see some proof of these allegations, so here some from the Public Citizen report. It's 58 pages, so I'm still just skimming and cherry picking, but here's some bits that jump out at me.

First, I wanted to see the names of the 18 families profiled in the report. I also like to see all in a group the people who are so rich they think they can buy entire nations, like the air breathes differently around them or something. (I've actually been in a classroom with one person from a family on this list, and the air breathed normal just like you'd expect it to. Imagine that.)

1. Allyn-Soderberg Family (Welch Allyn Inc.)
2. Blethen Family (Seattle Times Co.)
3. Cox Family (Cox Enterprises, Inc.)
4. DeVos and Van Andel Families (Alticor/Amway)
5. Dorrance Family (Campbell Soup Company)
6. Gallo (E&J Gallo Winery)
7. Harbert Family
8. Johnson Family (BET, RLJ Development Co.)
9. Koch Family (Koch Industries).
10. Mars Family (Mars Inc.)
11. Mayer Family (Captiva Resources)
12. Nordstrom Family (Nordstrom Inc.)
13. Sobrato Family (Sobrato Development)
14. Stephens Family (Stephens Inc.)
15. Timken Family (The Timken Company)
16. Walton Family (Wal-Mart)
17. Wegman Family (Wegmans Food Markets, Inc.)

OK, so why are there only 17? I must be leaving someone out. Oh, I got it. This is from the Appendix, but in the body of the report they count DeVos and Van Andel Families as two different families, even though they're both Alticor/Amway.

Here's the report's Executive Summary. So only those of you who are executives are allowed to read it, OK? (bold emphasis mine)

Executive Summary

Members of a handful of super-wealthy families have quietly helped finance and coordinate a massive campaign to repeal the estate tax.

These families – the members of which own the first and third largest privately held companies in the United States and hold about a 40 percent share in the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart – stand to save a whopping $71.6 billion if their bid succeeds.

[Does that mean more than 71 billion dollars gets permanently locked up in some inheritance-coffers perpetual wealth loop? I mean, could this really be the finance base of a "landed gentry," a permanent blood aristocracy in the U.S.?]

They have relied on their fortunes, the resources of their companies and their business
connections to marshal a massive anti-estate tax juggernaut that has reported nearly a half-billion dollars in lobbying expenditures ($490.3 million) since 1998.

The families also have helped finance outside groups that have spent millions on fear-mongering ad campaigns intended to sway public opinion against the estate tax. These ads have shamelessly retailed myths that the estate tax is responsible for wrecking small businesses and family farms, and that regular Americans should fear a crushing tax bill when their loved ones die.

In fact, only about one-quarter of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable in 2001 to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability – and that was back when the exemption level was only a fraction of what it is today.

These families also have used their inordinate wealth to make enormous political contributions to influence elections and to help open doors on Capitol Hill. Collectively, members of the families identified in this report and their companies’ political action committees have, since 1999, made at least $27.7 million in contributions to candidates and federally focused political committees, largely to unregulated Section 527 committees.

Members of the super-wealthy families have also helped finance political campaigns by serving as top fundraisers for President Bush. Seven members of the families, employees of the companies they control or employees of the foundations they control have served as “Rangers” or “Pioneers,” Bush’s term for those who have collected $200,000 (Rangers) or $100,000 (Pioneers) for his campaigns. Bush, in turn, has adopted the talking points of the repeal advocates.

The stakes of the campaign are great, not only for the super-wealthy families, but also for the public. If the families’ repeal bid succeeds, it will cost the U.S. Treasury about a trillion dollars in the first decade.

The families won their first big victory in 2001, when Congress passed legislation that called for gradually raising the estate tax exemption level – the amount people can leave to their heirs without paying any taxes – from $675,000 in 2001 to $3.5 million in 2009. The legislation called for complete elimination of the tax in 2010.

But permanent repeal of the tax would have been too expensive to enact without violating Senate budget rules or rounding up the necessary votes to override the rules. So, the estate tax foes accepted a one-year repeal, in 2010, with plans to fight again another day.

That new day has arrived. The House has passed legislation calling for a permanent estate tax repeal and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has pledged to bring a vote on the issue to the floor of the Senate in early May.

OK, that's a really long executive summary, so this is only the first half or so. I highlighted a bunch of specific numbers in that summary. I want to know where the report get its data and what methodology was used. Here's some other key bits from the summary.

[...]  Frank Blethen, the patriarch of one of the super-wealthy families profiled in this report, articulated this strategy plainly when he said that the repeal campaign should not appear to be one of ultra-wealthy white millionaires. “We need to stress the harm to women and minorities,” he told allies. The Seattle Times, Blethen’s newspaper, promptly published an ad lamenting the tax’s toll on women and minorities.

[...]

The estate tax foes, meanwhile, have infused the debate with a steady stream of myths and misleading statements. Among their biggest whoppers is that the estate tax costs nearly as much – or as much – to collect as it brings into the treasury. In fact, the annual revenue from the estate tax is more than double the entire budget of the IRS.

