Fake News

This article discusses how fake news affected the town of Twin Falls, Idaho, demonstrating fake news' dangerous possible repercussions.

Called it!

Tom "Fly Me" Price has resigned as HHS Secretary.

See the previous post on Friday news dumps.

Friday News Dump

Today and on future Fridays, BOLO [be on the lookout] for bad news.  Why Friday?  From the Political Dictionary:

Friday news dump

Releasing bad news or documents on a Friday afternoon in an attempt to avoid media scrutiny.

NPR: “Often, the White House sets the release of bad news and unflattering documents to late Friday afternoon. The Pentagon and other agencies also use the practice, a legacy of earlier administrations.”

The television show The West Wing had an episode on the technique called, “Take out the trash day.”

Donna: What’s take out the trash day?
Josh: Friday.
Donna: I mean, what is it?
Josh: Any stories we have to give the press that we’re not wild about, we give all in a lump on Friday.
Donna: Why do you do it in a lump?
Josh: Instead of one at a time?
Donna: I’d think you’d want to spread them out.
Josh: They’ve got X column inches to fill, right? They’re going to fill them no matter what.
Donna: Yes.
Josh: So if we give them one story, that story’s X column inches.
Donna: And if we give them five stories …
Josh: They’re a fifth the size.
Donna: Why do you do it on Friday?
Josh: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday.
Donna: You guys are real populists, aren’t you?

Yom Kippur starts at sundown tonight, so today is a particularly likely day for news dumps.

Reporting and Manipulation: A First Cut

Gatekeeping and Standard Operating Procedures (Graber 169-174)

From a 1988 conference:

Roger Ailes: Let's face it, there are three things that the media are interested in: pictures, mistakes and attacks. That's the one sure way of getting coverage. You try to avoid as many mistakes as you can. You try to give them as many pictures as you can. And if you need coverage, you attack, and you will get coverage.

It's my orchestra pit theory of politics. You have two guys on stage and one guy says, "I have a solution to the Middle East problem," and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?

... 

One thing you don't want to do is get your head up too far on some new vision for America because then the next thing that happens is the media runs over to the Republican side and says, "Tell me why you think this is an idiotic idea.

Judy Woodruff: So you're saying the notion of the candidate saying, "I want to run for President because I want to do something for this country," is crazy.

Roger Ailes: Suicide.

Getting Information

• Documents
• Interviews
• Crowdsourcing:  or how David Farenthold won the Pulitzer
• Leaks:  A Typology
• "On the Record," "Off the Record," "Background"

When preparing for interviews, reporters sometimes consult with the interviewee's adversaries.

Case in point:  In 1998, Rep. Henry Waxman discovered misconduct by Rep.  Dan Burton, chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.  To make Bill Clinton look guilty, an aide to Burton had doctored transcripts of a recording by jailed lawyer Webster Hubbell.  We pick up the story from Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency

Rather than issue a press release, Waxman devised something far more attention-grabbing and dramatic. The following Sunday, Burton was booked for an encore appearance on Meet the Press. The show’s host, Tim Russert, was quietly made aware of the discrepancy between the two sets of Hubbell transcripts.* On Sunday, when the cameras began rolling, Burton became an unwitting captive as Russert, the dean of Washington journalism and a maestro of the prosecutorial interview, confronted the chairman on air with evidence of the doctored transcripts. The uproar was immediate and intense. Gingrich, humiliated, condemned Burton’s committee as “the circus.” Republicans fumed at the embarrassment Burton had brought on them and demanded he atone for it. The Washington Post splashed the story across its front page: “Burton Apologizes to GOP.

* Political hit jobs like the one on Burton are always disguised in order not to divert focus away from the target. The public story of Russert's triumph, detailed afterward in New York magazine, was that Russert himself discovered the divergent transcripts. He did not. He was a fine journalist, but here he had some help.

― 

New Media Synergy

Trump's Tax Plan

Today, Wednesday, September 27, Trump came out with a proposal for a new tax plan. The plan includes a reduction from the current marginal individual income tax brackets from seven to three. Thus, a single income $191, 650 or greater cannot be taxed more than 35%. The next bracket is 25% for income thresholds between $37,950 and $191,650. And, the rest at 12%. The article from the New York Times continues to outline various other aspects of the tax plan in further detail with accompanying graphs.

