GREAT POWERS: Once again, William Powers of the "National Journal" has an excellent column. This week, he looks at the disconnect between columnists at big-time papers and their counterparts at smaller outfits. At the smaller dailies, editorialists view the coming conflict with Iraq very seriously -- regardless if they're for it or against it. On the other hand, columnists at the big-time papers regard the whole thing as a game, part of the never-ending whirl of politics and commentary.

MORE ON LEFTY-RIGHTY: Jack Shafer has an excellent follow-up to that piece I cited yesterday on the comparison between "The Nation" and "The Weekly Standard." It's a look at left-leaning journalists who are envious of the fun their right-wing counterparts are having:

The image of Powers tapping covetously on the window of the right-wing funhouse is a thing of wonderment. But he isn't the only envy case out there. The Nation's Christopher Hitchens, whom Powers applauds in his piece as one of the few "memorable" Nation writers (along with Alexander Cockburn and John Leonard), consummated his right-wing envy in the '90s by switching sides on a few key issues. The left-talking, right-hitting Hitchens infuriates the left rank-and-file by excoriating Bill Clinton as "corrupt," opposing abortion, and supporting war against "Islamic fascism."

Go read the whole thing. It's great. And while you're at it, check out this link from John Rosenberg, proprietor of the excellent Discriminations blog. He used to work for "The Nation," and he discusses his experiences there. And check out the passage he slipped by the editors in 1991. It's downright subversive, John.

AGAINST THE 'POST': "The Weekly Standard" blasts "The Washington Post" for "burying" a story on the sheltering of Al-Qaeda operatives in Iran. Christopher Caldwell makes some good points (the Post's story has some fascinating information that could cast doubt on Iran's degree of cooperation in the war on terror), but I believe he doth protest too much. For one thing, I'm not terribly surprised by this news. After all, we know bin Laden's cronies are operating freely in areas of Pakistan, and they're probably doing the same in other countries, too. That's not to say we shouldn't be pressuring Iran to be more cooperative, but it's a pretty thin reason to bash the Post. Here's why:

But none of these is the big shocker of the Post story. The big shocker is that it ran in the middle of the front page, below a story about how Washington, D.C.'s bid for the 2012 Olympics had failed. You cannot get more parochial than this. The Post gets the scoop of the year and buries it under a human-interest story that wouldn't make page one if it had occurred in Jefferson City, Missouri ("Show-Me State's Olympic Dreams Dashed"). Did anyone seriously think D.C. had a chance?

I haven't seen the front-page configuration of the paper, but I think that's still pretty prominent front-page play. Shoving it inside would be burying the story. And the Olympics? Heck, I thought D.C. had a hell of a chance to get the Games. Either way, that's a huge story for the Post's core readership.

TIMES-BASHING: Cynthia Cotts of the the "Village Voice" claims conservative charges that the "New York Times" is using its influence to turn public opinion against a U.S. attack on Iraq are unfounded. Basically, she says, "So what?" and "Bravo." She also claims that conservatives are doing a little spinning regarding Henry Kissinger's recent comments in which he appeared to be coming out against attacking Iraq. (Did the Times commit an "error" when it compared Kissinger's position to Brent Scowcroft's? Or was it doing its own spinning? I dunno. I don't have time to look into it today.) Check it out.

UPDATE: "The American Prospect" has a longer look at the Kissinger controversy.

A 'NATION' CHALLENGED: Via Romenesko comes this link from "L.A. Weekly" that compares left-wing rag "The Nation" to right-wing rag "The Weekly Standard." The winner? "The Weekly Standard."

In his embarrassing new book about Stalinism (he discovered it was murderous), Martin Amis shrewdly observes that the fall of communism liberated his pal Hitchens' writing by ending its ritual genuflections and obligatory defensiveness. The Nation itself enjoyed no such liberation. And so, rather than rethink the possibilities of a "progressive left" (to use one of its prize terms), the editors have remained content to belabor what its readers already know (e.g., Bush is a bum) while avoiding tough-minded journalistic coverage of the left. It settles for easy analysis, like suggesting that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney lost her renomination bid simply because of the Jewish money sent to defeat her. Is this really true? The left would be better served if the magazine investigated such claims rather than merely assuming their truth, although this would involve actually going to Georgia.

Just go read the whole thing.

BILL IS DUE: I'd like to welcome a new blog with an awesome name. It's Bill's Content (get it?), and it's the product of Bill Dennis, a veteran journalist. Check it out.

SIGNORILE WATCH: Michelangelo Signorile takes on Mickey Kaus and bloggers in his latest screed. It's another example of the dishonesty and hypocrisy that characterizes so much of his work.

First, he praises Media Whores Online (!?) as a place to find truthful political commentary:

As irreverent and provocative as MWO is, however, everything on the site is accurate, if coming from a clearly and admittedly liberal perspective. It doesn’t traffic in the broad distortions for which the vast right-wing conspiracy is famous. I suppose that might be considered a matter of opinion, one that should be taken with a grain of salt coming from someone left of center (so check it out and make up your own mind). But one thing that is absolutely true of MWO is that you won’t find anything even remotely close, in terms of an incitement to violence, to the rants of Ann Coulter and her legions.

