DESECRATING THE ALTERMAN: Best of the Web today disses a lame Eric Alterman "review" of Bernard Goldberg's "Bias." Choice lines:

"Alterman's "argument" is not only wrong, it's too silly even to take at face value. He answers charges that reporters are biased in their news coverage by pointing out that conservative commentators are able to get a fair shake. It's as if a Philip Morris executive answered charges that his company produces deadly products by pointing to the wholesomeness of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese."

And then this:

"True, this column is written in a self-righteous, peevish tone--but it's exactly the same self-righteous, peevish tone that characterizes everything else Alterman writes. In fact, it's a tone that corresponds perfectly to conservative stereotypes of the left. Imagine if Rush Limbaugh--and we're not suggesting Rush has anything to do with this, just using him as an example--could create a liberal caricature to act as a foil. Wouldn't he look a lot like Alterman?"

P.S. If you click on the link to "The Nation" piece, you'll notice at the bottom that Alterman admits that he wouldn't be able to follow the Enron story "were it not for the energetic reporting of the folks at Media Whores Online (www.mediawhoresonline.com) and the thoughtful analysis at Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo website (www.j-marshall.com/talk). Check 'em out." Well, Mr. Marshall's site is certainly worth recommending (I don't always agree with him, but I do stop by regularly), but Media Whores?? Jesus, is he joking or something?? An admission like that ought to put a huge dent in Alterman's credibility as a "serious" media critic.

PRESS MUZZLE FOR ZIMBABWE: President Robert Mugabe is trying to go to extraordinary lengths to silence the press in Zimbabwe. Earlier this month, "The Spectator" reported on how the world is not hearing the truth about the confiscation of Zimbabwe's white-owned farms (and the growing famine threat) because of Mugabe's strong-arm tactics with the media. But the news has been quietly reaching the outside world, thanks in part to one brave woman and her regular e-mail updates on the situation.

I wonder if the Marxists over at FAIR will jump on this the way they've jumped on phantom issues such as press criticism (in New York opinion pages, of all places!) of the anti-globalization protesters descending on Manhattan. Sure enough, a quick search of FAIR found just seven hits for "Zimbabwe," none dealing with the current media lockdown there. But then, what is there to criticize about Mugabe's "progressive" leadership?

BAD CALL: Jonathan V. Last of "The Weekly Standard" points out a bit of bad judgment by the media. The "Palm Springs Desert Sun" had covered the soft treatment a school security guard received for having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student. The paper's opinion page editor penned an outraged editorial, which prompted a response column from 13-year-old Lindsay Llarena that defended the officer and defamed the victim:

"The girl should’ve known not to do this, unless she wasn’t brought up to know right from wrong. ... Everybody makes mistakes, nobody's perfect, and there is no perfect world...Look at Bill Clinton. He was an honorable person. He ran our country, and he had an affair. He didn't even get a punishment, and his authority ranked above police officers."

Now we finally understand Clinton's legacy: 13-year-olds understand not only the intricacies of digital penetration, but also how to smear the victim. She knows enough to ignore important facts of the case, portray the victim as morally impure, suggest that the act was harmless and mutual, and finally dismiss it under the rubric of "everyone does it." Kind of like Lanny Davis.

Obviously, Vast is using the piece to engage in a bit of gratuitous Clinton-bashing, but I think the deeper problem rests with the newspaper:

It (probably) isn't fair to beat up on Lindsay, so I won't. She's dumb and selfish and 13. But what about the adults? When asked why the paper chose to run Lindsay's piece, (opinion editor Cindy) Uken says cautiously, "We thought it was the right thing to do."

Wrong. This is a stunningly bad call. What's next, publishing letters from the friends of rapists describing how their victims were "begging for it"? You can postulate all you want about the wealthy, liberal California mind-set and the shameless indulgence of the whims of spoiled children. I've got my own theories on why publishing this 13-year-old child's column was "the right thing to do" in the eyes of the "Desert Sun."

1) They really, truly believed they were providing "fair and balanced" coverage of a controversial issue. This could happen after a long, contentious staff meeting where it is decided that the high and lofty journalistic standard of complete, total, absolute, non-judgmental objectivity trumps ordinary human decency and common sense. (I've seen similar things happen, albeit over far less controversial issues.)

2) They figured a provocative and controversial column would generate a lot of attention in the community. Cynics may call it pandering to sell papers, but editors can easily defend it by calling it a "community dialogue."

Thing is, they probably weren't counting on the "Wall Street Journal" or the "Weekly Standard" to be reading, too.

COMEDY GOES CONSERVATIVE: I don't know if anyone else has noticed this (I'm sure they have) but I just stumbled across this piece by comedian Larry Miller from "The Weekly Standard" that is both smart and funny. The subject: Johnny Taliban. Here's some choice lines:

Of course, many Americans on the call-in shows are rationalizing what he did. One mental giant reflected, "Let's not judge him too quickly. I did some wild things when I was nineteen, too." Like what, hack off feet in Sierra Leone? The Taliban was not a search for self.

Okay, everyone, from the top again, with feeling: The Taliban was a death cult, a collection of devils who skinned their own alive to maintain fear, who blasphemed every time they used the word "God," whose least horrible accomplishment was the vicious way they treated their women. They were a bloodlust burrito wrapped in heat and hate, so joining them wasn't a wacky alternative to interning for Amnesty International; it was evil.

Hopefully writing for "The Weekly Standard" won't damage his career.

OOPS! From the Off the Record column in this week's "New York Observer:"

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The New York Times, was recently on C-Span giving a speech on the history of The Times that included a surprising addition to his own family’s history. As PoliticsNY.com first noted, in the speech, Mr. Sulzberger said this regarding The Times’ coverage of the Holocaust: "We terribly regret that we did not do our journalistic job. We did not fully publicize the full horrors perpetrated by Adolph Ochs and his wretched Third Reich." Unless Mr. Sulzberger knows something we don’t, Adolph Ochs–the founder of The New York Times and Mr. Sulzberger’s great-grandfather–had nothing to do with Adolf Hitler. Mr. Sulzberger told Off the Record, "I just wanted to make sure the audience was awake.

THE SPORTSWRITERS: Chris Rose of the New Orleans "Times-Picayune" (perhaps the greatest newspaper name in history) talks about the boneheads who showed up for Super Bowl "Media Day" Tuesday (link via Romenesko). That got me thinking about something I saw on one of those NFL Films "Super Highlights From The Super Bowl" thingees on ESPN late one night. It was one of those crazy guys from the old Raiders (Matuzak, Long, Hendricks, I can't remember which) talking about the media at the Super Bowl. I can't remember it verbatim, but it went something like this:

"You guys show up here a week before the game, come to Media Day, eat all the free food, drink all the free beer, and don't ask a single serious question. You come to the practices, eat all the free food, drink all the free beer, and don't ask a single serious question. Then on the day of the game, you sit in the press box, eat all the free food, drink all the free beer, and when the game's over, you come up to us and say, 'What happened out there today?' "

(Full disclosure: I was a former sports guy, but I never covered anything bigger than a Division I college football game.)

