Updated Allegory of the Cave

Media Narrative Chart

PolitiFraud

We need a name for the so-called "PolitiFact."  PolitiFraud?  PolitiCrap?

I'm not a fan of the "Fact Check" sites. They have an air of "being the last word" and of being objective, but in my experience they are just as unreliable as any news source and far from objective.
Here is one of many examples about Ted Cruz where it's claimed that he said something false. Give it a quick read.  Now note that most statements by Cruz on PolitiFraud are rendered "false."  Could it be that they only focus on some statements and not others?  Could it also be that they are rigging the game with "degrees of truth", whatever that means?

First, in a story about Reagan and Cruz where there is no mention of Clinton, why feel the need to point out that blacks did better under a Democrat? While true--and fair game for politicians to use--that doesn't have the air of objectivity about the particular facts at hand.

Second, while it's fair game to point how how (e.g.) the economy did under a president, that alone tells us nothing about to what extent the policies of the president played a role. Presidents inherit the regulations of predecessors as well as whomever happens to be in Congress, etc. So Cruz is guilty of this fallacy, but then again, so is pretty much every politician I can think of.

Third, when I first looked at their story, what struck me is why they didn't mention why they first said "true." What was it that made them say true in the first place?  They don't say.  That raises a red flag.

I can only speculate since the story has been redacted but here is what I think was the case.
They decided in the second story to use the adjusted income based on inflation in 2014 dollars. (Click on the word "Black" on the chart they provide and you'll see what I'm talking about.)  That seems to me even more misleading. (Why not use the 1988 adjusted income according to inflation? That would tell you how much real earning power was acquired during the 8 years.)

It looks like Cruz is simply using the real time dollars in 1980 and 1988. In 1980 the median income was 10,764; in 1988 it was 16,407 (so actually over $5000 and closer to $6000). If you took the mean income it's an increase of c.$8500 to $10,000 depending if you go with real time or adjusted to 2014 dollars.

So, unless I'm wrong about where the stats are coming from, a more accurate story would have been to clarify why they said true and then note that it depends on whether you are looking at current dollars or dollars adjusted for inflation from 2014.  Again, why use adjusted figures when that's even more misleading?  This appears to be a very underhanded way to say that he was asserting something false.

Related.

Who's the Media Watchdog's Watchdog?

On NPR this afternoon (paraphrase):

According to the Founders, the media is to be the watchdog of politics.  But who watches over the media?  Who is the media's watchdog?  [NPR's] On the Media, that's who.

But, as journalists are want to say, this begs the question: who watches over the media's watchdog?

Me.

Who's Checking the Fact Checkers?

Guns: NY Times Calls for...SOMETHING!

Front page editorial here.

Noteworthy quotations:

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

This of course, is silly.  The guns are designed to fire for all sorts of purposes just like any other gun.  And why shouldn't citizens but sufficiently well-armed if the cops are?  The NY Times doesn't say.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true....They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. 

HA! It doesn't matter if taking away arms from law abiding citizens will do any good!  We have to do something!  Hoplophobia alive and well in New York!  All one can do is laugh.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Chilling.

Brian Doherty has the takedown here.  Excerpt:

The move the Times proposes with such ceremony and passion is so purely symbolic, so driven by a superstitious desire to placate fate by acting as if it is doing something to stop grotesque acts of terror like in San Bernardino, and so motivated by a desire to sock it to a huge proportion of their fellow citizens over a contentious and heated political and constitutional issue, and is being offered with such emphasis (first front page editorial in nearly a century) that one could imagine the Times is only proposing such a move as a stalking horse for seeing if the government can get away with successfully banning and confiscating a class of weapon, by starting with one with such a tenuous connection with public safety on a national level.
It is likely that there is literally no other political crusade on which the Times could call for so much expense and turmoil for such a small benefit—again, except for the benefit of showing Americans who believe that they have an inherent right to own weapons of self-defense if used in a peaceful fashion, as the staggeringly overwhelmingly vast majority of them are, that the Times and those in government they speak for have the power and will to give it to them, good and hard.

In other NY Times related propaganda news, does the Times think its readership is this stupid?  I guess so.  No mention at all that the "bill" to eliminate terror was not actually a bill but an amendment attached to yet another bill to defund Obamacare, neither of which had a prayer of becoming law.

A Clinton News Network Falsehood

Andrew McCarthy has recently written on the falsehood (and outright lying) perpetuated by the Obama administration that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous event in reaction to an anti-Muslim video.

