riddle me this, blogman

When is a blogger not a journalist? Go here to read all about McCain blogger Michael Goldfarb, who refers to himself as a journalist.

But clearly, is not. Or he plays by different rules. bk

going dark

So last week we got into a discussion about digital news, cable TV and traditional journalism -- all pegged to this story on Martin Eisenstadt, the anonymous McCain staffer who was reported to have leaked the much-told tale that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Cable chatterers, from both sides of the dial, ate it up. We all did.

Except.

There is no Eisenstadt. He never worked on McCain's campaign. Even if he did, he doesn't know Palin from six bits. And his blog? Yeah, it's a hoax.

The question was how could journalists report anything like that without checking it out, and whether blogs and youtube tend to enable sloppyy reporting.

Chitchat evolved into a debate about political reporting, cable news itself, and whether any original journalism goes on there at all -- with one student, who may have been channeling Chris Matthews, finally saying that by the time night falls, everyone already knows what's happened anyway, so if folks tune in at all, all they are looking for is spin.

Really? In other words, people are so news hungry, they update themselves throughout the day? To test the theory, I looked at the clock (2:45 p.m.) and said to the class in general: okay, so tell me what's happened so far today. Sheepish looks, total silence. All of which led, in turn, to a serious discussion (okay, a rant) about whether the general (okay, appalling) lack of interest in current events -- even among journalism students, for the love of God -- is partly responsible for the implosion of the news media. We get what we ask for?

So the question became what do we do to support good journalism -- and how do we get people across the board to understand how vital it is to our communities, to our democracy.

Katie Powers, Editor-in-Chief of our campus newspaper, had brought up the original question about Eisenstadt. Her suggestion: maybe journalists across the country should go on strike for 24 hours. No news. Nothing for fatuous blogs to link to. No fodder for cable spin.

Just go dark. Kinda like it. bk

backfire

In the wake of last weekend's negative campaign blitz by the McCain Palin campaign, we had a few class discussions -- roughly linked to posts on fairness and objectivity -- regarding how reporters should cover speeches of the "pallin' around with terrorists" variety.

Or if they should cover them at all.

The ultimate conclusion by both introductory and advanced j. students was that, yes, such stump speeches should be covered, no matter how hate-filled, not necessarily for what they reveal about the opponent but for what they reveal about the candidate him/herself. In other words, my students were smart enough to suspect over a week ago that the McCain-Palin attack tactics were likely to backfire.

The latest New York Times/CBS poll found that the kids were all right. The poll found that, among probably voters, Obama held a 14 point lead over McCain, 53 - 39. Among those voters who had changed their opinions, the Times writes:

"Voters who said their opinions of Mr. Obama had changed recently were twice as likely to say they had grown more favorable as to say they had worsened. And voters who said that their views of Mr. McCain had changed were three times more likely to say that they had worsened than to say they had improved.

"The top reasons cited by those who said they thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. (The vast majority said their opinions of Mr. Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee, and Mr. McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, had remained unchanged in recent weeks.) But in recent days, Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin have scaled back their attacks on Mr. Obama, although Mr. McCain suggested he might aggressively take on Mr. Obama in Wednesday’s debate."

Dispatch from Columbia University: Obama/McCain

Jeremy Herb (SCU '08) now a grad student at Columbia's J-School, sends the following dispatch re the Obama-McCain panel on public service at Columbia University in New York today:

"It's been a fun day, though the speeches were a bit of a letdown. After classes, I grabbed a camera and a notebook and went out without knowing what I'd find. I ended up writing about some other non-Columbia students who made it into the speeches, and then also protesters outside the school. I even took photos for a slideshow of the protesters, something I don't have too much experience with. The atmosphere was pretty crazy, both outside and in the student center, which has turned into a newsroom. I'm glad I got to be part of this project, which probably had about 20 people contributing either as reporters, photographers, multimedia people or editors. And there was a lot of good stuff on there from all over the city. This was completely student planned and run, and is a good sign of the entrepreneurial ability of my class. It would have been fun had I gotten into the event either as a student or press, but that's OK."

Here's Jeremy's complete blog.

