Questionable Claim in Left Turn

On page 52 of Left Turn, Tim Groseclose claims that most nonvoters are moderates in order to rationalize not accounting for nonvoters in his model: "Even if we could force all of these people to vote, then it is doubtful that they would overwhelmingly vote for the Democrat. More likely, since they are approximately indifferent, they would approximately split their votes between the Republican and the Democrat."

I was surprised by this comment because I think of nonvoters tending to be minority members of the population who would probably support liberal policies and political candidates if they were to vote. I looked up research from the Pew Research Center and found data that supported my hypothesis:

As one can see, nonvoters are younger, earn less, and are more likely to be Hispanic than likely voters on average. As a result, nonvoters were more likely to support Obama than likely voters in the 2012 election (59% versus 47%). This data persuades me to object to Groseclose's argument that the average nonvoter is equally likely to support a liberal or conservative candidate.

The Office Of Communications Threatens to Revoke RT's Broadcasting License

Following our discussion on media bias this week and to further the discussion on ‘corporate control of the news’, which Carlos posted on; here’s a brief synopsis of Glenn Greenwald’s recent piece that highlights the hypocrisy and double standards inherent in the UK government’s policies toward, and regulation of, the media.

The article centers on the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which functions as the UK government’s official media regulator and watchdog for ‘bias’. Greenwald cites that although Ofcom rarely reprimands establishment British media outlets (such as the BBC) for bias, it is now conveniently reprimanding RT, the Russian state funded television outlet for airing biased and anti-western comments while covering Ukraine. More specifically, “the program is understood to have featured a number of anti-western views in the discussion between the presenter and three studio guests”.

The point Greenwald is trying to underscore is the “propagandistic purpose of touting ‘media objectivity’ versus ‘bias’, as the former simply does not exist”. Further, it’s alarming that it is British journalists themselves who are most vocal in demanding Her Majesty’s Government ban RT on grounds of bias. Greenwald therefore encourages one to wonder how authoritarian a society must be if it gets its own journalists to play the leading role in demanding that the state ban (or imprison) the journalists it dislikes.

Ultimately, the point Greenwald drives home is that “purporting to compel media objectivity is always about imposing a very specific and subjective agenda masquerading as impartiality”. To emphasize his point he cites the Chair of Ofcom, Colette Bowe, who previously served as Chief Information officer at the Department of Trade, as a board member of Morgan Stanley and Electra Private Equity, among various other positions with conflicting interests. Greenwald cites her background and then questions whether anyone should believe in her concept of objectivity and impartiality” as it is unlikely to be anything other than the prevailing conventional wisdom and orthodoxies of the British elite.

The article ultimately emphasizes that while Her Majesty’s government lectures foreign governments on infringements of media liberty, it simultaneously and hypocritically threatens to revoke the license of a media outlet that broadcasts views and perspectives at odds with those of its own, “all while shielding (and venerating) the equally virulent biases from pro-state television”. This Greenwald asserts, “is the classic hallmark of how a government propagandizes its citizens: ensuring that they hear only those views of which the government approves and which serve its interests and agenda”.

Rev. Al Sharpton getting paid off by Comcast?

Rev. Al Sharpton, known for his outspoken activism on race issues, is getting sued by Byren Cohen for allegedly accepting large amounts of money from Comcast (who owns MSNBC) to silence him for Comcast's lack of engagement in African-American media. MSNBC has kept his show on air despite plummeting ratings. I find it interesting that corporations will pay off the loudest--albeit questionably credible--sources to keep a good image.

"The lawsuit goes on to say that Comcast made large cash "donations" to obtain support for its acquisition. The money includes $3.8 million to Sharpton and his National Action Network. The money, it's charged, was meant to pay Sharpton to endorse the NBCU deal and divert attention away from discrimination. As for Sharpton's MSNBC gig, the complaint says, "Despite the notoriously low ratings that Sharpton's show generates, Comcast has allowed Sharpton to maintain his hosting position for more than three years in exchange for Sharpton's continued public support for Comcast on issues of diversity."

