The Free Press Wins (For Now)

 

The Justice Department pulled their subpoenas against New York Times reporters.

This after a Judge chastised DOJ lawyers (Trump's legal team?) over their sloppy work. I guess, in certain cases, standards still matter.

This was in my morning newsletter from The Times.

"Under pressure from a federal judge, the Justice Department withdrew subpoenas that had sought phone records and grand jury testimony from Times journalists who reported on security issues related to Air Force One. Judge Arun Subramanian gave the government’s lawyers a stark choice — “Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas” — and then proceeded to grill them for more than an hour about their zealousness, sloppiness and the request for records from one reporter’s mother and another’s spouse."

"The judge’s demeanor at times resembled that of a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them."

Of course Trump isn't going to let this slide by, but we can still score one for the first amendment. The people have the right to know what it's government is doing right or wrong. 

Pandemic Politics

 

Photo credit The Climate Reality Project

Tell Them Anything

Just make sure it's what they want to hear.

The pandemic doesn't care about our politics, but our political leanings are leading to misconceptions about how we perceive the deadly virus. David Leonhardt of the New York times reports that people on the right and the left are misrepresenting the facts.

The mistakes people make

More than one-third of Republican voters, for example, said that people without Covid symptoms could not spread the virus. Similar shares said that Covid was killing fewer people than either the seasonal flu or vehicle crashes. All of those beliefs are wrong, and badly so. Asymptomatic spread is a major source of transmission, and Covid has killed about 15 times more Americans than either the flu or vehicle crashes do in a typical year.

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is about 1 percent.

By The New York Times | Source: Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study

Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.

What's The Point? 

Having the information in this article is helpful, but to make a real impact, to start changing minds, people have to receive the message. Think about the rule of seven which suggests consumers need to hear a message seven times before they will consider taking action. Then it might be another three repetitions before someone will actually act on that message.

We're going up against echo chambers and algorithms. People have become insulated from outside opinions. Algorithms reinforce the bubble by only feeding information that supports predispositions. Republicans and the Russians used this system well. They targeted information to groups based on algorithms to reinforce beliefs already in place. The divide, the partisanship, becomes deeper as politicians repeat the same lies over and over.

Repetition

Countering false information with fact based journalism, is it possible? According to the Gallup Poll, there is hope.

Perhaps the best news from the Gallup survey was that some people were willing to revisit their beliefs when given new information. Republicans took the pandemic more seriously after being told that the number of new cases was rising, and Democrats were more favorable to in-person schooling after hearing that the American Academy of Pediatrics supports it.

“That’s very encouraging,” Jonathan Rothwell told me. “It’s discouraging that people didn’t already know it.” Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist. Leonhardt/NY Times

Covering something once is not a guarantee that the issue is going to be heard. Since repetition is used so often and so well, covering the issue again from a fresh perspective should not be a problem for any news organization. Don't fall into the deep well of self congratulation, "We've already covered that." Your news consumers may not have heard you the first time.

The News Cycle and Mutual Destruction

The News Cycle Fuels Funding 

In fundraising circles we often discuss the value of the news cycle and the ability to raise funds from listeners. During presidential campaign the public radio audience swells and membership dollars increase.  For public radio's core audience, the news from NPR, PRX,  PRI and APM offer a sanctuary of thought provoking and rational content.

It looks as if the news cycle may not take its usual post election dip. That should be a happy thing for public broadcasting. Then again, maybe not.

 As someone who lived through the Cold War and the threat of the Nuclear Holocaust, Donald Trump's tweets about the nuclear arsenal are not going down well. The need to be informed from a reliable news source will become more important.

Fake News Ups the Ante

Add to the mix the proliferation of fake news. A news story from a fake new site heightened tensions between Pakistan and Israel.  According to an article published by Huffington Post with sources included in the New York Times "Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, wrote a frightening Twitter post in response to a fake news article stating that Israel would attack Pakistan with nuclear weapons." Asif's comments were in response to a fake story posted by awdnews.com quoting the Israeli Defense Minister that "If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack." 

We are are closer to the brink than most people realize. According the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, we are three minutes to midnight, a global catastrophe. In 2012 we were five minutes to midnight.

Public Media will have plenty to report on and a steady, measured and fair treatment of the issues will be greatly appreciated by our core audience. By focusing on the core audience and their values the growth potential will continue to increase.

Duck and Cover

I'm part of that core, and I remember the drills at school, "Duck and Cover," and being reassured that we would be okay if the Menominee River Valley took a direct hit. Then later seeing the civil defense brochure about the circles of destruction and understanding at age nine that we were too close to the epicenter to survive, and understanding that if we did survive, we would likely die from the burns or radiation poisoning.

The theory behind the policy of mutual destruction was that nobody would be foolish enough to push the button. I wasn't reassured then. I am even less assured now. Public Media has a part in all this. No matter the platform, we must continue to meet the expectations of our audience. Public Radio news has grown up to be trusted news source among its audience. When we first started we considered to be boutique in nature...an alternate news source. There's no going back now.

