Journalistic Detachment

Posted on 2009-01-13 by David

Breaking the News opens by sharing an incident from a television panel discussion from 1987. The moderator asked a wounded vet if he would have been willing to torture a prisoner in order to rescue soldiers under his command who had been captured. His answer was that although he would have to live with the consequences of his decision he would be willing to torture his captive to save his men. (Notice that this was him personally inflicting the torture, not simply ordering or signing off on the use of torture.) Other ex-military members of the panel wrestled with related questions and came to various conclusions but in every case their answers addressed the future consequences to themselves and others regarding their choices.

The moderator then asked one of two prominent journalists what he would do if he had been invited by an enemy military unit to visit the site of an atrocity committed by the military forces of his country’s allies and on their way to the site they discovered a unit of allied forces and set an ambush to kill them. His thoughtful answer was that he would probably do what he could to save the allied troops. As he gave his answer the other prominent journalist on the panel criticized him for getting involved in the story rather than just covering the news as it unfolded. Almost more sad than the fact that the two journalists saw things differently was the fact that the first journalist revised his answer to say that his human instinct to aid his allies in a moment of danger was wrong and showed personal weakness. He said, “I chickened out. . . I wish I had made another decision, I would like to have made his decision.” When the second journalist was pressed to address the impact of the position he had taken he responded by saying, “Don’t ask me! I don’t know.”

I value the role that journalists have to postpone judgement as they examine the issues they are reporting on until they are able to process all the available facts, but it is disturbing that this journalistic detachment should extend so far as to demand that the journalist stand as an idle witness to upcoming events when there is an obvious moral choice before them. Later in the book we are told of a journalist who refuses to vote in elections because it would make him biased.

This idea of a journalist acting outside the bounds of humanity in the name of “objectivity” seems to distort what journalism is. I think that attitude helps to perpetuate the myth among reporters that they can be truly without bias. Because of that belief it is all the more difficult for them to recognize their own biases. It seems to me that the logical extension of believing that you have no bias is to believe that anyone who sees an issue differently is wrong and less enlightened than you are. That seems to be a dangerous position for someone who is trying to uncover the truth of a situation or issue.

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Breaking the News

Posted on 2009-01-13 by David

I have been learning a lot from Breaking the News and noticing my perspectives on media, politics, politicians, and public debate changing. If I could spend about two uninterrupted days I would love to write a full reaction to the book. As it is I am planning to write a series of posts focusing on different aspects of the subject that the books covers. If anyone wants to get a headstart on me so they can debunk my thoughts (or enhance my understanding) they could prepare themselves by reading chapters 1, 4, and 5 of the book (possibly later chapters will be added to the list).

Also, I realized a flaw this morning in my assumtions to the question I asked yesterday. The assumption were that newspapers disappeared but radio and television remained. If that were the case little if anything would change because NPR (radio) already does as good a job at thoughtful commentary and reporting as most or all of our current newspapers.

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Devoid of Newspapers

Posted on 2009-01-12 by David

I’m sure that everyone has read a few articles about the shrinking revenue and circulation of newspapers around the country (and the world I suspect). As an example, Real Clear Politics recently asked Is the Demise of Newspapers Preordained? The trends don’t look good, and up until now I have viewed the situation through the lens of "what do newspapers need to do to remain viable?" I don’t meant o suggest that the situation has grown more dire – in fact I don’t think it has changed in any significant way – but today I began to ask myself "what would happen if newspapers disappeared entirely?"

Perhaps part of the thought was a result of Scott’s post that lists control of information as one of the three ingredients to despotism. Of course the demise of newspapers does not mean that there would be no information, nor does it necessarily mean that there would be a central control over the information that is publicly available.

First let me lay out my two assumptions in approaching this question – newspaper companies go bankrupt, in other words this is not simply a case of only publishing online rather than in a phsical paper; other forms of mass communication (radio, tv, internet) do not disappear.

Most directly what I would expect under these assumptions is that journalism would disappear as a paid profession except in whatever form it might be able to survive in unwritten formats (radio and tv). Currently we live in an age where newspapers are not an exclusive source of original written journalism. We have seen cases where the newspapers (and other professional media) get scooped by amatures with blogs and areas of interest. I believe this gives us a glimpse into what a vaccume of printed news would be filled with.

