What’s in a Name? How the US Media Support the Butchers of Burma

What’s in a name? In a word, everything. To call a person a name, or out of their name, is to deny them something essential, something sacrosanct.

The nation the media call “Myanmar” has gone by two names for centuries: Burma, and Myanmar. It was known to the UN and the West as the Union of Burma until 1989, a year after a military dictatorship seized power and renamed it the Union of Myanmar.

For twenty years that military dictatorship has run a repressive police state where mass murder, torture, and forced labor are routine. The current typhoon aid debacle shows how little regard the Burmese regime has for human life.

Most of the world has adopted “Myanmar,” but the UK and the US Department of State haven’t. Burmese groups opposed to the regime prefer “Burma” and consider the use of ”Myanmar” as acquiescing to the regime.

The media in the UK generally use the name “Burma” while the media in the US, both left and right—FoxNews is a notable exception—generally use “Myanmar.”

The British media exercise admirable discipline and decorum in denying the regime in Burma its legitimacy. The American media display ignorance and weakness by failing to do the same.

Newsprism

Darkened Roots—The Real Meaning of Reverend Wright for Barack Obama

Forget Jeremiah Wright, the man. What does Jeremiah Wright, the icon or persona created in the media based on that man, really, really mean?

The reason the Wright story, or rather, the persona, resonated so loudly in the media is that it taps into two deeply emotional divisions simultaneously, one racial, the other political.

Wright isn’t just black, he identifies himself as black and, more to the point, fundamentally separates himself from the dominant white culture. He’s a black nationalist, a Christian version of Farrakhan who rejects America in favor of a radical racial vision of “nation.”

His nation is not ours—that’s at the root of black nationalism, and it strikes the American people as something utterly alien and antagonistic and irreconcilable, like communism or anarchism, or the Marxist liberation theology that underpins Reverend Wright’s philosophy. It’s a threat to the very center, the very core, of American society, a threat to its moral authority.

But the threat is also a racial one, which is why having the radical, black, and radically black persona of Jeremiah Wright associated with Obama has damaged his candidacy so badly. Wright, the black Marxist, was once described as Obama’s spiritual mentor; people are left to wonder if one’s spirituality can be so glibly divorced from one’s political philosophy, and, once again, why Obama doesn’t wear a neon flag pin.

What’s more interesting than this darkening of Obama’s roots is the fact that it was not orchestrated by Clinton or McCain so much as imposed on the nation by a two-week obsession with Wright in the mainstream media, especially the content-starved cable news networks. Nor was it the conservative FoxNews that ran this story into the ground so much as the liberal MSNBC and, to a lesser degree, the liberal CNN.

It was as if the liberal media that anointed Obama were having second thoughts. If even they can have second thoughts about Obama, who can guess the depth of suspicion he evokes among the “less enlightened” white working class voter?

Newsprism

Never Mind the 50 Most Influential Pundits—Here Are 10 of the Best

After the success of its “Top 100 Liberals” and “Top 100 Conservatives,” the UK’s Telegraph has now unveiled its “Top 50 Political Pundits.” All three lists have had many in the media buzzing (like flies around a fresh, steaming cow patty.)

Before you check the lists out, a warning: they’re broken down into mini-lists of 10 or 20, so that to peruse them all, you’ll wind up clicking on 17 separate web pages—a cynical ploy aimed at maximizing the Telegraph’s web traffic to drive up advertising rates.

So never mind the Telegraph’s gimmicky lists, which confuse popularity with influence. Influence is a poor measure in the first place, especially when the news media have become more oriented towards entertainment than analysis. By what criteria are comics like Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh, or a superficial confrontationalist like Hack Hannity, or Glenn Beck, considered alongside the best journalists and political pundits of our time?

For what it’s worth, here are Newsprism’s Ten of the Best Political Pundits in America, all on the same page and commercialism free:

10. Michael Kinsley—while he occasionally veers off into liberal la-la land, Kinsley is thoughtful, lucid, and incisive. He’s the most reasonable voice from the far left, idealistic yet practical in a Pat Moynihan sort of way.

9. Charles Krauthammer—a solid bedrock conservative with unmatched acumen in foreign policy, Krauthammer’s analysis of the Middle East is spot-on. He’s as hard-nosed as Bush is hard-headed, staunchly nationalistic without succombing to the naive idealism of the neocons.

8.  Christopher Hitchens—an exceptional writer, Hitchens is also stubbornly independent. He defies categorization in an era marked by polarization; he’s loyal only to his own judgment, never taking sides or pulling his punches, lefts or rights.

7. Dick Morris—he’s as sleazy as the Clintons, and as brilliant, a Karl Rove without the charm (or loyalty.) His cynicism is matched by his insightfulness. A mean streak and his hatred for his former employers make him fun to follow.

6. David Brooks—while the market rewards extremism, especially on the right, Brooks is a moderate conservative devoted to what’s best for the country rather than winning an argument. Brooks is highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and his columns range across critical social and political issues.

5. Frank Rich—a writer on par with Hitchens, Rich anchors the New York Times opinion pages and has the ear of journalists left and right. His background as a critic of culture adds depth and dimension to his political analysis.

4. Karl Rove—the man got George Bush elected. Twice. George Bush. He’s been demonized by the left and stained by his association with the policies of his most famous client, but Rove understands American politics as well as anyone. He’s been outthinking the pack for nearly thirty years.