Inflated Claims / A Heated Response (Updated)

I've noticed a huge difference to the outing of inflated claims by Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly.

Brian Williams apologized.

Bill O'Reilly attacked.

He called reporters names like gutter snipe and liar. He also threatened reporters. POLITICO reports O'Reilly threatened a New York Times Reporter. O'Reilly promised, "to come after the reporter with everything I have" if he felt that any of the reporter's coverage about his Falklands war controversy was inappropriate. It was an effort to intimidate. He told Times reporter Emily Steel,  "I am coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat."

David Corn, the reporter from Mother Jones who first called O'Reilly's account of his experience in the Falklands war into question, was also threatened.  He said Corn deserves to be in the kill zone.

The hope is O'Reilly will become a man and own his mistakes. In that way he can dial back the violence and name calling. Since O'Reilly is into "Saving Christmas" (The War on Christmas), perhaps these words have meaning.

Matthew 5:22

Verse Concepts

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

- See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Temper#sthash.BzkoaNmA.dpuf

Ratings

For O'Reilly it is not about the moral high ground of Christianity or the truth about his reporting journalism career. It is about conflict and the ratings it brings. Rating for O'Reilly's show on Fox are at an all-time high. Fox and O'Reilly have what they're looking for. Integrity, ethics and journalistic standards take a back seat.

CNN reports: 

On Wednesday night, O'Reilly averaged 705,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 -- up more than 35% from his year-to-date average of 516,000.
In fact, according to Fox, Wednesday's "O'Reilly Factor" was the highest-rated edition since November 24, the night of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, when millions of people sought out cable news coverage.

A pattern is emerging of inflated claims by O'Reilly including  his claim he was on the porch of house in Florida where an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald killed himself. O'Reilly claims in "Killing Kennedy" that he heard the shot. Former colleagues are testifying that O'Reilly was in Dallas that day.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/03/cnn-publishes-oreilly-tape-203331.html

Political Leanings and Media

You are who you listen to

The Pew Research Journalism Project released a report about the media habits of liberals and conservatives. There is no middle ground.

These are Consistent Liberals and Consistent Conservatives. Their views consistently lean left or right. They represent about 20% of the population, and they do not leave room for other points of view. They are the most partisan. They have one thing in common. They tend to lead political discussions.

One Source v. Many
Consistent Conservatives rely primarily on one news source, Fox News. Consistent Liberals rely on several including the BBC, PBS, NPR and the New York Times. Another way of looking at this? Liberals are willing to look at the news from a variety of perspectives. When I worked in public media, those who listened would comment they liked the various perspectives offered in our coverage. Another way to think about it - the liberal sources are known for their journalism. Fox News is known for pundits.

Here's a graphic from Pew that puts this in perspective....

Coconut Water and Image

Coconut Water: It's about the image.

The new "it" drink is Coconut Water. Wasn't pomegranate juice the big thing last year...or the year before.
NPR's Planet Money looks at the phenomena of coconut water. As one consumer says, "The only thing that really counts is image." "If people see me carrying around this coconut water with my yoga mat this will show that I like yoga and I'm really conscious and enlightened."
Studies about the benefits associated with coconut water suggest those benefits are overstated. Check out this article in the Huffington Post. Coconut Water Health Claims Not Supported, Study Says
For the consumer quoted above, it's more about the image. Carrying around the bottle of coconut water is an important accessory. 
It's a lot like when I lived on the East Side of Milwaukee. The Sunday accessory that was at the coffee shop or the bookstore was the Sunday Edition of the New York Times. In fact, living on the East Side may have been an image thing. 
A twelve pack of coconut water is running $24 on-line.
The story is a part of their series, "What's it been a good year for..."

Web Content

I'm a proponent of putting public radio content on the station Website...first. 
There...I feel better already for admitting it. Many listeners are getting news on-line. They're not waiting for the hard structures of the newscast deadline. Once a feature is finished why not post it? You don't have to wait for an airing to try to push listeners to your Website. 


For some stations with the resources there's web only content.


There are two examples of Web only content this week. The most prominent is the announcement out of WNYC that Alec Baldwin will be posting 20 podcasts over the next several months called, “Here’s the Thing.” According to a New York Times Blog by Dave Itzkoff and WNYC the interviews will allow Mr. Baldwin to “pursue his passions and interests through conversations with a variety of news makers, artists, actors, writers and public figures who spark his fancy.” There are tentative plans to make the podcasts into radio programs with additional  content from other producers.


The second example is from WBUR in Boston. WBUR and reporter Martha Bebinger launched Healthcare Savvy, an online community of patients who are starting to shop for health care based on quality and cost. It's and example of crowd sourcing information. Healthcare Savvy has more than 150 members. It's a mix of patient and healthcare providers. According to Amanda Hirsch of PBS' Media Shift, Healthcare Savvy was born to provide a space for discussion as well as a compendium of resources on health costs.  The project is funded in part by the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, a program of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.