When I hear "Obama" and "leaks" together this is not what I think about

I saw this headline over on MSNBC.com today:

 My first thought was of the Gulf oil spill, followed by an "Oh really?!" The article is actually about administration and staff members leaking information to the press.

Now I'm not one of those people who immediately assign ulterior motives to everything the press does, but that particular headline does seem a bit suspicious at a time when people are questioning Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill. On the other hand, they could just be fond of making the President look like a brand of paper towels.

Men only do bad things?

Here's an interesting YouTube video about the disappearance of men and the rise of misanthropy.

Interesting video, but I will take one exception to it. The narrator claims that misandry is a word. Not according to Websters. Misanthropy is the word he may be looking for, and it is accepted by spell-check.

EDIT: I checked in the Oxford English Dictionary, and "misandry" is a word in the British English. But since it's evidently not a word in American English, and MS Word is made by an American company, I wouldn't place too much stock in that particular argument.

More on Obama v. Fox News

From Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Magazine:

It’s a cringe-inducing moment, both for those who oppose the White House on policy grounds and those who cheer its every move. As surely as Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton allowed their personal flaws to erode the office of the presidency, Obama seems bent on allowing his own flaws (thin-skinnedness, hubris) to do potentially grave damage to the office as well. And over what? Not some grand policy matter or some key personnel matter, but over the desire to exclude a news network that has criticized him.

Read the whole thing.

Media and politics

Remember the good old days when the role of the press was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? Boy, I miss those days...

(courtesy of "Day by Day" by Chris Muir)

What happened to North Korea?

Did I miss something? A week ago they were testing bombs and missiles, and making threats. Then the problem just...went away. Or at least fell off the front page. Today there's a story about the UN cutting off Kim's luxury goods, which experts agree probably won't make a difference.

So what happened? Did Obama somehow make some behind-the-scenes deal to make Kim Jong Il back off? Or has the media just conveniently forgotten to cover anything that would embarrass their president? I really hope it's the former and not the latter, because I'd hate to see N. Korea suddenly back in the news in the form of a nuke on Juneau.

Swine flu and the media

Does the media coverage of the swine flu outbreak help or hurt? The obvious answer is "yes."

The media often goes too far in pushing a story. They trumpet the frightening details in an attempt to make the stories more "personal and accessible", yet often fail to provide any perspective.

The swine flu story is a good case in point. Often touted is the statistic of "over 150 deaths in Mexico". Buried much further down is the fact that over 2000 persons have contracted the disease. That makes the mortality rate 7.5%--high by American standards, to be sure, but no statistics are given on the mortality rate of more normal flu viruses in Mexico. Besides, Mexican health care and American health care are no comparable.

On the contrary, so far the opposite seems true. Over 75 cases have now been reported in six other countries world-wide, America included. So far there have been no deaths. If the Mexican mortality rate were the norm, then we could expect 5-6 deaths elsewhere so far. And compared with Mexico, the number of cases elsewhere represent only about 4% of the total worldwide spread.

Could this number increase? Quite probably. More advanced countries are already moving to slow or stop the spread of the disease, but other nations will likely experience much higher infection rates--some may even make Mexico seem statistically small by comparison. But I suspect that in the long run swine flu will be no more a pandemic than avian flu or SARS.

The media also does a poor job of deeper investigation. While this could be from a lack of information at this stage, there is doubtless more information they could provide. Of those 150 deaths in Mexico, how many were children or elderly--the typical victims of flu--as opposed to healthy adults? How many of those deaths already had poor health or other medical complications? We don't know, and the media is in no rush to find out.

But the reality is that while any death from flu is unfortunate, it is typically the weakest who succumb. The average adult in moderate to good health is unlikely to experience more than an inconvenience after contracting the virus. This is mostly under-reported in the media. The facts are often present, but seldom are the dots connected for easy public comprehension.

However, in spite of this, the media probably does as much or more than any other group to help stop the spread of such diseases. Knowledge is power. Those most likely to get the disease are those who do not know there is even a danger.

