Media Rants: Censored in 2011, Part 2

Censored in 2011, Part 2
Media Rants
By
Tony Palmeri
Last month I identified half of the top ten censored stories of 2010. They were: (10) Has Bradley Manning been tortured? (9) The “Invented” Peoples’ Nonviolent Political Prisoner, (8) Execution By Secret White House Committee, (7) Delaying Climate Action At Durban, (6) ALEC Exposed? Each story was underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by corporate media in 2010.

And now the top 5.

No. 5: The Presidential Election Campaign. In December of last year Gallup released some fascinating poll results showing that 70% of Americans can’t wait for the presidential election campaign to be over. Many months before the Republicans will even choose a nominee to challenge Barack Obama, only 26% of Americans said they “can’t wait” for the presidential campaigns to begin.
Gallup attributes the lack of enthusiasm toward selecting the leader of the free world to several factors including the length of the campaigns, lack of trust in politicians, and dislike of negative ads. More significant, in my view, is the fact that mainstream media coverage of the presidential campaign features predominantly “horse race” journalism (?) concerned primarily with who’s up, who’s down, and “insider baseball” political strategy. Meaningful, substantive coverage of issues that matter to peoples’ lives and detailed analyses of candidates’ positions on them is marginalized or outright censored in most major media. Under such conditions of journalistic negligence, of course we can’t wait for the campaign to be over.

No. 4: The Death of PolitiFact. The late, great journalistic gadfly I.F. Stone said that "If you want to know about governments, all you have to know is two words, 'governments lie.'" Heirs of Stone were thus thrilled when the fact checking website PolitiFact a few years ago pledged to help citizens sort out truth and lies in public discourse. For obvious reasons, establishment politicians and pundits hated PolitiFact from the day it was launched. Sadly, in 2011 PolitiFact became part of the establishment and lost all credibility.

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel runs a PolitiFact column. In a bizarre entry, MJS PolitiFact labeled as “false” Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director Mike McCabe’s claim made at Fighting BobFest that the state’s 2011- 2013 budget includes a "15 percent increase for road construction and yet we’ve got local towns tearing up pavement and putting down gravel because the money is steered to private contractors instead, not to the local road crews that work for the townships and for the county." McCabe’s response (not printed by MJS even though they did run Senator Ron Johnson’s objections to a PoltiFact column about him) adroitly exposed the hack work that went into the MJS column.

Worse, at the national level PolitiFact designated Democrats’ claim that the Republicans voted to end Medicare as the “lie of the year.” Caving in to pressure from the Republican establishment, PolitiFact accepted as true the absurd posturing of politicians like Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan that a vote to privatize Medicare somehow is not a vote to end it.

No. 3: Corporate Taxes and Lobbying. Reporting on the Occupy Wall Street movement usually frames occupiers’ claims regarding corporate privilege and greed as something debatable. We should not be surprised that corporate media have the backs of other corporations, but still it’s shocking how difficult it is for the major media to state the basic facts of our economy. Let’s give the International Business Times some credit for at least summarizing the results of a study by the nonpartisan Public Campaign: “By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day, including weekends, during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections.”

No. 2: Mining For Influence. In December Wisconsin’s Assembly Republicans introduced a sweeping bill to streamline mining regulations in the state. Virtually NONE of the mainstream reporting mentioned the special interest dollars flowing to key politicians (including Scott Walker) supporting the bill. As usual, it was left to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to reveal the influence of out of state mining interests.

No. 1: Was Krugman Right About 9/11? Last year was the 10th anniversary of the horrible 9/11 attacks. In a blog post that led to former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld canceling his New York Times subscription, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said in part: “What happened after 9/11, and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not, was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.”

Krugman’s post was met with the usual bluster from the Right, and even some on the Left thought Krugman’s timing was bad. But missing in almost all mainstream coverage was an attempt to answer a simple question: was/is Krugman right? Have the last ten really been “years of shame” for our country? To sweep that question under the rug is to allow shameful acts in the name of 9/11 to continue.

Media Rants: Censored in 2011, Part 1

Censored in 2011, Part 1
Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

From the January 2012 edition of The SCENE 

In 2010 suicide ended the lives of 468 American soldiers, more than the 462 killed in combat. Project Censored’s Censored 2012 (Seven Stories Press) identifies the soldier suicide epidemic as the top censored story of 2011.

