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August 9, 2008

Bruce Ivins, Credibility, and our Financial Markets

Something kept bothering me the other day as I listened to an interview on NPR discussing the evidence in the Bruce Ivins anthrax case.

I thought about it and thought about it and then it hit me what it was: I didn’t believe the story.

Now bear with me for a second. Because I’m not going to argue that Bruce Ivins is innocent. Whether he is innocent or guilty is not even the topic under discussion.

What I’m trying to get at is a larger problem with our government and that is credibility.

Over the past 8 years, the amount of credibility our government has has sharply declined as the difference between what the government is telling the people and what the government is actually doing has increased.

Briefly, let me list just a few of the occasions where the government has deceived the American people:

And a few more:

And I’m not even getting into Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, “no bid” contracts, and the culture of corruption in Washington.

The evidence reveals much about the motivation of the Bush White House which can chiefly be described as:

  1. Grab as much power as possible using whatever means possible
  2. Deceive the public into thinking you are trying to do “good”

Now the trouble with this strategy is if you lie and spin and deceive the public enough, eventually at least some of the truth will get out and people will lose trust in what you are saying.

This is partly why I have trouble believing.

The circumstantial evidence seems damning. Yet it is only circumstantial.

And Internet postings obsessing over the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority simply make you unusual, not an anthrax mailer.

Might a government capable of forging information to draw us into a War in Iraq also forge circumstantial evidence to make it look like they had caught a top terrorist in an election year?

Now, let me step back just a bit. Because I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s no evidence to show the government was involved in framing Bruce Ivins. I agree absolutely.

But bear with me for a second. Remember this isn’t about whether Bruce is innocent or guilty. That’s not what I’m arguing about. I’m arguing that I don’t have confidence in the government’s case because I believe that government agents may be facing so much political pressure that they might be capable of doing almost anything in order to show they are effective in fighting terrorism.

Time and time again, this administration has proved it is willing to lie and this is why my confidence in the government is at an all-time low.

Grab power and lie to the people. That has been the hallmark of the federal government in recent years.

So to restate, what I am arguing is that our government is destroying their credibility by lying to the public and that destroying this credibility has consequences. One of the consequences is that in a valid terrorism case, people may not believe that they aren’t just lying again.

Whenever I listen to administration officials, I imagine how the employees of Enron must have felt as they started to discover the disconnect between what top executives were saying and what was actually happening.

Now, you ask, how does this relate to our financial markets?

I’m glad you asked. Money is a promise. It has no implicit value like a commodity such as fruit. Money is simply an agreed upon intermediary between two or more parties.

Both parties agree that a dollar or a Franc or a Pound is worth a certain amount and then money becomes a currency. This value is determined by traders in the markets of the world.

When confidence is lost in the value of currency, the currency collapses. The best example of this recently is Zimbabwe where a $50 million bill would buy a loaf of bread.

The assault on our government by neo-conservatives and their reckless financial policies have combined to drop the value of the dollar and to cause worldwide investors to lose confidence in America.

To regain credibility, progressives should be arguing for more transparency in our government and an objective media. The objective media was one of the checks and balances that helped instill confidence in our government. We knew the government was telling the truth because if they weren’t the media would find out, people would put pressure on the government, and the government would get it’s act together.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case anymore. The past administration has proved that through an effective disinformation campaign, they can weather the storm of scandals and continue with their power grab.

To help restore credibility in our government, I’d suggest 3 things:

  1. Vote for candidates who will fight for honest and effective government
  2. Keep the pressure on your local media to be “objective” by writing letters when articles simply repeat what one party or the other says without any facts (NOTE: Objective does not mean an equal distribution of Republican talking points and an equal distribution of Democratic talking points. Objective means based on facts.
  3. When you talk about politics within your sphere of influence, frame the issue as “what we need is good government, not wasteful, corrupt government.”


akadjian

Topics: Objective Media, Fiscal Responsibility, Honest and Effective Government | No Comments »

August 4, 2008

12 Questions Republicans Can’t Answer

In honor of Thomas Frank’s new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, here are 12 questions Republicans can’t answer.

I’d suggest using them sparingly. Perhaps between pigs-in-a-blanket at a cocktail party. Perhaps in response to the latest label someone tries to slap on Barack Obama (Muslim, Reverend Wright associate, snob, liberal, celebrity, transvestite).