When the media pushes "epidemic" stories as they are doing with swine flu the public is aware and can act accordingly. While there is far more over-reaction than is necessary, when the general public takes steps to avoid infection it usually works. People become more health-conscious and start washing their hands more, using disinfectants more, and avoiding public places as much as they can. Those who get sick tend to stay home more readily, limiting the exposure to others. These tactics alone can be quite effective, even without vaccines or government programs.

Swine flu is not an epidemic. Nor is it likely to become one, at least in most countries. And while the media deserves some criticism for not providing more perspective, they should also be thanked for getting the word out. An informed public is a safer public.

Newsweek Turning On Obama

Wow, he's starting to lose the Main-Stream Media:

Barack Obama is a great pretender. He constantly says he's doing things that he isn't, and he relies on his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. He has made "responsibility" a personal theme, and the budget's cover line is "A New Era of Responsibility." He claims that the budget begins "making the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal discipline." It doesn't.

Let's recognize that, with today's depressed economy, big deficits are unavoidable for some years. Let's also assume that Obama wins reelection. By his last year, 2016, the economy will have presumably long recovered. What, then, does his final budget look like? Well, it runs a $637 billion deficit, equal to 3.2 percent of the economy (gross domestic product), projects Obama's Office of Management and Budget. Just for the record, that would roughly match Ronald Reagan's last deficit, 3.1 percent of GDP in 1988, so fiercely criticized by Democrats.

As a society, we should be willing to pay in taxes what it costs government to provide desired services. If benefits don't seem equal to burdens, then the spending isn't worth having (granting exceptions for deficits in wartime and economic slumps).

If Obama were "responsible," he would be leading a candid conversation about government's size and role. Who deserves support and why? How big can government grow before higher taxes and deficits harm long-term economic growth? Although Obama claims to be doing this, he hasn't confronted entitlement psychology—the belief that government benefits once conferred should never be revoked—and asked whether some significant spending no longer serves any "public interest."

The article also points out that Obama's budget will shrink defense spending considerably over the next eight years, which assumes a safer world than we can necessarily expect--or assumes isolationist strategies that would be less than wise.

It then goes on to discuss his handling of the economy. While they're unwilling to lay blame for all of the market declines in 2009 at his feet, they're certainly not giving him a pass:

Confidence (too little) and uncertainty (too much) are at the core of this crisis. All of Obama's double-talk threatens to reduce the first and raise the second. Investors and traders have surely noticed the discrepancies between Obama's words and actions.

Obama says he's focused singlemindedly on reviving the economy, but he's also using the crisis as a vehicle to advance an ambitious long-term agenda to reengineer the U.S. economy. The two sometimes collide. The $787 billion "stimulus" is weaker than necessary, because almost $200 billion of the impact occurs after 2010. Many of these extended projects (high-speed rail, computerized medical records) can't be accomplished quickly. When Congress debates Obama's sweeping health-care and energy proposals, industries, regions and governmental philosophies will clash. Will this improve confidence? Reduce uncertainty?

A prudent president would have made a "tough choice"— concentrated on the economy, deferred his more contentious agenda. Similarly, Obama claims to seek bipartisanship but, in reality, doesn't. His bipartisanship consists of sprinkling his cabinet with token Republicans and inviting some Republican members of Congress to the White House to watch the Super Bowl. It does not consist of fashioning proposals that would attract bipartisan support on their merits. Instead, he clings to dubious, partisan policies (mortgage cramdown, union checkoff) that arouse fierce opposition.

The article then ends with a most interesting assessment:

It is Obama's conceit—perhaps his cockiness—that he can ignore these blatant inconsistencies. Like many smart people, he believes he can talk his way around any problem. Perhaps he can. In this, he has an ally in much of the mainstream media, which seem so enthralled with him that they can't recognize glaring contradictions. During the campaign, Obama claimed he would change Washington's petty partisanship; he also advocated a highly partisan agenda. Both claims could not be true. The media barely noticed; the same obliviousness persists. But Obama still runs a risk: that his overworked rhetoric loses its power and boomerangs on him. (emphasis added)

So Newsweek hasn't been carrying the torch for Obama? They seem to completely ignore that they are a part of that "much of the mainstream media". On the other hand, if they're really going to take off the blinders, it's better late than never. If they're willing to start taking a closer look at Obama's policies and actions I'm willing to let them get away with dodging blame. Just a little.

