Completely Unnecessary

You know, I was really thought the best part of election night was the promise of never hearing from Sarah Palin again.

It seems I was wrong - as the McCain camp is going to try like hell to lay his political disaster at her feet. (Plus, she wanted to give her own concession speech - ick).

So, now, we’re going to have days - if not weeks - of back and forth. This means we’re going to have to keep hearing from Sarah Palin, since objectivity demands right of response.

And some of the allegations are pretty absurd - that she didn’t know Africa was a continent or the three countries of NAFTA. Her response to that was pretty smart, actually:

Asked about the Fox report that she did not know the NAFTA members or that Africa was a continent, Palin said, “If they’re an unnamed source, that says it all. I won’t comment on anyone’s gossip based on anonymous sources. That’s kind of a small of a bitter type of person who anonymously would charge that I didn’t know an answer to a question. So until I know who’s talking about it, I won’t have a comment on a false allegation.”

But what I find interesting - and, god help me, I’m defending Sarah Palin - is the type of Palin quotes the media prints. General journalistic practice is to ‘clean up’ colloquialisms and misspeaks. There have been numerous debates during the Bush II presidency over just how much clean up is appropriate, given his frequent mangling of the English language.

The idea is that politicians often speak off the cuff, and this sometimes makes their sentence structure awkward for print media. With Palin, however, the print media seems content to leave clean up alone.

ABC used these quotes:

“I don’t think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic, woeful time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain’s loss to me,” Palin told reporters in Arizona Wednesday.

“Now, having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I’m sorry about that because John McCain I believe is the American hero. I had believed that it was his time. … He being so full of courage and wisdom and experience, that valor he just embodies, I believe he would’ve been the best pick, but that is not the Americans’ choice at this time.”

The first paragraph has a completely redundant clause, the repetition of which only makes her seem like an idiot. An ellipse after ‘credit’ and then picking up with, ‘that my presence…’ would have been sufficient. And I know they’re content using ellipses because they do it in the second paragraph.

As for that second paragraph, they’re doing two things. One is not helping her out with commas, such as around ‘I believe’, which would help readers break her sentences down. It reads as though it’s just pouring out of her mouth. Secondly, ‘He being so full of courage…’ should have been edited to start the sentence with ‘Being…’.

And I think it would have been edited if a different politician were being quoted.

Look, Sarah Palin is not particularly well-spoken. But if you transcribe the long, roundabout sentences used by most politicians - and I’m looking at you, Joe Biden - word for word, they all sound like idiots.

I’m not going to go so far as to accuse the media of belittling Palin in a sexist manner, but it’s clear they don’t like her. She’s going to be a punching bag for months - and she’s certainly earned some of it.

But Palin’s right, if she’s being accused of something, the media shouldn’t be attributing it to anonymous sources. The ABC story I’ve read doesn’t use a single attributed quote.

And most of the article is reporting on what other media outlets have reported with anonymous sources. It’s a media feedback loop - ABC reports what NYT and Newsweek reported, and, put through enough cycles, it’s legitimate news without ever having been attributed to a named source.

Obviously, the best way to deal with this is to ignore Sarah Palin and never interview or talk about her again.

Vaguely Related

• Brooks on Palin’s Debate Performance
• The Toxic Mess on Main Street - The VP Debate

The Chicago Tribune endorsed the Democrat.

The Tribune itself is highly impressed by this fact, and would earn a number 3 (25%-50%) for Question 34 in the study I’m working on: ‘Percentage of story content devoted to metacoverage’.

The four long paragraphs outline the history of Tribune presidential endorsements. They note the paper’s devotion to abolition and smaller government, as well as its deep, abiding admiration for the Chicago Tribune.

The Ed Board writes eloquently of Senator Obama, though their prose is somewhat marred by the graphic running with the article:

Other questions they considered included:

• Do you consider us still relevant?
• Like, totes relevant?
• Is our lame redesign causing you to consider canceling your subscription?
• If you are thinking about it, can you please not do that?

Anyway, despite a long series of bad endorsements (Dole ‘96!), nice to see the hometown paper coming on board.

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

I complain a lot about the gender-based coverage received by women candidates. Overly effusive physical description is one the most prevalent ways in which this gender-tagging occurs.

So, I feel it’s important to call out the media when they gender-tag men, too.

Levi Johnston - Bristol Palin’s fiance - isn’t a candidate, but is apparently important enough to interview.

Johnston is described first as ’soft-spoken’, a frequent gender-tag, but the AP’s Adam Goldman doesn’t stop there:

Johnston, a Wasilla heartthrob, said he wanted to set the record straight.
…
Johnston is an avid hunter. He’s dark haired, tall and muscular, sports a bit of stubble and drives a red Chevy Silverado truck. He’d be the perfect cover for Field & Stream.