Henry Hanks was all over this yesterday, and there's not a whole lot more I can add the excellent research he's done to refute Signorile.

Siggy then takes aim at bloggers, specifically Mickey Kaus for a recent post that suggested we may see a rise in political violence from the left because of the conservative tack the country has taken in the wake of 9-11. Kaus based his post on some outrageous comments he saw on left-leaning message boards. Here's what Siggy wrote:

Kaus’ downward progression, however, should be a lesson to all bloggers. He is an example of the lazy, self-indulgent and arrogant whirl that bloggers can spin themselves into over time, pressured to continually pump out quick, cuter-than-cute and/or inflammatory copy, in the hopes that something, anything will stick in a Web world in which what you wrote yesterday–or a few hours ago–is already at the bottom of the page or maybe even archived in the bowels of the site....If that kind of guilt by association is the standard we’re all to use, then what are we to say about Slate and Mickey Kaus himself?

"Lazy, self-indulgent and arrogant...quick, cuter-than-cute and/or inflammatory...in the hopes that something, anything will stick...guilt by association." As we'll see, the parts highlighted in bold more accurately describe Signorile's own work over the past few months.

For example, he suggested that John Walker, the "American Taliban," was driven to hate his homosexual father -- and into the arms of the Taliban -- by "the ingrained, religion-based hatred of homosexuality in American society." Apparently it wasn't possible that the far more ingrained, much more deadly religion-based hatred of homosexuality that manifests itself in radical Islam was what undermined Walker's liberal, Marin County upbringing. (Indeed, almost every column Signorile writes serves to tar conservative Americans -- roughly half the population -- through guilt by association with the worst fringe elements of the religious right.)

Another example: Signorile claimed that because Gary Bauer and other right-leaning pundits are on TV at all, the entire case against liberal media bias is a myth.

Yet another example: In a tour de force regarding the "arrogance" of the Bush administration, Signorile claimed Judge Charles Pickering was "an extremist who cannot be trusted to uphold civil rights" when even the liberal "Washington Post" editorial page was claiming such criticisms were beyond the pale. In the same piece, he called the use of nuclear weapons the Pentagon's "secret wet dream" and dubbed the brave fighters of the Northern Alliance "human shields" that the U.S. "used" in a cowardly manner to overthrow the Taliban.

But perhaps the ugliest example came in mid-May, when Signorile, writing about the assassination of Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, ignored the Nazis' mass murder of homosexuals in order to score political points against American conservatives:

In much of Northern Europe, where homosexuality has been far more accepted for far longer and has been met with little political resistance, you can even be gay and be a right-wing fascist (just like Ernst Rohm, Hitler’s SA chief in the Nazi Party, was). So trotting out Fortuyn’s homosexuality as proof of anything is relatively meaningless.

Absolutely unbelievable. As I pointed out in my post on the subject:

Ernst Rohm may indeed have been homosexual, and it's rumored that others in Hitler's inner circle may have been deeply closeted gays. But even high school students know the Nazis sent thousands of European homosexuals to their deaths in concentration camps. Indeed, they were among the first groups rounded up when Hitler assumed power. Has Signorile forgotten that the little pink triangle he might wear as a source of "pride" is the symbol the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear in the death camps? It was the equivalent to the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear. It's amazing that a writer so interested in the gay experience could have forgotten about that.

Signorile also claimed David Brock's "Blinded By the Right" is above reproach in a piece where he called Matt Drudge a "nasty faggot" and completely ignored overwhelming evidence that Brock had been a pathological liar since at least his college days.

Signorile obviously has a right to say whatever he pleases, but when he starts criticizing people for excessive political rhetoric, it's important to remember that he's one of the very worst offenders, a shrill propagandist who engages in nasty Stalinist tactics and does little to elevate political discourse in this country.

BATTLING BIAS: Romenesko links today to a piece from "Philadelphia Weekly" about Herb Denenberg, a gadfly who has been pestering the "Philadelphia Enquirer" about what he sees as the paper's anti-Israeli bias. It's a pretty good read, but it has some problems. Denenberg is presented as a bit of a loon and a loose cannon affiliated with a right-wing Jewish organization (the Zionist Organization of America). Meanwhile, the opposing view is offered by the Palestine Media Watch, which is presented as a highly professional organization that's just trying to set the record straight.

Apparently, groups like this aren't worth contacting for a story about media bias and the Middle East. Just let one zealot spouting conspiracy theories speak in their place.

STUPID STUFF I'VE OVERHEARD AT WORK: Here's Part II of my series. (Check out Part I here.)

