Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:02:01 -0400
Reply-To: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Subject: Re: Syncro Steve Schwenk in the NYTimes?
In-Reply-To: <7b.361a44ec.2e9d6b3f@aol.com>
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I have many thoughts on this...However the chief one that comes to mind
is:
KILL THIS THREAD NOW!
On Oct 12, 2004, at 1:15 PM, Joe Adams wrote:
> Thumbing thru the NYT on Sunday, I came upon a passage where the
> paper's
> public editor lambasted someone named Steve Schwenk in San Francisco
> for wishing
> that a reporter's kid would get his head blown off. Isn't this the
> dude who
> puts on the Syncro de Mayo event? How civil you Californians are.
> Joe
>
> From Sunday's NYTimes Public Editor Article:
>
> ...But before I turn over the podium, I do want you to know just how
> debased
> the level of discourse has become. When a reporter receives an e-mail
> message
> that says, "I hope your kid gets his head blown off in a Republican
> war," a
> limit has been passed.
>
> That's what a coward named Steve Schwenk, from San Francisco, wrote to
> national political correspondent Adam Nagourney several days ago
> because Nagourney
> wrote something Schwenk considered (if such a person is capable of
> consideration) pro-Bush. Some women reporters regularly receive sexual
> insults and
> threats. As nasty as critics on the right can get (plenty nasty), the
> left seems to
> be winning the vileness derby this year. Maybe the bloggers who
> encourage
> their readers to send this sort of thing to The Times might want to
> ask them
> instead to say it in public. I don't think they'd dare.
>
> Here's the whole article....
>
> October 10, 2004
> THE PUBLIC EDITOR
>
> How Would Jackson Pollock Cover This Campaign?
> By DANIEL OKRENT
>
>
> SEPTEMBER 26, re "Kerry as the Boss: Always More Questions": Faith C.
> McCready thinks "the Kerry campaign ought to be paying The Times a
> consultant/advertising fee" for the article. Scott Libbey of Chevy
> Chase, Md., calls it "another
> negative article on Kerry," and concludes: "I don't know how you guys
> can
> look at yourselves in the mirror anymore. I really don't."
>
> October 5, regarding a few stories: From Michael Malone of Darien,
> Conn., "I
> know that many of the Times reporters and editors are breathlessly
> trying to
> get Kerry elected." And from John Owens of San Francisco, "I often
> won't read
> your paper because of the relentless pounding on Kerry."
>
> Al Markel of San Francisco asks why The Times hasn't reviewed the
> anti-Kerry
> "Unfit for Command" while Samuel Leff of Manhattan wonders why Justin
> Frank's
> critical psychoanalytic study, "Bush on the Couch," has been ignored
> by the
> Book Review editors. Francis Moynihan of Avon, Conn., congratulates
> The Times's
> Web site for "finally, a headline critical of Kerry" that uses the word
> "pander"; John Owens objects, saying that "a comparable headline about
> Bush would
> read ' ... according to the poll Americans find Bush to be a liar and
> an idiot.'
> " I'm tempted to refer all these correspondents, and the many hundreds
> of
> others they represent, to my colleague Mike Needs, ombudsman of The
> Akron Beacon
> Journal. "On Monday and Tuesday," Mike wrote in an e-mail last week,
> "my calls
> were all from conservatives saying the paper leaned left."
>
> "On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday," he continued, "my calls were all
> from
> liberals saying the paper leaned right. But I did have one caller who
> said we
> were getting the balance just right. I discounted that one."
>
> A definition of irony: what an ombudsman or public editor must
> appreciate to
> survive this campaign.
>
> I've been reading The Times's campaign coverage like any other
> interested
> (and, by now, exhausted) citizen for months, but with special care, a
> pair of
> scissors, two marking pens and three other papers to use for
> comparison since
> Labor Day. Along the way, my own research has been richly amplified by
> reader
> mail, the buzzing of the blogs and the occasional complaint registered
> by party
> officials. Two readers generously provided me exhaustive analyses of
> the
> photographs of each candidate published in The Times (and came to
> opposite
> conclusions).