The Structure of News in 2017

Encountering Digital News

Twitter shares show polarization

An example of tracing a story back.

Evolving organizational model for newspapers

Broadcast Titles

• Anchor One in the television studio who ties together the newscast by reading the news and providing transitions from one story to the next.
• Executive Producer The television executive with overall responsibility for the look of the television newscast.
• Field Producer Behind-the-scenes television reporter who often does much of the field work for a network's on-camera correspondents.
• Network Correspondent A television reporter who delivers the news on camera. Network correspondents may or may not do the actual news-gathering for their stories.
• Show Producer Television news specialists who produce individual newscasts and report to the executive producer.

Bureaus and Beats:  The Los Angeles Times (as of today)

Enterprise journalism -- and an example near and dear to CMC

Story selection

• Traditional criteria
• Journalists' background and reading habits
• The herd

Getting Information

• Documents
• Interviews
• Crowdsourcing:  or how David Farenthold won the Pulitzer
• Leaks:  A Typology
• "On the Record," "Off the Record," "Background"

The high cost of discourse

I recently came across this NYT op-ed, co-authored by the president of the College Republicans and president of the Young Democrats at Hampden-Sydney. The authors argue for a little more dignity and civility when discussing politics amongst peers. This is more easily done at small colleges like CMC and Hampden-Sydney than at larger schools like Berkley. This op-ed points to the high costs that Berkley is incurring to protect freedom of speech.

Trump's newest target

This past weekend, Trump has taken on the NBA and the NFL on Twitter. He disinvited the Golden State Warriors from coming to the White House and told NFL owners to fire players who kneeled during the national anthem. As he has done during his presidency, he has taken to Twitter to rant, already having posted multiple times about the NFL/NBA conflict he has had and retweeting pictures from accounts that support him.

Because Trump has chosen to attack famous athletes directly on Twitter, he has also had to deal with the reality that these athletes also have millions of followers and supporters. Lebron James, for example, took to Twitter to criticize Trump's decision to disinvite the Golden State Warriors.

Twitter has been Trump's preferred method of announcing his decisions, but mainstream media has covered the conflict. The New York Times is providing live coverage of NFL protests and reactions and other publications like the LA Times and BBC have also provided coverage of his latest rants.

Health Care, Entertainment Media, New Media

Please @JimmyKimmel - stay out of politics. Leave the important stuff to reality TV stars with a knack for bankrupting casinos.

— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) September 22, 2017

At The Daily Beast, Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsang, and Sam Stein report:

Behind the scenes, the ABC star was getting an assist. Kimmel and his team were in touch with health care officials, charities and advocacy groups, multiple sources told The Daily Beast. He also was in touch with the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) who, according to a source familiar with their conversations, “provided technical guidance and info about the bill, as well as stats from various think tanks and experts on the effects of [Graham-Cassidy].”

Ted Johnson at Variety:

Unusual as it may be for Kimmel to take such an active role in trying to mobilize opposition to a pending piece of legislation, it is not entirely out of the ordinary for a late-night host to drop punch lines and veer into the center of a serious Capitol Hill policy fight.

Robert Lichter, author of “Politics Is a Joke! How TV Comedians Are Remaking Political Life,” points to Jon Stewart, who in 2010 devoted an entire show to pushing for a bill to fund assistance for first responders on 9/11, as it was being held up by Republican senators. Three years later, Stewart slammed the House GOP for voting against a bill to supply aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. In 2013, David Letterman called out Republican senators for voting against gun control legislation.

Colbert testified at a House hearing on immigrant farm workers, and only briefly stepped out of his Comedy Central host persona, using sarcasm even when questioned by lawmakers. Some Republicans complained that he mocked the hearing process, but there was little doubt that he drew attention to an issue that otherwise would have gotten little.

Alex Kantrowitz at Buzzfeed:

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, authors of the latest GOP health care bill that appears headed for defeat, aren’t winning any friends on Twitter.

The two are generating epically negative “ratios” in response to their recent tweets — and while it’s not exactly a scientific definition, “the ratio” is a good indicator of whether Twitter users are into a tweet or not. If a tweet has more retweets than replies, chances are its author said something people agree with or find interesting enough to share. If a tweet has far more replies than retweets — meaning lots of people felt compelled to say something to its author as opposed to simply pass their thoughts along — chances are the person behind the tweet angered the Twitterverse.