LAYNE IT ON THICK: Ken Layne does a dance all over the Project for Excellence In Journalism's study of media credibility that I highlighted the other day. Thing is, Layne is much funnier than I am. Check it out.

JOURNALISTS, GRAB YOUR CALCULATORS: The folks over at the Statistical Assessment Service have released their Dubious Data Awards for 2001. Highlights: The Michael A. Bellesiles controversy and the "plague" of shark attacks this past summer.

The realm of statistics is one of the most common places where journalists screw up. They either misinterpret numbers or accept some advocacy group's statistics as being absolute truth without doing a little digging. Of course, some of this is sheer laziness. But a lot of it has to do with smaller newspaper staffs being forced to do much more.

'COLORING' BACKLASH: Eugene Kane, a columnist at the "Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel," has written a piece about William McGowan's "Coloring The News" that's short on substance and long on ad hominem attacks on the author. Like this one: "McGowan strikes me as one of the white journalists who long for the days of all-white newsrooms, all-white society pages, and no black faces in the newspaper unless they were charged with a crime." And this gem: "In McGowan's mind, the cause of journalism has been hurt by the inclusion of more minority voices." So Kane can read minds? Maybe he should try reading the book. Actually, it's not the inclusion of minority voices that bothers McGowan; it's the unquestioning acceptance of anything those "voices" say, no matter how distorted or wrong-headed it may be. Kane himself provides a perfect example:

"Many don't seem to recognize I write from a "black" perspective, meaning, as a product of my upbringing, my education and the way I view the world." I'm just going to come right out and say it. What is this mystical "black perspective"? How is it so radically different from the "white perspective"? Black writer Albert Murray, in the indispensible "Omni-Americans," wrote these words more than 30 years ago, but they seem to be long forgotten: "American culture, even in its most rigidly segregated precincts, is patently and irrevocably composite. It is, regardless of all the hysterical protestations of those who would have it otherwise, incontestably mullatto. Indeed, for all their traditional antagonisms and obvious differences, the so-called black and so-called white people of the United States resemble nobody else in the world so much as they resemble each other."

Kane continues: "Some readers appear to think my views are presented as some sort of indictment against white society. Actually, I'm just "thinking black" out loud." I'm not familiar enough with Kane's work to know his views, but virtually every large metro daily has the "Negro media spokesman" Murray also described in "The Omni-Americans."

"No Negro media spokesman really needs to be anything more than a very special kind of entertainer who uses charts, graphs, and monographs as his stage props. All he ever has to do is keep his gossip obscene enough, and then pretend (with a militancy nice enough) to be upset about the miserable plight of his white-ridden or his black-ridden "brothers" and he can make himself a fairly sizable income and keep himself in a limelight of sorts as long as this kind of thing pleases enough white people enough."

Kane continues: "It's strange to have this book railing against affirmative action and making wild claims about an influx of minority journalists who threaten to take over - and erode the quality of - the national media at this particular time. Truth is, the number of African-American journalists at U.S. newspapers declined in 2001 to a paltry 5.3%, according to the latest surveys. Black journalists have been fleeing the business at an unfettered rate the last few years due to rampant dissatisfaction."

I don't buy that. You can't blame newspapers if blacks in college choose to major in, say, education instead of journalism. Or choose to become civil servants. No amount of special scholarships or internships will ever change that. Every newspaper I've ever worked for has bent over backwards to recruit and retain black journalists.  But because the percentage of minority journalists is not equal to the percentage of minorities in the nation, subtle and not-so-subtle accusations of racism are hurled. Stanley Crouch, in "the All-American Skin Game," wrote some choice words after speaking at Unity '94, a confab of minority journalists that harangued the major media companies to improve diversity. "Things have changed to such a large extent that the rhetoric of those who seek greater present influence on the media is far out of line with the reality of metamorphoses that is at the heart of the national matter."

All of these issues, and more, are addressed in McGowan's book. It's too bad folks in Milwaukee will only get one side of the story.

COLLEGE CALUMNY: Matt Welch (who dubbed this blog "fine" yesterday; thanks, Matt!) shares memories of a politically correct witch hunt at his college newspaper. Surely John Leo wrote about this somewhere.

We never had anything nearly that goofy happen at my college paper (it was a small school and had a small, twice-weekly rag) but I do remember one semi-outrageous incident. In my junior year, the editor of the paper was a flaming Chomskyite leftist. At the time I considered myself a solid liberal and generally agreed with some of his views, but then he went off the deep end. In the last paper of the year he penned a long, angry screed on the editorial page titled "Why I Hate America." It was the typical stuff: slavery, racism, sexism, military-industrial complex, CIA, blah, blah, blah. The photo that accompanied the column showed this guy wrapped in an American flag, beams of pure hate emanating from his creepy gray eyes. We read and re-read the column. Surely this is a joke, right? There's some kind of sophisticated satire in here that we're just not getting, right?. But no, there was no punch line. And here's the really screwed-up part: This guy, who was graduating, ran the column in the paper's final edition of the school year. No one could possibly respond to it until the fall. But by then, it was pretty much forgotten.

LYING AS A MORAL VIRTUE: Slate's Scott Shuger has an interesting column today on "The Case for Lying About Terrorists." The column is about doctoring photos of terrorists for propaganda purposes, but it also makes a point aabout the ego-fueled members of the media who trawl for information that could damage our campaign against terrorism while claiming they're defending the First Amendment:

...as Churchill said, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." In other words, war is about defending fundamental principles, and the protection of first truths often requires sacrificing secondary and tertiary ones. And the United States shouldn't try to project an image around the world of never lying but rather one of not lying about what's important. The first truth in this case—that the world's stability and liberty requires neutralizing Bin Laden—clearly trumps the principle that all government-issued depictions of people should be unaltered.

Or that the media has the right to know everything our government is doing to fight terrorism.

MEDIA BACKS WAR, BUT BABBLES ON: Howie Kurtz reports today on a study that's critical of the media, but nonetheless indicates that we've been pretty much on the correct side in the War on Terrorism. The study, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, found that "Overall, the media coverage has been 'demonstrably pro-administration,' the group says, with half of all reports containing only viewpoints that favor American policies and 13 percent mostly pro-United States. By December, though, as the United States was wrapping up its military victory, 42 percent of stories presented a mixture of pro-U.S. and dissenting views." But the study also chides the media for its over-reliance on analysis and opinion, and blames the Pentagon for limiting press access.