Because these questions drive conservatives crazy.

  1. If Republicans are against big government, why do we have the biggest government ever under George W. Bush?
  2. If Republicans are fiscally responsible, why do they act like teenagers with a credit card running up our debt?
  3. What is the incentive for people who don’t believe in government to do a good job?
  4. If Republicans are the party of “personal responsibility,” why are they always blaming Democrats?
  5. How can a corporate-owned media be liberal?
  6. What does John McCain stand for?
  7. If the private sector is more efficient, how come we are paying more to outsource Iraq and Katrina (and getting less) then if the government had handled these jobs?
  8. If Republicans are against the “Hollywood class,” what about Arnold Schwartzenneger, Ronald Reagan, and Chuck Norris?
  9. Who are the liberal elites? And how is it that they manage to control everything?
  10. If welfare is bad, why is corporate welfare ok?
  11. If “trickle down” theory works, why is the middle class disappearing? Or, why is the gap between rich and poor greater than ever?
  12. If the corporation you worked for told you that they had a new retirement plan that would provide you with more freedom and choice, what would you think they were doing? (Then why would you believe our government?)

Why dedicate these questions to Frank’s new book? I heard an interview with him on NPR this afternoon and his book looks to be another blockbuster at least as good as What’s the Matter with Kansas?

His book discusses the irony and consequences of electing conservatives that don’t believe in government. Instead, however, of encouraging fair competition and trying to make sure conditions exist so that markets can work, conservatives use this philosophy to destroy the government and sell it off piecemeal to the private sector.

I started to think, how is it that it is difficult for people to see the difference between what Republicans say and what they do in practice. And I started to think, perhaps we’re not asking the right questions.

akadjian

Topics: Political Strategy, Honest and Effective Government | No Comments »

July 27, 2008

Bush is No Batman

It was bound to happen. When I saw The Dark Knight this past week, I couldn’t help but note the allusions to the war on terror:

Who was going to make the comparison that Bush was Batman? I waited for it.

Then on Friday Andrew Klavan from the Wall Street Journal published the piece: “What Bush and Batman Have in Common.”

Klavan argues that Bush is willing to make the tough choices to defend American values similar to the Batman.

Some of the conservative values that the film seems to sympathize with on the surface seem to support Klavan’s argument:

However, there are several issues with Klavan’s argument. The most glaring is that Bush didn’t go after the terrorist Osama bin Laden. Instead, he used terrorism as a political wedge to invade another country.

Batman went after the criminal.

In fact, Bush and the neo-conservatives don’t really seem concerned about actually preventing terrorism. Rather they use the issue of terrorism to achieve other ends and bludgeon Democrats politically.

For example, you never hear the Bush administration arguing for more Arab language interpreters or for more intelligence on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, conservatives pick the issues where they can make Democrats look weak: torture, illegal spying, and lately, war with Iran.

If Bush is serious about fighting terrorism, he should pursue bin Laden and listen more to his generals (rather than replace them with ones who agree with him) and security experts such as Bruce Schnier.

But actually fighting terrorism is a foot note to the Republican agenda of securing the oil, handing out big government defense contracts to political friends, and politicizing the war.

So unlike the Batman, this is not a moral fight for Bush, but a political one.

Klavan makes a great emotional appeal that we must “defend [our] values in a world that does not universally embrace them.”

Now that sounds great (who would disagree?) and makes for great Republican rah-rah rhetoric.

But when it actually comes to defending our values like privacy, treating others as we would like to be treated, and personal freedom, this administration has seemingly done more to undermine them than any terrorist.

Another way of looking at it is that Bush is more Harvey Dent than Batman. Once his fiancee is killed (the equivant of 9/11), he is willing to throw out all of the rules he used to believe in to pursue vengeance.

Rather than react rationally and within a Democratic system that has worked, Bush similarly discards American values.

As Tim Weaver writes over at Not So Subtle, perhaps Dent’s anger is more like our overreaction to terrorism - our white knight image has been replaced by a politically-fueled quest to “go it alone” and impose our military might where we see fit.

The similarities Klavan draws between Bush and Batman only work (and only then on a very surface level) if you accept the Conservative frame that President Bush is working to protect us from terrorists and if you ignore all the ambiguity in the film.

