Your overconfidence is your weakness

I'm not sure why I bothered to read Paul Krugman's Sunday New York Times piece taking on the tax protest Tea Parties, but I'm glad I did.

Predictably - and without much imagination - Krugman uses the Tea Parties as a way to bash conservative/Republican values such as economic freedom and lower taxes. The tea parties, he charges, "have been the subject of considerable mockery - and rightly so." Krugman never really explains why it is right to ridicule these demonstrations, opting instead to bash the traditional bogeymen of Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay. But a venerated columnist signing his name to Democratic Party talking points and submitting it as his own work isn't particularly noteworthy.

Krugman shows his self-imposed limits when he makes the claim that the tea parties are "AstroTurf (fake grass roots)." The demonstrations, he claims, are "manufactured" by groups like FreedomWorks and Fox News.

The great thing about being an opinion columnist for the Times is exactly the same as the great thing about being a blogger: apparently, you can just fire off your thoughts without doing any research. If Krugman had, he might have figured out that the people who are conducting Tea Parties aren't being paid. (Sure, there are organizers and leaders, but show me a political rally - or, for that matter, a riot - that doesn't have someone calling the shots.) If he knew anything about FreedomWorks, he would know that they have a massive database of people who have signed up to participate in activities like this - on their free time, when they aren't doing their day jobs. Actually, he probably could have found that out by picking up the phone and talking to someone over there - like a journalist would. If he had bothered to research the tea parties, he might have found the multiple websites that purport to be the "central headquarters" of the movement.

And how much money would it take to "AstroTurf" this much ground?

All of this makes Krugman's piece less of a thoughtful expression of an opinion in a policy discussion and more partisan hit piece. Giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that wasn't his goal, Krugman betrays his an intellectual sloth: the Republican Party is to be ridiculed because he cannot conceive of rational people agreeing with the philosophy of a smaller, more limited government, or opposing a massive influx of government capital to solve any problem deemed worthy.


In the real world, there are at least two sides to every story. In Krugman's mind, we the people just don't think that way - precluding the need for "research" on which so many real journalists spend time.

You might even say that Krugman's reality is "manufactured."

Tea minus 7 days to Tax Day

If you haven't already filed, there's only a week left before income tax returns are due. If you've already filed, then you might be able to join one of the Tea Party protests of higher taxes going on nationwide.

The Tea Party movement has already spread to several cities - and in checking out their website, I wondered why I hadn't heard more about it.

Was it overt media bias? Partly - and left wing outlets like the Huffington Post are certainly paying attention. But as I like to mention whenever I talk about media relations, there's really no vast left-wing media conspiracy. Often, conservatives and libertarians just don't approach the media with their messages properly framed for a liberal audience (since most reporters are, in fact, liberals). The first sentence on the Tea Party website's About Us section - "A great evil has come upon this nation, and something has to be done" - probably feeds the media's groupthink that the movement is more fringe than freedom.

And the Pullitzer goes to...

For the past couple of months, I've found myself watching NBC's Today Show regularly. If you're a regular viewer, too, then you've probably noticed some disturbing trends in their reporting - such as the near-daily "Octomom" updates of the fascination with animal attacks. Today, however, I found myself pretty amazed by the coverage of an anti-smoking ad that shows a lost child to guilt parents into not smoking.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This was one of two - TWO! - segments where Matt Lauer embarked on an oratorical crusade to find out whether the commercial's producers put undue stress on the child actor by making him think he was lost to get the reaction which gives the commercial its weight. He talked to advertising experts and producers, but absent was the mother of the child, or even the child himself. As was intimated at least once, they prefer to stay out of the limelight - but that won't stop NBC's cornerstone entertainment-as-news program from running a story about the child and the harm that may or may not have been done.

(Full disclosure: when I was about this kid's age, I liked to wander around a bit, so my parents "lost" me - on purpose - in a department store. They knew where I was the whole time. To this point in my life I haven't had any lasting psychological effects except for the fact that I pay freaking attention to where I am and where I should be.)

