Global Tanning: Anatomy of a Media Virus
By Al Giordano
I have a confession to make.
Like Governor Palin, I have my own tanning bed, too.
Here's a photo of it:
It's the biggest tanning bed in the world, passes through almost every coastal country, and in my grand beneficence and generosity, I share it with the peoples of this earth.
And why not? After you Field Hands just bought four battleground states for me in 24 hours (thank you very much, and if you were still planning to toss a coin into the cup, it's never too late!), I can afford to share and share alike.
For those that might be interested, let me share a little bit of what I've learned about authentic journalism and media viruses, using the tanning bed story's trajectory as Exhibit A.
As a full-time newspaperman in the 1990s, I began to ask myself why some of the stories I had reported were picked up by other newspapers, TV and radio media, caused national and even international tremors and the occasional quake, while others that may have been more important or interesting to me never quite captured broader attention and imagination.
In that quest, my curiosity led me to a book by a then-35-year-old writer, Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture, by Douglas Rushkoff (1996, Ballantine Press). It charted how new concepts and pieces of information first enter the public consciousness as "memes" (the basic building block of an idea) and they spread throughout the "datasphere" much like a virus propagates. And like living organisms, news stories can mutate and come to mean something different to people or even opposite of their original truths, like a gigantic multi-dimensional game of "telephone."
Just ask Fatimah Ali, the Philadelphia columnist whose use of the words "race war" two weeks ago certainly got a lot of attention; but probably not in the way she had hoped. It's a problem for a lot of journalists and bloggers: they can write a perfectly legitimate and newsworthy story, but by the time the media machine chews it up and spits it out the message is distorted, and often runs contrary, to the original one.
Four days after its publication, the tanning bed story has indeed replicated far and wide, but still remains intact, true to its original facts, more like what chemists call a catalyst: "that which changes the other but remains itself unchanged."
My experience is that media viruses can be crafted carefully enough so that they are more likely to multiply and mutate in intended ways. Responsible and factual reporting is, increasingly, just the first half of the work. If the story just sits there and doesn't draw in the public imagination, then what have we accomplished?
In the new media age, a journalist (or blogger, or communicator of any kind) now has to also anticipate how his or her story is likely to bounce off against other agendas and realities in society (and has to keep abreast of what those currents are and in what directions they push). Writing a story has become more of a challenge, like playing chess, that requires anticipating the counter-moves, steps in advance. A good story must now come with its own built-in "immune systems" or "antibodies" to best program its mutative potential and direction.
A dozen years into this revelation, and after a lot of trial, error and practice, this task is fairly routine for me. One develops an eye for which stories have potential to attach themselves to other media and get spread farther, and how to construct them so that they don't implode or backfire (hint: that still includes the absolute necessity of getting the story right, because any falsehood or error in a story, no matter how small, becomes the weakness through which it can be mutated to turn against its original message. Not only that, but some of us do believe in that old fashioned moral called "telling the truth."). I've also learned through experience how to attach small, unfinished sub-plots - open questions as shining baubles - to a story line that other media won't be able to resist latching onto and trying to complete. It's like leaving a few pieces of a mostly-finished jigsaw puzzle on the side of the board to entice others into joining in the quest to complete it.
Our story on Monday, Palin's Private Tanning Bed in the Alaska Governor's Mansion, co-authored with ace investigative reporter Bill Conroy, included some of those "shiny objects" to wave before a hungry media like a bag of crack tossed into a drug treatment center.
Within hours, the story ricocheted first through the media of the "low information voters" - gossip columns, entertainment magazine websites, and others that speak to voters that don't pay attention to "serious" political news, but nonetheless many of them vote - and quickly developed enough steam without becoming mutated off its essential truths to be picked up by the "serious" media. The "tanning bed" meme is now genetically spliced onto Governor Palin's biography and profile. It will be mentioned in most media profiles of her. She might as well have the image of a tanning bed tattooed onto her forehead.
Giving birth to a good media virus is much like having a child that is born already as a full-grown teenager: the story itself is independent enough to make its way through the world. The parent has to let go somewhat, sit back, and give the rebellious spawn room to determine it's own growth (the creation of media viruses is not a sport for control freaks; one has to resign himself to the fact that once an idea or concept is launched in the public forum, one loses most power over what happens to it. The only influence one has is during its gestation, to construct it to withstand attack and grow in alignment with its message. It helps, I think, to be a personality type that actually enjoys watching one's creation's twists and turns as competing agendas in society and media collide upon it, with the faith that one has given his virus a good enough formation, it will remain on its intended path.)
Let's look at some of the first reactions out there, along with the sub-plots that - like in the tale of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer painting the fence - allowed the "virus" to be caught by other media makers who carried and further developed it, free of charge.
The first wave of propagation came from that bastion of "low information voters," the gossip and entertainment media.
Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Elizabeth Snead asked aloud:
What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?
A tanning bed!
..."It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion," Wetherell told the Narco News, who first reported the story.
The gossip page of the Denver Post couldn't resist the story, either.
US Weekly - that glossy celebrity magazine that appears at your supermarket check-out counter - ran with the story instantly on its website (and many of the other media that picked up on the story credited the magazine, rather than Narco News, which is par for the course: proud parents of media viruses can't worry too much about who gets the credit. That's part of the red flag waved before the other media bulls that causes them to charge at it: a media virus maker can't hang on to paternity claims too possessively):
Self-proclaimed "hockey mom" Sarah Palin had a private tanning bed installed in the Governor's Mansion in Juneau, Alaska, Usmagazine.com confirmed on Monday...