Anyone (such as myself) can publish information in a way that is publicly accessible. Of course very few people know where to find what I write while millions of people know exactly where to find the things that are written by a columnist at the New York Times. Although amatures already publish many times more information (by word count) than journalism professionals there would bea  great shift if the vast majority of people received the majority of their information from the handfull of small-circulation sources to which they had been exposed. Also, there is a huge gap between the information that I am able to find, process, and write about while holding down a steady job and the information that can be found and published by someone who gets to spend their time in pursuit of new and important information.. If newspapers were consistently doing that job I would be distraught over the possibility of losing that service in society. As it is, I fear that we have already lost most of the value that newspapers could offer.

So my question is, what effects do other people see if the newspaper industry were to collapse? How would we cope? How obvious would the loss be in the public arena?

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Where Constitutional Rubber Meets the Republican Road

Posted on 2009-01-09 by David

Peter Berkowitz makes it sound so easy to come to a consensus on the way forward for the GOP by adhereing to the Constitution. In theory it sounds simple enough to apply the test of whether an idea fits within the framework of the Constitution before deciding whether to adopt the idea. Scott gives a nice analysis of the full article but I think that by looking at the nine ideas that he says should lead the agenda we can get a sense for how hard that concept is to apply in practice – and hence why the GOP lost its way so completely .

An economic program, health-care reform, energy policy and protection for the environment grounded in market-based solutions.

I’m not convinced that anyone in politics today even knows what a free market is so it’s hard to imagine that the idea of “market-based solutions” would have any consistent meaning from one person to another.

A foreign policy that recognizes America’s vital national security interest in advancing liberty abroad but realistically calibrates undertakings to the nation’s limited knowledge and restricted resources.

Follow the first vague idea with another. What does it mean to “advance liberty abroad?” If it includes any amount of playing earth-policeman then I don’t think it can fit within the framework of the Constitution. We should stand as a supreme example of a nation protecting the liberty of her citizens but regardless of our knowledge or resources we should not step in with force anywhere that we do not have legal jurisdiction to enforce liberty unless we have been attacked or publicly invited.

A commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.

I’m not even sure that sentence said anything actionable.

A focus on reducing the number of abortions and increasing the number of adoptions.

I’m not sure how this could be construed from the Constitution but it is the right approach to the issue of abortion. Any discussion about the public teaching of any moral issue by the state should be entirely focused on the actual effects it would have on those measurable and commonly held goals. Even the Democrats would generally like to see lower numbers of abortions and higher adoption rates. The question is, do the policies we promote actually achieve those ends – if not they have no business being promoted by the state.

Efforts to keep the question of same-sex marriage out of the federal courts and subject to consideration by each state’s democratic process.

Like abortion, this idea is not about settling the moral question – it is about making sure that the question is settled according to the prescribed process.

Measures to combat illegal immigration that are emphatically pro-border security and pro-immigrant.

I like this idea, but I wonder how to formulate and articulate positions that are both pro-immigrant and pro-security.

A case for school choice as an option that enhances individual freedom while giving low-income, inner-city parents opportunities to place their children in classrooms where they can obtain a decent education.

This should be one of the easiest ideas on this list to pursue among the various conservative groups.

A demand that public universities abolish speech codes and vigorously protect liberty of thought and discussion on campus.

This should also be an easy sell among self-identified conservatives.

The appointment of judges who understand that their function is to interpret the Constitution and not make policy, and, therefore, where the Constitution is most vague, recognize the strongest obligation to defer to the results of the democratic process.

It is not only judges that need to understand this. The citizens as a whole need to recognize the difference between Constitutional interpretation and the making of policy

The fact that I am addressing these nine ideas does not mean that I have concluded that Berkowitz was right about which ideas are most important – I only used those to show the complexity that we must still navigate even after committing to that one core principle. The thing that Berkowitz is absolutely right about is that we can and should commit to put the Constitution at the center of our decision making process if the GOP is to have anything to offer to the American public.

