Excellent piece, as always, just like your flying. When I was a staffer on the Church Committee (not the Jim Jones Church Committee of the 21st Century) One of my jobs was to oversee the investigation of the CIA's effort to assassinate foreign leaders. The most extended interaction at the CIA was with their Historian - Walt Elder. Walt was a Rhodes and did his D.Phil on Kant's Aesthetics. After most every convert mission Walt would interview the participants so the Agency would have a complete history of the mission's success or failure.
generally misunderstood but so interesting to those of us who have seen what war is like close up: the first go to plan often includes false flags and these type of weird covert operations like the fidel castro cigar thing
give peace a chance ;) but thanks for serving on that committee, great story for a book
Pat, thank you! We appreciate your reading and weighing in.
I had forgotten that you had been a staffer on the Church Committee. And I don't think I ever knew about the role of Walt Elder. That is fascinating.
The illustrations of other institutions at least trying to learn systematically from successes and failures only highlights what most of the press just refuses to do.
I believe that there must be some inherent institutional bias that allows it to continue to happen so blatantly. There is something deeply wrong with news rooms that continue to try to placate the loudest, vilest voices when, as you say, they will get attacked with the same vehemence regardless. At root is the loss of integrity as a first principle. But no matter how hopeless it seems it needs to be called out forcefully and frequently.
One of my favorite things to read for a few minutes of relaxation is the journals of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. You may think, what? Well, I'm a history professor, and it's fun to read about a history professor who talks about teaching a seminar, then having drinks with a Kennedy to discuss political plans, then has his friend "Betty Bacall" over for dinner.
Anyway, Schlesinger has a great comment in there. From November 19, 1980, and a dinner party at the home of his friend Marietta Tree:
"Last night we went to Marietta's for a dinner given in honor of Dick Gardner. Max Frankel, the editor of the Times's editorial page, was there too. The Times has a terrible effect on people who work for it. They cannot bear any criticism of anything the Times ever does; they act as if it were lése-majesté. To question the Times is as if one were questioning their religion. Frankel had recently run an editorial denouncing Bill Sullivan for writing his version of the events in Iran. I sent a letter to the Times saying that, as an historian, I welcomed such disclosure and, as a citizen, I was entitled to it. Frankel disagreed. He said he had attacked Sullivan because his article was a 'cheap shot' at the President> Stimulated by a couple of pre-dinner bourbons, I exploded. Why, I asked, did the Times feel compelled to rush to the defense of the most powerful man in the land against the testimony of an ex-ambassador now consigned to a trivial job as head of Columbia's Arden House? What had happened to the 'people's right to know,' about which the Times became so pious on other occasions? Max became furious--a fury that took the form of a glum and angry silence. He simply could not bear the thought that anyone might doubt the Times's infallibility. Abe Rosenthal is the same. Harrison Salisbury and Tom Wicker are not."
Now, Mr. Fallows worked in the Carter White House and may say that Schlesinger was wrong about Sullivan. And I can understand Frankel being upset when criticized at that place and time--if I had been in Schlesinger's place, I would not have done that.
But Schlesinger nailed it. He could have added Russell Baker (all rise) to the list of those who was happy to puncture the notion of Times infallibility. But I notice that the editors in New York tended to suffer from it--Rosenthal and Frankel, and some who have followed (helloooooo, Dean Baquet). But the Washington correspondents didn't seem to suffer from it, and now those who cover politics do. Boy, do they. And the Daily Kos headline the other day was way off--"The New York Times is bad for America." But when it comes to what passes for political "reporting," it is bad for the country and the world, and for journalism.
I'm reminded of someone on Twitter who pointed out this sentence from a story on President Biden and the documents: "It was a classic legal strategy by Mr. Biden and his top aides--cooperate fully with investigators in the hopes of giving them no reason to suspect ill intent." That is not merely bad journalism. That is an example of stupidity. I worked at a little newspaper that couldn't even afford to pay its staff. If I had written that sentence, the editor would have tattooed my fanny.
Thanks for this story. I was a huge fan of Arthur Schlesinger, both in his historian role and his general mensch-hood. Also loved his diaries.
I agree with you about the Supreme Court-like sense of being above mere criticism that comes from many people at our leading paper. (A few installments ago, I contrasted the AG Sulzberger memo abolishing the Public Editor job and inviting the vast reading public to weigh in; with Dean Baquet's parting words that the "didn't give a shit" about what people said on Twitter etc.
Russell Baker is one of the great figures in this business, or any business. 'Growing Up' should be among the top-dozen books about Americana.
He and my mentor Charlie Peters (who recently celebrated his 96th birthday) had lunch every Friday for years.
From my rather uninformed perspective, I have come to think that there must several, not mutually exclusive, reasons for this state of affairs. One, must be predominantly corporate in origin. I think it's likely (but, what do I know?) that many mainstream media are owned by conservatives (writ large), and in any event and are consciously (or not) representing a world view. In and of itself, representing a particular slant has, I would guess, a long journalistic history. But, in current implementations, such as the NYT, there feels like (to me) an inherent dishonesty to it. In particular, it seems to me that many headlines, sub headings, and stories, serve more of a propagandistic purpose than a journalistic one. To put it another way, the numerous articles about the coming "red wave" in the NYT (and others) weren't simply expressing a wrong headed philosophy of journalistic practice; instead, they cumulatively seem to be creating a feedback loop in order to advocate for a desired outcome.
Another aspect of current journalistic practice that seems increasingly prevalent is the adoption of terminology that is never clearly defined, but is used in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink sort of way. Terms (woke!) are therefore malleable and loose any grounding semantics whatsoever. Terminology becomes a form of signaling weaponry, but serves rather to give the appearance of thought, without bothering with the messy business of thinking. This, I think, is related to your large points about scandals: "Whitewater" seemed to mean something, and that was enough. The fact that it wasn't clear only helped to employ it more broadly as a cudgel to beat the reading public over the head. And, of course, clear thinking is not the hallmark of having been beaten over the head repeatedly.
Finally, I have a question. Historically, has there ever been a period when a better, more honest, form of journalism was the norm? I am not asking this cynically, but I'm pretty unaware of journalistic history.
On your closing question: I don't think there was ever a "golden age" of coverage. Every age has had its strengths and weaknesses. The post-WW II Cronkite / etc "golden age" had enormous virtues — of which the main one was a more-or-less enforced nationwide audience, since for technology reasons there were only three broadcast networks. And the reporters mainly came from a news-rather-than-"hot takes" tradition.
But it had huge limits too. The "news" was condensed into 30 minutes each evening. As many people have noted, it was a top-down approach to what mattered. Civil rights protests, the Vietnam war, etc "mattered" when the news editors decided they mattered.
We have more range now, and very different problems. The economic-model collapse of local journalism is probably the worst phenomenon now. More on that anon.
For what it's worth, my experience has long been that *newsroom culture* matters more than ownership in most journalistic decisions. Of course editorial pages are a different matter. But consider the WSJ: Its edit page is the print version of Fox News, and was even before Fox existed. But its "news" operation has been less prone to the kind of narratives we're talking about — even though it's under Murdoch's ownership.
(I once edited a news magazine, and I can tell you that the owner played a significant role in what that magazine did and covered. But again that was a non-mainstream case.)
I loved this article pointing out how bad national reporting has become. I think that many of the headlines and subheadlines bait click, which is fine for social media but to for a national newspapers. The NY Times and Washington Post do a lot of bait click in there newspapers. They also repeat the same story multiple times written by different reporters. The major newspapers should stop trying to compete with social media and do what they do best, provide in-depth news articles. Give the pro/con views of information, it's important to have a national newspaper that is not swayed by any political views and that looks at the facts and provides unbiased news. I think that national newspapers have a responsibility to provide accurate, factual information to the public, and that means not resorting to sensationalized headlines and bait click.