The Narco News Bulletin first reported on the former beauty queen's penchant for a bronzed body.
Yup, nothing like a blurb in US Weekly to get the circus started. Sean Hannity of Fox News was apoplectic:
Here's the transcript of Hannity of Fox News marking up the faux-outrage:
"US Weekly" is at it again. In this week's issue, the magazine is, quote, "exposing how Governor Palin had a tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion." The magazine reports that installing such a tanning bed in your home could cost up to $35,000....
(And that, in turn, got the media critics at NewsHounds.us parsing Hannity as he parsed the tanning bed.)
Examiner gossip columnist Liz Barrett absolutely hated our story... and dedicated twelve paragraphs to it:
She bought it with her own money, so who cares?
And, Liz, you publicized the facts of our story for free. Congratulations. And thank you.
A good media virus provokes even those whose interests would be better served by zipping their mouths shut to spread the contagion by screeching out against it. The challenge is to design the virus so that it is immune to being changed once it goes through that loop. Essentially the point most Palin defenders raised in her defense is that she paid for it by herself. By accurately reporting that fact in the original story, they were denied their usual accusatory response about a story being only half-true.
A successful media virus ideally has a bit of humor built into it. Make them laugh and their hearts and mouths will follow. The subject - a tanning bed in the Alaska governor's mansion - of course is itself humorous, the report that launched a thousand wisecracks:
Denise Williams at AOL News asked whether Palin is really the salt-of-the-earth outdoorswoman that she claims to be: "Caribou or Malibu?"
AOL's tabloid news page TMZ titled its version of the story "Fake Baked Alaska."
Celebrity Café reported: "Hockey Mom" Installed Private Tanning Bed."
MomLogic grabbed onto the "Palin as celebrity" subplot:
Guess that Midnight Sun isn't enough to keep Governor Palin looking her bronzed best. Palin, the self-proclaimed "ordinary hockey mom," reportedly likes to get her tan on in her very own personal tanning bed before greeting constituents -- just like tanning god George Hamilton.
The Improper couldn't resist repeating the word "tanorexic," and like many media picked up on the contradiction between having a cancer-causing tanning bed and being the running mate of a prominent two-time survivor of skin cancer:
Despite her carefully crafted image as an "average hockey mom" and a simple outdoorsy gal, Sarah Palin indulges a very unhealthy (and expensive) habit: She's a tanorexic.
...Ironically, John McCain, who selected Palin as his vice presidential running mate on August 29, has battled skin cancer twice--in 1993 and 2000. "I coat SPF 30 on myself first thing in the morning, and wear long sleeves and a hat whenever I'm in the sun," McCain has said.
One mutation that I didn't expect came from the tanning bed industry itself. The closing paragraph of our story on Monday said:
On the bright side, the long overlooked "tanorexic lobby" - the industries that make the machines, their representatives and lobbyists in Washington - may finally be able to step outdoors and into the non-artificial sunlight, having one of their own through which to promote their product to a new generation of youth, a celebrity endorsement that could end up a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States of America.
And, lo' and behold, the Indoor Tanning Association fired off a press release to prove exactly that point:
"Moderate amounts of indoor tanning allow Governor Palin to experience the many health benefits that come with exposure to UV light," said Dan Humiston, President of the Indoor Tanning Association and candidate for United States Congress (R-NY27). "Especially in dreary northern locations like Alaska, indoor tanning can help guard against wintertime depression and ward off diseases associated with vitamin D deficiency."
"Kudos to Governor Palin for standing up to dermatologists and other members of the sun scare industry who are trying to frighten Americans away from UV light."
Now, that's funny. (Are her defenders trying to say that the Governor suffers from "depression" or "disease"? We never made any such claim.) The Tanorexia Lobby's press release also got the story onto Fox News.
The Chicago Tribune's health columnist Julie Deardoff found the story good for her beat (she speaks to another sector of "low information voters," many of whom that don't follow the political press or daily campaign developments closely). Again, the public health issues raised by the story were paramount:
The Narco New Bulletin, of all publications, which reports on "the drug war and democracy from Latin America," has broken the astonishing news that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, had a private tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion.
This juicy tidbit was quickly scooped up by US Weekly, followed by the Los Angeles Times blog, The Dishrag.
Both articles pointed out that Palin declared May 2007 to be "Skin Cancer Awareness Month. The press materials noted that "Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds.'"
Palin's running mate, John McCain, has said he is a big fan of sunscreen, long sleeves and a hat. He battled skin cancer in 1993 and 2000.
(And note how, as with many good media viruses, the "meta" story of the story's growth becomes, post-modernly, a part of the story.)
Now, I know there are people that think a story isn't credible if it doesn't get onto the pages of the New York Times and other "serious" journals. But you'd be surprised how those stately rags get so much of their material from the entertainment and gossip media. Once the story was out there, it quickly began to push back into the realm of "political reporting":
Winn and Tonic hooked onto the political implications:
this blasted tanning bed might prove to be the time machine that warped Sarah Palin - and much of the country - back to reality.
So did TruthDig:
there's something truly bizarre about the news that the folksy candidate in the race had a private tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion. The cost of the bed is undisclosed, but one source says the cost of such a device installed in a home can be up to $35,000.
For all the fluff, this story does illustrate a recurring theme of Palin's candidacy. Despite owning her own private tanning salon, the governor launched a skin cancer awareness month and is running with a guy who has to cover his head before he can go outside.
In the second day of its news cycle the story moved from the gossip pages to the political mentioners, many of whom hooked their coverage to Ben Smith's first and second mentions of it on his Politico blog.