Look further and also consider some of the moral gray areas of the film:

akadjian

Topics: Objective Media, A Successful End to the War | No Comments »

July 6, 2008

If Republicans Had Written Our Best Movies: Take I

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

In the original version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Jimmie Stewart plays Rance Stoddard, an attorney who believes in law and order. John Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, a rancher who believes that there is no law and that “out here a man settles his own problems.” Lee Marvin plays Liberty Valance, an outlaw who differs only from Doniphon in that rather than use force to protect, he uses it to terrorize the town.

The first experience Stoddard has of the West is when Valance robs his stagecoach and whips him close to death.

But Doniphon rescues him, and Stoddard soon sets up a school in town when he finds out many of the citizens can’t read or write.

He prints on the chalkboard “Education is the basis of law and order.”

Doniphon is disdainful of the school and pulls Pompey out of class to finish an addition he is building on his house for Hallie, the girl he wants to marry.

But Valance is back soon enough. Doniphon drives him off the first time with a show of force, but he returns for the town elections.

Valance works for some cattle barons who want to keep the territory from becoming a state. The farmers and people of the town want to see it become a state so they have the protection of the law.

At the election Stoddard and Peobody run against Valance and beat him, but Valance threatens to get even and challenges Stoddard to a duel. That afternoon, he beats Peobody and destroys the newspaper office.

Stoddard decides to show up for the duel despite everyone’s advice for him to leave. He has a gun that Peabody has given him, but is still a “tenderfoot” with it. Regardless, somehow he manages to get off a shot after Valance fires that seemingly kills Valance.

Stoddard goes on to win election to Washington, but only after Doniphon confesses that it was he who actually shot Liberty Valance.

The major change in the characters seems to come from Doniphon who is taken with the courage of the attorney with no gun. Doniphon sees him as the future and also comes to see that the lawyer is right, education and law will make the world a better place.

Jimmie Stewart’s character Stoddard also changes as he becomes willing to fight with a gun because he feels it is an absolute last resort. But he still believes in the law and sees force only as the last option.

Now if Republicans had written the movie, here’s how I envision it.

At the convention, Doniphon (John Wayne) and Stoddard (Jimmie Stewart) both get nominated to go to Capitol City. Valance threatens them both when he loses.
Doniphon, however, secretly believes a deal can be worked out with the cattle barons and that the benefits will “trickle down” to the people. He intends to give the cattle barons what they want if they will hire him as marshal to protect the people. But he has to get Valance out of the way first.

So Doniphon shoots Valance during his showdown with Stoddard, but instead of keeping it a secret, he announces that Valance was a terrorist and that he had to kill him.

Then he announces his plan to keep everyone safe if the people will just give the land to the cattle barons. The people hesitate. But Stoddard, owing him his life, joins Doniphon and makes the argument that the troops on the ground, such as Doniphon, know what’s best for us.

The people are still confused, but they decide to trust Stoddard and Doniphon.

The two go to Capitol City and make sure the cattle barons win. The cattle barons in return pay them off handsomely and make Doniphon marshal of the territory and Stoddard their lawyer.

Stoddard decides to sell the school and make it private so no more elitists can teach the children and townsfolk and tell them what to do.

Doniphon and Stoddard return to the town and purchase the paper so they can control the content and the messaging.

The people end up having to sell their farms and businesses to go work for minimum wage for the ranchers.

Hallie is disgusted with both men and moves East.

If Republicans had written The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it would have been a much safer movie.

akadjian

Topics: Justice and Equality, Honest and Effective Government | No Comments »

July 3, 2008

When Republican Terror Marketing Collapses

President Bush and the neo-conservatives have argued for some time for waterboarding and intelligence techniques to elicit information from detainees.

The argument Bush uses is very similar to the following: we’ve got to give intelligence experts the tools they need in order to extract information to prevent terrorist attacks.

“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror,” Bush said in one of his weekly radio addresses in March.

Bush then proceeded to veto the bill.

The real value to Bush of these techniques is that they make him appear tough on terror.

The administration has never come forward with any proof that these techniques actually work. Any time anyone asks, the answer you’re likely to hear is that’s classified information or that they can’t release any information that might help the terrorists. How convenient.

