Print was Talk Radio's midwife

I was at the birth of talk radio, which wouldn't have been born if print had done its job. I read reports on a Pew Research Center study that found that 39 percent of regular Fox News Channel viewers said they were Republicans with 33 percent saying they're Democrats. The AP story quoted "Fox Attacks" filmmaker Robert Greenwald as saying "without liberals and progressives to yell at, without liberal positions to make fun of, Fox doesn't exist." A shame we are all yelling at each other, but Greenwald should look at history to find out how we ended up with so many forked tongues. I suggest he read the 1970s Daniel Yankelovich poll that found trust in media had dropped. "A two-third majority felt that what they think 'really doesn't count,'" Yankelovich concluded. Talk radio simply noted the need and filled it. A whole segment of society, mainly what came to be called "the angry, white male," was disenfranchised from print.
There wasn't much written about the early days of talk radio. One of the few to study that time was Murray Levin who taped 700 hours of talk radio shows between 1977 and 1982 for his book 'Talk Radio and the American Dream." He discovered that callers felt cut off from the political mainstream. There is a lot of talk now about returning radio to the days of the Fairness Doctrine. No one faces the fact that there would be no talk radio - or Maddow, O'Reilly and all - if the doctrine had been practiced by newspapers.

Obama - President of these "57 states"

The MSM ducked the "57" states slip Obama made during a swing through Oregon. Bloggers didn't. They were quick to jump on the goof, some noting a double standard by recalling the savaging Dan Quayle took in 1992 when he visited a New Jersey classroom and urged a boy to spell potato with an "e" on the end. As far as I can tell, however, none unearthed a more important lack of unbiased gatekeeping - the "pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the- curtain" brand of reporting practiced with Bill Clinton's gaffes (I was tempted to say boners, but that was a different story).
Shortly after Quayle was fired over the potato, Clinton, then a candidate, addressed some veterans. He noted that Lincoln and FDR were, like himself, never in the service. Not true. Lincoln served in the Black Hawk Indian War and FDR was undersecretary of the Navy in WWI. Lincoln was in the militia and FDR was not in uniform, so I guess it all depends on how you define "serve." I hit the phone and told our New York desk that he was wrong. The voice on the other end said, "that is important." To this day, I don't know if he was sincere or sarcastic. A correction about Lincoln was inserted deep down in the main story, but I don't think anything was done about FDR. The mistake wouldn't have been that important, except for the fact that so much was made over Quayle's "potatoe." What troubled me most about this episode was that Clinton's staff probably had a hand in preparing his speech, unlike Quayle's unprepared remark.
That wasn't all. Clinton would go on to allow his bombing of Iraq to be called "Operation Desert Fox." I thought for sure that late night comics would have a field day with his using the nickname of a German hero.
Clinton had a lot of trouble with German history, particularly for a Rhodes scholar. During the 1995 ceremonies in Berlin that marked the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, Clinton mentioned the contributions of pilot Gail Halverson, the famed "candy bomber" who dropped candy to children in the besieged city. Then he said that "she" was there for the festivities. Only "she" was a "he." To make things worse, his press secetary said both he and the president thought Halverson was a member of the WASPs, a group of women ferry pilots that was disbanded before the air lift. The NY Times made a brief mention of the error, calling it "a rare gaffe." Rarely reported is more like it.
Is this the result of "liberal bias?" I don't think so. At the time, I blamed lack of fairness now I think it is more a case of lack of character. Life is a gamble and the reporter should be the guy who's so honest he holds the stakes. Hopefully, the internet will get reporters and editors back to basics by holding them accountable. The old days are over.

Why Now?

Obama bit the "bitter" while still trying to get rid of the Wright stuff. Why now? He noted white resentment in his earlier race speech after the Rev. Wright's remarks became part of the news chain. Note my April 4 entry about the media largely ignoring that part of Obama's speech. He says pretty much the same thing later, the Huffington Post makes it sound like news and it's all over the place. Lemming journalism at its best. The big story is this: how was the Huffington commentary - and it was commentary - promoted? Are reporters and editors afraid of the bloggerman?

Media dodged Key Parts of Obama speech. Ditto Saddam terror study.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. So can old reporters. I listened to Obama's speech on race and thought his comments about "white resentment" would get a thorough going over by the news media. It didn't. I dug out the text of his remarkable speech to make sure I heard right. I did. He acknowledged that working whites had concerns over affirmative action, making me wonder if the SF Chronicle dodged this one because of its shameful handling of the fire department's "swastika incident" and the near obliteration of the Zebra murders from city history.
I had a similar experience recently when I heard a television anchor report that a new study found no link between Saddam and al-Qaida. That was about the extent of the report. I asked my wife,"What else is new?" I then read the report by Institute for Defense Analyse. which had a great deal more to say, including Saddam's financial support for suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank as well as helping develop car bombs and explosive vests. The report said "captured Iraqi documents uncovered that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism."
My guess is that someone got an advanced look at the report summary, which mentioned lack of al-Qaida and ran with that. Then "lemming journalism" went to work. Twenty years ago that would have been the end of the story. Today, it is just the start because the net can hold reporters and editors accountable - in minutes.