The report, available here, does have some valuable findings, but it seems to suggest that the media have failed to do their jobs properly because they've been too biased toward the administration. I know that skepticism is vital for the news media, but this report is shot through with the wrong sort of skepticism. I just don't get it; here is a case where, for perhaps the first time since World War II, good and evil have been defined with shocking clarity. The mass murder of nearly 3,000 civilians and the brutal subjugation of an impoverished nation, both done by a regime that made it clear that it would extend its evil vision around the globe, are clearly causes worth fighting for. But the Project for Excellence in Journalism would have journalists watch their every word because they're supposed to be detached from the passions of the mob. Here's an excerpt from the report:

On talk shows, journalists often seemed to luxuriate in sounding not like knowledgeable experts on TV stages, but like anyone else standing in a barroom.

The death of Osama Bin Laden's third in command for CNN's Margaret Carlson on December 17 was "another reason to be cheerful."

"Having Osama bin Laden on trial in the United States of America is a nightmare," Cokie Roberts declared on ABC's This Week November 18. "With any luck, you know, he is—he is found dead."

"Anyone else standing in a barroom." There's a fair amount of contempt for the common man dripping from that formulation, and illustrates the kind of myopia that guides too many in the media. I suppose CNN and ABC News should have had spokesmen for Al Qaeda on to defend themselves. Maybe the Project for Excellence in Journalism could then deem the networks "fair and balanced."

The report also includes a deceptive comparison: "As the story moved to the war in Afghanistan, however, analysis and opinion swelled — so much so that the level of factualness declined to levels lower than those seen in the middle of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal." How much did it "swell"? A whole 11 percent, from 25 percent in the weeks after to Sept. 11 to 36 percent in December. And the comparison with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is not accurate, because that story, in which, for a long time, only two people really knew the "factualness," was being heavily "spun" by the "official sources" and by highly partisan groups on both sides. It was a far more ambiguous and far more political event, and can't be compared with a war where press secrecy serves an important strategic purpose.

There was also this interesting finding that Howie Kurtz put in his column: "Is Fox News the most pro-American network? On CNN's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown," 77 percent of the war-related assessments were entirely supportive of the administration, compared with 56 percent on Fox's "Special Report with Brit Hume." (Another 22 percent of segments on the Hume program were mostly supportive.) The "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" also carried segments that offered only pro-administration sentiments 77 percent of the time. "So much for the supposed liberal slant of PBS," the report says." I was surprised that Fox was more critical of the administration than CNN (kind of makes me wonder about their methodology), but there is no way Jim Lehrer's support for a just and popular war wipes out the slanted, lefty-liberal journalism of PBS' "Frontline" or "P.O.V."

JONAH'S LATE ON JOHNNY TALIBAN: Jonah Goldberg's Friday column discusses the media's reluctance to report on whether the revelation that John Walker's dad was gay had any influence on his decision to join the Taliban. Goldberg makes some absolutely correct points: "Which is why, I think, if John Walker Lindh had decided to join the skinheads or some mountain militia and made it into the papers by via domestic, Oklahoma-city-style terrorism the press would have seen it as validation. They would have yelled from the mountaintops that the "right" is filled with "homophobic rage" and other such silliness. It would have been Matthew Shepherd time a million." Goldberg is essentially right in this observation, too: "The press was caught by surprise because this guy had gone overseas to hate America. The pages of the usual script got jumbled. All of a sudden it seemed, if for a moment, that homosexuality might have something to do with hating America, or terrorism, or who knows what, and the press collectively and subconsciously said, "we're not going to touch this one." And here, too: "As for the Left, they too got caught by surprise. They had so much trouble accepting the fact that people can simultaneously hate America and be worse than America, they missed their opportunity to blame the Talibanization of Johnny Walker on his homophobia."

Well, not all of the Left missed it.

Almost a month ago, prominent gay commentator Michaelangelo Signorile postulated that John Walker may have joined the Taliban after discovering that his father was gay. Signorile reached this conclusion despite a lack of evidence about whether the conversion occurred before or after his father's revelation. Ignoring the path Walker voluntarily started down with the apparent blessing of a family that seemed to say "Whatever, dude," Signorile instead suggested that "the ingrained, religion-based hatred of homosexuality in American society may have caused John Walker to have a visceral reaction upon learning of his father’s supposed involvement with a man." Well, since we're not sure when this conversion occurred, isn't it possible that it was Islam that may have caused him to have a "visceral reaction" to his father's supposed involvement with a man? It seems entirely possible that Walker's tolerant, Marin County upbringing could have been undermined by radical Islamic beliefs. After all, the Taliban are the guys who would throw homosexuals from tall buildings. What about the "ingrained, religious-based hatred of homosexuality" in Islamic societies?

Signorile also seemed astonished by media reports that Walker's interest in hip-hop could have served as a bridge to radical Islam, as if there were no connections at all between the two. Well, it would seem that there are many, many links, as this article suggests. Indeed, there is virtually no reporting in the mainstream press about the relationship between hard-core rap and the racist ideology of the Nation of Islam. Here's a chilling article about what one rap superstar is really singing about.

My personal take is this (again, it's all speculation): Walker learned to hate "racist Amerikka" by becoming immersed in the works of rappers associated with the Nation of Islam. Then, after reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," he learned about the truer Islam that X embraced late in his life. Seeking some sort of spiritual connection in an anything-goes household, Walker then became an enthusiastic convert to a radical, non-American religion that nonetheless didn't demonize people that "looked like him." In the end, it was probably a confluence of forces that drove him from the arms of America and into the arms of the Taliban. But discussions about Islamic homophobia, or the corrosive effects of a genre of rap (i.e. Ice Cube, Public Enemy) that Stanley Crouch has dubbed "Afro-fascist" won't be taking place in the mainstream media anytime soon.

J-SCHOOL MAIL CALL: Tim Blair gets a letter from a snot-nosed Cornell j-school kid. And Ken Layne relates his own experiences with j-school grads:

"I'm talking about people who went to college right out of high school and majored in Journalism (?) and then got hired by an actual daily newspaper with no experience whatsoever."

SO LONG, LEWIS: The "New Criterion," that high-brow journal of criticism, bids an acerbic farewell to longtime "New York Times" columnist Anthony Lewis. The best line is a description of Lewis' farewell column: "In the short space of seven-hundred-odd words it manages to push eighteen left-liberal hot buttons and stand up for twenty-seven—some say thirty-two —articles of East Coast establishment orthodoxy."