Here's an excerpt:

It's been a zoo here today at Columbia: police surrounding the campus, entrances closed, having to show a school ID to get on campus.

After finishing classes, I went out and did some reporting, adding to the above blog. I put myself on the protest beat, as I was first to put up a slideshow when protesters gathered a little after 5 p.m. It was very peaceful, I even saw protesters talking with a nearby officer.

The steps outside Columbia were full of students, as a giant TV screen was outside. I watched inside the J-school student center, which has essentially turned into a newsroom, complete with a live feed of the room on the blog.

photo courtesy jeremy herb

lies, damn lies and statistics

Numbers don't lie. Unless they do.

Polls are showing a sudden surge of support for McCain-Palin among white women. I'm feeling a little bit of backlash about the way those numbers are being used. I smell some sexism going on here -- not necessarily in the way Palin is being portrayed by the media -- but more in the way these polls are being spun by pundits and cynics.

I'm a white woman. I know lots of white women. Some of my best friends are white women. I don't know one of them who would kick her political ideals to the curb simply because a candidate shows up in a skirt.

I do know two who were impressed and intrigued by Hillary early in the primary season, but as lifelong Republicans, they have always sworn their allegiance to McCain. As for the PUMAs, yes, they make for sexy interviews, but clearly we are talking outliers here.

So my question is, who ARE these white women rushing to support the Republican ticket? Independents? Undecideds? Were they there all along and are just now making their numbers known? Clearly, we need to drill down the data to find out more about these women -- rather than to use the numbers to imply that white women voters on the whole are fickle, foolish and more interested in gender than issues.

As i said, backlash: demeaning, insulting, marginalizing.

Speaking of which, I heard a new term today to refer to a certain segment of the vote: "K-mart moms". Really?! Enough. bk

no such thing as bad ink

A funny thing happened while the Republicans were setting up the so-called elite media as enemy number one: The McCain-Palin ticket took complete control of the news agenda. According to The Project for Excellence in Journalism Coverage Index for last week, Sarah Palin dominated campaign coverage, even earning more press than her running mate. Her selection itself and her acceptance speech garnered the most coverage at 28 percent. Family issues came in at 10 percent, while stories about her public record scored 6 percent. Whether the coverage was positive or negative, it had one desired effect for the McCain camp: it knocked Obama off page one.

According to the report:

"Sarah Palin, the first woman on a Republican ticket, was the focus of feverish attention as the media tried to find out more about her, convey her record and biography, and calculate her impact on the race. For the week of Sept. 1-7, Palin was a significant or dominant factor in 60% of the campaign stories, according to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. McCain was fairly close behind, a significant or dominant factor in 52% of the stories.

Put another way, Palin enjoyed more coverage as a VP candidate during the GOP convention than Obama did a week earlier when he became the first person of color to accept the nomination for president of a major party. With the other ticket making most of the news, Obama was a focus in 22% of the stories last week, by far his lowest week of coverage in the general election season. His running mate Joe Biden registered at 2%."

Speechification, 101

If last night's speeches at the RNC are any indication, the McCain campaign is running hard against two opponents: Barack Obama and that darned old Elite Media, suggests Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times. It's an old, old song -- Dan Quayle, anyone? -- but is a sure-fire trick to rally the faithful. This time around, the lightening rod is Sarah Palin, who is being portrayed as the victim of the nasty media -- read "liberal" -- which has had to the nerve to take a peek into her background beyond the campaign bio.

Hmmmm. I thought that was our job. Heartbeat away, and all of that, right?

Prepare to hear more of the same tonight -- and whenever else the news media deviates from the party line.

Speaking of which, there is a good lesson in the true meaning of journalistic objectivity in all of last night's speechiness wrt Palin. Meaningless definition: Slam, bam, thank you ma'am: Record what's said and your job is done. True definition: Add context.

Speakers can say whatever they want. Reporters need to remember that the speech itself is just the beginning. As Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn shows here, it's up to reporters to let readers/viewers know whether what's said in a speech is fact or fiction. Check it out.

Have just returned from a family va-kay, where we had a steady diet of sun, news, and political chitchat -- not necessarily in that order. Back on track tomorrow. bk