Journalism and American Democracy

Just over a week ago, I parted with the iPad for the semester. I originally thought that the sorrowful goodbye would be more difficult than it actually was. In the seven days since returning the iPad to its proper owner, my life has remained mostly unchanged. I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the convenience, didn’t miss the sleek touch screen, or didn’t miss the Twitter interface. But really, the iPad had not made a huge impact on my daily life.

When I first received the iPad, I was hesitant to acknowledge its value. I was worried that it would become an inseparable part of me and that and that I would be judged for using it in public. I quickly got over each of those fears and hesitations. I found the iPad to be tremendously helpful in classes and in life (using it for course readings and calendar organizing). But at the same time, the iPad was a mere convenience and did not really serve many unique functions that can’t be found elsewhere. After the first few weeks of having the iPad, its novelties wore off and I ended up using it a lot less than I thought I would. I’m worried how easy it became for me to use the iPad in public, both in class and around campus. Before having an iPad, I looked down on people who used them all the time- I thought they were just another pretentious use of technology. But I quickly got comfortable using it anywhere and overcame the fact that others might look down upon me for doing that.

Although I’ve stated that the iPad didn’t change my life, it did have its advantages. I’ve learned since not having it how easy it was to tote it around for checking email, Twitter, Facebook, or ESPN. I now understand why they are so trendy. The iPad, and other tablets, are definitely the future of personal technology. Being so easy to integrate into daily life, tablets will likely continue to gain popularity. While I would probably not purchase an iPad for myself, if given another opportunity to use one for an extended period of time, I would not turn it down.

And since you probably can’t get the song out of your head…

Or: The Punning

I remember the old jokes about the iPad when it first came out, chief among them that it was an extremely advanced sanitary napkin. At the time I wasn’t terribly excited about it, but I didn’t discount it either. Eventually, it found its niche, in my life between the computer and the smartphone. You see, my laptop is a desktop replacement model. It is large, too large to be carried about casually, though still quite portable. So the iPad came to occupy the space between, being brought to classes, a place to take notes and so on, since it was awkward to do so on my phone. Additionally, for whatever reasons, teachers tend to be more suspicious of students with smartphones out than with iPads out. Perhaps their aversion is not so much to distracting devices but specifically to phones, and not to messaging in general but specifically texts.

It was always something that was fairly unique though, and in this new program it was made common. Everyone in the class had one. It was an improvement overall, I think, since it gave common ground for discussion and avoided people probing your motives with questions. The number of times I was asked why I needed an iPad, the tone silently accusing me of being a tech geek or someone flaunting a new toy. Furthermore, the trade of tricks and tips helped out improve the utility of Apple products for me generally. I was able to learn more than a few new things from classmates, despite prior experience. A community can do wonders for any item.

Now, with the time to turn them in coming, I am honestly curious to see how many people will just let their lives go back to the way they were before, and how many will seek to get an Apple product themselves. I would think more of the later. While I am no marketeer, I would think Apple could be induced to provide such devices on the cheap, since it would lead to an even greater customer base. Then again, I’ve heard tales of Apple being rather tight fisted, so perhaps not. Regardless, we shall see about the challenge of new tablets, but despite feeling no particular brand loyalty to Apple, I do feel the iPad is a wonderful specimen of tablet. Hopefully it shall enrich the lives of many classes after this, eventually ending up in a history class about electronic devices humans used to use before the robot takeover.

Before we get to the main point of the article, you’ll have to forgive two digressions related to my search for the subject of this article. Firstly, the search for minority newspaper turned up a large number of African American newspapers. Indeed, Google suggested alternatives that specifically ruled out other groups more than a couple of times. I could only speculate as to the meanings and implications of this. It surprised me certainly. Secondly, the process by which I came about the newspaper. Because I am somewhat contrary, I wanted to do a non-African American newspaper simply because it was because the opposite of where I was being directed by the Googlebeast. And because I was compelled by its very origins, that of a newspaper seeking to reach, represent a group not so widely covered, implied they should not be the regular but the relatively ignored. But mostly because I was contrary.

So, I sought to escape the world of the Googlebeast and its algorithms, and asked around among friends and acquaintances. And the answer came not from their answers but by accident. A friend mentioned the Cherokee Phoenix had not, in fact, shut down when the militia came and confiscated their printing press but was still in operation. Whether it has been in continuous operation I cannot say, but it has been in operation since at least 2003, and is financially backed, at least for the moment, by a tribal council. It was, until recently, available for all Cherokee Indians who could prove citizenship in the Nation. It was also mostly in English, which is good, because I can’t read Cherokee. This, I thought, was it. My odyssey was over, I had landed in Ithaca (or Latium if you prefer the Aeneid), but that itself was not the end.

Runner up goes to Today’s Zaman who lost on the technicality it is a Turkish paper, and thus not within American Journalism. Still, a Turkish paper that caters to English speakers with an article, albeit an opinion piece, on minority press within Turkey was a temptation.

