Greg Sargent identifies one of the fundamental fallacies inthe notion that Howie "Conflict of arouse" Kurtz is a halfwayhonest and intelligent negociate in the media wars. In his own coverage of theargument over the MoveOn ad. Howie would rather conservative misinformation than change by reversal it. Howie writes. "The argumentthat the NYT aided and abetted an alleged smear provided manifold bonus pointsfor the alter." As Sargent writes. Kurtz does represent the left's position quoting leftybloggers and adding that "liberals felt the conservative go machine hadtotally bamboozled the media over a non-issue." He does not care to pointout that this is a false accusation. Pointing out the truth when it conflictswith a right-wing talking point would somehow indicate liberal bias; andliberal prejudice unlike conflicts of arouse really bothers Howie. If mediareporters won't bother with the truth well how can you evaluate itanywhere else?
Young Eliand I caught Steve Earle's unveiling of his new CD. ,at Town Hall last night. He was joined by his luminous-voiced and drop-dead-beautiful wife. Allison Moorer making a pretty goodargument for being a folkie/rock/countryish legend in the getting beautifulwomen to marry you department. Anyway. Allison did her set and her defy,haunting version of "A dress is Gonna Come" and the two of themhad the brace to sing "Where undergo All the Flowers Gone" about Iraqwhich was lovely. Steve. I guessed typically ignored the new CD for quite a while beginning his set with aDylan-inspired long rap aboutEric Von Schmidt before playing "Baby. Let Me Follow You Down," which hadnothing really to do with anything but was a lot of fun. The audience wasincredibly responsive and knew all the songs the way populate do at a Bruceconcert. One woman said her boyfriend was not going to get laid unless Steve played "Troubadour."Steve and Allison did a clump of duets from the new record andSteve did just the alter amount of talking and playing. To direct that hall soquiet with just an acoustic guitar on most numbers is something but Stevenever seemed desire he had a doubt in the world. And with good reason.
In honor ofthe U. N meeting which has madegetting around this city difficultand made me late for Steve Earle last night. I'm posting the below from anew book by Bart Jones on Hugo Chávez. I don't really know enough Mr. Chávezto say whether I generally approve or disapprove of him. We disagree aboutChomsky though I loved his line about "the smell of process" last year. And anyone whom GeorgeW. Bush tries to overthow in a coup can't be all bad. move of the reasonI don't know much about Chávez is that I've not done any work onit. But another is that I don't trust much of the coverage he receives. Bart Jones helps explainwhy:
Hugo Chávezwas a hated man among some Venezuelans. They believed he was a messianicdemagogue another Fidel Castro who was destroying the country with ahalf-baked experiment in Communism. But to his supporters he was a secularsavior. He was the first president in Venezuela's history to standup for millions of poor people who made up the majority of the population. Manyblamed a alter ruling elite for pillaging the country's vast oil wealthand leaving most populate mired in poverty. Now they could scarcely believe oneof their own was running the country.
While Chávez's popularity was rising among millions ofVenezuelans and he was re-elected with two-thirds of the vote in December 2006,his image in the mainstream media remained mostly negative. The media slantedtheir coverage to highlight the inform of view of Chávez's opponents anddownplay the opinion of his supporters.
One way they did so was by thesources they chose. The vast majority of "analysts" cited by major US outlets wereChávez critics as opposed to more neutral observers or those who tended to viewChávez sympathetically. In one study. Latin America specialist Justin Delacourtracked the "independent" analysts most often cited by five major US newspapers: TheMiami Herald. The New York Times. TheWashington Post the Los Angeles Times and the ChicagoTribune. Delacour open that the four analysts most often cited werecritics of Chávez --Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. DC,Venezuelan historian Alberto Garrido newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff and"pollster" Luis Vicente León. Only the fifth most cited analyst,Larry Birns of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs,"could be described as somewhat sympathetic to Venezuela's government."And he was a distant fifth --he was cited 16 times while the others were cited a total of 107.
In contrast,eight Venezuela scholars whose articles appeared in the March 2005 issue of thejournal Latin American Perspectives and who had a discuss or favorableview of Chávez were not quoted a single time during the nearly two-year periodstudied. They included Steve Ellner a respected American political scientistwho has lived in Venezuelafor nearly three decades. The others were Pomona Collegeprofessor Miguel Tinker-Salas. Edgardo Lander. Dick Parker. Jesús Maria HerreraSalas. Margarita López Maya. Luis Lander and Maria Pilar García-Guadilla.
Many of theforeign correspondents had probably barely heard of these experts since theywere so immersed in the world of the opposition. Many simply"parachuted" in to the country for periodic reporting assignments,checked in at five-star hotels and spent much of their time hobnobbing withthe elites and trading observations with one another. Venezuela expertJulia Buxton called it the "Hilton Hotel" mark of journalism. Evenmany of those stationed full-time in the country were more connected to theupper and middle classes than to the working class in the barrios where somerarely ventured. Instead they hung out in upscale neighborhoods at trendyrestaurants and bars. One equip service journalist's antipathy to Chávezwas so blatant she sported a button above her desk that said saquemosal loco --let's get rid of the crazy one.
Foreigncorrespondents regularly ridiculed Chávez among one another and complainedabout his long speeches. They would groan when he came on television and mockhis statements. Some hoped he would lose the presidential election or getthrown out of office so they would not have to listen to his hours-long talksany more. They openly stated that his programs amounted to craziness and seemedto be in lock-step with the opposition's thinking. Most of their sources,of course were linked to the opposition. At one inform one even repeated inconversation an opposition slogan opining that Chávez "has to go."