ABC's The Note (the must-read each morning by the political press corps) found, in the story, a metaphor for what many watchful observers see as the Palin bubble beginning to burst:
Seven weeks out from Election Day, Team McCain is about to learn that some things even Gov. Sarah Palin can't make better.
(And as Palin's credibility takes a hit -- there are some things that even a stretch in the gubernatorial tanning bed can't make sunny -- could the Palin phenom be cresting?)
The Note credited US magazine, errantly, as having reported the story. Again, that kind of mutation regarding the paternity of a media virus is to be expected.
NBC's First Read reported it, too (referring to Narco News as an "Alaska blog.")
Rightwing bloggers (just check the "trackbacks" list on Michele Malkin's latest outrage d'jour) have taken the bait, complaining about the story while unwittingly serving as delivery persons for it.
Mmmmmm. We're drinking their milkshakes. Slurp!
The New York Times is now on it, too, citing, "Narco News, a site more usually concerned with the antidrug efforts in Latin America than Alaskan grooming habits."
And ABC News suggests, this morning, that Narco News' tanning bed story has caused chaos in the Alaska governor's press office.
"It's vetting gone haywire," said Gov. Sarah Palin's beleaguered press secretary, Bill McAllister, as he dealt with a new round of questions about the governor -- this time about a tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion in Juneau.
John Aloysius Farrell of US News & World Report works it into the overall campaign narrative:
And so the great commoner, Sarah Palin, can install a $35,000 tanning bed in her home, yet be Just Like Me.
ABC's Jake Tapper says she is "just like me" (meaning "him") - with her own tanning bed and "teleprompter issues" she's really a typical... TV anchor!
The Independent of London reports:
The political world is agog with the report that Sarah Palin furnished her governor's mansion with a tanning bed.
TechPresident covered the "meta" story about how "blogs are making news."
Cenk Uygur got so excited that he hired Conroy and I as writers without telling us:
"Imagine if John Edwards had a tanning bed in his house?" he asked. Wish we'd thought of that!
(Cenk: You can cut the ghostwriting check to The Fund for Authentic Journalism.)
And what would a media virus be if it didn't infect Maureen Dowd of the New York Times?
The latest news from Alaska is that the governor keeps a tanning bed in the Juneau mansion. As The Los Angeles Times pointed out, when Palin declared May 2007 Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska, the press release explained that skin cancer was caused by "the sun and from tanning beds."
I admit I got a chuckle watching Keith Olbermann ask the stiff Newsweek writer Howard Fineman to comment upon Palin's tanning bed, as Fineman grimaced and uncomfortably tried to dance around a topic he felt was below him:
The next move in the trajectory of our news report's journey through the entertainment press to the political press will now be into the comedy media. Wonkette gave it a nice launch there, and it shouldn't be long until it hits the late night TV monologues and perhaps even Saturday Night Live producers will tell the prop department to line up a tanning bed for Tina Fey to play with on television.
For media like Wonkette, the tanning bed is already the gift that keeps on giving. A second headline from the Wonketeers: "International Tanning Association Tilts Toward Windmills, the Sun."
Newsday's "Punchlines" feature by comedy writers includes a one-liner from Pedro Bartes:
"Sarah Palin is now under criticism for having a tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion. The governor claims she did it because she wanted to understand people of color."
Of course, some people are funny without intending to be, like Buffalo, New York, Republican congressional candidate Dan Humiston, who owns a chain of tanning bed salons, who deadpanned to his local daily newspaper:
"There are many tanning salons in Washington. I think she'll be fine."
You can't make this stuff up.
And Associated Press reports that, when it comes to the Alaska governor's staff's ability to field questions, le affaire tanning bed was the straw that broke the moose's back. There are gag orders all around, now:
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is effectively turning over questions about her record as Alaska's governor to John McCain's political campaign, part of an ambitious Republican strategy to limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.
Does that make Bill Conroy, officially, the last journalist to ever get a substantive interview with an Alaska state government spokesman?
AOL News mused aloud today:
Look out, Governor Palin, this meme is "out there" now. Steer clear of Greek columns, unplug that tanning bed and you might make it to November without being fatally smeared as an uppity elitist.
There's that word - "meme" - again!
That's quite the four-day run. Still, it's not that big a deal - all in a week's work - and we're on to other stories while leaving the rest of the pack to wrestle with this one. But it sure has been fun to watch this child grow!
Email this page
This so rocks, Al
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by rikyrah (not verified)I love that this has upset a lot of folks. ...hee hee hee
Real journalism at work.
Two conflicting emotions here
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Kat (not verified)Happiness at how your baby grew, and disgust at how much the trad media got wrong (Narco News is an "Alaskan blog"? They can't have an intern check that simple fact?)
Nice work there, Al.
I will send a little money
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Nancy (not verified)Once again, I will send a little money your way. This is a perfect example of your insightful writing that I have come to love. Give us more like it! I have to say it has been cool watching this tidbit travel from our little corner here to Olbermann and beyond.
Thanks
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Nate (not verified)Thanks Al, what an incredibly thorough recap. Naysayers were wrong, apparently, and if this harmless, but humorous story, even took the "shine" off Gov.Palin even a little bit, then all the better. It most definitely didn't backfire.
You know, the day you posted the story
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Bryan BishopI almost posted a comment asking what you were up to... and now we all get to see.
Well done, Al. Well done!!!
