Journalism, Cuomo and reality

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna go ahead and do a little crowd-sourcing for my info!

I recently watched a TED-talk about how there is no such thing as objective journalism. (source) He discusses how the history of journalism and how it's always been about selling the most papers and making that money and who gives a fuck if it's true!

Well, OK. So after I watched that, I went ahead and browsed some news headlines. I saw one that caught my eye, primarily, cause it seemed very much at odds with what I would expect. Here's the headline:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says gun-loving pro-lifers not welcome in New York, right explodes

As a NYer, this seemed very very odd. Gov Cuomo is a pretty shrewd politician and this year he is up for re-election. It's a not private secret that Cuomo might eye the 2016 nod for President, so he totally wants to be a sitting Gov for that--looks better to the voters and all.

So why the hell would Cuomo alienate two big voting blocks in an election year? NYC might be super-liberal, but upstate NY is kinda rednecky. They love their guns and lotta folks hate on abortion. So what gives Herr Gov?

Well, as I read the article (found here source ) it seemed odder and odder, but I mean, it's possible he said such things. So I go ahead and click on the video link that you will see on that website. It's not actually video, just a still picture while some audio plays. This is unfortunate. I must admit here I have not heard Gov. Cuomo make many speeches. None in person and only bits here and there from his State of the State or whatnot. But as I listened to the embeded audio I became more and more skeptical that this voice was the voice of Andrew Cuomo. (The article already lost some credibility when in the first line it said his name was "Gov. Chris Cuomo")

I'm about ready to reject the entire so-called news story. I don't want to believe that they made the entire thing up--but I really don't see much choice. I went and found a video with audio of Cuomo talking (I do know what the guy looks like!) and the voice and cadence don't seem to mesh with the voice of the fellow who is alienating pro-life, pro-gun voters.


I am willing to be wrong.
A) Do any of you think that Cuomo did make such comments? Why?
B) If Cuomo did make such comments, I gotta lose some respect for his political prowess (not that he's my favorite politician, but I did at least think he knew what he was doing, even if I didn't like what he was doing) cause it seems really dumb to make those sorts of statements in an election year. Do any of you see his comments in a different light?
C) Objective journalism might not exist; but we can all agree that news isn't news if its totally false, right? Then it's just fiction? And while journalism may be heavily editorialized it should at least have some grounding in fact, otherwise, it's like Glenn Beck's chalkboard--worthless.

Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Objective journalism can exist if journalists want it.

See, after finishing your recommended book, I would disagree with that. That was, after all, the point of the TED talk, that objectivity is impossible. We are all the product of our perspective.

If anything, the message of Infamous Scribblers was that the founders wanted not an objective press, but at least one balanced with differing points of view (especially when the differing points agreed with their own).

And if no one gives Matt Tahibi hits, journalism can be considered moribund if not DOA.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

See, after finishing your recommended book, I would disagree with that.

The issue is the attempts (or lack thereof) for striving for objectivity. There are essentially three types of journalists when it comes to this topic:

* Actual objective-facing journalists. Some of them, like Jake Tapper, have some fame, but most you'll never hear of.
* Journalists who are biased (in either direction), but don't really know it. This is what we talk about most of the time when we talk about media bias. Solutions include newsroom diversity and better people getting into journalism, but alas.
* Actual ideological journalists. Includes ideological publications like The New Republic and National Review, but also "journalists" like Greenwald, Taibbi, and Palast.

If anything, the message of Infamous Scribblers was that the founders wanted not an objective press, but at least one balanced with differing points of view (especially when the differing points agreed with their own).

Which is entirely true, and is true of many "systems" of journalism. I still hold that we'd be better off if MSNBC didn't try to present as objective, and simply said they were providing an ideological point of view.

And if no one gives Matt Tahibi hits, journalism can be considered moribund if not DOA.

Journalism is moribund because people consider him reputable.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Tapper and "Actual objective-facing journalist" should not be used in the same sentence without a negation, dude. He's very conservative, and has used falsehoods to promote it in the past. When confronted with his falsehoods, he gave a bullshit response along the lines of "well, it fit the paradigm" or something of that nature. Tapper is, in fact, as ideological as Taibbi and Palast.

