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Alyssa

From ‘Game of Thrones’ To ‘Scandal,’ How Do You Find—And Discuss—Your New Favorite TV Shows?

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 20, 2013 at 5:02 pm

The death—or diffusion—of the television water cooler has been much ballyhooed. But NPR’s Elizabeth Blair did a great segment on how word of mouth still helps build television, where the conversations about episodes have migrated, be it Twitter or the AMC’s post-episode chat show The Talking Dead, and was kind enough to have me on to talk about Scandal and how the labor law episode of The Good Wife got people who I hadn’t seen discussing the show dissecting it on social media for the first time:

She mentions something else that’s worth remembering, which is that some shows like NCIS, which get huge ratings, don’t really show up on social media at all. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a word of mouth discussion of the show, it’s just taking place in arenas where it isn’t necessarily visible and quantifiable. It’s fascinating how we assumed the existence of the water cooler for so long without being able to see it on a more than experiential level, and as soon as something more tangible came along, it became easy to reduce the physical water cooler conversation to the ephemeral thing it always was. But the simultaneous success of a show like Scandal, which made itself essential viewing in the time slot in part by making the ability to participate in the real-time social media conversation about it, and the longevity of something like NCIS provides a useful rule of thumb for talking about the television business right now. The old ways are far from dead, and the shiny new ones are far from triumphant, so it’s not a matter of choosing between them—instead, we have to keep an eye on both.

Health

Thanks To Factory Farming, Backyard Eggs Are Still A Better Choice Than Store-Bought Ones

By Katie Valentine on Mar 26, 2013 at 10:45 am

Backyard chickens raised for eggs and meat have been linked to an outbreak of salmonella, according to a recent story published by NPR. But though the outbreak was the largest ever to stem from contact with live poultry, it isn’t reason for people to abandon their outdoor flocks out of fear of illness.

The story cited a news brief from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported that between March 1 and September 24 last year, 195 people in 27 different states were infected with strains of salmonella, and 79 percent of them had been in contact with live poultry in the week before they became ill. But the story doesn’t note that the number pales in comparison to salmonella outbreaks linked to factory-farmed eggs and poultry. In one CDC study, the agency estimates there were more than 182,000 cases of egg-caused salmonella in the U.S. — including 70 deaths — in 2000. In 2010, more than 1,900 people contracted salmonella in an outbreak linked to Iowa egg farms that produced more than 2.3 million dozen eggs a week. And just last month, 124 people were sickened with salmonella in an outbreak linked to Foster Farms chicken.

These high numbers of salmonella cases from eggs and poultry are linked to the effects of factory farming. Chickens raised for meat are crammed tightly into warehouses that hold as many as 20,000 chickens, while the chickens raised for eggs live in sheds that can hold 100,000 birds and are often packed in battery cages with five to 10 other birds. Factory farms often contain huge amounts of feces and fecal dust produced by the birds, along with rat droppings and flies, and certain strains of salmonella can pass to the chicken if their food comes in contact with the fecal matter. In order to try to stem off the flow of disease within their flocks, farmers regularly feed the poultry antibiotics, which can lead to antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella: in 2011, 107 people were sickened and one killed from an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella in turkey.

Raising backyard chickens, without the help of antibiotics, provides no risk of developing antibiotic-resistant strains of disease, and is also a way of avoiding the health risks and cruelty associated with factory farms. The practice could decrease the risk of egg-bourne salmonella: one study found cage-free poultry facilities had about 40 percent less risk of harboring salmonella. Eggs from chickens allowed to eat grass and bugs can be healthier too, containing a third less cholesterol, twice as much omega-3 fatty acids and seven times more beta-carotene.

The NPR article states the outbreak from live poultry was traced back to a single hatchery in Ohio, and quotes the CDC in saying the best way to reduce risk of salmonella through live poultry contact is to wash your hands and clean equipment used to raise poultry. There are risks involved with raising animals for food — and backyard chickens are no exception — but in this case, the benefits of home-raised eggs outweigh any the risk of disease.

Climate Progress

NPR: Remember That Whole Global Warming Problem People Once Worried About?

By Joe Romm on Jan 9, 2013 at 5:05 pm

You may recall that classic Onion story from November 2010, “Report: Global Warming Issue From 2 Or 3 Years Ago May Still Be Problem.”  It included the image at the right captioned, “This 2007 chart predicting rising temperatures worldwide could still possibly be worth looking at today.”

Well, apparently NPR missed it. In a story last Friday, “Budget Deal Provides Tax Breaks For Green Energy,” NPR reports:

The tax benefits for green energy that Congress extended were originally created over the past decade. At the time, it seemed that energy sources, especially homegrown ones, were scarce. The country also seemed to be on the verge of setting limits on emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

“There was a sensible reason to want to subsidize a transformation,” says energy analyst Kevin Book. It’s harder to make a case for renewable energy now, given the booms in natural gas and oil, he says.

“All of these things are different now: Demand is declining, supply is increasing, the decarbonization mandate has weakened if not disappeared, and energy security isn’t the risk that it used to be,” he says.

Book predicts that the New Year’s tax package may be the last big payday for green energy.

Yeah, might as well have an extended quote from someone arguing there’s no need to ever decarbonize or incentivize green energy again, ’cause that whole global warming thing is so last year.