Bias II

Good work on the recent blog posts, which are exactly what the blog is for!

By putting additional material on the blog, we can avoid this situation:



Groseclose

• ADA 
• Calculating PQ

Critiques of the Groseclose analysis:

• Brendan Nyhan
• A symposium

Problems of measuring liberalism and conservatism

• Change over time
• Gallup measures

Increasing problems with using think tanks

• Foreign influence
• Lobbyists

The article that illustrates themes of the book (the right one, this time)
The followup article that we discussed in class
A more recent article on a closely-related topic

Hillary's Private Email Account Scandal

Hillary is in hot water again with the revelation that she used a private email account during her time as Secretary of State, questionably ignoring the required standards set in place by government security.

This issue has quickly become the focal point of the 2016 debates. But as one Daily Beast article points out, this "scandal" might not actually be a scandal at all. Michael Tomasky says that the Times piece that brought this issue is missing one major point: when these new rules on personal email accounts actually came into place.

"Now, I know enough about reporting to know how this works. If you’ve got an airtight case, then you lay it all out there. You include the date. Indeed you emphasize the date, you put it high up in your story. The fact that it’s not in there is a little fishy."

He then proceeds to lie out an explicit timeline of all relevant dates, arguing that this issue might really be a nonissue. CNN has also reported that this is “one of the least convincing scandals” surrounding the Clintons.

While picking and choosing which personal emails should be turned over to federal record is most certainly a problem, it is to be expected that this issue has opened the floodgates of criticism on countless aspects of Hillary's record. Republicans are reopening criticism against her speaking fess, the Benghazi controversy, and even her husband's previous scandals.

This highlights the problem of focusing on any ammunition possible to slam the opposition, instead of directing attention towards policy issues.

But it also begs the question of how "vulnerable" Hillary Clinton is to opposition criticism. One statement in a NYT article titled, "Hillary's Messy Habits" states:

One of the arguments I frequently heard in favor of her presumed candidacy for the presidency was that she’d been vetted like nobody’s ever been vetted, with no surprises left. All the skeletons had been tugged from the Clintons’ labyrinthine closets. All the mud had been dug up and flung.

But that assessment shortchanged the couple’s ability to make new messes. It ignored the “Groundhog Day” in which they star.

Hillary has been doing a pretty good job at continuing to give ammunition to the Republicans. She has been in the game long enough to know what adds fuel to the fire. And yet the Clintons have been described as often being "their own worst enemies," whether through repeated silence on an issue that demands comment or new comments sparking even another controversy. 

Columbia Journalism Review on Bruce Jenner & Trans Media Coverage

As I've mentioned in class before, this Bruce Jenner coverage is a serious issue for the future of journalism as it addresses the trans community.

One of the women I work with at Feministing.com, Jos Truitt (Prof. Bilger & I actually brought her to do a workshop at CMC last year!) just wrote a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review analyzing the media coverage on Bruce Jenner based on speculation that Jenner may be transitioning. She presents a great explanation of the problematic ways the media is approaching this story.

Some excerpts from her article, "Bruce Jenner coverage doesn’t accurately represent the trans community":

People seem to treat reporting on Jenner as absolving themselves of the violence and oppression directed at low-income trans women and women of color, Emma Caterine, a writer and anti-criminalization advocate, pointed out to me—by covering Jenner, and prominent trans women like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, the argument goes, the trans population gains visibility. But there are very serious issues facing trans women that require coverage beyond reporting on rumors about a celebrity.

While rumors about Bruce Jenner have reached a fever pitch recently, they began in tabloids and entertainment magazines a few years ago. With family members now starting to comment on and off the record, these rumors have made their way into major news publications. This speculation has created an odd situation where press is writing about Jenner transitioning and being a woman as if it is news while continuing to use male pronouns, because we do not know for certain what Jenner’s status is minus a first-person update. 