Perhaps it is because the first bit of the Cherokee Phoenix I’d ever seen was basically mundane, specifically a man informing the community that he was no longer backing his wife’s credit, but the relatively mundane nature of the newspaper didn’t surprise me. It took on the aspects more of a community newspaper than that of an advocate newspaper, reporting on the community rather than hurling invective or persuasive articles to try and change a wider opinion. That is not to say it was similar to other newspapers, it catered to a very specific community and dealt with their issues. Those issues, now as then perhaps, were largely mundane. There was internal election news, external elections were relatively less covered. More so than either were internal event news, things about tribal politics, campaigns, building projects, employment relief, and so on. The only external election I saw extensively covered was, understandably enough, Elizabeth Warren, due to the controversy. Retreading the entire argument with all its pitfalls isn’t for this blog, but suffice it to say there were some false claims while she still in academia that Warren was a minority via being a Cherokee Indian. She is not, by the Cherokee’s own account.

She was, however, still dwarfed by community issues. In particular, proposals about voting rights seem to have kicked up a good deal of interest. Perhaps the greatest flaw in choosing this newspaper is that it caters to an enfranchised community with political control over a certain area, since that seems to tend it towards those patterns. But then again, that is what the newspaper was from the start. It was also what newspapers like The Republican or other abolitionist newspapers were. Of course, what they did to eventually contribute to the Civil War and end of slavery was more memorable, but the average days news was probably more mundane. Just as someone looking back at the Times in the lead up to the Iraq War will remember its articles that supported it, the eventual apology, and forget that there were also articles on a number of other topics that history will probably forget. For example, the Los Angeles Herald (with thanks to Laura) had an article reviewing a play. I say this not to criticize this type of article specifically, but to point out that if, in the future, the Herald becomes remembering as the primary force behind some widespread social change, who will remember that play article?

This is not to say that such newspapers are unimportant or do not play a role in social change, or that they will not play that role, to some degree, into the future. The limits of their audience does limit them, to some degree, though. The New York Times may, through its own ignorance, unknowingly represent an overly white view of the world. But knowingly representing a view of a minority world limits your readership, or at least I would imagine it does. Tracking down racial statistics for some of these newspapers is surprisingly difficult, but if nothing else the fact that among my friends, who are fairly diverse, few could mention minority newspapers, even if they were minorities themselves, would seem to prove my point. Thus it seems overly optimistic for them to provide some equal service to the majority newspapers, but they remain an important avenue for a community’s specific needs. Whether they will go on to become important policy makers, or no more relevant than Threads remains to be seen, and probably depends on the cohesion and maintenance of racial identity.

While reading “The Minority Press: Pleading Our Own Case,” it became obvious why there was a need for the minority press in the past. Pamela Newkirk outlined a strong argument for media that covers minority interest denoting the restrictions on free speech for minorities before the civil rights movement. While Newkirk pointed out that minorities are underrepresented and stereotyped in the media, she fell short of making a clear argument for why minority presses are needed in a post-civil rights movement era. I had a hard time believing that our troubles now are anywhere near the trials that were around for minorities in the previous two centuries. Contrarily, Mitchell Stephens and David T.Z. Mindich make a much stronger argument for minority press in “The Press and Politics of Representation.” In a simple short sentence, the two authors make clear that the limitations of journalism require (if not an ethnic press) a media more in tune with minority affairs. They argue that “journalism, the point is, is mindset bound and mindsets are boundless” (376). Here they state that the misrepresentativeness of media oversimplifies the complexities of important issues to stereotypes and limited coverage. To better understand the debate regarding the importance of the minority press, I had to investigate it myself.

Because the issues facing society are not as grave as they were during slavery, nor are they as severe as they were before civil rights legislation, it was difficult to see a clear need for minority media. To this end, I decided to explore the minority press of the most egregiously excluded and over stereotyped minority group I could find in contemporary society: the gay and lesbian community. Much like Fredrick Douglass’s North Star and the Freedom Journal, the Washington Blade attempts to gain rights and freedoms for an under represented community. The Blade covers topics on both the local and the national level that would be of interest to the Washington D.C. gay and lesbian community. In the local section, articles cover adoption “beats,” hate crime reports, and local health and business issues. The national section covers more political issues such as marriage rights debates across the country and how the issues facing politicians in DC affect the gay and lesbian community.

Although the Blade covers topics that are important to a minority group that is often ignored in the mainstream media, it comes up far short from serving  as an influential advocate to plead the case of gays and lesbians in the same way that the black press fought for freedom in the nineteenth century. The paper covers issues that affect gays and lesbians, but does not appear to have the same thrust as historical accounts of the minority press. This leads me to the question: if the minority press isn’t covering topics as important as slavery, what value does it serve in the modern media landscape? Given the statistics listed by Newkirk about the underrepresentation of minority reporters and minority stories in the media, it would be hard to argue that the minority press is not needed or that it does not provide valuable information. I believe that the minority press is less of an advocacy group to plead the case of each group to the world, but rather that it is evolved to be a means of interpreting stories in the context of a niche group. As much as we’ve talked about the press as a filtering authoritative institution, it is as limited as the journalists that make it up. In this sense, the value of the minority press stems from insight it offers to minority groups regarding issues of both local and national concern.