Meanwhile in Washington, there are trillions of dollars that have been borrowed from that kid and his generation being flushed down toilets with $100,000 seats. I wonder how bad he'll cry when that bill comes due?

No brakes! Rolling down the slippery slope in a GM car

The President of the United States is now firing CEOs. And why not? If the American Government is bankrolling a business, shouldn't the CEO of the American Government have the power to hire and fire the leader of its subsidiaries?

Maybe this is the journalism degree talking, but when I heard that Rick Wagoner was being let go by General/Obama Motors, my first thought went back to a story that broke last week: Senator Benjamin Cardin proposing that newspapers be able to exist as tax-exempt entities. Essentially, this would grant the struggling local newspaper industry a bailout of sorts.

Ask anyone who has worked at a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization and they will tell you that there are certain things you can and can't do - for instance, you can't endorse or oppose candidates for office. Thus tax-exempt status is a tradeoff - you don't have to pay taxes, but in return your speech is limited by the government.

In other words, the newspaper bailout would create a plan where government would limit newspapers' speech - a plan which would carry financial incentives over alternatives, such as finding new and innovative ways to deliver content. And though current tax exempt law still offers a great deal of freedom, how long will that last when a 501(c)(3) paper starts printing something unpopular?

Perhaps I'm stretching a bit to envision a world where government would use a newspaper's tax exempt status as a way to regulate content. But if you told me five years ago that the President of the United States would dismiss the head of the world's second-largest automaker, I would have said you were stretching a bit, as well.

Washington: Hollywood for Ugly People

Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects probably thought he was posting about entertainment media when he answered critics of Hollywood blogs. But the points he raises about the evolving media culture - that ethics are often skewed for the sake of the scoop, even beyond the blogosphere - dovetail into some similar criticisms leveled by former RNC head Ed Gillespie.

Gillespie illustrates his point about media bias by telling the story of a reporter - with whom he had a longstanding working relationship - appearing on Hardball. The reporter called an open letter penned by Gillespie "disingenuous," though he later privately admitted he hadn't even read it. But the immediacy of television forced some type of response to a Chris Matthews question.

Part of Gillespie's advice for handling the slanted media is to simply avoid the slanted media through the use of technology - a tactic embraced even by those politicians most beloved by the slanted media.

Cramer vs. Stewart: One Rule for USA Today to remember

USA Today has some advice for CNBC's Jim Cramer - but does Jim Cramer really need it?

By most accounts, Cramer looked foolish in his back-and-forth with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. To stick up for President Obama's economic policies and take shots at CNBC Stewart found footage of Cramer giving bad stock advice. Cramer shot back by calling Stewart a comedian and an idiot; Stewart aired more clips of Cramer giving advice that proved to be wrong... you've probably seen the clips on the news shows, so we won't re-hash details.

The whole fracas reminds me of the phrase, "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it." USA Today chides Cramer for ignoring that old adage:

"Stewart may be a comic, but he's an incredibly smart and increasingly influential one - a media darling whose comments get amplified by print, TV, and the internet... Cramer gave Stewart time and ammunition to launch a broader, more damaging attack on CNBC itself."

USA Today also offers three "rules" for Cramer to avoid similar conflicts; but in doing so they seem to have forgotten another rule: "All publicity is good publicity."

Cramer certainly didn't "win" his debate with Stewart and Stewart was able to serve some red meat to his audience by mocking opposition to President Obama and creatively framing issues. But in entering into a feud with Stewart, clips of Cramer's show were shown to a wider audience than he probably normally has - not just Stewart's viewers, but also the viewers of the TV shows that covered each salvo and eagerly awaited the next. In fact, they probably both got what they wanted out of it.

Jim Cramer isn't going to lose his job at CNBC, and CNBC's credibility will not be hurt by Comedy Central. So being drawn into this controversy might not have been such a bad thing - even if he didn't win, Cramer had nothing to lose.

The newspaper is IN the computer?