Since 1976 Project Censored has shed light on news stories "underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored in the United States.” The late Walter Cronkite once said that “Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.”

Inspired by the Project, every year I dedicate two columns to what I see as the ten stories most censored. My focus is mostly on national and state issues. For readers wishing to keep track of stories marginalized and/or mangled by the mainstream media, I recommend: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (www.publicintegrity.org), Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism (www.wisconsinwatch.org), ProPublica (www.propublica.org), and World Public Opinion (www.worldpublicopinion.org).

And now the censored stories:

#10: Has Bradley Manning Been Tortured? Army soldier Bradley Manning was arrested in May of 2010 on suspicion of having leaked classified material to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. From July of 2010 until April of 2011, Manning was held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corp Brig in Quantico, VA. The US State Department regularly condemns human rights abuses in other lands, yet would not allow Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, to meet privately with Manning.

Manning’s treatment compelled classic rocker Graham Nash to record “Almost Gone (The Ballad of Bradley Manning).” He sings, “What I did was show some truth to the working man. What I did was blow the whistle and the games began . . . “

#9: The “Invented” Peoples’ Nonviolent Political Prisoner. Pandering and demagoguing on the campaign trail, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently claimed the Palestinians were an “invented” people. Anyone tempted to take the Newter seriously should become familiar with the case of Palestinian activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Amnesty International called him a “prisoner of conscience in jail solely for speaking out,” while the European Union said he’s a “human rights defender committed to nonviolent protest against the route of the Israeli separation barrier . . . The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal.”

Rahmah, whose activities have been endorsed by South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, is very much like a Palestinian Martin Luther King. Only some pointed and principled questioning of American State Department bureaucrats by Associated Press reporter Matt Lee keeps Rahmah’s case from total censorship in the US.

#8: Execution by Secret White House Committee. Since 9/11/01 mainstream press coverage of [and editorializing about] the conduct of the war on terror has generally hovered between lame and lap doggish. Even when the facts of government excesses are reported, media fail to summon up the moxie necessary to provoke public outrage. Writing about the White House’s belief that it can place citizens on a “kill list,” Salon’s Glenn Greenwald communicates in a tone missing from the press most consumed by the masses:

“So a panel operating out of the White House, that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates, is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider.  It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that . . .”

#7: Delaying Climate Action At Durban. For a brief time in the late 90s and early 2000s, it looked like world leaders were ready to take global warming seriously. Though the United States and other major polluters failed to sign on to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, scientific consensus about the problem and global activism sparked hope that something might be done. Yet in Durban, South Africa last month, world leaders agreed to do next to nothing for the next 10 years. Kassie Siegel of the Climate Law Institute says “It's like planning to buy a fire truck in a few years while your house, and all of your neighbors' houses, are burning down.”

Global warming denial rhetoric has accomplished its major goal: delaying decisive action in the interest of corporate polluters (many of whom fund climate denial “experts.”).  Corporate media’s failure to frame this issue as one of literal planetary survival makes it that much more difficult for sensible policies to prevail.

#6: ALEC Exposed?: In 2011 the Center For Media and Democracy did yeoman’s work in revealing the sheer extent to which the corporate shills at the American Legislative Exchange Council have successfully hijacked representative government. The question is, why isn’t the mainstream media doing this work? Why aren’t there daily headlines, TV and radio packages, or online special reports alerting us to the many ways in which elected officials sacrifice our sovereignty to appease their corporate masters? The travesty of ALEC influence will never truly be exposed until mainstream press make them a name as common as Sheen or Kardashian.

Next month: The top 5 censored stories of 2011.

Media Rants: The 2011 TONY Awards

The 2011 TONY Awards 

Media Rants  

By

Tony Palmeri

from the December 2011 edition of THE SCENE

Every year Media Rants presents TONY Awards for outstanding communication in the public interest. In 2011 Wisconsinites made history, taking direct action to hold public officials accountable in ways not seen since the Vietnam War era. The Occupy Wall St. movement (now spread out nationally), along with Ohio voters’ resolute rejection of Republican Governor John Kasich’s union busting measures, followed the lead set by Badger State activism aimed at reining in Scott Walker. Citizen action was THE STORY of the year.

With few exceptions Wisconsin’s corporate media in its coverage of and editorializing about THE STORY failed to operate in the public interest. Big media’s addiction to what New York University’s Jay Rosen calls “the view from nowhere” and “he said, she said” journalism resulted in pathetic attempts to draw moral equivalencies between the protesters and the governor. The good news is that we’ve not been bamboozled: even after being fed generous portions of corporate media enabling of Mr. Walker, a November poll showed that 58% support his recall, including 24% of Republicans.