3. Peggy Noonan—both the woman and her writing are graceful and wise. Never pretentious, she has a way of making profound points effortlessly. Her wit is elegant, simple but never simplistic. Noonan may seem as soft as a feather, but that feather cuts like a scalpel. Her criticisms of George Bush, for example, go right to the heart of a presidency with no moral or philosophical foundation.

2. Pat Buchanan—with the best grasp of history in the business, Buchanan puts contemporary issues into a sweeping historical context. His perspective spans the breadth of Western civilization in an era whose memory barely reaches beyond the 24-hour news cycle. To “get” Buchanan, you should read his books and columns; his appearances on MSNBC don’t do him justice.

1. George Will—nobody connects the dots like Will. His commentary reflects attention to the highest principles while at the same time being grounded firmly in contemporary American culture and history. Will compares favorably with William F. Buckley and Walter Lippmann. His wit isn’t dry, it’s arid, a droll sarcasm befitting his bemusement at our increasingly uncivil society. A collection of his columns like The Leveling Wind transcends punditry; he’s a philosopher who happens to write columns.

Newsprism

FoxNews Fails History Lesson

Mistakes are inevitable in the 24-hour pressure cooker of cable news. Misspelled words, mispronounced names, technical glitches—these are to be expected.

But confusing Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass in a story about the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

That’s exactly what happened this morning when FoxNews mistakenly aired a graphic showing President Lincoln and former slave Frederick Douglass (video).

The fact that three news personalities didn’t catch the mistake is bad enough. News broadcasts involve more than on-air talent, however. Editors, directors, fact checkers, technicians, and graphic artists all have a hand in what goes out over the air.

No one at FoxNews managed to figure out that an African-American like Frederick Douglass was unlikely to have been running for office in 1858, when African-Americans couldn’t even vote.

As HL Mencken noted, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Certainly not FoxNews’s owner, billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

Newsprism

FoxNews’s vapid cheerleading for the worst president in American history reminds Newsprism of another quote from Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Topless Hannah Montana Rewarded with Free Advertising on NBC

What’s the appropriate response to fifteen-year-old role model Mylee Cyrus, also known as the star of the Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana, posing topless for Vanity Fair (photos)?

Free advertising on the evening news. Brian Williams saw fit to give the Vanity Fair photos by Annie Leibovitz a tease and a story on NBC’s Nightly News.

Cyrus feigned embarrassment over the photos while the Disney Channel feigned outrage, accusing the magazine of “deliberately manipulat(ing) a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.”

Newsprism wonders who’s manipulating whom. Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray, have proven adept at playing the media manipulation game as they parlay her marginal talents into a multi-million dollar empire of near Olsen Twins proportions (and who’s more talented than the Olsen twins?)

Sexually suggestive photos by the world’s leading celebrity photographer in the sophisticated Vanity Fair are no accident—more like a cynical attempt to manipulate the mainstream media into publicizing an image makeover just in time for the next, more mature phase in Cyrus’s career.

Cyrus, NBC, Disney,Vanity Fair and Leibovitz will all profit from this ”titillation” and all the free publicity it generates.

American culture, however, just sank a little bit deeper into the sewer.

Newsprism

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You—Ask What Your Press Agent Can Do for You

Barack Obama’s now infamous pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is milking his fifteen-minute flash of fame for all it’s worth. This weekend he spoke with Bill Moyers in a televised interview, delivered a televised sermon in Dallas, gave a televised speech to the NAACP, and this morning he’s speaking (you guessed it—televised!) to the National Press Club.

The Reverend understands the mass media marketplace at least as well as he understands racial division. Controversy sells. Give the media controversy, and you can expect significant media coverage. If that controversy is timely, so much the better, and if it fits into the ideological template of the journalistic pack, you’re as good as gold.

No issue generates as much controversy in the US as race. Liberals in the media love to shine a spotlight on racism, real or imagined, in order to bask in the afterglow of their moral superiority. Conservatives in the media love to shine a spotlight on reverse racism, real or imagined, in order to further their political agenda.

 During his speech to the NAACP on Sunday, Reverend Wright invoked John Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” and mocked JFK’s pronunciation of “ahsk.” The idea was to “ahsk” why it’s okay for JFK to pronounce a word so oddly, but not for black children to pronounce it, “aks.” That’s a valid, if utterly petty, point.

What should be clear to all is that Wright is no longer furthering a philosophy. He’s furthering his career; a book deal is surely in the works. Mocking a liberal icon like Kennedy is straight out of the playbook of Ann Coulter, who says outrageous things just to keep herself in the media spotlight. A similar dynamic drives Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to do outrageous things. (Paris’s favorite fashion accessory, her chihuahua Tinkerbell, actually had a book published. Ka-ching!)

Give the media something to cover, no matter how trivial, perverse, or cynically self-serving, and they will. Give the publishing industry a low-risk title, and they’ll publish it. With cable news, talk radio, and the Internet lowering editorial standards, and with the demands of a 24-hour news cycle, a critical institution in our society has been dragged down into the cultural gutter alongside Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera.

Jeremiah Wright may have some important ideas to contribute to our national discourse. He holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate, and he served this country in the Marine Corps and the Navy. The cartoon version of the Reverend that’s being bandied about in the media doesn’t do him justice.

The fact that he’s so hard at work capitalizing on that cartoon doesn’t do the rest of us justice.

Newsprism

Oops, or Poops? HuffingtonPost Headline Embarrassing Mistake, or Outright Lie?

Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post included this headline today:

Legal Experts Predict War Crimes Prosecutions Over Torture Meetings

The problem? The article excerpted and linked to at HuffPo says exactly the opposite. Published in the Center for Independent Media’s Washington Independent, the story begins,

With nine months remaining in President George W. Bush’s term, virtually no legal analyst expects that anyone in his administration will face indictment and prosecution in connection with the torture of terrorism detainees.

The same story ends,

…the likelihood of retributive measures against the Bush administration for torture remains remote.

And in between? More of the same.

Is HuffPo really that incompetent? Or did the editors choose to utterly mischaracterize the article in their headline for partisan political purposes?

Newsprism’s guess: both.

Newsprism

Remembering the Virginia Tech Victims, and a Plea to Journalists

Today marks the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were murdered. Newsprism would like to honor their memory and send our deepest sympathy to their classmates, colleagues, friends, and families.

Virginia Tech’s campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times, paid tribute today with this special edition.

A special tribute was earned that day by Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who used his own body to barricade the door to his classroom, almost surely saving the lives of his students in the process. God bless you, Professor.

This massacre has been cited as evidence in arguments for and against gun control, which is perfectly appropriate. To those who’ve used it as a prop to attack political enemies or have blamed the victims, shame on you—you’re beneath contempt.

Journalists and editors throughout the country should pause and consider a voluntary ban on publishing or broadcasting the names and images of the perpetrators of such crimes, since fame is one of their primary motivations.

Newsprism

The Worst of the Wild, Wild Web—From the Left, HuffingtonPost

Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post combines a buffet of cheesy far-left commentary from notable writers, politicians, activists, actors, scholars, more actors, and relatives of actors with a daily dish of celebrity gossip. Add in a lively and very functional reader comment section and you have a highly succesful formula.

Unfortunately, the news judgment of HuffPo can best be described as amateurish, and the editorial stance leans so far left it’s staggering.

A quick glimpse at today’s headlines proves the point:

Cindy McCain, The Recipe Thief, Says The Intern Did It—omigosh! Cindy McCain’s intern may have stolen recipes from The Food Network! Hold the presses, hold the presses!

Jenna Bush Tries Not To Flash the Pope—holy Marilyn Monroe moment, a gust of wind almost (almost!) blew Jenna Bush’s skirt up as she shook the hand of Pope Benedict XVI!!!!!

“Dancing With The Stars” Eliminates The Oldest Contestant—that’s right, Priscilla Presley, the “62-year-old actress” (she acts???) was eliminated because her “rumba was dull and technically imprecise…”

Thought Process Flowchart: Dr. Phil—Drs. Freud and Jung take note: here’s a peek inside the mind of Dr. Phil McGraw!!!!

Obama Offers Hanna Montana Treasury Secretary Job—just in case you’re a ten-year-old girl, or have the mentality of one, here’s a serious story about a skit from the Country Music Awards!!!!

Jon Stewart Mocks Obama “Bitter” Controversy—real news about fake news about real news … and the fake news was better than the real!!!!!

In terms of commentary, HuffPo gives our finest political thinkers (Alec Baldwin, Margaret Cho, Norman Lear’s little granddaughter) a platform from which to enlighten us. This sampling should get you up to speed:

Pope Should Start “Spiritual Renewal” With Bisexual God—those sexist Catholics are sooooo paternalistic, they should get God two lovers, one male and one female, or better yet, give God both male and female sex organs, to make up for all those centuries of patriarchy. (Here’s the definition of bisexual, HuffPo.)

The Alabama of Pennsylvania Mirrors New Hampshire—a media elitist slurs working-class Pennsylvania by comparing it to (and slurring) Alabama. To paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd, we Southerners don’t need you Hollywood and NYC fly-over types around anyhow.

How Many “Gaffes” Equal Incompetence? and One Candidate Has Failed the Commander-In-Chief Test—Twice—that no-good John McCain accidentally confused Shia for Sunni (and who hasn’t done that?) Then McCain “seemed to say that General Petraeus is the top military commander of our Armed Forces, telling the Associated Press that he wouldn’t shift the focus of the military from Iraq to Afghanistan ‘unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that.’” SEEMED to say? And it took two HuffPo bloggers to make that SEEM like a gaffe.

Then there’s the running gag called “Dickipedia,” described as “a wiki of dicks,” and its latest Dickipedia entry on John McCain. The entry calls McCain “cowardly” and an “asshole” and describes his wife as “freakish-looking over-plastic-surgery’d wife Cindy.” Then there’s this gem: “Though he once called religious bigots like Jerry Falwell ‘agents of intolerance,’ he now eagerly gets on his knees to fellate them to completion ask for their support.”

To top it all off, HuffPo asks the question, Is the Pope Even Relevant? At least as relevant as, say, Priscilla Presley, Hannah Montana, Dr. Phil, David Hasselhoff, Rob Lowe, comedian Keith Olbermann, and a topless Ann Coulter.

So that’s one day in the life of The HuffingtonPost—a big hit on the wild wild web, and a signal moment in the resurgence of yellow journalism.

Newsprism

Who Are the 10 Most Powerful Figures in TV News?

TV often reduces a three-dimensional world to two dimensions for one-dimensional minds.

If there’s anything more shallow than American television, it’s journalism about American television, as demonstrated by the latest TV Week “TV News’ 10 Most Powerful” rankings.

Here are the rankings alongside Newsprism’s commentary:

1. Steve Capus, President, NBC News   Good choice. NBC leads the evening news and morning news ratings, and MSNBC is strong in cable news and stronger online.

2. Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, Fox News   Another good choice. FoxNews’ Ailes has done more than anyone to even the ideological playing field in American broadcast journalism, proof positive that personality and beauty trump news judgment.