I was a little late this time around, but I generally check in with the "New Criterion" monthly. True, articles such as "The Asymmetrical George Moore" don't appeal to me, but the "Notes & Comments" is almost always an enjoyable read.

J-SCHOOL DOWN UNDER: Tim Blair has a typically funny discussion on the importance of a journalism-school education. A choice line from Blair:

"But other graduates certainly do learn something at j-school. I'm not sure what is it is, though … arrogance? Snobbishness? Elitism? A combination of all three?"

Like Blair, I didn't go to j-school, either. But I've certainly encountered plenty of people who meet the above description. And news executives tend to genuflect before j-school grads when it's hiring time. Here's a personal story.

Way back in 1989, I was a sports writer on a small daily. I wanted to be a news reporter, so I applied for a job at a similar-sized paper. Well, I get there, and I've got my clips (story samples) of the newsy coverage of a town's attempts to acquire a minor-league baseball team. I thought I had a good shot at the job until the editor looked at me and said, "So-and-so State University - that's not exactly a bastion of journalism, is it?" I couldn't believe he had the nerve to say something like that to a job candidate who had driven 600 miles to seek employment at his paper.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job. But nowadays, I tell people that I jumped up and yelled, "Who you callin' a bastion? I know who my daddy is!" and went storming out of the office. A much better story.

By the way, I found out later that the guy they hired (a recent j-school grad) was fired six months later because he sucked at his job.

'COLORING' OUTSIDE THE LINES: I finally found a negative review of William McGowan's "Coloring the News." It showed up in the "Washington Monthly," which is now bi-monthly, which may explain why it's taken so long to surface.

The review, by Seth Mnoonkin, a former senior correspondent for inside.com and Brill's Content,  is pretty weak. He spends half the article describing the inside baseball of how the book came to be published and obsessing on a discredited "New Republic" article on diversity at the "Washington Post" (read a discussion of that here) before getting to the real criticism. "McGowan's book demonstrates an impressive ability to misinterpret and misreport facts," Mnoonkin writes, while citing but a single instance where it does so. But this is a review that raises many questions that go unanswered, such as this one:

"Coloring the News is filled with canards and an unsophisticated tendency to see conspiracies behind every door even as it fails to recognize the tremendous change that has occurred in American newsrooms over the past six years." What "tremendous change" is this guy talking about? As a real, live journalist in a real, live newsroom, I can guarantee you that very little has changed on the diversity front, and economically, virtually nothing has changed. I've seen jobs go unfilled for months while papers boosted their profits.

About that economic angle. Mnoonkin thinks this book should have been written in the mid-1990s, back when job-scared Angry White Males were marching on the castle with pitchforks in hand: "Efforts to diversify the country's newsrooms were often forced and clumsy, and many people, black and white, had legitimate gripes. There was a growing backlash against affirmative action." But then, apparently, things magically improved. People immediately quit bitching about questionable hiring practices, because there were jobs a-plenty (though not anywhere I've worked). "Affirmative action in the newsroom ... became less pressing as the economy got better and there were more jobs to be had. And the country's news directors, editors, and publishers have become more nuanced in their efforts to broaden the makeup of their operations."  First of all, the economy is most decidedly not getting better, especially in newsrooms. Thousands have been laid off in the past few months. Second, the problem with affirmative-action practices at big news companies is that they aren't just the "cast a wider net" kind; they almost always link news executives' salaries, bonuses and promotions to quotas, though they're more likely to be called "goals."

That's the problem with this review. It focuses too much on affirmative-action issues, and ignores what McGowan was really talking about: the unquestioned assumptions that surround coverage of racial issues and "diversity."

THE FUTURE IS ONLINE: The print-vs.-Web debate heats up over at Romenesko's letters page (always a fun read). Slate publisher Scott Moore weighs in, writing that "the long-term economics of magazines ... as well as of newspapers is highly dubious." He makes a pretty compelling case, though I personally don't think printed newspapers are going to go away until the debut of the ultimate handheld gizmo with the ultra-fast Internet connection that's so affordable and easy to use that everyone will just have to own one.

AARON BROWN UPDATE: Glenn "Tha Blogfatha" Reynolds posts an update on Aaron Brown from this "Slate" article. As The Professor says, it's "being forwarded around CNN with some glee." Not a very flattering portrait of Mr. Brown. Scott Shuger's killer lines: "Brown's problem isn't just that he salts his ceaseless patter with references to his many, many years of experience as a reporter (which were mainly spent not in New York, Washington, or Tokyo, but in Seattle, where he was known behind his back as "Arrogant Brown") and to his deep knowledge of the inner workings of journalism. He also just doesn't understand that he himself doesn't have any fresh information and that his sole reason for existence is to cue people who do."

YELLOW JOURNALISM WRAPPED IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE: The "Columbia Journalism Review" has finally posted its enjoyable "Darts & Laurels" feature. This month's "dart" highlights some dirty reporting at two competitive Wilkes-Barre, Pa., newspapers. One paper, the "Citizens' Voice," accused the editor of the competing "Times Leader" of not being properly patriotic because he "stood silent" during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at a local board meeting. Later, the "Citizens' Voice" attacked an educator because he was seen not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance at his school. This was not some post 9/11 witch hunt for the unpatriotic; both attacks had some dubious ulterior motives.

This kind of crap goes on fairly regularly out in the hinterlands, especially among those vaunted "family-owned" newspapers that are supposed to be so much more objective than the corporate-controlled dailies. The thing is, the family-owned outfits often have their own petty, small-town vendettas and biases, and there's no corporate standards to reign them in. For example, the first newspaper I ever worked for put meetings of the Kiwanis Club on the FRONT PAGE! Why? Because the paper's owner and publisher was a member! This wasn't some tri-weekly in a town of 3,000; this was a family-owned, 25,000-circulation, six-day-a-week afternoon paper in a town with a population of roughly 45,000. That paper was something else. I think I'm gonna include those days in a future "Profiles in Discourage - The Early Years." A quick hint: In 1989, my GROSS pay from that paper (January to December) was $11,436! And that is not a typo! I've still got the W-2's to prove it!

UN-CIVIL CENSORSHIP: Lloyd Grove reports today on a censorship controversy at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. It seems that Chairman May Frances Berry, who proved she was a Stalinist during the drafting of the commission's Florida election report, is trying to block the publication of a book review in the commission's "Civil Rights Journal." The reason? Because it mentions commissioners Abigail Thernstrom and Christopher Edley. If you remember, Berry tried everything in her power to block the publication of Thernstrom's dissenting opinion to the commission's highly slanted Florida election report. "Mary Frances Berry is a totalitarian. She's a book-burner, and she constantly lies," Thernstrom told Grove.

