Typical Washington Post Headline:
D.C. Council to vote on nation’s most generous family leave law: 11 weeks off, up to 90 percent pay
Note the modifier “generous.” Not “intrusive” or “coercive” or “attempting to be generous with other people’s money” or “blithely unaware of unintended consequences.” Just “generous.” Why didn’t every government think of that? Why not have a whole year off, with 150 percent of pay? That would be even more “generous.”
Interestingly, the print edition had a much more neutral headline, but the lead paragraph still refers to the potential for a “generous” paid leave policy.
I see this editorial bias in many stories, particularly the local ones. I have remarked before how the Montgomery County School system is always described as having an “excellent reputation,” when the only thing that is excellent about it is the pay and benefits lavished on the employees, most of whom are not classroom teachers. The outcomes, which the Post never looks at, but which are readily available on the state department of education web site, are mediocre.
Finally, I would note that the Post‘s coverage of Fidel Castro was much less antagonistic than its coverage of Donald Trump. This is a case where I think that the attempt to view a phenomenon along the progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and accepting Castro’s self-designation as a savior of the oppressed, is pathetically misguided. Instead, conservatives who view Castro as barbaric along the civilization-barbarism axis and libertarians who view him as coercive along the liberty-coercion axis strike me as much more sensible.
One of my fantasy jobs is “conservative curmudgeon” at the Post. I would write a weekly column listing all of the biases I find each week in the paper, most of which are not even in the editorial section. Maybe next year I will start a regular weekly series of blog posts along those lines.
Curmudgeons do tend to be self-appointed.
And aren’t often thought of as charitable.
Not “intrusive” or “coercive” or “attempting to be generous with other people’s money” or “blithely unaware of unintended consequences.”
Well, I know the priorities for Washington DC is for families though. In our capitalist culture, where the nation spends money shows us where are our priorities are at.
> In our capitalist culture, where the nation spends money shows us where are our priorities are at.
I agree. But the DC Counsel isn’t spending a single thin dime on this. They are using coercive power to force others to do it.
But I agree with you that if the DC Counsel really cared about families, they would use their own money to fund this initiative.
I agree with you but the council does not have the money. At this point in history, I see half of conservatives screaming about free market economics and the other half screaming about culture with decreased ‘family values’ (In reality most social issues are improved from the 1980s Reagan era which probably why the conservative family values are losing their voice.)
I think the simplest reason why there modern ‘Secular Stagnation’ is because the low birth rates of slowing the biggest input to both AD-AS curves which is number of people both producing & consuming. Tyler Cowen linked to page of the economic slowdown is caused by ‘aging’ but I think the key variable is low fertility which in the long run causes ‘aging’
The owner of Rolling Stone was just rewarded with an exclusive interview with the President after being required to pay several million dollars for running a story the jury found to be fake at the high legal standard of ‘actual malice’, that is, that the scrutinizers at his magazine knew was fake news, or at the very least was published with reckless disregard as to whether it was fake news.
There are many more stories from the last year, especially including allegations regarding interactions with police officers, in which prestigious mainstream outlets published claims as if they were confirmed facts that later turned out to be false, and even ‘fake’. Not to mention CNN faking phone call audio and transcripts via manipulative edits.
If it weren’t for double standards …
What’s even more ironic is that the Rolling Stone interview talks to Obama about the problem of fake news as if they weren’t the problem.
And there is the additional problem of an original, if credulous (or wilfully blind), report accurately writing up a hoax which is ‘too good to check’, and which is then endlessly repeated. It’s like the fruit of the poisoned tree. The numerous ‘Faked Hate’ incidents in the past several years are a big source of Fake News.
ALL EMAILS ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!
And obviously the coverage of our sociopathic new kleptocrat has been much much much much too positive.
What if it were just factual, truthful, in-depth, and then let us decide positivity or negativity?
“One of my fantasy jobs is “conservative curmudgeon” at the Post. I would write a weekly column listing all of the biases I find each week in the paper, most of which are not even in the editorial section. Maybe next year I will start a regular weekly series of blog posts along those lines.” Yes, please, sooner or later.
I have a fantasy that there might be a social studies (or whatever the topic is currently called) teacher out there who makes this a regular classroom exercise, not just looking for liberal bias, but any subtle deviations from “just the facts”. Of course, we must deal with those that think there are no “facts”…
If criticizing other’s prejudices makes you feel good, OK.
Otherwise it is useless. Maybe you could find for your time a more productive occupation.
