News Media Acting Like Politicians, But Get Paid Better

Date: January 7, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Hypocrisy, NPR

UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi reports NPR staff are upset with the resignation of Senior Vice President of News Ellen Weiss, who spent her entire career at NPR, rising from the ranks to lead a resurgence of the storied news organization.  Some inside public radio see it as a capitulation to conservatives.

Some blamed congressional conservatives and Fox News – which had repeatedly denounced NPR since the October firing – for inflaming the situation, which led to the resignation on Thursday of Ellen Weiss, NPR’s senior vice president for news. Weiss was the NPR executive who terminated Williams for saying he was "nervous" flying on a plane with people in "Muslim garb" on Bill O’Reilly’s TV program. Since his firing, Williams signed a three-year contract with Fox for almost $2 million.

"We have allowed Fox News to define the debate," wrote Peter Block, a member of the board of Cincinnati Public Radio, in a posting to an e-mail group consisting of public radio managers. He added, "I do not think this kind of capitulation [by NPR] assures the future of an independent press. . . . Democracy is on the line and NPR is one of the last bastions of its possibility." Block said in an interview that NPR’s reaction "lacked integrity." NPR’s ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, also pointed to Fox, noting in her column, that the Williams "incident has become a partisan issue in Washington’s hothouse atmosphere, with Republicans (egged on by Fox News) using it as a rallying cry to demand that NPR be ‘defunded’ by the federal government."

Staffers wouldn’t be quoted criticizing NPR’s action, though it is typical of its lack of courage. They were probably afraid of retaliation from Schiiller and the board. Instead the staff remind us of what was lost

Guy Raz, who hosts the weekend edition of "All Things Considered," called Weiss "the finest journalist I ever worked for. . . . She’s a pretty legendary figure in the newsroom. For many people, she’s an inspiration that you could start at the bottom and make it to the top if you worked hard it. It’s a cliche, but she really set the standard for integrity."

Some employees interviewed Friday steered clear of criticizing NPR’s upper management, but Raz said there was some anger in the newsroom. "It’s a pretty natural reaction," he said. "Yeah, I think we’re angry because she was such a good leader. She really knew how to lead this organization," he said.

Economics reporter Adam Davidson said Weiss had "the single most important role in the development of NPR over the past 20 years. . . . I don’t think there’s anyone in the history of public radio who has had as positive an impact. I’m shaken and shocked" by her exit.

In the last day, however, we learn that the dog didn’t eat NPR’s records. At least we know what Vivian Schiller, the chief executive who, of course, kept her job, even though she agreed with the firing and made sarcastic remarks about Williams at the time.

According to tax records released by NPR on Friday, Schiller received a bonus of $112,500 in May 2010, about 17 months after she was hired by the Washington-based organization. This was in addition to a base salary of $450,000. The bonus was included in her hiring package, NPR said.

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Don’t you love it when news organizations exhibit the same blatant obfuscation that they deplore when practiced by corporations, politicians or other organizations?

Take NPR, for the latest example. Yesterday, NPR released a report finding that the news editor who fired Juan Williams over his controversial remarks and NPR’s president who supported the action, while acting within the law, had a quick trigger finger. The board, of course, wouldn’t exactly say that the firing was justified or that it was unfair.  It was just too, oh, decisive. I guess the bleeding heart softies at NPR would have preferred bringing in Williams for a chat and letting him down easy. Maybe giving him an NPR coffee mug with his pink slip.

Meanwhile, they let the news editor Ellen Weiss take the fall, forcing her to resign, while NPR Chief Executive Vivian Schiller was punished by withholding her bonus for this year.

When asked by The Washington Post about that bonus:

Schiller said she "fully accepted" the board’s decision to cancel her bonus, which she said had not been determined for the current fiscal year. (Schiller could not recall the amount of her bonus in fiscal 2009, and NPR said it did not have that information.)

Really? Schiller couldn’t remember the size of her bonus? OK, maybe it was figured by some kind of arcane formula down to the precise cent. Which wouldn’t be unexpected at NPR where they probably have tortured their accountants to come up with a calculation that is “fair.” But she couldn’t give us a ball park figure?  Say, $2,000, or $200,000 or $2 and an NPR tote bag? But then NPR says it “did not have that information”? Do they burn their books after each fiscal year? Did the dog eat the records?

Are Giuliani, Ridge, Mukasey & Townsend Terrorists?

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: GOP Hypocrites, Iran, Middle East

Glenn Greenwald makes the case that they are.

Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with — and expressed vocal support for — supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein’s brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a "Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening.

But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives — including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend — did exactly that. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) — a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be "terrorist organization" — and expressed wholesale support for that group. Worse — on foreign soil — they vehemently criticized their own country’s opposition to these Terrorists and specifically "demanded that Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran." In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced his own country’s opposition to these Terrorists as "nothing less than an embarrassment."

Will the GOP Cut $100 Billion or Not?