Fun, fun, fun
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Okke OrnsteinGreat piece on how this works. That tongue in cheeck comment in the NYT, "Narco News, a site more usually concerned with the antidrug efforts in Latin America than Alaskan grooming habits", was exactly what I thought when I tried to imagine you and Bill on the phone interviewing owners of Alaskan tanning parlors.
I'd love it if you wrote more on this subject, it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and I wonder what your thoughts are on timing and the different cultural environments and so on.... or maybe I should ask for an example where it didn't work and what went wrong. The ability to "inject" stories into the mainstream is something many who publish one way or the other would like to - and need to - know more about I suppose.
One thought I had when the story broke was that it is visual, it's so easy to picture the whole thing, and that this would help it to spread widely.
what a fun story!
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by louisev (not verified)It's got more legs than a centipede! But one of the strangest ironies is, it is one of the nails in the coffin of the Palin phenomenon, where far more alarming news about cronyism and earmarks would tend not to stick, the tanning bed is, not to stretch a metaphor - sticking. Great work!
Fascinating
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Kelcie (not verified)As a journalism student, this kind of thing is fascinating to watch. This is the kind of journalism I want to practice someday. Factual, responsible, and pretty amusing to watch as it spreads.
Kudos to you, Al, and thank you for remaining authentic! I'll hopefully be donating when I get paid this weekend. I can't wait to read your reporting from the ground!
Good stuff
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Catherine CainAl,
This is a great write-up on a subject I've never consciously been aware of in the journalism new world of "instant messaging". Having said that, I have to admit that I did not understand your position on the wolf ad and then your thoughts that the tanning bed story would be an important story to publish. However, suffice it to say that it would concern me more if I agreed with everything you said and considering that I have zero writing and publishing experience, well...there you are. I'm floundering in this analysis like a Palin in a Bush Doctrine or a McCain on Spain.
Congratulations on your trip plans! I'm sending my donation this weekend after I get back from canvassing in Michigan on Saturday.
Well Done Al
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Anonymous (not verified)Mother, Moose hunter, Maverick, Tanning bed owner. No that doesn't fit. Let us try again.
Mother, Maverick, Tanned Maverick. Better. Still not quite right.
Prudent user of UV radiation, Maverick, Moosehunter. Shit didn't work in mother.
This tanning bed thing just isn't fitting our image. Can we change it to an outdoor grill?
Great Education
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Jess (not verified)Hi Al,
This is a great education on how things can work if done well. Thank you for sharing it with all of us!
I know appreciation and thanks don't pay the bills but they are all I can offer right now. Thank you so much! I appreciate this web site and the work you do.
John Edwards' tanning bed
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Anonymous (not verified)And this will keep bringing it up...
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Jess (not verified)Thanks, Al, for posting
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Walter Dufresne (not verified)Thanks, Al, for posting about this phenomenon written about by my Brooklyn neighbor Doug Rushkoff. We readers shouldn't forget that the GOP has this stuff figured out, too. Frank Luntz further popularized the technique with his "It's Not What You Say, It's What They Hear". Thank heavens the Obama folks understand this.
Congratulations
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Stephen C. Rose (not verified)Now the next assignments are:
1. Chasing down whether there is a documentable "Imus-moment" attributable to Palin on the occasion of Barack's final defeat of Hillary Clinton.
2. Finding some way to breach the stone wall the McCain operatives have erected to make us ignot Troopergate.
Subscription?
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by bonkers (not verified)People don't blink an eye at subscribing to magazines, newspapers, cable/dish, etc. Imagine if a just tiny fraction of 1% of the public would cancel just one of their subscriptions and apply, say $10/mo to The Field or other favorite New Media outlet, they'd save some money while supporting the growth of the New Media, which is key to restoring the Constitution. What's a dish subscription cost nowadaze anyway?!?
Just this week alone we have the Tantastic story from Al/Bill, and the Foreclosure story outta Mich from an Authentic Journalist. If The Field and The Fund had a bump up of monthly subscribers, just think about how many stories they could break and commentary to make. It's up to us to make it happen. We can do this.
(can you sign up for a monthly contribution here?)
wow
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by oona (not verified)Poor Palin - I so wanna be the brown girl!
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by PA from Canada (not verified)Al,
You and Bill are simply brilliant. Everytime I saw you referenced in other media stories I just cracked up. I have met you and know that you are dam clever. Barrack's team could take some pointers from your offense play of the week.
Ho-hum, Al. Yes the story
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Steven HuntHo-hum, Al. Yes the story has legs, but the most important and shocking part is being intentionally submerged and censored:
The fact that Palin puts her down's syndrome baby, Trig, in the tanning bed and speaks in tounges over the kid for hours on end is super creepy.
For a woman that hunts for the family's meat ration, runs the state as govenor, and pumps out kids faster than you can empty a state of the art shot-gun--I wouldn't be surprised if there were super-natural forces giving her advice.
The lamestream media simply won't expose Palin's brand of idiosyncratic American medevilism, and the cover-up is par for the course.
In Alaska, having a personal tanning bed, and a suped-up snow machine, is a sign of 'having made it." Couple this indulgence and Fargo yuppie accountrement with the savage nature of penticolstal imperiist delusion (God is guiding US in Iraq), with Russia threatening from the near-far, and you have the perfect media storm waiting to happen.
What next? Did Palin import 100 gallons of Hawiian Tropic? Did she instruct the Alaskan National Guard to attend tanning sessions?
Stay tuned.
Hilarious
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by yg bluig (not verified)While Rome is burning
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Renee MancusoYou are safely ensconced in your tanning bed.......
