All Blog Posts from Public Eye

As a borderline pathological XM radio fan who can rattle off the channel numbers of "Cinemagic" and "Fine Tuning" and "Old School Rap" and "Open Road Trucking Radio" by heart, I enjoyed this anecdote picked up by the Los Angeles Times:

"I love lisning to your shows!" she wrote. "I love politics so much! I just have one problem, you are underestimating the number of days until the election! You are forgeting that 2008 is a leap year!...Plese add one day too your total to acount for leap day. Keep up the good work.

"P.S. Can you mabie read this on the radio? That would be super cool!!!!
"P.P.S. If you have time. I don't want to mess you up."

--8 year old political junkie-slash-Spongebob fan Sophia McCrimmen of Mechanicsville, Virginia.

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The Los Angeles Times has decided that just merely having an in-house ombudsman – or two, in their case – isn’t enough.

Since they don’t have a weekly ombudsman column in the print edition, they’re going to skip that step and go online with a more involved “Readers’ Representative Journal” blog sort of thing:

Anchoring the changes is today's launch of the "Readers' Representative Journal," a new blog aimed at taking the public deeper into the process of how editorial decisions are made. Hosted by readers' representative Jamie Gold and assistant readers' representative Kent Zelas, the journal will feature a Q&A-oriented conversation to engage reporters and editors in addressing reader queries and observations. Among the rotating features will be "Ask a Staffer," a chance to get the story behind the story; "Whatever Happened to ... ," where readers can ask for updates on past stories; and grammar critiques.

So the Times will be enabling readers to take their concerns directly to the journalists, under the watchful eye of the ombudspeople, and have them respond. To this writer, it sounded nifty enough in theory. Transparency is no longer merely an option for media outlets. It’s not ‘whether or not’ to be transparent. But ‘how far should we go?’

Still, though, the Los Angeles Times announcement raised a few red flags to this writer:

Ombudsmen are already an endangered species. (Case in point: Minneapolis’ Kate Parry.) Is this liason-esque tactic another attempt to phase out their "middleman" role?

Reporters are hardworking and conscientious and, yes, occasionally thin-skinned about their work. How will they deal directly with dissatisfied readers? Is this one instance where transparency might not be preferable to diplomacy?

But I’m just one man here. So I decided to open it up to some professionals whose boots are in the sand daily in newsroom battles. (Neither Gold nor Kelas responded to my request for an interview.)

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Media criticism oftentimes boils down to a "chicken" or "egg" argument, but often at the fever pitch of those old "Less Filling, Tastes Great" ads.

That came to mind when I read the Washington Post’s Outlook section this weekend, and looked over Naomi Wolf’s piece about how young people don’t understand capital-D Democracy.

According to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics, only 47 percent of high school seniors have mastered a minimum level of U.S. history and civics, while only 14 percent performed at or above the "proficient" level. Middle schoolers in many states are no longer required to take classes in civics or government. Only 29 states require high school students to take a government or civics course, leaving millions of young Americans in the dark about why democracy matters.

A survey released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in September found that U.S. high school students missed almost half the questions on a civic literacy test. Only 45.9 percent of those surveyed knew that the sentence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is in the Declaration of Independence. Yet these same students can probably name the winner of "American Idol" in a heartbeat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The “Dumbing Down of America.” Amusing Ourselves to Death. We’ve seen this movie before. It stinks, but it’s true – which, yes, twists that knife even deeper.

That sense only got worse when I saw CNN’s commercial for tomorrow night’s YouTube Republican Debate.

The motto – splashed across the TV screen – came from a Los Angeles Times headline from 4 months ago: “Where the citizen is the star!!!”

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but when it comes to the process of electing the next leader of the free world, I’d rather the candidates be the focal points – or, in CNN’s language, “the star!” – of the event.

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I know the standards and guidelines for libel. (Though you wouldn’t know it by my comment board.)

I’m aware of the Truth-in-Advertising rules.

But in the 2007 media miasma – where an anchor in a suit and tie looks like a pundit in a suit and tie looks like a comic in a suit and tie – have we gotten to a point where we need to monitor the late-night monologues for content and accuracy? Or at least run one of those lame car commercial fine-print disclaimers at the bottom? (“MSRP … TaxAndTags…ActualJokeMayNotBeTrue.”)

I’d never even considered it. Then I read an op-ed by Brad Dickson, a former Leno writer, in the Los Angeles Times who had his own personal Come To Jesus moment about the material he once penned:

When late-night shows are considered influential enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fred Thompson to announce their candidacies on them, shouldn't these programs rein in material labeling people accused of crimes as guilty? Shouldn't they at least stop calling most of them guilty after their acquittals? Or perhaps we should do away with the Los Angeles district attorney's office and in court present Leno's monologues, which almost always do a far superior job of convincing people of a defendant's guilt than prosecutors.

I know this story. It’s the story of a society so consumed with entertainment over information that they lose perspective, becoming an apathetic mob. When I read it, it was called “Fahrenheit 451.” When I saw it as a movie, it was called “Idiocracy.” But we’re not there.

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William Lobdell, a writer for the Los Angeles Times recently decided to sit down in a studio and give a radio show a test drive. His thoughts?