I do believe that a lot of the responsibility, and opportunity, lie with reporters and editors themselves. Again the illustration is excellent coverage of most issues **other than US politics** in these same publications. It can be done.
Since the industry began simulator based, full crew LOFT (Line Oriented Flight Training) in the 90's the airline flight crew training environment has changed dramatically, and for the better. The single most important part of it is the debriefing, both the good and not-so-good. Public Editors are the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) of the press, which is why the news industry should amplify their role, not eliminate it. And thanks for remembering Eric Boehlert, another lucid and tenacious voice who held the media to account.
Teaching civic engagement strengthens our communities and promotes resilience in the face of tragedies such as the mass shooting in Cali. Where is our country going if our kids do not know how government works?
"The need for civic education in 21st-century schools"
The fact that children today across the country wake up in the morning and go to school five days a week for most of the year has everything to do with civic education. The idea of a shared school experience where all young people in America receive a standard quality education is inextricably linked to the development of the United States as a national entity and the development of citizens who had the skills and knowledge to engage in a democracy.
In the early 1800s, as the country struggled to navigate what it meant to be a democratic republic, school as we know it did not exist as a distinguishing feature of childhood. Even almost midway into the century—in 1840—only 40 percent of the population ages 5 to 19 attended school.[2] For those who did attend, what they learned while at school was widely variable depending on the institution they attended and the instructor they had. Several education leaders began advocating for a more cohesive school system, one in which all young people could attend and receive similar instruction regardless of economic status, institution, or location. Chief among these leaders was Horace Mann, often referred to as the “father of American education,” who argued that free, standardized, and universal schooling was essential to the grand American experiment of self-governance. In an 1848 report he wrote: “It may be an easy thing to make a Republic; but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans; and woe to the republic that rests upon no better foundations than ignorance, selfishness, and passion.”
....To date however, civic education experts argue that civic learning is on the margins of young people’s school experience. The 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education examined the status of civic education and found that while reading and math scores have improved in recent years, there has not been the commensurate increase in eighth grade civics knowledge. (very interesting full article at link)
I strongly agree with you that having a shared school experience is an important part of our development as citizens. It is even more impactful if you are lucky enough to go to a school with a student body that is diverse not only racially but also economically. It terrifies me that Republicans are privatizing schools and pushing for curricula that teaches their toxic, anti-democracy propaganda as well as rightwing pseudo-Christian ideas.
I keep hearing people in the media claim that civics is no longer taught in schools. I do know that at least some states, if not most, have integrated civics into their social studies curriculum and no longer teach it as a separate subject during one year (8th grade used to be common). For example I asked my 2nd grade granddaughter what she was learning in social studies and she said that week it was the three branches of government. She was able to give me a decent explanation of what those branches were. That whole month of social studies was devoted to learning about our government. We baby boomers were taught civics but most of us don’t do well on surveys of civics knowledge either. I suspect the fact that students aren’t tested on their civics knowledge the way they are tested on reading and math is the reason few people retain that information. Tests are a sign of the importance our society places on subjects.
Finland has a very successful media literacy curriculum that is integrated into their subjects at all ages from kindergarten up. Children are taught critical thinking skills. For example in math students are taught to recognize the way statistics can be manipulated of misinterpreted (e.g. debunking the common misconception that correlation does not prove causation.) The Finns regularly score highest of all Europeans on Open Society’s media literacy survey.
The shared school experience article was from the Brookings Institution and I also quoted other sources in the comments section.
"most of us don't do well on surveys of civics" Hard to generalize. Most people that I know are political activists so they do follow politics. The Brookings description is about how schools are a level playing field for these kinds of topics.
but your comments are great, looking forward to more! The comments section is awesome!
the comments section is always so interesting, and I enjoy your comment a lot!
In our school we also did job shadowing so we had student council, we also went to local Town Meetings and followed what was happening in our town committees. I was student class president so I got to be Police Chief for a day, and the head of the student council was Mayor for a day.
Also, did this make a big difference? Our parents were very involved in town committees, and in our New England mill town, activist volunteer teachers made sure that we had all the benefits of schools that had money. We had debate club, student UN, class trips, and it was due to the teachers volunteering their own time and money.
Pay teachers, caregivers, nurses, and all the working people in our society what they are worth: that would be a great goal. Possible with a universal income ceiling limit to distribute wealth more evenly... :)
I am jealous of your experience in school. My small Appalachian town did nothing like that although we did participate in student government and organizations. It really would have helped to have had more exposure to our town’s government.
Luckily for me my family regularly watched the evening news together and usually discussed it. They were also so adamant about voting that one year they cut short their winter break in Florida short to come back and vote for an increase in the school levy they hadn’t realized was being held. They drove all day to make it before the polls closed. My best friend’s father marched with Dr. King. Even in Appalachia we had liberal white people.😊 The example of parents has a big impact on the civic engagement of their kids.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a report on MSNBC today that New Jersey has created a mandatory media literacy curriculum for all grades that will be implemented by public school librarians. I hope that more states follow New Jersey’s lead.
when u say your family watched the news together, one of the strange things about raising kids today is that family meals are out the window because of scheduling pressure
one of my great memories growing up in Maine - the slow pace, quiet times enough to read and think, we never knew what hurry was
family nightly dinners were relaxed and fun, but my parents always talked about news and current events, I think that was something parents were encouraged to do by education experts
your memories are wonderful, have you preserved them for your family?
there are some great websites about how to preserve family memories and stories for the following generations....
Thanks! My daughter got my husband and me Storyworth so we are recording memories like that. I am happy to say that my kids do still have family dinners with their children most nights and we all have dinner together, too. Politics is so disturbing these days I don’t think they discuss it a that table, though. Their kids are still pretty young.
Growing up we kids had a lot more free time and freedom to roam, play with friends, etc. with no adult supervision. Today most kids are in a lot more organized activities and have little free time.
Storyworth sounds really good, thanks for recommending that and thanks for the nice comment!
There seems to be a very good reason to let kids be kids and run wild, unstructured. Boredom is good for us :) I remember afternoons daydreaming in a big summer field, watching the clouds is very relaxing for hours. Downtime is good for everyone. In our rural area, the kids went off to play on their own up at the ball field in the neighborhood, and the folks just sent the family dog with us as a chaperone. It worked fine. Enjoy your day, T!
"....It turns out, however, that a certain level of boredom might actually enhance the creative quality of our work. That’s the implications of two recently published papers focused on the link between feeling bored and getting creative.
In the first paper, researchers Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman, both at the University of Central Lancashire, explained the creativity-boosting power of boredom in two rounds of studies. In both rounds, participants were either assigned the boring task of copying numbers from a phone book or assigned to a control group, which skipped the phone book assignment. All participants were then asked to generate as many uses as they could for a pair of plastic cups. This is a common test of divergent thinking—a vital element for creative output that concerns ones ability to generate lots of ideas. Mann and Cadman found that the participants who had intentionally led to boredom through the phone book task had generated significantly more uses for the pair of plastic cups.