@ Stephen
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Alexa (not verified)1. Chasing down whether there is a documentable "Imus-moment" attributable to Palin on the occasion of Barack's final defeat of Hillary Clinton.
There is one. Google: Sambo beat the bitch
Said in an Alaskan diner June 5th or 6th, and reported on a blog by an ex-pat ex-journalist living in Toronto.
Bravo! Encore!
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Lenore (not verified)Kudos, Al; I'd vote for this as Meme of the Week (next week: the socialization of the financial sector). I was skeptical about this as a catchy story, but I'm delighted to have been wrong.
And I love that you not only crafted the little baby virus beautifully, but have so lovingly documented its progress through the digestive system of the Innertubz and MSM.
Fascinating ...
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by jon (not verified)Incredibly useful information, thanks for sharing.
jon
PS: Although I do share Catherine's question why you see this as a different kind of impact than the wolf ad ... not disagreeing, just curious
Where's the documentation
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Al GiordanoSteven - That's exactly the kind of undocumented claim - "puts her down's syndrome baby, Trig, in the tanning bed" - that would have discredited the story from the get-go and contaminated the factually proven part so fatally that even the truths attached to it would have lost all strength and credibility.
You especially can't mention people's children in an accusation you can't prove.
I'm deadly serious when I say that if a story has a single false or unproven claim in it, that destroys the entire story, and increases public sympathy for the subject, keeping that which is true from coming to light. That's exactly the kind of behavior by bloggers (or commenters) I'm warning against: shoot yourself in the foot why don't ya?
And if you don't understand how that claim - involving an infant child in it (and a special needs one, at that) - invokes moral outrage against the one making it, you haven't read what I've posted here very carefully at all.
What a week it's been
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Tara Van Nimanand there's still one more day! Thanks so much for this contribution, Al. It's amazing how fast this one took off. Sometimes stories percolate for many days before they make it in to the MSM.
I couldn't comment during the day but between the Spain fiasco, Palin advocating for a transparency in gov't law that OBAMA already sponsored and had signed in to law, and Palin's slip on the PALIN and McCain administration, it's been a pretty good day!
I'm not so sure how far the Spain story will ripple but to the degree that it does, it has the potential to really peel off some of the wiser Republicans who will admit to themselves that the man is not ready for prime time.
Looking forward to your trip, Al.
Crying Wolf
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Al GiordanoCatherine and Jon - As I said in the post about it, the "wolf" ad runs smack into an existing set of culture wars and on the wrong side of them - pleasing the already converted while alienating many in the middle.
I suppose if tanning bed enthusiasts felt persecuted and looked down upon by "liberals" the tanning bed story wouldn't have had such legs. It would have gotten caught in the crossfire of an already polarized situation.
(That's why I think that, for example, it's become so impossible to discuss almost any aspect of the Israel-Palestine conflict and make any progress at all in public opinion: because both sides are so polarized already. Opponents of cruelty to animals have such strong feelings about it that they can't understand how anybody might feel differently about it, to the point where they become instantly unreasonable and unable to discuss it, mirror images of the folks that if you challenge their gun owners, they'll reach for the gun; if they even think that you challenge their meat eating, the hot dog will taste better as they chomp it to your face; if they think you are messing with what they consider to be basic to their cultural norms, you lose any chance at convincing them of anything.
That dynamic doesn't exist with the tanning bed situation. The only sector defensive about tanning beds are the stupid Indoor Tanning industry lobby and its idiotic spokesman up in Buffalo!
In other words, had the story criticized the governor for going to a tanning salon, all clients of such salons (the industry says 30 million) could have felt attacked, whereas those that have a private salon at home have much smaller numbers, and the existence of the private salon in fact can invoke class resentment by those who can't afford that and instead go to a public salon.
It's apples and oranges. There's no comparison between a story that has already existing emotional polarization in society and another that doesn't.
Journalism at its BEST!
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Ezzy (not verified)To know Al is to love Al-
I knew their was something strong about this story when you decided to post it. I spent the primaries with you and you definitely play hardball, Al. I love to sit back and watch your work unfold and this story really was out there at a perfect time. The strength of your journalism and your knack for just knowing, never ceases to amaze me. Great work--keep on, keeping!
Re: tiniest wrong detail can invalidate everything
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by some other george (not verified)That's exactly the kind of undocumented claim ... that would have discredited the story from the get-go and contaminated the factually proven part so fatally that even the truths attached to it would have lost all strength and credibility.
Boy howdy. For just one example, recall how the (intentionally planted IMO) misdirection around an IBM typewriter font destroyed the entire "Bush the Deserter" story, not to mention the long career of a solid journalist.
Well done, Al.
totally OT but curious
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Josselyn BorowiecAt a turning of the tide
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Dan CarrMediacurves analysis of "Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund" Ad
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Jeff (not verified)Al, I know you wrote pretty disapprovingly of the ad that the DWAF was running on Palin's record of aerial wolf hunting, and I basically agreed with your analysis. I watched the ad and, while I certainly don't approve of the practice, it just didn't seem like that great of an ad... Just reminded me of crazy animal activists or something...
With that being said, Nate over at 538 pointed out that Mediacurves tested the ad and found it to be the most effective ad out by EITHER campaign in a month. Based on their poll, it actually moved a net 6% of voters towards Obama/Biden. Here's the link:
http://mediacurves.com/Politics/J7011-Anit-PalinAd-WildlifeRecord/
Now I'm wondering if I should be funding this thing. Maybe more people are disgusted with this practice than I would've originally guessed? What do you think, Al?