TONY Award recipients for 2011 all made meaningful contributions to THE STORY. When democracy and decency are eventually restored in Wisconsin, it will be because of the collective efforts of people of integrity determined to halt the backward slide of a state whose motto is “Forward.” That kind of determination can be found in this year’s TONY Award recipients. Drum roll please:

*Best Mainstream Report: Ben Jones’ “Under the Dome in the Wisconsin Capitol, Protesters Build A Community.” Mr. Jones’ piece appeared in the February 24, 2011 AppletonPost-Crescent. Instead of speculating about the protest motives or filling his story with irrelevant attacks from opponents in the name of “balance,” Jones simply told the truth about what he witnessed in the Capitol. Anyone wanting to know “what democracy looks like” should read this piece.

*Best Framing of THE STORY: Bill Lueders’ “Walker’s War.” Mr. Lueders’ piece appeared in the February 24, 2011 Madison Isthmus. In one of the most passionate pieces of writing I’ve ever read, Lueders more than any other pundit captured the real travesty of Mr. Walker’s policies: pitting of family members against each other: “What has been fomented in Wisconsin is a rupture among ourselves, one that will ensure acrimony and contention for many years, perhaps decades. The dispute will be not just between Walker and his tens of thousands of newly impassioned enemies, but between the state's citizens; worker against worker, neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member.” Lueders concludes correctly that “None of this was necessary, none of it is justified, and none of it can ever be forgiven or forgotten.”

*Best Investigative Report: The Center For Media And Democracy’s ALEC Exposed. In this thorough and disturbing report (go to alecexposed.org) CMD posits that “Through the corporate funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so called ‘model bills’ reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have ‘a VOICE and a VOTE’ on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.” Virtually every piece of major legislation emanating from the Walker Administration and GOP legislative majority has ALEC origins.

*Best Game Changer: Ian Murphy. An independent writer for the Buffalo Beast (buffalobeast.com), Mr. Murphy took on the persona of right wing billionaire David Koch and managed to get connection via phone to Scott Walker. Walker’s conversation with the person he thought was Koch represented a game changing moment in Wisconsin politics. When the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank listened to the call he heard in Walker an ‘unprincipled rigidity’ that sees politics as tribal blood sport featuring a ‘never-ending cycle of revenge killings.’” I’m generally not a fan of “gotcha!” politics, but Walker’s musings on the tape are so horrifyingly Nixonian that it’s difficult to get mad at the exposure method. Don’t be surprised if excerpts from the call figure prominently in recall election ads early next year.

*Best Independent Video: Sam Mayfield. In June Ms. Mayfield and her colleague Alex Noguera Garces were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for filming protests in the Capitol building. Ms. Mayfield deserves a wider audience not just because of the arrest event, but because she’s made some outstanding videos that give voice to all sides of THE STORY. Check them out at her “Sam Land” blog (http://samville.blogspot.com/).

*Best Speech: Michael Moore’s “America’s Not Broke.” On March 5^th, 2011 documentary film maker Michael Moore delivered a rousing speech in Madison. Understanding the meaning of THE STORY, Moore praised the citizen activists for arousing “a sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America.” He passionately pointed out that what’s broke is not America or Wisconsin, but “the moral compass of the rulers.” And he prodded the mainstream press to publicize one simple fact: “Just 400 Americans, 400, have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.”

In 2012 THE STORY will be the recall of Governor Scott Walker. We know that the mainstream media will not likely tell it in the public interest. Therefore we will continue to need TONY Award types to keep telling it like it is.
Previous TONY Award recipients can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Tony Palmeri (tony@tonypalmeri.com) is a Professor of Communication at UW Oshkosh

Media Rants: An Interview With Jay Heck

On Monday November 7^th from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at UW Oshkosh Reeve Union Ballroom 227C Common Cause in Wisconsin will sponsor a FREE public forum on “Whatever Happened to Good Government in Wisconsin?” I’ll be participating along with newly elected Democratic Senator Jessica King, Republican Representative Richard Spanbauer, WOSH News Director Jonathan Krause, UW Oshkosh Political Science Professor Jim Simmons, and Common Cause Executive Director Jay Heck.Oshkosh Northwestern Managing Editor Jim Fitzhenry will serve as moderator.