More on the possible digital transition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer - check out this 1981 San Francisco local news story about the possibility of getting your morning newspaper online:

I stumbled on the clip reading Patrick Hynes's theory that mobile phones may make some web sites irrelevant.

I'm not even sure what channel Rush Limbaugh is on in DC

Nothing happens by accident in politics. The latest case in point is the flap over Rush Limbaugh.

It started with a seemingly offhand comment by President Obama, chiding Republicans for following the marching orders of the guy who, let's be honest, has gotten a ton of us interested in Republican politics. In the weeks following, the White House has taken repeated jabs at Limbaugh - to Limbaugh's delight. In a story published last week that I just stumbled across, Politico reveals that this has been a strategy months in the making. After finding high negative ratings for Rush Limbaugh in October polls, Democrats have been waiting for the right flap to arise and give them a chance to hang Limbaugh around the Republican Party's neck.

The behind-the-curtain strategy of what seem to be spontaneous events, like this Limbaugh controversy, demonstrates a key value of Washington - that governing is campaigning by other means.

Will it keep working? The Republicans won't get any overt help from Limbaugh, and why should they? As he has always said, his success "is not determined by who wins elections." Without a single Republican in Congress, Limbaugh could count on a reliable daily audience - and the longer a controversy like this goes on, the more he can add to that audience. The tete-a-tete with the President also gives Limbaugh figurative weight, as if he really is a key thinker for conservative/Republican circles.

Truth be told, it's more likely to be the other way around: Limbaugh is more likely to parrot GOP talking points than to devise his own platform for America. It's not a matter of laziness, but of reality: he's putting together a radio show, not a political movement.

Which raises an interesting point - as critical issues come before the federal government, why is the White House talking about a radio show blowhard? Aren't there real issues they should be working on?

Post Intelligencer, post-print

With news coming this week that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print version may go the way of the Rocky Mountain News, we may be at the cusp of a new era in local news reporting.

The Post-Intelligencer (P-I) looks like it will shut down it's printing presses and release an online-only version. Aside from printing and delivery, it means the P-I will also cut out reporter travel - national stories will be covered by wire services or by other sister papers in the Hearst network.

(Sidebar: Since it's in the Hearst network, will the last printed word in the P-I have to be "rosebud"?)

There's no dwindling market for local news, as the TV ratings show. But local daily newspapers are dinosaurs - slow-moving and cumbersome. The question is how the old media outlets adjust in a new media world. Will they see the online world as a way to stave off extinction for a few years, or will they find a way to evolve?

Chances are, the P-I - and other similar papers around the country - could do very well writing stories and posting them online. But why stop there? Online, they won't be confined as they were on the printed page. They have multiple forms of media - audio, video, and everything in between - at their fingertips.

The dangerous trap here is thinking in terms of "media buckets" on a local level, as people have thought for decades: the TV stations are in the video bucket, the radio stations in the audio bucket, and the newspapers in the printed word bucket. There are no buckets online, so it doesn't translate.

The end of the P-I's print version isn't necessarily an ending, but a liberation. The P-I can now combine printed stories about Seattle with short video news segments and podcasts. It can exist on its website as well as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Ning, and everywhere else. It can serve the people of Seattle, and be the authority on Seattle to everyone else.

The dinosaurs didn't die out overnight, but eventually time caught up with most of them. Except for the smart ones; they learned to fly.

Does this mean my Mom has to read a liberal blog, too?

I can't imagine it actually coming to pass, but rumblings about reviving the inappropriately named "Fairness Doctrine" have sprung up around Capitol Hill. The Fairness Doctrine would be an FCC regulation that would force radio stations to balance their programming - so that station that plays Rush Limbaugh for three hours would have to balance it out with... um... well, whoever it is that liberals and Democrats listen to.

The impetus for the rule change is clear. Senator Debbie Stabenow claims that talk radio "overwhelms people's opinions - and, unfortunately, incorrectly." In other words, she's worried about opinions she disagrees with being more persuasive. It's completely antithetical to everything our country is founded on, but quelling dissent makes sense.

