« March 19, 2004 | Main
| March 21, 2004 »

March 20, 2004

Strategize
: Jay Rosen rants against "strategy news."

I would not say it's their motivation (although some would) but it is definitely a consequence of their method: journalists doing strategy stories get to be more evaluative, more like critics at a performance. They can bring in more knowledge on their own authority, and show how well they understand the game. They are "allowed" more room by their own codes
These are the seductions of the form, which gets the journalist to identify, not with the candidate, but with the theatre of strategy itself, where there is an audience of cognoscenti, and the players discuss with that audience the bamboozlement of another, larger audience--the voters--who are outside the theatre, a "them," not an us.

It comes out of the press' desire to seem inside and ahead even if it's not substance they're reporting.
It's also a part of the tiresome sermonizing formula of news coverage. A good sermon, the saw says, follows a standard structure: it tells 'em what you're going to tell 'em, then tells 'em, then tells 'em what you've told 'em.
News coverage, by comparison, wants to tell you what's going to happen and then tell you it's happening and then tell you it happened -- making news repetitive, predictable, and dull... and not necessarily informative. I remember when Bush announced his space plan we were buried in previews, then reports, then analyses. The story dragged out for two weeks when it should have lasted two days.
Campaigns take that sermonizing structure and add big buckets of bull.

LINK | Comments (2)

Olympic terror fears
: The head of the British Olympic effort is threatening to pull out unless security for athletes is guaranteed in the face of terror fears.
The Scotsman says there is "private speculation" that America will pull out, too.

: Meanwhile, the Observer reports that athletes are getting 24-hour guards.

LINK | Comments (5)

The foolproof voting machine
: Go see Florida's new voting machine at IT&W. Really, go see.

LINK | Comments (4)

It was not a war
: Iraqi blogger Mohammed says today:

Yes, it was not a war. Let everyone and especially the pacifists and all who opposed the coalition that what happened was an operation to free the Iraqi people and eliminate a criminal gang that does not represent any body but itself and its narrow interests and that pauses a serious danger on our country and the others.
That was not a confrontation between two nations nor it was a conflict between different convictions, it was an operation to excise a malignant tumor that was about to destroy everything.

: And fellow Iraqi blogger Ays lectures the antiwar protestors:

It’s very cozy and comfortable to drink the tea in the morning, getting out of your first-class houses, driving your fancy cars, speaking loudly against your governments, criticizing your prime ministers and presidents, saying “ I want this thing”, “ I don’t agree on this decision”, “ I hate Blair and Bush”…..etc.
Look you coddled pampered people… why don’t you want us to do what you’re doing now ? why don’t you want us to live like you ?...
Back to you ‘ protestors’, last year my salary was 1.5$, last year my parents were about to go mad cause we were almost broke, last year I had to obey the mean and disgusting orders of Saddam’s officers cause I had to join the conscription, last year I couldn’t watch what’s happening now on the TV cause I used to watch SH laughing at us, last year I couldn’t write what I’m writing now, last year thousands were being executed, last year hundreds of doctors, engineers and educated people were being arrested and tortured cause they dared to try to travel ! last year…………………………….
Now, what do you think? Just give me a way to get all the above without a war.

: River, of course, has a different perspective.

: Zeyad was close to the Basra bombing.

LINK | Comments (21)

The blogging ascetic
: Halley reveals her ascetic lifestyle, which makes Joe Territo feel like shameful shlub.
And what's cool is that these happen to be friends of mine from utterly separate universes and they meet via blog posts.

LINK | Comments (0)

Dateline: Heaven
: Atrios is having a quite proper bit of fun digging into the site of the World Journalism Institute, whose mission is:

There is one primary reason why the World Journalism Institute should be committed to the education of young journalists: it comes directly from the need to be faithful to the Christian example of accurately reporting (e.g., being reliable eyewitnesses) the work of God in today's world.

Now look at the faculty and you find all kinds of people -- or organizations -- who should know better. Says Atrios:

Let's see. First, we have Roy Rivenburg, an LA Times staff writer who just wrote a wonderful article about how lots and lots of people really really think gay people shouldn't marry.
Then we have NPR's religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty who regularly reports on hot button social issues....
Then there's David Cho, a metro reporter for the Washington Post who covers local religion issues. This guy likes to recycle his own story ideas. Note how he likes to contrast "christian" and "religious" with "gay."

LINK | Comments (3)

Punchline of the year
: Yasser Arafat sees Mel Gibson's The Passion and decrees it is "not anti-Semitic."
Oh. Well, by his definition that means that he didn't see Gibson bombing hundreds of innocent Jews.

: Oh, it gets even worse:

Yasser Arafat watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on Saturday, and afterward a top aide compared Jesus' pain during crucifixion to the suffering of Palestinians in the conflict with Israel.
Nabil Abu Rudeneh, one of Arafat's closest advisers, watched the film along with the veteran Palestinian leader and a group of American and European Christians and Palestinian Muslim clerics.
"The Palestinians are still daily being exposed to the kind of pain Jesus was exposed to during his crucifixion," Abu Rudeneh said in a statement after he viewed the movie.

Wow, they manage to insult both Jews and Christians.