Next, Mann and Cadman wanted to see what would happen when they really bored people out of their minds. So in a second round of their study, they created three groups—one control group, one phone-number-copying group, and a third group given the even duller task of simply reading the phone book. All three groups completed another task requiring creativity. In this case, the most bored group – the completely passive group of phone-book-readers – scored as the most creative, even out-scoring those assigned to the same phone book copying task from the first study. The findings suggest that boredom felt during passive activities, liking reading reports or attending tedious meetings, heightens the “daydreaming effect” on creativity—the more passive the boredom, the more likely the daydreaming and the more creative you could be afterward."
Jan 22, 2023·edited Jan 22, 2023Liked by James Fallows
thank you for the interesting article, JF!
Debate club in high school and good teachers taught us critical thinking. Bring back these important classes that prepare students for life :
"Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read."
"What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?"
Education Week
Larry Ferlazzo, Opinion Contributor, Education Week
An award-winning English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., Larry Ferlazzo is the author or editor of 12 books, including Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, and Building Parent Engagement In Schools. He also maintains the popular Websites of the Day blog. https://www.edweek.org/by/larry-ferlazzo
‘Adventures of Discovery’
Elena Quagliarello is the senior editor of education for Scholastic News, a current events magazine for students in grades 3–6.
Critical thinking blasts through the surface level of a topic. It reaches beyond the who and the what and launches students on a learning journey that ultimately unlocks a deeper level of understanding. Teaching students how to think critically helps them turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. In the classroom, critical thinking teaches students how to ask and answer the questions needed to read the world. Whether it’s a story, news article, photo, video, advertisement, or another form of media, students can use the following critical-thinking strategies to dig beyond the surface and uncover a wealth of knowledge.
Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read.
Ask the Tough Questions
The next layer delves deeper and starts to uncover the author’s purpose and craft. Teach students to ask the tough questions: What information is included? What or who is left out? How does word choice influence the reader? What perspective is represented? What values or people are marginalized?
Strike Gold
The deepest layer of critical thinking comes from having students take a step back to think about the big picture. This level of thinking is no longer focused on the text itself but rather its real-world implications. Students explore questions such as: Why does this matter? What lesson have I learned? How can this lesson be applied to other situations? Students truly engage in critical thinking when they are able to reflect on their thinking and apply their knowledge to a new situation. This step has the power to transform knowledge into wisdom.
Adventures of Discovery
There are vast ways to spark critical thinking in the classroom. Here are a few other ideas. (full article at link)
This may seem too partisan for this high minded discussion, but it seems to me that there is a significant proportion of the political class that would find instruction in critical thinking or civics, even in a most general sense, to be unwelcome subjects. At least they would suspect that such subjects are stalking horses for libruls. Frankly, many years ago when the back to basics drive was getting started (late 1970s?) it struck me as an attempt to dumb down pre-college curriculum. Add to that the "taxpayer revolts" that drained resources from public schools, and the drive to have what resources that remained channeled to other forms of instruction, we ended up with nothing but readin', writin' and 'rithmatic. And there are influential people of a certain ilk who are quite happy with that.
You are right that critical thinking is opposed by many on the right. Back in the 90s my son’s history teacher told me she got a lot of grief from them for teaching critical thinking. At parents’ meetings she always made a point of explaining that she wasn’t teaching kids to be cynical, just to be skeptical and fact-check what they read or heard. That did not pacify the right wingers because they believe that kids should not question what their parents or church told them.
Many of these parents were members of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, an organization that was teaching members nationwide to pressure schools by protesting curriculum, books, etc. They even trained people to run for school boards as “stealth candidates” using “educational excellence” as their platform, then pushing for a right wing “Christian” agenda if elected. Unfortunately my school district fell for that con and elected two of them to our board. They disrupted school board meetings with their demands for eliminating the teaching of evolution, attacking sex education, banning certain books, etc. The next election they both got defeated by large margins but not before they did a lot of damage.
I no longer live there but that town — Hudson, Ohio — is still fighting off the far right.
Also, is there a button for "Like all comments and like reading the comments section from the enlightened readership here"
Our local schools are being attacked daily by the Tea Party types who want to roll back to 1800 or 1600 or caveman.
As Tom Nichols points out, these are the affluent, middle types who are so bored with their lives that they have to interfere with the right workings of government, for their own petty or stupid ideas. (see Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise)
As Our Towns points out, US Libraries, not the Teacher's Union, are able to hold the line. They are the ones offering the liberal choice, often at great cost.
But this is America: still the best idea on the planet since 4000 BC :)
Just imagine if Our Towns, nonprofit Libraries, Common Cause, or the thousands of nonprofits holding the line against the idocracy disappeared. That is the effect that nonprofits have on America so everyone should considering sending at least $5 or $25 to their favorite cause. Even small donations make a huge difference. Nonprofit Times points out that it is the most effective way to help our world since there are already millions around the world working in ngo's to make life better. They need the resources that all the world is now spending on useless military conflct.
"Here's to our hopeless cause," the toast of refuseniks and Soviet Jews facing prison in the old Soviet Union. There's no reason to give in or up on the great idea that is America.
As we write, 13 billion $ that could have gone to America's needy schools in poor communities, for raising up America's kids: it is off to buy more stuff for the useless military conflict, the endless wars that humans think are so important, throughout time. How we are wasting our planetary resources in the profitable arms race that keeps corrupt leaders in power.
Be optimistic however: our college student optimism in the 1960's and 1970's brought down the corrupt presidency and ended a war. Let's see the kids do that ;)
Our young people, though, are amazing. They are the hope for the world. Elect Greta Thunberg President of the World and we will have a true leader to plan for the world's next million years ....
"...this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. " Winston Churchill
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
Back in ye olden days, I had the good fortune (at Redlands Senior High School) of excellent teachers in history and social sciences (Raymond Haight and others), debate and logic (Gertrude Baccus, who was my real writing teacher), English (Mathilda Phillips and others), etc. Plus languages and the sciences — but that's for another time.
These are things that people have to learn, and thus they have to be taught.
I believe that a unit in debate ought to be taught in high school English class. It could also be a part of history classes. Making kids argue sides of arguments that go against their personal positions is a powerful way to help them think at a higher level.
Jan 23, 2023·edited Jan 23, 2023Liked by James Fallows
such a lovely, thoughtful comment as always, thank you!
so much fun to hear about journalists' backgrounds: there is always something there that made people so curious about the world...we all used to read your writings back in the day, in the trenches of the human rights and refugee rescue movement after the Vietnam War, a movement that you and President Carter championed
There is something beautiful about teachers and mentors that happens at the end of the Mr Rogers documentary, it came out after the Tom Hanks movie. The filmmaker is interviewing the younger devotees and older associates of Mr Rogers, then asks them something that Mr Rogers would ask: without speaking, for one minute, think of someone in your life who made a difference in what you became, who believed in you. He moves from face to face as the person recalls that past time, and that is great cinema.
It is very touching because there is always that teacher, in class or in life, who made a difference, who saw us.
My grandmother was a very quiet, almost timid seeming woman. But she had such a good heart, it was quite extraordinary. Just an ordinary Mainer, Portland Maine, 1892, my grandfather had a shoe repair shop that is still there :)
But there are so many who play that role in our lives, many of them teachers and even journalists who offer the world to us through media.
The elephant in the room (which you did not address) is which way these "mistakes" tilt. The error is almost never in favor of democrats - a fact our beloved Eric Boehlert never failed to shout out.
Thanks. This is a long, tangled theme, as you know.
Short version of my view: most "mainstream" outlets have hyper-sensitive to all criticism from "the right," and generally shrug off criticism from "the left." I know first-hand that this is true at NPR. I believe it to be so of the big newspapers.
