Alberto Gonzalez has driven the Washington Post headline writers to despair of direct objects:
Report Describes Careless Handling of U.S. Secrets
Gonzales Says He Does Not Recall
Emphasis mine.
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Following up on Sarah Palin
Since I've already written about the underappreciated upside of Sarah Palin's nomination, I now offer the contrary view of why the relatively minor problems that have surfaced in the last few days seem to have unusual traction.
Reporters have information about candidates that they want to share but feel constrained not to. The constraint may come from ethical concerns, from editors, or from peer pressure, and it may be controversial: if you read any left-leaning citizen journalism, for example, you probably know that John McCain has said appalling things to his wife in front of reporters, but mainstream journalists have shown no inclination to recall that fact in the context of McCain's policy positions that relate to women's rights and issues. Many Republicans feel that Barack Obama has similarly been let off the hook for statements he and his proxies have made.
Now may observers are noting that the press seems unusually tenacious in examining Sarah Palin. I've seen some potential explanations and can imagine others, from sexism to religious bias to media resentment.
I suspect something a little different: my guess is that reporters have been struggling for a while with how to convey the fact that John McCain has been screwing up major points of foreign policy, making impetuous decisions, and generally exhibiting a lack of managerial control. This information dribbles out here and there, but no story has brought it all together in the way that the Palin appointment has.
On the heels of a Democratic Convention that, among other things, displayed the Obama team's formidable managerial and logistical skills, the Palin appointment highlighted McCain's impulsive hotheadedness in a way that had nothing directly to do with foreign policy. Suddenly, reporters who felt they could not ethically say, for instance, that McCain's reaction to the Georgian crisis was ludicrously belligerent and ill-considered, could say instead that it seems awfully strange to choose a Vice President at the very last minute with very little information in hand.
Hence the McCain campaign's furious efforts to defend the vetting process--a process that, after the announcement of the result, seems much less important than McCain's alarmingly shaky grasp of the geography and ideologies of the Middle East. Everybody involved understands that the argument over the vetting process is the publicly acceptable proxy for the argument over McCain's stability.
I could be wrong about this case, but I am more confident in the general assertion that many times the press seems hung up on a relatively minor political story, we are seeing journalists attempt to convey something they've been uncomfortable about keeping quiet.
Reporters have information about candidates that they want to share but feel constrained not to. The constraint may come from ethical concerns, from editors, or from peer pressure, and it may be controversial: if you read any left-leaning citizen journalism, for example, you probably know that John McCain has said appalling things to his wife in front of reporters, but mainstream journalists have shown no inclination to recall that fact in the context of McCain's policy positions that relate to women's rights and issues. Many Republicans feel that Barack Obama has similarly been let off the hook for statements he and his proxies have made.
Now may observers are noting that the press seems unusually tenacious in examining Sarah Palin. I've seen some potential explanations and can imagine others, from sexism to religious bias to media resentment.
I suspect something a little different: my guess is that reporters have been struggling for a while with how to convey the fact that John McCain has been screwing up major points of foreign policy, making impetuous decisions, and generally exhibiting a lack of managerial control. This information dribbles out here and there, but no story has brought it all together in the way that the Palin appointment has.
On the heels of a Democratic Convention that, among other things, displayed the Obama team's formidable managerial and logistical skills, the Palin appointment highlighted McCain's impulsive hotheadedness in a way that had nothing directly to do with foreign policy. Suddenly, reporters who felt they could not ethically say, for instance, that McCain's reaction to the Georgian crisis was ludicrously belligerent and ill-considered, could say instead that it seems awfully strange to choose a Vice President at the very last minute with very little information in hand.
Hence the McCain campaign's furious efforts to defend the vetting process--a process that, after the announcement of the result, seems much less important than McCain's alarmingly shaky grasp of the geography and ideologies of the Middle East. Everybody involved understands that the argument over the vetting process is the publicly acceptable proxy for the argument over McCain's stability.
I could be wrong about this case, but I am more confident in the general assertion that many times the press seems hung up on a relatively minor political story, we are seeing journalists attempt to convey something they've been uncomfortable about keeping quiet.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Conclusions, part II: so what?