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: NY Times, Washington Post

The Campaign Desk of the Columbia Journalism Review thinks the New York Times didn’t do all its homework before writing about the Republicans pledge to cut the budget $100 billion this year.  After writing that it would be hard to do, the same reporter, Jackie Calmes, wrote the next day that the GOP is backing off.

Lori Montgomery at The Washington Post apparently didn’t get the memo, even if Congressman Paul Ryan, who made the pledge, did—and then reversed himself.

Ryan acknowledged that the move would save significantly less than the $100 billion Republicans promised during the election. At the time, he said, Republicans were measuring their plans against Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2011. But Democrats failed to enact that request or adopt any other budget blueprint. Instead, the government is operating under a temporary resolution that continues funding at lower, fiscal year 2010 levels through March 4.

Adjusting their goals

As Republicans prepare a new spending plan for the rest of the fiscal year, independent budget analysts said they would have to trim about $85 billion to return to 2008 levels. But with nearly half the fiscal year already gone, Ryan said Republicans are further adjusting their goals and would probably cut about $60 billion from current programs.

"We’ve already achieved some of that [promised] savings by virtue of not" permitting Democrats to fund Obama’s budget request, Ryan said. And he vowed that House Republicans will far exceed their $100 billion goal when they put together their own budget blueprint for the fiscal year that begins in October. That plan will seek not just to shrink government to its size in 2008, before Obama took power and authorized new spending on the economy, Ryan said: It will seek to put the budget on a path to balance.

"We will be cutting $100 billion plus over this calendar year," Ryan said. "If you think we’re stopping shy of $100 billion in cuts, you got another thing coming. We’re going to go way beyond $100 billion."

So have the Republicans lowered their goal or not?

Congressional Votes

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Washington Post

Memo to The Washington Post’s ombudsman and national desk:

Curious that The Post this morning wrote about the Democrats who voted against Nancy Pelosi for speaker. What made this vote so compelling when readers can hardly ever get the roll call on momentous legislation? Even online, The Post rarely links to votes so readers can see how their congressman voted on the big issues of the day.

Fact Checkers

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Fact-based journalism

This is amusing. Writes the AP in a story about how Obama caved to those who continue to fear monger about “death panels,”

The original House version of the overhaul legislation sought to expand coverage, allowing for discussions every few years. But the plan was dropped after Sarah Palin and other Republicans raised the specter of "death panels" deciding the fate of vulnerable seniors. Those charges were later debunked by several non-partisan fact-checking groups.

Shouldn’t journalists be card-carrying members of “non-partisan fact-checking groups”?

Richard Cohen is not amused.

Are Nuts and Bolts the Only Things Needed to Build a Coalition?

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Democratic Message, Democratic principles, E. J. Dionne, GOP message, Message

E.J. Dionne makes the argument that Republicans are too abstract.

Their rhetoric is nearly devoid of talk about solving practical problems – how to improve our health care, education and transportation systems, or how to create more middle-class jobs.

Instead, we hear about things we can’t touch or see or feel, and about highly general principles divorced from their impact on everyday life.

Their passion is not for what government should or shouldn’t do but for "smaller government" as a moral imperative. During the campaign, they put out a nice round $100 billion in spending cuts from which they’re now backing away. It is far easier to float a big number than to describe reductions for student loans, bridges, national parks or medical research.

The problem is that Democrats too often ignore principles and instead get wonkish. Such an approach assumes voters make rational decisions based on specific policies. They don’t. Why else would lower middle class people, especially men, vote for the party that is set on destroying it? Instead those hurt most by Republican economic policies vote for GOPers because they like their principles.

Of course, they may like Democratic principles, too, but Democrats spend little time articulating them and instead let the Republicans define those principles for them. The same is true for overall messages. During the time I worked with Virginia politicians, I found far too many unconcerned with delivering overarching messages and much more concerned with budgets for direct mail.

Dionne also errs when he suggests that “men aren’t angels, but the professors in Congress seem to believe that another great abstraction, ‘the free market,’ can obviate the need for messy and complicated statutes.” The Democrats problem is that they have constantly offered “messy and complicated statues” that are seen by voters as examples of Congressional mischief and malfeasance. Laws, as Philip Howard has argued, are far too complicated. They should be more concise and set out principles and overarching goals and leave the details to those carrying them out. That, of course, are the hate “government bureaucrats.,” who are left to follow arcane and specific rules embodied in laws and necessarily eschew commonsense.

Dionne, however, has one thing right, as he continues his assault on the media.

If journalism in a democracy is about anything, it is about bringing the expansive rhetoric of politicians down to earth and holding them accountable for how their ideas translate into policies that affect actual human beings.

It may be easier to report windy speeches about "liberty" and "entrepreneurship" than to do the grubby work of examining budgets, regulations, programs and economic consequences. But journalists surely want to be more than stenographers.

One wonders if they really do.

“The Big Short”

Date: January 6, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Books

If you thought reading about derivatives trading would be boring, think again. Michael Lewis, who wrote "Liar’s Poker" and "The Blind Side" tells the story of the 2008 financial meltdown through the eyes of a half dozen men, none of who are likely be recognizable names to you, but who made big bets against the subprime mortgage market and were rewarded.