3. David Weston, President, ABC News   Only if managing to come in second or third place in a field of four broadcast networks is considered “powerful.”

4. Tim Russert, Senior VP, NBC News Washington bureau; editor/moderator, “Meet the Press”   Good choice. The best of the influential Sunday morning hosts, also a strong contributor on MSNBC.

5. Jim Walton, President, CNN Worldwide, and Jon Klein, President, CNN/US   Okay, IF you can combine two people, and IF you can compare CNN’s audience share to FoxNews’, and IF you can disregard the laws of mathematics, THEN, good choice. Otherwise, CNN competes with MSNBC for second place in the cable news ratings well behind FoxNews, and all three together don’t add up to one broadcast news show’s ratings.

6. Keith Olbermann, host, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”   Worst…Choice…in the World! Olbermann is highly entertaining, and his verbal skills are the best in the business, but his show draws fewer than a million viewers each night. If this were the 10 most powerful liberals in TV news…well, he still wouldn’t belong.

7. Bill O’Reilly, host, “The O’Reilly Factor”   By far the top dog in cable news personalities, O’Reilly draws nearly three times the viewers as Olbermann. TV Week describes Olbermann’s 900,000 viewers as “about a million” and O’Reilly’s 2,900,000 as “more than two million.”  Sounds like they’re turning a 3:1 ratio into a 2:1 ratio. Despite the voodoo math, O’Reilly belongs at best at number 10.

8. Sean McManus, President, CBS News   Only if managing to come in third or fourth place in a field of four broadcast networks is considered “powerful.”

9. NS Bienstock, Talent Agency   Are you kidding? Maximizing the salaries of on-air talent makes you “powerful”?

10. Amy Pohler, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, Comics   Okay, IF you can combine three people, and IF you consider late-night news satire as TV news, and IF you can disregard the meanings of words AND the laws of mathematics, THEN good choice. Otherwise, you might as well name the list, “Our Most Favoritest Liberal News Satire Hosts!” (Colbert did win a Peabody Award for his brilliant mocking of personality-based news shows like “The O’Reilly Factor,” but that makes him exceptionally talented, not top-ten powerful.)

Missing from the list are notables including Chris Matthews and Brian Williams of NBC/MSNBC; Brit Hume and Sean Hannity of FoxNews; and from the world of news satire, Ben Karlin, the former executive producer largely responsible for the success of both “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”

Of all the “Top Ten”-type kudos attention-starved media types give each other, Newsprism ranks TV Week’s “TV News’ 10 Most Powerful” near the very bottom, just beneath Time magazine’s “Top 10 New TV Series” (like CBS’s mind-numbing reality show ”Kid Nation”) and slightly above gametrailers.com’s “Top 10 Video Game Weapons” (the chainsaw is a perennial favorite.)

Also in the running:  yesbutnobutyes.com’s “Top 10 Female Streakers” (WARNING: Not Safe for Work) and urinal.net’s “Top 10 Most Fascinating Urinals” (check out these art-urinals, which are particularly lovely.)

Newsprism

Obama Attacked for Using the “B” Word

Senator Barack Obama has been condemned by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain for his use of the adjective “bitter” in the following quote from a private fundraiser last Sunday in San Francisco:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations

While grammatically correct, the statement appears to condescend to the decisive working class voter in the upcoming Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia primaries.

Clinton responsed in a campaign appearance yesterday at Drexel University in Philadelphia:

It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter; well, that’s not my experience. Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them; they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families

McCain responded through campaign operatives. McCain advisor Steve Schmidt said:

It shows an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.

McCain advisor Tucker Bounds said:

Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks. You can’t be more out of touch than that.

The repetition of “more out of touch” in both statements demonstrates the level of coordination within the McCain camp as it seeks to maximize the damage to Obama.

Newsprism wonders about the repetition of “instead of apologizing (to) small town America” in both the McCain camp’s statement above and this one from Clinton spokesman Phil Singer:

Instead of apologizing for offending small town America, Senator Obama chose to repeat and embrace the comments he made earlier this week … Americans are tired of a President who looks down on them, they want a President who will stand up for them for a change.

The timing of the publication of the audio at Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post is also intriguing. Why was the audio held so long before being released Friday morning?

Who would stand to gain the most from damaging Obama in working-class towns and neighborhoods by painting him as an elitist? The incident is playing out against a backdrop in which Obama has consolidated an eight to ten point lead over Clinton and has inched three points ahead of McCain in the latest Gallup polls.

The audio also highlights the degree to which American elections increasingly take place in the production and manipulation of audio and video recordings, which can be rapidly spread across the country online and on cable news.

Thoughtful reflection on the policies and philosophies of the candidates can best be discerned by reading their words and listening to entire speeches, not by cherrypicking their most exploitable moments caught on tape.

Parsing adjectives has no place in a presidential election, and we need a real democracy based in ideas, not a virtual one based in the most shallow media.

Newsprism

Neal Boortz, the Courts, and the First Amendment

Atlanta-based talk radio host Neal Boortz of WSB 750AM appears to have used the end of Arbitron’s spring ratings season to test the limits of the First Amendment. In mid-March, Boortz engaged in on air behavior so outrageous it’s reasonable to assume he was hoping to create enough controversy influence his ratings.

The more recent of two incidents involved a March 14 anti-war protest by the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, or POG. POG had announced that it would picket a military recruiting office that evening. Just after noon EST on March 14, Boortz demonized POG and its activities and then encouraged anyone on hand for the protest to “Shoot those leftist bastards dead.”

