08 September 2008
Watching the (MeMo) train wreck
It's been kind of fun to watch the meltdown among the elitist left over Gov. Sarah Palin.
Locally, Cory Crow has been tracking the reaction of the Chron's erratic features editor, Kyrie "MeMo" O'Connor, whose blogging has been known occasionally to sound feminist-victim/sisterhood themes.
Here's one additional entertaining comment from MeMo that a commenter on Crow's site pointed out:
Honest to Pete, I'd lay odds my day-to-day job is harder than being governor of Alaska.
Posted by: Kyrie at September 4, 2008 03:56 PM
(Unintentional) comedy gold.
Oh, and the Chron announced its latest downsizing last week, for what it's worth.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/08/08 21:23 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (1)
29 October 2006
Department of bad headlines
KTRK-13 posts a story from AP, with the following headline:
My first thought (before reading the story) was, does that mean they don't plan on driving down into flooded underpasses?
I'm not sure if the headline came from AP or from KTRK.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 23:58 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
10 October 2006
A professional writer AND editors produced this lede
Campaign contributions: O'Quinn gives Bell a boost (Kelley Shannon, AP)
Buoyed by a big-dollar donor and a favorable debate performance, Democrat Chris Bell began airing more television ads today as he tried to surge through a new momentum in the Texas governor's race.
I really shouldn't be surprised any more by some of the truly bad copy turned out by professional writers AND editors in the field of journalism, but I am nonetheless.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/10/06 23:00 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)
21 June 2006
Watch The Goalposts Move
The Kos-Armstrong blogola scandal is already hugely entertaining (synopsis here, for anybody who hasn't been following).
The details are fascinating enough -- allegations (from the right, but curiously, also from the left blogosphere) about pay-blogging without proper disclosure, threats of lawsuits, emails urging supporters to starve the story of oxygen. It's a regular blog soap opera. Not quite as good as a full-blown Objectivist schism, but still entertaining.
What is most fun is to watch certain members of the reading-challenged community who were literally frothing about Ben Domenech and Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher (conservatives all) try to explain why this matter is no big deal, and that it's just more treachery from conservative meanies!
Err, yeah, that's what it is.
In any case, feel free to email me if you'd like me to write nice things about someone on the blog. And send money. Lots of it.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/21/06 23:19 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)
21 May 2006
Congrats To Texas Gigs
Big congrats to my buddy Cindy Chaffin and the crew over at Texas Gigs.
They just won a much-deserved EPpy in the category "Best Internet Entertainment Service under 1 million unique monthly visitors."
I didn't expect that an indie/outsider/non-mediot site like TexasGigs would actually win the award from the pros, but I guess it's hard to deny what they've done with the site.
Good for them! I hope Cindy doesn't forget all of us little people who have tilted a brew with her at crappy bars in Deep Ellum now that she's all famous! :)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/21/06 19:49 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
30 April 2006
Win Back?
Can George Bush win back the press? (Howard Fineman, MSNBC)
For the first time in his political career, George W. Bush finds himself in an uncomfortable position: he has to deal with the press on its terms, not his. For such a proud, controlling –- and, some would say arrogant -– guy, meeting the media at least half way won’t be easy. But he has no choice if he wants the last third of his presidency to amount to much. Bush has the charm to succeed, but the effort may require more candor than he can afford, more humility than he has, and more changes in policy than he will allow.
Press Have Mercy (Matt Murphy, Brothers Judd)
Why exactly is that necessary? If the press simply reports the news and doesn't actually set the terms of the debate, that is at least a questionable proposal. If, on the other hand, journalists are like the rest of the human race and have real problems separating their biases from their work, then this idea may make some sense. For those with eyes to see, Mr. Fineman has just put a torch to the journalist's catechism.
Brother Murphy seems to have hit the nail on the head.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/30/06 11:38 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
22 April 2006
EPpy Congrats To Texas Gigs
I don't normally get too excited about awards from outfits like Editor and Publisher, but this year's EPpy nominations are an exception for one reason: I see that TexasGigs is one of three finalist for an Interactive Media EPpy, in the category Best Internet Entertainment Service under 1 million unique monthly visitors.
My buddy Cindy Chaffin started TexasGigs as a music blog about the Dallas/Texas live music years ago, and more recently Mike Orren and the Pegasus crew joined forces with her to turn the thing into this huge, interactive, local music web destination. Congrats to them for the recognition!