“The Nation Votes, Ohio Decides” seems to be a common national sentiment (that specific phrase via The Daily Show). Indeed, President Obama released a special political advertisement just for Ohioans asking them to vote, running it for nearly the entire span of the early voting period. The sentiment is relatively absent in Ohio itself, with only a few newspapers attributing victory directly to Ohio. The most blatant about it almost certainly being the Akron Beacon Journal (). Nonetheless, most couch it in the language of swing states, making it an interesting time when newspapers feel neutrality includes having no bias towards their home market. Normally there’s some forgiveness of such things, such as when a newspaper barely conceals glee at a home team victory, but here that seems absent, to my somewhat surprise.

The radio stations and television, at least insofar as I could access them, which was inevitably over the internet, seemed to lack much in the way of local flavor. They reported the election results as they came in, swayed to one side or the other based on their partisan preferences, and had the only concession to their locality in focusing on what this meant for both Ohio and the nation. Even then, aside from a few specific points such as how it would affect a local plant, generally things focused on more general issues like the economy. Indeed, the economy tended to be the general theme of coverage, but that seems to have been true nationally. Whether this is because Ohio is an accurate reflection of the nation or simply because of my own limited knowledge, I cannot say.

Also surprising was that there were numerous and heartfelt calls about the election, the importance of democracy, and getting out to vote. Many newspapers appeared surprisingly civic minded, such as The Plain Dealer turning its into an encouragement to vote. This was, it is worth noting, notable enough to get national attention. Putting aside the front page itself, which is lovely enough to make me like it even as I am consciously aware it is trite. Indeed, perhaps it says something about the relative position of news and politicians in my life that this struck me more than President Obama’s appeal.

There’s also story from Kentucky, which has remained in the top five of its newspaper from the election for a few days now, and is funny in a sad sort of way.

are pictures of a few dozen front pages of newspaper pages from Ohio, which are interesting to examine.

On the excitement scale, reading Idaho’s presidential election news coverage ranks somewhere between watching a Mitt Romney speech and watching paint dry. Newspaper and television coverage was seriously underwhelming and uninteresting. The predictable outcome of the state’s Electoral College allocation led media outlets to cover more contentious local issues. In fact, news articles regarding the POTUS election were quite difficult to find on the Coeur d’Alene Press website. Of the “Top Stories” listed on the Press’s homepage, the generic AP story covering the presidential race came up fourth. Instead, the Press decided that the most important story of the day were the voting technology glitches and the announcement of local races rather than the presidential race.

Eight driving hours and a different time zone away, Boise’s Idaho Statesmen portrays a similar ambivalence to the presidential results. Of the three print editions published by the Statesmen, only two had the election as its main headline, the third focused on the state education reform laws. Interestingly all three editions featured a secondary cover story touting “In Idaho, presidential result means more Obamacare, likely less federal spending.” Thus, when there was some sort of reaction to the presidential election, it was typically negative. The only story within the Idaho press that covered the results in a more positive light was a brief article about included the headline the Democratic gathering at a downtown Boise hotel from the Spokesman Review that included the headline “Idaho Dems celebrate, pool beckons.”

Idaho’s television news was equally unamused with the Obama reelection decision. Although there was limited television coverage originating from Idaho (as Northern Idaho gets the majority of its television from Spokane-based stations), it was staunchly pro-Romney. On Boise’s KTVB, hosts described Romney as “almost a native son” and utilized Idaho’s $600 million in Romney campaign contributions as evidence of the state’s love for him.

Idaho’s news coverage of the 2012 presidential election left much to be desired. Most of the election focus was on local issues including education reform and state government elections. In browsing Idaho news sources, it would seem almost as if there was not a presidential election day whatsoever. I guess the predictability of the results doesn’t warrant much coverage. Nonetheless, had the national election results gone the other way, it would be hard to imagine Idaho not giving more attention to the race. Regardless, I believe that it is important for local media outlets to focus more on local issues because there was plenty of national election coverage elsewhere.

SIDE NOTE: Idaho was most recently relevant in Presidential politics in August when Clint Eastwood officially endorsed Mitt Romney in Sun Valley. You can thank us for the chairs later…

For newspapers with broad readership, such as The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, abstinence has generally been the policy. Neither newspaper typically endorses a candidate during presidential campaigns. More targeted papers, however, have a tendency to endorse one candidate or the other. This decision to endorse is not the case for the Chicago Sun-Times nor the Oregonian this election cycle after both endorsing Barack Obama in 2008. I believe that scholars can gain insight into newspaper politics by analyzing two papers that chose not to endorse a presidential candidate after a history of taking a side in elections.

