Category: Media
Big Mac v. salad – feedback
Contrarian reader Ken Clare thinks Contrarian’s standards slipped with our post of a chart comparing US food subsidies:
Edward Tufte, the “Galileo of Graphics” you introduced us to back in June, refers to images like these as “chartjunk.”
I haven’t taken the time to measure the images you copied (from a committee of physicians who may have had a passing relationship with math sometime in their pasts), but the subsidies pyramid eyeballs closer to a 100-to-1 ratio than the 75-to-25 ratio it is labeled.
Anonymity in news stories
A mea culpa in yesterday’s Washington Post, criticizing the use of anonymous sources in a story widely regarded as a puff piece on Obama lieutenant Rahm Emanuel, sparked these comments from Salon.com’s excellent Glenn Greenwald:
In very limited circumstances, anonymity is valuable and justified (e.g., when someone is risking something substantial to expose concealed wrongdoing of serious public interest). But promiscuous, unjustified anonymity — which pervades the establishment press — is the linchpin of most bad, credibility-destroying reporting. It enables government officials and others to lie to the public with impunity or manipulate them with propaganda, using eager reporters as both their megaphone and shield. It is the weapon of choice for reporters eager to serve as loyal message-carriers and royal court gossip columnists. It preserves and bolsters the culture of secrecy that dominates Washington — exactly the opposite of what a real journalist, by definition, would seek to accomplish (though most modern journalists seem to prefer anonymity, as it makes them appear and feel special and part of the secret halls of power, and allows them to curry favor with powerful officials as their favored loyal message-carrier). In sum, petty or otherwise unjustified uses of anonymity are the hallmark of the power-worshiping, dishonest, unreliable reporter (which is why its most indiscriminate practitioner is Politico). As Izzy Stone put it about the Vietnam War: ”The process of brain-washing the public starts with off-the-record briefings for newspapermen. . . .”
Contrarian and friends on blogging
Contrarian will be at the Inverary Inn’s Thistledown Pub in Baddeck this evening to lead a discussion about blogging sponsored by the Cabot Trail Writers’ Festival, the group that organized this event last fall. In addition to an annual fall festival, the group plans a series of satellite events, of which tonight’s discussion is the first. I’ll be talking about the writerly (journalistic, aesthetic, ethical) aspects of blogging; Mike Targett will be on hand to backstop me on those issues, and to add his technical smarts to the discussion.
The pub serves supper from 5:30 to 8; The fireside blogging discussion, upstairs in the lounge, will begin at 7, followed by live entertainment at 8. So come any time before 7.
Turmoil at The Atlantic
The Atlantic’s* blog section, my single favorite part of the Internet and a frequent source of posts and links here, is in turmoil this morning owing to a redesign that has stripped its superb habitues of the graphical personality and color that made their individual pages so compelling. It didn’t help that a series of glitches accompanied the changeover, including the (apparently temporary) loss of RSS feeds and the (hopefully temporary) disappearance of daily email updates.
The esteemed James Fallows, though characteristically uber-polite, is unable to conceal his unhappiness:
[T]he new layout scheme — in which you see only a few-line intro to each post but no pictures, block quotes, or other amplifying material — unavoidably changes the sensibility and tone of personal blogs. It drains them of variety and individuality, not to mention making them much less convenient to read. Only now that it is gone do I realize how important the placing of photos has been to my own sense of what I wanted to convey, along with the ability to alternate between longer and shorter posts on a “landing” page, or to deliberately save some material for “after the jump” placement.
Krugman on government inefficiency
Liberal economist Paul Krugman is fielding questions in a live chat on the New Yorker website, in connection with a profile of him in the current issue. On the subject of the inherent inefficiency of government:
[G]overnment isn’t nearly as bad — or the private sector nearly as good — as it’s often portrayed. I know I lot of very good, very hard-working government employees; and while I don’t work for a large corporation, I do read Dilbert.
McJellyfish
David Beck of Clarkson University and Jennifer Jacquet of the University of British Columbia won an honorable mention in the illustration category of the [U.S.] National Science Foundation’s 2009 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for Jellyfish Burger.
Other winners include a comic strip about brain development, an animation showing why identical twins become less similar as they grow older, and a two minute video about airline routes. Fuller account here. Slideshow of other winners here. Podcast interview with some of the winners here. (The last two sites may require free registration.)
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – yet more feedback
Previous installments here, here, and here. A longish dissent from reader Jay Wilson:
The way you make it sound, we, the public, are the ones who indirectly caused this problem by forcing our poor beleaguered elected representatives underground and into making the kinds of reckless spending judgements they made. I take issue with that.
As you said in your blog, “Upon taking office, most MLAs set aside established careers in exchange for a job with far less security than comparable positions in the private or public sector.” That once was the case, for a good reason. Once upon a time, MLAs made very little money as elected representatives. To offset their costs of travel, constituency responsibilities, etc, they were given expense money. Fine.
Then more people from different walks of life started getting involved in politics who didn’t necessarily make as much as the usual assortment of doctors, lawyers and businesspeople who had mostly made up the elected ranks. Not to mention the complaints from the very sorts of individuals you referenced: People from higher-paying occupations who said it wasn’t enough to live on and they could make more in the private sector.
Over time, a new sensibility developed along the lines of “Let’s pay them a better salary so that they can afford to live while serving our best interests.” In the interests of fairness, the thought occurred to some that the money spent on expense accounts and the like could be decreased as now these elected officials would actually be making more. That’s not what happened.