THE SCENE: A midsized newspaper in the American South a couple of years ago.
THE SETTING: A hard-working copy editor (me) is laying out Page 1 on a Mac. The constantly meddling, Michigan-raised executive editor is, as usual, hanging over the copy editor's shoulder like impending death, observing every keystroke. He's oblivious to the "Dilbert" comic strip taped to the monitor that depicts the Pointy-Haired Boss screaming "Click it! Click it now!" as he hangs over Dilbert's shoulder. But this guy is irony-proof and charm-free, so what can you do?

ME: (typing word "preconceived" in headline)
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Hoo! Say, don't you think that's kind of a big word? I mean, you might could use a word like that if we were a little further up Nor...
ME: (prudently nonchalant, but with slightly raised eyebrows) I'm sorry?
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: (ass-covering, backpedaling tone in voice) I mean, I just don't know if that word is, uh, appropriate for our core readership.
ME: (a native Southerner trying to control rage, doing a pretty damn good job) Well, I don't think it's that big a word...
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well...
ME: (trying humorous approach) I mean, we get all those letters from those retired English professors who wish we used more "sophisticated" language in the paper. Ha. Ha. Ha.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: OK, I guess. We'll let it go. Yeah, let it go.
ME: Alrightee then!

 
Progressive journalism: It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

MORE ON POLICE-MINORITY RELATIONS: I received an e-mail from the mysterious Strib Watcher yesterday with more information on that melee in Minneapolis after the police accidentally shot a young boy. I'll reprint the e-mail in full:

You might want to compare an aspect of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's coverage of the riot (or, if you like, "melee") to the St Paul Pioneer Press'.

The Pioneer Press reported the allegations of Don and Sondra Samuels, residents of the north Minneapolis Jordan neighborhood:

Don and Sondra Samuels, who have lived in the neighborhood for four years and have picketed against drug dealers in the house where the warrant was executed, went to 26th and Knox as soon as they heard about the problems.

"The raid (by police) was absolutely legitimate," Sondra Samuels said.

The Samuelses, who are black, were upset that they heard "a lot of race rhetoric. This was a race riot," Sondra Samuels said.

"There was a comfort level in the crowd with the violence that was taking place," said Don Samuels.

"It was a little bit scary the way the police withdrew," Don Samuels said. "If I were a law-abiding white resident and the police withdrew like that I would feel abandoned."

"I heard some scary language," Don Samuels said. "Clearly this was not my community talking. Those people giving voice to the community were totally anathema to the life I want to live."

(Here's the link to that story.)

While the Star-Tribune did publish a picture of Samuels, they did not report this claim. But that doesn't mean at least one Strib columnist didn't interview him:


Doug Grow: Seeking easy answers again

Don Samuels, a black toy designer who lives in Jordan with his wife and two children, says my theory is superficial.

Samuels is an activist, one of those who wanted the house that police raided closed down. He doesn't like thugs of any color. He supports the police.

(Here's the link to that story.)

Interesting. But not what the Pioneer Press reported, either.

The media should give people like Don and Sondra Samuels more coverage. If the police begin neglecting certain parts of American cities in order to placate "activists," the victims will be people like them.

COMMENTS RETURN -- FOR NOW: I've signed up with Haloscan, and it was pretty painless. We'll see how long it holds up.

BYE BYE, COMMENTS: My experiment with blog comments is over for the moment. I had a service up and running the other day, but then started getting the "comments temporarily unavailable" thingee on my posts. Well, I visited the company's Web site, and it's gone. Maybe I'll try another service later.

WATCHING THE 'WASHINGTON POST': That's the job of Postwatch, and he's all over it with this entry comparing the fawning, dishonest coverage given to an anti-white slavery reparations rally the other week to the no-holds-barred, honest reporting of an equally racist neo-Nazi rally. Good work, Postwatcher.

WELCOME TO DISCRIMINATIONS: Here's a blog I highly recommend. It's Discriminations, and it deals with many subjects that crop up frequently on this blog. Welcome, John and Jessie.

SOMEBODY LOVES COPY EDITORS: It's Dr. Ink of the Poynter Institute. In a short piece, he makes some excellent points about the importance of copy editors to newspapers. But the funniest comment came from a poster in the reader's forum:

I've been in the biz since 1987 and have yet to see a sexy copy editor. They're hunchbacked mutes who live at home with their widowed mothers and eat an early supper at the same diner every day and order the same thing every day.

Ouch. I have to admit that I see a bit of myself in this comment. Not the hunchback, living-at-home part, but the eating-an-early-supper-every-day part. In my former job, I was forced to eat dinner at like 4:30 or 5 p.m. every day, and I had a rotation of three or four diners that I frequented. Some of my co-workers thought this was quite funny. I was just trying to do what I had to do to get the paper out.

It's not like that nowadays, though. No sirree. Yep, I eat at my desk every day, because I'm that slammed.

