September 4, 2008
RNC Night #4
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 10:55 AM | | Spotlight
The Press and John McCain
Jim Rutenberg's article in The New York Times today should be an embarrassment to, and a wake-up call for, the entire news media. Any journalist who becomes friends, or even friendly, with a politician he or she is covering is 1) foolish and 2) unethical.
The primary purpose of journalism is to give people the information they need to be free and self-governing. There's still a lot of debate about what kind of information that is. But what is not debatable is the simple idea that journalists cannot effectively cover politics as chummy pals of people with real power.
I do not think the press needs to go picking fights. I do not think effective journalism requires an adversarial stance. It requires that political reporters operate as custodians of fact with a discipline of verification, i.e. act like any other reporter covering any other news situation.
This is just horrifying:
When Republicans gathered at Madison Square Garden to celebrate President Bush’s second nomination four years ago, Senator John McCain gathered at a restaurant uptown with some of the biggest stars in journalism to celebrate his birthday. Among those mingling over cocktails and fine French food with Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy, were Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, Tim Russert — “our people,” as an old campaign hand reminisced on Wednesday.
Our people.
Journalists that allow themselves to become "our people" to powerful politicians have stopped fulfilling the primary purpose of journalism. They become unethical fools.
John McCain isn't doing anything wrong. Any politician with a lick of sense will try to manipulate the news media. Message control is power. Always has been. Always will be. The problem for voters occurs when the press gladly allows itself to be manipulated.
Finally, if journalists are telling the proper story, their focus would be on citizens' experiences with governance more than on the celebrity of politics.
(A personal aside: During my first year working in journalism right out of college, a fellow reporter and I became friendly with a local judge. He was a nice fellow. Not much older than us. And we hung out with the guy. When our editor found out, well, he went ape-shit. He absolutely scared the living crap outta me. We were damned lucky to keep our jobs. Lesson learned. I should have known better. But power, and simple friendliness, can be seductive.)
[Editor's note: See comments re: edit in the lead.]
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 10:30 AM | | Spotlight
September 3, 2008
RNC Night #3
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 1:15 PM | | Spotlight
September 2, 2008
Audience Adjustment
The Columbia Journalism Review has published an interesting essay by David Cay Johnston called "Attitude Adjustment." It's about how the internet is good for journalism. The essay is worth your time.
Johnston focuses mostly on consumer news. The theory that supports his idea, however, is useful in understanding what has gone wrong in political reporting and how to make it better (i.e. make political reporting fit the primary purpose of journalism: to give people the information they need to be free and self-governing). Here it is:
But the larger trick here is a change in perspective about what is news, a move to frame it more in terms of audiences than sources. When you examine the way newspapers tend to frame some stories, it prompts questions about what audience is being addressed, and whether the way the news is written builds audiences or, by appealing primarily to narrow interests, shrinks them.
Exactly. The audience for political reporting is not citizens. How could it be? There's very little in "horse-race" or "inside baseball" reporting that citizens can put to use in making political decisions. The audience for such reporting is people inside the process, i.e. journalists and politicians.
I have a solution. Been talking about it for a long time now. And it fits Johnston's idea: Tell a different story; tell the story of citizens' experiences with governance.
Part of the problem here is that journalism has done a poor job of developing audiences (yes, plural). No one seemed to notice the problem until the internet exposed the faulty thinking: There is no such thing as a "general" audience.
In the epistemology of the old MSM, sources are the "knowers"--the ones who say what reality is. Journalists are then conduits of sources' knowing. The internet has taught people to talk back, taught them to expect to talk back, taught them to fight for what they know. So a whole new crop of knowers is showing up to the media party. And if they don't see themselves in the products of the MSM, then they aren't going to buy the products of the MSM.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 11:18 AM | | Spotlight
No Live Blogging Tonight
I have a schedule snafu. Very disappointing.
Posted by acline at 10:32 AM | | Spotlight
September 1, 2008
No Live Blogging Tonight
John McCain and the the Republican leadership have made the right choice to suspend all but routine convention business for this evening.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 10:24 AM | | Spotlight
August 30, 2008
Rhetorica Update
I've changed my plans. I going to wait until after the RNC to analyze the two acceptance speeches. Live blogging and on-the-fly analyses so far have been fun. But, really, I don't want to be auditioning for a role as campaign pundit. I still plan to live blog the RNC.
Posted by acline at 12:53 PM | | Spotlight
August 28, 2008
DNC Night #4
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 2:40 PM | | Spotlight
"You Want My Asinine Analysis"
Oh, yeah. Best media criticism on television:
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 2:32 PM | | Spotlight
Note About Tonight's Live Blogging
I'll be attending a watch party at a local hotel. I understand there is a wifi. I'll arrive early to scout out a good location, i.e. near an electrical outlet. A hitch could develop in the system. Just FYI.
Also: I'll do a short analysis of the speeches by Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama on Saturday because my day tomorrow is booked solid.
Posted by acline at 12:35 PM | | Spotlight
Remember Those Who Did Not Live to See This Day
What we'll witness tonight was unimaginable 45 years ago.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Go read, or listen to, the whole thing.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 11:43 AM | | Spotlight
How to Notice a Theme
The other day I briefly discussed live blogging and wondered what good it is. I found that (potential) good in the conversation that the Cover It Live software makes possible.
