Tag Archives: New York Times

New York Times: Copy Editors Needed

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On the demise, maybe, of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, today’s New York Times has this.

It was an inauspicious debut, to say the least. In February 1975, a little-known governor from Georgia named Jimmy Carter showed up in Des Moines, Iowa, to kick off an improbable campaign for president. His team rented a hotel ballroom and bought enough food for a crowd of 200 people. Three showed up.

So Carter started working the streets and stores. Gerald Rafshoon, who was his media adviser, recalled the other day a story that later became famous. “Carter walks into a barbershop and says, ‘My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for president,’ Rafshoon told me. “And the barber said, ‘Yeah, the boys and I were just laughing about that.'”

Today the self-deprecating humor is attributed to Jimmy Carter. As homage, it is appropriate in style and tenor to Carter, by far the greatest living ex-President of the United States. As history, it lacks a few things, including accuracy and chronology. Undoubtedly quite a few Times readers will thread references to Mo Udall, with whom the anecdote is usually connected.

Some recent books have connected it to John McCain. (See Paul Alexander’s Man of the People and Meghan McCain’s Bad Republican.)

McCain himself set the record straight on that one:

I have to recall my Morris Udall joke, who said – when – which has been stolen by every presidential candidate in history about Morris Udall going to a barber shop in Manchester, New Hampshire, and said: Hi, I’m Morris Udall from Arizona, and I’m running for president of the United States. And the barber said, yeah, we were just laughing about that this morning. (Laughter.) Thank you for your – (inaudible). (Laughter.)

Growing up, I used to read political books when I could get them. I had read that bit of self-deprecating humor and thought it came from Harry Truman or Adlai Stevenson, or Hubert Humphrey, or maybe Fred Harris. Sure enough, CBS News gives it to Truman.

It has also been attributed to Cece Andrus.

Actually, Moses probably scratched it off the tablet coming down from Sinai. He may not have had copy editors either.

Bernie Sanders Wins New Hampshire: Today’s headlines

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To be fair, media personnel may have expected Bernie Sanders to win the New Hampshire primary. (After all, ‘he’s from a neighboring state’.)

Sanders (reuse wiki)

 

Still, that said–here is a quick rundown of today’s headlines about New Hampshire 2020. “BERNIE WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE”? “SANDERS WINS 2ND DEM CONTEST”? Well, no, mainly not. Some respectable news outlets conveyed the straight fact, “SANDERS WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE.” But prominently, on February 12, 2020, the morning after the extensively covered first primary and second voting event of the 2020 presidential election, we get this sampling:

From my (print) issue of The Washington Post: “With win in N.H., Sanders controls Democrats’ left wing”

From The New York Times: “Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New Hampshire”

From NYT Wednesday Briefing: “Bernie Sanders edges out Pete Buttigieg”

From USA Today: “Bernie Sanders’ campaign defends narrow win in New Hampshire after big 2016 showing”

From Fox News: “Sanders edges out Buttigieg to win New Hampshire, as Klobuchar surges to third”

From the New York Post: “Bernie Sanders a limp leader after barely squeaking by in New Hampshire”

From Axios: “Bernie Sanders’ uneasy New Hampshire win”

Et cetera. As one tweet put it,

For my money, the WaPo headline stinks most. Again to be fair, Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, willingly markets Sanders book and campaign merchandise. So that’s something saved from the wreck. But the Post headline is a swift two-fer using Sanders to blank out Elizabeth Warren, figuratively speaking.

Meanwhile, most of the national political press is comparing 2020 turnout to 2008 turnout for Obama.

More later on the ‘turnout’ narratives trending in media.

Update, 9:26 AM:

From Politico’s “Playbook”: “Bernie wins New Hampshire by a whisker”

Update, 10:07 AM:

From Politico “Morning Score”: “Sanders edges Buttigieg in New Hampshire”

 

“It’s about the integrity of that institution.”

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Why is President Donald Trump trying to appoint someone with a track record of drunkenness to the Supreme Court?

The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court should not be a partisan divide. At this point, there is more than enough reason to go back to the drawing board. The judge should thank his lucky stars for his current job. He and the White House should withdraw his name from consideration. President Trump should pick a nominee who does not have a track record of alcohol trouble.

While public record in Maryland would show that I am a registered Democrat, and I make no secret of my political leanings as a citizen and voter, I am not taking my stand against this nominee based on partisanship. As a newspaper reader, I have no respect for the hysterically anti-Trump drivel I’ve been trying to sidestep for months now. One reason I have not weighed in against the hysteria more, aside from regrettable time constraints and constraints on other resources, is that I do not want to step on a future book project–a book on political philosophy that I plan, or hope, to write.

