Sunday's Buffalo News offered a great example of how public opinion is formed. Actually, two great examples. The first, on the front page, is in a weaselly feature the paper runs most Sundays called "Behind the Headlines". "Behind the Headlines" exists in a journalistic nether world that floats somewhere between news and editorial.
It's on the front page, which I would think would lead most readers to believe it's news, or factual reporting. In reality, it's thinly disguised editorializing, full of conjecture, and short on fact. The headline starts us off in the opinionated direction. "Foreign Policy is Crisis-laden". Now, I'm not saying foreign policy isn't crisis-laden, but really, when hasn't it been? The sub-headline reads, "Faced with multiple crises, the Bush administration appears to be losing steam on the world stage." Really? I thought the Twin Towers coming down was sort of a low point.
What business do the words "Appears to be losing steam" have on the front page of a newspaper? What does that mean? Appears to be losing steam to whom? I don't know how much "steam" the administration ever had in the eyes of these reporters.
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times when there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."
Yea, right. Unlike the pristine condition the country and the world were in when Bush took office. Let's see, stock market and economy tanking; Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Adelphia all undiscovered, Saddam Hussein safe in Baghdad robbing Oil for Food blind with help from the Russians, French and Germans, Osama bin Laden comfortably plotting 9/11 from his safe haven in Afghanistan, Khaddafi with his WMD programs intact. But we were on good terms with the French.
What the article doesn't mention about Mr. Haass is that he worked in the State Department under Colin Powell. No disrespect to General Powell, but he was canned. Might Mr. Haass be grinding an ax here?
My larger point is that a piece like this simply has no place on the front page of a newspaper. I think your average Joe Sixpack reads this article and comes away with the impression that things are going very badly. The next day, a pollster calls, and Joe is going to give the President a bad report. And that's how public opinion gets shaped.
This isn't journalism, it's a product placement. Richard Haass' publicist probably got that quote placed in that article the way a Marlboro gets placed in a movie actor's hand.
I remember reading once that people tend to believe things they read, more so than things they hear. It must be true, because I believed it. The second piece is shameful in a different way. It's a puff piece on Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times.
The Times, of course, has recently broken entirely new ground by publishing the details of a classified program that tracked terrorist money transfers through an international financial clearinghouse known as SWIFT. For terrorists, the ability to move money around is essential, For those who would deter them, being able to track those transfers is quite simply a matter of life and death.
Someone who works in intelligence broke the law by revealing these secrets. The administration implored the Times not to publish. They did so anyway. Innocent Americans may very well die as a result.
The News' response? They print a fawning, sycophantic tribute to the guy, "Citizen Sulzberger". Who do they think they're kidding?
The fact is, Pinch's tenure at the Times will likely go down as the ruination of the franchise. Set aside the plummeting share price, the Jayson Blair fiasco, the Howell Raines debacle and the spectacle of Judith Miller going to jail. The simple fact is, large numbers of educated, informed Americans no longer take the Times seriously.
It's on the front page, which I would think would lead most readers to believe it's news, or factual reporting. In reality, it's thinly disguised editorializing, full of conjecture, and short on fact. The headline starts us off in the opinionated direction. "Foreign Policy is Crisis-laden". Now, I'm not saying foreign policy isn't crisis-laden, but really, when hasn't it been? The sub-headline reads, "Faced with multiple crises, the Bush administration appears to be losing steam on the world stage." Really? I thought the Twin Towers coming down was sort of a low point.
What business do the words "Appears to be losing steam" have on the front page of a newspaper? What does that mean? Appears to be losing steam to whom? I don't know how much "steam" the administration ever had in the eyes of these reporters.
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times when there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."
Yea, right. Unlike the pristine condition the country and the world were in when Bush took office. Let's see, stock market and economy tanking; Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Adelphia all undiscovered, Saddam Hussein safe in Baghdad robbing Oil for Food blind with help from the Russians, French and Germans, Osama bin Laden comfortably plotting 9/11 from his safe haven in Afghanistan, Khaddafi with his WMD programs intact. But we were on good terms with the French.
What the article doesn't mention about Mr. Haass is that he worked in the State Department under Colin Powell. No disrespect to General Powell, but he was canned. Might Mr. Haass be grinding an ax here?
My larger point is that a piece like this simply has no place on the front page of a newspaper. I think your average Joe Sixpack reads this article and comes away with the impression that things are going very badly. The next day, a pollster calls, and Joe is going to give the President a bad report. And that's how public opinion gets shaped.
This isn't journalism, it's a product placement. Richard Haass' publicist probably got that quote placed in that article the way a Marlboro gets placed in a movie actor's hand.
I remember reading once that people tend to believe things they read, more so than things they hear. It must be true, because I believed it. The second piece is shameful in a different way. It's a puff piece on Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times.
The Times, of course, has recently broken entirely new ground by publishing the details of a classified program that tracked terrorist money transfers through an international financial clearinghouse known as SWIFT. For terrorists, the ability to move money around is essential, For those who would deter them, being able to track those transfers is quite simply a matter of life and death.
Someone who works in intelligence broke the law by revealing these secrets. The administration implored the Times not to publish. They did so anyway. Innocent Americans may very well die as a result.
The News' response? They print a fawning, sycophantic tribute to the guy, "Citizen Sulzberger". Who do they think they're kidding?
The fact is, Pinch's tenure at the Times will likely go down as the ruination of the franchise. Set aside the plummeting share price, the Jayson Blair fiasco, the Howell Raines debacle and the spectacle of Judith Miller going to jail. The simple fact is, large numbers of educated, informed Americans no longer take the Times seriously.
posted by alwaysright at
5:18 PM
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