What has always bugged me about live blogging (my doing it anyway) is that if you go for speed you sacrifice depth, and if go for depth you miss a lot of good stuff. That's obviously an over-simplification.
But with active participants in the live blogging, good things can begin to happen. For example, those who have been participating with me (4 at one point last night!) have identified, and begun to discuss, interesting themes at the DNC. We've identified the "future" theme, the "kitchen-table" theme, and the "warrior" theme. You might also call these memes or emerging master narratives. Or, as the third umpire says, "they ain't nuthin' 'til I calls 'em." (In case you don't know the routine, the first ump says "I calls 'em as I sees 'em," and the second ump says "I calls 'em as they are.")
So while any given live blogging session here is shallow and somewhat goofy, we can mine the text for its gems and elaborate on them later. There's the value.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 8:02 AM | | Spotlight
August 27, 2008
DNC Night #3
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 2:44 PM | | Spotlight
Get Stupid
The New York Times gets it exactly right:
Madonna’s video is immeasurably worse. If she thought she was helping Mr. Obama by juxtaposing his image with that of Gandhi and Bono, she was wrong.
We do not subscribe to the “shut up and sing” notion that celebrities should stay out of politics — a position most often espoused by Republicans about stars who support Democrats. There is no room in decent discourse for comparing a candidate for president to Hitler.
Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, was exactly right when he called the video “outrageous” and “unacceptable.” Mr. Obama’s team also swiftly denounced it. “These comparisons are outrageous and offensive and have no place in the political process,” said a spokesman, Tommy Vietor.
The problem is, however, that if you're playing the game of politics, then you're playing on a muddy field. That's the reality. That's always been the reality. And no amount of promising to change or whining about the results is going to change that reality. Don't even bother getting into a "he started it" argument. Someone always starts it. The news media always report it. And the other guy always grabs a handful of mud in response.
Get over it.
But some things are out of bounds. Madonna's transgression isn't even close to debatable in this regard.
Now, what else is out of bounds, or should be? Now that presents problems.
The sad thing is that negative campaigning works. We know it works. We have the hard data. If it didn't work, politicians wouldn't do it. Mudslinging works because partisan citizens care more about winning, and the power that follows from winning, more than they care about _______ (fill in the blank with your cherished civic virtue of choice).
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 1:15 PM | | Spotlight
Mission(s) Accomplished
I think Hillary Clinton had two missions last night. I cannot say which was the most important. Only she could answer that. But it seems to me that she needed to 1) convince her supporters that the party is united behind Barack Obama and 2) keep herself viable for 2012. Missions accomplished.
I'm not a fan of Hillary Clinton. I have praised speeches by people I'm not fond of before on Rhetorica--including president Bush (who I am really really not fond of). I thought she delivered an effective and powerful address--this from a person I consider a weak public speaker at best. She had great material.
Her Diction 5.0 score demonstrates that she delivered, in terms of tone, a fairly standard campaign speech. She scored very high in "variety" as did Michelle Obama, indicating a belief in a wide range of expressions (and, therefore, ideas) acceptable to the audience.
I think she effectively slam-dunked the disunity master narrative. And for any hold-out supporters, she delivered the best moment of the address:
Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.
I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?
This moment actually completed her two missions. Everything before and after was good political theater and effective speechifying. But this was the masterstroke.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 12:59 PM | | Spotlight
August 26, 2008
DNC Night #2
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Posted by acline at 1:31 PM | | Spotlight
CSM: The Future of Newspapers?
I think Alex Beam has it right:
One place where the future remains unevenly distributed is the newspaper business. The country's most successful dailies are enduring draconian cutbacks in personnel and coverage. Some of the also-rans are disappearing altogether. What no one knows is: What will the newspaper of the future look like? Maybe it will look like The Christian Science Monitor.
I'm a subscriber. I enjoy the Monitor for its compact size and attempts at greater depth, context, and complexity. This would be a good future for American newspapers.
The Monitor's circulation is low right now. But the idea of it is something newspapers might be able to grow on.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric
Posted by acline at 12:43 PM | | Spotlight
Michelle Obama's Speech From Low to High
The structure of Obama's speech last night was fascinating. It began with a low rhetorical style, i.e. she used a lot of plain talk. But slowly over nearly 2,200 words the rhetorical style grew like a crescendo. You can get an interesting look at the text and video side by side at The New York Times.
Consider the first paragraph:
As you might imagine, for Barack, running for President is nothing compared to that first game of basketball with my brother Craig.
This is not your typical opening statement for a political speech. She picks up the conversation after her brother's introduction. That's an interest maneuver because it tends to highlight a major point of the speech: to (re)introduce the Obama's to American as a family.
Much deeper into the speech, we begin to hear the first steps up the ladder of rhetorical style until we reach her "It was strong enough" anaphora. Her delivery was smooth enough to make the transitions up the rhetorical ladder fit the mood of the text.
Her Diction 5.0 score should be no surprise. She scored high in "variety" and "commonality." This suggests a big tent of shared values--exactly the kind of tone necessary to fight the disunity master narrative CNN was pushing so hard to sell last night.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