The Oregonian, a Portland based newspaper, typically chooses left-leaning candidates for its endorsement but chose not to endorse Barack Obama in the 2012 election. The editorial board justified their decision to abstain from the presidential election while still endorsing candidates in local races for several reasons. First, the board argues that the readers have the same access to information that the editors do regarding the presidential election, but lack sufficient information to make informed decisions in local elections. Secondly, the Oregonian noted that neither candidate had come to the state for open dialogue regarding issues that concern Oregonians. This lack of visitation has left both the Oregonian Editorial Board and citizens of the state with insufficient evidence to form a nuanced opinion of the candidates. The newspaper stated that it will not officially endorse a candidate, but will “take advantage of acute contrasts in the presidential contest” to assess the legitimacy of either candidate and analyze their policies. Further the newspaper promised to publicize the candidates when they show signs of listening to the interests of Oregon.

Back in the midwest, in one of the most shocking decisions of the endorsement cycle, the Chicago Sun-Times chose abstinence as well. Obama’s own hometown newspaper, that chose to endorse the President in 2008, decided that it was not appropriate to endorse candidates in the election. Instead of taking a side and endorsing a single political candidate, the Sun-Times chose to “provide clear and accurate information about who the candidates are and where they stand on issues most important to our city, our state and our country.” The paper aimed to allow a side-by-side comparison of candidates and their views. The paper will further publicize assessments of experts, but not endorse any of the opinions. Like the Oregonian, the paper argued that the vast array of media outlets and information sources allow voters to become informed on issues without the need for newspaper endorsements. The Sun-Times further justified its abstinence by citing evidence that claims endorsements don’t change many votes especially in presidential election and even promote the perception of a hidden bias. The newspaper claimed that its commitment to nonpartisanship is the driving cause of its lack of endorsement.

Both newspapers that chose not to endorse candidates shared many of the same justifications for their abstinence. The main theme of both pieces was that voters now, more than any other time in the past, have sufficient information to make their own informed decisions without the influence of the papers. Our use of Twitter in class has led me to hesitantly agree with this claim. While there is far more information available to voters, there is also much more misinformation available. Voters should be able to shift through the available news and information to reach an informed decision, but problems arise if they are not able to do so. This is where I believe newspaper come into play. Newspapers serve to shift through information and should do so transparently. While the Oregonian and Sun-Tribune argue that not endorsing a candidate allows them to be more nonpartisan, I believe that the limitations to journalistic objectivity make partisanship inevitable to a point. In this sense, it is best for papers to be transparent in their coverage by endorsing a candidate but still maintaining an effort to remain impartial.

Looking at a meta-analysis of newspaper endorsements of the top hundred newspapers by circulation, a few things strike me. First, the two largest newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, do not generally endorse candidates. There are a couple of others as well, perhaps most notably Deseret News, which one imagines would lean pro-Romney if for nothing other than its name. Secondly, both these newspapers have lost fairly significant ground to newspapers that do in the last four years, USA Today in particular. Thirdly, the influence of such newspapers has diminished. Their total subscriptions went from 27,138,751 subscriptions to 23,598,488, a loss of over three and a half million. Thirdly, it is notable that Romney already outnumbers McCain in the number of endorsements he’s received, and is only two hundred thousand behind McCain in terms of subscriptions of those newspapers. Since there are still a little under a third of newspapers who have not endorse either candidate, things look more optimistic for him than McCain, and indeed he is significantly closer to Obama in terms of both newspapers and subscribers than McCain was (though lagging behind Obama in aggregate).

Regardless, I looked at the two largest newspapers’ endorsements, for two reasons. First, if we presume subscription number has any effect on newspapers influence, and we must if we are to accept the premise that newspapers can influence the matter at all, these two papers combined represent over one percent of the electorate and a little under ten percent of top hundred newspaper subscriptions. Secondly newspapers desire success and thus might seek to emulate their styles if not their content. Thirdly they are more directly comparable simply for the fact both newspapers endorsed Barrack Obama both in this and the previous election, thus both being ‘loyalists’ of his. Indeed, the Times has not endorsed a Republican since Eisenhower.

I wonder, and in truth do not know, how endorsement decisions are made. But it seems to break all rules of professionalism present elsewhere. The articles are unabashedly normative, loyalist, and hostile in a way uncommon to professional press and more suited to party rags. Notably the LA Times calls it an ‘endorsement’ while the New York Times calls it an ‘editorial’, but it is not really the latter because this is a statement of the views of the newspaper, not just the writer. It is true that it is an opinion rather than news, but it cannot be followed by the usual disavowal that it is the writer’s and not the newspaper’s opinion which is a staple of that genre. Despite the increased culpability, there is little admission of imperfection in either, and nearly half of the LA Times piece is dedicated not to talking up Obama but attacking Romney. While this is expected of politicos, it certainly opens them to criticism and accusations of dirty partisanship I would think a paper would avoid.