Mediacurves
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Al GiordanoJeff - I've already commented about the Mediacurves report on another thread. Here's the short version: it tested for emotional responses, but not - at least in what the company published - voter preferences. Of course the ad had the highest emotional response! Guns are being shot, there's blood on the snow, etcetera. A lot of folks, here and elsewhere, have said they can't even watch it! But intensity of experience does not mean changing of preferences.
Mediacurves is a company trying to sell a product - it's dial response technology. And so it does these public, online, demonstrations of that product. But if you read it carefully, there's nothing to suggest in its data that it moves votes positively or doesn't move them negatively. It only measures emotions.
Bias vs. impartiality in journalism
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Ben Spector (not verified)Hi Al, I am a fan of yours and try to emulate you as much as I can (including copying your stuff) in my tweets and blogs. As a democrat, I clearly have a bias in all my posts aand readily admit that. Even if I start feeling like "Chicken Little" sometimes, I put on a brave face, and publish only articles favorable to Obama and Democrats. Is the image of an impartial fourth estate false? Did Cronkite and Brinley have favorite Political Parties, and did they slant their stories to favor one party over another. Just a thought. Ben Spector
One more important thing about Mediacurves
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Al GiordanoIf you look at Mediacurves own data on how the "wolf ad" affected Obama's favorability to unfavorable rating (and, again, this doesn't even indicate voter preferences):
It moved exactly 2 out of 104 Democrats from the unfavorable to favorable categories.
It moved exactly 0 out of 103 Republicans and 0 of 105 Independents from the unfavorable to favorable categories.
And that's in the heat of the emotional moment after just seeing the sensationalist emotion-tugging ad!
People are reading far too much into minor, statistically insignificant shifts between "very favorable" and "somewhat favorable" and between "very unfavorable" and "somewhat unfavorable." But the net fave-vs.-neg rating shifts, out of 312 voters surveyed, was by a total of two respondents, both of them Democrats, that's a shift of less than one percent of the overall group surveyed, within a margin of error - even if it was more precise polling - of over 6 percent!
False Objectivity
Submitted on September 18th, 2008 by Al GiordanoBen - Proclamations of "impartiality" or "objectivity" by journalists only let us know that the one claiming it is either terribly self-deluded or lies willfully. There is no way to be unbiased (even not caring about a matter is itself a bias!)
My belief - and what I tell my students - is that a journalist should always declare his and her biases, but also adhere strictly to facts and a basic sense of fairness. I also think readers trust that person more - even when they disagree with him - than the one that claims to be unbiased.
Rushkoff
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Chris E. (not verified)Al, it's interesting that you were inspired by Douglas Rushkoff. A friend of mine hipped me to him in high school. He's a very sharp guy, though he's always struck me as being on the lookout for a movement or subculture to put himself at the head of.
He wrote a fine post about Palin's convention speech on his blog. I thought this part especially cut right to the core, and is apropos here:
What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear: community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below. From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.
Last night, the Republican Convention made it clear they prefer war. [...] It is better to be an international aggressor - a bulldog with lipstick - than led by the misguided notion that attacking people itself makes the world a more dangerous place.
In their attack on community organizing - a word combination they pretended they didn’t know what it meant - Giuliani and Palin revealed their refusal to acknowledge the kinds of bottom-up processes through which our society was built, and through which local communities can begin to assert some authority over their schools, environments, and economies. Without organized communities, you don’t get the reduction in centralized government the Republicans pretend to be arguing for. In their view, community organizing as, at best, equivalent to disruptive and unpredictable Al Qaeda activity.
It turns out he's got a book coming out next year that will probably touch on these themes, called Life Incorporated.
Damn this is good
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Tara Van NimanJust had to post this and now I'm off to bed.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1803307744
These guys are really just on fire this week. I love the music. And you gotta love that they used Carly's $42M golden parachute against them when they have been out on the trail calling for an end to that abuse. I mean, not even the Democrats have gone there. How exactly do REPUPLICANS propose to interfere in business practices such as that?
Congratulations Mr Alberto,
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Chris Rich (not verified)Your exposition alone is probably Neiman(sic) Fellow material. And I'm noticing another ominous aspect. The GOP is essentially corporate oligarchs manipulating the emotions of the benighted. While the benighted were inclined to see Palin as one 'a' them, the real controlling forces of the oligarchy are beginning to mutter in their beards about the wild stupidity of selecting Palin in the first place.
David Brooks, their usual courtier and interpreter is getting nervous about this witless Hail Mary and Chuck Hegel is vociferously disgusted. The true GOP base is in Wall Street, not Main street, and they do this pretend thing every four years to fleece the rubes.
We now seem to have this 'perfect storm' where Wall Street is in crisis, blowing chunks and hanging by the thread of an ugly tax payer bail out as Main street is puzzled by the absurdist cheese of a tanning bed. And yes, it IS ending up as a health advisory story on my idiot Yahoo page where the whole concept of tanning is being called out.
Abbie must look from wherever and chuckle at this perspicasity.
And I noticed another news item where people turned out well for some McCain/Palin event but left as soon as the woman shut up leaving McCain in the lurch. I think Nate's people mentioned it on 528.
They came for the freak show and bailed as soon as gramps hit the podium.
tabloids
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Chris E. (not verified)Bravo!!!
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Love the Field in NV (not verified)The best blog with the best education mixed in. I love it! Al & Bill rock!
NV will go blue this year, I can see it happening before my eyes.
Al- What do you think of the spanish language ads airing from both camps? I just read this diary on Kos and if you have a moment would love your take.