But let us not forget another falsehood perpetuated by Obama, Candy Crowley, and to this day still defended by CNN here.  To recount the facts, in a very important moment in a debate between Romney and Obama, Romney claimed that Obama did not say the day after the attack that it was a terrorist attack as Obama claimed in the debate.  (Rather, the Obama administration continued to insinuate that it was a spontaneous attack precipitated by a video which we know to be false; it took two weeks to call it an act of terror according to Romney.)  Candy Crowley then, in a shameful display of partisanship, inserted herself into the debate defending Obama saying that the transcript does affirm that Obama called it an act of terror and that Romney was wrong.  Well, now it's two against one and Romney is flummoxed before the national audience and does not know what to say.  Then the conversation gets diverted.  This was a devastating part of the debate for Romney and victory for Obama thanks to Candy Crowley.

So what did Obama actually say?  Here is CNN from the second link above:

On Smug Jon Stewart

Camille Paglia:

I despise snark.  Snark is a disease that started with David Letterman and jumped to Jon Stewart and has proliferated since. I think it’s horrible for young people!   And this kind of snark atheism–let’s just invent that term right now–is stupid, and people who act like that are stupid. 

David Daley: You mentioned Jon Stewart, who leaves the “Daily Show” in two weeks. There’s handwringing from folks who think that he elevated or even transcended snark, that he utilized irony very effectively during the Bush years. And that he did the work of critiquing and fact-checking Fox and others on the right who helped create this debased media culture? What’s your sense of his influence?

I think Stewart’s show demonstrated the decline and vacuity of contemporary comedy. I cannot stand that smug, snarky, superior tone. I hated the fact that young people were getting their news through that filter of sophomoric snark.  Comedy, to me, is one of the major modern genres, and the big influences on my generation were Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. Then Joan Rivers had an enormous impact on me–she’s one of my major role models.  It’s the old caustic, confrontational style of Jewish comedy. It was Jewish comedians who turned stand-up from the old gag-meister shtick of vaudeville into a biting analysis of current social issues, and they really pushed the envelope.  Lenny Bruce used stand-up to produce gasps and silence from the audience. And that’s my standard–a comedy of personal risk.  And by that standard, I’m sorry, but Jon Stewart is not a major figure. He’s certainly a highly successful T.V. personality, but I think he has debased political discourse.  I find nothing incisive in his work.  As for his influence, if he helped produce the hackneyed polarization of moral liberals versus evil conservatives, then he’s partly at fault for the political stalemate in the United States.

I don’t demonize Fox News. At what point will liberals wake up to realize the stranglehold that they had on the media for so long? They controlled the major newspapers and weekly newsmagazines and T.V. networks. It’s no coincidence that all of the great liberal forums have been slowly fading. They once had such incredible power.  Since the rise of the Web, the nightly network newscasts have become peripheral, and the New York Times and the Washington Post have been slowly fading and are struggling to survive.

Historically, talk radio arose via Rush Limbaugh in the early 1990s precisely because of this stranglehold by liberal discourse. For heaven’s sake, I was a Democrat who had just voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 primary, but I had to fight like mad in the early 1990s to get my views heard. The resistance of liberals in the media to new ideas was enormous. Liberals think of themselves as very open-minded, but that’s simply not true!  Liberalism has sadly become a knee-jerk ideology, with people barricaded in their comfortable little cells. They think that their views are the only rational ones, and everyone else is not only evil but financed by the Koch brothers.  It’s so simplistic!

Ted Cruz Rebuffs Reporter on Gay "Marriage" Entrapment Questions

Buff Rebuffer

Ted Cruz tellin' it like it is.

I shared this on Facebook but it's too good not to throw up on the blog.

How Biased is the Media? A Freakonomics Interview

Tim Groseclose answers questions about his research on media bias here.  By my lights what he says below is plausible and interesting.

Excerpt:

Q. Why does liberal media bias exist in the first place? What would you suggest as a way that a) journalists could be more aware of their own bias and limit it in their reporting; or b) the profession of journalism could attract a more unbiased (or merely more representative) cohort? –Jack

A. The main reason why bias exists, I believe, is simply that newsrooms are filled overwhelmingly with liberals. Here’s the most important fact to know, if you want to understand media bias: If you poll Washington correspondents and ask “Who’d you vote for last election?”, about 93% will say the Democrat.

Why are newsrooms so liberal? I don’t know, except that I suspect that it’s mainly self-selection. I believe that there is something in the DNA of liberals that makes them want to pursue careers like journalism, academia, and the arts.

A manager or owner of a media outlet could try to counteract this by trying to hire more conservatives, but he will have a hard time trying to find conservatives who want to be journalists. He’ll either have to pay conservative journalists more or be willing to hire conservative journalists who are not as good at reporting as liberal journalists. It’s a hard problem for a news-outlet manager to solve. I basically believe we’re in an equilibrium  – that liberal bias is basically here to stay.

