Uncommon sense

Thomas Paine's pamphlet urging revolution was anything but "common sense."

Sen. Max Baucus said his health care plan is “based on common sense.” A woman in England who won a favorable court ruling on assisted suicide said she was “relieved that common sense has won the day.” Sarah Palin, speaking in Asia, described herself as “a common-sense conservative.”

What is this “common sense” that everyone seems to have or want?

Defining terms is important, as students in my doctoral class know. Explication is a process by which we define what we mean by terms we take for granted, such as “mass media” or “health care reform.”

Journalists often skip past the definition part, knowing that terms such as “media” and “reform” vary in interpretation and are often intentionally vague. A firm definition wouldn’t help anyway, when what qualifies for reform is contentious.

Common sense, however, is one of those phrases that would benefit from some explication. The phrase seems to have two types of meaning:

1. Common sense is simple. It’s easy to grasp when the subject is complicated, such as health care. We yearn for a simple solution in a complex world. Global warming is a complex problem. We want a common-sense solution.

2. Common sense is popular. I can agree with the proposal and so can most people, who, after all, think like me, too. Proposed solutions or positions on issues that fit my way of thinking make sense to me. Ideas that contradict my way of thinking don’t seem sensible. Common sense reflects my ideals.

What we really need is uncommon sense — people like pamphleteer Thomas Paine. We need people today who have the courage to take unpopular stands to promote solutions to difficult problems such as global warming. But that’s not common sense.

 

Death in the family

Lemoore, Calif., is a small town of about 20,000 people near Fresno. It has a small, intensely local newspaper that for the past 121 years has filled scrapbooks and fostered a sense of community.

Until now. Today is the last edition of the Lemoore Advance.

The newspaper is being shut down by its owner, Lee Enterprises, which acquired it in 2005 when it bought the Pulitzer chain. Lee Enterprises claims on its Web site that its strategy is to be the “first and best in local news.” The Lemoore Advance fulfilled that mission, in spades. But it failed to fulfill the real mission: Make a ton of money.

According to the Mondo Times database, the weekly newspaper had a circulation of 1,500. A weekly newspaper that small is not going to churn out the kind of cash that Lee Enterprises needs to repay the crushing debt it incurred to buy the Pulitzer chain.

In the cruel world of profit-driven, Wall-Street-smitten chain journalism, the Lemoore Advance was a costly anachronism. Like other chains, Lee’s purpose is to — jargon alert! — maximize shareholder value. In other words, a newspaper only exists so long as it pays the bonuses of the people back in corporate. Journalism is just the license to print money.

The passing of the Lemoore Advance will not be the ruin of democracy or destroy the moral fabric of Lemoore. The sun will rise tomorrow.

But something tangible will be lost. That something is the community glue that only a small-town paper can provide.

The newspaper’s Web site will be available for “at least a week,” according to the paper’s final story. Then it, too, will disappear, words and pictures lost to history.

 

News literacy

When editing students ask what I’m looking for in current events quizzes on national and international events, my pat response is: the more important stories.

That response only begs the question: “What’s important?” So I offer examples. Afghanistan. China. Global warming. The economy. Health care reform.

That’s still not much help to a student who does not know why I would consider Afghanistan important. They know the U.S. military is over there waging some kind of war, but it’s not clear to them exactly what or whom we’re fighting, or why.

Before we adults start rolling our eyeballs at “those ignorant students,” let me be clear that I don’t think the stereotype fits or is fair. Students have lots of other things to do besides keeping track of who’s visiting the United Nations and what’s happening at the G-20 summit. Besides, how many adults know what a G-20 summit is?

We track the news about subjects that we care about and ignore topics that seem irrelevant. When the subject is complex, we rarely invest the energy to understand it unless it affects us. That’s just as true for college students as it is for adults.

So how do we know what news is important when we don’t know what would make it important in the first place? To be news-literate is an iterative process.

As we learn more about Afghanistan, we figure out what the Taliban are. As we learn more about why the Taliban came to power, we better understand why they still exist. As we grasp the role that Pakistan plays in Afghanistan, we grasp why the former’s intelligence service is so critical. And so on.

Thus, news quizzes are a way to get people to know not the subjects discussed, but how to evaluate what is important.

 

Listen

NPR aired a nice piece today on health care reform that also explains one reason why journalism is viewed as a liberal endeavor.

The NPR piece is entitled “Who’s Representing the Uninsured on Capitol Hill?” Members of Congress are returning to work saying they listened to their constituents speak (or shout) to them at town hall meetings this summer. But as the NPR piece points out, people who are working two jobs without insurance don’t have time to attend these meetings. So who speaks for them?