Elsewhere, I see that the Austin American Statesman was nominated in the category Best Overall Design of an Internet Service under 1 million unique monthly visitors. They launched a very smart redesign of their site at the end of 2005 that was quite an improvement.
In contrast, Chron.com did not make the finalists in the Best Overall Design of an Internet Service over 1 million unique monthly visitors. Unfortunately, their 2005 redesign suffered flaws from the start -- flaws that resulted in less functionality (and flaws like limited RSS feeds that still haven't been addressed). But, they can serve ads more efficently than before, so that's exciting.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/22/06 11:39 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
19 April 2006
When Did "Objective" Displace "Fair" In Journalism?
Moving to the Right: Brit Hume's Path Took Him From Liberal Outsider to The Low-Key Voice of Conservatism on Fox News (Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, via Brothers Judd)
Hume is no partisan brawler in the mold of some of Fox's high-decibel hosts. By virtue of his investigative background, his understated style and his management role, he represents a hybrid strain: conservatives who believe in news, not bloviation, but news that passes through a different lens, filtered through a different set of assumptions.
On April 6, when every network newscast led with the revelation that President Bush had authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak classified information about Iraq, Hume began his program with an apology by Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney for a physical altercation with a Capitol police officer a week earlier. Bush and the CIA leak was Hume's third story.
"Sure, I'm a conservative, no doubt about it," Hume says. "But I would ask people to look at the work." He does not accuse his fellow journalists of pursuing a partisan agenda, saying their bias is "unconscious."
The discussion of issues among the panelists on Hume's Special Report is some of the best on television.
Orrin Judd had a great observation about this story:
[T]here's something deeply odd about the host of a program on a rival liberal cable network writing about the potential conservative bent of Mr. Hume, no?
Yes.
Alex Whitlock has a post up about a recent New York Times story. The point he makes is related to Hume's "unconscious" point:
If it is so natural to scoff when things are tilted one way or another for some reason or another (financial incentive, relationships, etc), why do liberals look at us so funny when we say that a newsroom that 85% Democrat liberal is almost unavoidably going to be biased? Perhaps it's partly because some conservatives paint it up as a conspiracy -- I mostly chalk it up to being human. The solution, the author says, is to avoid whatever incentives make us biased. But how does a newsroom move towards ideological diversity when there aren't as many conservatives interested in being journalists?
Of course, the journalists in those newsrooms that may tilt 85-90% Democrat still insist that they are "objective" -- and that's part of the problem. Not only does a certain amount of groupthink prevail in those newsrooms, but the journalists actually think they're objective on top of it! As a case in point, the Chronicle's self-appointed online editorial page linker recently noted that he likes a certain far-left blogger because the blogger is not a "raver" -- this despite that blogger's regular references to President Bush's "lies" and the need to impeach him! That's not raving, one supposes, when one's own view is decidedly left of center. But is it really objective? No, it's not. That doesn't make the self-appointed editorial page linker part of any conspiracy. It just reflects the lack of self-awareness and self-criticism (myopia?) that prevails in the profession.
My friend Ethan has long criticized that notion of "objectivity" as the mantra of professional journalists, and I'm more inclined to his view these days. Yes, if professional journalists continue to insist that's their standard, then it's really easy to demonstrate that they consistently fail to live up to that standard. But that gets boring after a while (too easy!). Still, news organizations are left with the problem of how to boost ideological diversity in the newsroom while still clinging to the notion that their newsrooms are "objective." That one's not so easy.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/19/06 20:35 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)
25 March 2006
An Overdue Apology From A Thief
Ben Domenech has finally offered what seems like a real apology for being an intellectual thief, following earlier efforts by Domenech and his dwindling band of supporters to portray him as a victim and/or to downplay the gravity of what increasingly was shown to be outright intellectual theft.
For those who don't know, Ben Domenech is the young conservative overachiever who has served in the upper echelons of government, edited books, and started the Red State community website. The Washington Post decided he was just the sort of young overachiever who could provide conservative blog commentary on their site, and offer under-represented perspective.
That wasn't a bad idea, but as it turns out, the young overachiever actually seems to have achieved some of his success by stealing from others. So, no WaPo blog for him. Bad boy.
Whether it's a young conservative overachiever like Domenech, or older liberal intellectual thieves like Doris Kearns Goodwin or (locally) Rick Casey, I hate plagiarists. Even worse, I hate the excuses so many of them seem to offer, and the fact that there are hardly ever consequences.
It's nice to see there were consequences this time, even if there were no consequences when Doris Kearns Goodwin and Rick Casey ripped off the work of others.