Obama-mania vs. Non-Critical Thought

Howard Kurtz takes a somewhat bemused, somewhat cautionary look at the excitement swirling around Obama:

"Here we are," writes Salon's Rebecca Traister, "oohing and aahing over what they'll be wearing, and what they'll be eating, what kind of dog they'll be getting, what bedrooms they'll be living in, and what schools they'll be attending. It feels better than good to sniff and snurfle through the Obamas' tastes and habits. . . . Who knew we had in us the capacity to fall for this kind of idealized Americana again?"

But aren't media people supposed to resist this kind of hyperventilating?

I've been one of those convinced that the media has lost their objectivity. But in reading this article it occurred to me. It's not necessarily that media has lost their neutrality. It's that they've lost their focus on news. Somewhere along the road they decided that the public wanted commentary along with the news. The result is that you can read a newspaper from cover to cover and not find a page without an editorial, whether official or not. Online news especially thrives on the "reporter-as-personality" model.

To be sure, even when media tries to report straight news they still have the potential for bias in what stories they choose to report. Consider how long media sat on the John Edwards affair compared with the rumor of a Sarah Palin affair. One was surpressed for half a year until a tabloid broke the story, the other was plastered coast to coast before any real verification had taken place. There is media bias.

But there is also a serious lack of critical reading. Far too few readers (myself included sometimes) pay attention to whether what they're reading is true news or commentary. And even in straight news stories, how many of us take the time to ask critical-thinking questions about what we've read?

There is media bias, to be sure. There has always been media bias (in "State of the Union" (see below) our hero was practically hand-picked for candidacy by a media mogul), and there always will be. Certainly the degree and direction of bias changes from source to source and over time. But we do need to take at least a little responsibility for what we read and how we read it.

It's Not Even History Yet...

...and yet the revisionists are already at it.

From MSNBC news:

President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived at the White House for a visit, his first since last week's landslide election victory.

Perhaps an Electoral College landslide, but the popular vote was close enough to make "landslide" a difficult case to make. Or are we no longer paying attention to the popular vote now that it's no longer convenient.

Furthermore, what does that little bit of info, even if true, have to do with the story at hand. Obama was elected president. We know what. The news is that he's meeting with Bush today for the first time. Period. Editorializing in the first paragraph of the article is just plain bad journalism.

At least the Washington Post can admit they're doing a poor job...if after the fact.

Can't Tell the Players Without A Program!

Daniel Gallington has proposed a great idea for keeping media honest:

Now, hold on to your hats, because when the networks adopt my idea, we will no longer care about the bias or point of view in what their anchors, reporters, correspondents or commentators say. And liberals will rejoice because conservatives will have to stop complaining about the so-called "liberal bias in media".

My proposal:

Let's have the FCC require that the networks designate their news people with either a "D" or a little "R". Some examples: "Katie Couric (D-CBS)", Wolf Blitzer "D-CNN", "Keith Olbermann (D-MSNBC), "Chris Mathhews (D-MSNBC), Bill Moyers and Gwen Ifful (D-PBS) and yes, Joe Scarborough (R-MSNBC). Get the idea?

If FOX News is really "fair and balanced" - like they say they are - let's make them put a "D" or "R" under the person's picture as he/she talks. I want to know for sure if that feisty Irish guy on the "No Spin Zone" is a Democrat or a Republican – and not, as he alleges, an "independent."

A caveat: I'm afraid if we let FOX use an "I", then all the networks would want to use it and we would end up exactly where we are now. So, to keep the system brutally honest – absolutely no "I's" would be permitted. After all, that's what they all say they are now.