Can we do better than "so what"?
Last week, I posted some thoughts about teaching the art of the conclusion--that is, about explaining the elusive something more that teachers often ask their students to provide. Here I continue my search for the language and examples that will help my students write conclusions. The next and probably final installment of this series will address the journalistic kicker, a subject Michael raised in the comments last week.
Today, however, I ponder the question, "so what?" When I was a student, I saw many teachers tell students that papers should convey answers to that question. When my undergraduate thesis adviser, Patricia Meyer Spacks, received a set of term paper drafts that disappointed her, she gently explained what she was looking for and wrote on the chalkboard in dramatically ungentle four-foot letters, "SO WHAT?"
When essays do find ways to answer the question, the effects can be wonderful. Take, for example, this striking little essay by Phillip Davis about the neurological effects of reading Shakespeare. Having set up a series of problems at the beginning of the piece, Davis shares a few data points in the middle, and about two-thirds of the way in, he writes--as its own paragraph--"so what?"
Davis answers the question powerfully, with a series of insights that expand in scope until they culminate in this final paragraph:
It is early days. But I am getting a greater sense of how and why Shakespeare really does something to our inner reality, making me feel more alive in more unpredictable mental ways when I read or see his work. I am also getting a sense of an underlying shape to experience, as though the syntax in front of my eyes were keying into mental pathways behind them, and shifting and reconfiguring them dramatically in the theatre of the brain.
Yes, that will do nicely as the something more.
All this said in favor of the "so what" approach, however, I must come to an anticlimax: in my own teaching, I have not found that asking "so what?"--or suggesting that students ask it of themselves--does much good. The question may be too vague, or it may be too hard to unburden it of its commonly dismissive inflection: "Yeah, well, so what if it is?"
My current idea is to revise the "so what" approach in two ways: first by switching the language to "and what does that mean?"--with the suggestion that the best essays will find ways to answer the question multiple times. And what does that mean? And second, I want to make the function of the conclusion more concrete by saying that it releases the pain the introduction has inflicted--an approach I'll explore when I come to ponder introductions within the next week or two.
A cliffhanger!
Last week, I posted some thoughts about teaching the art of the conclusion--that is, about explaining the elusive something more that teachers often ask their students to provide. Here I continue my search for the language and examples that will help my students write conclusions. The next and probably final installment of this series will address the journalistic kicker, a subject Michael raised in the comments last week.
Today, however, I ponder the question, "so what?" When I was a student, I saw many teachers tell students that papers should convey answers to that question. When my undergraduate thesis adviser, Patricia Meyer Spacks, received a set of term paper drafts that disappointed her, she gently explained what she was looking for and wrote on the chalkboard in dramatically ungentle four-foot letters, "SO WHAT?"
When essays do find ways to answer the question, the effects can be wonderful. Take, for example, this striking little essay by Phillip Davis about the neurological effects of reading Shakespeare. Having set up a series of problems at the beginning of the piece, Davis shares a few data points in the middle, and about two-thirds of the way in, he writes--as its own paragraph--"so what?"
Davis answers the question powerfully, with a series of insights that expand in scope until they culminate in this final paragraph:
It is early days. But I am getting a greater sense of how and why Shakespeare really does something to our inner reality, making me feel more alive in more unpredictable mental ways when I read or see his work. I am also getting a sense of an underlying shape to experience, as though the syntax in front of my eyes were keying into mental pathways behind them, and shifting and reconfiguring them dramatically in the theatre of the brain.
Yes, that will do nicely as the something more.
All this said in favor of the "so what" approach, however, I must come to an anticlimax: in my own teaching, I have not found that asking "so what?"--or suggesting that students ask it of themselves--does much good. The question may be too vague, or it may be too hard to unburden it of its commonly dismissive inflection: "Yeah, well, so what if it is?"
My current idea is to revise the "so what" approach in two ways: first by switching the language to "and what does that mean?"--with the suggestion that the best essays will find ways to answer the question multiple times. And what does that mean? And second, I want to make the function of the conclusion more concrete by saying that it releases the pain the introduction has inflicted--an approach I'll explore when I come to ponder introductions within the next week or two.