>
> I will stipulate here that I'll be voting for John Kerry next month
> and will
> further admit that I have bent over backward to listen to pro-Bush
> complaints, in a conscious effort to counterbalance my own prejudices.
> I don't buy the
> argument a couple of Times editors have made, that because charges of
> bias come
> from both liberals and conservatives, the paper must therefore be doing
> things right. This makes as much sense as saying that a man with one
> foot on a
> block of ice and the other on a bed of hot coals must feel just fine.
>
> In fact, I can find many things to criticize in The Times's election
> coverage. I'm as interested in the inside baseball of campaigns as the
> next politics
> nerd, but the paper's obsessive attention to backroom maneuvers and
> spin-room
> speculation obscures, rather than enhances, my understanding of the
> candidates. Much seems directed not at readers but at the campaign
> staffs and other
> journalists. The chronic overreliance on anonymous comments from
> self-serving
> partisans in news stories is equally maddening. (I prefer the pieces
> tagged "News
> Analysis" or "Political Memo," where at least we can hear the sound of
> the
> writer's own voice, and take into account the writer's apparent
> views.) And why
> the paper would ask a reporter to provide "real-time analysis" online
> during
> the debates is beyond me. The very phrase is an oxymoron; analysis
> requires
> reflection.
>
> But there are plenty of press critics in print and on the Web, so
> I'll cede
> the general criticism to them. Here's the question for a public
> editor: Is The
> Times systematically biased toward either candidate?
>
> No.
>
> So farewell, legions of the left and armies of the right - all of you
> who
> have been faithful supporters when I've endorsed your various
> positions in past
> columns, but who will believe I have either lost my mind or sacrificed
> my
> credibility. I'm grateful for your close attention and your
> stimulating company,
> and I admire your passionate commitment.
>
> But passion is a distorting lens that makes it hard to perceive the
> shape of
> things. Partisans will see the depredations committed against their
> man, but
> won't notice similar articles or headlines or photographs that may
> damage the
> other guy. Readers outraged by the Sept. 26 piece on Kerry's
> decision-making
> style ask when The Times will do a similar piece on Bush apparently
> because they
> didn't notice the one that ran Aug. 29 ("Bush Takes On Direct Role in
> Shaping
> Election Tactics").
>
> A Bush-hater will see a front-page picture of the confident president
> greeting enthusiastic crowds and shout "Bias!" much more quickly than
> he will
> remember the nearly identical photo of Kerry that ran the day before.
> Republicans
> who object to the play given a recent story about scientists
> campaigning against
> the president are unaware of the Democrats' cries of bias after The
> Times
> failed in June to report on an anti-Bush statement signed by 27 retired
> diplomats.
>
> If there's a commissariat at The Times ordering up coverage to help
> or hurt
> a specific candidate, it's doing a lousy job; close reading shows
> bruises
> administered to each (and free passes handed out) in a pattern adapted
> from
> Jackson Pollock. Many people want to know why the other guy's position
> is in the
> first paragraph of a story, and their side doesn't weigh in until the
> sixth; they
> don't notice when it's the other way around. Sherrie Sutton of
> Manhattan, who
> describes herself as "the only possible Bush vote on the Upper West
> Side,"
> asked why Times headlines consistently use "attack" when Republicans
> criticize
> Democrats, but not when Democrats criticize Republicans. Intrigued, my
> associate, Arthur Bovino, determined that in the past year, headlined
> Republicans
> attacked Democrats 12 times and Democrats attacked Republicans 22
> times. Ms.
> Sutton replied: "Statistics don't lie, and you've got 'em.
> Interesting, that in the
> face of facts, I could still feel unsatisfied that campaign coverage
> by the
> NYTimes is balanced."