BROADCAST SNIFFS AT PRINT: Someone e-mailed me this little doozy that appeared in a recent issue of the "Washington Post." (Second item.) This happened at a CNN media junket.

"CNN stars (Paula) Zahn and (Aaron) Brown appeared onstage to demonstrate their skill at live satellite interviews (with Nic Robertson in New York and Christiane Amanpour in Mogadishu) and to sniff at questions put to them by the critics.

When USA Today's Robert Bianco reminded Brown that CNN has done its share of shark attack and car chase coverage, Brown wanted to know what paper he was from.

"That's the paper with all the color pictures, right?" Brown sniffed. Zahn, a world-class sniffer, told critics that CNN's sole mission is to cover the news and that on her morning show "you will continue to see us . . . interview the Pakistani ambassador to the U.N. while our competitors are making mixed drinks -- on their set."

Aaron Brown: That's the little twerp with the bad dye job, right?

SO LONG, NEWSPRINT: There's another story proclaiming the impending death of newspapers at "Shift." (Link via Romenesko.) Choice quote: "Over the next ten to twenty years -- and this is a conservative estimate -- newspapers will have to substantially re-invent themselves or they will perish. In some cases, maybe only the online version will exist; I already know many people -- and this has to be considered a major concern among newspaper publishers -- who used to buy or subscribe to a daily that now just check out the (free) online version. If the print version does survive, it will look much different -- perhaps it will primarily be service-oriented, like a gigantic Life section or something." I agree that newspapers must re-invent themselves, but I'm not so sure they'll just become "service-oriented." I know, the Web has the immediacy of television and all that (I'm on it for a large part of the day), but personally, I think there's something about the feel of a newspaper spread out in front of you at a diner that can't be replicated by even the nicest handheld gizmo. (Yes, I admit it; I'm "biased" here.) It's one of those things that's going to take a while to wean people off of culturally. It's kind of like the online-shopping thing; techno-geeks predicted that in 10 years we'd be ordering everything we need from the Web for home delivery, when it's pretty obvious that we just like going to the mall, traffic woes and all. It's cultural.

As for newspapers, I think we'll be seeing even more "synergy" between the print and online editions. (For example, "for in-depth coverage, see www.yournewspaper.com," or a story might be a "print exclusive" or a "Web exclusive"). It might also mean that the print edition becomes the home for longer analysis-type stories or "enterprise," while the Web becomes the home for breaking news. The Sept. 11 attacks might have been a litmus test for the future of news organizations. And how did newspapers do? Well, ours had its biggest sales week ever, and our Web site saw its most hits ever. Newspaper circulation is up for the year. So are visits to newspaper Web sites.

CROUCH REVISITED: Stanley Crouch reminds us why he is one of our foremost authorities on jazz and American society in his most recent "Daily News" column, which coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day: "In its all-American essence, jazz is even more than a great art form. It symbolizes the best of our nation, every one of its democratic ideals. It expresses the belief that people should be respected no matter where they come from. It proves that we can be individuals and work together, and that if we are sensitive enough we can make a stronger collective through our very individuality." And here's an interview that took place after the terrorism attacks that reminds us why he's one of our most important commentators on a variety of subjects. Here's a choice exchange:

Q:What do you think about this wave of Black Patriotism? Some in progressive movements and the Black left are upset with this.

Crouch: "F**k them. The people who are upset think that everyone Black should take their position. In other words, they feel that Black people's attitude towards America should be thumbs down. The so-called progressives do not believe everything is thumbs down in America, which is how come they are in America. This is one of the few countries were you can talk about how bad the country is, and you can teach at its universities. I am not opposed to that. But I am saying that if you hate America and you are still getting paid at a public university for exposing your views, then you need to face the fact that you are an example of the freedom of this country that you claim to hate. You cannot do that in any of the countries that you claim to be supporting or understanding. None of these people could live under an Osama Bin Laden."

And here's his response to a column he didn't like in something called "Drastic Magazine." Great stuff.

KINGSOLVER ATTACKS: Novelist Barbara Kingsolver, who gained infamy after Sept. 11 for her anti-American rants, is considering legal action against the "Wall Street Journal" for misquoting her, according to this "Boston Globe" story (second item; link via Romensko). Apparently, the much-circulated quote from the "San Francisco Chronicle" that goes: ''In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder?'' lost the question mark in numerous reprints, including the WSJ. ''My detractors have essentially fabricated a reason that people should not listen to me,'' Kingsolver says. ''It's as if someone took an angry rant out of the mouth of Captain Ahab and [presented] it as Herman Melville's opinion ... When it happens to you, it's a shocking reawakening that you should be absolutely skeptical about what you read.''

Needless to say, she's got a pretty weak case. I mean, there was no punctuation problem with the words that came before the infamous quote: "Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union." Nor was there misplaced punctuation in this quote: "I fear the sound of saber-rattling, dread that not just my taxes but even my children are being dragged to the cause of death in the wake of death." You can re-read the entire column here.

Another piece she wrote included this doozy: "It leaves me feeling chilled and forsaken to imagine kissing my children goodbye some morning and, by nightfall, having all the beauty of my days reduced to a symbol claimed by opportunistic military men as an act of war." You can re-read that column here.

This is probably old news to most bloggers, who jumped all over these and other idiotic statements from our literary classes. But I thought a reminder would be appropriate.

CRACKS IN BIAS FACADE: The Media Reseach Center reports that at least one broadcast journalist has conceded that most journalists skew left in outlook. Av Westin, a former vice president of ABC News, told the "Boston Globe," "I think by and large, people in the news business bat from the left side of the plate." The Globe story, about Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias," elicited responses from people in the media business. Deborah Potter, former network news correspondent and executive director of NewsLab, said: ‘I have yet to see a body of evidence that suggests the reporting that gets on the air reflects any political bias.’" But others were more realistic. Said Rick Kaplan, former CNN President: "Searching for the unbiased human being is an impossible task...What makes journalists skilled is that they know how to be fair." And David Laventhol, Publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review: "Journalists have a certain worldview based on being in Manhattan...that isn’t per se liberal, but if you look at people there, they lean’ in that direction."

I think Kaplan hits the nail on the head. Finding the unbiased reporter is impossible. But good journalism dictates fairness. How do you achieve fairness? When reporting, either avoid labels like "conservative" or "liberal" altogether, or use them properly and consistently. Avoid "one-source" stories. Give the opposing side a fair hearing. And occasionally, take the time to vigorously challenge your assumptions about many issues. The last one may be the most important, but it's also the most difficult.

