The Atlantic

It’s really hard to put together good news these days, because to keep things open to everyone, you have to run really crappy stories that get readership. The NYT wants to try the opposite, to keep journalistic standards high (well maybe not, I do think the NYT is so liberally biased, and again, I AM LIBERAL. Still, it’s nothing compared to Huffington Gar-bahj) and to ask people to pay for it.

I do pay for the NYT and I think’s worth it. In fact, I think it’s more worth it now that I pay for it, which is weird, but for some reason I really appreciate all the stuff they have to offer on that site and its organization.

But read theatlantic.com. Damn this site is so good. There are a lot of high quality articles and the garbage is nicely hidden so that I guess they can afford to keep things free (for now). I would happily pay money for thealtantic though, ’cause its just so damn good.

Congress should pass a law just taxing the shit out of the budgets of all the major news organizations like ABC, NBC, FOX, and CNN and just give it all to the atlantic.

Watch the Blazer, Bro

Saw this completely by chance the other day. I find it VERY funny, because its a video of a guy from think progress trying to execute an “ambush interview” on Jesse Watters, who is a fox news reporter of some type.

In general, I’m liberal, but I also usually find liberal people very shrill and sanctimonious about their beliefs (don’t be offended if you’re a liberal, I’m stereotyping so there are always exceptions). It’s funny because you could say I agree with liberals, but would rather hang out with conservatives (again, go easy on me, I’m stereotyping).

But anyway, this video is awesome for many reasons. One is that Watters, who usually does these type of ambushes, just TOTALLY shuts this guy down. You have to watch it, but apparently, this guy is using a camera phone and Watters, cool as a cucumber, points this fact out. The guy trying to do the interview is totally taken aback and basically can’t get anywhere with his attempted mission.

However, another thing is Watters, for all his coolness, is pretty obviously a super-suave guy who cares about clothes and stuff, and someone I would most likely never be friends with. For some reason though, I’m on his side in this situation. (some of his jabs are just great. “you look a little nervous man, why are your hands shaking.” and “watch the blazer bro.”)

Another thing that’s kind of funny, and more philosophical, is how weak these type of interviews are as sources of knowledge or activism. The question that the interviewer eventually settles on is “Does FOX News make things up, yes or no?” Even I don’t think FOX news MAKES THINGS UP! WHO THINKS THAT? The point, I thought, was a more subtle one about what FOX chooses to cover and the tone that it attaches to various stories (see a forthcoming post I have about media bias). What a lame “ambush.”

Also, why doesn’t Watters eventually just answer the question? I think it would have been devastating for him to just say “no, I don’t think FOX news FABRICATES stories.” BOOM. That would have sunk things too for this poor camera guy.

Ok, now its time to make a bigger point, which is that I think very little democratic advancement gets done by harassing random people with incendiary questions. I mean, I guess it might help sometimes, but I see a lot of videos of people just walking up to guys in suits and making accusations or whatever. How does that help? I guess most people think it helps because they assume most politicians or lobbyist or defense contractors or whatever are CORRUPT as in malevolent or intentionally malicious.

But this is just due to the cynicism in American politics. I think there is a lot wrong with our political system, but its not that some people are actively trying to ruin others (sometimes it is, don’t get me wrong), but much more common is how a serious of incentives and norms become internalized and obeyed as a matter of course. In other words, the biggest risk is IMPLICIT DOGMATISM. Not, a I’m-trying-to-screw-you-mentality. In other words — and this is a way of putting the point that I think is kind of clear and feels very expressive of what I’m trying to say — politicians and lobbyists are bad for our country in the way that TV is bad for kids. Not because advertisers or TV execs are trying to hurt anyone, but that they do anyway as a side-effect of pursuing their profession. Politicians and lobbyists are the same way. They are pursuing a valuable goal (legislating on important issues) and they succeed I think for the most part. But as a side effect of pursuing this, they get intoxicated by power and hobknob with powerful people who like to be important as well. All this leads to bad decisions. I mean also, some people just have a really false view of the relevant evidence governing a particular issue. These people are not dishonest or malevolent, they’re just like the kid who couldn’t get calculus for whatever reason; they’re not on board with the best evidence. All we can do is keep trying to find it and give it to them.

 

Harvard makes fun of Tufts

Finally, an issue of minor blogospheric importance that I can comment on. Here’s the story. The Crimson ran an article making fun of Tufts for having a bad party scene. A Tufts writer responds in the Tufts paper. Various third parties weigh in.