You wouldn't think being a talk radio show host would be all that tough -- just read a few newspapers, magazine and Web articles others have slaved to produce and then riff about them.

But here's the hard part. It's just you, your voice and the microphone. You are giving a monologue in an empty studio. You can't see your audience or sense their engagement. It felt like being locked in a sensory-deprivation chamber. Time seemed to slow, the awful way it does during a car accident.

Man, I feel his pain. And then some. As an occasional guest-host of the “Kojo Nnamdi Show” on Washington, DC’s NPR affiliate -- most recently, last week -- I can vouch for Lobdell’s experience. Hosting a radio show is a thrill, but it’s a little more involved than you may think while listening.

Here’s what’s going on in a radio studio that you don’t hear:

The clock. The clock rules all. It’s a bit different on NPR, where the breaks are more flexible, but you always have to know what time it is and roughly how much time you can budget for. And the commercial breaks where the clock actually counts you down to the moment? Do you know how many words you can say in 12 sec-- Exactly.

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There’s been a slight uptick in discussion regarding the validity and need for the “Fairness Doctrine” lately, spurred on by a study proving/reiterating the obvious fact that conservative talkers make up the majority of syndicated radio programming. (Allow me to hit rewind: The “Fairness Doctrine” was a broadcasting rule requiring that equal time be given to differing political views, and was repealed in the ‘80s.)

The only thing wrong with this debate? There really wasn’t one. An amusing facet of the quote-unquote debate has been the fact that very few people were actually advocating for the reinstatement of the rule; many pushing in that direction were accused of misreading the report. Even the thinktank responsible for the study that pointed out the imbalance said – and I quote – “Forget the Fairness Doctrine.”

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It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News Los Angeles Correspondent Sandra Hughes, who reported on this week’s story of the $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and hundreds of alleged victims of clergy abuse.

Matthew Felling: You try to keep a cool remove from most stories as a journalist, but in a story like this … is that even possible?

Sandra Hughes: What hit me the hardest in reporting this story is the raw emotion you see in the victims in these sexual abuse cases. These are now grown men and women, many are married and have families. It doesn’t take them but just a few minutes if not a few seconds to start talking about their stories – something that happened to them 10, 20 years ago. And their emotions are still so raw, they’re right there.

Matthew Felling: Do you do anything different to convey that to the viewers?

Sandra Hughes : No, you just let them talk for themselves. As a reporter, it’s sometimes difficult to listen to these stories and not get emotional when you hear these sorts of things. But you have to sit back and let them tell their stories. One of the victims I spoke to, Steve Sanchez, his trial was supposed to start next Monday. I told him, ‘This must be so difficult for you to talk about, especially on national TV.’ And he said ‘The more I talk about it, the better I feel. It’s a release for me.’

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With the Senate pulling an all-nighter to discuss the Iraq war, battle lines are being drawn as to whether it was “grandstanding” or a “tactic.”

But one thing it definitely was? Media savvy. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

The cots were strategically placed near the Senate chamber. Plenty of coffee was ordered. And the sergeant at arms was instructed to be prepared to retrieve absent senators early this morning.

In a carefully choreographed event, the "world's greatest deliberative body" staged a rare overnight debate devoted to the Iraq war.

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We're more than four years into the war, and the media may now be digging deeper into the brutal realities of Iraq than they ever have before. In recent weeks, reporters have been questioning whether Al Qaeda in Iraq is related to the Al Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11, as the president has implied. (The answer: Not really. Al Qaeda was not operational inside Iraq in 2001.) The media have also begun looking into the assistance that Iran is providing the Mahdi Army in Bahgdad as they fight American troops. And reporters have become more confrontational in presidential press conferences, with even Fox News folks starting to sound like Helen Thomas.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times took it to another level, asking: Who Are We Fighting? According to the blockbuster expose, very often it's an ally.

Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said …

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

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As an unabashed devotee of America’s editorial pages, it’s been interesting to watch them (almost universally) avoid harsh rebukes of the war in Iraq.

Until recently.

What began with a drip with the Los Angeles Times two months ago is developing into a trickle. And while the New York Times editorial from this past weekend may or may not wind up being a seminal moment in the domestic debate over Iraq, the more noteworthy objections come from some smaller outlets, like last week’s Olympian editorial (from Olympia, Washington) and this past Sunday’s Tuscaloosa News.

The Tuscaloosa editorial (for those of you keeping score at home, Tuscaloosa County went to Bush 61 percent in 2004, up from his tally in 2000) was a strong condemnation of Bush’s Iraq policies, titled “Bush Stands Alone in his Failed Iraqi Democracy Plans.” In turns formal and folksy, the piece focused on the Republicans who have abandoned Bush’s push of the war:

But the president, far from shaken by these defections, continues to pursue his policies. Increasingly, he resembles the marching band member who insisted that only he was in step; all of his colleagues were wrong.

Recent reporting in The Washington Post shows why Bush chooses to press an indefensible policy. He sees himself as an instrument of God, chosen to bring about a specific set of changes in Iraq. If others — including some of his closest supporters — now think it’s impossible to bring about those changes, it’s because they lack Bush’s divine vision.

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