BEATEN JOURNALISTS SPEAK: Romenesko has a couple of follow-ups to the story of the reporter who was covering last week's race riot in Minneapolis and caught a beating. This story features a couple of talking heads dispensing shibboleths of liberal racism:

Tim Gleason, dean of the University of Oregon's school of journalism and mass communication, offered two explanations for why journalists become targets. "One can't ignore the simpler answer which is these reporters just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Gleason said. But he suggested race can play a role in such incidents. "White reporters can easily become a symbol of the white establishment," Gleason said. Thursday's incident involved mostly white journalists entering a mostly black community. "Does the minority community view these papers and TV stations as part of the community or as not representing their communities?"

Hmm. Mr. Gleason sounds like he's coming dangerously close to suggesting that beating up reporters is the best way to influence media coverage of "neglected" communities. (He certainly doesn't seem too upset about it.) Robert Mugabe would understand. But an actual working journalist had a nice rejoinder to this:

Scott Libin, KSTP-TV news director, on Friday voiced frustration in finding a balance. "Had we not covered the shooting of this child, would that have shown more respect for the community? We're there to tell the story of what happened."

Another academic from the Poynter Institute offers this classic apology for violence:

Angry people don't split hairs about journalistic objectivity. "I think that in a moment of indiscriminate violence, people default to the least common denominator. And that would be race," said Keith Woods, who teaches coverage of race relations at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., school for journalists. "It wouldn't have mattered at that point what those folks were doing. (The assailants') idea of what it means to be a journalist could include everything from Jerry Springer to … National Enquirer," Woods said. "They don't see the champion of the little people. Their idea of what a journalist is is so diffuse. It's not enough to stop a brick."

It's hard to imagine Mr. Woods so casually dismissing the beating of a black reporter by a mob of white racists. I think what he's actually saying is this: Black Americans are little more than children. They are a defective people because of the pervasive racism of this society, so we can't expect them to behave in any other way. Indeed, we should understand it and accept it, not judge it. Albert Murray described this attitude in his excellent "The Omni-Americans."

"So barbarous is the anthropologial value system to which contemporary American social science seems to be geared that so far as the technicians who survey Negro communities are concerned, people without affluence and power are only creature-like beings whose humanity is measured in terms of their potential to accumulate material goods and exercise force with arrogance...It demonstrates again that other Americans, including most American social scientists, don't mind one bit what unfounded conclusions you draw about U.S. Negroes, or how flimsy and questionable your statistics, or how wild your conjectures, so long as they reflect degradation."

In a related story, here's a piece on a female reporter in Minneapolis who received a savage beating 10 years ago in a situation very similar to the recent riot. In the 17th graf, we discover this little nugget:

Franklin Powell, then 17, was convicted of assault and served prison time for the May 1992 attack on Sandidge. In an odd twist, it was Powell's dog that was shot and killed by police Thursday and his cousin, Julius, 11, who was injured.

There are a lot of unanswered (or unasked) questions here. Was it Powell who released the pit bull on the police officer, causing him to shoot the dog and leading to the ricocheting bullet that hurt a young child? Seems like an important aspect of the story to me.

WE'RE SORRY WE REPORTED THE TRUTH: Pathetic. A day after running a front-page story on fugitives wanted for murder in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia "Daily News" is apologizing. Why? Because all 27 fugitives in the story were either black, Hispanic or Asian, and that didn't sit well with many minorities in the city.

Attorney Sharif Street, the mayor's eldest son, said yesterday's front page would make life tougher for every young, African-American male in Philadelphia. "I'm not so much focused on the text of the story but more on the imagery of the front cover," said Street, 28. "It damages the quality of life for the average male my age because it portrays us as the enemy of society."

He's got it wrong. Murderers like those pictured in the newspaper damage the "quality of life" for poor black people far more than the police and media do. The Daily News should be applauded for going to extraordinary lengths to identify these killers, and this story should be hailed as an example of great public-service journalism. But that won't happen. Instead, it's possible the Daily News will back away from tougher crime coverage out of fear that they'll offend the same minority communities that disproportionately suffer at the hands of black and brown criminals.

Take it away, Bill McGowan.

'JESUS FUCKING WEPT': Editors and writers often have a testy relationship. It's part of the business. Reporters will complain that some minor change to their oh-so-perfect prose ruined the entire piece. Editors will point out that said passage didn't make any sense, and making sense is Job 1 in the news business. Generally, things end well. But sometimes they don't. Here's an example.

A journalist by the name of Giles Coren wrote a book review for the "Guardian" that included the following sentence:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Very clever. All 26 letters of the alphabet in a 35-letter sentence.

But an editor changed it to "The quick brown fox jumps over A lazy dog," making it a into a 33-letter sentence. Here's Mr. Coren's response to the crime. (Thanks to Tim Blair.)

REPORTER COMMITS SUICIDE: I was saddened to read about the death of Allen Myerson, the "New York Times" reporter who jumped to his death from the roof of the Times building in Manhattan. The "New York Post" is reporting that he was having marriage and financial problems.