My November Media Rants column for The SCENE features an interview with Jay Heck. Here it is:

Jay Heck has served as Executive Director of CC/WI since 1995. He’s an outspoken advocate for “small d” democratic reforms that will empower citizens and make elected leaders accountable to the public interest. Always available to the media, Jay graciously answered a few questions for this column. Want to hear more from Jay? Come to the forum on November 7^th!

Media Rants: Has the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision already had an impact on Wisconsin politics?

Jay Heck: The Supreme Court, in January of 2010, narrowly voted 5 to 4 to reverse over 100 years of precedent and settled law in order to open the flood gates and allow unlimited corporate, union and wealthy individual money to be utilized by outside, “independent” groups and organizations to influence elections at the federal and state level. Previously, there had been some restraints on this money. No longer. In Wisconsin it has meant an explosion in outside spending in our elections. This unlimited and largely undisclosed money overwhelmingly dominated the Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier this year as well as the State Senate recall elections. Outside special interest group campaign spending was 4 or 5 times more than was spent by the candidates themselves.

Media Rants: What do you expect to see happen to Wisconsin elections as a result of the new Voter ID law?

Jay Heck: Wisconsin was once one of the easiest states in the nation in which to cast a ballot and was typically second only to Minnesota in voter turnout. We are now saddled with the most restrictive voter ID law in thenation. It will be easier to vote in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia than it will be in Wisconsin. The elderly, racial minorities, citizen with special needs and college students are the groups most severely affected by this new law because they are the groups least likely to possess the very narrow range of the forms of ID permitted. Voter turnout will most certainly fall across the state.

Media Rants: Our state Supreme Court has become a national joke, with justices involved literally in physical altercations with each other. Currently SC judges are elected for 10 year terms. Is it time to think about appointing them?

Jay Heck: Walker and the Republican majority in the Legislature repealed the “Impartial Justice” Law that was enacted into law less than two years ago. It provided full public financing to state Supreme Court candidates who agreed to abide by spending limits of $400,000 for their campaigns. Now, special interest campaign contributions will flow into the campaign coffers of court candidates and outside spending will blanket the airwaves with negative attack ads in even greater amounts than the $6 million that was spent in 2007, 2008 and 2011. We need to at least explore the possibility of whether or not a different system is better. It may be that merit selection of Supreme Court justices is not the way to go. But the current system in the aftermath of the repeal of the Impartial Justice law is clearly headed toward disaster. One thing is certain: the status quo cannot stand.

Media Rants: What's wrong with the way we redistrict legislative seats in Wisconsin? What would be a better way?

Jay Heck: Wisconsin’s current redistricting process is one of the most partisan and secretive in the nation. New congressional and legislative districts were drawn this year behind closed doors, with virtually no public input or inspection, and paid for with hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to create new congressional districts less competitive and more partisan than ever before. Instead of allowing politicians to pick their voters we ought to do what Iowa does.  There, a nonpartisan state entity draws the new district boundaries every ten years (after the Census). The result is that there are many more competitive elections at the legislative and congressional level in Iowa than here and it costs taxpayers a fraction of what is spent in Wisconsin to make elections as noncompetitive and inconsequential as possible. 

Media Rants: Lots of citizens no longer recognize our state; they feel our politics are broken almost beyond repair. What advice to you have for them?

Jay Heck: The worst thing that any citizen can do is to disengage, throw up their hands and say it’s all hopeless. That is precisely what many special interest groups and politicians hope and work to make happen. That way they, and not the people, control the government. The better course of action is to get mad and get even! Engage, get involved, challenge those in power, create a fuss, make others uncomfortable, raise hell and make your voices heard. Loudly.  Citizens greatly underestimate their power. You have it. Use it. And you can start by attending the forum at UW-Oshkosh on November 7^th.  See you there!

Media Rants: Social Media Masks

This Media Rant went to press before the outbreak of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. That movement appears to be making great use of social media in the civic manner outlined in the Rant. It remains to be seen if OWS can or will result in an Egyptian style uprising right here in the USA. -TP

Social Media Masks

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri  

from the October 2011 edition of the Fox Valley SCENE

New York University Professor of New Media ClayShirky argues that humans spend a trillion hours per year engaged in digital media creation and participation. That participation can be what Shirky calls “communal” (e.g. placing humorous photos on Twitter or Facebook largely for the benefit of online friends or followers) or “civic” (e.g. using digital media to coordinate political actions that benefit society at large.).

