Tag Archives: ethics

Reporters’ Contempt for Ordinary Americans

Posted on by
Reply

High-profile media figures gathered for their 2024 Campaign Journalism Conference at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics a week or so ago. One theme of the conference was the journalists’ concern about the perception of condescension, of looking down your nose at us Americans that we Americans have of the journalism guild and its members.

CNN journalist Jeff Zeleny was one expressing that concern.

So one thing I think the media has done incorrectly in terms of describing Trump voters as interviewing people only after Trump rallies. The vast majority of Trump voters have never gone to a Trump rally, have never, you know, stood in line for hours and hours and hours. And for those of you who’ve covered Trump rallies, you’ve seen some of the same people at rally, after rally, after rally. These are groupies. These are people who are going for the show, for the rock concert, if you will. So I think talking to voters who are interested enough and following things along, but not as obsessed with, you know, the candidate on either side that it sort of tends the view.

Some of those some of the people do attend multiple Trump rallies because they’re groupies interested in the show. An unknown number of them, even unknown by the august Zeleny. Many more, though, attend multiple Trump rallies, not because they’re obsessed, but because they are interested enough and following things along, and want to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth. And they—we–can’t trust the media to present his rallies honestly and with balance. Zeleny chose to claim the one set of frequent attendees were the whole of the frequent attendees, completely ignoring even the possibility of the other set’s existence.

And this bit by Ana Ceballos of The Miami Herald:

…DeSantis never made “small talk” with reporters….

He won’t hobnob with reporters. What a precious whine. More seriously: why would he make “small talk” when journalists are just going to print some of those off-the-record small talk remarks whenever those remarks are convenient to the journalists’ predetermined narrative, all the while attributing them to leaks by “a person familiar with the exchange” or a “high official?”

(Aside: there was a time when editors required at least two on-the-record sources to corroborate anonymous “person familiar” or “high official” claims. Editors have long since walked away from that standard. What concrete, measurable, publicly available standard of journalistic integrity do editors use today?)

Ceballos went on, on the subject of a claimed desire to build trust of the journalist by the staffer and/or politician:

They [DeSantis’ staffers] don’t often get on the phone, either, because they want everything in writing just in case they can attack you for it. So it’s really difficult to even have candid conversations with them and just an on-background, off-the-record conversation.

Yeah. It couldn’t possibly be because they need the written record so they can defend themselves or their administration when journalists leak and distort the on-background, off-the-record remarks in order to attack them. Trust goes both ways.

A canonical example of that lack of trustworthiness, that deliberate distortion, that contempt for us in thinking we’re too grindingly stupid to decide for ourselves how to interpret what we hear, is in their presentation of Trump’s Asheville, NC, speech late in his 2016 campaign. “Journalists” covering the speech, and others merely repeating what their fellows wrote, accurately quoted Trump as saying that there were “good people on both sides of the argument.” But the lie, and the contempt for us inherent in their lie, was in the “journalists'” decision to strip off the context of Trump’s remark and to claim that Trump was talking about the rioters that rioted. Even a casual perusal of the transcript of that speech—unneeded by all those who were present and heard what Trump actually said—demonstrates that far from drawing equivalence regarding the rioters, Trump was plainly talking about the debate over whether certain statues should be torn down or relocated.

The attendees at the Campaign Journalism Conference also seem to have ignored the press’ penchant for rewriting history to attempt to erase their past distortions when they’re caught out. News outlets routinely rewrite headlines when their inaccuracies are exposed, doing it on the sly without fanfare, expecting that we’re too stupid to notice. They do the same with later-exposed errors in the body of their articles, and for the same reason. This is nothing but naked revisionist history that would make any propagandist proud. The honest, the respectful, thing for these outlets to do would be to acknowledge their errors with the same prominence in which they made them and print their correction—their errata, if you will—at the head of the article in which the error was made, while leaving the article and headline otherwise intact.

One more item the conference attendees seem to have ignored: The New York Times‘ front-page announcement during Trump’s 2016 campaign that there should be no more objectivity in news reporting vis-à-vis Trump; journalists should take sides. This was followed by a broadcast news media anchor claiming in all seriousness that there are not two sides to every story. Only one side, very often, was fit to be presented.

The “news” media mavens’ contempt for us ordinary Americans is no perception. They really are contemptuous of us. Zeleny put that on clear display; so did Ceballos. These “journalists,” in their oh-so-much-smarter-than-us obliviousness, their breathtaking thin-skinned-ness, can’t even recognize the contempt they have for so many Americans in their own remarks. This is reminiscent of a politician’s claim that millions of Americans are irredeemable and deplorable. And of another politician’s claim that 15% of us are just no good.

This is what passes for journalism today. This is the actual contempt for us that journalists have.

A Step in the Right Direction

Posted on by
Reply

But it’s a small step, and much more needs to be done. A bill has moved through the Texas legislature—it’s now on Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) desk—that would create a $200 annual registration fee for battery vehicles.

State Senator Robert Nichols (R), who sponsored the bill in the Senate:

As more of these vehicles drive on Texas roads, there are concerns about how they contribute to the funding of the roads which they use. Currently, Texas uses the gasoline/diesel fuel tax to fund transportation projects; however, with the growing use of EVs, the revenue from the fuel tax is decreasing, which diminishes our ability to fund road improvements for all drivers.