These men, mostly from small boutique—and sometimes barely solvent—investment firms are an idiosyncratic bunch. One is a certified sufferer of Asperger’s disorder. They are thought out of their minds because they had what was lacking on Wall St.: commonsense. They were sometimes ostracized because of their beliefs.

Much of the story is about how these half dozen or so men first did what every investor should do: examine what they are buying. When they did, they found mortgages bonds rated aaa but which contained mostly mortgages to people who could not afford the homes.  Many of the subprime mortgage bonds were full of mortgages that could not possible be repaid. Some mortgages were structured so that the borrower was likely to default when the first payment came due.

If only a small portion of the mortgages failed, the bond itself would implode. Their stories are sometimes hilarious and their methods often unorthodox as they tried to find out what the market saw in these bonds that they didn’t.  Many were filled with self-doubt, unable to believe that they could see disaster coming whereas the titans of Wall St. saw nothing but blue skies ahead. They spent a lot of their time trying to prove themselves wrong.  Fortunately, they made the investment in CDOs against the bonds, despite their self-doubt.

Their story, told with Lewis’s sense of humor, is delightful. They reveal a Wall St. that is insular, aloof and not nearly as smart as it think it is.

What is most frightening about this account is that the 2008 crisis was totally avoidable, if only Wall Street wasn’t so oblivious to the obvious. Anyone who looked behind the mortgage bonds being traded during the early 2000’s would see that they were doomed to fail. The market was simply unsustainable.

But the almighty traders and leading Wall St. firms never looked closely at what they were trading. Those putting the mortgage bonds together—as well as those in the rating agencies who dared not look into them—did so without scrutiny, not just from the SEC or the CFTC, but from the executives of Wall St. firms.

It’s clear that when it comes to evaluating investments in the traditional sense, that is without complex derivatives, most on Wall St. are no more sophisticated than the common investor.

But we, of course, get to pay the price of their incompetence.

Internet Gaining on TV and Newspapers?

Date: January 5, 2011
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Cable News, CNN, Declining readership, Fox News, Mainstream Media, MSNBC, NPR, Online Access, Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio, Television

Well, yes…and not necessarily. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has another survey, out this week, that’s informative, if you don’t misinterpret the findings. The clearest finding is that the Internet is becoming more of the medium for news for many folks than television. It certainly hasn’t overtaken it among all groups, though it has among people 19-29 years old. And even that conclusion is somewhat suspect. After all, you can watch a TV program online. Who gets the credit as the source—TV or “the internet”?

This fuzzy conclusion gets more obscured when you read about the internet’s supremacy over newspapers, which applies to the overall population, though not among the 50+ set. After all, whereas most folks don’t go to the internet to watch TV, I’ll bet a sizable portion of those who look for news online indeed go to newspapers sites. Which makes the conclusions here a little misleading.

[M]ore people continue to cite the internet than newspapers as their main source of news, reflecting both the growth of the internet, and the gradual decline in newspaper readership (from 34% in 2007 to 31% now).

…The internet also has grown as a news source for people ages 50 to 64; currently 34% say the internet is their main source of national and international news, nearly equal to the number who cite newspapers (38%), though still far below television (71%). There has been relatively little change in the how people age 65 and older get their news. The internet has risen to 14% from 5% in 2007, but is still far behind newspapers (47%) and television (79%) as a main source.

I wish the good folks at the Pew center (and I love their work) would have worded it differently.  But reading further, there are nuggets that should influence how political questions are debated.

College graduates are about as likely to get most of their national and international news from the internet (51%) as television (54%). Those with some college are just as likely as college grads to cite the internet as their main source (51%), while 63% cite television. By contrast, just 29% of those with no more than a high school education cite the internet while more than twice as many (75%) cite television.

For political operatives that may mean deploying different spokespeople for different media. For example, if it’s the lower middle class you want to target, send those folks who can sound as if they are one of them. I don’t mean that condescendingly. Joe Biden may make a good source on TV news because he has a working class persona, whereas John Kerry may not.

There is some unabashed good news in the survey results.

Reflecting the slow decline in the proportion of people getting most of their national and international news from television, the numbers specifically citing cable news outlets or broadcast networks as their main news source has fallen. When asked where on television they get most of their news, 36% name a cable network such as CNN, the Fox News Channel or MSNBC; 22% name ABC News, CBS News or NBC News; and 16% say they get most of their national and international news from local news programming.

TV is constrained by its format. Rarely are issues covered in-depth and without prejudice or bias. If more people read the news online, they would be caught up in the world of hyperlinks, taking them to new sources that allow them to gain more knowledge and hopefully a broader range of viewpoints, though that’s not guaranteed.

But here’s the best news. The percentage of people who say they get their news from radio has remained constant over the past 20 years. Alas, they all aren’t listening to NPR; many are Limbaugh ditto-heads. According to Carroll Doherty of the Pew Center, NPR’s audience mirrors the general demographics of the population, so both young and old are listening. Why has radio remained constant? Because traffic hasn’t improved most places. Radio listeners tend to be in their cars at the time.