RON ROSENBAUM GOES TO J-SCHOOL: And he doesn't like what he sees:

But I do think much of the debate I’ve seen has been on the wrong question. You have the snobby litterateur types who say, in effect, "I’m so smart and talented that I never needed anything as plebeian as journalism school." And then you’ve got the reverse snobbery
of "I came up from copy boy to coffee runner at the police shack, and the only real school for real journalists is Experience."

My feeling from my experience at J-schools is that what most needs to be examined is not the existence of J-schools per se, but the kind of unexamined assumptions about nonfiction writing, about truth and "objectivity," that one can find deeply embedded in what is taught about journalism....I’m not the only person to observe it: Recently a friend of mine, a very successful and gifted editor who often interviews and works with J-school graduates, summed it up quite eloquently when he said, "They beat the voice out of them."

If you're interested in this sort of thing, read the whole piece. It's worth your time.

'ALL THE NEWS THAT IS FIXED TO PRINT': That's the great closing line from this "National Review" piece, which piles on the "New York Times" for its slanted coverage of a possible Iraq attack. But deeper in the story is an interesting (and new) angle on the Times' bias regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

On July 30, the editors ran an op-ed by Peter Hansen, the director-general of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). The piece was an unusually open and quite craven plea for money, Hansen arguing that UNRWA is the best vehicle for relieving the humanitarian suffering of innocent Palestinians. Hansen made several claims in the piece — the standard UNRWA party line — most of which were patently false.

But most readers could not have been expected to detect Hansen's mendacity, again for reasons of short memories and wholly understandable information deficits. Specifically, they could not have been expected to know that Hansen led all cheerleaders in mid-April in the campaign to invent a "massacre" myth over Israeli military operations in Jenin. This is what he said in an official UNRWA press release, dated April 18: "I had hoped that the horror stories of Jenin were exaggerated and influenced by emotions engaged but I am afraid these were not exaggerated and that Jenin camp residents lived through a human catastrophe that have few parallels in recent history." In other words, Hansen tried to persuade the world that, even after there was time for early reports to be vetted, a "human catastrophe" with "few parallels in recent history" had occurred in Jenin.

Knowledge of Mr. Hansen's activities regarding Jenin would have given New York Times readers some background against which to judge his op-ed contention that UNRWA "is committed to ensuring that its installations remain free of militant activity." I offered this background to the Times in a letter to the editor. I thought it the least I could and should do; for some unexplained reason, however, my letter was not published.

Of course, in the liberal universe that is the Times newsroom, the U.N is always a force for good in the world, so its causes should be promoted unquestionably.

MINDING CHICAGO'S MEDIA: Via Romenesko comes this column, a critique of Chicagoland media by "Chicago" magazine. The first item is the real grabber. It's about how two newspapers, presented with the exact same Census information, reached dramatically different conclusions:

Sun-Times headlines:
“Boom Shared By All Races in Chicago”
“Unlike in New York, Economic Surge Here Benefitted All, New Figures Show”
“Lincoln Park Becomes Wealthiest Community”
“Prosperity Spread Across City in 1990s”
“All Racial Groups Took a Piece of the Pie”

Tribune headlines:
“Rich ’90s Failed to Lift All”
“Income Disparity Between Races Widened Greatly, Census Analysis Shows”
“Not All Shared in Boom Decade”

Sun-Times lead:
“Lincoln Park is the city’s wealthiest neighborhood, while development on Chicago’s south and west sides more than doubled income levels there, new census reports show.”

Tribune lead:
“The economic boom of the 1990s bypassed poor minority communities in the city, as many predominantly black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides remained mired in poverty as deeply entrenched as a decade earlier, according to 2000 census data released Tuesday.”

Very interesting...

FANTASY IDEOLOGY AND 9/11: The terrorists of 9/11 weren't fueled by abject poverty or other material causes. They were carrying out a grandiose public-relations campaign, aimed at the Arab street, to showcase the righteousness of their cause. Because of that, we must seriously re-evaluate our goals in the war on terror. That's the fascinating thesis behind this long essay from "Policy Review." Some highlights:

The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation — in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — but entirely because they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?

And this:

Let there be no doubt about it. The fantasy ideologies of the twentieth century were plagues, killing millions and millions of innocent men, women, and children. The only difference was that the victims and targets of such fantasy ideologies so frequently refused to see them for what they were, interpreting them as something quite different — as normal politics, as reasonable aspirations, as merely variations on the well-known theme of realpolitik, behaving — tragically enough — no differently from Montezuma when he attempted to decipher the inexplicable enigma posed by the appearance of the Spanish conquistadors. Nor did the fact that his response was entirely human make his fate any less terrible.

Just go read the whole thing. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily.)

FAKING THE NEWS FOR FUN & PROFIT: Here's an entertaining story. It's about the old "New York Sun" (not these folks), which in 1835 invented a "news" story about life on the moon. The hoax gave the paper's circulation a tremendous boost. It also launched a new era in American newspapering:

Readers didn't hold a grudge. The Sun's circulation surged, even without fake headlines. Daily sales hit 30,000 in 1836. By the next year, there were a dozen more penny papers in New York, geared for the average reader rather than the elite. The hoax had given birth to a new industry. But old habits die hard. In 1897, the Sun ran an editorial entitled, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus." It never retracted that piece either.