LOCAL BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC, TBIFOC Kittycats.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/06 13:11 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (1)
27 February 2006
How To (And How Not To) Respond To Readers
Saturday afternoon, I whined here that the Dallas Morning News had no RSS feed for their excellent state news section.
Shortly after whining, I emailed them and asked if they could provide a feed.
I got an email yesterday (Sunday!) that the email was forwarded to their web development folks.
I got a followup email this afternoon that my requested feed is now available.
That's an outstanding response by the Dallas Morning News.
In contrast, I emailed the Chron.com folks on Jan. 20 asking that they either include the columnists in the RSS feeds for individual sections of the newspaper, or set up an RSS feed for the columnists, like many other newspapers.
The response at the time: They have "other priorities."
There is still no RSS feed for the columnists on Chron.com.
One newspaper gets kudos for responding promptly to a reader request. One does not.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/27/06 22:33 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (1)
26 February 2006
A Late Answer To A Bad Question
Would the local blogosphere benefit from a blog critic? (Dwight Silverman, Chron.com)
Would Houston's blogging community benefit from a blogging critic?
I'm not thinking about an attack dog . . . God knows there are enough of those in the blogosphere! I'm thinking of someone who points out great local blogging; who understands the form and has thoughts and ideas about how to make bloggers more effective; and who isn't afraid to call out blog posts that are misleading, sloppy with facts, or plain dishonest.
This person would have to be someone who's non-partisan, who's been blogging awhile, and who has the respect of the blogging community.
This is an old post that I never got around to answering because I've been blogging a bunch about topical local political news at the little cityblog, in addition to the little podcast experiment.
My initial reaction to this (as a good former Lence student) was: What a bad question.
And that's the reaction I've had since.
The question is bad because it is loaded with some old-media assumptions.
The local blogosphere already has plenty of blog critics. For example, any blogger who takes up Houston politics and media is a potential critic of posts on blogHOUSTON. And blogHOUSTON is a potential critic of blog posts on those same topics. That's the independent, distributed nature of the blogosphere at its best. The best blogs are having a conversation with each other, and with readers. "Blog criticism" is active and distributed. The old-media model of "Here's the finished product and a bunch of J-School rules, now let's have a 'critic' judge it" is SO NOT what the blogosphere is about. For better or worse, readers and other bloggers are the critics -- and that's the fundamental nature of the media form itself!
The local blogosphere can always benefit from new bloggers with something to say -- in other words, potential blog critics. The notion that it somehow needs a single "blog critic" who has the imprimatur of a professional journalist from the Houston Chronicle continues to strike me as bizarre. The suggestion from several bloggers that a hub site might do a better job as a portal/guide to the local blogosphere is a good one, though (and one that involves work for someone!).
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC, Big Pink Cookie, Mike McGuff, Greg's Opinion, Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/26/06 11:45 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (2)
25 February 2006
Bleh
The Dallas Morning News is the best newspaper in the state, yet doesn't seem to have an RSS feed for its state news section.
Nice.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/25/06 15:16 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)
16 February 2006
On The Divine Right To Report From Press Releases
White House Press Corps Exposed: Sitting in armchairs waiting for handouts not the best way to get scoops (Jon Ham, Carolina Journal, via Anne)
Members of the elite White House press corps this week have acted more like animals that have been kept in captivity for so long that they can’t find news unless it is forced down their open gullets at a daily press briefing.
The Cheney hunting accident story embarrassingly revealed this fact, which probably explains the greater-than-normal anger and outrage of White House correspondents over the last few days. “Why weren’t we told?” has been the refrain, not “How did we miss that story?”
Imagine if just one of the reporters assigned to cover the vice president had staked out the entrance to that ranch in Texas instead of waiting in some warm spot to be spoon fed by a flak. At some point they would have seen an ambulance arrive. Don’t you think that would have piqued some reportorial interest? But apparently that’s not the way reporters who cover the president and vice president work.
This reminds me of Ken Hoffman's blurb on KRIV-26's Mark Berman, who tends to break big sports stories in Houston before everyone else:
The best reason to watch Channel 26, though, is sports anchor Marc Berman. How many times do you hear ESPN suck it up and admit, "According to Channel 26 in Houston ... ?"