This past week, however, Republican terror marketing took a real blow when it was revealed that interrogation trainers at Guantanamo used the same techniques as the Chinese Communists during the Korean War.

Part of the training class featured a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

The article from which this chart was copied verbatim was a U.S. military study entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War.”

Here’s the marketing message of the administration: we’re giving intelligence experts the tools they need to collect intelligence.

Here’s the reality: we’re using torture techniques of the Chinese communists designed to elicit false confessions.

When the Chinese did it in the Korean War, it was torture and we said that our servicemen were “brainwashed” to say things that were not true.

Now that we’re using the program it’s a vital tool in the war on terror that gives us accurate intelligence.

The Republican terror marketing campaign is showing cracks from the strain of holding back the truth.

akadjian

Topics: Justice and Equality, A Successful End to the War | No Comments »

June 29, 2008

Is ‘What’s Good for GM’ Good for the Country?

It’s been 50 years since Charlie Wilson, in his Senate confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense, was misquoted as having said “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”

Wilson was asked if he was capable of making a decision on the national front that was averse to GM. His actual quote was an affirmative “yes,” to which he added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

When the misquoted comment first appeared, it was seen as a sign of arrogance by the then GM President. Nowadays, the misquote is the driving philosophy behind our economic policy.

Think about that for a second.

As a country we’ve come from thinking that companies would be arrogant to say that they come first to the pre-dominant narrative that corporations are what make us great as a country and that our government should do everything to help corporations because the benefits will “trickle down” to the rest of us.

We used to believe in a government by and for the people. Now, corporations are the immediate benefactors of the government and the government is being redesigned primarily to help them first.

This philosophy, rather than any legislation or Supreme Court decision, is one of the true triumphs of corporate-funded conservative politics.

The goal has been nothing less than to change the way people see government. What this does is make it easier for corporations to lobby for pro-corporate legislation and enlist the aid of people in their fight to move the government to a corporate-centered government.

Look no further than recent Supreme Court decisions to see how they have benefited. The gun industry received a ruling to help ease regulations and restrictions for gun buyers. Exxon received a reduction in punitive damages worth $4.5 billion. And laws designed to limit the influence of money in politics were struck down.

Ironic eh? If Exxon can reap $4.5 billion in savings from one Supreme Court ruling, how much do you think it would be worth to them to spread some of this around to politicians? But I digress.

If progressives have one goal, it should be to change the philosophy about the purpose of government. Rather than aiding corporations first and hoping that they do what is right, we need to at least recognize the original Charlie Wilson meme that what is good for the country is good for corporations.

Combating global warming could be a great opportunity for new technology companies, for example. Providing well-paying, middle-class jobs leads to more people being able to purchase products. Ensuring a fair market with proper regulations protects companies from precipitous market drops as a result of rampant speculation and a loss in confidence.

“Trickle down” theory has a grain of truth in it. Responsible companies do help the country. However, recently, all of the incentive has been for companies to drop their responsibility to ship jobs overseas, to avoid paying taxes, and to lobby the government for more favorable legislation rather than change their own business strategy.

Let’s look at GM.

GM, rather than having the foresight to recognize the oncoming oil crisis, built a huge lobbying effort around selling gas-guzzling SUVs. The company has opposed efforts to limit greenhouse gases, sabotaged efforts to improve fuel economy, and filed suit to block California from trying to reduce greenhouse gases.

What’s been the result of these efforts? Short term success and long term failure. The company made money off Hummers and giant Escalades until the recent inevitable rise in oil. Now GM is in trouble. The Hummers are sitting on lots and the company can’t sell the division. And GM is behind in green and smaller car technology.

Government handouts did not help the company. The end result of government welfare has been that GM didn’t recognize and adapt to market conditions. Because they didn’t have to.

Now, we will probably have to give them more welfare in order to help them survive (see also, Bear Stearns and the U.S. financial industry).

akadjian

Topics: Fiscal Responsibility | No Comments »

June 23, 2008

No Incentive to End Terrorism

I have pointed this out before, but recently an aide for John McCain said it for me: a terror incident on U.S. soil “certainly would be a big advantage to him [McCain].”

Charlie Black said this in an interview with Fortune. He since regrets saying this, but it rings true.