That's the thing with ideology. It exists. That the reporter is ideological does not negate the quality of their reporting. Tapper has done good work, just as Palast and Taibbi. The quality of their work should be determined not by the ideological content, but by the confirmation of the facts reported. If the facts are shoddy, so is the reporting.

With this, I think we can narrow down your list to just one. (I'm going to throw out the "don't really know it" crowd, since it doesn't matter one whit; their bias will show eventually).

MSNBC presents as slightly left, but with a corporatist slant, just as Fox presents as right with a corporatist slant. They are the left and right hands of a corporate body, no more. And that point, I am sorry to say, was what I wanted to read more about in Infamous Scribblers. How much did money slant news back then, or were conditions different in substantial enough ways?

I'm a bit busy right now with a project, but I should get to that later.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Tapper was such an ass in college. I'm still gob smacked that he's famous.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

By contrast, Garret Dillahunt was an alright guy in college. He wore sweat pants more than I thought fashionable, but whatever.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Tapper and "Actual objective-facing journalist" should not be used in the same sentence without a negation, dude. He's very conservative, and has used falsehoods to promote it in the past.

Unless this is a veiled admission that reality has a conservative bias, I don't know at all where this is coming from.

Tapper has done good work, just as Palast and Taibbi. The quality of their work should be determined not by the ideological content, but by the confirmation of the facts reported. If the facts are shoddy, so is the reporting.

Ideological reporting begets low-quality reporting, thus why Tapper, who is nonideological and basically good on the facts, is a good reporter, and Palast and Taibbi, two "journalists" who indulge in conspiracy theory and partisan nonsense, are not. Is it possible to be ideological and stick with the facts? Sure! Megan McArdle does it, Matt Yglesias does it, Byron York does it, and so on. It's not impossible to do, but they also wear their allegiances on their sleeve.

MSNBC presents as slightly left, but with a corporatist slant, just as Fox presents as right with a corporatist slant. They are the left and right hands of a corporate body, no more.

Oh dear god.

And that point, I am sorry to say, was what I wanted to read more about in Infamous Scribblers. How much did money slant news back then, or were conditions different in substantial enough ways?

I'm sorry to say that you didn't get that information because the book wasn't interested in conspiracy theories.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Your analysis of whether or not a journalist is "ideologically biased" seems to take an unusual tack. You seem to judge yourself "impartial" and everyone else by that metric. The farther away the lean from you puts them in your ideological brackets. If they don't lean very far at all, they are likewise "objective."

It's not uncommon, but it leads to silliness, like Jake Tapper being "objective" rather than as he is, stridently conservative; like a complete blindness to the corporate effect on both MSNBC and Fox; like your dismissal of left-leaning reporters who do good work but rake muck on exactly the wrong side of the stable.

Once you admit that even you have ideological heuristics, patterns of thought that organize the sensory data into manageable bits, you might join the rest of us here on terra firma.

Oh dear god.

A poignant curse . . . coming from an avowed atheist. ;-)

I'm sorry to say that you didn't get that information [about the slanting effect of money] because the book wasn't interested in conspiracy theories.

Maybe you should read it again. Remember the part of the book with Jefferson and Hamilton funding different outlets?

Jefferson arranged for Freneau to receive a salary of $250 a year; Hamilton had seen to it that Fenno was much more lavishly compensated, reportedly arranging to pay him ten times that amount, which, according to the National Gazette, "cannot otherwise than have some sort of influence on the Editor of the Gazette of the United States, especially when his avaricious principles are brought into view."

(Eric Burns, Infamous Scribblers, Perseus Books Group, 2006, pp. 281-282, I underlined.)

Money has its effect. More money has more effect.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Your analysis of whether or not a journalist is "ideologically biased" seems to take an unusual tack. You seem to judge yourself "impartial" and everyone else by that metric. The farther away the lean from you puts them in your ideological brackets. If they don't lean very far at all, they are likewise "objective."

Not really, no. More about not letting ideology shade their reporting. It's pretty cut and dry.