Cassidy this week posted the worst ratio’d tweet in an approximately 12-month data set collected by research company Fast Forward Labs, which includes the tweets of eight prominent politicians — including President Donald Trump, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, House Speaker Paul Ryan — and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who's recently entered the political discussion. Cassidy received 3,100 replies compared to 86 retweets on a tweet saying that under his bill, “states must ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions have access to adequate & affordable insurance.”

Politics as Short Attention Span Theater

Stef W. Knight reports at Axios:

If it feels like the Trump presidency has been hit by non-stop scandals and crises from day one, it's probably because it has been. The Google News Lab looked at the search trends for stories about 40 of the biggest newsevents of Trump's presidency from Jan. 20 until Sept. 1. You can see how we've all jumped from one four-alarm news fire to another:

Consolidation and News Deserts

Media Barons and News Deserts

• Decline in daily newspapers
• Decline in revenue
• Map of news deserts
• One response:  Patch

Entertainment, YouTube, and Political News

Items for discussion...

Two recent cases of the interplay of political news and entertainment:



And as mentioned in class, a case study in the use of YouTube: http://www.autismpolicyblog.com/2017/09/ill-trained-cop-screws-up-encounter.html

Ownership and Regulation

The Chomsky View:



Ownership Data (see Graber 36-37):

• Who Owns What
• Columbia Journalism Review guide to media ownership
• Public Broadcasting
• African American and Hispanic Media
• The case of Sinclair

Duopolies

The FCC:

• FCC Ownership Rules  -- which may soon change.
• Equal Time
• Fairness Doctrine (defunct)

Talk Radio (from an Annenberg Public Policy Center report):

• "Changing technology has made national talk radio possible. When syndicated talk shows had to be sent by copper wire over phone lines, as they did until the mid l980s, the audio quality was too poor to carry long programs. Another prohibitive factor was the cost of linking stations together by phone lines. The satellite dish changed all that. Stations can now receive broadcast quality from anywhere in the country at a comparatively low cost. Among other things, the new technology made it possible for local hosts to “link several stations together into an ‘instant network.’"
• "If the satellite made the national broadcast feasible it was the 1-800 number that made the interactive national program possible. When Ma Bell was broken up in deregulation, the cost of long distance calls dropped making 1-800 numbers feasible."
• "The end of the fairness doctrine paved the way for talk radio as we know it today. Neither hosts nor stations currently have an obligation to provide balance or voice to competing views."

Freedom of Speech

• The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
• Opinion on the First Amendment
• The Doctrine of Prior Restraint and "gag orders"
• Copyright
• Who really uses FOIA?  (Hint:  it ain't Woodward and Bernstein).   
• The United States is unusual in its protection of free speech.
• Comparative analysis of press freedom

Gov 115 First Assignment, Fall 2017

Choose One

1. Pick any news event (e.g., speeches, press conferences, Sunday morning talk shows) since January 1, 2016 for which you can get a full transcript, recording, or video. Read the coverage of that event in three major mainstream news sources (e.g., New York Times, Politico). How did each define the story? On what sources did the stories draw? Did any miss something important? Explain in light of the papers’ audiences, constraints, and organizational processes. You may find transcripts at:

• http://www-lexisnexis-com.ccl.idm.oclc.org/hottopics/lnacademic/ (Click “search the news,” then “Broadcast Transcripts”)
• http://www.whitehouse.gov
• https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcript/2016
• https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/
• http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/

2. Assume that W. Joseph Campbell has invited you to add a brief new chapter to the book. Identify a post-2010 media myth, and explain how it spread.

3.  Consider the ways in which government regulates media ownership, access or expression.  (See Graber, ch. 2-3.)  Choose a legislative proposal to change or reform this regulation (e.g., a federal shield law).  Explain why this proposal should or should not become law.

4.  Write a case study of citizen journalism (Graber, pp. 124-125).  That is, explain how material posted online by a non-journalist (e.g, blog posts, tweets, YouTube videos) drove coverage by the mainstream media.  In the specific case that you choose, explain whether the effect was harmful or beneficial.