Another ready talking point has been the argument that the levy represents a double tax. This one is particularly ironic in the case of the wealthy families because most of their assets have yet to be taxed a first time, let alone a second. A study commissioned by the pro-repeal AFBI assumed that 70 percent of wealthy families’ assets were in the form of untaxed, unrealized capital gains. For many families, the AFBI’s researchers said, the figure was as high as 90 percent.

[...]

Can you imagine if 70-90 percent of your income just fell in your lap, without your having to DO anything to earn it? I've been on this "Pride and Prejudice" Jane Austen adaptation kick lately, watching it over and over. When I read that line, I think of Mr Darcy in his big grand estate, Pemberly, where all he has to do is run around and be "noble" and a "gentleman" all day long, go out shooting quail, ride horses or in fine carriages, sit around in drawing rooms.

I'm remembering too when I was a little kid in Wisconsin, in an area where lumber and railroad barons had prospered, but did no longer. There were huge mansions around that had been divided up into student apartments, but the words that echo in my memory are the answer I got when I asked my relatives "How did anyone live in those great big houses?" Because in the 60's and 70's, no one family did. I think it was my aunt who said something like, "No family will ever live in those again, because they're just big white elephants. If someone bought it, even if the price was low enough, you'd never be able to sell it again."

That conversation came back to me recently when I was reading that the polarization of the super-rich from the rest of society in the U.S. meant that a lot of those huge Gilded Age structures, the ones that still remain, are being bought up and turned back into single family homes. Does that mean my aunt was wrong in her assumptions in the 1970s? Or has the disappearing middle class led to the emergence of a permanent upper tier, calcified and quite visibly arrogant and entitled class?

I take small comfort in the idea that the ridiculous real estate bubble will soon burst, and so some of these "entitled class" wannabes who bought more mansion than they should have may find themselves saddled with white elephants once again.

I'm still looking for the methodology section, to find out how they got all those numbers, but here's a bit from a section on the so-called "stealth" campaign for the repeal of the Estate Tax, which is a pretty volatile charge, alleging that these rich families deliberately sought to conceal the degree to which just a handful of them were bankrolling the campaign.

See, it seems to me if an extremely small number of people are trying to spoof a grassroots campaign, astro-turfing or engaging freepers or what have you, that's one thing. To some extent it is fraud, since it's misrepresenting a populist movement, and soliciting donations fraudulently also, like with some of Tom DeLay's fake front non-profit organizations that didn't bother to use the money for the purpose in the name of the organization, or like the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which was really one bankroller, and a handful of rubber stamp veterans, probably on somebody's payroll, fanned out by freeper et. al.

So making a false representation of one's organizational strength in numbers, that would be fraud, if anybody bothered to check. That would actually require a watchdog press, and we don't have any such thing.

At some point, though, if a handful of influential families are spending MILLIONS of dollars to save themselves collectively about $71 billion, you have to wonder when it crosses the line into attempted bribery. Just as people in the U.S. forgot the traditional definitions of usury now because all banks assume usury as SOP, it seems people have also forgotten traditional definitions of bribery, which means you pay someone to get a desired result. In the progressive movement when there was a reform effort at accountability in government, the "Fighting Bob LaFollette" years of attempts to bust trusts and overturn the boss poltics patronage system, did they require an audio tape of a bribe actually taking place in order to prove that a system was corrupt? How did they "prove" bribery and corruption then? Hmmm. I must go research this more.

Here's some bits about the so-called "stealth campaign" to repeal the Estate Tax.

The current campaign to abolish the estate tax was initiated in the early 1990s by three repeal pioneers, according to Michael J. Graetz, co-author of Death by a Thousand Cuts, a major book on the movement. Graetz, in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, cited estate planner- turned lobbyist Pat Soldano, estate planner Harold Apolinsky, and Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen as the “original movers” of the campaign, which was still viewed as a long shot to succeed even after the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994.5

[...]

Collectively, these super-wealthy families have a net worth of at least $185.5 billion. They
include 23 billionaires, each of whom is listed in the Forbes 400. They stand to save $71.6 billion if their repeal campaign succeeds. [See Figure 2]

[...]

The names of several of the super-wealthy families active in the estate tax fight surfaced during a brief period in which Soldano disclosed her clients’ names. Others were identified piecemeal, by scouring press accounts, lobbying disclosure reports and other public records.

These super-wealthy families have tried to keep their role in the estate tax debate quiet. Weak lobbying disclosure laws and the absence of any disclosure requirements for “grassroots” lobbying efforts, such as issue-oriented advertising campaigns, virtually ensure that other super- wealthy families active in the repeal campaign are missing from this report.

Now isn't that a comforting thought? Go read the whole report!

Love that Tammany Hall metaphor

I've been so fired up on the sheer force of the Immigration Rights demostrations, and am also interested in the role of hispanic media in tapping the audience and its activism.

Pretty fun to see ol' Ted Kennedy get so fired up too. Although he did mangle his Spanish a bit. Not that I'd do much better with my dyslexia.

Link: Democrats: Si' puede | Salon.com News.