Related image

Right now, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has at least two serious and credible accusations against him. I for one believe the accusers named so far, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. None of the questions or accusations or implied threats so far leveled against the accusers give me pause. Nobody like me is going to be called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but if I were, I could address the main, predictable categories of push-back,

  1. the Why-didn’t-she-do-such-and-such question/s
  2. the Why-did-she-wait-until-now question/s
  3. the We-don’t-have-enough-evidence stance

I’m hoping nobody takes those tacks in tomorrow’s hearing–which I will be watching on  video, in between other work as usual.

Image result for Christine Blasey Ford

Aside from the sexual misconduct accusations, there is more than enough evidence in the public record already to show that the younger Brett Kavanaugh had a problem holding his liquor, as they used to say. The article in (my issue of) today’s WaPo is only one recent example. Multiple witnesses who know Kavanaugh and/or who knew him when have instanced his bouts of drinking. Like millions of other college kids, he drank a lot. Again like millions of other college kids, he drank too much. Comments from Kavanaugh himself indicate that he still drank heavily after getting into Yale Law.

Something more than just college drinking or college-age drinking went on, however. For one thing, Kavanaugh’s heavy drinking began in high school, and high-school excess drinking does at least as much harm as college excess drinking. Teens should not drink, because the teenage brain is still developing and cannot handle alcohol abuse. Kavanaugh’s high-school drinking at Georgetown Prep shows up in his own high school yearbook statements. It shows up in the writing of his longtime friend, Mark Judge, who has written frankly about his own alcohol addiction.

For another, he continued the heavy drinking for years, through high school, in college, and in law school. For another–unless you assume that every single person who saw him drinking is lying–then he is lying about the alcohol use or genuinely does not remember it. This is not a good sign. For real substance abusers, the lying becomes almost as compulsive as the drinking; and the lying can be abetted by genuine memory lapses brought on by the alcohol itself.

And for another thing, his personality changed when he drank. This is the real danger sign–even more of a danger sign than just drinking too much.

And on top of the drinking and the accusations of sexual misconduct, there are also the young Kavanaugh’s own words. That “Renate alumnius” ‘joke’, for example? This from the man who claimed on national television that he has always treated women with respect? (This is not the only such yearbook message from Kavanaugh, by the way; I’m choosing not to quote another.)

‘Trump’ is not the story here

If Judge Kavanaugh does end up getting confirmed to the highest court in the land, by the way–IF he does–it will be not only because of Republican intransigence but also because of some of the ham-handed unfairness in news media, not against Kavanaugh but against Trump. I have no interest whatsoever in the phalanx of hysterical commentators and even reporters who clearly just want to spend the next two or more years going TrumpTrumpTrump.

I am a freelance journalist myself, I have loved newspapers all my life–although I haven’t always loved the way they treated their printers–but it is only too obvious right now that some individuals in the news media think anything is okay, no holds barred, as long as it might damage President Trump. Some of these individuals are at the New York Times. There’s that ridiculous anonymous op-ed on September 5, purporting to come from some inner sanctum in the White House. –Heard anything about that lately, btw? There’s the equally ridiculous ‘news report’ August 24 purporting to show that Rod Rosenstein discussed removing Trump from office. Actually, NYTimes’ language itself suggests that this ‘story’ is not a leak, but a plant. If I worked at the Times, I’d be looking at McCabe. –Wonder how soon this furor will die–or has it died already?

When we as members of the informed electorate see an august newspaper getting away with this garbage, when we see over-secure and over-promoted journalists getting away with the abuses, and no one willing or able to call them on the abuses, the offenses give credence to sweeping attacks against the press. The sweeping attacks then become, of course, a way for the worst offenders to wrap themselves in the mantle of the First Amendment. Needless to say, I don’t see the U.S. press as “enemies of the people.” I’m part of the press myself, I’m a reader, and as said I love newspapers.

I’m also part of the people. So are the rest of the press. They’re not enemies of the people; they are people. That’s the clue. Line up the fundamentals as premises, make a syllogism out of them:

  • All human beings are fallible
  • All journalists are human beings
  • Therefore, all journalists are fallible

The fallibility is a universal. But a universal is not a constant. Again, fundamentals, premises, chain of argument:

  • A universal is not a constant
  • That human beings do wrong is a universal
  • That human beings do wrong is not a constant

We all do wrong things. That does not make us all equally wrong. (Et cetera.) If it did, there could be no justice system.

The fact that a few or several human beings at the New York Times did some very wrong things does not mean that all journalists do the same.

Back to alcohol abuse: people who abuse substances can go into recovery, genuine recovery. When they do, the signs are there–not just the sobriety itself, but the frank and accurate admission of the compulsion; the fulfillment of a program; and the willingness to take responsibility and to make amends.

I wouldn’t say that no recovering alcoholic should ever become a judge, or even a Supreme Court justice. But I would say that recovering is a prerequisite.

“The most epic and consequential story of the past 40 years”?

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On June 19, Politico media reporter Joe Pompeo wrote that New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron “are the two most important newspaper editors in America right now, at a time when the news media are tackling the most epic and consequential story of the past 40 years.”