Beyond principle, though, the problems are in the details. For instance, who determines what "balance" entails? If Sean Hannity is in favor of invading Iran, is he effectively balanced by someone who is against invading Iran because they would rather invade North Korea? And how does a fairness doctrine account for "do-it-yourself" media?

The great thing about free speech is, if you disagree with what someone else is saying, you have every right to answer them and attempt to make a compelling case. Sometimes the other side has the advantage of experience and establishment - just ask any conservative reading the New York Times or watching CNN. (And incidentally - if the fairness doctrine is passed, it opens a can of worms for mainstream media.)

More avenues exist now than ever before to get a message out - which makes the fairness obsolete as well as being, well, unfair.

Waking up about Wal-Mart

Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl halftime appearance came as he apologized for a promotional deal he signed with Wal-Mart to promote his greatest hits album. Springsteen feels Wal-Mart doesn't treat its employees well.

First off, where does someone nicknamed "The Boss" get off talking about employee conditions? The boss never knows what's really going on.

Second, there are some people Springsteen should talk to before chiding the working conditions at Wal-Mart. The first is Jason Furman, a key economic advisor to President Obama, who wrote a paper calling Wal-Mart "A Progressive Success Story" for providing low-income workers with affordable goods.

The other is Charles Platt, a blogger who gave an insider's account of life behind the smiley face as an actual Wal-Mart employee. I think it's been a while since Springsteen found himself inside a Wal-Mart, so I'll take Platt's word on what the working conditions are like.

Most of the criticisms about Wal-Mart come from unions - who would love to siphon off union dues from the paychecks of Wal-Mart's millions of employees. The bad news for them is that Wal-Mart and its employees have a good thing going - even if the Boss doesn't know it.

French media goes on strike

French reporters are on strike today to protest proposed changes to public broadcasting media management.

The fact that anyone knows about this may be a signpost of the declining relevance of traditional media... or it means French reporters must really suck at going on strike.

Sunday Funnies: Dennis Miller on the Inaugural Concert

Making the rounds last week was video of Dennis Miller on the O'Reilly Factor, criticizing Young Jeezy and Jay-Z for their racially charged diatribe during pre-inaugural festivities.

I've always found Miller funny, but give him credit. In 2003, Miller became an outspoken supporter of the War on Terror. Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but circa 2002 the pro-Bush, Republican bandwagon was so crowded that it made last week's Obamafest look like the Australian outback after a nuclear winter. And among the intelligentsia, this was less-than welcome news; Miller was so reviled as a turncoat that some wondered if he was some Dr. Moreau-esque genetic amalgam of Benedict Arnold, Alger Hiss, and Lando Calrissian. Some on the right even questioned whether Miller's outspoken conservatism (though he eschewed the conservative tag) was more a finger-in-the-wind capitalization on the post-9-11 zeitgeist from someone who had just gotten booted from the Monday Night Football booth.

But things change and today the only place on TV talking positively about Bush is the Home and Gardening network. For someone in Miller's position, it would have been easy to embrace Obama's hope and back away from previous support for Republicans under the mantra of independence.

Yet Miller stuck to his guns - and revealed much about his outlook by proclaiming high hopes and well wishes for Obama even while admitting he didn't support his candidacy. Miller isn't a politico: Like most people, he has an informed opinion, but also like most people he isn't boxed in by an Attica-like ideology that confines "open thinking" to one daily jaunt to the prison yard that is echo-chamber opinion press you always agree with. If the casual political observer like Dennis Miller is still more conservative than liberal based on an understanding and acceptance of principles, there might by a chance to win back the rest of America.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

ESPN is run by 13-year-old girls

News broke last night on ESPN.com that Dallas Cowboys Tony Romo and Terrell Owens may be having a spat. According to an anonymous source, Owens is "jealous of the quarterback's relationship with tight end Jason Witten." Two segments on the conflict ran at the top of Sportscenter.