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News Fluff/Flash

Posted on 2009-01-08 by David

Apparently the nation is very interested that Obama Predicts a Florida Victory in tonight’s BCS National Championship game – just like we were dying to know whether Obama likes the BCS system. I don’t mean to pick on these stories, but they serve as good examples of some of the thoughts I am having as I read Breaking the News. What our President-elect thinks of collegiate sports is suddenly very important despite the fact that we have no proof the Obama is any more an expert on the subject than I am. Obama is not claiming to be an expert, he’s simply offering an opinion when the question is asked because that’s what any fan would do. This really is not a problem as far as what Obama is doing, but it is indicative of a problem that is widespread through the media – all too often what gets published is fluff even when there are important issues that we should be informed about. In fact, even when the important issues are covered the result is often fluff.

Because everyone knows who Obama is it may intrigue many to know his opinions on college sports just as a matter of curiosity – nothing wrong with that. The problem is when virtually everything gets the same level of treatment, whether it’s his guess on the outcome of tonight’s game or his plan for stimulating the economy and cutting the waste out of the federal government. To a large degree, our press today had tried to reduce important offices, such as the presidency, to something that is much easier to understand and report on – celebrity.

That seems to be indicative of the major problem that is spreading through media (old and new) – there is a tendancy to publish what is easy to cover in order to make sure that something is published. I have am not immune to that urge myself. It is very difficult to maintain any influence in the conversation, or keep the attention of any regular readers, if you cannot have some level of consistency in publishing. (Note that consistency and frequency are not the same thing, although they can influence each other.) Those who write primarily for themselves may take the time to really cover an important subject with some depth. (Those tend to be my favorite kind of articles.) Those who write in any noticable degree for an audience will feel the pull to get anything out, and thus will feel the urge to look for something manageable or dependable – often fluff.

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Orrin Depends on Sloppy Journalism

Posted on 2009-01-07 by David

The news media is supposed to help us make sense of the world around us, but to a large degree most news organizations have relegated themselves to being nothing more than data streams. A perfect example today comes with the news regarding the D.C. Voting rights bill that Orrin Hatch introduced (again) yesterday. In the Washington Watch section of today’s Utah Policy we get news of the event with no analysis and a mention of, but no link to, the press release. They manage to quote Hatch as he contradicts himself (I’ll get to that in a minute) but offer no analysis or context. The Washington Post covers the story in a biased fashion, but at least in their case we could expect that as Washington has everything to gain and nothing to lose by this bill. Simply put, the residents of D.C. have a legitimate complaint and they would rather compromise on the issue than take the time to make the change in the right way. The compromise is that they offer to help Utah to a temporary solution to Utah’s legitimate concern of being denied a seat in conjunction with a permanent solution to their predicament. Looking at the Deseret News coverage we find the story played as a tussle between Hatch and Jason Chaffetz but still little analysis of the merits of the bill.

Let’s see what analysis of the merits of the bill would tell us.

The residents of D.C. have a legitimate grievance about their lack of voting representation in the House. The proper solution would be an amendment that would grant voting representation in the House to the citizens of any territory that pays federal taxes, or returning the residential portions of D.C. to Maryland as suggested by Rep. Chaffetz  – this bill does neither of those things. Likewise Utah has a legitimate complaint about being denied another seat after the 2000 census. The proper solution is our pursuit of a redress through the judicial system and a bill to examine and improve the methodology of counting for the census as well as growing our way outside the margin of error in the census system. We have the growth, we pursued the judicial relief, and this bill does not address the census methodologies in any way.

Let’s see what sloppy journalism ignores in Hatch’s statement.

While the 2010 census and reapportionment might provide Utah an additional seat, the failure of the 2000 process showed that this is not a sure thing. This bill maximizes the chances of securing an additional seat for Utah, which has had one of the country’s fastest growth rates since the last census.

I have no doubt that when Hatch spoke he emphasized the word "might" regarding Utah gaining another seat after the 2010 census. Somehow he can get away with saying that, and admitting that Utah has one of the fastest growing populations since the 2000 census, without anyone questioning in their stories how having one of the fastest growth rates in the country would allow us to still be below the margin for error in the next census.

For those who are wondering, the bill makes no mention of Utah. It provides two new seats in the House and assigns one to D.C. The supporters of the bill are trying to work fast before Utah gains their seat in the 2010 census because they aren’t willing to wait until Congress will give them what they deserve, which is representation in the house without resorting to a gimmick such as offering a balancing seat to poor, picked-on Utah. They also fear that after 2010 there will not be a Republican state with a legitimate grievance about their apportionment of representatives. I understand that legislation is dependent on the art of compromise, and rightly so in most cases, but gimmicks are not the same thing as compromise.