I also find it remarkable how blind both endorsements seem. They seem entirely unaware, for example, that someone might look at certain things they condemn Romney for and see them as good things. If they were aware, I think, they would have put some arguments in support of such a position, and thus its absence speaks to it. To use a more controversial example, both the LA Times and New York Times speak of the overturning of Roe v Wade as a strike against Romney without explaining or qualifying it, ignoring that the last Gallup poll has’pro-choice’ Americans are at a record low and outnumbered by ‘pro-life’ Americans. This is not to open that debate, I feel I must stress, but merely to point out that they treat this as a persuasive argument rather than a point to be defended. If we take this as a true barometer of the opinions of the newspaper, that implies the newspaper is so liberal that it cannot understand conservatism as a phenomenon, which is unfortunate.

Also, to the Los Angeles Times, ‘modulating’ is not an acceptable synonym for mutable, varying, wishy washy, flip flopping, or any such word, if not in denotation then in connotation.

All in all, I’m skeptical of the effects this will actually have on the election, but they are interesting as a phenomena in of themselves. And perhaps more interestingly to me, it seems perhaps the most firm evidence for the liberal leanings of the press, which up till now I had seen little but speculation and the bitter raving of conservatives about.

Sources:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154838/Pro-Choice-Americans-Record-Low.aspx
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/2012_newspaper_endorsements.php

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-end-president-20121021,0,5490210.story

The online satire news source, the Onion, recently ran an article declaring that it was endorsing John Edwards in the 2012 Presidential Election. The obvious inaccuracy in endorsement was used to poke fun at the importance of news agencies declaring their official stance on the election. Newspaper endorsement of political candidates, however, may play an important role in influencing undecided voters. Analyzing endorsement decisions can shine light on important issues during the campaign and how journalists cover politics. I thought it would be interesting to look at two different newspapers that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, but chose to switch their endorsement to Mitt Romney in 2012. These newspapers will offer insight into criticisms of Obama’s first four years. The two largest newspapers to shy away from the President were the Houston Chronicle and the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas (with readerships of 384,007 and 195,455 respectively).

Fort Worth’s Star-Telegram is quite centrist in its analysis of the presidential race and its endorsement of Mitt Romeny. Framing their decision around the second debate, the main focus of the article is economic policy. The Star-Telegram acknowledges the successes of Obama in foreign policy and social policy. They also point out that the President should not be blamed for neither the economic crisis nor the slow recovery from it. The primary argument for choosing Romney in 2012 instead of Obama is less of a response to the President’s record and more of a desire for new eyes for a stagnant situation. The Star-Telegram places faith in Romeny’s ability to combine his business and public service experience to work with a divided congress to create economic growth.

The Houston Chronicle, on the other hand, is much more conservative in its endorsement decision. The newspaper acknowledges that Obama was the first non-Republican candidate that they had endorsed in 44 years, claiming that they had fallen for his “soaring rhetoric and… promise to move American politics beyond gridlock.” Contrary to the Star-Telegram’s endorsement, the Chronicle focuses mostly on Obama’s failures as president. The paper’s criticisms are much more geographically focused than the Star-Telegram. For example, the primary reason for the Chronicle’s endorsement was Obama’s failure with NASA and the energy industry. The Chronicle does add a caveat that Americans need Romney to further articulate his tax and budget proposals. Similar to the Star-Telegram, the Chronicle claims that Romney is a “fix-it man” that is willing and able to negotiate across party lines and repair the broken economy.

It is interesting that the two largest papers to change their endorsements between 2008 and 2012 are from Texas. It makes sense that a more conservative state would be the first to jump off the Obama bandwagon. Other major papers that made such a switch come from Florida (Orlando Sentinel and Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel) and Tennessee (Nashville’s Tennessean). I believe that the primary reason for endorsement is readership, newspapers want to appeal to the local constituency and support a candidate that the local readers would agree with. Thus, papers attempting to attract new readers that would want to endorse a more popular candidate. In 2008, Obama’s soaring popularity made it justifiable for a conservative or centrist paper to endorse the President. Obama’s 2012 approval ratings are much, especially in the south and amongst right-leaning voters, making it much harder for southern conservative newspapers to endorse the incumbent.

Depending on the measurement, debates don’t matter all that much. In a strict policy sense, debates don’t have a significant impact. Both candidates stand up to defend their own party platforms and stressing differences between the two choices. The debates are more of a venue to argue why the platform should appeal to a very broad public than one to shape policy or discuss the nuances of policies. This is evidenced by last night’s debate and its lack of attention to policy detail. Yes, candidates made claims as to what their policies can achieve but never seemed to emphasize how these results would be reached. In this sense, the candidates fail to explain their policies and open them up for public and expert criticism. Along the same lines, the debates don’t matter much because there is not much direct clash. Candidates criticize the other’s record or disagree about the results of actions the other might take but do not typically argue about ways to achieve results nor discuss alternative possibilities. Because of this, the debates fail to inform the public on issues that they need to know about, which are the policies behind the issues that they discuss.