How can journalists be aware of their own biases?  One way is to read Chapter 11 of my book, “The Anti-Newsroom, Washington, County, Utah.”  In the chapter I search for a place that votes the opposite of a newsroom – 93-7 for the Republican. It’s basically impossible to find such a county, but one that comes close is Washington County. I interview lots of people in the county to give the reader a sense of what political views in the anti-newsroom are like.  If journalists think about how conservative, and maybe even strange, views are in the anti-newsroom, they may begin to realize how liberal, and maybe even strange, views are in actual newsrooms.

And if a journalist is really serious about understanding his or her own biases, he or she could visit Washington County, Utah.  One of its residents, Tom Seegmiller, has agreed to host such journalists.  Seegmiller is the owner of Dixie Gun and Fish and the Locker Room, an athletic supply store. If such journalists are interested, they should contact Seegmiller at one of his two businesses. Seegmiller is even willing to take such journalists to church with him. And if they desire, Seegmiller is willing to take such journalists hunting with him.

Media Bias Aids Democrats by About 8-10% Points

That is the claim in a book by political science and economics professor Tim Groseclose.  To non-liberals it is obvious that there is a liberal slant in the mainstream media--the titles of stories, the stories chosen to be reported on, the questions asked (and not asked), and so on belies the fact that there is significant bias (not to mention polls of journalists on which party they favor).  Liberals will often go to great lengths to deny the bias, since for many of them it's hard to see bias in a piece of journalism about which they wholeheartedly agree.

Groseclose not only supports the view that there is such bias with his research but goes on to make the claim (about which he says he was initially skeptical) that the evidence suggests the bias significantly skews voter results to the left by almost 8-10% (which is enough to tip most elections).  If the bias were eliminated, he says, the U.S. would look like Texas (on the PQ scale which he explains below).  As he remarks, "If you want to change elections, become a journalist not a professor."

He discusses his methodology in this video (he talks for about 35 minutes and then answers questions):

Two L.A. Cops Shoot Unarmed Mentally Ill Black Man in the Back

Have you heard about this story?  Another tragic death.  The story is also buried over at the L.A. Times local section here.

Let's see if this story gets as much media attention as Ferguson since (a) there was a round fired through someone's back, (b) the man was mentally ill, and (c) the police kept the autopsy under wraps as long as they could. I won't hold my breath.

Police officials say no officer was hurt in the incident. The Los Angeles Times has reported that the officers involved in the scuffle with Ford were Asian-American and Latino.

I bet Al Sharpton is flying to L.A. right now and Obama is gearing up for a press conference.

On the PGA President's Firing for Calling a Man a Little Girl

Karen Crouse writing for the New York Times:

When [ex-PGA President Ted] Bishop chose to disparage one man, the English golfer Ian Poulter, on Twitter by calling him a “little girl,” he effectively demeaned all women, including his own two daughters and granddaughter.

Golf Channel: Ted Bishops Legacy Forever Altered With Tweet

Read that article title again.  Someone's entire legacy changed by a Tweet.  That must've been some Tweet!

Ted Bishop on his infamous Tweet:

It took Bishop 90 minutes, after checking his phone and seeing reaction from what he had said, to realize he was in trouble.

"Someone had labeled me a sexist and I knew immediately I had a huge problem," said Bishop.

Bishop obviously knows the PC Thought Police drill.  Say something offensive to the "tolerant" PC crowd, get labeled a sexist, racist, homophobe, and so forth and prepare to be destroyed.

So what did Ted Bishop say, exactly?

73% of Females at Occidental College Sexually Assaulted

If true, send your kids to the Orient, not the Occident.

Another close look at the 1 in 4/5 statistics that I talked about previously.

Of Course NPR is Liberal

It's (partly) government funded!  How many people working for NPR do you think believe that the federal government should not tax people to pay for national, public broadcasting?

*UPDATE*  I forgot to mention that NPR pairs David Brooks with liberal, E.J. Dionne, as their political commentators.  So their go-to Republican is pro-choice, insists on gay marriage, is a mild fiscal conservative, and the author of the A Moderate Manifesto. 

Conservative and Liberal Media Outlets: On Trusting the Media

The Pew Research Center has some interesting charts on the news media.  Here are a couple followed by a bit of commentary on what it might mean to trust a media outlet and how to tell if a reporter is liberal or conservative.

The War Against Men

I have no opinion about the guilt or innocence of the police officer in the Ferguson shooting.  I have not seen enough evidence to have even a remotely well-informed opinion.  (And you probably haven't seen enough evidence either).