Concerning the United States’ ‘most important’ newspaper editors, I have no opinion. I try to sidestep argument about which human being is more important than his (usually, his) fellows. For one thing, this is grounds-of-conscience territory. For another, it is in poor taste. (I can be as stuffy as anyone else.) For another, I do not care. Also, ‘most important’ too often translates into ‘stupidest’. Take for example the context of the quoted statement, explained by Pompeo:

 . . . Baquet was being grilled by his own media columnist recently during a sardonically titled talk, “Covering POTUS: A Conversation with the Failing NYT,” when someone in the audience asked: “Better slogan: ‘The truth is more important now than ever,’ or ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness?’”

The former was from a brand campaign the Times kicked off during the Oscars; the latter was the Washington Post’s new motto, an old saying that had been invoked by owner Jeff Bezos in an interview last year with Marty Baron, the Post’s editor.*

Having fun with slogans is a good idea. As part of the new save-journalism movement, I have a couple of NYTimes and WaPo mottos myself. For the Times, how about ‘Judith who?’ For the newspaper I subscribe to, how about ‘Journalism Dies in Stupidity’? Or just ‘We killed the printers’ unions’?

Fun aside, it’s the last part of the quoted sentence that horrifies. Here it is again:

at a time when the news media are tackling the most epic and consequential story of the past 40 years.

There are two realistic explanations for this statement, and only two. The first is that the author really believes we are now in the midst of a story more important than the attacks of September 11, 2001; more important than the non-precedent Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore that gave George W. Bush the White House; more important than the Washington Post Company’s epic and consequential financial stake in the Bush campaign and its ‘education reforms’; more important than the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing Iraq War and the rest of the ensuing carnage in the Middle East.

September 11, 2001

The other is that the author made a thoughtless comment without realizing the implications. I’m hoping for the latter, but even that means some lack of thought about the horror, tragedy, and dishonor blithely swept under the rug.

Backing away somewhat from the bloodshed of 9/11 and the Iraq War, let’s quickly review the past 40 years.

Well, June 19, 1977, featured Led Zeppelin and Elvis in concert. Pass.

Broadening the scope, 1977 and the late 1970s involved the continued unwinding of the Vietnam War, with its continuing suicides, substance abuse and other results of post-traumatic stress disorder, and strain on social services and on communities. The same period also involved climbing out of the recession of 1973-1975, the longest and deepest economic depression since the end of World War II according to the Federal Reserve. The climb was never completed. I recommend Wallace C. Peterson’s Silent Depression, which sounds like a psychology textbook but is actually a work of popular economics. Subtitled Twenty-Five Years of Wage Squeeze and Middle Class Decline, Peterson’s book narrates in persuasive detail some of the changes in the U. S. economy before and after 1973. The immense change was that the economy was expanding before 1973 and contracted afterward. The story can be read in the lives of everyone contemporaneous. We’re still feeling the effects today. We’re still paying for Vietnam, too.

The late 1970s including 1977 also involved the continuing development of U. S. feminism and some advances for women–not in regard to rape and domestic violence, but in the job market and in education. See Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed–the title a bit of an overstatement but the work a good chronological overview, with documentation.

That year and the late seventies also saw the collapse of the job market in higher education. With the draft (Selective Service) over and Vietnam winding down, undergraduate enrollment dropped rapidly. Troubles in the school systems didn’t help. Meanwhile, graduate school enrollment and the graduation of thousands of new Ph.D.’s continued–for a while. One result was that for at least a couple of years, there were some two thousand new Ph.D. grads in English literature and related fields, with not a tenth than many jobs in college teaching. (Someone computed the higher-ed unemployment rate the year I got my doctorate at 83 percent.) The secondary result was that the overflow went largely or partly into ‘adjunct’ teaching in higher education, a set-up again still with us today. This development coincided with the influx of more women into graduate programs, with the natural consequence that adjuncts were and are disproportionately female–especially in the lower-paying disciplines and in lower-division grinding classes. By the way, this entire phenomenon went virtually unreported in U. S. newspapers. The New York Times didn’t touch it for thirty years.

On a brighter note, the major movements of the sixties in environmentalism, civil rights and physical fitness and health more or less continued through the late seventies.

The above is just a thumbnail, only partly tongue-in-cheek, of part of one decade. No reason to go into detail on the Reagan years and other collapses of the eighties or on the continuing promotion of the Clintons and the Bush team in the nineties.

 

*Side note: Amazon head Bezos, who bought WaPo, is reportedly also going to buy the upscale Whole Foods grocery chain. A Whole Foods just opened in my region, to great fanfare about ‘jobs’, as in County Executive Rushern Baker’s touted economic vision of luring big and upscale employers like the Casino to the county. Amazon reportedly plans to automate grocery checkers out of their jobs. To its credit, the Washington Post reported this intent.