Democrats: Sí se puede

As Ted Kennedy ripped the GOP before a roaring, mostly Hispanic crowd, the Bushies saw votes vanishing.

By Michael Scherer

April 11, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- Pumping his fists in the springtime sun, Sen. Ted Kennedy looked like he was having fun. Before him tens of thousands of mostly Hispanic protesters cheered and waved American flags as they listened to his condemnation of draconian House Republican legislation that would forcibly expel millions of illegal immigrants from America.

"More than four decades ago, near this place, Martin Luther King called on the nation to let freedom ring," the 74-year-old Kennedy cried out, his voice cracking from the strain. "It is time for Americans to lift their voices now, in pride for our immigrant past and in pride for our immigrant future."

It was a Democratic media consultant's dream. The colors were crisp, the well-behaved crowd was effusive, and the chants were patriotic ("U.S.A., U.S.A."). Members of the nation's fastest growing ethnic voting bloc had gathered to sing the praises of a political party that they had been deserting for a decade. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled off a little-noticed coup among Hispanics, by winning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls, about twice as much as GOP nominee Bob Dole earned in 1996.

[...]

But the coast-to-coast wave of massive street rallies in the last few days has been raising the hopes of the liberal-minded members of the political prognosticating class like Garcia. "This is just like Tammany Hall signing up the Irish as they got off the boat," he said. "The guy who sows this issue well is going to reap a good harvest."

The national protests represent a major setback for the Bush wing of the Republican Party, which has courted immigrant voters with a welcome message of economic opportunity in exchange for hard work. This carefully calibrated Republican appeal may now fall on deaf ears, especially among young voters whose political allegiance is still unformed. "There are voters-in-waiting who may be getting their political consciousness because of this," said Gabriel Escobar, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center.

Republican strategists like Karl Rove and party chairman Ken Mehlman have been fighting a losing battle within the Republican Party, hoping to isolate outspoken GOP opponents of Hispanic immigration, like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who talks about running for president in 2008 on a protest platform.

[...]

But such inclusive rhetoric has been drowned out by the statements of more militant House Republicans, who depict illegal immigrants as a threat to American values.

[...]

[Translation: it brings the obnoxiously racist element that lurkes in the GOP out of the woodwork. Hispanics who recognize it for what it is will never get in bed with these folks politically again, just like African Americans after Hurricane Katrina.

Most interesting to me is that it also represents, along with the xenophobic fears that ran wild during the discussion of the Dubai ports deal, a backlash of the Rovian fear-mongering strategy that ALWAYS, at its basest, most homophobic, reactionary level, was about fear-based bigotry and prejudice masquerading as something else. Hell, dress it up in whatever dollie clothes you want, that doesn't change what it is. You play that card, you gotta understand that one day that card will play you.]

Tamar Jacoby, an immigration expert at the right-of-center Manhattan Institute who favors giving illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship, said that Republicans should be worried about the political effect of inflammatory rhetoric targeting Hispanics. "It takes decades to build a reputation and you lose it in a day," she said. "If this doesn't scare some Republicans to ask, 'What side of history am I on,' then they are not paying attention."

[just ask some very very VERY sorry Dixie Democrats]

[...]

At the Washington rally on Monday, the issue took on starkly partisan terms, as Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia and Rep. Albert Wynn of Maryland, took turns at the podium without a Republican in sight. That left the door open for Kennedy to bash his right-wing opponents before a receptive crowd.

"Some in Congress want to turn America away from its true spirit," Kennedy boomed. "They believe immigrants are criminals, and they are wrong." The crowd applauded twice for each of Kennedy's lines -- once after he spoke them in English, and then again, a moment later, after the words reverberated across the Mall in Spanish translation.

"They say you should report to deport," he said. "I say report and become American citizens." And then, presumably, vote Democratic.

Which reminds me of something I saw on that new "Ten Commandments" 2-part TV movie on ABC last night. I was really struck by a peculiar emphasis as Moses confronts Pharoh to "let his people go." Moses and Aaron make a bit of a speech about the Hebrew slaves and how "they built Egypt" even if they were poor and didn't own anything.

The words of Moses coincidently echoed the words of the Hispanic protesters out in the streets that very day, trying to point out how much of their invisible labor the leisure classes depend upon, and everyone else too. What wonderful irony! I was picturing those protesters, going home to rest after a long day out in the sun, energized yet tired too, flopping in front of the TV, and there was Moses, taking up their cause. Can't beat that with a stick.

The writers for that program were also having too much fun with Pharoh's stubbornness, so that as the plagues got worse, Moses's half-brother (Sahib from "Lost") kept giving him the scoop from the Egyptian side of things. He said, "Pharoh is a very insecure man, and that makes him the most dangerous kind. You humiliated him in front of his court. He'll never forget that." And as things went on, Pharoh would waiver, then pull himself up, say "I'm Pharoh, I'm a god," and prove it by the most ridiculously stubborn moves. Sahib says later, "An insecure man will stay in a battle long after it is lost, for fear of losing face, while a wise soldier would have retreated long ago."

Yeah, somebody was having some fun with ol' Moses and the Pharoh, all right.