A cliffhanger!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
But whom does it resemble kissing?
Slate.com's political gabfest has solicited sports metaphors for the current state of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. I propose that it's like the old college football bowl system and that the analogy has a lot to tell us about how we perceive close contests.
As a method of ranking teams, the old college football bowl system worked well. It worked for exactly the reason everybody else the world says it didn't work: it was messy and indecisive--and therefore accurate. At the end of a season, sometimes you had two or even three or four teams who could make credible claims to be the best in the country. Perhaps one team finished the strongest but lost a game early, another went undefeated against a weaker schedule, another lost two games while its best player was hurt. If these teams did not play one another in bowl games, analysts and fans could build different narratives supporting the claims of different teams to be the true national champions; the official rankings never settled the arguments. Leaving those arguments unsettles was the great strength of the bowl system as an evaluative tool. It was also the great weakness of the system as a mechanism of producing drama. The NCAA basketball tournaments, by contrast, create situations where, say, one referee's decision at the end of a game creates a durable consensus about the relative merits of the two teams playing the game. Tournament play takes contests that are essentially tied and forces them to a decisive result; tournaments produce wonderful drama by denying the messiness of rankings.
The race for the Democratic Presidential nomination will ultimately be a tournament: either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will become the nominee, and the narrative of both candidates success or failure will be shaped dramatically by the result. But for now, we have a process, like the old bowl system, that is driving analysts crazy by failing to impose false decisiveness on the contest. Obama does better in caucuses, Clinton in primaries. Obama does better with some demographics and Clinton with others, but most of these differences are relatively small and shift in magnitude from state to state. By awarding delegates proportionally and gradually, the system has done an admirable job of reflecting these uncertainties.
Of course, the nomination process is unlike the college football season in that the Democratic party, for all sorts of structural reasons, really does have to settle on a winner. But the drive for creating narratives of decisive wins--the narratives that produce drama at the expense of accurately messy judgment--has controlled media coverage of the race throughout. Consider the weight placed on Clinton winning the popular vote in New Hampshire, or Obama in Missouri, or Clinton in Texas. But come on: they basically tied. And the gloriously messy, generally proportional methods of delegate allocation have admirably reflected those ties, creating a calm and quiet story of ties and narrow victories while the campaigns and the media shout about decisiveness.
A Presidential nominating process, like the NCAA basketball tournaments, must eventually produce one winner, and the name of that winner will forever distort the narrative of the contest. Our memories will select the facts that make the result seem inevitable.
For the moment, however, let us give thanks for delegate allocations that muck things up, that let similar performances accrue similar benefits without forcing one referee's whistle, or one butterfly ballot design, to take on the force of destiny.
As a method of ranking teams, the old college football bowl system worked well. It worked for exactly the reason everybody else the world says it didn't work: it was messy and indecisive--and therefore accurate. At the end of a season, sometimes you had two or even three or four teams who could make credible claims to be the best in the country. Perhaps one team finished the strongest but lost a game early, another went undefeated against a weaker schedule, another lost two games while its best player was hurt. If these teams did not play one another in bowl games, analysts and fans could build different narratives supporting the claims of different teams to be the true national champions; the official rankings never settled the arguments. Leaving those arguments unsettles was the great strength of the bowl system as an evaluative tool. It was also the great weakness of the system as a mechanism of producing drama. The NCAA basketball tournaments, by contrast, create situations where, say, one referee's decision at the end of a game creates a durable consensus about the relative merits of the two teams playing the game. Tournament play takes contests that are essentially tied and forces them to a decisive result; tournaments produce wonderful drama by denying the messiness of rankings.
The race for the Democratic Presidential nomination will ultimately be a tournament: either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will become the nominee, and the narrative of both candidates success or failure will be shaped dramatically by the result. But for now, we have a process, like the old bowl system, that is driving analysts crazy by failing to impose false decisiveness on the contest. Obama does better in caucuses, Clinton in primaries. Obama does better with some demographics and Clinton with others, but most of these differences are relatively small and shift in magnitude from state to state. By awarding delegates proportionally and gradually, the system has done an admirable job of reflecting these uncertainties.