Boortz, who holds a law degree, must know that the First Amendment doesn’t protect speech intended to incite violence. In Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that reasonable limits on freedom of speech are constitutional:

…the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U.S. 194, 205, 206. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 439. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

The legal question is whether or not encouraging someone among Boortz’s hundreds of thousands of listeners to “Shoot those leftist bastards dead” created a clear and present danger to members of POG.

What’s most interesting is that the members of POG were clearly exercising their First Amendment rights by holding a peaceful protest, which calls Boortz’s motives into question. In addition to potentially creating a clear and present danger to POG, an incitement to violence against such protesters could reasonably be expected to create a chilling effect on similar protesters, that is, to infringe on their right to free expression. It appears that Boortz was concerned with ratings and not principle.

(Ironically, Schenck v. United States involved incendiary language used by leftists protesting the draft.)

By far the more disturbing incident occurred a week before, when, beginning at approximately 10:35am EST, Boortz repeatedly played audiotape of a nine-year-old child and mocked and ridiculed the child’s speech patterns. Legal precedent makes such behavior, while reprehensible, protected speech when aimed at adults. One legal issue to be determined is whether such behavior aimed at a child is also protected.

To compound Boortz’s malevolence, both he and WSB General Manager Dan Kearney were advised that the child in question suffers from at least one disability. Even without having been notified, the audio speaks for itself; Boortz listeners commenting at this blog suspected some disability. Subsequently, posts at Newsprism.com that addressed the disability were referred to by Boortz on air, and the Boortz Show emailed Newsprism several times. One such email specifically addressed the question of the child’s disabilities: “In your blog you seem to be backing off your claims that Lil’ Buford has some sort of a disability...”

Nonetheless, Boortz, clearly with the knowledge and permission of WSB management, continued to humiliate the child up until Thursday, March 13. A second legal issue to be determined is whether a broadcaster has a responsibility to consider the psychological and/or emotional state of the target of such humiliation. If, for example, if someone with schizophrenia were to be humiliated publicly over an extended period of time, would it be foreseeable that psychological damage might be done?

Boortz went so far as to publish the following additional insults towards the boy on his web site, www.boortz.com, on March 13, well after having been informed of the child’s disabilities: “…looks like we’ve really twisted a few knickers out there with our panning of Lil’ Buford’s communications skills. You remember Lil’ Buford, don’t you? The 10-year-old kid who can’t speak the English language? Yeah .. that one, the future worm farmer.”

A well-publicized case involving an adult harassing a teenager online in 2006 did not lead to criminal charges being filed despite the fact that the harassment appears to have contributed to the teenager’s suicide. However, public outrage made the adult harasser a pariah after a blogger published her name and address on the Internet. Wired.com notes that “few can imagine an offense more egregious than a trusted adult preying on the emotions of a vulnerable child.” No civil suit was filed, and the question remains open whether such circumstances would support an intentional infliction of emotional distress suit.

By March 14, the web post in question was removed from www.boortz.com. On that very same day, Boortz made his “Shoot those leftist bastards dead” comment; was this coincidence, or did he simply choose another tactic in a cynical attempt to generate controversy and increase ratings?

The privilege of broadcasting carries with it a fiduciary duty (an assumption of trust) and a mandate to act in the public interest. Broadcasters, then, are subject to the same or more stringent limits as private citizens—there is no “extra” protection afforded them. The law on intentional infliction of emotional distress, while vague, involves behavior so outrageous that it “shocks the conscience” and therefore doesn’t have a place in a “civilized society.” Standards have been created that address “depraved indifference” towards a victim or the “reckless disregard” of another’s well-being.

The family of the child Boortz humiliated appears to be pursuing a lawsuit in which these and similar issues will emerge. The FCC is also investigating Boortz’s behavior in this case. It’s worth noting that the issues in these cases don’t involve mere content, such as indecent or obscene statements, but rather the infliction of damages on specific listeners and the duty of the broadcaster to mitigate such damages.

It’s clear that neither Boortz nor WSB management was operating in the public interest, in the best interest of POG or the young child, or in the best interest of the First Amendment. The timing of the incidents suggests an attempt to improve ratings in order to increase advertising rates.

Boortz and WSB will argue that Boortz was simply exercising his First Amendment rights. Hopefully, a jury (or two) will get to decide the limits of those rights.

Newsprism

Dueling Victims—Identity Politics Taken to Its (Il)logical Conclusion

In America today, is it worse to be black, or female? That’s the absurd question many in the Democratic Party and in the mainstream media are pondering.

The victim mentality that has sustained so much of liberal ideology over the last four decades has been starkly displayed of late after pack journalists swarmed around two ill-conceived and incendiary statements by Geraldine Ferraro and George McGovern, both of whom are Hillary Clinton supporters.

According to Ferraro,

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.

And according to McGovern,

I have a feeling that in this country where we’re at today in our thinking, it’s going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man.

To (white) Clinton supporters, it’s better to be black than female. This is a question without an answer, of course, though we know two things for sure: 1.) discrimination of any kind is damaging to the health of both individual bodies and the body politic, and 2.) the roots of racism and sexism, while both run deep, are comparable at only the most shallow levels.

If only the media weren’t, like the academy and liberalism in general, still dominated by people with a stake in keeping racism and sexism alive in the national psyche, maybe more healing could be taking place. For Hillary Clinton and her operatives to be trotting out the ugly side of identity politics is shameful and damaging to their party and our nation. The only beneficiaries of this infighting are John McCain and the Republicans.