Orrin is not representing the interests of his constituents – he’s simply representing the interests of some of his friends in Washington. If that were not the case he would not have to lie to us and say  that we might not get our deserved representation from the 2010 census.

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News and Government

Posted on 2009-01-06 by David

I have been reading Breaking The News and consequently thinking about the role of the media in disseminating information and the effects of that process in the political arena. I don’t know that my thoughts are fully formed here, but I had to get something down.

The media has been called the Fourth Branch of Government because of how important an informed electorate is in a system of popular government. There is certainlya lot of truth to that idea. I looked for some other perspectives on this issue and found a 2006 article that was very much opposed to the differences between members of the media and elected members of the official branches of government. I also found a 2007 article suggesting that cash is the fourth branch of government and a 2008 article that claims that the military is the fourth branch. These claims got me thinking about what it meant to have a fourth branch, and why we are so fascinated with identifying it.

Personally I would argue that cash has no will of its own and thus cannot act as a governing force. (It is simply a resource to be used in influencing people.) On the other hand, the idea of the military as a fourth branch of government is plausible. The more I have thought about it, the more I believe that there is always a hidden branch of government (meaning a tool that influences the government and the culture of a nation without being an official governing force). That tool is either religion (cultural morality), media (information), or military (force). In fact, it may be that religion may be a replacement for government (tied to the hidden branches of media or military) when it is a governing force, but not a hidden branch.

There are definitely countries where the military is that fourth branch and I am convinced that military and media both play a role in virtually every society – the fourth branch in any country being whichever of the two holds the most dominant controling position. Thankfully the media is the more dominant cultural tool in our nation (presently). So while I believe that our fourth branch has been compromised, just as each of the other three branches have also been compromised, we are still free from the tyrany that coincides with the military as the fourth branch.

I believe that the problems in our media have the same roots as the problems in our government – we the people have distanced ourselves from the source of our information and become less critical and demanding.

I’d love to hear other thoughts on this issue, but for the time being I’ll go back to ruminating.

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Legislative Accountability

Posted on 2009-01-05 by David

John Florez has a good perspective on what constitutes True government accountability and the forces that work against citizens from receiving the benefits of that accountability. I thought his comparison of the legislature to a corporate board of directors was very apt. My thoughts were sparked by the following statement:

This year, with new legislative leadership, might be a good one to spend more time holding oversight hearings on how effective certain state departments are in solving the problems they were created to resolve — their legislative mandate. . .

For legislators to start asking the tough questions to hold state departments accountable puts their political seat at risk because they threaten and have to fend off special-interest groups that benefit from maintaining the agency status quo. Therefore, it’s critical that legislators, in very real ways, know the public will support them when they hold oversight hearings regarding agencies’ effectiveness and demonstrate what returns taxpayers are getting on their investment. For legislators, those are tough calls but vital in keeping our government working in the public’s interest.

Oversight hearings would provide the openness and accountability in our government that we all want.

Bureaucratic momentum is a powerful force and tends to discourage any real accountability. The first priority of any institution is survival, not the fulfilling of any legislative mandate. Because of that, government bureaucracies have become very adept at promoting their own survival and continuation. In fact, they have learned how to turn failure and ineffectiveness into a tool for budgetary and institutional growth. Bureaucrats have long practice at befriending legislators and promoting their perspectives so that those legislators will be disposed to grant them their budgetary and policy requests. The fact that government jobs are considered to be a very safe area of employment is a testament to how effective their survival tactics usually are.

Despite all these advantages for institutional continuance, I see a glimmer of hope. If legislators will actively seek to cultivate their relationships with the group of voters that they represent they can preempt the ability of any special interest groups to unseat them for asking tough questions when holding real oversight hearings.

Constituents can show that they will support their legislators by being vocal in requesting real accountability and in vocally supporting their legislators through the legislative process. If they do so the legislators should have confidence that they can ask tough questions and demand accountability without fear that doing so will cost them their seats.

