Month: February 2009

Bias in Journalism?

This is really wanky. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times has a pearl-clutching piece about the fear that the Obama administration’s hiring of two journalists will lead to bias in favor of Obama across the entire media. Despite pointing out that the Bush administration brought journalists into the house (see: Tony Snow) and that the McCain administration would have been “a job destination for mainstream journalists in 2000,” it’s Obama that is producing a fear of bias. Rutenberg even goes to the absurd length of getting Jay Carney to defend joining the administration as Biden’s communications director with claims of non-partisanship. Because it would be so unethical for someone to work for a politician they wanted to succeed, or something.

Rutenberg never explains how having journalists in the Obama administration will actually lead to bias in coverage by the media still reporting. I don’t know if it is Rutenberg’s fear that Time will give Obama a pass because Carney is on Biden’s staff or if the magical presence of one Beltway journalist on the administration payroll will mean Fox News, Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal will feel compelled to pull their punches. Most likely the presence of Carney and Linda Douglass in the administration will not mean a single thing regarding the tone and depth of coverage Obama receives in the press. To the extent that there is any bias in journalism favoring the administration, I’d think it more likely that tough-minded journalists at Time and CNN will feel obligated to give Carney and Douglass a harder-than-usual go in order to avoid any accusations of bias. But I doubt Rutenberg and the Times would see much news value in that story, as it fails to further the narrative that the media is biased towards Democrats.

IRR

Alex Horton of Army of Dude is, in my opinion, one of the best writers in the blogosphere. He’s a veteran of the Iraq war and a contributor at VetVoice. His posts on his time in Iraq, often filled with photos and videos, have been one of my most important windows into the war, free of media filter. Alex has a post up today about the Individual Ready Reserve, which he and two of his best friends moved to when they left active duty. He describes the decision as playing Russian Roulette, which seems to be tragically accurate. His post today points out that his two friends have both been called up to active duty. Alex writes:

I was at work when my pocket sent out a cheerful tone alerting me of a new text message. I pulled out my phone to see a new message from Steve. I figured it was some trivia question. I could tell he carried his debating persona back home from the messages he sent me. He asked about actors in movies and lesser known points of history that must have come up in discussions with his friends. I opened it to see that it had nothing to do with trivia.

“I just got official orders to go back dude.”

My knees almost gave way after reading and rereading the message. I called him right away to offer any kind of help I could. As the phone rang, I looked down at my silver KIA bracelet and ran my fingers over the etched lettering – CPL BRIAN L. CHEVALIER 14 MARCH 2007 BAQUBAH, IRAQ.

A thousand miles away, Steve was wearing the same bracelet.

I relayed to Steve all the information I had gathered on the IRR. I spent countless hours hunched over my computer researching IRR callups, a challenge considering the intentionally scant information put out by the DoD and Army Human Resources Command. I told him to sign up for any classes, get a doctor’s note for any condition, anything that could delay or exempt him from mobilization. There is no shame in it. Steve volunteered during a war, knowing that he would be sent into combat. Not only combat ensued, but the bloodiest fight in Iraq since Fallujah. Steve did his time, and more. His place is at home, not on the battlefield anymore.

By way of Lt. Nixon, Thomas Ricks notes a Pentagon study that reveals troop levels have remained relatively the same since 9/11. A more alarming statistic: 6% of active duty troops have served more than 25 months in a combat zone while 74% have less than twelve months in. The study concludes that the lower to mid enlisted and company grade officers are carrying the most burden. Senior officers and NCOs are hiding like cockroaches in the cracks of TRADOC posts and non-deployable slots while lower level soldiers march to the steady drumbeat of repeated deployments, failed marriages and ever-mounting cases of suicide. On top of that, the IRR continues to mobilize soldiers that have moved on, going to school or beginning careers and families. The only way to lessen the burden is to grow the size of the force. One idea: take the database of the newly minted Red State Strike Force members and dump them into mobilization slots. Those pathetic goons want to wear patches styled after special forces to fight on a battlefield of snark. They want to organize. I can think of no better way to organize than a shout of, “Dress right, dress!” The slack has to be picked up somewhere, lest our forces remain so broken that we must rely on involuntary callups to get bodies to the fight.

Steve’s future hangs in the balance. School has been put on hold until a review board decides if he is fit to go back to Iraq. I have described the looming threat of recall as an ubiquitous afterthought, constantly degrading the sense of normalcy and safety as the days pile on. Now that recall has manifested itself as a clumsy destroyer of futures, the feeling has changed. Not only mental, the dread has become physical, hanging in my stomach like a sharply cornered anvil. My old infantry sore spots – back, knees and ankles – throb in a dull ache. The burden is back squarely on my shoulders, but I cannot imagine what Steve is feeling right now. I just know that as his best friend, a thousand miles away, I must carry some for him.

VetVoice has a list of resources on IRR. I’m reprinting them below for anyone looking for more information.

IRR Information

Educating on Employee Free Choice, Part 16

Steve Rosenthal has a must-read piece up on Huffington Post today documenting ten “violations of democracy” that exist under current NLRB organizing regulations for union formation. Given how hard big business lobbyists have pushed the “Employee Free Choice ends the ‘secret ballot'” canard, Rosenthal’s piece is essential. Here are violations one through three from Rosenthal’s piece:

Violation of Democracy #1: In order to have a union election, 30% of workers need to sign cards calling for an election. If that principle were applied to American presidential elections, we would have needed 70 million Americans to sign cards calling for last November’s national election.

Violation of Democracy #2: Once 30% sign cards calling for an election it can take months – sometimes years, sometimes never – because of arcane rules that allow companies to file objections that lead to countless electoral delays, before the workers actually have a chance to vote in an election. It’s usually in the interest of companies to sap the momentum from an organizing drive and delay an election as long as possible. Imagine if a candidate kept trying to push off Election Day in the hopes that the political climate would become more favorable or his opponent would give up – that’s what the current process allows companies to do. In fact, it took a 15 year organizing battle to finally unionize the Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC.

Violation of Democracy #3: During the run-up to the election the union is not allowed to campaign on the company’s property – which can mean not only the workplace but company-owned property such as parking lots. Meanwhile, the company is free to campaign anywhere it wants and can paper the workplace with anti-union messages. Imagine an election for president where one candidate is allowed to wander freely across the land talking to voters, while the other candidate and their campaign is banned from America and can only stand in Mexico and Canada hoping to speak to voters as they cross the border.

If you can stomach seeing how difficult it is to organize unions under current NLRB law, keep reading Rosenthal’s list of violations of democracy.

Liberals on the Supreme Court

While it is likely that President Obama will have to fill a Supreme Court seat during his term, it will almost certainly be to replace one of the more liberal members of the court. If moving the court to the left is a priority at all for the Obama administration, then he should appoint someone is more liberal than the person that judge replaces. However I find it highly unlikely that such a thing would happen. The freak-out from the right over the appointment of someone more liberal than, say, John Paul Stevens would likely be more than a post-partisan administration could handle. The press assaults would be deafening and concrete assertions about how a justice would rule on issues would be pressed for in a way unseen with Alito or Roberts, to say the least. I’d love to be proven wrong, but in the early going of the Obama administration getting things done seems to be a higher priority than getting things done along a particular ideological line.