Even asking the question can be considered liberal. A conservative view to government says that it should represent the people who exercise their right to vote and air their opinion. People who don’t have time to attend town hall meetings can write a letter or an e-mail to their member of Congress. They are not voiceless.

Others note that writing a letter is a waste of time because in the post-anthrax era, irradiated letters take months to get to congressional offices and e-mails get buried in an avalanche of special-interest-generated Astroturf.

One of the tenants of journalism as expressed by the authors of “The Elements of Journalism” is that the craft should “monitor power and offer voice to the voiceless.” This strikes some conservatives as inherently liberal.

Perhaps. But in a nation where about 15 percent are without insurance, the tyranny of the majority, as libertarian John Stuart Mill articulated, can suppress the minority.

Our politicians pay the most attention to donors: the people who deliver campaign cash. Those folks can buy access. Health care organizations have influence through millions in political donations to members of Congress.

So if the political system does not listen to the voiceless, that leaves the fourth estate to pick up the banner.

 

Evening the score

President Obama appeared on the talk shows Sunday except Fox because Fox refused to broadcast his speech to Congress on health care. Does it matter?

Fox is a journalistic Rorschach test. Its fans find it to be the only credible television outlet while its critics put mocking quote marks around its “fair and balanced” moniker. Studies have shown that its news coverage is fairly straight, but it’s the prime-time lineup of conservative commentators that give Fox its brand identity.

I don’t get cable TV at our house and see Fox only when traveling. What I have seen affirms that Roger Ailes is one shrewd business executive. He has built a network by assembling a choir and telling it precisely what it wants to hear.

Dissing the president by ignoring a speech to Congress — these are, after all, the leaders of the free world — isn’t a political act, it’s a business decision. Niche networks can turn a nice profit by building affinity within that niche. When the “we report, you decide” network fails to report, it’s deciding to pander to its audience. And pandering sells niches. Just ask the fan Web sites that purport to give us all things Gators.

Obama’s mistake was to fall for Ailes’ trap. By ignoring Fox, he feeds the paranoia that makes Fox successful. Fox viewers see themselves as, to quote Sarah Palin, the real America. Obama must be afraid of real America.

But does it even matter? Politics, like cable TV journalism, have become so scripted there are fewer surprises than in a Jay Leno monologue. Obama committed no news but reinforced existing viewpoints. Fox covered no news but reinforced existing viewpoints. Score tied, 0-0.

 

In the long run

Fall in Gainesville equals football for most folks. For us, it means cross-country.

The first meet of the cross-country season was held this afternoon, the Mountain Dew invitational at the University of Florida golf course. It was a big meet, with 31 teams.

Megan and Kyle are running cross-country for the second straight year. Megan has run for her three falls in Gainesville, and Kyle joined last year. Each ran varsity today.

Last year, after I got a Nikon SLR with a telephoto lens and attended each Saturday morning meet, I became the de facto team photographer. The runners, especially the females, tend to refer to parents by mama or papa, followed by the last name, as in Papa Malpass or Mama Rohan. They call me Papa Ratzi, as in paparazzi. Oh, those young people.

I really like our team’s coach because she is tough-minded and sets high expectations, but she is encouraging and isn’t a screamer.

Cross-country is the kind of sport in which athletes applaud each other. Yes, there is pride in the team, especially for teams that are competitive. But runners tend to view their opponent as the clock. They want a PR, or personal record, and applaud when others achieve theirs.

Cross-country is a minor sport, which is to say that journalists essentially ignore it. If it gets even 1 percent of the ink spilled on Gator football in the Gainesville Sun, I would be surprised. Usually if it gets covered at all, it’s from a free-lancer who tends to write about only one of the three high school teams in town, the one on the more affluent side of town.

But that’s OK. Cross-country runners don’t do it for the glory. And that’s part of what makes it so real.

 

A man of courage

Myles Brand died today. That name may not mean much outside Bloomington, Ind., or big-time intercollegiate athletics, but it should.

I knew Brand when he was the University of Oregon president, back when I was editor 45 minutes north in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University. He achieved much greater fame after moving to Indiana and firing coach Bobby Knight.

I was in Bloomington this summer, attending a teaching workshop, and toured with a couple of my sports-minded peers the famous Assembly Hall where Knight’s basketball teams collected so many awards. Pictures of famous athletes from that era line the hallway leading to the coaches’ offices. The trophy case is filled with hardware from the Knight era. It looks like a place frozen in time.

No wonder, then, that the sports bars in town proudly display pictures and memorabilia from the Knight era. He may have been a hot-headed jerk who abused his players, but he put Indiana on the collegiate basketball map.