DERBY GOES BLOGGING: "National Review" old-timer John Derbyshire gives blogging a shot today. He says he's going to make it a monthly feature. Today's Derby Blogwatch: Weird schlubs can't speak freely; Paula Zahn's babealiciousness difficult to discern; buy my book when it comes out; nyet to Russian-English translation software; rating the libraries; gun-wielding Chinese cook is Man of the Month; mathematicians do it longer.

CPJ BLASTS ISRAEL'S ATTACK: The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement condemning Israel's destruction of the Palestinian Authorities' TV and radio studios. "We condemn this reprehensible attack," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper. "By repeatedly targeting these media, Israel is not only depriving the Palestinian public of news and information, but also placing all journalists covering conflicts at risk by potentially undermining their civilian status." Sounds like journalists sticking up for journalists. But Charles Johnson has pointed out that the Palestinian media are little more than propaganda mouthpieces calling for the destruction of Israel. Slate's Annie Applebaum reports:

"Worst of all are the TV programs for children. I was shown some of these when in Israel a few years ago and can testify to their creepiness: I distinctly remember groups of little girls chanting, "Death to Israel" while smiling adults looked on with approval. Even when they don't advocate violence, children's television does persistently broadcast the message that all of Israel is really Palestine, and that all of Israel therefore belongs to the Arabs."

F.A.I.R. -LY WEAK: Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting placed this column in the "Arizona Republic" to debunk the liberal-bias charges in Bernard Goldberg's "Bias." Once you get past the ad hominem attacks, FAIR appears to have an argument with some meat on its bones: "Goldberg marshals little documentation for his claim that the news is packed with the views of liberal advocacy groups and rarely includes conservative opinions. In reality, year after year, right-leaning think tanks are cited in far more broadcast and print reports than either centrist or left-leaning think tanks."

Sure enough, that survey shows that in 1999, those think tanks that FAIR defines as right-leaning received 51 percent of media citations; those think tanks that FAIR defines as centrist received 35 percent; and those think tanks that FAIR defines as progressive or left-leaning received 13 percent. But part of the problem is the definition of "centrist." In my view, what's defined as "the center" has drifted leftward over the past couple of decades. Also, FAIR leaves out the large array of "think tanks" that are funded by the Ford Foundation, which gives out nearly $1 billion a year to liberal causes.

But there's a much deeper problem with FAIR's analysis. Right-leaning think tanks are quoted so often in the press because they are virtually the only conservative voices out there to challenge the vast stream of studies and surveys flowing from America's biggest left-leaning think tanks - the major universities. That's a big reason that organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution exist in the first place; to counter and fact-check the slanted information flowing from universities. After all, whose study on, say, poverty carries the greater weight: the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute's or Harvard's? I rest my case.

TREATING TABLOIDS LIKE PORN: Romenesko posts a link to a story from the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" about grocery stores covering up the covers of tabloid newspapers because of their racy photos. The plastic wrap also extends to Cosmo and Redbook. This seems a bit silly to me. There's nothing there that can't be seen on daytime TV.

J-SCHOOL JOKES: Ken Layne has posted links to something called the "Ink Syndicate" and its School of Journalism, and it is absolutely hilarious. I think I'm gonna add this to my permanent links. And maybe this true story, too.

Like a whole lot of other journalists I've met, I never went to J-school, and I've encountered plenty of people who went to "prestigious" J-schools who weren't very good at their jobs, yet still tried to big-time me and everyone around them because they had a fancy education.

MEDIA SLAP FIGHT! Eric Alterman of "The Nation" replies to the Opinion Journal's James Taranto at Romenesko's letters page for this little item. And then Taranto fires right back. Too funny.

WHAT BIASED MEDIA? From a straight news story (not an analysis or opinion piece) in the Jan. 17 "Washington Post": "In November, researchers announced that they had made the first human embryo clones, giving immediacy to warnings by religious conservatives and others that science is no longer serving the nation's moral will. At the same time, the United States was fighting a war to free a faraway nation from the grip of religious conservatives who were denounced for imposing their moral code on others." So the Post is equating the murderous, irrational Taliban with Americans who have moral qualms about cloning. Interesting. I found this at the Media Research Center's Web site.

SLIP-UPS GALORE: Opinion Journal has a hilarious look at some boneheaded stumbles that have appeared in "The Nation" in recent weeks. Seems they just can't figure out which baseball team Bush was part-owner of, and what the connection with Enron was. But in light of all the plagiarism stuff that's floating around, this was the item that was really funny: "Columnist Eric Alterman apparently borrowed a phrase from George Will in 1989--then, 12 years later, accused Will of plagiarizing him."

TODAY'S PULL QUOTE: "It putrefies the essence." - Director David Lynch, deflecting questions about changes he made in "Mulholland Drive," from a story in "USA Today."

A GOOD, QUICK TAKE ON BIAS: David Mastio, an editorial writer at USA TODAY, makes an interesting point about media bias in a letter that appears at Romenesko's letters page: "Isn't it possible that both critiques of mainstream journalism are true? Right-wingers are right that reporters and editors tend to have a mildly-liberalish view of the world that is reflected in their writing and story choice, particularly on social issues and in partisan showdowns between Democrats and Republicans. Left-wingers are right that much of the media, particularly TV, have a very narrow view of what the political debate is, leaving out many on the extremes until their ideas begin to influence the center. From where I sit, neither argument contradicts the other."

This seems true to me, though I personally believe that the big problem with media bias is that those who engage in it aren't aware they're doing it. They think their views are centrist (and therefore unbiased) because they come from a milieu where the "center" has been gradually redefined to the left over the past 30 or so years.

BERNIE STRIKES BACK: Bernard Goldberg of "Bias" fame responds to his critics in this column from the "Washington Post."

AND THE DISHONOR GOES TO...: The folks at the Media Research Center have released their "Dishonor Awards" for 2001. Give it a look.

CHANNELLING MARK TWAIN: Norman Solomon of FAIR assumes the persona of the great American novelist in this silly little piece from FAIR. He chides the U.S. for supplying aid to Angola and making it one of the most heavily landmined countries on Earth, but a simple Internet search found that most of the mines in that country come from the former Soviet bloc. He also fails to mention that Cuba once had 50,000 troops in Angola. (Didn't Lenin say "facts are stubborn things"?) Additionally, he trots out the dubious assertion that U.S. bombing in Afghanistan has killed thousands, an assertion easily parried by Mark Steyn.

LET IT SNOW: It is snowing here! We're supposed to get a few inches, which means the area will be in crisis mode for a couple of days. I'm off to the grocery store for eggs, milk, bread and beer.