A little presumptuous to call decrying family friendly policies, however flawed, as conservative, especially these days.
Not-for-nothing, but Hillary, with the recount, is doing what the media went ape#### about what they pretended Trump said he would do about respecting the election result.
A better name for journalism would be “narrativing” or “story telling.” If they weren’t so busy narrativing, they might figure out, as I believe I have, that if Trump tweets about flag burning, that means (I bet) he is nominating Mitt Romney for secretary of state.
Note how Googling “donald trump mitt romney” yields almost entirely “Mitt is a sellout” memes. The truth is basically the opposite of the popular narrative.
That’s not “fake” news, that is just biased news. And biased by way of language that cleverly controls how readers perceive the issue.
Are “sanctuary cities” cities that provide sanctuary from unjust laws? Or are they “subversive cities” for subverting fair law. If opposition to Islam is Islamophobia, is opposition to symbols of the US Confederacy, Confederatephobia?
+1 on Kling applying to write for the Post, or writing about news bias language here or elsewhere.
Point of info, by “fake news” he is making fun of the establishment media’s concerns, entirely objective I assure you, that people are getting some of their information from the internet.
You can always find bias if you want. I had a more generous helping of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving than my wife. Definitely not coercive or intrusive, and since I always make twice as much as we need, no one got less as a result. It was still a more generous helping. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Steve
“This is a case where I think that the attempt to view a phenomenon along the progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and accepting Castro’s self-designation as a savior of the oppressed, is pathetically misguided.”
I was actually thinking about the three-axis model and Castro over the weekend. It seemed obvious to me that one could apply the oppressor-oppressed axis by noting that Castro was the oppressor and the Cuban people were the oppressed. My thought was that this would be the most effective way to demonstrate to progressives why their Castro lovefest was so misguided. That might be more effective than arguing along the liberty-coercion or civilization-barbarism axes, which don’t resonate with progressives. I don’t see the oppressor-oppressed axis as a particularly enlightening way to gain insight into a phenomenon precisely because the labeling of oppressor and oppressed can be chosen to be self-serving. The oppressor-oppressed axis is a *rhetorical* axis, not an analytical one. One can express a pre-existing view along that axis, but that axis doesn’t actually allow one to meaningfully derive a view.
“…one could apply the oppressor-oppressed axis by noting that Castro was the oppressor and the Cuban people were the oppressed. ”
Yep, that sounds perfectly reasonable, but it is very difficult to get those on the left to adopt that perspective for oppressive Marxist governments. And this is true even when the Marxist government is oppressing those who are members of a protected victim class elsewhere (e.g. gays in Cuba). It’s even true where the repressive government is not leftist but merely anti-American — they are not outraged much by the oppression of women and gays in Islamic countries with the exception of Saudi Arabia (which has long been an American ally).
The point is that the liberals invoke the oppressor-oppressed pretty much only where it can be deployed against their real adversaries — namely conservatives in their own countries. There’s a great piece by ‘Scott Alexander’ titled ‘I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup’:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
It’s very long, but this bit is directly on point here:
You can talk all you want about Islamophobia, but my friend’s “intelligent, reasoned, and thoughtful people” – her name for the Blue Tribe – can’t get together enough energy to really hate Osama, let alone Muslims in general. We understand that what he did was bad, but it didn’t anger us personally. When he died, we were able to very rationally apply our better nature and our Far Mode beliefs about how it’s never right to be happy about anyone else’s death.
On the other hand, that same group absolutely loathed Thatcher. Most of us (though not all) can agree, if the question is posed explicitly, that Osama was a worse person than Thatcher. But in terms of actual gut feeling? Osama provokes a snap judgment of “flawed human being”, Thatcher a snap judgment of “scum”.
Substitute ‘Castro’ for ‘Osama bin Laden’ and that argument works just as well.
So, then, you’re saying that Progressives are not, in fact, concerned with the oppressor/oppressed axis? That is, it’s a rhetorical device rather than the thing that actually shapes their views.
What, then, are they concerned with? What shapes their views? (It’s not enough to answer “power” – all politics is about power in some sense. What’s the emotional goal of seeking power?)
I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I’m saying that Progressives are much less committed to the oppressor/oppressed axis than they are to defeating their political opponents and will selectively deploy the oppressor/oppressed framing where it is politically advantageous and refrain from doing so where it is not.
