Sensationalism practiced right before your very eyes!

by folkbum

Compare these two screenshots, taken at approximately the same time earlier by an alert reader (click for larger, more legible versions):





The top screenshot is from jsonline, with a headline clearly indicating that the health care reform law has been ruled unconstitutional, and a subhead making that point even more clearly. But click through to the AP story that headline links to, and you find reality: "A federal judge rejected a key provision of the Obama administration's health care law as unconstitutional Monday" (my emphasis). Indeed, a few seconds of additional research found this bit in the judge's ruling:

"It would be virtually impossible within the present record to determine whether Congress would have passed this bill, encompassing a wide variety of topics related and unrelated to heath care, without Section 1501," Hudson ruled. Therefore, Hudson said the court would "sever with circumspection" the "problematic portions while leaving the remainder intact."

No wholesale unconstitutionality there at all.

Yet Journal Sentinel editors opted for a wrong, and sensationalistic, headline instead. Why?

Wow, how did I miss this story?

by folkbum

Investigators say [the men] were stockpiling a cache of weapons with plans to target local government buildings.

The FBI, in raids over the weekend, confiscated hundreds of weapons--including everything from hunting rifles, homemade bombs, rudimentary rockets and cannons.

Sources tell [our station]'s Marty Griffin the suspects made threats to blow up government buildings and carry out other extreme acts of [...] terrorism.

So how do the captured men look in your mind? "Swarthy"? Middle Eastern? Names like Mohammed or Ali or bin-Something? Did you think these arrests were maybe in Dearborn, Michigan, or someplace else that Islam has a well-established presence?

Well, you'd be wrong. The men arrested were Marvin Hall, Perry Landis, and Morgan Jones--right-wing militiamen from near Pittsburgh.

These are not, of course, the first right-wing white militia members arrested since 9/11/01. But none of those other arrests made the news, either. No, instead what we hear about are the bumbling wannabes conned by the FBI into thinking they could blow up the Sears Tower. Or more bumbling wannabes conned by the FBI into thinking they could blow up fuel lines to JFK. We hear about them, bumbling and conned as they may be, because they are of Arabic descent or Muslim. The really dangerous groups--the ones with the actual weapons and operational plans for death and destruction--don't get any play because, well, we're not supposed to be scared of white Christians. Just Arabs. See something, say something, right? As long as what you see is "the other."

More at Orcinus, where Dave Neiwert predicts it will get worse.

Pretty Women

by 3rd Way

Spitzer's career and family was left devastated immediately after his tryste with "Kristen" was announced. Meanwhile "Kristen" is Manhattan's newest millionare.

From New York Magazine:

"The two songs on her Amie Street profile, which each cost 98 cents, have been downloaded more than two million times, and Dupre will recieve 70 percent of the total profit. "

According to my math that works out to more than $1.3 million. Penthouse and Playboy are allegedly both interested in featuring her on their pages. Our culture astounds me sometimes. The stock market slowed when the news broke, the universal condemnation of Spitzer's action was immediate and appropriate, but now we are passively celebrating the other unscrupulous actor in the affair.

Hillary is right. Our media treats the sexes differently. Gender differences are vast, you can't expect them to be dealt with evenhandedily.

We Are Only As Good As Our Sources

Buckley was before my time, but his passing has led me to review some of his commentary.   He was as wrong as Limbaugh, but at least he had class and respect for his debate partners.  The political environment in which I became aware featured no one as eloquent.  I was never well acquainted with his commentary, but I nostalgically miss it.

The media I grew up with has far less to do with substance and everything to do with style.  "News" outlets are far more concerned with the latest gotcha headline than they are with covering issues that matter.  How can we expect a competent political system if we don't demand a competent and responsible media to inform the voters?

You can sense that all sides are fed up with it, but no one speaks out against it until a good shot of gotcha smacks them in the face.  Clinton has a legitimate grievance against the glowing coverage her opponent has received, but she has been an eager participant in the media's nonsense.    I recently thought the media would pounce all over the hypocrisy of Clinton repeating the ridiculous charges of plagiarism leveled at Obama during the Texas debate, then moments later play off Clinton's and Edwards comments as her own.  If we have to play the gotcha game we should at least evenly apply the rules.

Lying Officials Or Just Bad Journalism?

by capper

Jay wrote a post about the bad economic news that has been hitting the papers and airwaves of late. In his piece, he linked to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that discusses the number of applicants for food stamps and financial aid has jumped by ten percent while the number of economic support workers have been cut on a yearly basis by Scott Walker.

In the comments thread, I mention that I thought there were some errors in the story. Namely, that some of the improvements that were being planned had indeed actually happened.

To double check that I had my facts correct, I contacted some people familiar with the economic support program. These are people that are currently working for or recently left that department.

I asked them about the article. The part of the article which reads:

The Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services knows it has a problem and said it is trying to fix it.

The department is planning a modernization initiative that would allow people to handle their cases over the Internet and the phone, said Corey Hoze, director of the department of human services.

*****
In Milwaukee, the county also plans to go to digital documents. Each year, about 100,000 documents must be processed by the agency, Hoze said. That creates a big backlog for the county. Also, people often submit documents more than once if their cases aren't handled quickly, adding to the backlog. With the new program, documents would be scanned and saved electronically.

My contacts were able to confirm that they have been indeed using this system for the past year to year and a half. So why is the article written in the future tense? Is this the way the Corey Hoze presented the information to the reporter? Did the reporter misunderstand Mr. Hoze? Or is the MSJ trying to make it look better than it really is? Like a "Oh, it's bad now, but Scott Walker will fix it" kind of story?

Furthermore, the story quotes Hoze as saying that the County had to apply for two waivers so that people don't have to come in for an interview. This is an effort to save time from having to actually see the people and find out whether there is any fraud going on. To be fair though, the people I spoke to did complain that the story did not share that the County apparently recovered a large number of fraud cases last year.

I will be first to admit the obvious--I don't like Scott Walker. But my statements above aren't due to any sort of "Walker Derangement Syndrome". There are reasons why I am suspicious of the both Hoze and MSJ.

Hoze ran unsuccessfully for the 4th district U.S. Congress seat. He lost in the primary. Since then he has held a job under TOMMY in the federal DHHS and two positions in the Walker administration. This makes me wonder if he is acting just like another politician, trying to protect his boss, thus protecting his job or if there is something else.

It could be that the reporter simply misunderstood Hoze. Or it could be that the Journal Sentinel was trying to minimize the damage to Walker by minimizing the damage done by Walker. Heck, for all I know, they might have just been trying to play a gotcha game ont he county workers (one of Walker's favorite targets), but didn't put too much effort into it.

No matter what the cause of the false reporting, it is still false reporting. For what the MSJ is charging for their paper, the least they could do is report the news accurately and honestly, and not in the sense that Faux News presents themselves to be fair and balanced.