Journalist Laments 'Declining Trust in the Media'

I suppose I could just buck up and be a man about the new movie and forgive the filmmakers for their liberties with the truth.

That'd be a lot easier if we weren't living in a time of declining trust in the media and when some of our fellow citizens seem determined to convince the American public that the mainstream press is biased and unreliable.

Maybe they believe it; to me, their effort more closely resembles dangerous propaganda. They seem to think they're helping the republic by diminishing the mainstream press; to me, they're undercutting it.

The press has never claimed perfection, but it's still committed to covering the nation's agenda and getting things right. I know many people don't believe that, but if they disbelieve it enough, someday they'll be left with agenda-driven bloggers and empty-headed news coverage.

That's when the republic will begin to sag.

I admire a lot of journalists, but I think they have a blind spot with regard to the incompetence of many of their peers. Journalists don't get interviewed, so they rarely see how bad some reporters are at the fundamental task of gathering and reporting information -- especially in the broadcast media.

Unlike "agenda-driven bloggers," reporters don't scrutinize the media the way they cover government and other institutions. Because they don't, journalists have a much higher impression of their profession than everybody else.

If Parsons is worried about the future of journalism, he should spend less time lamenting and more time reporting. Telling people you're committed to getting things right is not as persuasive as getting things right.

Journalism · 2007/08/30 · 11 COMMENTS · Link

Men's Restroom Etiquette for Dummies (and Senators)

I like Alex Dering's take on Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's clumsy attempt to form a rump caucus in the men's restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport:

For all the men in the audience. Does the description of Larry Craig's actions sound like anything you would do in a public bathroom? I'm pretty sure the gay, the straight, the bi-curious, the hetero-transmetro-vanilla, the unsure, are all gonna answer the same way: "When I use a public bathroom I make no eye contact with anyone. I put the maximum amount of empty space between me and everyone else in there. IF, and I mean IF, I have to use the stall next to someone, no part of my body -- no foot, no hand, um, no non-foot or non-hand appendage -- goes anywhere near the boundaries of my stall. I try to touch as few things as possible." There's exactly one reason to look through the crack in a stall door. Two actually. (The second is if you're looking for the little Amish boy who may have seen you ice a cop.)

Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post offers his own rest-rule:

The key one, as I understand it from many years of being both a man and someone who uses restrooms, is Do Not Talk To Another Man Unless You Are On Equal Footing. What this means is, for example, that you don't talk to a guy who is at the urinal unless you, too, are at the urinal. If he's at the urinal and you're over at the wash-basin, you're not on equal footing. Most men understand this rule instinctively. Clearly this should be a major story in tomorrow's Style section.

Achenbach threatens the social order by suggesting that any form of talking is acceptable. I agree with the makers of the machinama Male Restroom Etiquette:

Speech is your enemy. Never ever under any circumstance say a single word while in a bathroom. Not to a friend. Not to a lover. Not to Jesus himself.

Politics · 2007/08/29 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Republicans Made a Bad Bet Against Online Poker

The British online gambling firm PartyPoker is taking it in the shorts after the U.S. cracked down on online gambling last fall. The company lost $47 million in the past six months and saw a 70 percent drop in profits. I have an crazy theory about the 2006 mid-term elections, and I am going to share it on the principle that every American is entitled to one off-the-wall explanation for an election's outcome, per election.

Forget Rush Limbaugh's cruel pantomime of Michael J. Fox, the quagmire in Iraq or the steady drumbeat of K Street corruption. I think Republicans lost both houses of Congress because President Bush signed a tough law against online gambling in October, weeks before the vote.

The new law outlawed financial transactions between online casinos and American banks and credit card companies, cutting off Americans from the ability to play Texas Holdem and other games online for real money.

This decision affected the many people gambling on cards at online casinos, an activity comparable to fantasy sports leagues and office pools on football games. When the players were cut off, it sparked so much fury that a 500,000-member grassroots organization, the Poker Player's Alliance, has sprung up to repeal the law.