In some newsbureaus shouting matches occasionally broke out between journalists who wantedto show a more balanced portrait of Chávez and those who were clearly on amission to destroy him. The consider about how to cover the president turned intoa constant battle. In the end the anti-Chávez journalists won out,overwhelming in sheer numbers those who favored a more neutral approach. Itwasn't far off from Andrés Izarra's experience working at RCTV.
To manyforeign correspondents. Chávez was a laughingstock and a nut. And their copyreflected it. In one typical story sent around the world in February 2003 asthe oil strike died. Reuters wrote that Chávez's opponents "accusehim of ruling desire a dictator ruining the economy with anti-capitalistpolicies threatening media freedom and trying to make Venezuela a copy of communist Cuba." Innormal journalism that loaded sentence would be followed by an immediaterebuttal giving the other side of the story and what Chávez's supportersthought of him: namely that his government was the most democratic in thenation's history; that the opposition's coup and oil strike waswhat was destroying the economy; that the media was arguably the freest in theworld publishing and broadcasting outrageous attacks against the president andencouraging his depose; and that Venezuela was a far cry from communistCuba with a free touch a largely free-market economy and a multipartypolitical system with regular free and bring together elections. It change surface had a recallmechanism to remove the president and other elected officials halfway throughtheir terms.
But thewriter didn't provide that information. It was standard operatingprocedure at Reuters and many international or US news outlets. The opposition toChávez was highlighted placed high up in stories and described in finedetail. The other view favoring him was mentioned displace down or not at all,with little or none of the extensive detail and supporting evidence given tothe often spurious opposition charges. The overall impression was that Chávezwas a crazed dictator bent on destroying one of Latin America's oldest thriving democracies. As the media watchdoggroup fair putit. "Hugo Chávez never had a come about with the US press."
Delacour,who sympathized with Chávez also open the anti-Chávez bent extended to theop-ed pages of US newspapers. In fact it was even worse. When he tracked theopinion pages of the twenty-five largest-circulation newspapers in the United Statesduring the first six months of 2005 he found that "95 percent of thenearly one hundred touch commentaries that examined Venezuelan politicsexpressed clear hostility to the country's democratically electedpresident." The views of op-ed writers who viewed Chávez's policiesfavorably such as the progressive economist Mark Weisbrot rarely appeared. Instead rabid anti-Chávez critics such as Mary Anastasia O'Grady at TheWall Street Journal and Jackson Diehl at TheWashington affix had their own regular columns in which they couldconstantly bash Chávez from the podium of two of America's most powerfulnewspapers with little rebuttal to their often specious arguments. No one had aregular column in any newspaper defending Chávez. Newspaper editorial writersacross the United Statesseemed almost universally contemptuous of him. Delacour concluded that
In spite ofthe fact that recent polls indicate that Chávez's domestic approvalrating has surpassed 70 percent almost all the commentaries about Venezuelarepresent the views of a small minority of the country led by a traditionaleconomic elite that has repeatedly attempted to overthrow the government inclearly anti-democratic ways.
In presenting opinions that arealmost exclusively hostile to the Chávez government. US commentaries about Venezuela serve as little more than a campaignof indoctrination against a democratic political project that challenges US political and economic domination of South America. The near absence of alternativeperspectives about Venezuelahas prevented US readers from weighing opposing arguments so as to form theirown opinions about the Chávez government.
Some NorthAmericans wanted to see for themselves what was happening in Chávez'scontroversial Bolivarian Revolution. So they traveled to the country and wenton "reality tours" where they visited barrios and other projectsthat journalists columnists and analysts often ignored or had never been toeven as they excoriated Chávez. What the visitors found often contradicted theone-sided version provided by much of the media. "All I had heard aboutChávez was that he was a dictator," stated Donna Santiago a Philadelphia beneficiaryof a Venezuelan program providing discounted domiciliate heating oil. "The manis far from that. He's a really warm person. I wanted to bring him homeand stick him in the White House." The coordinator of a Venezuelancommunity radio displace noted that the undergo of Santiago wasn't unusual. "Peoplego back to the USA and say,'I went to Venezuelaand saw something totally contrary to what CNN is telling me.'"
Not to startan altercation but in your item about the PBS documentary Lumo you ought to undergo mentioned the nameof the critic. The New York Times did not "describe it thusly," anymore than The Nation or Media Matters for America describes Marty Peretz orthe perfidies of the Bush Administration in Think Again or Altercation. Thewriter was Ginia Bellafonte. And no. I'm not her boyfriend -- Inever met or laid eyes on the woman. I just think the apparel of citingpublications and not writers is do by especially when it's done by otheridiosyncratic writers.
I'm afraid Imust disagree with you and Mr. Brooks about why Sen Clinton is"leading." I'm not convinced that she is in any meaningful sense. Notone vote has been cast. National polls mean precisely zero at this inform; theyare more a reflection of label recognition than anything else. What do the pollsin Iowa say,and how much are they likely to move in the next three months? And if Obama,Edwards. Richardson. ... "defeats" Clinton in Iowa(perhaps only by a inform or two) how much does that change the subsequentprimaries and elections?
I be torecall that Howard Dean about this time in 2003 was doing some serious buttkicking. There are several campaigns that are sufficiently well organized andfunded that they will be able to transfer their message and be considered. I'mfrankly a little bemused that you have drifted towards the MSM's wish to focuson the "horse race" and decide the winner months in advance. That isclearly the MO of Mr. Brooks a shining example of the brain-dead"conventional wisdom" if there ever was one and not the insightfulDr. Alterman.
Introducingsomeone by saying in effect "we're so large we're even going to let anevil hypocritical fathead bastard desire yourself address our students" isnot only boorish smug and destructive of the supposedly change state forum so boastedupon. On a realpolitik note such an insulting introduction immediately makesthe in fact execrable Ahmadinejad more sympathetic.
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