ThinkProgress Logo

Media

Beat Sweeteners

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 5, 2009 at 5:14 pm

newspaper6_1.jpg

Atrios alluded to this the other day, but part of the peculiar set of institutions that constitutes “journalistic ethics” is the idea of a “beat-sweetener.” This means that when a new set of powerful people is put into place, and most of all when a new presidential administration comes to DC, you see a flurry of journalists penning lavishly flattering profiles of different key players. The idea is that the key player in question and his staff will then become a useful source of future information. I don’t think anyone ever quite admits that a piece they’ve handed in is a beat-sweetener, but people in the game generally know one when they see one and it’s frequently joked about and so forth.

As with a lot of other semi-abusive practices in the news business, I don’t think there’s really anything you can “do about it.” Access is inherently a valuable commodity, as is good publicity. So the exchange of good publicity for access is bound to happen. And since the supply of viable distribution channels exceeds the number of powerful political appointees, a certain amount of profile-writing is bound to be a kind of anti-investigative journalism in which the powerful use the press to advance their own agenda.

The underlying logic of the transaction strikes me as so compelling that I’m confident it will long outlive the newspaper or even the idea of journalistic ethics. Still, the widespread social and professional acceptance of this kind of thing—nobody thinks it’s a shameful thing to do—is one of several dozen reasons why I think most journalists could stand to be less self-righteous about their profession.

Climate Progress

Q: How much can West Antarctica plausibly contribute to sea level rise by 2100?

By Joe Romm on Apr 5, 2009 at 5:09 pm

A. 3 to 5 feet — contributing to an increasingly likely total sea level rise of more than 5 feet by 2100, a rise that will be all but impossible to stop if we don’t sharply reverse CO2 emissions trends within a decade or so.

West Antarctica’s collapsing ice shelves are in the news today.  This post will survey what we now know about this unstable ice sheet and the threat it poses to humanity — or is that the threat humanity poses to it? — if we continue on our current suicidal emissions path.

"Antarctic ice bridge collapse hailed as new sign of global warming"

UK Telegraph: "Antarctic ice bridge collapse hailed as new sign of global warming"

Antarctica is disintegrating much faster than almost anybody imagined.  In 2001, the IPCC “consensus” said neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already are.  As Penn State climatologist Richard Alley said in March 2006, the ice sheets appear to be shrinking “100 years ahead of schedule.”

A 2007 study found “The current loss of mass from the Amundsen Sea embayment of the West Antarctic ice sheet [WAIS] is equivalent to that from the entire Greenland ice sheet” (see the new survey report Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment draft here).  And WAIS’s 2007′s ice loss was 75% higher than 2006′s (see “The Antarctic ice sheet hits the fan“).

On Saturday, Reuters reported on a major new study on Antarctic ice shelves, “Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Larsen Ice Shelf Area, Antarctica: 1940-2005“:

Read more

Media

Hannity: Obama ‘Harbors Deep Resentment’ Of America, Just Like Dixie Chicks

By Ali Frick on Apr 5, 2009 at 5:02 pm

On Friday, President Obama told a town hall audience in Strasbourg, France, that America’s tendency to dismiss Europe — as well as Europe’s tendency to blame America for every problem — had to end. “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth,” Obama said.

That evening, Fox News’s Sean Hannity truncated Obama’s speech, cutting out Obama’s criticism of Europe’s anti-Americanism. Hannity was apoplectic that Obama would “blame America first,” declaring the president was just like the Dixie Chicks. What’s more, he insisted, the speech was proof of Obama’s “deep resentment” of America:

HANNITY: You know, I’m going to — I resent this. When you consider…all we have done just in the last century alone to save Europe from themselves. I resent this. I think it’s outrageous, the media’s ignored it. But don’t you think this is like the Dixie Chicks? [...]

HANNITY: But didn’t we see all of this in the campaign? As I was bringing up — didn’t Reverend Wright give us a little insight into his thought process? Didn’t, you know, Michelle Obama, America is a downright mean country. … But I’m thinking, didn’t we get some insight? When you sit on a board and give speeches with Bill Ayers, didn’t this — Do you think he harbors deep resentment that he just hides? Because I believe he does.

Watch it:

In 2003, the Dixie Chicks caused a firestorm when they told a London audience that they did not support the Iraq war and that they were “ashamed” George Bush was from Texas, like them. At the time, Hannity was outraged, slamming them for going to “foreign soil” and “taking a shot not only at the president, at their country as well.”

Yglesias

Axelrod vs. Cheney

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 5, 2009 at 4:11 pm

Neat video courtesy of ThinkProgress of David Axelrod hitting back against Dick Cheney’s criticisms of the Obama administration:

This leads Kevin Drum to remark:

I’ve been mulling this ever since Cheney started spouting off a few weeks ago, and I still haven’t really made up my mind about it. Does an outgoing administration owe an incoming one silence? I don’t think that’s always been the case (historians please correct me here if I’m wrong), and I wonder if it really should be. Sure, it would be unseemly for ex-presidents and their staffs to engage in partisan feeding frenzies after they leave office, but is there really any reason why they should all take vows of silence? If Cheney thinks torture and warrantless wiretapping are vital to the nation’s security, then maybe he should go ahead and say so. Why not?

I think the “don’t criticize your successor” rule only makes sense as prudential advice. Not only is Dick Cheney not a credible messenger, but him speaking out looks like sour grapes and it’s all vaguely absurd. The prudent ex-president or ex-veep tries to shift into high-minded elder statesman terrain rather than slumming it à la Cheney.