>
> Interesting, and honest, and for most of us, inevitable as well.
> Conservatives thought Cheney won the vice-presidential debate;
> liberals thought Edwards
> did. I can look at pictures of my children and see that they are
> flawless; you
> will see them differently (even though they are, of course, flawless).
> Write a
> book, get a lousy review - it's happened to me several times - and you
> challenge the reviewer's judgment, not your own. We see, and we are
> more vulnerable
> to, those things that matter most to us.
>
> Unquestionably, individual articles, headlines or photographs do cast
> one or
> another candidate in a colored light, either rosy or dark. Headlines
> are
> especially toxic because of their reductive nature. Eric Kessin of
> Scarsdale, N.Y.,
> wrote to say that the Friday, Sept. 2, headline "Jobless Figures Could
> Emphasize Bush's Big Weakness" might as easily have read "Jobless
> Figures Could
> Emphasize Bush's Claim of Economic Growth." He was right and, in fact,
> the
> Saturday story was headlined "Job Figures Help President Promote
> Economic Record"
>
> That was accurate, but it, too, was not without its own coloration.
> Nothing
> is, especially when removed from the context of the long slog of the
> campaign
> and The Times's extended coverage. If The Times fails to give
> prominent space
> to a candidate's speech because it's a repeat of yesterday's, the
> paper is
> helping the opposition; if it does cover it, it's promoting the
> interests of the
> repetitive candidate. Show me an interesting photograph, and I'll show
> you an
> opinion. (I can't wait to hear what readers think of the Kerry
> portrait today
> on the cover The New York Times Magazine, much less the article
> itself.) (Check
> that: Yes, I can.)
>
> Those readers who long for the days of absolutely untinted,
> nothing-but-the-facts newspapering ought to have an Associated Press
> ticker installed on the
> breakfast table. Newspapers today and especially this newspaper are
> asking
> their reporters and editors to go deep into a story, and when and
> where you go
> deep is itself a matter of judgment. And every judgment, it appears,
> offends
> someone.
>
> It is axiomatic that the facts or characterizations a journalist
> chooses to
> include can tilt a reader's impression. So can the choice of articles,
> the
> prominence they're given, the immense weight of the entire, cumulative
> chronicle
> of a too-long campaign.
>
> But it is equally axiomatic that the reader who has already tilted
> toward a
> particular candidate or position will instinctively view the world and
> The
> Times - from his or her own personal angle.
>
> This piece turned out to be more of a rant than I intended, but given
> the
> vicious nature of some of the attacks levied against certain
> reporters, I wasn't
> inclined to be temperate. There are many critics of The Times's
> election
> coverage who are measured and reasonable, and their views - very
> different from my
> own - will be represented in this space next week. I also don't wish to
> discourage readers who in good faith find errors, misrepresentations
> or unfair
> characterizations. They may occur randomly, but their frequency is
> disappointing,
> and I'll continue to forward meritorious complaints to the appropriate
> editors
> and reporters. Many will find expression in the corrections column, or
> in this
> one.
>
> But before I turn over the podium, I do want you to know just how
> debased the
> level of discourse has become. When a reporter receives an e-mail
> message
> that says, "I hope your kid gets his head blown off in a Republican
> war," a limit
> has been passed.
>
> That's what a coward named Steve Schwenk, from San Francisco, wrote to
> national political correspondent Adam Nagourney several days ago
> because Nagourney
> wrote something Schwenk considered (if such a person is capable of
> consideration) pro-Bush. Some women reporters regularly receive sexual
> insults and
> threats. As nasty as critics on the right can get (plenty nasty), the
> left seems to
> be winning the vileness derby this year. Maybe the bloggers who
> encourage
> their readers to send this sort of thing to The Times might want to
> ask them
> instead to say it in public. I don't think they'd dare.
>
> The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions
> and
> conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in
> this
> section.
>
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