In fact, as salaries continued to increase, so did money for expenses and then it diversified into a whole host of different expense categories. MLAs were getting money for everything and the kitchen sink, and who made these changes? Who increased their salaries and expense money? Who made the rules so deliberately ambiguous and full of holes so wide you could drive a tank through them? They did, behind closed doors and in quick legislative motions, with cursory mentions in the local press for the most part.
Please don’t try to excuse MLAs for their sorry behaviour. This is about three things: A pronounced sense of entitlement, a disconnect from reality and pure abject greed. Maybe it isn’t on the same scale as the scandals in Britain and even Newfoundland, but those three things are present in each situation and they are things we should all be vigilant against.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – more feedback
Previous installments here and here. Paul Pross, emeritus professor of public administration at Dalhousie and the author of several books on lobbying, NGOs, and the formation of public policy, thinks we are being too hard on our politicians:
I first met a politician fifty years ago. Since then, as a political scientist teaching at Dalhousie and, since retirement, as an active party member, I have met many more. A few turned out to be crooks. There were some self-important, pompous twits. But the majority were decent men and women who worked hard at a challenging and often stressful job.
They don’t deserve the abuse being heaped on them.
We should ask why MLA’s spend their allowances in the way they do.
For example, most MLAs seem to have bought cameras. Why? This is an electronic age and photographs are an important part of making the work of the MLA visible to voters. MLAs need photographs of meetings with constituents and the events they attend to put in newsletters, press releases and to use as videos on websites. Leaders and some other MLAs need professional quality equipment because, as Stefan Dion discovered, leaders can’t afford to look amateurish. Professional equipment can be expensive.
MLAs’ charitable donations have also been criticized. MLAs are approached by numerous charities and worthy causes. It’s hard for them to refuse, or even to give a small donation for major local projects such as a recreation centre or purchase of hospital equipment. So many politicians donate far more every year than most of us.
We clearly need updated and more explicit rules governing politicians’ expense accounts. But we should ensure that they adequately support legitimate political expenses. In fact, we have less need for highly detailed regulations than for rules that encourage respect for public money and discourage a culture of entitlement.
The media could help to achieve that if effort were put into showing the public exactly what politicians do when they are not sitting in the Legislature and why they spend what they do.
Ceremony
I hesitate to start this, for fear of luring Olympic-worshiping bores out of their rec-rooms, but US bloggers had a field day with the perfectly hideous opening ceremony in Vancouver. My favorite was Heather Havrilesky in Salon.com, Moneyquotes:
Some dramatic photography paired with soaring music and a lot of melodramatic prose. “Here, where a swerving coastline submits to waves of glacial peaks, where the mapping of the Western world came to an end, the discovery yet begins anew!” Praise Jesus! Who writes this stuff?
Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams perform the lamest song since that thing they play at the end of the NCAA basketball tournament, “One Shining Moment”: “This is your moment, your time to run like the wind!” I’m flashing back to Up With People. First Nations dancers are jumping up and down like the fraudience at a Miley Cyrus concert.
Now here comes a tribute to “the frigid North.” It’s snowing. Donald Sutherland is murmuring into a microphone somewhere. People in white are walking through the snow….
“The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speaks to me, and my heart soars,” says Donald Sutherland….
Now here’s a tap dancer on the platform, and more maple leaves. Now there are swarms of tap dancers. Tap dancing doesn’t exactly read in a stadium. Oh, we’ll fix it by adding sparklers to our heels.
Wow, this is quite seriously not good. Now more maple leaves are falling from the ceiling. There are quite a few identifiably uncoordinated people in the mix out there. Oh God. When will it end?
Naturally, Canadian readers fired back, including this beaut from someone who styled herself, Sweet Jane.
We put the proudest, butchiest lesbian ever on an international stage to sing the living shit out of a song widely considered to be among the best ever written. Ever. We’re understandably proud of that. You don’t think it was appropriate. Go read the words – conveniently googleable! (Also, that lesbian? Totally allowed to get married here in our hopelessly-decade-behind-the-times little backwater. When, oh, when will we ever catch up to rest of the world?)
Now the good news, for those who imagine such things to be important, Nate Silver’s wonderful poly-sci statistics blog, Fivethirtyeight.com, projects that Canada — Canada! — will win the most medals at these games.
Don’t worry. We’ve sent Nate’s slide rule out to get it checked.
Hat tip: Fritz McEvoy (but don’t blame him for the snarky stuff).
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – feedback
Contrarian reader Kirby McVicar responds to our post on MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery:
The question that springs to my mind is: “Who are you and what have you done with Parker Donham?”
Resigned MLA Richard Hurlburt
What I hear you say is, ”Well, MLA’s only stole a little bit, and it’s the media’s and the public’s fault for not providing adequate salary.” Are you serious?
What does this line of thinking say to all the honest MLA’s who did not steal from the public purse: “You missed out on an opportunity we, the public and the media, set up for you. How stupid of you!”
I agree that politicians need an independent body to set remuneration policy that is binding, but this issue should not be confused with theft from the public purse.
Where is the CBC Parker, from the “Harry and Parker Show” who would have spent 15 minutes railing against such a rationale? Has the election of an NDP government outed you?
I was out of the country, but wasn’t it a Tory MLA who resigned? After the jump, more reader reaction.