Online poker players are predominantly male, relatively well off and completely obsessed with the game. My brother-in-law went through a phase where poker occupied every waking thought that wasn't devoted to eating, excreting or admiring women in beer commercials. He'd regale us at family gatherings with stories that all had the same basic structure:

1. I was playing a hand of Texas Holdem the other day.
2. I drew some specific cards and needed this other card.
3. I did (or did not) succeed.
4. It rocked (sucked).

So weeks before the election, President Bush gave the Republican stamp of approval to a prohibition on online gambling, hitting millions of American men right in their pocket pair. If Democrats are smart, they'll repeal the law in October 2008 and the party's presidential nominee will announce that if elected, the White House will be renamed GoldenPalace.Com.

Photo: Adrian Sampson

Politics · Gambling · 2007/08/29 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

New York Magazine Digs into Matt Drudge's Past

In a story for New York Magazine, Philip Weiss digs deep into the childhood of Matt Drudge:

The divorce and child-support papers in the Maryland State Archives offer a heartrending picture. About the time Drudge failed bar mitzvah, his mother left her job as a staff attorney for Ted Kennedy, where she had worked on health issues, "because of sickness" and remained unemployed for at least two years. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has reported that she was hospitalized for schizophrenia. ...

When Drudge was 15, crisis rocked the family. His mother was hospitalized, and a few weeks later Drudge was arrested. "Juvenile court told me that he was arrested on June 18 for making annoying phone calls," his father testified in a hearing on child support. "He's got a problem of making annoying phone calls to a girl," Drudge's mother testified. After the arrest, Drudge went to live with his father on a farm on the eastern shore of Maryland and go to school there. Robert Drudge was a therapist and social worker, but the boy was evidently too much for him, and Matt wasn't cut out for the sticks -- he liked to hang out at video arcades with a Walkman, listening to tapes. Robert Drudge sent Matt back to Washington. Drudge's mother said his father "resents" the boy, and told this story in a diva's style that her son would admire: "Robert Drudge rejected his natural son, Matthew, and returned him to my home, knowing that I am under doctor's care and unemployed. His reason for returning Matthew to me after three weeks was that 'his wife comes first, her two boys come second, and Matthew comes third'; that he did not want to assume any responsibility for him as his father because he has a new family; and that he hopes everything turns out all right. Robert Drudge has not communicated with his son or me since that time." Young Drudge was placed in psychiatric treatment with Jewish Social Services. It was recommended that the boy be sent to a boarding school, "and if not the last choice will be a foster home." (The court papers don't say whether this came to pass.)

Drudge must have been an uncomfortable kid. He lost his books, he lost his glasses. His mother said he had "special education" needs. One friend says that Drudge started wearing the famous hat in high school to deal with premature hair loss. "This is an incredibly lonely kid. He doesn't have a sister, his mother is in and out of hospitals, the father was beside himself. In high school they treated him like ----. He was starting to lose his hair in high school; think what that does to a kid. I find it so appealing when someone has nothing and gets somewhere."

I didn't experience anything like this, but the superficial similarities between us weird me out. We're both 40-year-old children of divorce who grew up obsessed with newspapers but ended up building media careers outside of them. (That's where the similarities end; he makes more in a day than my assorted sites make in a month.)

This article calls Drudge "America's most influential journalist," which is the kind of hyperbolic praise he usually links to on the Drudge Report. But in the two days since the story appeared online -- an eternity in Drudge time -- it hasn't been linked.

Journalism · 2007/08/28 · 11 COMMENTS · Link

Radio Interview with Peter Boyles

I got a chance to discuss Philip Atkinson's Bush should be president for life commentary Wednesday on the Peter Boyles Show, a talk radio program that's huge in Colorado. As a former Denver resident, I had to fight the urge to do shoutouts to my old coworkers at Zing Systems (failed interactive TV company) and DiveIn (failed city portal site).