A quiet portrait of Brand hangs in the little hotel attached to the Indiana student union. He will forever be remembered — or villified — as the man who had the courage — or the poor judgment — to fire The Coach.

Later, in his role heading the NCAA, Brand pushed for tough enforcement of sports rules and a stronger emphasis on academics. He was unafraid to challenge a culture that worships college sports, that pays the football coach 75 times what a typical humanities professor (he formerly taught philosophy) makes.

The world needs more Myles Brands: people of courage and conviction who uphold the increasingly quaint notion that academics matter.

 

Thanks, teachers

Tonight was open house night for parents at our twins’ high school. They’re seniors, so this is their last one. We’ve been attending these for our four children for nearly a quarter century in seven states.

During that time we have met some wonderful teachers and caring schools. This one is no exception. Gainesville High School is not considered the premier school in town for reasons that escape me, but it offers rigorous honors classes and produces enviable pass rates on AP tests. Teachers are passionate and competent. We have been well served.

However, under the provisions of the No Child Left Behind law as interpreted by the federal education department, Gainesville High is a failing school. It fails because the students at the bottom are, well, staying at the bottom.

The law demands that all our children be above average. Although that’s a statistical impossibility, bureaucrats insist that the law keeps us from settling, as former President Bush said, for the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I have never had a conversation with a Gainesville High parent who is not pleased with the academics at the school. This being a college town, Gainesville’s residents are picky about their education.

I have never had a conversation with a parent about the No Child Left Behind failing grade, either. That’s because we all know the grade is meaningless. We know what our schools offer and how our children are challenged academically. The score from Washington or Tallahassee is irrelevant.

Thanks, Gainesville High teachers. Keep up the good work.

 

When respondents lie

According to the latest Pew survey, trust in American news media has fallen to the lowest level in two decades. Only 29 percent say news organizations get it right. Sixty-three percent say news stories are often inaccurate.

But what, exactly, does the survey measure?

My previous post noted a disagreement with a New York Times characterization of a town where I lived for six years. Is that an inaccuracy? If so, is it significant?

How often are people in a position to truly judge the accuracy of a story? Do we travel the globe and talk to world leaders? Do we read the quarterly earnings statements from corporations and crunch the numbers? Do we absorb New England Journal of Medicine research articles?

Who is included in the news media? The big three television networks? Cable news? Cable news opinion shows? Talk radio? Bloggers? Me, when I post some “citizen journalism” item?

But here’s what really gets me.

Look at how respondents said they get their news. Seventy-one percent said they rely on television for most of their national and international news. If that’s true, that means TV news has about 150 million viewers. Let’s do the math.

The big three networks together are barely pulling in 20 million viewers. The most-watched morning news show draws 5 million. Bill O’Reilly, who has the biggest-rated show on cable television, gets about 2.5 million on a big night. The most-watched prime-time news show, “60 Minutes,” gets about 10 million.

Add up Dateline and CNN and Keith Olbermann and throw in Jon Stewart for good measure, and we’re still a long, long ways from 150 million.

So at the same time that survey respondents accuse the news media of getting it wrong, they’re lying to the pollsters.

Tell me again: What, exactly, does this survey measure?

 

A journalistic shortcoming

Yesterday’s New York Times carried a story about the city where I was the newspaper editor for six years before leaving in 2004 to get my doctorate. The story is how the mayor wants to give a key to the city to a former resident, Glen Beck, who has gone on to greater fame (or notoriety, depending on your viewpoint) as a Fox News commentator and now author of the No. 1 nonfiction book, according to Nielsen.

I’ll leave debates over Glen Beck to others. What interested me in the story was the characterization of Mount Vernon.

The Times reporter, an excellent journalist based out of Seattle, described the city as a former “small logging town” and “now a Seattle bedroom community.”

Not really. Mount Vernon is part of Skagit County, where trees are still cut. But that’s way to the east, in the  Cascade Mountains. Mount Vernon was never a logging town to the degree that upriver cities were. And while some residents commute one hour each way to Seattle, the majority do not.

To be fair, Mount Vernon is a difficult city to summarize in a single phrase. It is a small, self-contained city on a busy interstate highway surrounded by vibrant agriculture and the largest tulip grower in North America. It has a community college and a nice arts scene for a small town. It has a traditional downtown fighting the mall a couple of miles away. It is a nice place to live but not all that different from other nice places to live.

The problem for journalists is that we want deft summary statements for items that sometimes defy pithy summations. When there’s no good way to sum up a city in a nutshell, best not to try.