No matter how hard he tries, Barack Obama can’t rise above the issue of his blackness, which his blue-state Democratic rival has turned into red meat for yellow journalists.

Newsprism

Pop Culture Conservatism—The Shallow Going Off the Deep End

American conservatism has been dealing for decades with a rift between the social conservatism of evangelical Christians and culture warriors on the one hand, and the libertarian conservatism of free-market individualists on the other. Part of the genius of Ronald Reagan was his ability to energize both factions while smoothing over their differences. Too many conservatives today are altogether ignorant of this rift and therefore risk widening it. 

Over the last couple of decades, another rift has been opened, one that has benefitted conservatism significantly but may at the same time have begun an erosion of its core principles in favor of the superficial and the marketable. This rift separates intellectual conservatism—that practiced by Bill Buckley, Newt Gingrich, George Will, and Pat Buchanan, for example—and a more populist strain that dominates talk radio, the popular book market, and cable news. Instead of “populist conservatism,” however, I think it would be more accurate to label it pop culture conservatism, since its primary home is in the popular media.

Pop culture conservatism emerged out of a long era of American journalism in which liberalism dominated public discourse. The Media Elite, an influential 1986 study of political bias, found that nearly 90% of leading journalists had voted for Democratic candidates in prior presidential elections. When Rush Limbaugh demonstrated in 1988 that a huge audience of disaffected conservatives was ripe for the picking, pop culture conservatism burst onto the scene, and it’s been flexing its muscles ever since. Now, slickly-marketed popular figures like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Laura Ingraham exert far more influence over the conservative movement with their confrontationalism and intemperance than more substantive and measured voices do with reasoning and balance.

Intellectual and pop culture conservatism worked together brilliantly in 1994, when Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” consolidated the Republican base and swept Republican candidates into majority positions in both Houses of Congress. The result: the Clinton administration was forced to control the growth of government, so that by the time George Bush took office in 2000, the federal budget was in surplus.

A conservative Republican president inheriting a budget surplus should have set the foundation for a serious, measured restructuring and contraction of our imperial federal government. Instead, Bush has grown the government from a $2 trillion “enterprise” to one that will spend well over $3 trillion in 2008, with disastrous economic and monetary results. The numbers speak for themselves:

The federal government’s budget has grown from under $2,000,000,000,000.00 to over $3,000,000,000,000.00 per year!

The very core principles of conservatism—limited government, individual responsibility, individual liberty, market dynamics, free enterprise—have been buried under an avalanche of big government programs and out-of-control spending. It was Republican Senator Ted Stevens and Republican Representative Don Young who tried to push through billions in funding for Alaska’s infamous Bridges to Nowhere.

Intellectual conservatives have strongly condemned this liberal spending spree, but their voices aren’t being heard over the loudmouthed shouting of the pop culture talking heads.

Pop culture conservatism has created a class of citizens and politicians who don’t seem to value or understand the historical and intellectual foundations of classical American conservatism. These surfacy conservatives just spent seven years in power in the White House, most of that time with like-minded Republicans controlling Congress, yet they have done more damage to the institutions of free enterprise and individual liberty than any liberal in memory.

Shallow creatures of the media going off the deep end have helped put conservatism at risk of drowning in the warm, therapeutic waters of liberalism: naive idealism, spiraling debt, and dependence on government.

Newsprism

Obama Emerges from Briar Patch Wearing Crown of Thorns

When the inflammatory sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright first exploded onto the political landscape, probably due to machinations by the Clinton campaign, Barack Obama was leading Hillary Clinton in the national polls. Within 24 hours, however, Clinton had regained the lead in some polls and had temporarily gained ground in others.

After yesterday’s speech on race in America (video, text,) Obama is now being compared to Martin Luther King, Jr., and his speech to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s high praise indeed; experts in the field of rhetoric consistently judge “I Have a Dream” as the greatest speech in American history.

While Obama has clearly been damaged among many Republicans and conservatives—both Pat Buchanan and Thomas Sowell consider his association with Reverend Wright to disqualify him for the presidency—the real question is, has this controversy hurt him among independents and Reagan Democrats?

It’s too early to tell, of course, but the media seem to have reached a consensus: Obama just raised his profile considerably and may now go down in history as an icon of racial reconciliation (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) If he wins the Democratic nomination, his acceptance speech will be made on August 28, 2009—the 45th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Whoever is responsible for the Jeremiah Wright tapes bubbling to the surface intended to cut him to the quick with the dagger of race. Instead, they seem to have handed him the mantle of Martin Luther King.

His enemies just threw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch, and he emerged wearing a crown of thorns.

Newsprism

Remembering Lauren Burk and Eve Carson—Life, Death, and Journalistic Ethics

Two weeks ago, north Georgia lost a pair of talented, caring, involved and beautiful—both inwardly and outwardly beautiful—young women, Lauren Burk of Marietta and Eve Carson of Athens.

Lauren Burk was shot and killed near her home in Auburn, Alabama, where she attended Auburn University, on March 4. Eve Carson was shot and killed near her home  in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she attended the University of North Carolina, on March 5.

It appears that both girls were murdered for no other reason than the greed and depravity of three young men who chose to take life in exchange for two vehicles and some credit cards. Arrests have been made in both Lauren and Eve’s cases, which share more than superficial similarities.

The media have done a superb job of disseminating the facts in both cases. From what I’ve seen, heard, and read, the more salacious and sensationalistic elements of the murders have been made public, but not dwelt upon in any way. Hopefully, neither victim will be re-victimized by the kind of calculated exploitation that has surrounded the Nathalee Holloway case. (Greta van Susteren of Fox News, for example, has played the Holloway case for every ratings point possible; shame on her, and shame on Fox News.)