To get it out of my system, word to Jonathan Bourne, Phil Weinstock, Don Wrege, Lev Lawrence, Stefanie Lerner, Meg Cardamone, Andrew Borakove and Jeff Pinkner! Let's do lunch at Tattered Cover! Phil's buying!

I tried to prepare for the interview, but Boyles quickly shot that to hell with questions I wasn't expecting, such as what do you think of President Bush and who is going to be the next president?

My answers, edited to make me sound more coherent than I did at 7 a.m. Mountain time:

We're in a tough position under President Bush because he refuses to recognize when it's time to change course. A true test of leadership is knowing when things are going in the wrong direction. Nearly a year has passed since the report of the Iraq Study Group, which was set up to give Bush constructive advice in the most sympathetic way possible. We're still stuck in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. I'm troubled by the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton pattern, but I don't see her losing with the lead she's built over Barack Obama and John Edwards. I told Boyles that Edwards will be her running mate, but it might be wishful thinking on my part. I like how he's made poverty a focus of his campaign. Despite my prediction, I gave small donations to Edwards and Obama, and neither will let me forget it. Every few days there's another make-or-break fundraising milestone that has to be reached. And Obama keeps hinting that I might get invited to dinner.

I didn't say this on the air, but my big concern with Clinton is that we'll get eight years of triangulation -- poll-tested solutions that keep her approval rating up without taking chances on hard solutions. The next president will inherit the Iraq war, global warming, illegal immigration, millions of retiring boomers and an Al Qaeda that's a strong today as it was in 2001. This is no time to make incremental improvements and declare victory.

I couldn't anticipate the reception I'd get from Boyles, whose show is touted for being "neither left nor right." He's a vocal critic of U.S. immigration policy and supporter of labor unions who broke stories on Ted Haggard and the JonBenet Ramsey murder in Boulder. In our conversation he sounded like a fan of the hell-raising, freewheeling world of blogs, telling me that he's a reader of the Drudge Retort, Drudge Report, LittleGreenFootballs and other sites across the political spectrum.

Politics · Radio · 2007/08/25 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Utah Mine Owner Makes Google News Comment

The owner of the Utah coal mine where six miners are missing has used the new Google News comment feature to respond to news coverage. Robert E. Murray posted the following comment to at least nine stories:

Comment from Robert E. Murray regarding trapped miners - 18 hours ago

August 22, 2007 - We are totally focused on the recovery of these miners and in administering to the welfare of their families.

The trauma from this natural disaster has been great for many, but we will not be deterred, and we will not leave this mountain until we achieve a resolution to this tragedy.

Unfortunately, at 6:30 p.m., MDT, on August 16, more seismic activity jeopardized our underground rescue team. Living at the Mine, we were among the first underground to arrive to help rescue these additional miners. We pulled them out promptly and administered to them, but, very unfortunately, three (3) men eventually died, with six (6) men recovering from their injuries.

Our efforts in digging and recovering have left me such that I cannot be a good spokesman to the public media on behalf of our efforts to rescue the original six (6) miners. Also, we are addressing the losses of the additional families. Our employees are totally important to me.

Sincerely,

Murray Energy Corporation
Robert E. Murray
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Google began offering comment functionality earlier this month to people covered in a news story, rolling it out first in the U.S. as an experiment. Google confirms the identity of the person making a comment but does not edit it, reserving the right to reject "hate speech, calls to violence, or offensive language."

Google · Journalism · 2007/08/23 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Dealing with a Newborn's Group B Strep Diagnosis

My three-day-old newborn niece has been battling a bacterial infection since she was 12 hours old. They confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Group B Strep yesterday and have her in the hospital's neonatal ICU while she's treated with the antibiotic Penicillin G.

She's had some setbacks, but the last 24 hours have gone well.

As you can imagine, we're fishing for information on what can be done to help her beat the infection and fully recover. I've found a Group B Strep mailing list on Yahoo, but I wanted to reach out here as well in case anyone reading Workbench has gone through a similar situation. If anyone can offer any insight, it would be appreciated.

Health · 2007/08/21 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

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