1. David Brooks blames the message the messengers choose to deliver for Gen. Stanley McChrystal's downfall. NYT
2. Robert Rector eviscerates a Michigan lawmaker's cheeky proposal to license journalists. Robert Rector
3. Walter Shapiro says the Rolling Stone exposé of Gen. McChrystal means the end of fly-on-the-wall journalism for now (which will make David Brooks [see above] happy). Politics Daily
4. The Internet overlords want to give online pornography its own .xxx suffix. Reuters
Showing posts with label david brooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label david brooks. Show all posts
Jun 25, 2010
Apr 20, 2010
Cocoons or public squares?
A new study, summarized by David Brooks at the New York Times, challenges the notion that the Internet is driving us into ideological cocoons and might actually encourage us to take in a diversity of opinions. However, it might also be a convenient tool to help us reinforce our prejudices by navigating a fractious set of media and social sites.
Sep 16, 2009
Feb 21, 2008
The best of Times, the worst of Times
Everyone seems to have an opinion about the New York Times expose of John McCain. From what I've read, most of them seem completely backwards (Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post has a good summary of the aftermath).
From my point of view, the story isn't the problem. It's the presentation.
Clearly, even these old allegations of questionable dealings with lobbyists and power brokers are worth rehashing. Unless you're a political junkie, you probably don't know about them. But the story goes further, leading with allegations of a close relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. According to the story, McCain's own people felt something inappropriate was going on and intervened to push Iseman out of his life.
That's newsworthy. And being newsworthy, it is incumbent upon the Times to ask why. Why did McCain have such a close relationship with this particular lobbyist? Why did his aides become so uncomfortable? Why did they take the extraordinary step of running her off?
The problem, it seems, is that many readers don't like the answers. The Times was left in the unenviable position of publishing these answers, knowing they are bound to offend and open the paper to attack, or hide them out of some rationale of good taste and fairness.
The Times had to publish the information. It's the business they're in. As HST was fond of saying, Buy the ticket, take the ride.
So what went wrong?
The story is full of jerky transitions, it lacks an authoritative voice, and the lede reads more like gawky innuendo than tough-minded reporting. As Gabriel Sherman reports, there was an internal battle over how best to release the beast.
The result is a classic example of journalism by committee - too many cooks and all that.
In the end, I'd guess the more cautious (and senior) editor Bill Keller stripped out much of the reporters' context and background surrounding the allegations of an affair to expose the "facts," thereby leaving the reader to weigh them and decide for him or herself whether they rung true.
The "context and caveats" just aren't there.
Unfortunately, that kind of editing often has the opposite effect of its intent. It leaves the narrative full of holes. Readers - and interested parties - are left to fill those holes in with whatever opinions, theories, conspiracies they have at hand:
Are these gaps a result of shoddy or incomplete reporting? What aren't they telling us? Why did they lead with this allegation of an affair but not make explicit the connection to other parts of the story? Is the Times biased? Why do they hate John McCain? Hate Republicans? Did the paper slip in the bit about the affair just to embarrass McCain? What does Iseman have to do with the Keating Five?
Caution was misinterpreted as coyness. Coyness appears subjective. And subjectivity is an irresponsible motive when these kinds of charges are made.
Uncomfortable facts are like angry badgers. When you catch one, you need to deal with the damn thing yourself, not throw it to the reader and hope for the best.
(Note: David Brooks has an interesting analysis of the men behind McCain - and possibly behind the story.)
Everyone seems to have an opinion about the New York Times expose of John McCain. From what I've read, most of them seem completely backwards (Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post has a good summary of the aftermath).
From my point of view, the story isn't the problem. It's the presentation.
Clearly, even these old allegations of questionable dealings with lobbyists and power brokers are worth rehashing. Unless you're a political junkie, you probably don't know about them. But the story goes further, leading with allegations of a close relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. According to the story, McCain's own people felt something inappropriate was going on and intervened to push Iseman out of his life.
That's newsworthy. And being newsworthy, it is incumbent upon the Times to ask why. Why did McCain have such a close relationship with this particular lobbyist? Why did his aides become so uncomfortable? Why did they take the extraordinary step of running her off?
The problem, it seems, is that many readers don't like the answers. The Times was left in the unenviable position of publishing these answers, knowing they are bound to offend and open the paper to attack, or hide them out of some rationale of good taste and fairness.
The Times had to publish the information. It's the business they're in. As HST was fond of saying, Buy the ticket, take the ride.
So what went wrong?
The story is full of jerky transitions, it lacks an authoritative voice, and the lede reads more like gawky innuendo than tough-minded reporting. As Gabriel Sherman reports, there was an internal battle over how best to release the beast.
The result is a classic example of journalism by committee - too many cooks and all that.
In the end, I'd guess the more cautious (and senior) editor Bill Keller stripped out much of the reporters' context and background surrounding the allegations of an affair to expose the "facts," thereby leaving the reader to weigh them and decide for him or herself whether they rung true.
The "context and caveats" just aren't there.
Unfortunately, that kind of editing often has the opposite effect of its intent. It leaves the narrative full of holes. Readers - and interested parties - are left to fill those holes in with whatever opinions, theories, conspiracies they have at hand:
Are these gaps a result of shoddy or incomplete reporting? What aren't they telling us? Why did they lead with this allegation of an affair but not make explicit the connection to other parts of the story? Is the Times biased? Why do they hate John McCain? Hate Republicans? Did the paper slip in the bit about the affair just to embarrass McCain? What does Iseman have to do with the Keating Five?
Caution was misinterpreted as coyness. Coyness appears subjective. And subjectivity is an irresponsible motive when these kinds of charges are made.
Uncomfortable facts are like angry badgers. When you catch one, you need to deal with the damn thing yourself, not throw it to the reader and hope for the best.
(Note: David Brooks has an interesting analysis of the men behind McCain - and possibly behind the story.)
Dec 18, 2007
A liberal with soul
Democrats have been searching for a savior since 2000, when their best hope to continue the Clinton legacy got beat by a man they strongly suspected was mildly retarded.
David Brooks makes a semi-convincing case in today's New York Times that the Democrats need look no further than Barack Obama: In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.
This is a long and elegant way of saying Obama has the constancy of character that will allow him to stand up to any Republican espousing core values or faith-based principles.
Perhaps Brooks is right. After all, who better to carry the torch of liberalism than a black man who has lived the prejudices the white liberal elite can only talk about? Maybe Obama would be liberalism's greatest legacy.
Besides, he's young and this country has overly concentrated its wealth and power in the hands of the old. Obama is a turning of the page.
Not sure whether the Dems in Iowa and New Hampshire will see it this way. After 2004, they may be averse to the kind of risk taking they need to embrace to throw a real challenge the GOP's way.
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