October Surprise
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Blue_SD (not verified)Hey, Field Hands! I just wanted to make a late night post about the huge, huge story that came out today. The October Surprise isn't going to involve bin Laden or Iran, but it will involve the US economy. The Bush administration is desperately trying to pull the levers of government to manipulate the stock market so John McCain can win the election. How are they going to do this? Through ridiculous new measures that will prop up the stock market in the short term, but lead to a possible Depression in the long run. Basically, here's the gist: The SEC just decided to ban short selling. For those of you who aren't aware of the practice, it basically means that you borrow shares of stock from a broker and sell them immediately, expecting the price to go down. If the price does drop, you buy the shares back and return them to the broker, keeping the profit. Naturally, if you short a stock and the price goes up, you lose money. Theoretically, your losses could be infinite if the price continues to go up, but in practice, there's a time limit, after which you must return the shares regardless.
The reason short selling affects the markets is the fact that the selling can trigger declines in a company's stock price. Shorting stock is a perfectly legal and common practice among investors who are pessimistic about a company's prospects. For instance, I think that US automakers are aging dinosaurs, and I don't hold a good view of their future, so I have continually shorted Ford, GM, et al. With the new rules going into effect, investors will only be able to buy stock and hold it, hoping the price goes up. In the short term, this will create huge market rallies, as people buy up shares and cover (buy back) their last remaining shorts. But in the long term, it will be terrible for the market. Short sellers prevent a stock's price from reaching exorbitant levels, and the converse is also true. When a stock starts to tank, many short sellers will cover their position, buying back shares of the company and establishing a support. In a market without short sellers, the volatility will be ridiculous, and the lows will be lower. There's nothing stopping a full on crash now. And for those of you who think you can just buy puts: who the hell is going to sell you a put when they can't short the stock to hedge themselves? That's right - nobody with a modicum of sanity.
Basically, the market will rally for a couple of months, buying John McCain critical time and taking the edge off Obama's assault. JM can then turn back to his old strategy of inane attacks and petty distractions, and although lots of people will continue to be hurt by the economy, Obama's criticisms won't have as much of an eye opening effect. Will this win John McCain the election? No, not on its own. There are dozens of variables involved. But it can't hurt him - and the real issue behind this story is that our government continues to try and manipulate the democratic process for the sake of the corrupt, thuggish few.
If you thought the 2004 terror alerts were despicable, then, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, "you ain't seen nothin' yet."
Re: Al and Objectivity
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Paul StollerI think your approach to journalism mirrors Obama's approach to politics. I think that is how he is able to work across ideological lines without compromising his principles.
It reminds me of how he was elected as President of the Harvard Law review, if I remember correctly he was actually elected by the conservative members of the law review. They elected him not because they agreed with him but because they respected him.
Taking a tone that acknowledes disagreement but fosters an environment of honesty and fairness allows one to find common ground much more easily.
with all due respect, Al
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by siddhartha (not verified)On the one hand, it is interesting to see this story "grow". On the other, it is so depressing. The US election affects millions of people, real people, not just here but all over the world. Our economic, environmental, and foreign policies are ravaging the globe. And for elections to become such a bizarro world where "media" simply "feeds" off each other in one big round of mutual masturbation is pathetic and disgusting. I am not a US citizen and I cannot vote but I am doing what I can to participate in this election by canvassing, donating, and encouraging my students to participate regardless of their politics, etc. Due to my immigration history I have never voted in my life. To watch people not vote and take this so lightly is heartbreaking.
And, Al, you loudly proclaimed the need for nuance, yet it is ironic to read your continued repetition of a cliched and outdated reduction of the reader responses spurred by the wolf ad to "culture wars" symbolized by "cruelty" (which you conflate with death and/or meat-eating; it's not the death that's the issue, or the use, Al, it's the cruelty) and "meat-eating" and hunting (when not one person, not one, said anything against them) as opposed to the central point being made (even by hunters): the cruelty is gratuitous. The issue is a mode of production, the same system of production that we have seen toppling around us all week on Wall Street AND which we are witnessing in the natural world, which is premised on a relationship to nature and thus to ourselves that is catastrophic and delusional. Just like the bizarro media world you have mapped out is an alternative universe, so does global finance and systems of production create this alternative eco-system that does not even take into account nature's economy, the subsistence economy, and women in the poorest parts of the world producing labor (a site of production even Marx didn't recognize) as well as maintaining the home, the "biological" side of the male (which applies even here). Why is cruelty to animals cruelty to ourselves? Because cruelty is not extractive, it is not use, it is gratuitous. It is a HUMAN relationship to nature and other species, not an animal one. We are lucky to live in a place that is alive. Perhaps we should start treating it like it is and maybe we will start treating ourselves like we are living beings and not cogs in a machine, simply put here for use by others for profit/labor with no value in ourselves, just like the animals we cannot bear to see ourselves in precisely because we know how closely we resemble them even as we, the paragons of reason, treat them as objects, and confine, torture, and mutilate them into being so. You know who else is confined, tortured, bombed, mutilated, and encouraged to be an over-consuming automaton to continue being cogs in a machine? We have a choice: Either we continue down the outdated, simplistic mode of emotional reaction that you have repeated (it's working really well for us, isn't it?) or we actually use the reason that supposedly renders us exceptional and recognize that what is cruelty on the individual scale is unsustainability on the macro scale.
