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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Oct. 19, 2012/ 3 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773
An interruption that tells a bigger tale
By
Jay Ambrose
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It would be a mistake to say Candy Crowley of CNN moderated the most recent presidential debate because, at one point in particular, she mistook herself as a participant, interrupting Mitt Romney to tell him he was wrong when he wasn't. President Barack Obama -- interrupted by her far less and given three more minutes to speak overall -- beamed.
He should have. It was great to have an onstage assistant just as it has been a boon worth multi-millions in advertising to have huge portions of the press cheering him on in his re-election campaign. The liberal bias of much of the media was a major factor putting Obama in the White House in the first place, one social scientist has said, and while that may make some people happy, the continued crumbling of standards poses a threat to both journalism and democracy.
Journalism is in a stage of great transition, with newspapers especially in steep decline: Just 23 percent of Americans said in a recent PEW survey that they read a print version of a newspaper yesterday. The Internet is shoving itself to the front of the line to such an extent that Newsweek magazine just announced it is turning to an all-digital format in 2013. Broadcast TV faces problems, as does CNN, Crowley's home: It just got its lowest ratings since 1991. On top of all of this comes a Gallup poll telling us that 60 percent of Americans distrust news reporting to be fair, accurate and complete.
We could be at a tipping point, and we could end up more and more of a partisan press leaving Americans with few places to turn for balanced news presentation. That brings us back to Crowley.
She shallowly blamed George W. Bush for much of our economic problems on top of diminishing the debate with varied unjustified interventions. Her worst intrusion came when Romney was saying Obama had not proclaimed in a Rose Garden talk that the Sept. 11 killings at our Libyan embassy were an act of terrorism.
She said Obama did make the point. He didn't. He used the word "terror" in his remarks without specifically saying that the attack was an act of terrorism. And, as Crowley herself indicated during the debate and talked about at greater length later on, his administration mostly hid out from that truth for two weeks.
After the debate, some journalists calling themselves fact checkers did their own best Crowley imitation. There are pluses in "fact checking" -- some very smart people doing diligent work -- but it is a charade to imply it's purely an exercise in verifying the verifiable. Fact checkers find some facts, they don't find others, they miss obvious distinctions, may misapprehend context, participate with the rest of us in understandings short of absolute knowledge and sometimes bend to their predispositions. What they really are up to most of the time is voicing opinions.
One of those opinions told as fact by some checkers was that the Romney tax plan would cut $5 trillion in revenue unless it soaked the middle class. Harvey Rosen at Princeton is among respected economists making plausible arguments that's not so. Some fact checkers say the originator of the anti-Romney claim -- the Tax Policy Center -- is "nonpartisan," as if it has no ideological roots. One of its sponsors is the decisively liberal Urban Institute, and one author of the center's report is a former Obama adviser.
I think news outlets should drop the term "fact checkers" and call these people commentators, and do the same with some reporters. Too many of them overreach with subjective interpretation, and, yes, there is a way to be more nearly objective -- play by the old rules that disallowed all this editorializing in news stories and shed the arrogance that says wisdom superior to vying experts resides within journalistic skulls. Our journalism, which still has greatness in it, is less good than it once was, and if the worst offenders don't reform, the media transition could be to something far worse.
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Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
Previously:
• 10/17/12: A recovery that wasn't
• 10/12/12: Big Bird squabble points to something real
• 10/11/12: The 'war' you don't hear about --- the one on average Americans
• 08/22/12: Obama leadership: Romney's returns trump road to recovery
• 08/15/12: Saving Medicare the Ryan way
• 08/01/12: Combatting free speech
• 07/25/12: Good and bad reactions to Colorado horror
• 07/18/12: Apology time for Obama
• 07/16/12: Free markets solve climate change threats
• 07/11/12: Humans and particles and those who would order them
• 07/06/12: Why we'll miss Andy Griffith
• 07/05/12: All will feel Affordable Care Act's bite
• 07/02/12: A social solution --- homes with dads
• 06/27/12: Being a 'nation of immigrants' is not an excuse
• 06/20/12: Barack Obama the autocrat
• 06/18/12: Bradbury's lessons for today
• 06/13/12: Should this leaking administration sink?