Berman's secret for breaking so many stories? He works harder than all the other sportscasters in town put together. I once asked a Houston Rockets' official, "How come you give all those scoops to Berman? Don't the other sports anchors get mad?" The official said, "Every single day, Berman pops his head in my office and asks if anything is up. I answer him honestly. If the other anchors dropped by, I'd give them the same story. But I never see them here unless it's a big game." And this was back when the Rockets didn't play that many big games.
Somehow, I don't think David Gregory is quite as persistent and diligent as Mark Berman, but I could be wrong.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/16/06 22:21 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
12 February 2006
Blogs As Glue
Quite a while back, Laurence and I had a discussion about blogging during which he described blogs as glue.
I thought it was an apt description of what some of the most interesting blogs do.
[Read More]Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/12/06 22:47 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (1)
30 January 2006
The Media Tilts Left? Really?
Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist (UCLA News, 12/14/2005, via Brothers Judd)
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.
The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.
This really comes as no surprise, but I'd be interested in seeing their methodology. Unfortunately, the journal is subscriber-only, so it's going to have to wait (unless some reader out there is a subscriber and would be kind enough to forward the article).
UPDATE (01-31-2006): My friend Ethan sends along a link to this page, which has a link to a pre-publication version of the article.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/30/06 22:35 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (5)
24 January 2006
Matt Welch, MSM
Blogger extraordinaire Matt Welch, who created the term "warblog" and has penned his share of articles for alt media, is now officially a member of the mainstream.
He's announced on his blog that he is now an assistant opinion editor for the Los Angeles Times. That's a good move for the Times, which will be getting a unique combination of talent and experience with Matt. This LA Voice blog post suggests that this move is part of a bigger effort at the Times to fight "the dead-tree entropy affecting all newspapers...."
Welch was a co-founder (with Ken Layne) of the L.A. Examiner blog, which set the standard for what a cityblog should be. (Anything good about blogHOUSTON, I ripped off from those guys; the bad is all on me). He's going to be a great addition for the Times. (Update: And they could use some great additions).
Other newspapers suffering from dead tree root rot ought to consider shaking up their news and opinion operations similarly, especially given the talent just floating around our local blogosphere.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/24/06 22:41 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (3)
06 January 2006
Just Another Day...
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid writes a letter (Steve Sebelius, Las Vegas CityLife, via Brothers Judd)
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid writes a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, urging her to reject an Indian tribe's application to open a tribal casino.
One day later, a rival tribe opposing the casino request sends Reid's PAC $5,000, while a second rival tribe ponies up another $5,000.
Coincidence? Or the kind of quid pro quo of which federal indictments are generally made?
The question has been repeatedly asked in the past month, after the Associated Press revealed a massive letter-writing campaign from both Republicans and Democrats on behalf of Indian tribes represented by controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Reid's March 5, 2002 letter (also signed by U.S. Sen. John Ensign) was part of that campaign. Reid has collected a total of $67,400 from Abramoff-connected clients between 2001 to 2004. Ensign took in $16,293, although he has reportedly given that money to the Nevada Patriot Fund, a group that takes care of service members killed in the Iraq occupation.
Was Reid wrong? Did he perform an official favor for Abramoff, who was frantically seeking congressional support to bar the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians from opening a casino in Louisiana that was opposed by the Louisiana Coushattas and the Mississippi Choctaw tribes, both of which operate casinos that would have competed with the Jena operation? (In all, 33 lawmakers -- including U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. -- wrote letters to Norton opposing the Jena plan, and shared in an estimated $830,000 awarded by clients of Abramoff.)
Just another day in the wake of a "Republican" scandal, eh? :)
The entire story is an interesting read, actually. It would be an informative (but time-consuming) exercise simply to track the purely local coverage of all pols affected by this scandal, and to try to figure out which local news outfits get into the details heavily, and which local outlets take the lazy route and talk about "links" without much substantiation. Stories of national interest with local angles give local news organizations a real chance to shine, but they don't always take the opportunity (remember the Chronicle -- but not the Houston Business Journal -- getting scooped on Enron by national newspapers?)
Of course, for executive editors who like shiny things, sometimes it's more exciting to hire a new cartoonist than to cover the local/state beat fanatically.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/06/06 10:13 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (2)
22 December 2005
Pegasus News Debuts New And Improved Texas Gigs
I've occasionally linked over to the Pegasus News guys, who are attempting to put together a hyperlocal online news/views "thing" in Dallas.
I've also linked over to my buddy Cindy Chaffin's Texas Gigs site.