As constituents it is to our advantage to focus our efforts on those who represent us. If we voted for our representatives we should have done so because we believe in what they are said they would do, and if we did not vote for them we should be letting them know what we want from our representative. Many politicians say that they intend to represent those who opposed them as well as those who voted for them, but if we do not communicate with our representatives, whether we voted for them or not, they are not able to accurately represent us.

I have found that my efforts are much more rewarded by contacting my representatives, whether I voted for them or not, than if I spend my time shouting into space about what the legislature as a whole should be doing.

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Federalist No. 46

Posted on 2009-01-02 by David

The subject and position of Federalist No. 46 is not substantially different from Federalist No. 45 and my reaction is largely the same as before. On the other hand, Madison makes an important point that expands the scope of my reaction.

Notwithstanding the different modes in which they are appointed, we must consider both of them as substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States. . . The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes.

My initial reaction was that, like the states, the people in general are no longer guarding their liberty so much as their financial security. Some further consideration convinced me that Madison was right and that my reaction was actually an indication of the fundamental problem.

The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed {the federal and state governments}, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone

Although it is easy to feel that the government has gone out of control we must remember that we still have relatively free, fair, and regular elections. The fundamental problem which allows the government to exced their constitutional bounds is not that there are no reins, but that we the people have let go of the reins (this is especially true in places like Utah where the participation in even the most basic civic functions like voting is abysmal). The result is that our runaway horse of government is sometimes staffed by officials elected to virtually hereditary positions and while we may yell about the dangers of the course being taken by our uncontrolled stagecoach, the actual solution is for us to undertake the challenging task of grasping the reins once more and asserting our control over the horse of government. Only after we have tried our hands at the reins can the horse truly be said to be a runaway – prior to a serious attempt at control it is our own failure and not the fault of the horse.

One final quote that I really appreciated:

Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States. What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress? A perusal of their journals, as well as the candid acknowledgments of such as have had a seat in that assembly, will inform us, that the members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective States, than of impartial guardians of a common interest;

Interestingly, the final protection against a federal takeover of the lives of the citizens (as cited by Madison) is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. An alarmist would be quick to take every attempt to regulate the keeping of arms by private individuals as a fundamental threat to individual liberty – and their alarm would not be without legitimate foundation.

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Annapolis Convention

Posted on 2009-01-01 by David

It was not so long ago that I became aware of the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Though I had started reading the resulting report before I got my pocket Constitution I was very excited to see that it was included there. It was there that I finally sat down and read the report through. I found it interesting that the major theme of the convention proceedings was that a Constitutional Convention should be called precisely because the remedies necessary for the defects in the Articles of Confederation exceeded the scope of authority that had been granted to the delegations from the states that attended the Annapolis Convention (5 state delegations were at the convention, 4 more had been commissioned but were not at the convention, and the final 4 states had not commissioned delegations for such a convention). With that background it becomes very hard to consider the argument that the members of the Constitutional Convention exceeded the bounds of their authority. Having had this report published I would think that every state would have sent delegations to the Constitutional Convention with fairly open-ended authority.

Sometime after reading these proceedings I began to wonder what might come out of a similar convention today. Of course the delegations to the Annapolis Convention were charged with addressing a specific issue (the regulation of commerce) and found that no viable solution was forthcoming which would not affect many other issues as well. I do not imagine a convention charged wtih fixing an issue, only one charged with studying our government and comparing what our government is doing with what was written in the original Constitution, what is written in the succeeding ammendments, and poosibly providing their perspective on where our practices are improvements from what is written and where they should be brought into conformity with our established Constitution.

Because all three branches of government would be under review, the delegations should not include those who are currently holding political office at the federal level (I was at first inclined to think that such a review could be conducted by judges from around the nation). Instead, I think that such a convention should consist of people chosen  from the local people from each state – for the sake of variety and balance I would imagine an ideal convention to consist of three Republicans and three Democrats from each state (and probably D.C. as well). Some people might think a convention of 300 participants would be too large to be effective in such an undertaking, but considering that there are over 300 Million people in the country it seems reasonable to have that many representatives. (Besides, it’s still smaller than the House of Representatives.)

Those who argue that the large states are being underrepresented (as some undoubtedly will) should be reminded that the convention would have no power except to study, publish their findings, and possibly make recommendations. I believe that the voters of our nation would be very surprised by the findings of such a convention.

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