Based on ESPN's coverage of the story, Owens might as well have complained about Romo and Witten not calling him before they went to see High School Musical 3. The Cowboys are playing well, slated to make the playoffs despite losing Romo for three critical mid-season games, and both Romo and Owens have been productive.

I'm no Cowboys fan, but I can recognize an overblown story for what it is. It must have been a slow news day for ESPN.

Shooting themselves in the foot?

Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter's comments about the Plaxico Burress situation underscore the fact that every story has two sides. And fellow Giants wide receiver Steve Smith probably wished he had a gun when he was robbed at gunpoint a couple weeks ago outside his gated community in New Jersey.

Many gun rights groups would probably tell you they wish this story would go away, since it's tough to make a black professional athlete into a hero. But this offers an opportunity for groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America to get in front of the story - and with a new administration on the way in, it would smart to frame the story as positively as possible.

Given that Burress flaunted many values groups like the NRA hold dear - by all accounts, the gun was improperly licensed at best and he clearly didn't have the safety on - they can still condemn his action, which they should. However, rather than issuing a hollow criticism of a public figure, they could follow it up by offering free gun safety courses at NFL training camps.

The NFL would likely turn them down, but gun rights groups could at least say they made an effort to help players handle firearms responsibly - and in the process, earn some much-needed positive press.

All the news that's fit to click

I wouldn't have even noticed a difference in the New York Times's online layout this morning if it hadn't been for Mashable calling attention to the new "Extra" layout. In addition to publishing their own stories, the Times links to related stories published by other news outlets and blogs.

This isn't groundbreaking - other news sites have used the "aggregator" strategy for years. But by listing other news outlets, the Times embraces its role as a true online news source, focusing more on providing relevant information than on feeding users an exclusive diet of Times-generated content. It's another example of how, in the modern media environment, control and influence are not necessarily synonymous: by giving putting other news sources at your fingertips, the Times paradoxically makes its own site a more valuable news source.

With old-school newspaper circulation failing, America's most iconic newspaper is showing that old dogs can learn new tricks.

The End of Media Bias

Mashable's coverage of The Huffington Post receiving $25 million in funding reminds us that while media bias may be frustrating, the media have never been less relevant.

The old Mark Twain saying advised against picking fights with anyone who buys ink by the barrel. Now everyone with access to a computer has a barrelful of ink. And, if you're smart about it, you can build a worldwide following (if you want it).

DTV: A Civil Rights Issue?

My Mom just pointed out a local news story about the District of Columbia sending people door-to-door to make sure people in the lower-income neighborhoods are ready for the Digital TV transition coming this February. While looking for the story online, I ran across a press release marking the 100-day countdown to the digital conversion date on CivilRights.org.

I'm glad we've come far enough in this country that "civil rights" means making sure everyone gets to watch TV.

The most trusted name in news...

...is actually Fox, according to a recent Zogby poll. Respondents ranked the Fox News Channel (39%) ahead of "the most trusted name in news," CNN (16%). In fact, CNN scored just slightly ahead of MSNBC (15%) - likely meaning that it wasn't able to position itself as the "moderate" news channel between Fox on the Right and MSNBC on the left.

The best news is that the internet is the most trusted news medium over all. I take this as a good thing: though more susceptible to hoaxes, stories on the web are also easier to verify immediately. In other words, if you don't trust mass media (and, according to the poll, most Americans don't) the internet is a great way to take personal responsibility for staying up to date.

Obamedy

One of the interesting angles in the post-election news has been concern over how the entertainment industry - specifically comedians - will get along without George W. Bush.

Panelists at the New York Comedy Festival, led by Roseanne Barr, suggested a more sophisticated approach to mocking Obama than most comedians took when mocking Bush. Cartoonist Ted Rall suggested Obama's "uptight" nature may offer room for yuks.

But liberal crusader Bill Maher drove right to the root of the hesitancy many comedians may feel, urging comics to "get over our nervousness about making fun of a black person." Maher unwittingly struck a chord for colorblindness with his summary:

"He's not a black person. He's the president."