Journalists have been sensitive and dutiful in reporting on the character and accomplishments of both Lauren and Eve, the human angle that should always take priority over the prurient. Likewise, the backgrounds of the alleged killers should absolutely be investigated and made public. Previous brushes with the law, for example, should be widely known so that citizens can make informed decisions regarding sentencing and parole policies and the election of judges and legislators.

The media have also been generous in publicizing the efforts of loved ones to remember and memorialize Lauren and Eve. Scholarships have been established at Auburn and Oglethorpe Universities in Lauren’s name.  Plans for a Lauren Burk Memorial are underway, and charitable funds have been set up in her name to benefit Invisible Children in Africa and the National Kidney Foundation. A scholarship fund has also been established at the University of North Carolina in Eve’s name; she was the Student Body President and was very close to graduating.

A very difficult question involves whether the media should cover the funerals of people like Lauren and Eve, who were made into public figures only by coincidence. Public Editor Angela Tuck of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution wrestled thoughtfully with this issue over the weekend. Perhaps the best that can be said is that it should be left up to family members, some of whom actually welcome the coverage.

What should never be done, and never given undue publicity, is to use a private funeral to publicize any political agenda. Fred Phelps is an infamous publicity whore who has protested loudly at the funerals of American soldiers in order to publicize his anti-gay agenda. The man is shameless and doesn’t deserve one iota of coverage. A jury recently awarded the family of a slain soldier $10.9 million dollars in damages after Phelps and his thugs ruined the funeral of their son.

For reasons I can’t start to fathom, Phelps also protested at the funerals of Lauren Burk and Eve Carson. Consider this utterly hateful and brazenly libelous passage from the Reverend Phelps’s web site:

Before the earth was formed, before the heavens was hung, before the animal life were formed … the projectiles that dispatched Lauren Burk and Eve Carson into eternal hell fire were launched … These two rotten Georgia peaches were snuffed out because they were perfect examples of the product Doomed america saturates college and university campuses with every year.  From their birth, both were taught to serve strange gods; both were taught to serve their own lusts and desires; both were taught the big lie that God loves everybody … and both were taught the lie that it’s okay to be gay … Now God has shown his mighty hand, has picked that rotten fruit from off the tree, and has shown his cursing of the land of Georgia, the campus of Auburn University, and the campus of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill!

Phelps knows nothing substantive about these two young women, yet he’s willing to use them for no reason other than his own self-aggrandizement. The only reason such ignorant hatred warrants media coverage is to criticize it in the strongest terms.

God bless the friends and families of Lauren Burk and Eve Carson.

And God damn Fred Phelps and his supporters.

Newsprism

Attack Ad Depicts Obama Singing “Zippity Doo Dah”

No, no one has stooped that low. Yet.

But “someone” is heading in that direction. Bill Clinton’s invoking of Jesse Jackson after Obama won the South Carolina primary was a brazen and blatant attempt to drag race into the Democratic nomination process. The release of a photo of Senator Obama wearing African garb, which Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams failed to deny involvement in, was transparent. Unsubstantiated allegations that photos of Obama have been “darkened” in order to “highlight” his race mirror the infamous Time cover in which the same was done with a photo of OJ Simpson.

Now, video clips of Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama’s place of worship, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have surfaced on YouTube. Reverand Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized their children, and is a confidante to the Senator and an advisor to the Obama campaign.

Before Wright retired from the Church in February, he gave a lifetime achievement award to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, blamed the US government for the AIDS virus, and said the US “deserved” the 9/11 attacks based on a history of racism, colonialism, and oppression.

The Obama campaign has distanced itself somewhat from Wright and his statements. In an interview this morning, the Senator said, “This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.“

Demands are increasing for an explanation of the close ties between the Senator and the Reverand; many are also demanding an outright denunciation, putting Obama in the untenable situation of choosing between political expediency and loyalty to a long-time friend.

Setting such demands aside—and it seems clear that the demands are justified by the extreme nature of Wright’s statements—the question remains, exactly who is responsible for the sudden ”surfacing” of these tapes? The fact that every news organization in the country is discussing them now isn’t coincidence.

The two primary suspects, of course, are Obama rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Muddying the waters considerably is the possibility that either Democratic or Republican operatives may have released the tapes with or without the knowledge or permission of the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

A simple calculation might settle the issue. Bringing the tapes into the spotlight at this time favors Senator Clinton; to help Senator McCain, the tapes would have been held for many months. In addition, the Clintons are well known for such tactics, have no compunction about using them, and are increasingly desperate. McCain, on the other hand, isn’t closely associated with dirty politics; in fact, he suffered from similar tactics in 2000, when Bush operatives started a smear campaign claiming that the Arizona Senator had a mixed-race child, and he refused to respond in kind.

Whoever is responsible for these tapes, the news industry is awash in a tacit understanding: don’t allow journalistic standards to interfere with the exploitation of any story. That’s the mentality that gave us Jon Benet and Nathalee, and Paris and Anna; Swaggart and Spitzer, and Haggard and Craig; Power and Ferraro, Bill and Michelle; Reverend Hagee and Reverend Wright.

It’s certainly possible, and I think quite likely, that two things are in play here: first, the Clinton campaign is circulating stories intended to undermine Obama’s candidacy, and second, the media is acting as a willing accomplice, not out of loyalty to Clinton but rather out of the desire to maximize ratings and circulation.