Erhm, can someone check Goldman’s notebook for heart doodles? That’s insane.

This is one of the weirdest stories I’ve read in a while. The interview apparently occurred in Levi’s driveway, providing the reader with less of a portrait of Johnston, than concerns about the AP’s stalkiness.

And it’s written in a peculiar, extremely colloquial tone:

He’s bagged bears, sheep, elk, and caribou. Some of the antlers are scattered about his yard. Last July on a caribou hunt he lost a “promise” ring that Palin had given him. He said he decided to tattoo her name on the finger and not bother with more rings because he’d just lose them anyway.

Asked to describe his feeling about the Republican Convention, Johnston replied, “At first, I was nervous… Then I was like, ‘Whatever.’”

That feeling also seems abundant in his attitude toward the democratic process, of which he’s unwittingly become a part; Johnston did not register to vote in this year’s election.

Well, that’s what we learned in our ‘rare interview with The Associated Press’ - I just hope Johnston’s mother doesn’t have to call the Wasilla police to get Goldman off the lawn.

Vaguely Related

• The Toxic Mess on Main Street - The VP Debate
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention

Troopergate investigation finds ‘duh‘:

Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded. The inquiry found, however, that she was within her right to dismiss her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was the trooper’s boss.

Meanwhile, more and more stories are coming in about the whipping up going on at McCain/Palin events - some of it bordering on race-baiting. In one particularly disturbing incident:

Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Megan at Jezebel has a good rundown (with link list at the bottom), so I won’t list them all here.

McCain and Palin have not discouraged this behavior from their supporters. Instead Obama’s campaign got the blame today:

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers adds in another statement: “Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo.”

I’m not even sure that ‘irresponsible’ can describe this behavior (and the dog-whistle response). John McCain used to be better than this. He’s the head of his party and an authority figure; failure to denounce it is tantamount to endorsement.

If someone gets hurt - and I’m thinking most the media people at these events - it will be on McCain’s shoulders.

Vaguely Related

• Navigating the Sarah Palin Daughter Pregnancy Scandal
• Legitimate Concern on Palin

[Ed note - sorry, this was supposed to publish late last night and failed somehow. The miracle of technology.]

I’m not a big fan of Chicago Tribune columnist, Dennis Byrne. (If you’re googling yourself again, Mr Byrne - welcome back.)

His column today [Sept 30], however, made me chuckle rather than foam. This - in all seriousness - is the opening line:

The American public on Monday stuck it to the “knowledgeable and sophisticated” elites who warned that without the $700 billion federal financial bailout plan all hell would break loose.

Um, the ‘elite’ leading the charge for the bailout was none other than Mr Byrne’s president, George W. Bush.

Bryne complains about the choice that we, American taxpayers, are being forced to make:

We who hesitate are lost. On top of that, the public was asked to pick its poison immediately, without congressional hearings, extensive public debate or any other accouterments of a democratic republic. The public was required to accept the edict. No look before you leap.

Now… of what does this remind me? The insistence that we accept at face value what we are told despite what appears to be a reckless investment of capital into a risky adventure that no one has taken the time to think through… What could it be?

But, credit to Mr Bryne for both calling out Bush as ‘elitist’ and then railing against Speaker Pelosi for:

…let[ting] loose with a nasty partisan attack totally inappropriate for the quality of the debate. You had to see it to believe it: There was rational debate on the House floor, indeed in a spirit of bipartisanship, and then she comes along blaming President George W. Bush for everything.

To be fair, I don’t disagree with some of his points - the bailout plan was rather rushed; hopefully there will be a better plan sometime this week.

But what I adore about Byrne’s column is it appears totally devoid of irony (at least when it’s not coming from the Left).

Now that’s something you have to see to believe.

Vaguely Related

• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)
• Roland Burris - Ready to Serve in the Senate

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed well over 5 million people.

Sporadic, ad hoc reporting that emphasizes an ‘ancient ethnic conflict’ meme is just one of the problems with the media’s reaction to crises in African countries, this one in particular.

Such reporting, however, looks downright charming compared with this anonymously authored gem from the BBC today about imprisoned Congolese goats:

The beasts were due to appear in court, charged with being sold illegally by the roadside.

The minister said many police had serious gaps in their knowledge and they would be sent for retraining.

This would be a good story to file under the ‘inescapable African incompetence’ category of reporting, were it not for this line at the end:

BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper says that given the grim state of prisons in Congo, the goats will doubtless be relieved about being spared a trial.

Zing! It’s… hilarious?… how awful the conditions are for thousands of imprisoned Congolese.

This isn’t quite up there with British reporting in the early days of the Rwandan genocide that detailed the escape of a ‘war hero’ poodle, but it’s close.