5. Write an op-ed on any topic that we are discussing. The op-ed should run no more than three pages. You may add a fourth page, discussing strategy for publishing it. Tell where you would submit it, and why you think it could win acceptance. If you succeed in publishing this op-ed, you will get an A for this assignment.  (To qualify for the auto-A, it must appear in a legitimate, professional news outlet. Blogs, newsletters, and student publications do not count.)

----------------------------------------

• Essays should be typed (12-point) double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page (except for option #5, where you should add a short explanation of placement strategy). 
• Put your name on a cover sheet. Do not identify yourself on the text pages. 
• Cite your sources. You may use either endnotes or parenthetical references to a bibliography. In either case, put documentation in a standard format (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Return essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM on Thursday, September 28. Essays will drop one gradepoint for one day’s lateness and a full grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

A Practical Lesson in Media Politics

At The New York Times, Peter Baker and Kenneth Vogel report on tensions between Trump lawyer Ty Cobb and White House counsel Donald McGahn:

The friction escalated in recent days after Mr. Cobb was overheard by a reporter for The New York Times discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular Washington steakhouse. Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed “a McGahn spy” and saying Mr. McGahn had “a couple documents locked in a safe” that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. He also mentioned a colleague whom he blamed for “some of these earlier leaks,” and who he said “tried to push Jared out,” meaning Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been a previous source of dispute for the legal team.

After The Times contacted the White House about the situation, Mr. McGahn privately erupted at Mr. Cobb, according to people informed about the confrontation who asked not to be named describing internal matters. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, sharply reprimanded Mr. Cobb for his indiscretion, the people said.

...

Tension between the two comes as life in the White House is shadowed by the investigation. Not only do Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner and Mr. McGahn all have lawyers, but so do other senior officials. The uncertainty has grown to the point that White House officials privately express fear that colleagues may be wearing a wire to surreptitiously record conversations for Mr. Mueller.

Admirers said Mr. Cobb has developed a rapport with the president and does not report to Mr. McGahn, who they believe feels insecure about his place in Mr. Trump’s orbit. Mr. McGahn’s supporters argue that Mr. Cobb is wildly over-optimistic to think he can steer the investigation away from the president, given that Mr. Mueller has now hired 17 prosecutors.

 The suspicion within the legal team seemed evident in the lunch conversation Mr. Cobb had last week with Mr. Dowd at BLT Steak, not far from the White House and a few doors down from The Times’s office. Mr. Cobb could be heard describing varying views of how to respond to Mr. Mueller’s requests for documents.

Here's a photo of Ty Cobb & John Dowd casually & loudly discussing details of Russia investigation at @BLTSteakDC while I sat at next table. pic.twitter.com/RfX9JLJ0Te

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) September 18, 2017

The moral? Be careful what you say within earshot of others. That moral is especially important when you are dining at an insider restaurant very close to the NYT DC bureau, where it's almost certain that a reporter or an opposition researcher will be at a nearby table.

Related point for interns.  Don't discuss confidential matters on elevators.

Media History IV

Crack:  This video quotes Dr. Chasnoff (see Campbell, 169, 176).



The example of autism:

• Coverage is often confusing.
• Hype about causation
• Fake news

Compare to the "superpredator" scare.

See actual data:

The fog of war and Jessica Lynch:  A Case Study

Disasters and Breaking News

A Changing Media Landscape

Cable rises

• 1979: C-SPAN
• 1980:  CNN
• 1996: MSNBC
• 1996: Fox

Viewship is holding

But cable may then start to fall.  Young people, esp., use streaming video to watch TV.

The Internet

• Early history
• Recent data
• It is overtaking TV as a news source.

Newspapers:  Bad Times





From BLS: Newspaper publishers lose over half their employment from January 2001 to September 2016

Public relations v. Journalism Employment

Media History III

Newspapers:  peaking in the 1970s


The Cronkite Moment




What was the real story behind the "Napalm Girl" photo?



Vietnam: US Military Deaths by Year:

1964	206
1965	1,863
1966	6,144
1967	11,153
1968	16,589
1969	11,614

By June 1972, America has almost completed withdrawal from Vietnam:



The Buchwald "bra-burning" column as it appeared in The Toledo Blade. How did thestory reflect then-pervasive attitudes toward gender roles?