'BLACK HAWK DOWN': The Amazing Techie Girlfriend and I went to see "Black Hawk Down" yesterday. Excellent. The battle scenes are great, though not quite as great as "Saving Private Ryan." And it doesn't quite tug at the heartstrings the way "Ryan" did. But it's definitely worth seeing.

KRUGMAN-ENRON: Andrew Sullivan has been doing his research into the Paul Krugman/Enron debate. And it's pretty damning stuff. Check it out here.

MORE ON PHONY 'ROOTS': The consistently excellent Stanley Crouch weighs in on the return of "Roots" in this column. Choice Crouchian riff: "Since 'Roots' has brought millions of black tourist dollars to Gambia, one Gambian said to me, 'Yes, it is a lie but it is a good lie.' The book remains an opportunistic insult to black people, and no amount of excuses will change that harsh fact."

People tend to overlook Crouch. He was hot a few years ago, but then he delved into fiction with "Don't The Moon Look Lonesome" and got savaged by the critics. But he has always brought refreshing honesty to our Great Racial Debate, and for that he's been labeled a black conservative (as if it were an insult). The truth is, his views are far more complex. Here's a profile of Crouch from Salon.

DIGGING UP 'ROOTS': Tomorrow, NBC will air a special on the 25th anniversary of the television landmark "Roots." There will be a lot of media back-slapping for bringing an important and too-often-overlooked part of American history to light. The only problem, as Eric Fettmann points out, is that a lot of Alex Haley's work is false or plagiarised, and has been proven so in a court of law. Fettmann's words: "True, Haley's literary fraud doesn't alter the historical reality of slavery and its evils, or the pernicious lasting effect it had on America. But there's a pernicious paternalism at work when it's suggested that an ostensible work of history shouldn't be held to account merely because its heart is in the right place."

THAT OTHER MEDIA BIAS BOOK: William McGowan's "Coloring The News" has its own Web site. Give it a look. There's a link to the book's preface, where McGowan deconstructs the media glorification of Dr. Patrick Chavis, the "other guy" in the notorious Bakke affirmative-action decision. Chavis ended up having his medical license suspended for "gross negligence and incompetence," and there was a virtual media blackout on the story. Pretty damning stuff, and it makes a much stronger case than Bernard Goldberg's "Bias."

TODAY'S PULL QUOTE: (Read this out loud in your best PePe LePew or Inspector Clouseau voice.) "I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing. Elegance and beauty have been banished. I feel like a dove that has been stabbed." - Recently retired fashion giant Yves Saint Laurent, quoted in "Paris Match" and reported in Jan. 11 editions of "USA Today."

HOW BIAS CAN HAPPEN: Michael Getler, the ombudsman of "The Washington Post," points out that many readers complained about the photo treatment used in a recent story on the Cornel West-Larry Summers blow-up at Harvard. Readers weren't happy that the Summers photo showed a calm, erudite-looking scholar, while West's was more unflattering, showing the professor "apparently yelling into a microphone," as Getler writes. Having seen that particular story when it was in print, I can kind of see the readers' point. But how did it happen? Apparently, there were no other photos of West in the Post's archive, and AP said they didn't have any, either. Quick explanation: In the rush to publish, shit happens sometimes. Deadlines must be met. But readers often aren't very understanding. (Though it's difficult for me to believe that there's a Post conspiracy to hold Dr. West up to ridicule.)

ANOTHER SHOUT-OUT: Big ups to Bill Quick for putting in a kind word for the Media Minder. A hearty thank-you from the belly of the Eastern Liberal Media Establishment beast!! Permanent linkage pending.

BIASED? HELL, THEY'RE JUST LOUSY: That's the thrust of this "New York Observer" piece by Nicholas von Hoffman about the Bernard Goldberg brouhaha. But he does point out something that's been missing in this debate about media bias: That Other Book: "The (William) McGowan book ("Coloring the News"), a more in-depth and sober look at bias, contains some doozies of examples of stories so disturbing to the liberal gestalt that The Times solved the problem by simply not covering them, and, indeed, when it comes to bias, the most underhanded form is silence," von Hoffman writes.

Von Hoffman also deals with that pesky question of media ownership, and makes a great point that the folks at FAIR should remember: "Bernie would have served the cause better if he’d tried to place the bias question within the larger one of the concentration of media ownership. The Jan. 7-14 issue of The Nation describes how so few control so much. The issue comes replete with a chart showing the 10 largest media companies who own popular American culture. But count your blessings. In Italy there are three private television networks and one major government network. The three private ones are owned by Silvio Berlusconi, and guess what? He’s the prime minister, so maybe he has a little influence over the government network also."

SHOUT-OUT TIME: Big ups to Rand Simberg for pointing out my existence to fellow bloggers! Thanks for steering some traffic my way. Consider yourself permanently (and, of course, anonymously) linked!!!

MEDIA BIAS MYTH? Blogger Jeff Jarvis, a longtime journalist at some big publications, has been posting a lot about media bias recently. I generally like Jeff's stuff, but I've got to disagree with his premise. Basically, he says media bias is a big myth. Well, I work at a big newspaper, too, and have worked at newspapers of various sizes for the past 12 years. As a former liberal who has become more  "conservative" (actually libertarianish), I can report that it ain't no myth. Jarvis himself explains why:

"They say that the bias hounds are merely arguing that most reporters are liberal, rather than being part of liberal cabal."
That's what I say, too, and sometime I'll get around to posting some real-world examples I've encountered. In light of all that's been written about media bias, it certainly seems like a reasonable, real-world explanation. After all, reports and surveys indicate that something like 93 percent of journalists vote Democratic.

"But I still say that is an indication of a conspiracy mentality, of paranoia."
So pointing out that there's a large group of people (journalists) who shape public opinion and hold very similar views is a "conspiracy mentality." Interesting. When "the media" pointed out that a lot of President Bush's appointees happened to be members of the Federalist Society, that was considered quite a scoop because it indicated a certain level of "bias" among a group of people who are supposed to be objective.

"I still say that is a simplistic view of the world that does not take into account the intelligence, sincerity, professionalism, independence, and stubbornness of both reporters and their audiences. It is essentially insulting to both."
Well, I say you can be intelligent, sincere, professional, independent and stubborn and STILL be biased. In fact, some of the most biased people in history were wildly successful at getting their message out BECAUSE they had all of those traits.

"The media neighborhood is crowded with conservative bastions once you get past the NY Times and Washington Post: Tribune Company, Dow Jones, Time Inc., News Corp., Hearst, to name a few."
Come on. Tribune Company, Time Inc., Hearst are NOT especially conservative (especially TIME); News Corp.'s newspapers are mostly in England and Australia. I noticed he failed to mention two of America's biggest chains: Gannett and Knight-Ridder. Most definitely liberal. He also should have included the L.A. Times and the Boston Globe with the NY Times and WaPo in his short list of big-time bastions of liberalism.