• 06/11/12: Simpson bashes back on reform
• 06/05/12: Legalize sugary drinks, ban dangerous drugs
• 06/04/12: Keep America from going Greek
• 06/01/12: Don't believe in Obama's fairy tales
• 05/30/12: Writing a book? Beats prison
• 05/23/12: Student loans fail students
• 05/21/12: Europeanizing America into crisis
• 05/16/12: Obama a bully, too
• 05/15/12: Walker recall vote could swing national pension policy
• 05/07/12: Bumbling, fumbling, benighted, old Washington near tipping point where freedom is done for
• 05/02/12: The Communists cannot be happy
• 04/30/12: There's no objective truth, least of all concerning behavior
• 04/25/12: Forgive the extremist?
• 04/23/12: Educational excellence is a game
• 04/18/12: Obama's interventions help a few by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible, yet hurt many more
• 04/16/12: Overregulation strikes again: The nanny state threatens to turn us into children
• 04/11/12: Obama is not bonkers
• 04/04/12: Will America vote against authoritarianism?
• 04/02/12: 'Tipping point' on federal restraint approaches
• 03/28/12: Obama truth from an open mike
• 03/21/12: The progressive campaign for voter fraud
• 03/19/12: Public pensions will get us if we don't watch out
• 03/14/12: Politics needs reporting, not speculation
• 03/12/12: Home of the free, the brave, the endangered
• 03/07/12: Obama used Limbaugh as scapegoat
• 03/05/12: Campaign substance lost in media melodrama
• 03/01/12: When Big Brother drowns
• 02/24/12: Obama goes gaseous on gas
• 02/22/12: Political tears for trust in personal empowerment --- except in the bedroom
• 02/17/12: Of cut-off ears and silenced mouths
• 02/15/12: Obama is a joke whose antics aren't funny
• 02/10/12: An energy boom looms, despite Obama
• 02/08/12: Obama's assault on faith
• 02/03/12: Can Romney get serious?
• 01/27/12: Obama is like an Italian ship captain
• 01/25/12: Newt Gingrich's first 100 days
• 01/20/12: Obama's Keystone pipeline lies
• 01/18/12: Critics worse than urinating Marines
• 01/13/12: Ron Paul is a cartoonish character
• 01/11/12: Newt Gingrich upset by Mitt Romney's brilliance
• 01/09/12: How about regulating presidents, too?
• 01/04/12: How America smothers itself
• 12/30/11: A tax break that helps break the nation
• 12/28/11: Watch out for the banana peel, Newt
• 12/21/11: A tale of two men
• 12/16/11: Strange happenings in Russia
• 12/14/11: Tim Tebow is a man of character
• 12/09/11: A populist, envy-mongering fraud divisively exacerbating resentment among different groups of Americans
• 12/07/11: Tax games threaten nation
• 12/05/11: Why Wal-Mart serves us better than Barney Frank
• 11/30/11: Not writing off Newt
• 11/28/11: Answers to the Iranian threat
• 11/23/11: Failure of the incumbency investment
• 11/18/11: Occupiers: Chop off their heads!
• 11/16/11: Obama asks jobless to sacrifice
• 11/09/11: Michael Moore's insufferable occupation
• 11/04/11: Political tipping point is coming
• 11/02/11: Idealogues versus 7 billion
• 10/28/11: Obama games on student loans
• 10/26/11: Wit and quick moves v. humanity and thoroughgoing honesty? It's no contest - or at least shouldn't be
• 10/07/11: Baptists, bootleggers and Wall Street protesters
• 10/05/11: Federal law will get you even if you watch out
• 09/28/11: Leftist bugbears on the march
• 09/23/11: Still hope for coal to help us
• 09/21/11: Obama's Madoff ploy
• 09/19/11: U.S. can't afford to wait until it happens
• 09/14/11: Defending -- and strengthening -- gung ho collectivism
• 09/12/11: A pipeline to better times
• 09/08/11: Obama just keeps destroying jobs
• 09/06/11: Ultra-feminists thwarting justice
• 08/31/11: Corporations are people? Yes, Count the ways
• 08/26/11: What an earthquake tells us about debt
• 08/25/11: The tyranny of scientific consensus
• 08/23/11: Fracking hardly a public health threat
• 08/17/11: Why Obamacare won't control births
• 08/15/11: Balanced budget amendment unbalanced idea
• 08/10/11: Kerry's war on citizen speech
• 08/05/11: Upside to the compromise leaving the door open for obnoxious maneuvers
• 08/03/11: The people who may save America
• 07/29/11: On making deals, Obama is no LBJ
• 07/27/11: The threat behind the debt
• 07/23/11: Mean opposition to means-testing
• 07/20/11: Leftist babble makes debt crisis even worse
• 07/18/11: Time to raise demagoguery ceiling
• 07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly
• 07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated?
• 07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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