It's not uncommon, but it leads to silliness, like Jake Tapper being "objective" rather than as he is, stridently conservative

So where's the evidence?

Maybe you should read it again. Remember the part of the book with Jefferson and Hamilton funding different outlets?

I do. The paper Freneau was hired to take care of was designed specifically to counter the existing Gazette of the United States, which, if I remember correctly, was quite favorable to Washington. This is not evidence that money is what influenced Freneau, because Freneau was already on their side. Ideas didn't follow the money, money followed the ideas.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Does ideology 'shading the reporting' make it wrong if the facts are the facts? Some present the facts differently than others, and make different conclusions, but if the source of the reporting is legit, is there really a problem who panders to what corporate overlords?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Does ideology 'shading the reporting' make it wrong if the facts are the facts?

To a point. If the facts are facts but you're ignoring other facts, for example, it's an ideological problem, often unconscious. If the facts are facts, but you're taking a very specific angle on it that ends up misleading the reader or missing a more substantial point, it's an ideological problem, again often unconscious.

The issue I'm talking about, at least, is not the journalists that don't adhere to facts. We should discard them as we would anyone else in that regard. The issue are the journalists who miss the boat, who angle stories a certain way, who don't ask the right questions of the right people.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Who knows the answers to all these things? You?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Anyone can if they put the work in.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Okay, but not you.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If you say so.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying you're not quite the unbiased observer you make yourself out to be. Whenever you say someone 'gets it wrong', you usually have nothing to back it up but vague colloquialisms like "missed the boat" and "doesn't pass the smell test."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, you're not being honest right now. I have my biases, but my point is that anyone, myself included, is able to look at the facts of something and come to a conclusion.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Whereas you routinely shoot down investigative journalism via guilt-by-association. The number of sources you've hand-waved away is astronomical.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, not "waved away," but actually tossed aside for good reason. I'm sorry I have standards.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Having "standards" is not the same as having good standards.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Thus my railing against bad sources for information.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

"Good reason" normally being where the source is hosted, who wrote it, and of course as I said before, it not passing the 'smell test'.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Not really, no. More about not letting ideology shade their reporting. It's pretty cut and dry.

Really, yes. It's not at all "cut and dry" (sic).

Ideology shades all of us, whether we let it or not. And kylinrouge asks an important question about facts. As long as the facts are present and interpreted correctly (ie., not twisted horribly to become completely wrong, ala Brit Hume), the reporting should not be dismissed.

So where's the evidence?

I was unaware that I needed to rehash old news any time someone trivially drops a glove. I've got an email into a friend who might have the particular articles that come to mind, so we'll see.

Ideas didn't follow the money, money followed the ideas.

That's how it starts; how much the ideas follow the money, though, quite often depends upon the amount of money at stake. This is beyond obvious, it seems, to anyone with whom I've ever discussed this issue . . . except you. You are, sir, a complete outlier, a money apologist/denier.

As Freneau wrote:

The sun's in the west,
And I am opprest,
With fellows attempting to blacken my muse,
Who hardly have genius to blacken my shoes.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

As long as the facts are present and interpreted correctly (ie., not twisted horribly to become completely wrong, ala Brit Hume), the reporting should not be dismissed.

The key words are "present and interpreted correctly." My reply to him details that a bit more.

This is beyond obvious, it seems, to anyone with whom I've ever discussed this issue . . . except you. You are, sir, a complete outlier, a money apologist/denier.


Being governed by evidence has its benefits, I suppose. The claims have never held water.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The issue I'm talking about, at least, is not the journalists that don't adhere to facts. We should discard them as we would anyone else in that regard.

Ah, I'm glad we cleared that up. I expect once I find the article outlining Tapper's mendacity, then you will discard him as quickly as Media Matters.

Right?

As to being governed by evidence, I wonder if you've ever tried the experiment where you tie performance to pay. It's ongoing today, and has quite robust results.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm glad we cleared that up. I expect once I find the article outlining Tapper's mendacity, then you will discard him as quickly as Media Matters.

Right?

Assuming it's true, yes.