But one issue that the Ferguson incident raises is that a troubling number of men are killed by police officers.  For every 21 black males shot by police, 1 white male is shot.  But did you know that for every 11 women that are killed by police, the police kill 415 men.  That is 1 woman for every 37 males.  Is this a case of institutionalized misandry?  I think the answer is obvious.      ThatT

Ferguson's Unasked Questions

Is there a record of white power structures suppressing the black vote in Ferguson?  What evidence is there that blacks are disproportionately, unjustly discriminated against in traffic stops in Ferguson?  Other questions here.

Generalizing from Ferguson, here is a fact that is not in dispute: far more blacks are killed by police officers than whites in the U.S.  According to ProPublica 21 black males are killed by police to every 1 white male killed.  It cannot be doubted that there are a troubling number of young blacks killed by police officers.  Of course, we also know that blacks commit crimes at a disproportionately greater percentage than other racial groups, so some or all of the data could be explained by that troubling fact.

Is police officer racism the main explanation as the mass media has determined well in advance of the evidence?  Probably not if that same ProPublica article is correct and able to be generalized.  Black police officers kill a higher percentage of blacks than they kill whites.  And white officers kill a greater percentage of whites than they kill blacks.

Who is killing all those black men and boys?Mostly white officers. [Of course, since 63% of the U.S. is white compared to 14% black.  There are more white officers.]  But in hundreds of instances, black officers, too. Black officers account for a little more than 10 percent of all fatal police shootings. Of those they kill, though, 78 percent were black.
White officers, given their great numbers in so many of the country’s police departments, are well represented in all categories of police killings. White officers killed 91 percent of the whites who died at the hands of police. And they were responsible for 68 percent of the people of color killed. Those people of color represented 46 percent of all those killed by white officers.

One Other Comment About the Article on Sex/Domestic Violence in the NFL Below

I didn't want to ruin a blog post commending the data mining of 538 sports (which I'm glad exists for their statistics) but I can't let this paragraph in that article go without commenting:

Indeed, perhaps the question of how the NFL should “police” its players is the wrong analogy entirely. This situation may be more akin to tort law than criminal law: If the NFL is capable of reducing any harm its players are causing — whether through harsher suspensions or other policies targeting behavior — it may have a legal (or at least moral) duty to do so.

So after presenting the data, the author, Benjamin Morris, suggests that in light of the fact that sex and domestic abuse cases are relatively high (compared to other NFL crimes) within a relatively low crime pool (compared to the national average) that the NFL may have a legal duty within the law of torts to take some sort of action to lower the number of sex/domestic abuse arrests.

SAY WHAT?!

The Rate of Domestic Violence Arrests by NFL Players

(Some of these thoughts are from my friend HK)

As the media vultures swarm around what has officially been termed a "crisis," I am reminded of the media portrayal around the Catholic sex abuse scandals and my skepticism about media coverage more generally.  Horrible as these cases were in the Catholic church, rates at Protestant churches and among school teachers are similar statistically from what I've found, and the actual cases of pedophilia (defined as prepubescent sex) were about 5% of all priest sex abuse cases.  But one wouldn't know that from the media coverage.

Which brings us to the NFL media coverage.  According to Five-Thirty-Eight Sports the NFL arrest rate for sex abuse crimes is lower than the national average and the overall crime rate is much lower (see the first chart above).  The article seems to attribute the overall crime rate being lower to the affluence of NFL players, but there's reason for a healthy dose of skepticism that a lack of wealth is a major cause of crime. 

Still, among NFL crimes, sexual and domestic abuse crimes are quite high (as can be seen in the second chart above).  What then is the reason why sex/domestic abuse crimes are higher in the NFL than one would expect from another randomly chosen group?  Does it have anything to do with football or the violent collisions therein?  Or is it because more players in the NFL come from backgrounds where sex outside of marriage is the norm, where fathers are largely absent, where women are often referred to as "bitches and ho's", etc.?  (Or do you have some better explanation?)

More Media Love on Ray Rice, O.J. Simpson, Etc.

This from a reader (my comments in bold):

1. Is it really justice when the mob wants to lynch Rice, Rodger Goodell, and take down the entire NFL? Every mob member is screaming moral outrage and wants to destroy everyone in their wake. Look, I'm all for chivalry and treating women with honor and respect. I have four precious daughters and a wife that I deeply love. If a man ever slugged one of my girls and knocked her unconscious, I would want to murder the gutless evildoer. But, does that make me morally good? No! In fact, this is why we have a justice system. It's an eye for an eye, but I would want to repay death for a punch. Isn't this similar to what the media and the mob are calling for? Nobody (including Rice, his wife, or the NFL) is justifying what Rice did. But the bloodthirsty mob isn't crying out for justice....they want vengeance and want to destroy Rice and Goodell and the NFL. Please, somebody articulate for us all what a just response should be in this case.  [I may have more to say on the matter, but definitely not today.]