The ongoing revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa feature remarkable displays of civic digital media participation. Twitter, Facebook, texting, and other digital dynamics did not cause the toppling of corrupt, tyrannical governments in Tunisia and Egypt, but as noted by Internet pundit Stephen Balkam: “it is undeniable that the use of the web to organize and sustain many of the protests has been critical.”

In the United States, the disappearance of civic culture is well documented, depressing, and dangerous. Not surprisingly, Americans spend much time using social media for communal participation. As a moderately active Facebook and Twitter participant for more than a year, I’ve noticed that individual users create “personas” for their “friends” (Facebook) or “followers” (Twitter).  I’ll call these personas “Social Media Masks.” Here are the masks I’ve observed:

*The Self Promoter: Online or off, we’re all self promoters to some extent. There’s nothing inherently wrong with drawing attention to our professional and other accomplishments. In business and in the nonprofit world, survival often requires effective self promotion. On Twitter and Facebook, the most pathetic self promotion tends to come from politicians.  I read a tweet from a congressional candidate urging me to go to her website “to sign up or contribute and help send a bold, energetic leader to Congress!” Thank goodness politicians promote themselves that way; otherwise we might think they are “cowardly, lethargic followers.”

*The Mom and Dadzilla: The American family may be dysfunctional and in disarray, but you’d never know that if your only knowledge came from parental Facebook posts. In this my 50^th year of existence, thanks to FB I’ve seen more photos of happy children, more photos of happy children embraced by happy parents, and more photos of happy extended family gatherings than I had seen in my prior 49 years combined.

*The Town Crier: Unlike pure self promoters, town criers will announce events that may have nothing to do with them personally. In addition to promoting events, town criers are very good at forwarding useful  information to their friends and followers about everything from how to find out where to vote to who’s running the best happy hour special.

*The Court Jester: The court jesters think the world would be a better place if we would all just lighten up a little. If there’s an over the top “lolcat” (a photograph of a cat with a humorous text) somewhere on the web, the court jesters will pass it on. Some court jesters have a preference for vulgar comedic material, which often puts them at odds with the mom and dadzillas.

*The Hyperpartisan: Democratic and Republican Party zealots are obnoxious offline, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they’d be that way on the net too. The hyperpartisan will forward link after link of punditry, reporting, studies, and literally anything else that shows their side is right and the other wrong (although the hyperpartisan’s tone usually implies the other side is not just wrong but also evil and corrupt.). The problem with hyperpartisans of any stripe, online or offline, is that they are too predictable. They’re usually bereft of original thoughts and so it’s easy to dismiss them as nothing more than hacks. You watch: if and when America does experience an Egyptian style rebellion, the hyperpartisan hacks will be the first ones to defend the status quo against the citizen “mobs.”

*The Pedantic: Often wallowing in obscurity, pedantics seek to enlighten friends and followers with bits of insight and information not typically available in the mainstream media. On Twitter, which allows only 140 characters per post, the pedantic sometimes communicates in proverbs. African-American scholar/activist Cornel West’s twitter feed has elements of a modern Sermon on the Mount. On September 7^th he tweeted, “interrogate your hidden assumptions.” A few days later he opined, “If you’ve got your heart in your slingshot, you can bring down giants.” Hmmm.

*The Bob Grahamer: In 2003 then Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham announced he would seek his party’s nomination for the presidency. The press revealed Graham’s obsessive journaling habits: “He has kept a running account of his every waking moment for the past 23 years; 14 in the Senate, eight in the Governor's mansion, even his days in the state legislature. Graham writes down every meal, every meeting, every person he meets.”  In the online world, a Bob Grahamer is someone who matches the former senator’s level of minutiae documentation but insists on posting it for all to see. You all know the type.

All of the social media masks described above represent media users in creative action. Professor Shirky says “the stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act.”  Using media to create is much better than the consumer, couch potato model of media use of the latter 20^th century. The 21^st century challenge is to turn the creative, purely communal social media masks into creative civic masks. 