If terrorists attacked, people would be more likely to vote Republican. This probably doesn’t strike you as surprising, but think about the implication of this for a second.

The implication is that there is no incentive for Republicans to actually fight terrorism.

Now before you accuse me of being a leftist and a communist and a hippie tree hugger and all the wonderful attacks usually brought to bear on anyone who says anything contrary to the Whitehouse line, hear me out.

I’m not saying that Republicans are not doing anything to fight terrorism. I’m merely saying that there is no incentive for them to do a good job.

Why? Because the global war on terror is one of the few issues that wins Republicans elections.

More terror = good for Republicans. More war = good for Republicans.

What I am arguing is that with terrorism being such a big benefit to Republicans, why would they go out of their way to try and end it?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to find some more terrorists when things seem quiet? Maybe in Iran?

This is the irony of the “war” on terror. Republicans are rewarded if they perform poorly in the war.

Think about what happens when CEOs are rewarded for performing poorly. Does performance get better?

To truly fight terror, the government, any government, needs to be incented to do a good job and/or punished for doing a poor job.

Until they are punished, however, for doing a poor job, guess what the behavior is likely to be?

akadjian

Topics: A Successful End to the War | 1 Comment »

June 12, 2008

Oil Demand Falls, Prices Go Up

It’s getting harder and harder to find actual news amidst the advertisements, but every now and then a few facts slip by. This piece was one of the most interesting I’ve seen in a long time.

It has to do with the price of gas.

From Bloomberg:

“Refiners are managing the crude supply they have on hand because they are worried about weak product demand,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst for Citi Futures Perspective in New York. “Both gasoline and distillate demand over the last four weeks are down from a year ago.”

Here’s the translation: Demand is down so refiners are controlling the supply they have on hand to prevent prices from dropping.

Doesn’t this go against conventional economics?

Demand goes down, prices are supposed to drop. Aren’t they?

Not if the refiners control the supply.

Note: It’s not OPEC or the Arabs that are the only issue in the supply chain. It is our refiners.

The other piece of insightful information is that apparently another reason for oil holding steady is liquidity in the markets. In other words, the Fed has lowered interest rates, nothing else is going up, so speculators are driving up the price.

Does this sound familiar? The stock bubble? The housing bubble?

Brilliant. The lower interest rates are driving up the price of oil.

I was actually glad to hear that demand for oil is dropping because of the high price. But our current administrations’ approach to use high prices as a wedge to open up more drilling in Alaska will not help lower prices if these are indeed the facts.

If we truly want to lower prices, there needs to be an incentive for the refiners to not “manage supply” to keep prices high.

And how can refiners manage the supply if there is true competition? Doesn’t this imply that the refining business is a monopoly? Another role our government could play is to encourage more competition in the refining industry. In a truly competitive market, refiners would not be able to “manage supply.”

akadjian

Topics: Fair Trade, Energy Independence | No Comments »

June 1, 2008

The Real News from Scott McClellan’s “What Happened”

To learn the most from Scott McClellan’s new book What Happened you don’t even need to buy the book. All you have to do is look at the coverage from the administration, the mainstream media, and the blogosphere.

The blogosphere

The general reaction from the blogosphere could be summed up as: there is nothing new here. Arianna Huffington questions why he is doing this now and his motives. Writers at the DailyKos also seem less than impressed with McClellan’s motives. General consensus is that the blogosphere has a hard time believing that Scott didn’t know he was being lied to then.

What is interesting, however, as many such as John Nichols of The Nation have pointed out, is the level to which the “liberal” press has been complicit with the administration.

The mainstream media

So how has the mainstream media reacted to these criticisms?

Katie Couric agreed that McClellan’s assessment of the press corps was “fairly accurate” and Jessica Yellin, a former MSNBC correspondent, said that the press was under enormous pressure from corporate executives to “to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.” Couric went on to say that officials threatened to deny access to war reports if interviews were not deferential to the war cause.

The important point about McClellan’s book is that it shed some light in the mainstream media on the media itself and allowed reporters to speak freely because of the attention drawn by the book.