"In the end, liberal media bias is still a conspiracy theory and it is born out of one simple fact: Conservatives are by nature paranoid."
Let's see: Who's trying desperately to find a vast conspiracy in this Enron mess? Or the "military-industrial complex"? Or the "prison-industrial complex"? Or the JFK assassination? Or the CIA selling crack cocaine? If there's one hallmark of liberal investigative journalism, it's unwavering faith in the conspiracy theory. That's partly because Marxist-influenced thought (face it, that's what's taught in universities; it's certainly what I was taught and once accepted) is in many ways the mother of all conspiracy theories.

"The truth is that everyone -- reporters, editors, executives, newsmakers, and most especially readers -- has a perspective (a nicer word than bias) and inevitably view(s) the world through or around that perspective. That is not bias. That is the free give-and-take of democracy and individual expression."
Trevor Butterworth, in a "Washington Post" review of William McGowan's "Coloring the News," answers this one: "Certainly, no journalism conference is complete without some genius making the objective claim that there is no such thing as objectivity. But while a God's-eye-view of how the universe really works is beyond the reach of mortal thought, the idea of journalistic objectivity never resided in such grand epistemological goals; its aim was fairness -- to ensure that readers hear both sides of an issue. Skepticism -- the permanent itch of the fourth estate -- derives from the corruptibility of facts and people, and not from academic unease with the metaphysics of being. It's a fair bet that (Jacques) Derrida expects fair and factual reporting in his morning newspaper -- otherwise, what use would news be?" Makes sense to me.

So just as I decry the PC fundamendalists, I decry the MB (media bias) inquisitors; they all assume that we, the audience, we the people, are too stupid to be able to judge on our own what is true and what is sensible and what we believe. That is a bias shared by the media and anti-media alike, by left and right alike; that is an undemocratic and essentially insulting bias."
It seems to me that there wouldn't be "media bias inquisitors" if some folks in the "audience" hadn't pointed out the media bias in the first place (i.e. the Smartertimes guy). Judging by Bernard Goldberg's book sales, there's obviously an "audience" for this sort of thing. But in Jarvis' view, Goldberg's whistleblowing is equated with an undemocratic paternalism, when in fact Goldberg should be applauded for being the watchdog of the watchdogs. Jarvis also assumes that the media have no real-world consequences, when they clearly do. Just one example: Statistics that grossly inflate the number of women who are assaulted each year have been (with few exceptions) accepted without question by the media. This drumbeat of false information, widely disseminated in the press, led to the passage of the Violence Against Women Act that sought to federalize certain crimes. (For a more thorough discussion, see Christina Hoff Summers' "Who Stole Feminism?")

TEXAS TWO-STEP: Apparently there are a lot of sensitive newspaper readers in Austin, Texas, according to this Editor And Publisher" story. When the local "American Statesman" ran its annual "Year In Music" section, folks didn't like the art on the cover - a burning amplifier. The image reminded a lot of readers of the World Trade Center. Local talk radio helped inflame the masses (pardon the pun), forcing editor (and former "Charlotte Observer" bigwig) Rich Oppel to issue a written apology. Nevertheless, Oppel still managed to blame talk radio for its "bumper sticker patriotism." Well, isn't it possible that readers felt it was inappropriate to use the WTC attack as a platform for a "compelling layout"? This whole decision to get "edgy" with the music section smacks of a newspaper trying to win an award from the Society for Newspaper Design. I know a couple of months have passed since Sept. 11. But was there no one on the staff willing (or able) to say, "Hang on, folks. This picture doesn't seem right right now"?

TODAY'S PULL QUOTE: "If this had been falafel, it would have been an international incident." - Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "Daily Show," discussing Bush's run-in with that killer pretzel.

IT GOES DOWN EASIER: Journalistic blogger Tim Blair recounts his feelings about "small voices" in this post about Bush's recent pretzel peril. I agree that "real people" (that's what we called "small voices" at one of the places I worked) can provide vital context, but it can get carried to ridiculous extremes. For example, at the last place I worked we asked "real people" their opinion on the Elian Gonzalez mess after it all went down. As expected, we got a range of opinion that pretty much mirrored what everyone else in the country was saying. But then we found a guy who had been one of the Cuban fighters captured during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Now he had a hell of a story to tell.

WHY FOREIGN NEWS TAKES A BACK SEAT: Michael Parks, former editor of the L.A. Times, tells why in this article from CJR. "Over the years, newspaper executives had seized on market surveys to put new emphasis on local coverage and, they hoped, to halt declining readership, particularly among youth." A couple of the newspapers I've worked at have been afraid to make a move without checking it out with marketing. The last place I worked even invited a marketing rep to the daily budget meeting (to those who don't know, that's where editors sort out what stories go where in the paper). He or she would make suggestions: "That story would play well with our 18-to-35s." "That story would be of interest to our readers in such-and-such ZIP code." Fortunately, I don't have to go to budget meetings anymore.

PROFILES IN CLUELESSNESS: Matt Welch dishes the dirt on high-profile print journalists who appear to be out of touch with reality in this take on watching CNN's "Reliable Sources." Funny stuff.

MORE ON NEWSROOM DIVERSITY: The Columbia Journalism Review has an excellent, evenhanded and generally favorable review of William McGowan's "Coloring The News." The review was written by Peter Schrag, a former editorial page editor at The Sacramento Bee. Choice quotes:

"During the past decade, a great many newsrooms, driven by publishers, militant organizations of minority journalists, and mandated 'diversity training,' have suffered from a stultifying orthodoxy that regards any skepticism about race preferences -- and indeed even the phrase -- as racist."

And if you've ever had to sit through one, you know this is true: "Diversity management seminars, (McGowan) says (I think correctly), 'often amount to little more than Maoist-style self-criticism sessions that create the very racial and ethnic divisiveness they are supposed to help overcome.'

IN THE 'POST,' OF ALL PLACES: The Washington Post published this favorable review of William McGowan's "Coloring The News." (There's another favorable review in CJR.) It's been interesting to note the huge blow-up over Bernard Goldberg's apparently weaker "Bias" compared with this work, which seems to have been much more scrupulously researched. I think that's because "diversity" is an issue most liberal journalists would rather avoid if they can. The Post explains why in this ready-made book jacket blurb: "McGowan has done nothing but deconstruct the idea of diversity throughout 'Coloring the News' -- first, by showing the confounding effect of what doesn't get reported in diversity issues; and second, by exposing the bogus pluralism of newsrooms that try to mirror American demography in every way except for diversity in political, religious and class affiliations."