The irony, of course, is that whatever they do, they're still going to get just as much criticism from the right. So it's worst of all world's: the skew that Eric Boehlert mentions, and still the Fox/ Bannon / etc attacks on the "lying liberal media."
Thank you so much for your article that clarifies why I feel so outraged when reading a story with excessive "both sidesisms." I mentally shake my fist at reporters/editors who blow some things out of proportion or try to say two wrongs are equally bad when it just isn't so. I've heard that outrage draws readers in and holds their attention, but I could tune into Faux News if I wanted outrage every day. Most days I just want accurate information.
Thank you. I think reporters who are themselves wrapped up in the "game" of politics — am game I enjoy, and have spent my time in — underestimate the appetite for *just plain information* from a news source.
Since I'm saying so much about the NYT in this space, I'll emphasize that their coverage of most other issues (ie, not US politics) *does* respect the reader's appetite for information, new ways of visualizing problems, coverage of both problems and solutions, etc. The tech, arts, business, science, health, books, etc coverage all generally shows that approach. And, as I mention in this piece, their news-graphics team is really something special.
I read the NYT, the Washington Post, and my local paper, the Sacramento Bee. I'm not very happy with The Bee, as their articles have little depth, but they do cover local news that I'm interested in. The NYT and WaPo both do a great job on most subjects, and I got a better overview of our recent flooding from them than I did in The Bee. I skip cable news entirely.
It would help so much if the national papers stuck to straight reporting on politics, but with links to editorials on those same topics. Sometimes I want just the information, but other times I want a point of view. Using links would make a clear distinction between the two.
Seems to me the "Fair & Balanced" mythology introduced in the 1990's by a certain TV "News" outlet looking to make its name in an already crowded field is at the bottom of all three of these. By creating the myth of the "liberal media" (a myth that was debunked beautifully, if inelegantly, by not-yet-Senator Al Franken), Ayles & Co. essentially beat the "MSM" into submission by convincing the general public that if a media outlet failed to portray liberal and conservative views as equally valid they were obviously heavily biased toward liberals. Since then, we've seen more and more of this "partisan battle" nonsense to describe some of the most egregiously unbalanced situations imaginable. I'm reminded of the classic observation: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread”
Speaking strictly from an editorial standpoint, "it would appear that" once the NYT decided to step into the ring with "Rupert's Raiders," the match was over.
I have used a much simpler method over the past dozen years for sorting out news from distortion: how I react internally. If I feel outrage growing from inside, that's an alarm bell that I'm not being informed, I'm being manipulated. Years ago I told a friend that; he replied with some version of, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I took this as somewhat equivalent to, "All politicians lie." It's a cop-out, designed to free us from the critical thinking that is essential to being a responsible citizen of this democracy.
Thanks for a great lesson in filtering out the wheat from the chaff. Let's hope this notion catches on - because it's clear we can't rely on the media to correct its own errors unless they begin to lose credibility, viewers/readers, and those ever-so-precious advertising dollars.
Thank you, and thanks for your excellent reader's-guide as well. (If you feel you're being intentionally angered.)
I agree that teh Ailes/Fox/ 'Fair and Balanced' era was a watershed. And so has NYT politics coverage in the Whitewater —> But her emails era, and beyond.
I don't know if it makes things better, or worse, that these patterns have an even longer heritage. (As you know.) Nixon and Agnew of course went far with 'press is the enemy' rhetoric. And my book Breaking the News, which laid out many of these same patterns, came out ... just BEFORE the first broadcast of Ailes's Fox News.
For years I have been glued to the news - from cable news to the NYT and Washington Post. But I realize how destructive it can be to happiness and having a balanced perspective. There's always something to worry about or become angry about. I an now very wary of headlines with words such as "some say," "..might," "unnamed sources report," etc.
My solution is to stop taking the stories seriously, because they tend to be more about what might happen than what actually is happening now.
Reporters feel a need to look at the current events and try to weave it into a story about what might happen in the future. Two of many that come to mind are Peter Baker of the NYT and Ashley Parker of the WaPo. So much of what they write is speculative or opinion cloaked as fact. I've come to believe that much of what's written about the future should be ignored, because much of it never occurs.
The NYT has become a huge disappointment. I subscribe to it mostly for Spelling Bee.
Phil, thanks. (Onlookers should know that Phil has a long background as a reporter and writer, and as an innovator in the tech industry.)
As you recall, eons ago in the book Breaking the News I was talking about how a constantly nihilistic, "it's all a game" "they're all crooks" approach from "serious" news outlets would inevitably drive people away from public life and from the news as well. If it's *entirely* rigged and hopeless, if everything is cynical, why even spend your time? By comparison, that was from a lost Edenic age.
There was a recent column from, I think, the Nieman site about this same phenomenon: If the message of news organizations is unrelieved bleakness, why are people supposed to engage. (To spell out the obvious point: OF COURSE the media need to report on all the things that are bad, from climate change to corruption and abuse etc.) It's the frame of things *only* being rigged that does damage — and also distorts reality, and denies people knowledge and "agency" about approaches that might work.
Completely disagree with you about the scourge of unnamed sources. Because this piece was getting so long, I didn't go into that. And the scourge of predictions.
Agree about the spelling bee, and their "variety" puzzles in the Sunday magazine.
Unnamed sources are certainly valuable and necessary. But isn’t this term abused by some reporters to justify their viewpoint? And do they always even exist?
I’m willing to engage with bleak news but not necessarily bleak prognostications.
The longer I work in this business, the more reluctant I am to use an unnamed source.
There are circumstances where it is necessary. For instance: reporting from China. Or an expose on various abuses.
But it should never be used as cover for personal criticism or axe-grinding. I would put in several links here, but I can't find them at the moment and you know what I am talking about.
Of course, the debt ceiling issue is directly about spending already committed to, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be used to pressure reductions in future spending. The current path of increasing debt the country is on is unsustainable. We either cut spending or increase taxes or some of both. There is no other long term solution. Both parties are wrong here. The Republicans in refusing to consider defense cuts would impose unacceptable cuts on the rest of the budget and the Democrats (my party) simply refuse to even consider any cuts at all. The president says he will not negotiate. The end result can only be a significant devaluation of the dollar, read rampant personal savings killing inflation. Reasonable across the board cuts seem to be the best compromise solution.
Thanks for reading and for spelling out your case.
You're laying out a (potential) disagreement on *issues.* Having lived through many predictions of the fall of the dollar and the mounting-debt crisis, I have a different and less alarmed view of the federal budget than you do. But as with everything, I could be wrong, and will try to respond to evidence.
My point is that discussing / disagreeing on issues is one thing, and is part of democratic life. I'll try to convince you, and vice versa.
But saying "we're going to blow things up unless you agree with us" is different. That's what I'm criticizing in the debt-ceiling ultimatums.
Every news story on the debt ceiling "issue" should include a reminder that failing to raise the debt ceiling has NOTHING to do with restraining federal spending or reducing the federal deficit. I suspect that 95 percent of American voters don't understand this.
Jim and Deborah
Excellent piece, as always, just like your flying. When I was a staffer on the Church Committee (not the Jim Jones Church Committee of the 21st Century) One of my jobs was to oversee the investigation of the CIA's effort to assassinate foreign leaders. The most extended interaction at the CIA was with their Historian - Walt Elder. Walt was a Rhodes and did his D.Phil on Kant's Aesthetics. After most every convert mission Walt would interview the participants so the Agency would have a complete history of the mission's success or failure.
please write a book!
generally misunderstood but so interesting to those of us who have seen what war is like close up: the first go to plan often includes false flags and these type of weird covert operations like the fidel castro cigar thing
give peace a chance ;) but thanks for serving on that committee, great story for a book
Pat, thank you! We appreciate your reading and weighing in.