[By the way, I'm aware that the link above is also from the BBC; it's a bit better (and authored) though it still contains this awesome line: "And because DR Congo's population is large...it's a worse humanitarian crisis even than that caused by other African wars." Even worse than other crazy African wars? Whoa.]

Vaguely Related

• Surprise! Abortion and Breast Cancer - No Link! Again.
• Sarah Palin’s Turkey Fail

Is there really an article in the NYT today about the hugging ‘protocol’ between John McCain and Sarah Palin?

And could it possibly yield one of the most awkward paragraphs I’ve ever read?:

Already, there has been one noticeable shift in protocol: Mr. McCain now introduces his wife first, not Ms. Palin, when both are on stage. But it was not always that way: at his first postconvention rally with Ms. Palin, in Cedarburg, Wis., last Friday, Mr. McCain began by lavishly praising Ms. Palin, who had just rocked the Republican convention. “Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?” Mr. McCain asked the roaring crowd, as Mrs. McCain stood quietly by.
…
Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, Mark Salter, insisted that there had been no behind-the-scenes stage direction — “Nobody said, ‘Cindy first’ ” — and that no one in the campaign had discussed hugging etiquette or protocol between Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin. “They’re going to behave like normal human beings,” he said. “Nobody ever told him, ‘Just shake hands.’ ”

Some commentators have criticized the NYT’s article about Obama ‘dispatching’ Clinton and female surrogates, but this type of story is harder to stomach.

The use of verbs like ‘dispatch’ and ‘deploy’, I’d argue, have more to do with the media’s tendency to use sports and war metaphors in their election reporting than sexism. Clinton is now one of the troops in the Obama campaign machine.

In addition, Obama, as the head of the Democratic party, has the authority to direct supporters to where they are most useful. As such, it is also not surprising to see him as the subject of the sentence (though I could say a few words about the NYT’s seeming obsession with what will women do?! in this election).

The story quoted above smacks more of gender-based trivialization in its light, isn’t-this-so-weird-gurlfriend? tone. It quotes a male McCain representative, followed by two women etiquette experts and then Christopher Buckley for the funny.

Right in the middle is a comment from whatever woman they could find (and create more awkward sentences about):

Christine Todd Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush who 15 years ago was the first woman elected as New Jersey’s governor, said that she, for one, had embraced many of her male counterparts, as long as she knew them well. “I gave them lots of hugs and kisses, depending on the governor,” she said. (Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was one, John Engler of Michigan was another.)

Look, other girls do it, too! (And here’s who they do it with!)

I’m much less concerned with a (perceived) linguistic affront to Clinton (imagine her being sent somewhere, like every other surrogate!) than with articles that emphasize a (perceived) need to treat women candidates differently from their male counterparts.

The article doesn’t explore how Obama and Biden (the McCain/Palin equivalents) interact - it details interactions between Obama and Clinton.

The message is that political body language (at least hugging) is only important between the sexes.

This view posits women as outsiders to the political process - their presence in the arena is awkward and makes us scrutinize what is considered appropriate behavior.

In this article Palin, Clinton, Whitman and Ferraro are women first, politicians second.

It reaffirms and makes commonsense the notion that women in politics (and, perhaps most troubling, their bodies) are something unusual enough to garner special coverage. The constant repetition of this logic in the media prevents the naturalization of women as equal political figures.

One might say, it keeps them at arm’s length…

Vaguely Related

• Life Without Hillary Clinton
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention

I won’t lie and say there isn’t a certain deliciousness in the knocking up of an anti-choice, anti-sexed candidate’s teenage daughter.

It does, however, present a delicate situation (so to speak) for the Democrats. They can’t look like they’re slamming Palin as a woman, whilst also trying to make hay from the obvious conservative fallout.

Let’s hope the media doesn’t screw them up in their response. For instance, by asking questions like this - which conservatives will equate with ‘liberals’:

Asked if Ms. Palin would be able to juggle the demands of the vice presidency with her complicated family life, [McCain's chief strategist] Mr. Schmidt said, “She’s been a very effective governor and again I can’t imagine that question being asked of a man.”

That’s the right answer to that question - and it’s not the right question.

The NYT went right out and interviewed a cavalcade of Republican women (only) to gauge their reaction to the story:

When Pam Younggren, 61, of Fargo, N.D., was told the news of the 17-year-old’s pregnancy, she shrugged. “Well, she wouldn’t be the first one,” she said.

“We can’t control what our daughters do,” she said. “I don’t see it as a problem. She will have appropriate care for her baby.”

And herein lies the question that we should be asking the McCain/Palin ticket.

Bristol Palin and her soon-to-be-husband are a perfect example of why abstinence-only, ‘wait until marriage’ programs don’t work.

While I don’t think we should be asking Sarah Palin if she can handle the rigors of the campaign trail, we should be asking if she thinks the policies she supports are effective.