Imagine my surprise to discover that the Pegasus Folks and Cindy have teamed up to put Texas Gigs on Web 2.0 Amphetamines. Cindy's old blog is still a part of the mix, but the site is now a much bigger, interactive hyperlocal online music news/views "thing."
The Peg guys write about it here. Cindy writes about it here. It gets a mention from Poynter here.
I don't know if the new Texas Gigs will ultimately be profitable. For Cindy, it's a labor of love, so that helps. But it doesn't seem like the development costs could have been THAT much, and it's the sort of experiment that I think pushes us forward in thinking about the online experience.
I've been a little critical over at blogHOUSTON about some aspects of the new Chron.com (mainly the opinion/editorial page) because it just seems like it's come up a little short on the interactive side while still de-emphasizing the print newspaper's content. But, I realize that Chron.com is a work in progress, and Dwight Silverman, Dean Betz, and crew seem willing and eager to try different things online. I'm hoping indie experiments like TexasGigs and (eventually) Pegasus News and others will inspire even more online experiments from alternative and established media.
Incidentally, the publishing platform Texas Gigs is using looks *really* interesting.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/22/05 11:39 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (2)
09 November 2005
Can Anyone Tell Me Why?:
Air attack gives Katy get-up-and-go (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle)
A new football season at Katy began.
The crisp, red jerseys were unpacked.
Pure white pants handed out.
Shiny, scuff-free helmets got new owners.
And a group of bright-eyed, determined athletes started to write their own chapter in Katy's rich history.
Texans can rely on Wells (Megan Manfull, Houston Chronicle)
Texans running back Jonathan Wells has plenty he could complain about. Nothing he could say would raise eyebrows in a league where "me" is heard more often than "we."
But Wells is different. Sunday, after starting for the first time this season, Wells wanted to talk more about how grateful he was than how effective he was. He praised the organization that re-signed him in the spring and said he felt privileged to be a part of the franchise.
There was not even a hint of bitterness. He never complained about how the Texans have drafted three running backs since the 2002 season, when Wells led the Texans in rushing during their inaugural season. Nor did he whine about being allowed to carry the ball only if starter Domanick Davis is incapacitated.
Why?
Why does that newspaper insist on MeMofying the sports pages with features-style sportswriting from girl reporters, fare that would be more appropriate to a college newspaper and not (as Jack Sweeney would boast) one of the nation's ten largest newspapers?
Why inflict that nearly unreadable pap on the sports page readers?
Why?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/09/05 21:57 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (7)
08 November 2005
When The Vaunted Editing Process Breaks Down
If your head feels like it's spinning, don't be surprised (Don Erler, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
But because newspapers separate the "news hole" from the opinion pages, and because they carefully label "opinions" and "analysis," some readers might be less attentive to spinning in news stories.
Two additional examples come from Thursday's paper. In the first, a Washington Post story reported that "House Republicans are pushing to cut tens of thousands of legal immigrants off food stamps, partially reversing President Bush's efforts to win Latino votes by restoring similar cuts made in the 1990s."
Notice that a motive is attributed to Bush's previous actions ("to win Latino votes"). How does the Post know this? It doesn't say.
Notice also that "similar cuts were made in the 1990s." Why not substitute "during the Clinton administration" for the time designation? I'll bet that sharp readers will have figured this out.
A final example is a Knight Ridder News Service story about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. According to James Kuhnhenn and Steven Thomma (the authors of this news report), "moderates in both parties have voiced reservations, especially at his stance on abortion."
The specific case cited was Alito's appellate court vote to permit Pennsylvania to require a woman to inform her husband before getting an abortion. The story did not mention that a "judicial bypass" was part of Pennsylvania's law or that Alito has (according to data available at findlaw.com) ruled in favor of women seeking abortions in three of four high-profile cases in which he has ruled.
But who is a "moderate"? What does that heavily laden word mean? Given that only the Pennsylvania case is cited in this story, does that imply that "moderates" favor abortion rights? Are all pro-life citizens immoderate -- that is, "extreme"?
Readers expect spin in opinion writing. We also get it elsewhere.
That sort of thing is so common -- especially at newspapers like the Chronicle, where the editing is especially weak -- that it's hardly worth the effort (to me) to point it out anymore. Not that it's not useful when others make the effort. :)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/08/05 23:10 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
[Previous 20 Entries]
BLOG
» Create Account
» Log In
ASSORTED
DISCLAIMER
Content and design copyright © 1997-2008, Kevin Whited.
Posts represent the views of Kevin Whited (and occasional guest bloggers) only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of employers, family, friends, or significant others.