I had forgotten that you had been a staffer on the Church Committee. And I don't think I ever knew about the role of Walt Elder. That is fascinating.
The illustrations of other institutions at least trying to learn systematically from successes and failures only highlights what most of the press just refuses to do.
I believe that there must be some inherent institutional bias that allows it to continue to happen so blatantly. There is something deeply wrong with news rooms that continue to try to placate the loudest, vilest voices when, as you say, they will get attacked with the same vehemence regardless. At root is the loss of integrity as a first principle. But no matter how hopeless it seems it needs to be called out forcefully and frequently.
One of my favorite things to read for a few minutes of relaxation is the journals of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. You may think, what? Well, I'm a history professor, and it's fun to read about a history professor who talks about teaching a seminar, then having drinks with a Kennedy to discuss political plans, then has his friend "Betty Bacall" over for dinner.
Anyway, Schlesinger has a great comment in there. From November 19, 1980, and a dinner party at the home of his friend Marietta Tree:
"Last night we went to Marietta's for a dinner given in honor of Dick Gardner. Max Frankel, the editor of the Times's editorial page, was there too. The Times has a terrible effect on people who work for it. They cannot bear any criticism of anything the Times ever does; they act as if it were lése-majesté. To question the Times is as if one were questioning their religion. Frankel had recently run an editorial denouncing Bill Sullivan for writing his version of the events in Iran. I sent a letter to the Times saying that, as an historian, I welcomed such disclosure and, as a citizen, I was entitled to it. Frankel disagreed. He said he had attacked Sullivan because his article was a 'cheap shot' at the President> Stimulated by a couple of pre-dinner bourbons, I exploded. Why, I asked, did the Times feel compelled to rush to the defense of the most powerful man in the land against the testimony of an ex-ambassador now consigned to a trivial job as head of Columbia's Arden House? What had happened to the 'people's right to know,' about which the Times became so pious on other occasions? Max became furious--a fury that took the form of a glum and angry silence. He simply could not bear the thought that anyone might doubt the Times's infallibility. Abe Rosenthal is the same. Harrison Salisbury and Tom Wicker are not."
Now, Mr. Fallows worked in the Carter White House and may say that Schlesinger was wrong about Sullivan. And I can understand Frankel being upset when criticized at that place and time--if I had been in Schlesinger's place, I would not have done that.
But Schlesinger nailed it. He could have added Russell Baker (all rise) to the list of those who was happy to puncture the notion of Times infallibility. But I notice that the editors in New York tended to suffer from it--Rosenthal and Frankel, and some who have followed (helloooooo, Dean Baquet). But the Washington correspondents didn't seem to suffer from it, and now those who cover politics do. Boy, do they. And the Daily Kos headline the other day was way off--"The New York Times is bad for America." But when it comes to what passes for political "reporting," it is bad for the country and the world, and for journalism.
I'm reminded of someone on Twitter who pointed out this sentence from a story on President Biden and the documents: "It was a classic legal strategy by Mr. Biden and his top aides--cooperate fully with investigators in the hopes of giving them no reason to suspect ill intent." That is not merely bad journalism. That is an example of stupidity. I worked at a little newspaper that couldn't even afford to pay its staff. If I had written that sentence, the editor would have tattooed my fanny.
Thanks for this story. I was a huge fan of Arthur Schlesinger, both in his historian role and his general mensch-hood. Also loved his diaries.
I agree with you about the Supreme Court-like sense of being above mere criticism that comes from many people at our leading paper. (A few installments ago, I contrasted the AG Sulzberger memo abolishing the Public Editor job and inviting the vast reading public to weigh in; with Dean Baquet's parting words that the "didn't give a shit" about what people said on Twitter etc.
Russell Baker is one of the great figures in this business, or any business. 'Growing Up' should be among the top-dozen books about Americana.
He and my mentor Charlie Peters (who recently celebrated his 96th birthday) had lunch every Friday for years.
From my rather uninformed perspective, I have come to think that there must several, not mutually exclusive, reasons for this state of affairs. One, must be predominantly corporate in origin. I think it's likely (but, what do I know?) that many mainstream media are owned by conservatives (writ large), and in any event and are consciously (or not) representing a world view. In and of itself, representing a particular slant has, I would guess, a long journalistic history. But, in current implementations, such as the NYT, there feels like (to me) an inherent dishonesty to it. In particular, it seems to me that many headlines, sub headings, and stories, serve more of a propagandistic purpose than a journalistic one. To put it another way, the numerous articles about the coming "red wave" in the NYT (and others) weren't simply expressing a wrong headed philosophy of journalistic practice; instead, they cumulatively seem to be creating a feedback loop in order to advocate for a desired outcome.
Another aspect of current journalistic practice that seems increasingly prevalent is the adoption of terminology that is never clearly defined, but is used in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink sort of way. Terms (woke!) are therefore malleable and loose any grounding semantics whatsoever. Terminology becomes a form of signaling weaponry, but serves rather to give the appearance of thought, without bothering with the messy business of thinking. This, I think, is related to your large points about scandals: "Whitewater" seemed to mean something, and that was enough. The fact that it wasn't clear only helped to employ it more broadly as a cudgel to beat the reading public over the head. And, of course, clear thinking is not the hallmark of having been beaten over the head repeatedly.
Finally, I have a question. Historically, has there ever been a period when a better, more honest, form of journalism was the norm? I am not asking this cynically, but I'm pretty unaware of journalistic history.
Great article.
Thank you.
On your closing question: I don't think there was ever a "golden age" of coverage. Every age has had its strengths and weaknesses. The post-WW II Cronkite / etc "golden age" had enormous virtues — of which the main one was a more-or-less enforced nationwide audience, since for technology reasons there were only three broadcast networks. And the reporters mainly came from a news-rather-than-"hot takes" tradition.
But it had huge limits too. The "news" was condensed into 30 minutes each evening. As many people have noted, it was a top-down approach to what mattered. Civil rights protests, the Vietnam war, etc "mattered" when the news editors decided they mattered.
We have more range now, and very different problems. The economic-model collapse of local journalism is probably the worst phenomenon now. More on that anon.
For what it's worth, my experience has long been that *newsroom culture* matters more than ownership in most journalistic decisions. Of course editorial pages are a different matter. But consider the WSJ: Its edit page is the print version of Fox News, and was even before Fox existed. But its "news" operation has been less prone to the kind of narratives we're talking about — even though it's under Murdoch's ownership.
(I once edited a news magazine, and I can tell you that the owner played a significant role in what that magazine did and covered. But again that was a non-mainstream case.)
Opinion setting media are incorrigible. And ignored.
I loved this article pointing out how bad national reporting has become. I think that many of the headlines and subheadlines bait click, which is fine for social media but to for a national newspapers. The NY Times and Washington Post do a lot of bait click in there newspapers. They also repeat the same story multiple times written by different reporters. The major newspapers should stop trying to compete with social media and do what they do best, provide in-depth news articles. Give the pro/con views of information, it's important to have a national newspaper that is not swayed by any political views and that looks at the facts and provides unbiased news. I think that national newspapers have a responsibility to provide accurate, factual information to the public, and that means not resorting to sensationalized headlines and bait click.
Thanks.
I do believe that a lot of the responsibility, and opportunity, lie with reporters and editors themselves. Again the illustration is excellent coverage of most issues **other than US politics** in these same publications. It can be done.