About time: Some attention to Zebra killings

At last the series of racial slayings in San Francisco known as "the Zebra murders" is getting the media attention it deserved. No animals were harmed during the murders of at least 14 people who were killed simply because of their race. If real zebras had been the victims animal rights organizations would have made sure the story never died. The street killings in the 1970s might as well have never happened for all the attention that was paid by the press in the decades that followed. Now, big names will guarantee that the horrific racial crime gets the spotlight. Former San Francisco police Chief Earl Sanders has written a book, "The Zebra Murders," and a movie is in the works that will star Jamie Foxx.
I hope the movie is called "Resurrection," because that is what is involved here. Fairness is being raised from the dead. If ever there was a double-standard in reporting, it was this case. All the victims were white and the perps black. It's hard not to wonder what the coverage in the ensuing years would have been if the reverse were true. Another reason to regard the press as just another interest group. Read all about it in "Philip's Code: No News is Good News - to a Killer."
I doubt that today reporters and editors could get away with such ineptness. The Internet, particularly now when there are papers with "comment" postings, would catch on and bark at the watchdog - as my book forecasts. I hope postings under reviews of Sanders' book and movie point to past neglect. The Internet can help journalism by making journalists accountable
I wonder if postings are paying off on other fronts. The AP series on school sex abuse is a case in point. (See that blog entry.) I had an eerie feeling recently when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown brought in state help to fight crime in East Palo Alto. Did he read my book, in which similar action by Gov. Pete Wilson got little attention by the media in the 1990s? Brown got good press. I hope Oakland took note - just as in "Philip's Code."

AP Teacher sex series too much and too late

The AP finally did a series on sex abuse by teachers in public schools. A real scandal - and I don't mean the teachers. That it took this long for the world's largest gatherer and distributor of news to put the problem on its agenda is a disgrace to journalism. The handling of the teacher abuse and the Catholic priest scandal is gatekeeping journalism at its worst. Once the church scandal was news, all institutions were fair targets.
There were plenty of alarm bells. In 1998, Education Week did a fine series called "Passing the Trash" that dealt with moving teachers suspected of abuse from school to school. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did an outstanding series in 1999. There were many reporters doing their job, but, mainly, the stories weren't picked up by the national press. As soon as I retired in 2000 I did an expose about the double standard coverage for Catholic San Francisco, followed by an article for America magazine and another for New Oxford Review in 2005. "Philip's Code: No News is Good News - to a Killer" has a few pages about the contrasting coverage.
I doubt such unfairness could happen today. The mainstream media was the only game in town when the clergy scandal first hit in the 1980s with a seres in the San Jose Mercury News. Now there are lots of watchdogs watching the watchdog.
The AP series is all over the Internet, including sfgate, the San Francisco Chronicle's 'net version. My sources tell me that AP copy feeds on to sfgate automatically. As of today, however, the series hasn't been in the print Chron, and, I don't think, the Merc. Embarrassed? They should be.
And, please, will a reporter with some guts ask SNAP when it will start suing over school abuse. Does the group's alphabet not go to T, as in teacher?
Follow the money!!!!

"Buying the War" came cheap

I watched Bill Moyer's "Buying the War" for the second time today. My reaction was the same as it was during the first viewing: more proof of "lemming journalism," in which reporters follow the leader in a mad rush to keep up. It was great to see The New York Times take it on the chin. Moyers proved how easy it is to leash the press. I hope he reads "Philip's Code" because that is what the book is about. What other stories have the Times and other media fed into the news chain where they were accepted without question? For example, try to fathom the ramifications of limiting "choice" to one subject.
Still, I had the feeling Moyers set out not to find the truth, but to marshal enough facts to prove his point. I have, however, a question. Why didn't the eve of battle statement issued to our military dwell on WMDs? I am looking at the statement as I type. WMDs are mentioned only in the past tense. The crimes of Saddam are listed. Remember, the invasion was called Operation Iraqi Freedom, not Find Those WMDs..
Perhaps the news media's hesitation to highlight Saddam's brutal reign has to do with the pacts news organizations made with him that allowed access to some parts of Iraq in exchange for not reporting about horrors taking place in others. It's in "Embedded." I wish Moyers had included that fact.