Journalism in Hyperpartisan Times: Brief Annotated Bibliography

On September 22, 2011 I spoke at the Appleton Public Library on the topic of "Journalism in Hyperpartisan Times." I left the audience with a brief annotated bibliography of sources useful to me in preparing the presentation. Here it is:
 

Brief Annotated Bibliography

Anyone seeking to learn about the nature and role of modern journalism can find scores of insightful books, blogs, and other sources on the topic. Below I present a small sample of print and Web works that have directly influenced my thinking on the topic of “Journalism in Hyperpartisan Times.”

Books:

Rosen, Jay (2001). What Are Journalists For? Yale University Press.

A professor at New York University, Dr. Rosen writes extensively on journalism’s   relationship to citizenship. The book highlights the shortcomings of modern journalism, especially in relation to politics and civic culture, and suggests ways to fix matters.

McChesney, Robert (2000). RichMedia, Poor Democracy. The New Press.

Dr. McChesney argues that journalism in a democracy should serve three major roles: accounting of people in power, presenting diversity of opinion, and fact checking. In his book he explores the reasons why corporate media fail to fulfill those roles. 

Putnam, Robert D. (2000). BowlingAlone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster. (http://bowlingalone.com/)

Though not about journalism per se, Putnam’s important book demonstrates in dramatic fashion the breakdown of civic culture in the United States. An invigorated journalism is needed to help restore some sense of civic community.

Lueders, Bill (2010). Watchdog: 25 Years of Muckrakingand Rabblerousing. Jones Books.

       One of the most valuable players in Wisconsin journalism for   many years, Bill Lueders is a       champion of freedom of information and transparency. He offers stinging critiques of all public officials who dare withhold information from the public. 


On the Web:

ProPublica: Journalism in the Public Interest (http://www.propublica.org/)

Winner of a 2011 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (for a series of remarkable stories on the role of Wall St. bankers in worsening the financial crisis for their own gain), ProPublica’s mission is “To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.”

Jay Rosen’s PressThink Blog (http://pressthink.org/)

Almost every one of professor Rosen’s posts sparks important, thoughtful debate on a range of topics, including the failure of “horse race” coverage of politics and the shortcomings of “he said, she said” journalism. A persistent theme of Rosen’s is that journalists should strive not to eliminate bias from their work, but to show good, sound judgment.

James Fallows (national correspondent for The Atlantic) (http://www.theatlantic.com/james-fallows/)

Mr. Fallows might be the best working journalist in America today. His writings are always well researched,  thoughtful, provocative, and always lead the reader to links that further substantiate his claims.

Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism (http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/)

Like old time muckrakers, the Center seeks to “Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions to problems.” With a focus on government integrity and quality of life, the Center produces vital Badger State investigative journalism.

Bruce Murphy’s Milwaukee Magazine “Murphy’s Law” Blog (http://www.insidemilwaukee.com/Blog/murphyslaw)

Bruce Murphy is probably the finest journalist in the state of Wisconsin. He’s especially good at exposing lazy journalism as it is often practiced at wide circulation publications like the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Jim Romenesko’s Blog (http://www.poynter.org/category/latest-news/romenesko/)  (In 2012 Romenesko will launch http://jimromenesko.com/
 

Few deliver the “news about the news” as well as Romenesko. Though now in semi-retirement, he continues to produce an invaluable blog for anyone interested in the “inside” story of American journalism.

Media Rants: Journalism in Hyper-Partisan Times

[Note: The Appleton Public Library invited me to speak on the topic of "Journalism in Hyper-Partisan Times. The event will be held at the Library on Thursday, September 22 at 6:30 p.m. The September Media Rants column below is a preview of some of the comments I will make that evening. My main point is stated near the end of the Rant:"Great journalism isn’t nonpartisan. This is not to say that journalists should be partisan Democrats or partisan Republicans. Rather, journalists should be democracy partisans; news stories and opinion writing should be framed not to appease networks of power and influence, but to empower average citizens to participate in the never ending struggle to build a more just society." On the 22nd, I'll give examples of this kind of great journalism. It's rare, but it does exist--even sometimes in mainstream sources].  

Journalism in Hyper Partisan Times
 

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri 

From the September 2011 edition of The SCENE 

On Thursday, September 22^nd at 6:30 p.m. I’ll speak at the Appleton Public Library on the subject of “Journalism in Hyper Partisan Times.” The event is free and open to all.

Are we living in “hyperpartisan” times? Scores of mainstream political voices insist yes, and they’re pretty hyper about it. President Obama repeatedly tells the nation that "The only thing holding us back right now is our politics."  Former California Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman told Newsweek, “We’re playing a hyperpartisan game with real ammunition, and it’s too dangerous . . . we need candidates and leaders who prize the virtues of bipartisanship and solving problems over blame game politics.” 