Since the industry began simulator based, full crew LOFT (Line Oriented Flight Training) in the 90's the airline flight crew training environment has changed dramatically, and for the better. The single most important part of it is the debriefing, both the good and not-so-good. Public Editors are the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) of the press, which is why the news industry should amplify their role, not eliminate it. And thanks for remembering Eric Boehlert, another lucid and tenacious voice who held the media to account.
Yes, excellent, I agree.
Teaching civic engagement strengthens our communities and promotes resilience in the face of tragedies such as the mass shooting in Cali. Where is our country going if our kids do not know how government works?
"The need for civic education in 21st-century schools"
Rebecca Winthrop
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/the-need-for-civic-education-in-21st-century-schools/
Director - Center for Universal Education
Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development
2020
The origins of civic education
The fact that children today across the country wake up in the morning and go to school five days a week for most of the year has everything to do with civic education. The idea of a shared school experience where all young people in America receive a standard quality education is inextricably linked to the development of the United States as a national entity and the development of citizens who had the skills and knowledge to engage in a democracy.
In the early 1800s, as the country struggled to navigate what it meant to be a democratic republic, school as we know it did not exist as a distinguishing feature of childhood. Even almost midway into the century—in 1840—only 40 percent of the population ages 5 to 19 attended school.[2] For those who did attend, what they learned while at school was widely variable depending on the institution they attended and the instructor they had. Several education leaders began advocating for a more cohesive school system, one in which all young people could attend and receive similar instruction regardless of economic status, institution, or location. Chief among these leaders was Horace Mann, often referred to as the “father of American education,” who argued that free, standardized, and universal schooling was essential to the grand American experiment of self-governance. In an 1848 report he wrote: “It may be an easy thing to make a Republic; but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans; and woe to the republic that rests upon no better foundations than ignorance, selfishness, and passion.”
....To date however, civic education experts argue that civic learning is on the margins of young people’s school experience. The 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education examined the status of civic education and found that while reading and math scores have improved in recent years, there has not been the commensurate increase in eighth grade civics knowledge. (very interesting full article at link)
I strongly agree with you that having a shared school experience is an important part of our development as citizens. It is even more impactful if you are lucky enough to go to a school with a student body that is diverse not only racially but also economically. It terrifies me that Republicans are privatizing schools and pushing for curricula that teaches their toxic, anti-democracy propaganda as well as rightwing pseudo-Christian ideas.
I keep hearing people in the media claim that civics is no longer taught in schools. I do know that at least some states, if not most, have integrated civics into their social studies curriculum and no longer teach it as a separate subject during one year (8th grade used to be common). For example I asked my 2nd grade granddaughter what she was learning in social studies and she said that week it was the three branches of government. She was able to give me a decent explanation of what those branches were. That whole month of social studies was devoted to learning about our government. We baby boomers were taught civics but most of us don’t do well on surveys of civics knowledge either. I suspect the fact that students aren’t tested on their civics knowledge the way they are tested on reading and math is the reason few people retain that information. Tests are a sign of the importance our society places on subjects.
Finland has a very successful media literacy curriculum that is integrated into their subjects at all ages from kindergarten up. Children are taught critical thinking skills. For example in math students are taught to recognize the way statistics can be manipulated of misinterpreted (e.g. debunking the common misconception that correlation does not prove causation.) The Finns regularly score highest of all Europeans on Open Society’s media literacy survey.
https://www.nordicpolicycentre.org.au/media_literacy_education_in_finland
The US desperately needs that kind of education.
Thanks for that interesting comment!
The shared school experience article was from the Brookings Institution and I also quoted other sources in the comments section.
"most of us don't do well on surveys of civics" Hard to generalize. Most people that I know are political activists so they do follow politics. The Brookings description is about how schools are a level playing field for these kinds of topics.
but your comments are great, looking forward to more! The comments section is awesome!
so thoughtful, thank you !
the comments section is always so interesting, and I enjoy your comment a lot!
In our school we also did job shadowing so we had student council, we also went to local Town Meetings and followed what was happening in our town committees. I was student class president so I got to be Police Chief for a day, and the head of the student council was Mayor for a day.
Also, did this make a big difference? Our parents were very involved in town committees, and in our New England mill town, activist volunteer teachers made sure that we had all the benefits of schools that had money. We had debate club, student UN, class trips, and it was due to the teachers volunteering their own time and money.
Pay teachers, caregivers, nurses, and all the working people in our society what they are worth: that would be a great goal. Possible with a universal income ceiling limit to distribute wealth more evenly... :)
thank you!
I am jealous of your experience in school. My small Appalachian town did nothing like that although we did participate in student government and organizations. It really would have helped to have had more exposure to our town’s government.
Luckily for me my family regularly watched the evening news together and usually discussed it. They were also so adamant about voting that one year they cut short their winter break in Florida short to come back and vote for an increase in the school levy they hadn’t realized was being held. They drove all day to make it before the polls closed. My best friend’s father marched with Dr. King. Even in Appalachia we had liberal white people.😊 The example of parents has a big impact on the civic engagement of their kids.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a report on MSNBC today that New Jersey has created a mandatory media literacy curriculum for all grades that will be implemented by public school librarians. I hope that more states follow New Jersey’s lead.
wow, those memories are so great!
when u say your family watched the news together, one of the strange things about raising kids today is that family meals are out the window because of scheduling pressure
one of my great memories growing up in Maine - the slow pace, quiet times enough to read and think, we never knew what hurry was
family nightly dinners were relaxed and fun, but my parents always talked about news and current events, I think that was something parents were encouraged to do by education experts
your memories are wonderful, have you preserved them for your family?
there are some great websites about how to preserve family memories and stories for the following generations....
Thanks! My daughter got my husband and me Storyworth so we are recording memories like that. I am happy to say that my kids do still have family dinners with their children most nights and we all have dinner together, too. Politics is so disturbing these days I don’t think they discuss it a that table, though. Their kids are still pretty young.
Growing up we kids had a lot more free time and freedom to roam, play with friends, etc. with no adult supervision. Today most kids are in a lot more organized activities and have little free time.
Storyworth sounds really good, thanks for recommending that and thanks for the nice comment!
There seems to be a very good reason to let kids be kids and run wild, unstructured. Boredom is good for us :) I remember afternoons daydreaming in a big summer field, watching the clouds is very relaxing for hours. Downtime is good for everyone. In our rural area, the kids went off to play on their own up at the ball field in the neighborhood, and the folks just sent the family dog with us as a chaperone. It worked fine. Enjoy your day, T!
Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2014/09/the-creative-benefits-of-boredom :
The Creative Benefits of Boredom
David Burkus, September 09, 2014
"....It turns out, however, that a certain level of boredom might actually enhance the creative quality of our work. That’s the implications of two recently published papers focused on the link between feeling bored and getting creative.
In the first paper, researchers Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman, both at the University of Central Lancashire, explained the creativity-boosting power of boredom in two rounds of studies. In both rounds, participants were either assigned the boring task of copying numbers from a phone book or assigned to a control group, which skipped the phone book assignment. All participants were then asked to generate as many uses as they could for a pair of plastic cups. This is a common test of divergent thinking—a vital element for creative output that concerns ones ability to generate lots of ideas. Mann and Cadman found that the participants who had intentionally led to boredom through the phone book task had generated significantly more uses for the pair of plastic cups.