WHO'LL STOP THE RAINES: Howard Kurtz has a good column today on conservative criticism of the anti-war slant of recent coverage in the "New York Times."

Conservatives have declared war on the war coverage of the New York Times. The charge is being led by the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and columnist Charles Krauthammer, who argue that the Times is using its front page to mobilize opposition to a U.S. attack on Iraq. And some on the right have put Executive Editor Howell Raines in the bull's-eye, saying that the former head of the paper's liberal editorial page is behind the slanted coverage.

UPDATE: The Mugger weighs in on Raines and the Times. It's typically scathing. Give it a look.

REFORMING THE LEFT: Camille Paglia pens a scathing column on the Left's loss of moral capital:

The language of leftism is out of date. It desperately needs reconstruction and revitalisation, if the Left is ever to regain its proper status as a voice of ethical critique of materialistic modern society.

So true. As much as I hate to admit it, we DO need a Left that can provide that critique, as long as it comes within the framework of our American political heritage of individual (as opposed to group) rights. From where I sit, a serious Left can check the worst excesses of the Right, and vice versa. Unfortunately, as Paglia's piece points out, the Left seems to have lost its way since the moral triumphs of the civil rights movement.

MISSING-CHILD MANIA: Slate has a story today on the media frenzy in England that surrounded the story of two missing children. It seems it was a bit much for even the over-the-top English papers, which have produced some hand-wringing analysis pieces.

TEARING INTO THE 'TIMES': Charles Krauthammer rips the "New York Times" for its heavily slanted coverage regarding a possible U.S. attack on Iraq:

Not since William Randolph Hearst famously cabled his correspondent in Cuba, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war," has a newspaper so blatantly devoted its front pages to editorializing about a coming American war as has Howell Raines's New York Times.

LEARNING FROM THE 'TIMES': Here's an interesting story. The "New York Times" and NPR are joining forces to propagandize the students. (I'm sorry. That was a typo. The Web site actually says it will be "engaging high school students in informed political discourse.") Here's the press release:

NYTimes.com and National Public Radio on Wednesday announced the launch of Justice Learning, a civics education Web site for high school students and teachers based on NPR's radio program, "Justice Talking."

The Web site will use content from "Justice Talking" and related lesson plans and articles from The New York Times Learning Network, a free service for teachers, parents, and students in grades 3-12.

Justice Learning is designed around eight distinct civics issues that are updated twice a year. Current issues include affirmative action, civil liberties, death penalty, gun control, juvenile justice, and Web censorship.

Sounds all well and good until you visit the Justice Learning Web site and click around a little bit. Soon, you discover that the "lesson plans" are astoundingly one-sided. They're supported by editorials and news stories from the "Times," which provide a gloss of high-minded objectivity to the whole affair. (Not to mention a mighty nifty product placement with a captive audience.)

This might be a valuable program if there were more dissenting voices brought into the debate. But there aren't. Instead, it seems that students will be encouraged to regurgitate the left-liberal positions they've been spoon-fed. So much for newspapers being disinterested observers of the American scene.

THE SPORTSWRITER & THE CONGRESSMAN: Remember the story about the "L.A. Times" reporter who was fired for sending an e-mail to a Republican congressman? The "New York Press" has its take on the story. Check it out.

THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS: Via Poynter comes this interesting piece on the future of your daily rag in the Internet age. Check it out.

WESTERN MEDIA -- TERRORIST DUPES? "National Review" has a piece about how the Western media has been too quick to accept the Palestinian version of Mideast history. It's a bit longish, but it provides a lot of historical background on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Check it out.

BLAME THE NEWSROOM: A departing "Philadelphia Inquirer" editor lays the smack down regarding the marketing-driven crises affecting newsrooms today:

"From a leadership perspective, the Inquirer of 20 years ago was building a culture that the leadership of today is seeking to dismantle," he says. "Back then, reporters came in thinking big--they were trusted by the leadership and allowed to try and fail if that's what it took to get good stories.

"A lot of thought went into the journalism instead of the ancillary issues of money and circulation. Twenty years ago the management protected the staff from that. Today the newsroom has been made to feel responsible for circulation problems, and it is my belief that is not the newsroom's fault."

Just go read the whole thing.

'FOG OF NEWSPAPERING': Jack Shafer explores the various angles of why Iraq attack plans have been "leaked" to the "New York Times" recently. Here's the summary:

If ... the leaked Iraq invasion plans are part of an aggressive Bush disinformation campaign, who among us would have any sympathy for the Times? "Times Duped by the Pentagon" is both a wonderful and horrible prospect to imagine.