So, please give your readers some credit (some of us have studied this issue for years, are published in it, and are activists in poor countries ravaged by US/EU agricultural policies and unsustainable, cruel "development") as they do you on your expertise by not reducing their positions to stereotypes based on a US-centric "culture wars" analysis (as if there are not men and women all over the world fighting for this planet and for all species who have different paradigms that SURVIVED imperialism, genocide, the IMF, World Bank looting and debt-bondage known as development, all done in the name of progress/civilization based precisely on the disastrous relationship to nature and other species that has led to global warming and which poor countries suffer and will suffer the most) just to disingenuously fashion yourself and others as hapless "middle of the road" persons alienated by those who can't bear disagreement. Please. That's as fake as the "biology," "growth," and "reproduction" of "news" you just described. See how easily we render real life and the real world invisible by over laying it with a false and self-propping web of nonsense while the earth, i.e. real biology, growth, reproduction, is dying? Prevention of cruelty/unsustainability is not radical. It is called our humanity. It is called being reasonable. A preference for humans over animals premised on a false dichotomy/hierarchy that regards all other species anthropomorphically is prejudice, not a self-evident truth of reason, or a fact of nature. Obviously, one is "free" to espouse whatever prejudices and "lifestyle" one likes. My point is different: either we pursue "the change we need" in our fundamental self-definition/thinking or we are stuck with the Palintology that is the so-called "culture wars"--as if THEY are a fact of nature. Our hubris, as a species on the macro level, and as a nation on the individual level, which feels entitled to a THIRD of the world's resources and will wage wars, undermine democracies, support dictators and genocide, etc. and destroy our capacity for reason for the rest, THAT is the fierce urgency of now.
fake and real
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Sophie Amrain (not verified)Siddharta,
the media circus is not fake, it it really happening. If you wish for another world, you have to start in the one, which is existing, otherwise failure is guaranteed. Which means you need to know the rules for playing, even if you do abhor them.
As concerns preference of humans over (other) animals: what do you think, would be the preference of polar bears, if they could articulate it? Polar bears or seals or orcas? That humans care most about humans is perfectly reasonable - and if those humans that consider the interests of an ant and a human equally, would run the show, we would be extinct as a species eventually.
Re: October Surprise
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Okke Ornstein@ Blue_SD: It is my understanding that what the SEC has announced is that they are finally going to act against something that has been illegal all along: "naked short selling". This has nothing to do with tanning beds, but is the practice of short selling as you describe it but without even borrowing the stocks to sell short. By lack of any enforcement, everybody has been looking the other way when this was done by hedge funds and others, and it is blamed as a major cause of the current chaos.
My hypothesis - not more than that, really - about why this is happening now is not that this is some sort of Republican ploy, but the result of "the financial markets" giving up on McCain. All this wheeling and dealing - some of it criminal - would have been safe under another Republican government and probably even under Clinton, and it has just dawned on them that neither of these was gonna happen. So they broke the levees and jump with their golden parachutes while they still can. I'm not sure this explains it all but pretty convinced it's an important part of the story.
Veep Selection
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by cdm (not verified)Sarah Palin said Barack regrets now not having picked Hillary Clinton as VP.
Well, I guess that given the economic crisis McCain must be now regretting not having picked Romney...
Al, please, back up a
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Steven HuntAl, please, back up a bit.
What I said was pure humor.
I find the image especially funny--especially in that it highlights the questionable judgement of a religious fanatic that thinks that God is guiding the US hand in bombing and then occupying Iraq.
The Iraq kids don't even get to be 'down's syndrome'--the effen dead.
Again this was only snark. I think it's funny as hell--and so does everyone else I have told it to.
Palin is a hypocritical, war mongering, fanatic--and it is good to expose these people to derision. Trig, of course, is smart enough to know that I wasn't putting him down.
Amen, Siddartha, you make
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Steven HuntAmen, Siddartha, you make cogent points.
Al, in my view, you are also subject to chicken-littling.
As though I give a flying 'f' about the sensibilities of the stupid US herd that might be offended or discomfited by my joke. These are the same people that derided me as 'with the terrorists' as I tried to convince them that attacking Iraq was a bad, immoral move that would lead to an endless cycle of violence.
At least Trig is alive.
The shamlessness of the right wing pathology and hypocrisy needs to be exposed--not coddled because you are afraid that some neanderthal won't vote for Obama.
This tepid and chicken-littlish nature of US liberals means that a progressive adgenda will never get out of the delivery room. I for one am not afraid to slam a KKK'er or their allies upside the head with a 2x4 and renounce their efforts to terrorize. And this is why I can't live in Mississippi. Nor am I afraid to question the patriotism of the folks that would have us be good little wage slaves for the liberal/conservative corporate ruling class here in the US. The reason that I dropped out of the academic community of deluded adjuncts to US imperialism and barbarism.
For the record, I think Trig is great. He will never in his life feel compelled to fry in a tanning bed for venal aesthetic reasons--and you will almost certainly never hear coming form his lips a rationalization for violence that lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings.
Again, Sid, your argument against Al's postition is spot-on. I am tired of coddling the chicken littles on the liberal wing--tired of being told that we should'nt expose the hypocrisy and the lies for what they are.
I saw how this worked during the Clinton era--and I will not sit on my hands as the same half-assed shit is forwarded under an Obama administration.
I never said that you had to include my joke with the culture=war story about the tanning bed that you are patting yourself on the back for.
But I will say that if we don't pull out a 2x4 and go to town on the rightwing for their ignorant, unpatriotic economic policies we will deserve to lose.
Donation counter?
Submitted on September 19th, 2008 by Sebastian (not verified)Al,
I chipped in 50 bucks for the journey (and would like to have it earmarked for vice only heh) but I notice that the counter is not moving.
Why?