Of course, the nomination process is unlike the college football season in that the Democratic party, for all sorts of structural reasons, really does have to settle on a winner. But the drive for creating narratives of decisive wins--the narratives that produce drama at the expense of accurately messy judgment--has controlled media coverage of the race throughout. Consider the weight placed on Clinton winning the popular vote in New Hampshire, or Obama in Missouri, or Clinton in Texas. But come on: they basically tied. And the gloriously messy, generally proportional methods of delegate allocation have admirably reflected those ties, creating a calm and quiet story of ties and narrow victories while the campaigns and the media shout about decisiveness.
A Presidential nominating process, like the NCAA basketball tournaments, must eventually produce one winner, and the name of that winner will forever distort the narrative of the contest. Our memories will select the facts that make the result seem inevitable.
For the moment, however, let us give thanks for delegate allocations that muck things up, that let similar performances accrue similar benefits without forcing one referee's whistle, or one butterfly ballot design, to take on the force of destiny.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Iowa Democratic Caucus, Education, and Poll Reporting
This morning's Washington Post has a routine article about the paper's latest political poll in Iowa. The main thrust of the story is equally routine: Obama has a small lead, but everything will come down to turnout. As an Iowa caucusgoer myself, I scraped up enough motivation to click to the second page of the story and found this paragraph:
Considering other turnout factors brings no additional clarity. Age and education are two key predictors of caucus participation, with older and more highly educated people disproportionately showing up to vote. While Clinton outpaces Obama among older voters, particularly those aged 65 and up, Obama outperforms her nearly 3 to 1 among those with an education of a college degree or more.
THREE TO ONE? Obama is outpolling Clinton three to one among college grads? I am gobsmacked: I've read a lot of coverage of this race, and I would guess that I've seen a hundred times as much coverage of race and gender as education level. Yet there it is: alongside relatively tiny differences in other areas, an enormous gap based on one variable that almost nobody is talking about. Note that the gap isn't even the main topic of the Post's own paragraph: the gap is presented as a turnout factor, not as the crucial difference between the Iowans who prefer Obama and those who prefer Clinton.
In this race, the education level of voters also seems to work against some of the race's main narratives; for example, given the Clintons' alleged association with cultural elites, would we have heard more about this story if the numbers were reversed? Do we even know how to talk about Hillary Clinton as someone who connects with common people but flops among college graduates? I'm not sure we do.
But I also wonder whether this case illustrates a blind spot in political journalism more generally. I imagine so, at least to some extent. It might be easier, and it seems to me more conventional, to talk about political preference in terms of race, gender, and age than education. If I'm right that there is such a blind spot, does it relate to ways in which we do and don't discuss social inequality in America?
Considering other turnout factors brings no additional clarity. Age and education are two key predictors of caucus participation, with older and more highly educated people disproportionately showing up to vote. While Clinton outpaces Obama among older voters, particularly those aged 65 and up, Obama outperforms her nearly 3 to 1 among those with an education of a college degree or more.
THREE TO ONE? Obama is outpolling Clinton three to one among college grads? I am gobsmacked: I've read a lot of coverage of this race, and I would guess that I've seen a hundred times as much coverage of race and gender as education level. Yet there it is: alongside relatively tiny differences in other areas, an enormous gap based on one variable that almost nobody is talking about. Note that the gap isn't even the main topic of the Post's own paragraph: the gap is presented as a turnout factor, not as the crucial difference between the Iowans who prefer Obama and those who prefer Clinton.
In this race, the education level of voters also seems to work against some of the race's main narratives; for example, given the Clintons' alleged association with cultural elites, would we have heard more about this story if the numbers were reversed? Do we even know how to talk about Hillary Clinton as someone who connects with common people but flops among college graduates? I'm not sure we do.
But I also wonder whether this case illustrates a blind spot in political journalism more generally. I imagine so, at least to some extent. It might be easier, and it seems to me more conventional, to talk about political preference in terms of race, gender, and age than education. If I'm right that there is such a blind spot, does it relate to ways in which we do and don't discuss social inequality in America?
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