That being said, debates and coverage of them do affect public opinion. Debates matter for shaping public opinion on issues that should not matter in an election. For example, the typical discussion about candidates after debates relates less to actual politics and more to personal characteristics of the candidates. Debate analysis revolves around a specific candidates overall charisma, likability, and even appearance. Coverage of the debate determines who “won” or “lost” a debate based on the candidates ability to convey his message and not based on the message itself. As Schudson noted, political coverage in the media tends to be more “game-focused” than policy- focused. The focus on personal characteristics and the game of politics is what drives political opinion in major elections. And this is why debates matter. The debates offer candidates an opportunity to show off their most charming and likable characteristics which will later be emphasized in the popular press.

It would be difficult to argue that an event with such a wide viewership is not significant since it serves a crucial role in shaping public opinion. But in a strict policy sense, the debates seem relatively insignificant in shaping the course of the country.

Done in a twenty minute timed session for class, on an iPad.

Question: Do the debates matter?

The debates matter, though perhaps not to the degree that we have been led to believe. If nothing else, minimally, they have affected the ways parties perceive their potential candidates. The question of how well they’d do in a debate is one they hold important, and where there is such a belief the ponderous weight of factors follow. And when it comes down to it these factors, even minor ones, can have great effects. Not to mention that, as a spectacle, it too can draw crowds. And wayward American Studies students.

As to whether it sways people, gives them an eye into the candidate, it does to some degree. Public speaking can be taught but cannot really be faked. Debate skills again can be taught, but not necessarily faked. And while I might otherwise add discipline, such as that needed to stay within a time limit, is likewise, at last night’s debate we seemed to have none of that. The truth is that while most Americans get a good deal of their news by hearsay (“Obama Says Romney…”) via the news, or clips chosen by the same news, the debates are at least less filtered. While preparation is possible, I expect nothing said last night was ‘off the cuff’, it is still an indication of a personal skill. Not the most relevant one, perhaps, but a skill nonetheless.

But I cannot say that people take such debates seriously. Pollsters and politicos seem to think otherwise, and I can only muster a rational argument against them. Yet when the rational and empirical clash, the empirical usually wins. Still, one imagines it has at least had an effect on the candidates and how their parties choose them. No one wants to be Nixon, and if nothing else, our candidates seem to be getting handsomer, more photogenic. And if in no other way, that means they’re here to say, and be felt, in American elections.

I have opinions, lots of them, on all sorts of things, from why Brazilian industrialization is lagging behind its predicted standards to how the game went last Saturday. I like talking, debating, and expressing these opinions, and this is why columnists always confound me. The fact there is a market for people to state their opinions, whereby you have no recourse or action but to take it in, has always struck me as odd. I have always wondered if people adopt the opinions themselves, thus surrendering part of their thinking to another, or if they do so to test their own thoughts on the matter against someone who, at least in theory, is seasoned. The latter I can at least partially understand, for in theory these are wise people, but the former seems undue surrender to me.

To extend this to a discussion of news generally, opinion pieces are pure interpretation. While they may contain facts, their purpose is not to provide those facts but opinions and analyses. This, I believe, places them squarely outside the definition of news, but that does not make them worthless. Analysis can serve as a textbook and whetstone, allowing people to see how analysis is done, see conclusions others draw, and finally to test their opinions against it and thus become sharper and more aware of a wider variety of thoughts. While one’s opinion must remain one’s own unless they wish to surrender sovereignty to some figure, whether politician or prophet or columnist, the opinions of a person who never contacts opposing thoughts becomes inbred in its ignorance.

As to the actual columns here, they’re interesting and right of center, but in general that seems a relatively safe position. Perhaps that is why they are popular, through mass appeal. After all, mildly conservative opinions are less likely to offend than mildly liberal ones, for while mild liberal ones call for small changes mildly conservative ones usually call for none. This is perhaps best exemplified in “The Principle at Stake at Notre Dame” where she basically avoids condemning abortion despite leaning that direction, and even in the end states she supports, to some degree, the current form it is in. I do not mean to say this is gutless, strong moderates have their own temptations to fight and their own deeply held belief, but it makes me wonder if we’re a right of center nation.

After reading several columns by Kathleen Parker, I noticed a pattern in her writing that reveals the benefits and drawbacks of columnists in the media. As for the drawbacks, Parker gets stuck in the routine of covering similar topics in a very similar format. She frames her most of her articles around an absurdity in the world then attempts to explain it pragmatically. The structure leads to uncreative articles that become repetitive over time. Along the same lines, columnists often end up reporting on very similar issues, issues that are important and interesting to them, but not necessarily a wide range of readers. Parker exemplifies this criticism with her emphasis on patriarchal society and confronting death. These themes hit home for some readers, but an ambivalence towards them leads a columnist into obscurity.

