I am as guilty as anyone else in the media or blogosphere when it comes to New Hampshire. I assumed, like everyone assumed, because everyone assumed, helped others assume, that Barack Obama was going to run away with the win and because of that, we were witnessing the potential end of the Clinton campaign. What were we all thinking? (The same thing the Clinton campaign was, they though they would lose too!)
The truth is, polling often works and works well. There is almost no better way of finding out what people will do than asking them. However polling is not perfect, people lie, questions are asked in weird ways or at the wrong moments, but most importantly our “interpretations” of polling are often what get the nation into trouble, especially when everyone agrees on something without really looking into it.
After a few days of commentators on MSNBC praising Barack Obama’s strategy of not using race to divide the electorate, host Chris Matthews appeared on the networks Morning Joe program and claimed New Hampshire voters lied to pollsters because they were afraid to admit their racist feelings about voting for an african american. What are they putting in the water over there?
It wasn’t the only odd bit of logic or outrageous claim made by Matthews this morning. Rapid City Journal also saw the broadcast and recapped it quite well.
“She didn’t win on her merit,†Matthews said. “It was about the humiliation of Bill Clinton.â€
Well,OK. But it doesn’t say much about Hillary, or New York voters.
Nor does Matthews’ position on the alleged polling lies say much about the strong turnout of women voters for Hillary in New Hampshire. But Matthews has it figured: Dumb voters in New York. Racists liars in New Hampshire. And a woman who isn’t even qualified for the Senate now back in the race for president. It beats simply saying you were wrong, I guess.
Matthews also said that from now on Obama would have to take 10% “off the white vote” in remaining states when looking at polls.
I understand the idea. FOX News is the conservative mecca of the media and Keith Olbermann with his own ultra liberal spin each night showed the network could get some better ratings by playing to the other side. As I watch the news networks each night for election coverage I am just amazed at what a titanic shift MSNBC has taken to the left and how quickly their coverage has suffered for it. Read the rest of this entry »
There is a story in the NY Post by Brendan Scott that bothers me. It isn’t just Scott though, it is a way of writing stories that bothers me across all journalism.
So the idea behind the story is that Clinton’s debate performance “could” cost her in New Hampshire & Iowa and elsewhere. The headline is “HILL’S FLIP-FLOPS STUBBING HER TOES
WAFFLING ON LICENSE ISSUE COULD COST HER: EXPERTS”, which they printed with the caps.
Now the article itself says, at the very end, Clinton’s poll numbers have actually gone up since the debate. Which is the first problem. But OK, the story is that the performance “might” hurt her. Great, fine, Rudy Giuliani might fly to the moon. Anything is possible.
But the first quote in the article is: “It just adds to the image she has of being very calculating politically and trying to play the middle on various issues,” said Iowa Democrat”. Which sounds like a really damning reaction. The problem? The quote comes from John Norris whom the article says is “a supporter of Barack Obama”.
If when you signed up for ‘Breaking News’ e-mail alerts you could distinguish between actual news and entertainment news.
Britney Spears, Michael Vick, Lindsay Lohan & Paris Hilton all occupy a place in an industry known as ENTERTAINMENT. Actual news involves people and things that actually impact lives.
If Britney Spears walks into a shopping mall and kills fifty people, OK that might be ‘Breaking News’ because it actually impacts the existence of others. If Britney Spears has sex with someone, I shouldn’t get a message from CNN in my inbox.
Every time I get one of these I open it up thinking the next 9/11 has occurred or the President is stepping down. Then I find out Michael Vick is pleading guilty to dog-fighting charges. I don’t care! That doesn’t matter, you should be ashamed of yourself for even wasting time on this.
I understand CNN is owned by TimeWarner the producer of entertainment products and I understand people tune in to see Paris Hilton in jail. People also buy crack, I don’t see CNN selling it. CNN is still supposed to be a news organization. Cable News Network, see it is right there in their name.
The NY Post is reporting that the New York Times board has decided to open up its editorial & op-ed content for free on the Internet. If this is true its great news for all of us online especially bloggers.
If you don’t know editorial & op-ed content from the Times went to the paid subscription model under TimesSelect. It has always been something that pissed off bloggers and I have to imagine consumers in general and it was a move I understood but knew would ultimately fail.
By having Times columnists behind a cyber-brick-wall of payment the paper all but guaranteed their columnists were not read online. As a blogger who links heavily to columnists it meant I had to ignore an entire national newspaper when linking because readers would have to pay to see the content I was referring to. Not the “open-source” vision of the world most of us online enjoy.
Frankly I came to realize I didn’t need the Times columnists and op-ed anyway and could find the sentiment and facts elsewhere (I would read the thoughts in the Times and then point to their source material or people who had like viewpoints) so really the paper just screwed themselves all around online.
I don’t mean to rip another blog, especially Huffington Pos which I read every day and enjoy alongside Drudge (the two fill in the holes of the other) but I did want to comment on something. Right now if you visit the page you see this headline:
It reads “Exclusive Caught on Tape: Clinton Rips Murdoch WSJ Deal”
The problem? The actual article it points to says no such thing. Bill Clinton actually rips the WSJ Editorial Board, thats true, but he actually says he told a friend he would support the deal as long as Murdoch doesn’t turn the non-editorial board part of the paper into a right-leaning machine. His premise was that the WSJ editorial board was even more right-wing than Murdoch alone could ever make it, so there would be no difference, just that the actual reporters themselves always did a good job of being fair and Clinton wants that tradition to continue.
Huffington Post has had an obvious slant toward Barack Obama for the last few months digging as far as they can to portray Clinton as poorly as possible and Obama as favorably as possible. Which is really odd as Drudge, whom in many ways was largely responsible for the evolution of the coverage of the Lewinsky scandal, is pretty balanced on Clinton printing a fairly even mix of positive and negative news (though not so positive about Obama.)
I personally have been tuff on Obama because frankly he keeps making some pretty large errors and has made more in the last few months that the media seemed to give him a pass on because he was starting. It is one thing to point out flaws and it is also one thing to pick a side and want to fight for it. It is a whole other thing when you mislead ESPECIALLY about an article dealing with keeping the news accurate and fair.
I just thought that headline in particular was blatantly misleading and was worth pointing out.
The other dayMSNBC posted a list of journalists who had given money to support political campaigns and organizations, often against their employers policies. Since that article at least three of those individuals have been fired. From a followup at MSNBC:
The TV reporter in Omaha who posted a photo of herself on Facebook.com with a congressional candidate, urging her friends to vote for him, is no longer working at the station.
Also out: an editorial cartoonist who said he didn’t “give a rat’s ass” about his newspaper’s policy on campaign contributions by journalists.
And one newspaper has dropped the syndicated column “The Ethicist” by New York Times writer Randy Cohen because of his donation to MoveOn.org, which he said he had thought of as “nonpartisan.”
Though I always hate seeing people lose their jobs this is probably the right message for other journalists and a chance for editors & producers to start being more strict about their policies.
Bad, inaccurate and silly articles and headlines are no doubt going to be the norm for this election. The next in line for todays top spot is the following:
Listen, there are two New Yorkers running, that is hardly a crowded field. Meanwhile there is a third guy who has said he won’t run BUT whom the press is building up as a candidate. Even if he did run, that would be three. There are currently twenty-plus people running. Less than 10% of that field is from NY. That is by no means crowded.
If you are going to count Bloomberg then you have to count EVERYONE ELSE who is rumored to run. Gringrich & Gore etc. At which point you could also make the following headline:
“The Letter G Dominates presidential names”
Once Fred Thompson gets into the race you can also say “Thompsons Crowd Presidential Field”.