That’s a necessary step in maintaining funding for Texas’ roads and bridges, but it’s insufficient because wear and tear of our roads and bridges isn’t the only cost imposed on us by battery vehicles.

Battery vehicle owners also should be the only ones to pay for the environmental damage their vehicles inflict on Texas’ land. Battery vehicle batteries, at their end of life, cannot be recycled; they can only be “disposed of.” Major components of those batteries, like lithium, cobalt, and nickel are enormously toxic, requiring the dead batteries to be carefully disposed of, lest that environmental damage get widespread.

Serious environmental damage also occurs at the beginning of the battery production cycle, even if much of that start damage doesn’t occur in Texas: mining lithium, cobalt, and nickel, along with copper, is even more environmentally damaging than battery disposal, from the destruction caused by the mining itself to the highly toxic mining waste byproducts—tailings—that are thrown off by the mining.

Much, if not most, of the lithium, cobalt, and nickel mining, along with a significant fraction of the increase in copper mining, is done for the sake of these batteries. The only ones who should be paying these environmental costs are the battery car owners. No one else.

Battery car owners are getting off light under this fee.

Self-Importance

Posted on by
Reply

President Joe Biden (D) avoids extemporaneous conversations and free-flowing question and answer sessions like the plague. This irritates the press.

A longtime Washington correspondent told Fox News Digital the expectation that Biden should stand before reporters and consistently answer questions was “pretty basic.”
“I think there’s a lot of frustration that there have been so incredibly few press conferences and so few opportunities generally to ask questions of the president,” they [sic] said. “It’s a fundamental thing. You know that the press corps has a job and it’s not just reporters trying to get questions asked for their own personal well-being…. You’re representing your viewers and your readers and your listeners.”
Added a White House correspondent: “There are serious concerns in the White House press corps about the way staff are hiding the president…. I would be surprised if Biden has another full solo press conference again in the remainder of his political career.”

How precious.

It’s certainly true that Biden speaks with the press as little as possible. However, we ordinary Americans don’t need the self-important press to act as our filter, or our DC watchdogs, or acting self-appointedly as our representatives—we elect our own representatives every couple of years—screening political doings and “reporting” what these august personages deem fit for our tender eyes and ears.

The real problem with Biden’s avoidance isn’t that he doesn’t interact freely with journalists, it’s that he won’t interact, freeform or otherwise, with his actual constituents, us American citizens. He won’t do townhalls with locals, he won’t do unscripted—and unscreened by his aides—interactions in diners, libraries, rec centers, not even ice cream parlors, places where us individual citizens could talk with him, ask him our questions and get his answers impromptu.

Biden avoids us like the plague, and that’s what matters.

The press’ anguished irritation over their limited time with Biden is singularly unimportant while being a strong measure of the journalists’ oblivious self-importance.

Lobbying

Posted on by
Reply

Even Senators do it on occasion. Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV), a few years ago (and only now appearing in some of the press) lobbied Alejandra Castillo, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development, to approve the Appalachian Climate Technology Now coalition’s application for as much as $100 million in Federal funds for

creat[ing] an industrial cluster around a number of climate resilience technologies while focusing on the development of resilient infrastructure and site readiness, attracting, training and retaining a skilled workforce, fostering entrepreneurship and startups, and building community capacity[.]

The coalition ultimately was awarded nearly $63 million in grants for the purpose.

ACT Now is a West Virginia-base entity. So far, so good; it’s entirely appropriate for Senators to front for their constituents.

ACT Now also is a coalition that includes, among others, the Charleston Area Alliance, which is chaired by Jack Rossi. Rossi also is listed as the Treasurer of the Joe Manchin for Senate campaign. Still so far, probably so good; Senators are allowed to lobby for constituents that are in some way connected to the Senator.

When Manchin wrote his lobbying letter to Castillo, he neglected to mention his connection to Rossi. Oops.

That far, no good. Manchin should have done the full disclosure bit and freely mentioned the Rossi-Manchin relationship, and he should have done so up front, in that letter and in any preceding and subsequent communication with Castillo and anyone else with whom he spoke on the matter.

We’ll Soon Learn Two Things

Posted on by
Reply

We’re about to learn two things about the Canadian government. The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents nearly a quarter million government employees, have gone on strike for…DEI claptrap like mandatory “unconscious bias” training; an intrinsically racist $1,500 bonus that’s only for Cree, Inuktitut, Dene, or any other Canada Indigenous language speakers; more racism in the form of special time off just for Indigenous employees; government-paid, which is to say Canadian taxpayer-paid, time off for union “training;” a union-administered “Social Justice Fund,” which PSAC carefully declines to say is its purpose—just give the union the money—and on and on.

One of the things we’re going to learn is how much courage Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his government have in standing up to this union’s strike, an action (not unique to PSAC) that is, essentially, extortion in that a striking union is saying it’s not going to allow the struck entity to operate until the entity pays the union’s demanded vig. In particular, will the Trudeau government show the same “courage” against this employee strike that it showed against a recent trucker protest, and will it use similarly heavy-handed tactics, which included freezing/seizing bank accounts, to break up the union strike?

The other thing we’ll learn is how much, or how little, these workers are missed as Canada’s government continues to function without them.

The PSAC 224-page program of demands can be read here.