So what are Progressive core commitments (besides power for their tribe)? I’d say the state over markets, non-profits over for-profits, the credentialed over the non-credentialed, collectivism over individualism, the planned over the emergent. Dan Klein captured a lot it in ‘The People’s Romance’ — things that are done collectively, through the government (that we all do together) are sanctified, whereas things people do privately are suspect. So Progressives love the idea of mass transit and those city bike share programs even though they are much more expensive and inefficient than privately owned bicycles (which everybody can afford).
So, collectivism is the real core. Individual action is bad. Evidence: individual action often gives rise to winners and therefore, by contrast, to relative losers – the oppressor and the oppressed. But oppressor/oppressed is a justification for the instinctive preference for collectivism over individuality.
I’d have to think about it, but I could buy it.
As a parallel, individuality – the freedom from collective constraints – is the real core for libertarians. Yes, libertarians like to point out that the more liberal a society is (in the original meaning of liberal), the wealthier, healthier and more generally successful it tends to be. But libertarians are often quite resistant to acknowledging exceptions to that trend – to such an extent that they’re often hard to separate from anarchists. Of course, there are many exceptions – anarchies are neither wealthy nor healthy – but libertarians struggle to acknowledge that: their core commitment is to freedom, not to health/wealth/success.
“Why not have a whole year off, with 150 percent of pay? That would be even more ‘generous’.”
Sadly, I bet that, among the progressives that would oppose such leave benefits, many (most?) would do so precisely out of a judgement that such benefits were “too generous”, rather than too expensive or too burdensome. Remember, progressives also object to people being “too well off”, for example favoring confiscatory taxation of the “wealthy” even when such taxes are not expected to raise much revenue. Many would say that it’s better to throw away a free lunch than to give it to someone that is already well fed.
By the way, what is the actuarial cost of family leave benefits, i.e., the premiums that one would have to pay for an insurance policy that paid leave benefits? Presumably, that is the cost to workers in the form of lower cash wages. I am surprised that more right-wing economists don’t try to calculate these costs so that workers can see how much these benefits cost them. There is no such thing as an employer “provided” benefit, only benefits that workers are mandated to purchase with lost cash wages. The correct answer to “why not a whole year off, with 150 percent of pay” is that most *workers* can’t afford that.
Being a curmudgeon can contribute to society if you combine it with (1) a didactic stance, and (2) if you are funny, and also (3) if you are not too mean, cruel, heartless–but just analytical and fair.
IMHO you have all three qualities, so the next step is to find a platform.
I don’t know how these things work. The New York Times doesn’t have much an internal platform–instead you have to read the Wall Street Journal or City-Journal.org or the columnists at Jewish World Review, etc, to see why the New York Times should be read with skepticism and sometimes deep cynicism.
Is WaPo better? Which major publications are better? Are there ones that are better?
I thought Steve Sailer’s column here was valuable–one of his best lately.
Toward the end he provides a pointer to the concept of “The Narrative” with a good working definition
Sailer here:
http://takimag.com/article/from_orwell_to_gladwell_and_back_steve_sailer#axzz4Rb1yBapC
Stephen Hunter on The Narrative here:
http://leadandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/insider-explains-narrative.html
Which
You should write up your bias notes and list them here already.
Remember the words of the alien (Martian?) to Woody Allen on how to make the world a better place:
“Tell funnier jokes”.
Stacy McCain & Don Surber do some of this, as well as Instapundit.
Watchers of Weasels has longer posts often touching this, too.
There’s room for more critiques of the Democratic Media and its biases.
But do YOU really have the long term interest in doing this and keeping it up? Perhaps you could try to collect links from others and vet/edit them — so most readers don’t have to.
“This is a case where I think that the attempt to view a phenomenon along the progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and accepting Castro’s self-designation as a savior of the oppressed, is pathetically misguided.”
This doesn’t seem to be limited just to Castro. I wonder why it’s fairly consistent. Is there another axis of what they believe is good vs. bad intentions?
If so, why do intentions matter more than actual outcome? They can tell themselves stories that the outcomes are good. They can say the intentions are good, but they just need to find the right person to improve the outcomes.
But, they never seem to believe that something is inherently flawed in that type of system (e.g. incentives and knowledge problem) that prevents the outcome they desire.
When I have discussions with such folks, they just cannot get past the idea that intentions don’t matter much. They have even told me straight out that they would rather have a well-intended person “in charge,” even if it was impossible for them to get the results they want. I just find that baffling.
Am I mistaken or has the Associated Press shown a lot more bias against conservatives and libertarians in, say, the last five years than it used to?