Hit job

OK, after about a month off, I'm back, happily employed in the news biz and working with a great bunch of people, a mix of old newspaper hands, web pros and others.

Time to get back to editing talk.

First up this morning is this headline:

Obama Is in the Jaws of Political Death: Can He Survive?

Let me see. His poll numbers are down but not as low as Ronald Reagan's at this point. The House may indeed turn over to Republican control. Maybe even the Senate. Political death?

Then there's the story. Seriously, what reporter regularly refers to "elites" as if he were in a political science class?  Then this:

The misery afflicting the country has no political affiliation. Listen to the voices from this striking TV ad for Rob Portman, the Republican former Congressman and Bush budget director who is running for Senate from Ohio. One woman at a Dayton career fair says starkly, "There are no jobs." A man announces plaintively and with obvious frustration, "I've been looking for a job now for 13 months." Events like this job fair are becoming the grim iconic gatherings of our time, the breadlines for the Obama years.  

This "has no political affiliation" but then consists of quotes from a Republican commercial??

There may well be a good story to be done that assesses the competence of the Obama administration. This isn't it.
No editor should have let this story see the light of day.

BBC Looks at Numbers

The BBC has been running a good series on numbers:
Surveys

Counting

Percentages

Averages

Causation


Others have done good work too; it's just nice to have a reminder, given some of the bad election-related numbers that are floating around out there. I have been intrigued this week by the way post-convention numbers for Obama have been represented. He got a big bounce. No, he didn't. All based on how the numbers are toted up.

And on a tangential note, wouldn't it be nice if the cable news networks actually did some, you know, news, especially in the mornings and evenings, instead of running nothing but blather, blather, blather on politics?
Update: and of course, there's the moment when blather turns INTO news, as when Republicans Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy forget that the mics are still on.


hat/tip/ TalkingPointsMemo

Worth Noting

David Sullivan notes a smart piece by Tim McGuire, which I'd overlooked. Both those guys should be read as often as possible.

And here's something else, since David elsewhere on his blog notes the paper-is-too-liberal refrain that we often see. I wonder how blog complaints about the paper compare to those submitted on paper? Or even by regular e-mail where there's a chance to identify people?

When I go around town, the complaints I hear most often tend to run along the lines of the paper being too sensational (you're just trying to sell newspapers!) or, because I'm often at school sporting events, lack of pictures of someone's kid scoring the winning goal or maybe just running down the field; sometimes there are complaints about "too many ads" when what they really are griping about lack of news. Much more rare is a complaint about an alleged liberal slant (or even the occasional gripe about too conservative). Many times people can't or won't distinguish between what is reported and what the paper itself believes--if you quote Al Sharpton, you must think the same as Rev. Al.

But really, I am convinced there's an army of blog commenters out there determined to spread a political message and the ease of posting comments allows them to do so, regardless of whether that reflects what your readers believe. If you read enough political blogs, you'll recognize the pattern, the meme of accusation and theory. David said it much more elegantly, of course.

Lots of Words on Politics

Politico outlines some words that can get politicians into trouble. And. separately, Glenn Greenwald excoriates Politico and much of mainstream political coverage of trivial issues. And don't forget about
Electoral-Vote, which does a great job of assembling, assessing and illustrating all kinds of political data.

'The Politico' and Coverage

Now if they'd just stop referring to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others as "thoroughbreds," I might believe they mean to stop the fact-free punditry (Or, as many seem to be saying, "pundints".)

Why reporters get it wrong
By: John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei
New Hampshire sealed it. The winner was Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the loser — not just of Tuesday's primary but of the 2008 campaign cycle so far — was us.

"Us" is the community of reporters, pundits and prognosticators who so confidently — and so rashly — stake our reputations on the illusion that we understand politics and have special insight that allows us to predict the behavior of voters.

If journalists were candidates, there would be insurmountable pressure for us to leave the race. If the court of public opinion were a real court, the best a defense lawyer could do is plea bargain out of a charge that reporters are frauds in exchange for a signed confession that reporters are fools.

Advice from the Hinterland

May I politely suggest that this quote be stamped on the forehead of every editor and reporter in every single newsroom in America? Or perhaps read aloud at the start of every daily news meeting?

This is from a waitress being interviewed over whether Hillary Clinton's team left her a tip:

"You people are really nuts," she told a reporter during a phone interview. "There's kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now -- there's better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn't get a tip."

Ads Targeting Viewers

Even creepier technology is on the way. Story via Media Post and Taegan Goddard's Political Wire. When stuff shows up on my screen, it seems intrusive, much more so than fliers and letters filling my mailbox or reading ads in print.

Can or will newspaper Web sites match this?

This is why I always lie when I can about demographics information when filling out a web form.


Pols Seek To Customize TV Ads
Associated Press via Yahoo
Political candidates have long used databases covering everything from which fliers to send to a specific voter to whether to send someone to knock on his or her door.

But now, new technology that can send individualized ads to cable boxes could give candidates the ability to get into living rooms while altering their voice, appearance and policies to best suit each viewer.

In other words, factors such as race, income, marital status and favorite brands might well determine exactly what individual voters learn about candidates while watching cable TV.

While the technology of "addressable advertising" is not yet widely available, some large cable operators are getting it ready with Comcast Corp., which plans to roll it out within two years.

The system is already in place on some TVs, but Comcast won't say how many, so it is unknown what--if any--impact it might have in 2008. "In whatever medium we can, we want to talk to voters in as individualized a way as we can," says Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who worked on John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

For instance, a candidate could emphasize a position on global warming to an environmental activist while giving health care plan information to people without insurance. And it could also allow for adjustments to mannerisms, speech patterns and appearance.

Read This Essay

Agree or disagree with this essay from The New Republic but please read it. It's a bit of a slow start but fascinating and not terribly long.

Here's how TNR describes it:

John B. Judis's eye-opening cover story draws on a wealth of psychological research, showing how voters are susceptible to politicians who can manipulate their fear of death. Obviously, we all want leaders who can defend us, but only recently have social scientists begun to understand how a fear of our own mortality guides many of our political choices without our ever realizing it--and how politicians like George W. Bush can, and have, tapped it to further their own policies.

Maybe They Were Swatting Flies?

Now this is interesting.

Covering the Iowa straw poll, a blogger for The New Republic says The political press is absolutely head over heels for Huckabee. (There were high-fives all around when it became clear he'd finish second.) He's a genuinely endearing guy who can banter with the best of them--watching him with reporters brings to mind the old black and white footage of Babe Ruth jawboning with sportswriters. When you add that to the political media's general affinity for underdogs, you can see how Huckabee's about to enjoy some serious media afterglow, which will only further boost his profile. With Romney suddenly vulnerable among conservatives and McCain and Giuliani both languishing here--last Sunday's Washington Post poll had McCain at 8 percent and Giuliani at 14, compared with Romney's 26--you may well have just met your 2008 Iowa caucus winner.

The Drop-Down Menu Candidate

One of these days, I'm going to put up what should be a comprehensive list of political web sites but in the meantime, have fun with this code, which purports to help you pick a candidate.

Between the Press and the Blogs

The always smart Jay Rosen has a thoughtful look at the relationship between the press and the liberal blogs.