Feminism, "Mad Men" Style



Did The Washington Post uncover Watergate?  Compare and contrast Watergate with later scandals that the media covered.

It did not happen all at once:

Media History II

Households with Television Sets:

1946	8,000
1949	940,000
1952	15,300,000
1955	30,700,000
1958	41,924,000

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, 796



New York Times coverage of the Bay of Pigs





The assassination

Sources

At the Lawfare blog, an excellent and very useful piece by Benjamin Wittes:
"How to Read a News Story About an Investigation: Eight Tips on Who Is Saying What."

I worked as a journalist for more than a decade. Those years included covering the period of intensive reporting concerning the last major investigation of a sitting president—and the alleged leaks that arose from that investigation.

So as a public service, I lay out in this post the sourcing conventions that are in play every day within stories about Trump-Russia matters: what they mean, what they don’t mean, and what is reasonable to infer from how a reputable news organization describes its sources in an investigative news article on these issues.

I’ll attempt to apply these rules to three news stories from last week: the New York Times’ disclosure Friday that “The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has obtained a letter drafted by President Trump and a top political aide that offered an unvarnished view of Mr. Trump’s thinking in the days before the president fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey”; Politico’s report that “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is working with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on its investigation into Paul Manafort and his financial transactions”; and the Financial Times’ story that “Rinat Akhmetshin, the lobbyist and former Soviet army officer who met senior Trump campaign aides at a controversial meeting last year, has given evidence before a grand jury investigation.”

Read the whole thing.  If you have any interest in the practice of journalism, it is well worth your time.

The Associated Press

Ian Burrell at The Drum:

It turns out that the biggest provider of stories by far on the world’s biggest social media platform is the world’s oldest news agency, Associated Press.

A study by news analytics company NewsWhip found that the AP – set up in 1846 by a group of New York dailies to provide coverage of the Mexican-American War – is generating almost 35m engagements a month on Facebook, a fact disguised by the agency’s comparative anonymity, masked by the brands of its members and clients in the news industry. This huge number of engagements (likes, comments etc) can’t be matched by any single news publisher, even the phenomenal Mail Online, which currently leads the chasing pack with 27m interactions.
...

AP operates from 263 bureau locations in 106 countries. It claims that half the world’s population sees its content ever day. These days it is also a consumer-facing news publisher with 14.8m downloads of its news apps and 1.38bn page views of its content last year. It also scored 2.6bn views of its video content, which is of growing importance. AP made 47% of its revenue from television clients last year, and 10% from digital native publishers, with a relatively small 23% coming from its traditional newspaper customer base.

Media History I

Fake News, circa 1835:  The Moon Hoax

Daily Newspaper Circulation in the United States:

1850	758,000
1860	1,478,000
1870	2,602,000
1880	3,566,000
1890	8,387,000
1900	15,102,000
1909	24,212,000
1919	33,029,000
1929	42,015,000
1939	42,966,000

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, 810.

Example of Remington drawing (see p. 12) along with the myth (see p 16)




Households with Radio Sets:

1922	60,000
1927	6,750,000
1932	18,450,000
1937	24,500,000
1942	30,600,000

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, 796.

Herb Morrison of WLS Chicago reports on the Hindenberg:






Households with Television Sets:

1946	8,000
1949	940,000
1952	15,300,000
1955	30,700,000
1958	41,924,000

Murrow speech 1958: 

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks, with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the corporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this. It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time -- frequently on the same long day -- to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs.

Presidential Staff and the Media

Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng report at The Daily Beast:

Newly minted White House chief of staff John Kelly has sought to put a dent in the influence of one of President Donald Trump’s most famous advisers: Omarosa Manigault.

The former Apprentice co-star—who currently serves as the communications director for the Office of Public Liaison—has seen her direct access to the president limited since Kelly took the top White House job in late July, sources tell The Daily Beast. In particular, Kelly has taken steps to prevent her and other senior staffers from getting unvetted news articles on the president’s Resolute desk—a key method for influencing the president’s thinking, and one that Manigualt used to rile up Trump about internal White House drama.

Glenn Thrush & Maggie Haberman report at The New York Times:

Mr. Kelly cannot stop Mr. Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.

Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.