Many, however, remained scared to speak out and kept up the denial. Charlie Gibson said “it is not our job to debate them; it’s our job to ask the questions.” Glenn Greenwald points out some of the super-tough questions Gibson asked administration officials about Colin Powell’s claims of weapons of mass destruction:

The problem with questions like these is that they simply take the administration at their word: there are biologicial and chemical weapons and the inspectors are compromised. Charlie Gibson is doing nothing more in this interview than letting administration officials get their message out. Brian Williams has a very similar story.
Watch Couric, Williams, and Gibson in this amazing interview that shows the different perspectives on MSNBC.

The administration

Not surprisingly, the stance of the administration can be summed up by Karl Rove appearing on Hannity and Colmes: “It sounds like a left-wing blogger.” Rove, in weird agreement with the blogosphere above, then said, “If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them.”

Current press secretary Dana Perino painted McClellan as a disgruntled employee and echoed Rove’s line about this not sounding like Scott.

“Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House,” said Perino, a former deputy to McClellan. “We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.”

Interestingly enough, the White House has remained relatively silent on the actual claims of the book with the exception of Condoleezza Rice dismissing the claims.

What to make of all this?

I find this 3-ringed circus fascinating. The underlying dynamic that “the truth will set us free,” however, is what is most interesting to me. I think many progressives believe that somehow pointing out the truth will change people’s minds about the Iraq War.

Many progressives believe that Republicans don’t understand the “truth” about the war. The belief goes something like this: if Republicans understood the truth, they would act “rationally” and not support the war. Having spoken with many Republicans about this issue, I believe that there is a different explanation.

I’m going to assume that Republicans acted rationally and intelligently based on what they believed.

I think Republicans saw the war as a chance to take out a dictator that we didn’t like and, as Alan Greenspan put it, the Iraq War was “largely about oil.”

What many Republicans believed and may still believe was that the end was just and in our best interests and therefore the means leading up to this event didn’t really matter. Using this “end justifies the means” logic, it is ok to convince the country any way possible to go to war and do what is “right.”

Why is this important? Because as long as a person has this belief and has been sold on the end goal being the most important issue, the truth from Scott McClellan or Richard Clarke or whoever else becomes largely irrelevant.

What progressives should be working to do instead of getting into a we said / they said battle is trying to make the case for why the war is not in our country’s best interests.

For example:

I believe that the current administration has effectively sold the war based on establishing Democracy in the Middle East (as McClellan says is Bush’s belief) and the hidden rationale of trying to secure our country’s oil future.

Progressives need to stop assuming that somehow conservatives don’t know the truth. Every conservative I’ve talked to has been much smarter than this. It’s not that they don’t know the truth, it’s more that they believe the end justifies the means.

In the face of this belief, the way to get buy-in for an end to the war is to make the case that a) the end is not in our best interests and, b) is actually hurting our country more than helping it.

In addition, but I will leave it as the subject for a later post, progressives should continue to make the case for the value of the truth based on the confidence and trust this inspires in other people and other countries. That is to say, progressives should make the case for an alternative to the “end justifies the means” philosophy and demonstrate the benefits of this approach.

akadjian

Topics: Political Strategy, Honest and Effective Government | 2 Comments »

May 28, 2008

Separating the Big Stories From the Little

In an interesting piece of candid self admittance, John Harris from the Politico, provides an interesting glimpse of how the media operates.

Politico’s editors are relentlessly focused on audience traffic. The way to build this traffic is to get links from other websites.

The way to get links from other sites is to be first with the news that drives the day’s conversation.

As my friend who works in the industry explains it, you generate linkbait.

Linkbait, in nice terms, is content that is interesting enough to grab someone’s attention. Often, in the political arena, this is something that generates controversy.

Think:

Meanwhile, major stories such as the War in Iraq draw disproportionately small coverage because they require much work by investigative reporters and may not generate the “buzz” in links.

For example, the recent story about $15 billion of unaccounted for funds in the Iraq War that received nowhere near the coverage as Hillary’s Bobby Kennedy comment.

In the book How to Lie With Statistics, Darrell Huff talks about proportionality. By changing the scale on a graph, you can make a little change seem like a lot.

Likewise, if our media gives more attention to the trivial, they can make it seem bigger than it really is.

If the news media is not going to make this separation, what used to be their job, we need to work harder to separate the big stories from the trivial.

akadjian

Topics: Objective Media | No Comments »

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