This election should be about policies and the philosophies they reflect, about character and judgment, not about the minutae and innuendo that transfix our easily manipulated media.

Each time a race-baiting photo or tape or rumor or leak surfaces, somebody is operating under cover of darkness to exploit Barack Obama’s skin color, and somebody else is cynically exploiting the subterfuge. I’ll leave it to you to decide who those somebodies are.

Newsprism

Update: Here’s Obama’s response to this controversy at Huffington Post. And now, Rev. Wright is no longer associated with the Obama campaign, though it hasn’t been made clear whether he resigned or was forced out. It should also be noted that while Disney’s “Song of the South” (which featured Uncle Remus singing “Zippity Doo Dah”) has been roundly criticized as racist, many see it as a valuable piece of Southern folklore.

Obama Wins Mississippi, Texas (That’s Right—Texas)

The mainstream media’s “horse race” angle on the Democratic race has gotten a bit ridiculous. For example, Hillary Clinton’s widely touted comeback on March 4 turns out to have been more or less a draw.

Why? After Texas tallied up the results if its caucuses—Texas uses a combination of a primary and caucuses to allocate its delegates—Barack Obama actually won that not-so-small state. Outside a few web sites, his victory has barely been covered. (How many of you political junkies who read my drivel were aware of it?)

It’s more than a little disingenuous to continue playing up a comeback that never was. And now that Obama’s also won Wyoming and Mississippi, Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Rhode Island seem pretty insignificant.

Take, for example, this headline at ABCNews.com—“Time on Her Side: Obama Maintains Lead, but Clinton Might Have the Edge.” Never let it be said that the mainstream media let facts get in their way.

The delegate math makes it nearly impossible for Clinton to win. Regardless of whose data you use (CBS News and CNN are reporting slightly different figures,) Obama needs to win about 45% of the remaining delegates to prevail, and Clinton, about 60%.

The superdelegates are breaking Obama’s way already, and the math favors a continuation, and probably a deepening, of that trend.

I wrote four weeks ago today that the media were pretending the race was neck and neck, when in fact, Obama was pulling away in the home turn. Now, Obama’s still pulling away, and the race is well into the home stretch—yet the mainstream media continue their charade.

The reason is simple: a tight race attracts viewers and readers.

It’s a matter of maximizing ratings and circulation, nothing more, nothing less. They want a photo finish, and if reality doesn’t give them one, they’ll make one up.

As always, follow the money.

Newsprism

McCain—Second Coming of the Comeback Kid

One Clinton was “The Comeback Kid” sixteen years ago, the other hopes to be the same in 2008.

While Hillary Clinton won three out of four primaries and the popular vote last night, she still trails Obama in both delegates and votes. Today, Obama has picked up several delegates in the consequential-yet-ignored Texas caucuses, which choose about a third of the state’s delegates.

The caucus votes are still being counted, but it looks like Hillary picked up just 7-9 delegates last night.

The real Comeback Kid of 2008 is John McCain. Still, all of the major broadcast and cable networks except FoxNews tilted their coverage towards the Democratic race.

Six weeks ago in the Resmussen survey, McCain was at 31%. Obama was also at 31%. Clinton was at 47%.

Coming out of the primaries and caucus, Rasmusson now has McCain at 62%. Obama is at 44%. Clinton is at 48%.

McCain gained 31%, Obama 13%, and Clinton 1%.

While the intrigues between Hillary and Barack fit perfectly into the television news template, the real story last night was a resurgent Republican Party led by a triumphant John McCain. The real story was the contrast between a gracious Mike Huckabee bowing out, and an Algore-like Hillary Clinton staying in.

If there’s a media bias these days, it still favors the Democrats.

Newsprism

Follow Election Results by State, County

CNN has the most timely and accurate results available online. You can follow both parties in all four states right here, including crucial county-by-county results in urban Ohio and Texas:

OHIO

TEXAS

VERMONT

RHODE ISLAND

Fox News has state-by-state, real time results, but no county-by-county results. Speed is okay.

MSNBC has results from Texas, Ohio and Vermont, but no county-by-county results, and no Rhode Island. And, it’s moving pretty slowly.

ABC has results from all four states, but no county-by-county resulst, and you have to toggle back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.

CBS has results from all four states, but not county-by-county, and it’s moving kind of slowly.

Newsprism

The Distance Between Influence and Integrity

They’re household names: Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Geraldo Rivera. It’s undeniable that Limbaugh and Drudge have become media giants exerting substantial influence on American politics and journalism, and Geraldo has made his own contributions.

Earlier this week, I compared (without irony) Limbaugh’s influence to that of three of America’s most renownded media figures: editor Horace Greeley (of “Go West, young man” fame,) publisher William Randolph Hearst (the subject of Citizen Kane,) and Walter Cronkite. Rush’s influence has taken on a life of its own; his opinion is news in an of itself. Despite being a relative recluse, through his voice and “ditto-cam” image, Rush has been all over the mainstream media during this election cycle—not as a newsman, but as a newsmaker.

But Rush has some competition. In the wake of Drudge breaking the story that Prince Harry has been fighting in Afghanistan, Great Britain’s Telegraph is calling Matt “the most powerful journalist in the world.” Where Limbaugh draws 20 million a week, the DrudgeReport gets 20 million visits a day. After the British press had kept the Prince’s secret deployment a secret for ten weeks, Drudge ran the story, forcing the Brits to bring Harry back home.

I admire both Limbaugh and Drudge for their accomplishments, but there are a c