Now for my two cents. This whole thing got out of control and while some good punches were thrown, they were all directed at the wrong targets.

First question — is the Harvard article a kind of modern day colonialist travel literature; where civilization goes off to meet the exotic locals? Yes. Is the point of it to bash Tufts? I don’t really think so. The point of the article was to meditate on the anticlimactic nature of most student partying, and I think the ending satirizes the overblown hopefulness that characterizes the early portion of the article. These kids know they don’t really belong at a party scene and they know that they shouldn’t really be going out on Valentine’s day. Tufts isn’t really the target here, and any school would have served as the set piece for this relatively generic article about the banality of college life.

Let’s move on. Though I don’t think the article intends to really insult Tufts, many people thought it did and got really fired up defending it. But everyone should calm down. Fact: Tufts’ party scene does kind of blow. Further fact, Harvard’s is no better. Final fact, name calling between both universities is a little childish.

However, points to the columnist in the Tuft’s paper who I somewhat admire for her other work. She delivers this semi-mature zinger: “I don’t want to start a column war with the Crimson — that would involve me reading it every week.”

The unspoken counter punch is that Tufts kids really do have a massive inferiority complex vis-a-vis, the Ivy League. In the last week, I must have read 3 articles all talking about how no one instantly recognizes the name of their school. “Tufts? Where’s that?” is the response that makes Tufts kids madder than anything. Again though, face facts. I go to Tufts and I still don’t really know where it is. Is it in Medford, or Somerville, or Boston? No one knows.

As a final thought, I’m pretty sure the Harvard article is fabricated, because the Crimson journalists claim they took a “cab” to Tufts, but I don’t know of a single working road that leads there; they’ve all been under construction since I’ve set foot on campus.

Political discourse

Every time I check out the news, its the same old garbage. Of course, there are a lot of reasons to complain about the news, but here’s mine: the news is always about people. Palin did this and Obama did that. So and so talks about family values, but he has sex with his secretary, what a hypocrite. On and on.

Why can’t news be about ideas rather people? Rather than trying to implicitly regulate who is allowed to say what, I think we should be concerned about what is being said. 90% of the time a story about politics is about something a senator said about some policy followed by some personal scandal the politician was involved in or how the particular senator, has, in the past, acted against his current stance.

Who cares. Ideas are not supported or refuted by the character or actions of the people who present them. Legislation that is supported under the banner of family values is not discredited if a supporter of the bill commits adultery and climate policies are not a sham merely because some politicians who support such policies drive hummers or limousines or fly in jets or whatever.

Ideas, especially the most important ones to a democracy, have to stand or fall on their own merits, and talk about who is doing what and saying what is completely irrelevant to the importance or cogency of a position (unless the issue is an investigation into someone’s misconduct). It would be really refreshing if the media could follow this simple point.

Of course, I’m just an ivory tower intellectual who runs with the limousine-liberal intelligentsia elite. So what do I know. There are more than enough labels that could be used to silence my opinion.

Buddhism and the media

I’m reading a book about Buddhism, and one of the principles that is explained is the idea (sometimes labeled appropriately as a paradox) of “non-action.” Actions, according to this principle, are only genuine or meaningful if they issue from a complete lack of caring for the result. This seems paradoxical. How could action be distinguished from a spasm or mere movement without an underlying intention? This philosophical difficulty is not the subject of this post though.

There is another sense of this principle however, which I is aimed I think at the desire to always act. To solve a problem by confronting it directly rather than trying to contest it obliquely. Sometimes inaction may be the best response to a problem.

I think media coverage of certain events exemplifies a possible application of this principle. My example is Sarah Palin. The conservative literati has nothing, as far as I can tell, very good to say about her. They are afraid of her shallow populism and her cynical rejection of the importance of policy analysis or managerial experience. Yet she grows. She gains adherence and more detractors, and then the media covers the controversy. The cycle repeats over and over. Some accuse the media of a soap opera journalism, and the media defends itself by claiming that there is a really story here that needs covering.

I wish conservative writers and the greater media would adopt a principle of non action. By not covering Palin’s every move, the media would discover that there is no story to be covered and that interest in her doings is like a mist that burns off at the first hint of the morning sun. Conservative intellectuals would find that she poses no threat to the party’s future. I consider this an interpretation of the adage that “no news is good news.” Sometimes the best way to enhance public knowledge is, paradoxically, non coverage.