A bipartisan group of former elected officials along with business and academic leaders have heavy hearts about hyperpartisanship. In response they’ve formed the advocacy outfit “No Labels.” They argue (politely of course) “Hyper partisanship is one of the greatest domestic challenges our nation faces. . . Rather than focusing on solving problems, hyper partisans use labels to demonize their opponents, enforce orthodoxy within their own ranks, and marginalize sensible compromises.”

Warnings about hyperpartisanship aren’t new. Madison’s Federalist Paper #10 suggests the Constitution is designed to check the power of political parties. Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address spoke of the evils of “faction.” In 1881 former president Hayes attributed the assassination of his successor James Garfield to the “extreme and bitter partisanship which so largely prevails in our country.” 

The modern critique of hyperpartisanship seems rooted in the belief that “extremists” on the Republican right and Democratic left resist compromise and prevent “sensible center” solutions to America’s problems. The extremists are magnified by shrill talk radio hosts, shadowy Think Tanks, and over the top cable commentators on Fox and MSNBC.

There are two major problems with the hyperpartisanship thesis. First, a false equivalency is drawn between positions labeled “extreme.” In the debate over how to reduce the national debt, we are supposed to believe that standing against cuts in Medicare is the same as opposing any tax increases, even simply ending millionaire loopholes. Somehow the sensible “centrist” position is a shared sacrifice model in which millions of middle class and poor people see reductions in Medicare and/or Social Security benefits while the super rich “sacrifice” a tax break.  

Second, the hyperpartisanship thesis wrongly assumes that the dominant contest in American politics is Left v. Right. It’s not. As UW Madison labor scholar Joel Rogers, former Republican Party strategist KevinPhillips and others have argued, American politics is not left/right but top/down.(Notice how the "No Labels" video below uncritically accepts the left/right axis as the cause of our dysfunctional politics; solutions are "common sense" if we could only get over the left/right divide). Yes there are real and meaningful differences between the Republican and Democratic parties, but only willful ignorance can blind us to the fact that since the 1980s we’ve seen disturbing bipartisan agreement on a range of reverse Robin Hood initiatives (financial sector deregulation, global trade agreements, tax cuts for the rich, taxpayer bailouts of “too big to fail” industries, high tech sector subsidies, etc.) that have turned the world’s greatest democracy into a plutocrat’s paradise. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that absent mass grassroots action, the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision will ensure elite control of our politics for many generations to come. 

Unfortunately, almost all mainstream American journalism accepts and reinforces the hyperpartisanship thesis. Striving to be perceived as “nonpartisan” and “moderate,” political journalists believe they are doing their jobs properly if (a) their reporting marginalizes or keeps on the fringe all “extremist” perspectives and (b) the reporting upsets Democrats and Republicans equally.

The so called nonpartisan style pervades most press and broadcast coverage of politics. A typical example is New York Times reporter Matt Bai’s August 12th coverageof the Republican presidential candidate forum in Iowa. After correctly lambasting the candidates for pandering to base voters in claiming they would walk away from a hypothetical spending cut deal that required one dollar in new tax revenue for every 10 dollars of reductions, Bai then feels compelled to argue that Democratic candidates would pander just as badly. Bai says, “You could have put a lot of Washington Democrats up on that stage, and asked them if they would have accepted $10 in new taxes or new stimulus in exchange for $1 in cuts to Social Security, and you probably would have gotten much the same response: hell, no.” Those sentences add nothing to our understanding of Republican pandering in Iowa, but they do much to frame reporter Bai as “fair” inside the Washington beltway.  

Great journalism isn’t nonpartisan. This is not to say that journalists should be partisan Democrats or partisan Republicans. Rather, journalists should be democracy partisans; news stories and opinion writing should be framed not to appease networks of power and influence, but to empower average citizens to participate in the never ending struggle to build a more just society.  

New Washington Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton wrote recently that journalistic populism might be the key to that paper’s survival. He says the Post should be “hard-hitting, scrappy and questioning; skeptical of all political figures and parties and beholden to no one. It has to be the rock ’em sock ’em organization that is passionate about the news. It needs to be less bloodless and take more risks when chasing the story and the truth.” 

On September 22^nd I’d love to hear what you think! 

Copyright 2011 Tony Palmeri