LINK | Comments (6)

Do something for Iraq
: Harry's Place marks the one-year anniversary of the war by giving us concrete ways to do something for Iraqis. Go here and scroll UP.

LINK | Comments (0)

Comment
: SixApart announces TypeKey, a service that lets you register once and use that registration across any blog that uses the service. I think this is a good idea both because it's more convenient for posters and because I've found in my experience with forums that when people invest in an identity, they are usually less likely to act naughty or nasty. A few questions:
> Does this require verification of an email address?
> What happens when a blogger and TypeKey get a subpoena trying to determine a commenter's identity?
> Can we set it up so that readers can view only comments that have an identity (call it the troll filter)?
> Is this a good first step to creating distributed blogging (that is, on my blog, let me link to or incorporate any comments I made on others' blogs)?
> Will my TypeKey profile page link to all my comments? Does it enable a sort of trackback? Can I then search and look for all the comments made by this commenter?
> Will this work with nonblog applications -- e.g., Amazon reviews, the forums on my day-job sites, etc.?
> Forgot to ask the obvious: I assume that a blog could make use of this optional -- that is, some comments would be signed, others not.
> And how will it work for a blogger to ban an abusive commenter?
Just asking.

: See a very good comment on comments in the comments from SixApart founder Mena Trott.

: Lots of good discussion in the comments.

: Winer's questions.

LINK | Comments (43)

The Daily Stern

: BUST OPRAH: Want to have some fun? Go to the handy-dandy FCC-complaint page at the frightening Brent Bozell's site and file a complaint against Oprah Winfrey for the indecent and patently offensive discussion of sex acts and excretory acts on her show Thursday -- a discussion that was exactly like the discussion for which Howard Stern was also fined on Thursday. (Details below.)
Now, of course, I'm against fining Oprah just as I'm against fining Howard. But that's just why we need to force the point: Force the FCC to consistently enforce its regulations and go after this self-righteous TV queen. And, for added bonus points of fun, use the tool of this particular nanny organization against itself, to demontrate the absurdity of all this.
The complaint page tells you the standards you must meet:
1. An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient (arousing lustful feelings) interest;
So make sure you say how Oprah show turned you on!
The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
So quote from my post below.
The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Well, hell, it's Oprah. Isn't that obvious?

NO STRIPPERS AT THIS PARTY: The National Association of Broadcasters has called a "Summit on Responsible Programming" in Washington on March 31.
They're keeping the press out "in order to encourage open and candid dialogue."
Oh, please, I do hope that there's a broadcasting blogger there to report on that "dialogue."
Now it's a fine thing to talk about what is responsible programming.
But in this case, they're not inviting anyone who's actually going to have a controversial view of that -- and I don't mean just dirty words, I mean open and provocative programming of any kind.
The speakers include FCC Chair Michael Powell and frightening Commissioner Michael Copps; the even more frightening head of the so-called Parents Television Council, Brent Bozell; the director of communications of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, Francis Maniscalco. Shall we ask the monsignor about how explicit we're now allowed to get in discussing the crimes of kiddie-diddling priests? OK, I confess, that's a cheap shot. But who's to say that a Catholic priest should be deciding what I should watch and what's responsible? Who's to say that Howard Stern should not also be there to defend the virtues of free speech?
Now, of course, it's a fine thing if broadcasters get together to talk about what they think is responsible. I'm all for that. But this is not being done in further response to the fear of government censorship via huge government fines. Hell, the government is there. So if they are going to have an "open and candid dialogue," invite Stern. Invite me. Invite Ernie Miller. [Thanks, Beat Royalty]

: AND IT SPREADS: St. Petersburg, FL proposes banning "vulgar" speech at outdoor concerts.

One legal scholar said the proposal won't survive a constitutional challenge.
"They can't make any restrictions based on the content of speech," said Bruce Howie, legal chair of the Pinellas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In response to a growing number of complaints, the city unveiled a proposal Thursday that would require promoters to pay a $10,000 bond for each performance held at a city park. If an artist uses profanity, a $500 fine would be deducted from the bond for each profane word.
If the violations exceed $10,000, the sound would be shut off and the promoter banned from holding another event for 18 months.

Give 'em an inch...

: FCC: FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CENSORS: Eric Boehlert at Salon writes that the FCC is taking on the role of government censor:

As for Stern, the commission's decision to fine him for indecency will likely fuel speculation that the famous shock jock is being used by the FCC to make a larger point about indecency. Stern and his supporters can point to three facts in support of that case. First, the content of Stern's show has not changed substantially over the last decade, during which time the commission never fined him. Yet suddenly, amid the controversy sparked by this year's Super Bowl halftime show, he's deemed to be indecent. Second, the fine the FCC levied yesterday was for a broadcast that aired nearly three years ago. If it was indecent in 2001, 2002 and 2003, then why did the FCC wait until 2004 to rule? And third, the raunchy material from Stern's 2001 program that the FCC found to be out of bounds is almost mild compared to the other violations the FCC has been documenting.
It's interesting to note that upon being named the FCC chairman by President Bush in 2001, Powell complained to reporters, "There's a lot of garbage on television. There are a lot of things children shouldn't see." But he stressed, "I don't know that I want the government as my nanny."
What a difference three years make.

: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

LINK | Comments (21)