Next, Mann and Cadman wanted to see what would happen when they really bored people out of their minds. So in a second round of their study, they created three groups—one control group, one phone-number-copying group, and a third group given the even duller task of simply reading the phone book. All three groups completed another task requiring creativity. In this case, the most bored group – the completely passive group of phone-book-readers – scored as the most creative, even out-scoring those assigned to the same phone book copying task from the first study. The findings suggest that boredom felt during passive activities, liking reading reports or attending tedious meetings, heightens the “daydreaming effect” on creativity—the more passive the boredom, the more likely the daydreaming and the more creative you could be afterward."
Once again, my sincere thanks.
thank you for the interesting article, JF!
Debate club in high school and good teachers taught us critical thinking. Bring back these important classes that prepare students for life :
"Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read."
"What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?"
Education Week
Larry Ferlazzo, Opinion Contributor, Education Week
An award-winning English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., Larry Ferlazzo is the author or editor of 12 books, including Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, and Building Parent Engagement In Schools. He also maintains the popular Websites of the Day blog. https://www.edweek.org/by/larry-ferlazzo
‘Adventures of Discovery’
Elena Quagliarello is the senior editor of education for Scholastic News, a current events magazine for students in grades 3–6.
Critical thinking blasts through the surface level of a topic. It reaches beyond the who and the what and launches students on a learning journey that ultimately unlocks a deeper level of understanding. Teaching students how to think critically helps them turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. In the classroom, critical thinking teaches students how to ask and answer the questions needed to read the world. Whether it’s a story, news article, photo, video, advertisement, or another form of media, students can use the following critical-thinking strategies to dig beyond the surface and uncover a wealth of knowledge.
Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read.
Ask the Tough Questions
The next layer delves deeper and starts to uncover the author’s purpose and craft. Teach students to ask the tough questions: What information is included? What or who is left out? How does word choice influence the reader? What perspective is represented? What values or people are marginalized?
Strike Gold
The deepest layer of critical thinking comes from having students take a step back to think about the big picture. This level of thinking is no longer focused on the text itself but rather its real-world implications. Students explore questions such as: Why does this matter? What lesson have I learned? How can this lesson be applied to other situations? Students truly engage in critical thinking when they are able to reflect on their thinking and apply their knowledge to a new situation. This step has the power to transform knowledge into wisdom.
Adventures of Discovery
There are vast ways to spark critical thinking in the classroom. Here are a few other ideas. (full article at link)
This may seem too partisan for this high minded discussion, but it seems to me that there is a significant proportion of the political class that would find instruction in critical thinking or civics, even in a most general sense, to be unwelcome subjects. At least they would suspect that such subjects are stalking horses for libruls. Frankly, many years ago when the back to basics drive was getting started (late 1970s?) it struck me as an attempt to dumb down pre-college curriculum. Add to that the "taxpayer revolts" that drained resources from public schools, and the drive to have what resources that remained channeled to other forms of instruction, we ended up with nothing but readin', writin' and 'rithmatic. And there are influential people of a certain ilk who are quite happy with that.
You are right that critical thinking is opposed by many on the right. Back in the 90s my son’s history teacher told me she got a lot of grief from them for teaching critical thinking. At parents’ meetings she always made a point of explaining that she wasn’t teaching kids to be cynical, just to be skeptical and fact-check what they read or heard. That did not pacify the right wingers because they believe that kids should not question what their parents or church told them.
Many of these parents were members of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, an organization that was teaching members nationwide to pressure schools by protesting curriculum, books, etc. They even trained people to run for school boards as “stealth candidates” using “educational excellence” as their platform, then pushing for a right wing “Christian” agenda if elected. Unfortunately my school district fell for that con and elected two of them to our board. They disrupted school board meetings with their demands for eliminating the teaching of evolution, attacking sex education, banning certain books, etc. The next election they both got defeated by large margins but not before they did a lot of damage.
I no longer live there but that town — Hudson, Ohio — is still fighting off the far right.
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2021/09/28/hudson-school-board-gets-community-support-amid-book-controversy-threats/5892047001/
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2022/02/14/hudson-ohio-mayor-craig-shubert-resigns-ice-fishing-prostitution-school-board/6783783001/
Agree!
Also, is there a button for "Like all comments and like reading the comments section from the enlightened readership here"
Our local schools are being attacked daily by the Tea Party types who want to roll back to 1800 or 1600 or caveman.
As Tom Nichols points out, these are the affluent, middle types who are so bored with their lives that they have to interfere with the right workings of government, for their own petty or stupid ideas. (see Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise)
As Our Towns points out, US Libraries, not the Teacher's Union, are able to hold the line. They are the ones offering the liberal choice, often at great cost.
But this is America: still the best idea on the planet since 4000 BC :)
Just imagine if Our Towns, nonprofit Libraries, Common Cause, or the thousands of nonprofits holding the line against the idocracy disappeared. That is the effect that nonprofits have on America so everyone should considering sending at least $5 or $25 to their favorite cause. Even small donations make a huge difference. Nonprofit Times points out that it is the most effective way to help our world since there are already millions around the world working in ngo's to make life better. They need the resources that all the world is now spending on useless military conflct.
"Here's to our hopeless cause," the toast of refuseniks and Soviet Jews facing prison in the old Soviet Union. There's no reason to give in or up on the great idea that is America.
As we write, 13 billion $ that could have gone to America's needy schools in poor communities, for raising up America's kids: it is off to buy more stuff for the useless military conflict, the endless wars that humans think are so important, throughout time. How we are wasting our planetary resources in the profitable arms race that keeps corrupt leaders in power.
Be optimistic however: our college student optimism in the 1960's and 1970's brought down the corrupt presidency and ended a war. Let's see the kids do that ;)
Our young people, though, are amazing. They are the hope for the world. Elect Greta Thunberg President of the World and we will have a true leader to plan for the world's next million years ....
"...this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. " Winston Churchill
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
-- Winston Churchill, Nov. 12, 1936
Again thanks for these enlightening additions!
Back in ye olden days, I had the good fortune (at Redlands Senior High School) of excellent teachers in history and social sciences (Raymond Haight and others), debate and logic (Gertrude Baccus, who was my real writing teacher), English (Mathilda Phillips and others), etc. Plus languages and the sciences — but that's for another time.
These are things that people have to learn, and thus they have to be taught.
I believe that a unit in debate ought to be taught in high school English class. It could also be a part of history classes. Making kids argue sides of arguments that go against their personal positions is a powerful way to help them think at a higher level.
Yes, agree.
such a lovely, thoughtful comment as always, thank you!
so much fun to hear about journalists' backgrounds: there is always something there that made people so curious about the world...we all used to read your writings back in the day, in the trenches of the human rights and refugee rescue movement after the Vietnam War, a movement that you and President Carter championed
There is something beautiful about teachers and mentors that happens at the end of the Mr Rogers documentary, it came out after the Tom Hanks movie. The filmmaker is interviewing the younger devotees and older associates of Mr Rogers, then asks them something that Mr Rogers would ask: without speaking, for one minute, think of someone in your life who made a difference in what you became, who believed in you. He moves from face to face as the person recalls that past time, and that is great cinema.
It is very touching because there is always that teacher, in class or in life, who made a difference, who saw us.
My grandmother was a very quiet, almost timid seeming woman. But she had such a good heart, it was quite extraordinary. Just an ordinary Mainer, Portland Maine, 1892, my grandfather had a shoe repair shop that is still there :)
But there are so many who play that role in our lives, many of them teachers and even journalists who offer the world to us through media.
Yes — and to pick up the theme here, that Tom Hanks "Mr. Rogers" movie really was valuable in ways that last.
The elephant in the room (which you did not address) is which way these "mistakes" tilt. The error is almost never in favor of democrats - a fact our beloved Eric Boehlert never failed to shout out.
