David Pleasant

I watched Glenn Beck’s show yesterday for two reasons: 1) I had never watched an entire show, and 2) I wanted to see the effect Color of Change’s campaign to get advertisers to withdraw from Beck’s show. I recognize I watched only one show and it’s anything but scientific, but the impact was remarkable and can hardly be considered coincidental.

As I said it’s obvious advertisers have dropped Beck, but it really stands out when compared to Hardball (MSNBC), which runs in the same time slot but has maybe one-third the viewers that Beck has.

I noted every advertiser and they are listed in order of airing. Just marvel at the stark difference between the two, especially the nationally recognized names (or lack of).

One fact seems to summarize Fox’s woeful lack of ad revenue: running public service ads during Fox’s show that has the most viewers rather than at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post: “Cheney Accuses Obama of Politicizing Justice Department”

Last night on Bill Moyer’s Journal, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation eviscerated the media over its coverage of the health care debate. Their critique of the media was one of the most damning, and accurate, I have seen.

Transcript excerpts do not do justice to the interview – the video should be watched – but here is a sampling. 

BILL MOYERS: So the protests seem to be making some people more sympathetic to the protesters?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: And potentially the press then picks that up, polls, finds that sympathy, creates a structure that suggests that health care reform initiatives are losing support. Now polls have driven press coverage which says "Obama on the defensive. Obama struggling to explain. Obama trying," when, in fact, the dynamic under that has been created by a news structure that decided to cover this in a certain way, to do polling in a certain way. And those two things played into the process to make it more difficult for the discussion to actually happen about the substance of what’s going on.

DREW ALTMAN: So it’s exactly right. So we have the protests, the media coverage, especially the 24-hour news cycle, follows the protests and the town meetings. Then the polls poll about the media coverage of the protests. And we create almost an alternative reality about what is occurring out there.

When you look at the real polls about where the public actually is, what you see is there’s been a little bit of a tick down in public support and people are getting a little anxious as they follow the media coverage. But still the majority of the American people are for moving forward with this.

And we have seen more people begin to say, "Gee, I’m not so sure that this is good for me and my family," but it’s still a small number. It’s only 20, 22 percent who say, "I’m a little bit worried about this." And a much bigger number say, "I still think this is good for me and my family." And then you’ve got a group in the middle who’s not so sure. And everyone’s fighting for that group on both sides.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: And imagine if you’re trying now as just a person who’s sitting in your home and you do all sorts of other things, you have a job, you have children, you know, you have all sorts of concerns. And what you get of this debate is what comes through news. The pictures that you’re seeing are– because the news is focusing on conflict and attack, are a very angry people shouting at representatives.

First, no substantive information. But secondly, what aren’t you seeing? Well, you aren’t seeing something that actually was featured on the front page of "The New York Times" this week. "Free health care draws thousands. Thousands of people came to the forum in Englewood, California, for free dental care and free medical and vision services." People at protests– people protesting health care reform shouting at legislators as opposed to people waiting for free health care and dental care–

DREW ALTMAN: Who can’t afford it otherwise.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Who can’t afford it otherwise.

DREW ALTMAN: Right.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Now suppose we saw more of these pictures and fewer of those or just a balance of the two. You’d have a completely different sense of what’s at play in the debate. Pictures matter. Evocative visuals lead us to generalize to what’s important to the framing of the debate, how we should see this discussion. And also they help shape the answers to those public opinion polls. More pictures of people dissenting, more sense that maybe we should hold back a little in our support. More pictures of people in need of care, people just like us who don’t have it, greater sense that maybe there’s a social concern here. And then the question might I, the insured, at some point be in that situation?

DREW ALTMAN: And you really got to feel bad for just the American people who, from the beginning, have just been trying to answer one question. Will this help me with my health care bills? That’s the question they’re trying to answer.

And so they’re turning on the television and they’re seeing a debate about whether this is Russia or it isn’t Russia and whether there are death panels and whether it’s a government take over of the health care system. And they just want to know "my premiums are going up $1 thousand every five years. And is this going to help me with that ’cause I can’t pay my rent or my mortgage? I’m having trouble paying for my food because of my health care bills." That’s really the question they want answered.

In her Washington Post piece on health care reform today, Anne Kornblut provides a perfect example of the slothful, biased journalism practiced in Washington today. Characteristic of Kornblut and her ilk, she dutifully regurgitates what each “side” says and then slants the piece to give credence to Republican talking points.

Obama heads to Montana on Friday and Colorado on Saturday for town hall meetings even as his allies are stepping up their efforts to rebut what they describe as "myths" about health-care reform.