When I interviewed Mixed Martial Arts fighter and out trans woman Fallon Fox for The Guardian, she told me, “for journalists it’s gone far more than speculation. They snicker, pointing out certain aspects of Bruce’s jaw, face, or whatever in order for people to gawk at and laugh at.” 

News media is complicit in the ways these tropes are deployed, often writing about murder victims in salacious ways, dehumanizing victims and perpetuating the attitude that these women “had it coming.” 

Editors, publishers, producers, and writers seem to have a great interest in stories about Jenner and relatively little interest in reporting on all this anti-trans violence.

Because many do not want to comment on this speculation, and any trans woman the press can find is being treated as an expert, misinformation from individuals who lack relevant expertise or media preparedness has inevitably made it into the press.

News media has a responsibility to report and inform about important stories. Instead of spreading negative stereotypes, we could do real reporting that humanizes trans women and brings attention to the issues they face. We should do our job.

Corporate Control of the News

Hi everyone,

As I mentioned on Monday, there is definitely some evidence of corporate heads dictating the terms of what is to be put on the page.

Edward Herman, professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, cites some of the most prominent examples of corporate influence in what gets put on the news in this interview in 1993:

When we talk about media ownership and control, we're talking about the ownership and control by very wealthy people who have interlocking directorships with many corporations. Now, very often they don't intervene in a grow way, but, for example, Larry Grossman, who was president of NBC, in his autobiography, mentions that the GE chairman of the board, Jack Welch, pointed to him and said, "Remember you work for General Electric Corporation."

Herman also points out the way in which "hands-on owner" Rupert Murdoch deliberately and intentionally molds what his media empire reports on. Herman points out how Murdoch paradoxically supported Labour Party candidate Tony Blair over his conservative opponents. Unsurprisingly enough, all or most of Murdoch's papers endorsed Blair. Herman notes:

Part of the reason for that was that, surprisingly enough, the Conservative Party had proposed some limit on a concentration in the British media and Murdcoh was reportedly furious at this. 

Herman and his co-author, MIT linguistics professor and public intellectual Noam Chomsky, list many more examples of this nature in their groundbreaking work, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. In the book, the authors analyze the media under the "propaganda model"—a conceptual model that "seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social and political policies is 'manufactured' in the public mind due to this propaganda model."

Herman and Chomsky divide the model  into five filters that weed out unwanted media:

1. Ownership: "Since mainstream media outlets are [part of] conglomerates, the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests." Furthermore, the profit-seeking imperative of media outlets inherently creates a need for consumers which, as has been pointed out in class, like to be entertained as they're told what they want to hear.
2. Funding: From Wiki, "the theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a marginal role as the product."
3. Sourcing: According to HC, "The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest." In other words, journalists live off of what press secretaries and PR firms give them, meaning that any offense towards these powerful institutions could risk loosing the media's life-blood: fresh news (an example of this can be seen in House of Cards, S3 E4). This makes the media less inclined to publish stories that will anger their suppliers of information.
4. Flak: News media organizations are susceptible to public opinion, meaning that they can be easily swayed to censor their news depending upon their consumer base. Corporate power also morphs itself into creating flak machines, such as the Global Climate Coalition, started up by PR firm Burson-Marsteller and made up of Texaco, Ford and the like.
5. Fear: Originally, HC referred to this filter as 'anti-communism:' stories that demonized the USSR and the left as a whole were sensationalized or given more attention to than similar atrocities committed by the right and/or U.S. allies throughout the 1980s. In a revised edition, HC replace anti-communism with 'the War on Terror,' which mislead the public on Iraq leading up to the occupation.

It would be a mistake to characterize HC's arguments as applying to the media landscape equally. Instead, both have said that the media "is not a solid monolith" but that it represents a debate between powerful interests while ignoring perspectives that challenge the "fundamental premises" of all these interests.

The wiki article on the book covers many of the specifics, and I can bring up some that I remember from reading it a year a go.