David Spett

Earlier: Is this English?, Curious ad

Please stop asking me what I thought of Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo. I’m sure it was amazing, but I didn’t watch it. Lately I’ve had better things to do with my time, like growing a network of progressive student publications and planning three days of conferences featuring prominent journalists to train their staffs.

I’ve come to care less and less about Obama’s speeches because of the huge disconnect between his words and actions. Our president talks of turning the page on George W. Bush’s illegal imprisonment programs, all the while authorizing their continuation in Bagram, Afghanistan. He talks of his faith in the American court system, all the while advocating that Congress permit him to indefinitely detain anyone he wants. He talks of leading the most open government in our history, all the while refusing to release photos showing how we treat our prisoners — and even supporting legislation to change the law because it doesn’t permit the secrecy he desires.

The campaign for the White House is over, so it’s time to stop getting excited about rhetoric while ignoring the president’s actions. I’ll celebrate when Israel and the Palestinians make real steps toward peace, when a reformist candidate defeats Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, and when Afghanistan and Pakistan show at least some signs of stabilizing.

Until then, let’s talk about policy and actions to achieve those goals, not words and promises that make us feel good but actually accomplish little.

(Cross-posted at CampusProgress.org)

Rick Edmonds of Poynter argues today that you could “make a killing on Wall Street” by investing in newspaper stocks. He offers the following table:

COMPANY - THREE-MONTH LOW - MAY 11 CLOSE
New York Times $3.50 - $6.81
Gannett $2.00 - $5.35
McClatchy $.40 - $.69
Lee $.40 - $1.65
Media General $1.40 - $3.40
Washington Post $308 - $370
E.W. Scripps $.80 - $1.96
A.H. Belo $.70 - $1.61
Journal Communications $.40 - $1.66

After presenting some disclaimers – “don’t try this at home”! –  Edmonds concludes that well, maybe things are looking up after all.

I think some investors buy into my standard line when asked if there are glimmers of hope for the industry: “the recession will be over sooner or later.” Then advertising may bounce back, strongly in some categories like auto where nervous consumers have postponed purchases.

I hear this sort of logic a lot among old media-types (and, I admit, I used to believe it myself): “Everything will be OK if we can just ride out this storm.”

The problem is that print media’s woes have been brewing for decades. The internet is gaining readers, print is losing them, and newspapers don’t really have any plan to cope. Edmonds and his peers should be arguing the exact opposite: that journalists must ignore this uptick, assume the worst and respond to this recession with major efforts to innovate. Because eventually, there will be another recession, and journalism will need to survive that one, too.

There are several other problems here, some more minor than others: Edmonds’ table compares apples and oranges, since the first stock prices are from different dates during a three-month period; he assumes (wrongly, I’d surmise) that data from the past 90 days are indicative of future performance; and he assumes that rising stock prices suggest the newspaper industry is in better shape than it was 90 days ago (and it may well be, but a company’s health is based on much more than just its stock price).

The point should be that stock prices are irrelevant. A few – maybe most, and maybe even all – of the companies on Edmonds’ list are going to fail if they don’t make sweeping changes. This is no time to take a deep breath and relax.

I mean, seriously. Yet another display of my alma mater’s incompetence:

This ad ran beside today’s NYT story on the future of j-school.

See also: Badly-written Facebook ad

Every now and then, I wonder if the decline of newspapers could actually be good for democracy. Today was one of those days, with two pretty disturbing items in the Washington Post.

First, a superficial, uncritical front-page profile of Ben Bernanke. Dean Baker has a pretty good summary of what this misses (in a nutshell: even a passing mention of the possibility that Bernanke and his ideology might have some responsibility for the economic crisis). One passage particularly stood out:

[Bernanke's leadership] strategy has paid dividends. At the December meeting, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher didn’t want to cut rates and initially dissented from the decision, sources said. At the last minute, in the spirit of public unanimity, he changed his vote.

Disturbingly, the writer implies dissent is bad, while Bernanke’s “strategy” must be the reason the Fed governors were unified. Like so many other stories in the MSM, this one’s littered with superficial, uncriticial (hate to use those adjectives again, but I really think they’re the best) assumptions mired in conventional wisdom.

The second concern from today’s paper: A response about halfway down in this online chat with WaPo congressional correspondent Paul Kane.

The anonymous questioner asks, “Care to defend yourself against this criticism from Media Matters” suggesting you didn’t provide proper context when quoting GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe criticizing Democrats?

Kane reacted strongly: “Someone tell Media Matters to get over themselves and their overblown ego of righteousness.” (Sensitive much, Paul?)

The real problem comes later. “We reported what Olympia Snowe said. That’s what she said. That’s what Republicans are saying. I really don’t know what you want of us,” Kane writes.

Unintended sexual innuendo aside, that response is ethically bankrupt. Have reporters no responsibility to provide some context and point out that these very senators criticizing Democrats for circumventing the filibuster, themselves circumvented the filibuster when they held a majority… and criticized minority Dems who disagreed? (To be fair, the doubletalk applies to both parties, but that’s not the point.)

If you’re just going to copy down what senators say, I might as well watch C-SPAN, and I see no reason to lament the loss of your job or the death of your industry.

I’ve been getting this Facebook ad a lot lately. Are they really sure they want me back? Also, is this a guarantee that every Medill graduate will get jobs (note the plural)? Lastly, who hyphenates “multi-media”?