WEIGH-IN SWITCHES SCALES: Justin Sodano has moved to Blogfodder. Adjust bookmarks accordingly.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: I hate to rip off Andrew Sullivan's creation, but here goes. It seems Susan Sontag is up for her award again after her most recent outburst. After watching three traditional Iranian plays at Lincoln Center, here's what she had to say:

The plays concerned child martyrdom—indeed, one ended with the bloody beheading of a ten-year-old—and during a post-production symposium Sontag congratulated the festival director for importing the dramas to the U.S. “You’ve done something incredible,” she burbled. “To view these works was a privilege and a duty for us who don’t live by the contemptible rhetoric of the Bush administration. The last thing in the world we want to do is cooperate with the jihadist mentality of this administration.”

She might have used the favored pejoratives of the Left: “Eurocentric,” “exclusionary,” or even “crusader-like,” but that would not have been good enough for Sontag. Thus her use of “jihadist,” deriving, of course, from the Arabic word for “holy war or spiritual struggle against infidels.” Manifestly, Sontag did not intend to imply that George W. Bush had converted to Islam. She meant that the present U.S. government was as zealous and vengeful as . . . but the lady preferred not to connect the dots. Nor did acolytes who applauded her tirade during a post-production symposium.

DON'T MESS WITH...DELAWARE? Fritz Schranck, proprietor of the excellent Sneaking Suspicions, fact-checks Jonathan Chait's ass regarding a story about Delaware and the state's income from gas taxes and tolls. The usually excellent Mr. Chait got a couple of facts stunningly wrong. Fritz works for the Diamond State (never knew it was called that) and knows his stuff on this particular issue. Check it out.

'BUTTERFLY MEETS BAZOOKA': Here's an interesting story. It seems that an "L.A. Times" sports writer got fired for dashing off an angry political diatribe to a Republican congressman. The guy's mistake was sending the e-mail from his workplace e-mail address.

The Times' policy, as written in the employee handbook, is that the company e-mail system is not to be used for personal reasons. (That's nice, but it's hard to imagine that Times employees don't e-mail friends and spouses, or occasionally book airline fares online. Doesn't everybody?) My phone message seeking comment from editor John Carroll eventually made it to Times spokesman David Garcia, who said he cannot discuss personnel-related issues. You can't blame them for ducking on this one.

I think the "L.A. Weekly" folks missed part of the handbook. Ours includes the bit about not using the company e-mail for personal reasons, and yes, it is abused widely and regularly. But our handbook also includes a policy against using the company's electronic communication system for political or business purposes, which I think most newspapers would consider a much bigger no-no. Granted, the "L.A. Times" overreacted, and probably should have disciplined the guy in some other, less drastic manner. (Heck, the guy covers prep sports in a bureau. It's not exactly the same kind of conflict of interest it would have been if he reported on government or politics.) And the congressman should have eased up. I'm sure he gets hundreds of angry e-mails a day. But our sportswriter should have known better than to send his diatribe from work.

STATS NEWS TO ME: I missed this update of the excellent Web site of the Statistical Assessment Service, but go check it out. It's one of the most valuable (and apparently underappreciated) sources of criticism about the ways the media screw up statistics. Check it out.

MEDIA BIAS UPDATE: Ramesh Ponnuru rips "Time" for a biased news article (not opinion piece) on the possibility of the U.S. invading Iraq. Here's the lede:

Although President Bush has a "near obsession with extinguishing Saddam," his administration is divided into two camps — "one pragmatic, the other jihadist." That's not an editorial in The Nation. It's Michael Duffy writing an alleged news article in Time. (It's in the issue with the cover story on how the Bush administration could have prevented 9/11 if only it had listened to the tough counsel of Sandy Berger. Gee, wonder who the sources were?)

Just go read the whole thing.

BUBBLE BOY: William Powers has another useful column today. It's on news coverage of the real estate "bubble" and whether it's going to burst. Check it out.

KURTZ ON KIDNAPPINGS: Howard Kurtz weighs in on the media's recent hypersensitivity to child kidnappings. Check out this lede:

Are we all in the exploitation business?

Are journalists basically vultures who pick at the carcasses of tragedy victims?

And are politicians also getting into the act?

Yeouch! Kurtz also provides lots o' links to the ongoing discussion about this issue.

UPDATE: The Instapundit noticed this story, too, and excerpted the same block quote. Damn, that dude's fast.

'PATIO MAN': I found this link over on Dave Copeland's fine blog. It's an article by the excellent David Brooks on the boom in "exurbs," those suburbs beyond the suburbs that are attracting more and more residents. It's longish, but like almost anything Brooks writes, well worth the time.

DUMB DIVERSITY: Here's a story from Poynter entitled "Diversity, Democracy and the J-School Professor." It's about the value of "diversity" in journalism education. As you might expect, there are a lot of wrong-headed assumptions about American society in the piece. Here's an example:

At stake is not just the contents of a course or the education of a student. At stake is journalism's ability to tell accurate, complete stories about a society steadily morphing from monolithic myth to boundless mosaic.