This post should not be read as a complete criticism of Kathleen Parker, in fact most columnists are guilty of similar flaws. My favorite, and most famous, example of this is Thomas Freidman of the New York Times. While some of his articles are unique and interesting, many of them focus on the same economic themes of globalization and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He often writes pieces that are disconnected with the average reader of the New York Times, but appeals to a much smaller public. This can, however, be an advantage for journalists and the media. In my recent paper I argued that the American public needs an authoritative news source that is able to weave news stories with expert opinions. In this sense, both Friedman and Parker can be viewed as experts on their respective topics and provide readers with valuable insights into the issues that columnists deem important.

This is where Kathleen Parker’s use of a common pattern within her writing becomes valuable for her and her readers. I found that I disagreed with most of her views towards the beginning of her articles. The absurdities she mentions and attempted to justify, originally seemed, at least to me, unjustifiable. But then, Parker pragmatically explains the rationale behind such extraordinary events. For example, in her September 18^th Cyborg Romney piece, Parker successfully explains what limitations caused Romney to make the claims that he did regarding 47 percent of the American population. Her practicality and relative neutrality offers insight into otherwise politically charged issues. Although I was generally unconvinced by her arguments, she provides a tremendous framework of how to make sense of otherwise unintuitive events.

I believe that it is the transparency in her writing that makes Kathleen Parker so effective and respectable. She argues in a September 7^th column on MSNBC that the answer to the media’s problems stems from transparency. Because objectivism is nearly impossible in journalism, it is necessary to explain where a journalist is coming from before the consumer can pass any judgments on the issue at hand. Parker’s emphasis on explaining rationales and justifying beliefs offers the readers understanding of how she (and others who share her beliefs) arrive at her (their) opinions. Instead of attempting to hide subjectivity, I believe that the American public needs more journalists like Parker who are honest about their journalistic limitations.

It was remarkably difficult to find wedding announcements. Even regional newspapers of great prominence, like The Plain Dealer didn’t have them, though it did have obituaries. I had to search quite low to find them, and it reminds me of a talk about the duties of news I once had. Granting it was an old reporter complaining about how good things were back in his days, but one of the things he spoke of was the sense of duty and how newspapers used to run such announcements free despite them losing money because of it. He spoke of how this was a great service to historians. Today this is apparently on the decline, but I do wonder whether it is in the duties of newspapers to service the historians. It at least seems like a worthy pursuit. Regardless, I had to resort to google and found wedding announcements in The Dallas Morning News and The Republican. It appears such announcements, excluding ‘nobility’ such as the Clintons or Kennedys, is strictly local news, and not simply general local news, but extremely specific to the locality.

    The Republican is specific to Springfield, Massachussets, and The Dallas Morning News is specific to Dallas, Texas. The first thing that strikes me about them is that the photos are overwhelmingly of European Americans, while statistically they should be about seven out of ten and half respectively based on an admittedly cursory overview of the US census data for the areas. Predictably, they are almost invariably from the local area. I also find it interesting several are announcements after the fact, making this a sort of reverse banns. In the old days, weddings were announced at banns at Church to prevent bigamy, though I doubt newspapers have taken on this purpose. The publics these newspapers serve, if indeed it is equal to the announcers, thus seems to not only be a very specific area but a specific segment, at least along race lines, and perhaps along economic ones, though I cannot make such a determination without indulging in my own prejudices. The man in the soldier’s uniform might be the son of a multimillionaire, for all I know.

I wonder, however, if it is equivalent. Perhaps sending in such things is a specifically cultural custom. I can easily imagine the custom being descended from the banns, in which case it would be part of a certain religious culture that other groups may not take part of. It might also be that other people go to other, more specialized newspapers I simply am unaware of, confirming the hypothesis. However, I have read many newspapers, and thus become their publics, without even being aware that marriage publications like this were a thing. I was aware of obituaries, but the announcement of marriages had somehow passed me by.

http://www.masslive.com/weddings/

http://www.legacy.com/celebration/dallasmorningnews/celebrations-search.aspx?daterange=99999&announcementtype=1

Sidenote: The Republican has an interesting history behind it, if it can be considered a reliable source on itself. Apparently it was involved in the founding of the Republican party all the way back in the 1850s, back when Republican meant ‘anti-slavery’. Apparently several newspaper magnates and newspapers were strong supporters of the party. I wonder how this fits into the role of media and the like?

An iPad is time. It’s the time between classes, the time waiting for class to start, the time waiting in line, the time that is normally wasted on some activity that requires virtually no attention, that is merely a buffer, a loading screen. This is when I reach for a phone, or an iPad, and make use of the time which would have been wasted, and in this sense an iPad brings efficiency to life: it makes me better at the expense of nothing valuable. This is perhaps the largest difference modern technology brings: with the advent of easily transportable mobile computers time, whether spent on work or entertainment, is never farther than my pocket. This had made me both more mobile, and more willing to put up with the little annoyances in life since I can retreat into a screen.