Thanks. This is a long, tangled theme, as you know.
Short version of my view: most "mainstream" outlets have hyper-sensitive to all criticism from "the right," and generally shrug off criticism from "the left." I know first-hand that this is true at NPR. I believe it to be so of the big newspapers.
The irony, of course, is that whatever they do, they're still going to get just as much criticism from the right. So it's worst of all world's: the skew that Eric Boehlert mentions, and still the Fox/ Bannon / etc attacks on the "lying liberal media."
Thank you so much for your article that clarifies why I feel so outraged when reading a story with excessive "both sidesisms." I mentally shake my fist at reporters/editors who blow some things out of proportion or try to say two wrongs are equally bad when it just isn't so. I've heard that outrage draws readers in and holds their attention, but I could tune into Faux News if I wanted outrage every day. Most days I just want accurate information.
Thank you. I think reporters who are themselves wrapped up in the "game" of politics — am game I enjoy, and have spent my time in — underestimate the appetite for *just plain information* from a news source.
Since I'm saying so much about the NYT in this space, I'll emphasize that their coverage of most other issues (ie, not US politics) *does* respect the reader's appetite for information, new ways of visualizing problems, coverage of both problems and solutions, etc. The tech, arts, business, science, health, books, etc coverage all generally shows that approach. And, as I mention in this piece, their news-graphics team is really something special.
I read the NYT, the Washington Post, and my local paper, the Sacramento Bee. I'm not very happy with The Bee, as their articles have little depth, but they do cover local news that I'm interested in. The NYT and WaPo both do a great job on most subjects, and I got a better overview of our recent flooding from them than I did in The Bee. I skip cable news entirely.
It would help so much if the national papers stuck to straight reporting on politics, but with links to editorials on those same topics. Sometimes I want just the information, but other times I want a point of view. Using links would make a clear distinction between the two.
Keep up the great work you do!
Seems to me the "Fair & Balanced" mythology introduced in the 1990's by a certain TV "News" outlet looking to make its name in an already crowded field is at the bottom of all three of these. By creating the myth of the "liberal media" (a myth that was debunked beautifully, if inelegantly, by not-yet-Senator Al Franken), Ayles & Co. essentially beat the "MSM" into submission by convincing the general public that if a media outlet failed to portray liberal and conservative views as equally valid they were obviously heavily biased toward liberals. Since then, we've seen more and more of this "partisan battle" nonsense to describe some of the most egregiously unbalanced situations imaginable. I'm reminded of the classic observation: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread”
Speaking strictly from an editorial standpoint, "it would appear that" once the NYT decided to step into the ring with "Rupert's Raiders," the match was over.
I have used a much simpler method over the past dozen years for sorting out news from distortion: how I react internally. If I feel outrage growing from inside, that's an alarm bell that I'm not being informed, I'm being manipulated. Years ago I told a friend that; he replied with some version of, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I took this as somewhat equivalent to, "All politicians lie." It's a cop-out, designed to free us from the critical thinking that is essential to being a responsible citizen of this democracy.
Thanks for a great lesson in filtering out the wheat from the chaff. Let's hope this notion catches on - because it's clear we can't rely on the media to correct its own errors unless they begin to lose credibility, viewers/readers, and those ever-so-precious advertising dollars.
Thank you, and thanks for your excellent reader's-guide as well. (If you feel you're being intentionally angered.)
I agree that teh Ailes/Fox/ 'Fair and Balanced' era was a watershed. And so has NYT politics coverage in the Whitewater —> But her emails era, and beyond.
I don't know if it makes things better, or worse, that these patterns have an even longer heritage. (As you know.) Nixon and Agnew of course went far with 'press is the enemy' rhetoric. And my book Breaking the News, which laid out many of these same patterns, came out ... just BEFORE the first broadcast of Ailes's Fox News.
For years I have been glued to the news - from cable news to the NYT and Washington Post. But I realize how destructive it can be to happiness and having a balanced perspective. There's always something to worry about or become angry about. I an now very wary of headlines with words such as "some say," "..might," "unnamed sources report," etc.
My solution is to stop taking the stories seriously, because they tend to be more about what might happen than what actually is happening now.
Reporters feel a need to look at the current events and try to weave it into a story about what might happen in the future. Two of many that come to mind are Peter Baker of the NYT and Ashley Parker of the WaPo. So much of what they write is speculative or opinion cloaked as fact. I've come to believe that much of what's written about the future should be ignored, because much of it never occurs.
The NYT has become a huge disappointment. I subscribe to it mostly for Spelling Bee.
Phil, thanks. (Onlookers should know that Phil has a long background as a reporter and writer, and as an innovator in the tech industry.)
As you recall, eons ago in the book Breaking the News I was talking about how a constantly nihilistic, "it's all a game" "they're all crooks" approach from "serious" news outlets would inevitably drive people away from public life and from the news as well. If it's *entirely* rigged and hopeless, if everything is cynical, why even spend your time? By comparison, that was from a lost Edenic age.
There was a recent column from, I think, the Nieman site about this same phenomenon: If the message of news organizations is unrelieved bleakness, why are people supposed to engage. (To spell out the obvious point: OF COURSE the media need to report on all the things that are bad, from climate change to corruption and abuse etc.) It's the frame of things *only* being rigged that does damage — and also distorts reality, and denies people knowledge and "agency" about approaches that might work.
Completely disagree with you about the scourge of unnamed sources. Because this piece was getting so long, I didn't go into that. And the scourge of predictions.
Agree about the spelling bee, and their "variety" puzzles in the Sunday magazine.
Unnamed sources are certainly valuable and necessary. But isn’t this term abused by some reporters to justify their viewpoint? And do they always even exist?
I’m willing to engage with bleak news but not necessarily bleak prognostications.
Great subject for more discussions.
Phil, yes:
The longer I work in this business, the more reluctant I am to use an unnamed source.
There are circumstances where it is necessary. For instance: reporting from China. Or an expose on various abuses.
But it should never be used as cover for personal criticism or axe-grinding. I would put in several links here, but I can't find them at the moment and you know what I am talking about.
Of course, the debt ceiling issue is directly about spending already committed to, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be used to pressure reductions in future spending. The current path of increasing debt the country is on is unsustainable. We either cut spending or increase taxes or some of both. There is no other long term solution. Both parties are wrong here. The Republicans in refusing to consider defense cuts would impose unacceptable cuts on the rest of the budget and the Democrats (my party) simply refuse to even consider any cuts at all. The president says he will not negotiate. The end result can only be a significant devaluation of the dollar, read rampant personal savings killing inflation. Reasonable across the board cuts seem to be the best compromise solution.
Thanks for reading and for spelling out your case.
You're laying out a (potential) disagreement on *issues.* Having lived through many predictions of the fall of the dollar and the mounting-debt crisis, I have a different and less alarmed view of the federal budget than you do. But as with everything, I could be wrong, and will try to respond to evidence.
My point is that discussing / disagreeing on issues is one thing, and is part of democratic life. I'll try to convince you, and vice versa.
But saying "we're going to blow things up unless you agree with us" is different. That's what I'm criticizing in the debt-ceiling ultimatums.
Every news story on the debt ceiling "issue" should include a reminder that failing to raise the debt ceiling has NOTHING to do with restraining federal spending or reducing the federal deficit. I suspect that 95 percent of American voters don't understand this.
Yes, good idea.
Thanks for this. I'm going to broadcast it to my email list. It's important for people to know where the media are falling short.
Thank you!
You're welcome! But thank you for the value of this column.