Here Kornblut just repeats what one side says and does absolutely no reporting on what the truth is. To report the truth is not taking sides, but that’s not what Kornblut is supposed to do. She is supposed to sit behind her computer, get a few quotes over the phone, transcribe exactly what was said, and then insert GOP talking points to serve as “analysis.”  Mission accomplished, on to the cocktail weenies in Georgetown.

It is not exactly a deep mystery that death panels and similar “myths” are nothing but outright lies and have long since been debunked.  But to report the facts take five minutes of effort beyond stenography. She can’t be bothered to undertake such a burdensome task. Besides, it wouldn’t fit well with GOP talking points. Instead, this is how Kornblut addresses the “myth.”

One of the most inflammatory charges has been that Obama and Democrats were seeking to implement "death panels," with bureaucrats making decisions about whether elderly or seriously ill patients live or die. The allegation stems in part from a provision in a bill passed by three House committees that would provide Medicare reimbursement to patients seeking end-of-life counseling. On Thursday, lawmakers working on the Senate version said that provision had been dropped from their proposal.

There you have it. Kornblut, the “mouthpiece” for Republican talking points, just gave credence to the “myth” she is reporting on. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does she report the facts. Stenography at its best, journalism at its worst.

Late Update: In his column a couple of days ago, Paul Krugman notes his prescience about how the media would give credence to lies propagated by the GOP.

A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave [his 2007 Red America versus Blue America speech], I warned that his vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.”

Like so many other things, Krugman was right, and Anne Kornblut can be easily served up as a prime example of Krugman’s prescience.

Good Gawd. Michelle Malkin will be on ABC’s This Week (with George Stephanopoulos). As Krugman put it, “What fraction of the American public is to Malkin’s right?” None, zip, nada, nary.

I don’t really care how far right Malkin is. The point is, the woman has zero credibility and Stephanopoulos damages his credibility by having her on his panel. That is, unless Stephanopoulos plans to use her as a tool (think birther). But, let’s not forget: ratings are far more important than journalistic integrity these days.

I’m not sure which is worse, Drudge or Politico. They are both megaphones for Right Wing propaganda, but at least Drudge doesn’t present itself as a news outlet that is expected to adhere to journalistic standards. Politico, on the other hand does present itself as a news organization, but in practice is on par with Drudge for its sleazy, dubious political content and The National Enquirer for its baseless, trumped up, anonymously-sourced, sensationalistic reporting.

Fortunately at least two sites are taking them to task today. TPM is pounding Politico for promoting the GOP’s “phony euthanasia myth” and Glenn Greenwald eviscerates them for declaring “the GOP is resurgent!” In the latter, Politico asserts in a lengthy piece that the Democrats are dead, finished, and will be totally wiped out in 2010.

Something has to be done about ensuring facts are reported in news media outlets and not tripe like Politico’s. I don’t know what needs to be done from a “regulation” stand point, but it’s something I’ve been pondering for quite some time. The ethical and journalistic standards in most major news outlets are atrocious. And sadly enough the American people believe the crap they generate.

The New York Times has a good piece on the brouhaha that has erupted over Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. The piece focuses on how “the arrest is fueling an often emotional dialogue on Web sites and blogs.” Five years ago, an article with this thesis would not be on or near the top of The Times Web site.

It makes a big statement about the power of the Intertubes. The press, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, was to provide for and ensure two-way communications. For all practical purposes, the press had devolved into a one-way communication medium, at best. The Intertubes ended that.

Welcome to the new media.

I just watched the press conference (video) that the Superior Officers Association and the Patrol Officers Association held on behalf of Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department, with respect to the brouhaha that has erupted over the alleged racial profiling of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The statements made at the conference were replete with contradictions, one of which I would like to focus on.

I don’t know who the spokesman was leading the press conference, he did not give his name. Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, lead the press conference. Interestingly enough, he said the Cambridge police department had cleared Sgt. Crowley of any wrongdoing and declared his actions “consistent with local and national standards of police practice.” If that is indeed a fact, then why were the charges against Professor Gates dropped? If Gates broke the law, as Sgt. Crowley alleged, then shouldn’t Gates be charged with the crime?

The “finding” reported by the spokesman are not supported by the police department’s subsequent actions or they are simply not following the rule of law.

It’s hard to weigh in on this issue without knowing all the facts, and President Obama may have served himself better if he had not weighed in so heavily on the matter as well. However, this is far more about media hype than anything, in my opinion.

If you watched Mika Brzezinski bloviating for three hours about this today on Morning Joe, you know exactly what I mean by media hyping. Mika seized this issue to carry out a non-stop assault on President Obama and then pitched a hissy fit when viewers expressed their outrage at her through emails. She was being attacked!!! People were “hacking into her email!!!”

Feh!

There is one thing to remember, which Mika Brzezinski totally ignored: just because a police officer writes something on a report, it does not by any means make it a fact and indisputable.