It’s a fine line, granted. But it’s one the Democrats need to walk. This is a policy issue illustrated in a candidate’s life - we should discuss it the same way we would discuss John McCain’s POW experience in terms of his position on torture.

I’d also like to point out, as Republicans call for respect for privacy, that Democrats’ touch on the issue is likely to be much lighter than their own. Imagine the firestorm if the daughter had been named, say, Chelsea.

The depth of conservative understanding (and a fair amount of hand-washing) would not be the case if this was a Democratic daughter. It would be yet another case of liberal values as a detriment to American society.

And we have here a case of conservative values and Republican policies as a detriment to American society. It is an important discussion to have.

But it is a little delicious. Mary Helen would like to weigh in with a helpful slogan for Republicans: ‘Conservatives are liberal, too!’

Vaguely Related

• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention
• Reflections on Palin’s Convention Acceptance Speech

During a time of crisis, it’s nice to know that you can turn to the media.

Specifically, citizens can rely on the Associated Press, who will more or less publish a press release in full, before it is carefully placed on the front page of the nyt.com:

Before she loaded up two daughters, an aunt, her sister-in-law and a niece to get out of Pearl River, La., north of New Orleans, Cyndy Nobles got into her 2007 Saturn Vue and called OnStar, figuring the operators would know the best way to get to the safety of a relative’s house in Meridian, Miss.
…
[Mo Crane] called to add minutes to his OnStar cell phone, which the service says has better coverage than standard cell services because it transmits from a car rooftop antenna rather than a hand-held phone.

Wait. Which year, make and model has OnStar?

A couple of touches keep this from being a straight press release. I’m almost sure that the reporter added the words ‘the service says’ to final sentence. The original would have read, ‘…which has better coverage…’

This has the usual dead giveaways of awkward, overly long sentences and the quotes that don’t sound like actual people.

But in this case - I think it’s the subadvertisement for the Saturn Vue that makes this a great advertorial.

Link:
Drivers rely on OnStar to evade Hurricane Gustav [AP via nyt.com]

[Oh darn, I seem to have forgotten to link to it.]

Vaguely Related

• The AP’s Sexist Coverage of Levi Johnston
• Rhetoric Around Iceland and the IMF

You really have to hand it to the editors of theage.com.au. There is no story they can’t reduce to a Herald Sun-quality headline these days.

Take, for instance, the story about the possible threat against Obama during the DNC.

Obviously, any talk of a threat against Obama is serious news. The NYT treated it with due diligence - a blog post from Healy on the 25th and a follow-up story on the 26th.

Four people were arrested after a traffic stop that uncovered arms, drugs and a possible plot to assassinate the Democratic candidate. Healy is quick to point out, however:

It was not clear how well along the possible plot was, or whether the people under arrest had found a way to overcome the heavy security surrounding the Democratic convention.
…

The United States attorney for Colorado, Troy Eid, seemed to play down the degree of threat that Mr. Obama faced… “We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado.”

Sounds like news, but something unsurprising - though fundamentally upsetting - and an issue dealt with quickly and effectively by law enforcement.

Here’s how The Age put it:

Target Obama: An American nightmare

IT IS a recurring American nightmare, a fear that haunts a nation and that has stalked every presidential candidate since the Kennedys.

Now, 40 years after Robert Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles, Americans have been confronted again with the spectre of political assassination.

Mercifully, their collective fear was activated this time not by the ringing out of gunshots, but by the random arrest of a suspected drunk driver in Colorado.

It goes on from there, though I think those three paragraphs reflect the fever pitch of hysteria that characterizes an alarming number of stories at theage.com.au these days.

Obviously, a letter to Age editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan seemed in order, had it not been for the unceremonious sacking of Jaspan a day after Fairfax fired 550 of its staff.

(It says something about the structure of your newspaper when stocks go up after the elimination of 165 editorial positions.)

The Age (or at least its online equivalent), however, managed to sex up Jaspan’s firing given a day of thought.

Here’s the initial headline and lede:

Jaspan replaced as Age editor

The Age’s editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan has been replaced one day after Fairfax Media announced 550 jobs would go at its Australian and New Zealand operations.

And here’s the story a day later:

Age editor-in-chief removed in job-cutting sweep

THE Age’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan, has been removed from his position less than 24 hours after the newspaper’s owner, Fairfax Media, announced 550 job losses.

Practically makes it sound like they hauled him from the building. And damned sooner!

(The second article also features a hilarious caption - ‘Andrew Jaspan: Removed’)

Here’s a tip guys - continuing to lower your standards does not appear to be working. I know you’re losing your classified revenue; try making up for it with quality journalism! Think of us as a niche market.

Vaguely Related

• Journalist Revolt at the Age
• Another Chicago-Based First in the 2008 Election