When has America ever been a "monolithic myth"? In his excellent "The Culture of Bruising," essayist Gerald Early provides one of the best attacks against the "diversity" and "hard multicultural" mind-set I've ever read:

Diversity is in fact part of the American myth; we are probably the only country in the world to make such a big deal over the fact that our culture, like everyone else's, is a synthesis. The problem with multiculturalism today, the paradox it presents, is that the more we see diversity, the harder it is to discover synthesis ... Multiculturalism has this distinct purpose from the liberal perspective; it is the liberal's intellectual assault against the stigma and anonymity of mass culture.

At the time I blogged this, there was one comment posted about the article at Poynter's site. Here's part of that comment:

I thought we were all the same. I thought we weren't supposed to make an issue of race, color, and creed. But now we're supposed to "celebrate diversity."

Amen to that. Our commonality supercedes our largely superficial differences, no matter how fascinating those differences may be. I think the popular phrase "unity in diversity" should be changed to "diversity within unity." That's much closer to the human truth of America.

LOPEZ UPDATE: Yesterday, I pointed out this Howard Kurtz article about the decline of local columnists in American newspapers. The focus of Kurtz's piece was Steve Lopez, a local columnist for the "Los Angeles Times." Well, people much more familiar with Lopez's work than I am weighed in with their opinions of Lopez's work.

The guy makes $300,000 a year? Jesus Christ, that's outrageous. I consider my income comfortable considering that the cost of living is rather high where we reside, but Lopez's pay is SIX TIMES what I make now, and my current salary is DOUBLE what I was making about four years ago (albeit in an area with a much lower cost-of-living index). And the guy only has to write three times a week?

In the words of a former co-worker, that's a gravy train with biscuit wheels, folks.

BLASTING THE 'TIMES': The "National Review" goes after the "New York Times" for its sloppy, incomplete reporting on the possibility of removing Saddam Hussein from power. And the "Weekly Standard" piles on. Check 'em out.

DECLINE AND FALL OF LOCAL COLUMNISTS: Howard Kurtz has an interesting article today on the decline of the big-time local columnist in American newspapers. The Mike Roykos are gone, mostly replaced by bland, cutesy writers guaranteed not to offend:

Across the country, many metro columnists are polite or parochial or tend toward soft-feature blandness. Some newspapers seem to dole out the slots on demographic grounds -- fielding a white man, a woman and a minority -- who play to their constituencies. Few register on the outrage meter. Unlike op-ed pundits, who often deliver opinions from Olympian heights, metro columnists are supposed to be out in the streets, more reporters than pontificators. But as journalists have become more firmly entrenched in the upper middle class -- writing books, sending their kids to private school, moving from market to market -- many readers have come to view them as out of touch with the community. And in a Web-surfing age, with newspaper readership continuing a 30-year slide, writing something that makes people argue over the breakfast table is harder than ever.

The focus of Kurtz's piece is Steve Lopez, a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times." In a revealing exchange, Lopez describes the mind-set that William McGowan rails against in "Coloring The News."

After City Council member Nate Holden put a couple of pals on the payroll until they could find real jobs, Lopez showed up at his office with a résumé. "People said, 'You're going to take on one of the most visible black politicians in L.A.' Hell, yeah," Lopez says. "Why not? I don't care what color he is." And during the 10th anniversary of the L.A. riots, Lopez came up with a different angle. "Every possible story was covered except 'Where's the apology from all the people who looted and burned their own neighborhood?' " As he churns out three pieces a week, Lopez says he gets the greatest response on "politically incorrect" subjects -- the kind that other Times writers must treat delicately because of journalistic constraints. "You have all these people wandering around the building talking about the truth, and the truth is not in the newspaper," he says. "Here you come with a column where there are no such rules and restrictions and you can just let loose. You can take this two-fisted approach and not have to worry about the tone and whether this is appropriate."

If only more journalists could be as candid as Lopez about the suffocating attitudes inside far too many of America's newsrooms.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Slate points out a huge correction in the "New York Times" regarding a error-riddled travel piece on Israel. (Special note to readers from England: There's a spanking angle!) Check it out.

BLASTING THE 'POST': Also in the "National Review," Michael Ledeen rips the "Washington Post" for its failure to notice the coming revolt against Islamist tyranny in Iran. Ledeen has been all over this story for months, yet it has gotten little play in the mainstream press. The Post story Ledeen cites is an example of why.

CRIMINAL LIBEL: Here's a "Washington Post" editorial on a little-used but still-controversial law that is on the books in several states. Just read the whole thing.

NO SURPRISE HERE: A recent survey from the Pew Research Center finds that the public's distrust of the media has returned. Only 49 percent of those surveyed think the press "stands up for America." Meanwhile, those inside the media worry that they've been standing up for America too much. Again, the huge disconnect between many in the media and the public they claim to work for is revealed.

A BLOGGING CLEARINGHOUSE: Check this out. MSNBC plans to launch "Weblogs Central," a list of blogs that is divided into subjects. This should be interesting. Wonder which blogs will make the list? (Link via Romenesko.) Looks like it's another example of the possible growing importance of blogs.