I have gotten a surprising range of comments on my iPad, all the more surprising because I already owned an iPad beforehand, and yet it seems as if my iPad is now open for comment. They’ve ranged from the envious to the praising, from the curious to the crucial, and from among these critical comments I select one to rebut. Specifically, that it was a sign of my generation’s need for ‘instant gratification’. Patience is, after all a virtue. But waiting is not. A love of waiting is as ruinous as a hate of it, since the key to patience is the right time, not before, but certainly not after. The iPad, like a cell phone, like indeed a regular phone, like indeed the postal service, like a thousand inventions and devices before it, simply makes things easier, more convenient, and faster.

I like to imagine a man making the same complaints made of us to a telegrapher, or perhaps even a man who prefers heralds complaining about letter writing, “You and your need for ‘one month gratification!”. It has not changed my wants, my desires, or the fact I really hate boredom. It has merely given me the means to alleviate such. It is a tool, and frankly that is all it could ever be, a tool.

At least until the robot takeover begins.

To say that the iPad has significantly altered the way in which I interact with the news or any other institution would be making a gross overstatement. Sure, having an iPad increases my ability to access news (political or otherwise) and personalizes my relationship with it, but the impact appears to be minimal. It is very convenient to have a news source with up-to-the-minute news available at all times of the day and (quite literally) at my fingertips. It is also extraordinarily useful to receive fully personalized news that is catered directly to my interests. Beyond these changes however, my political interactions and the way I relate to different publics remain pretty much the same.

I view the iPad (and other mobile devices) as a small step forward in communications technology, rather than a significant leap forward. They provide little beyond the capability of a computer beyond their portability. The technologies themselves don’t necessarily change the way I interact, instead the applications developed for them do. Twitter, for example, makes the news more interactive but the iPad itself does not make Twitter any better. The use of Twitter on either the iPad or a computer allows news followers to comment on stories and even discuss issues with the creators of news in real time. Through Twitter and other means of discussions, individuals can break the barrier between the “news making elite” and become a part of an entirely new public.

The one application that is not available outside of the iPad is Flipboard. This plays in to the personalization of news that is experienced with mobile technology. No longer do I pick up a paper and browse for stories that interest me nor do I have to scour news websites to find interesting stories. Flipboard presents news according to my interests and is easily customizable. Although this is not a drastic shift in the way that I interact with the news, it does allow for increased convenience. Thus, the iPad is merely a small step of change in my connection with politics, publics and the news. While it does make the news more accessible, convenient, and customized, the iPad does not change the way in which I use, interpret, nor understand the news.

When I first heard of the assignment to analyze wedding announcements, I was skeptical about how much it could actually reveal about a newspaper. To put this skepticism to the test, I decided to check my local newspaper’s wedding and milestone announcements because I have a fairly thorough understanding of the paper’s target audience. Choosing a random date for announcements in the Coeur d’Alene Press, led me to some fascinating findings.

For starters, I was instantly reminded of how small and well connected the Coeur d’Alene community really is. I had some sort of connection to both the wedding announcements and the only engagement announcement. For the weddings, I learned that a girl I grew up with as a family friend was married this summer and that a son of my dad’s coworkers also got married. The engagement announcement was for the son of my high school Spanish teacher who also happened to play on the same baseball team as my older brother. This connectedness in and of itself reveals that the audience of the paper is not only quite small, but quite connected to one another. The substance of announcements also reveals details about the audience. Almost all of the announcements emphasize the high school that each person attended, which further shows the connectedness of the community. Many of the announcements focus on military service and religion, which gives insight into the values of the paper’s readers. Both of these items reveal a more conservative constituency through the glorification of both church and military service. All of these details fit in with my preconceived understanding of the Coeur d’Alene Press’s audience.

In order to get a comparison I chose to look at a similarly small paper from San Juan Island, Washington where I interned two summers ago. After reading some wedding announcements in the San Juan Islander, it became much more obvious how much information about target audience can be found in wedding announcement. The San Juan Islander announcements all emphasized the local, small community as well with a focus on high schools and discussion of how each person is involved in the community. Another common theme in the wedding announcements was the type of employment each person was involved in. Most of the announcements mentioned employment by a local marine or aquatic store and some sort of environmentally focused career. These two facts reveal that the readers of the newspaper are nautically focused and environmentally concerned. While the political leanings are not as obvious as they were in the Coeur d’Alene Press, there are still subtle hints of the Islands’ left-leaning nature. One announcement in particular mentions the groom’s participation at the Catholic Worker House in South Bend (as an ND grad student, whom I met last winter), one of the radically liberal wings of the Catholic Church.

CDA Press Announcements: http://www.cdapress.com/lifestyles/article_1c40d353-499c-5ce3-b7a8-20d5c54db8f8.html

San Juan Islander Announcements: http://www.sanjuanislander.com/island-newshome/announcements/weddings