But as a substantive rule, a “keep quiet” doctrine wouldn’t make sense. It was a good thing that Al Gore brought the credibility and perspective he had as a former Vice President to bear and criticized the invasion of Iraq. And even though I tend not to agree with Cheney on the merits of issues, there’s no denying that he’s been able to look at these things up close so if he thinks it’s important for him to speak out I have no procedural objection to that. It’s just that you’d have to be pretty dumb to actually think it makes sense to take advice from a guy with Cheney’s record.

Politics

Palin spokeswoman: Bristol will ‘focus’ on ‘advocating abstinence.’

By Ali Frick on Apr 5, 2009 at 3:00 pm

sarahbristol.jpgOn Monday, the Tyra Banks Show will air an interview with Levi Johnson, Bristol Palin’s former fiancé and father of her child. Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), through a spokeswoman, lashed out at Levi for “engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship.” The spokeswoman also said Bristol would focus on “advocating abstinence”:

“Bristol’s focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence,” [spokeswoman Meghan] Stapleton continues. “It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol than to contribute to the well being of the child.”

However, in a February interview with Fox News, Bristol told Greta van Susteren, “[E]veryone should be abstinent or whatever, but it’s not realistic at all.” Indeed, as a form of birth control, advocating abstinence simply doesn’t work.

Yglesias

Great Moments in Journalism

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 5, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Internet access was spottier at the conference I’ve been attending this weekend than I’d anticipated, and soon I’ll be on a series of airplanes, so I hope nobody was too upset by a weekend of half-assed blogging. The good news is that at this particular conference center, giraffes are considerably more plentiful than you usually see at a conference:

img_0058_1.JPG

That’s The New Yorker‘s Rick Hertzberg, one of our very best columnists as well as the nation’s leading advocate of the National Popular Vote. NPV is an extremely good idea and especially if you live in a non-battleground state you ought to get in touch with your state legislators and ask them why they aren’t embracing an idea that could really enhance your state’s clout.

Yglesias

Small is Beautiful

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 5, 2009 at 2:30 pm

I’m pleased to find that there’s free Wifi in the Jacksonville Airport, a welcome change from a weekend of internet access so spotty that even my Verizon broadband card only sporadically managed to get a signal. It’s my general sense that airports in smaller cities—Jascksonville, Albuquerque, etc.—are more likely to have free wifi than are the airports serving big cities. I can’t, however, think of a good reason why that would be. Typically big cities have multiple airports and thus some customer choice and competition. But if you’re flying to Jacksonville, where are you going to go but the Jacksonville Airport no matter how bad the internet options are?

Security

Days After Calling For Laser Attack On North Korea, Gingrich Says Obama’s Foreign Policy Is A ‘Fantasy’

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 5, 2009 at 1:00 pm

On the heels of a North Korean missile test last night, President Obama said in a speech today in Prague that he wants to put forth an agenda “to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.” “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime,” he said. “It will take patience and persistence.”

When Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Newt Gingrich about Obama’s speech the morning, Gingrich linked Obama’s goal to what he called former President Carter’s “fantasy view of the world”:

GINGRICH: The president’s in a world where Hamas is firing missiles every day into Israel, Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the North Koreans today during — basically during his speech fired a missile, and he has some wonderful fantasy idea that we’re going to have a great meeting next year. [...] I just think that it’s very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy, and it can get you in enormous trouble.

Watch it:

It’s ironic that Gingrich is calling Obama’s foreign policy a “fantasy,” given that just last week, he contrived an imaginary war plan in response to North Korea’s planned missile launch. On Fox News last Wednesday, Gingrich said that the United States should use lasers to preemptively attack North Korea’s missile (before it launched) in order to prevent a North Korean nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S.

Earlier on the segment this morning, Gingrich said that he would have taken out the missile on the launch pad, though his specifics for how to do so were notably vague: “There are three or four techniques that could have been used, from unconventional forces to standoff capabilities.”

Politics

Axelrod hits back at Cheney: He has not been acting like a ‘statesman.’

By Satyam Khanna on Apr 5, 2009 at 11:45 am

Vice President Cheney has used his public appearances in recent months to launch fearmongering attacks against the Obama administration, in contrast to President Bush, who said Obama “deserves my silence.” Today on CNN’s State of the Union, Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod hit Cheney for not acting like a “statesman“:

AXELROD: [President Bush] has behaved like a statesman. And as I’ve said before, here and elsewhere, I just don’t think the memo got passed down to the vice president.

Watch it:

Axelrod also noted that Cheney’s insistence that he kept America safe flies in the face of reality. “I find it supremely ironic, on a day when we were meeting with NATO, to talk about the continued threat from al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they’re still plotting against us eight years — or seven years later,” he said. “I think the question for Mr. Cheney is, how could that be? How could this have gone so long? Why are they still in business?”

Related Posts

Yglesias

European Aid to Afghanistan

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 5, 2009 at 11:36 am

Obama’s haul looks pretty modest—about 3,000 extra troops to provide election-related security plus about 2,000 troops to do embedded police trading, plus $100 million more for training and $500 million more for humanitarian aid. Still I’d say the negative tone of the press coverage suggests the perils of expectations more than anything else. The Bush administration has been trying to get more out of the Europeans for years and failing. Obama tried and he’s got something. The extra embeddable trainers should, I think, be particularly useful.

Of course the real time to ask for additional European support in Afghanistan would have been 2002 and 2003 when many countries were eager to cooperate with the United States. Instead, the Bush administration leaned on America’s best friends in Europe and around the world to contribute tens of thousands of soldiers to Iraq.

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up