Or rather, so one week ago. Because on December 30, NPR filed an interview with Bill McKibben with this headline:

2013: A Tipping Year For Climate Change?

The story’s introduction spells out precisely why the decarbonization mandate has strengthened in the past year:

Read more

Security

Think Tank Backs Away From Senior Fellow’s Anti-Hagel Smears

By Ben Armbruster on Jan 9, 2013 at 10:23 am

Elliott Abrams

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) distanced itself from a senior fellow’s claim on Monday that former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s choice as the next Defense Secretary, is anti-Semitic and doesn’t like Jews.

Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration official who was convicted of charges related to the Iran-Contra scandal, said on NPR on Monday that Hagel “seems to have some kind of problem with Jews.”

A CFR official told Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen that Abrams’ views do not represent the organization. “The Council on Foreign Relations takes no institutional position on matters of policy,” CFR’s vice president for global communications and media relations Lisa Shields said. “The views expressed by our more than seventy experts, who reflect a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives, are theirs only.”

NPR listeners wrote in to complain about Abrams’ comments, some of which were read on the network’s All Things Considered program on Tuesday:

HOST AUDIE CORNISH: John Shrauger of Venice, Florida writes: Mr. Abrams did not convince me that Chuck Hagel is anti-Semitic, but he did convince me that anyone who is not unequivocally supportive of Israel’s policies still risks being labeled as anti-Semitic. What seems to be clear about Mr. Hagel is that he has the courage to stand up to some of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the defense contracting lobby as well as the right-wing pro-Israel lobby.

HOST MELISSA BLOCK: And many of you thought we should have told you more about Elliot Abrams’ background. Derek Goldman of Missoula, Montana was among those who wrote to say we should have told listeners that Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra investigation. He writes: This information should have been highly important to the story, given the excessive strength of Mr. Abrams’ criticism of Senator Hagel.

Listen to the clip here:

A former Israeli diplomat said this week that the right-wing claims that Hagel is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel are “total and utter nonsense.” “I think that those going after his record are after President Obama rather than after Senator Hagel. And I think these attacks are vile, vicious, ugly and unfounded,” he said.

Climate Progress

NPR Ethics Handbook Targets False Balance: Reporters Must Note ‘If The Balance of Evidence … Weighs Heavily On One Side’

By Climate Guest Blogger on Mar 7, 2012 at 11:44 am

NPR now commits itself to avoiding the worst excesses of “he said, she said” journalism.

by Jay Rosen, cross-posted with permission from PressThink

Within the world of pressthink there are occasional “events,” things that happen and by happening bring to light shifts in thought. It happened last week when NPR released a new document, an ethics handbook headlined: This is NPR. And these are the standards of our journalism.

Much of what’s in the handbook is Journalism 101. Much of it resembles an earlier document, The NPR Code of Ethics and Practices, which I reviewed in the writing of this post. (The new handbook replaces that earlier code.) But there are some crucial differences, and some of them speak directly to earlier posts at PressThink about the troubles at NPR.

In my view the most important changes are these passages:

In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to deliver both nuance and clarity. Our goal is not to please those whom we report on or to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.

and….

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.

With these words, NPR commits itself as an organization to avoid the worst excesses of “he said, she said” journalism. It says to itself that a report characterized by false balance is a false report. It introduces a new and potentially powerful concept of fairness: being “fair to the truth,” which as we know is not always evenly distributed among the sides in a public dispute.

Maintaining the “appearance of balance” isn’t good enough, NPR says. “If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side…” we have to say so. When we are spun, we don’t just report it. “We tell our audience…” This is spin! (Update: The new policy is already having an effect.)

There was nothing like that in the old Code of Ethics and Practices, which dates from 2003. So why the change? I asked Matt Thompson, Editorial Product Manager at NPR. He co-wrote the handbook with Mark Memmott of NPR. Here’s our exchange:

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Security

Gingrich Dismisses Top U.S. Military Officer’s Views On Iran Attack

By Ali Gharib on Feb 23, 2012 at 3:13 pm

In last night’s GOP presidential debate on CNN, moderator John King allowed a viewer to introduce a topic bedeviling U.S. foreign policy at the moment — Iran’s nuclear program. With war chatter on the rise, top U.S. officials have injected their opinions into the public debate.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iran was “not prudent at this point” and that such a strike would be “destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.” When King asked Newt Gingrich if, as president, he would take Dempsey’s advice, the former House Speaker dismissed the U.S.’s top military officer opinion, saying he “can’t imagine why” Dempsey holds some of his views:

GINGRICH: Well, first of all this is two different questions. General Dempsey went on to say that he thought Iran was a rational actor. I can’t imagine why he would say that. And I just cannot imagine why he would have said it. The fact is, this is a dictator, Ahmadinejad, who has said he doesn’t believe the Holocaust existed. This is a dictator who said he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. This is a dictator who said he wants to drive the United States out of the Middle East. I’m inclined to believe dictators. Now I — I think that it’s dangerous not to.

Watch a video of King’s question and Gingrich’s full answer:

Dempsey’s views track with those of the U.N. nuclear agency and reported U.S. intelligence estimates, as well as the public testimony of the top U.S. intelligence official. On Capitol HIll last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said of Iran’s nuclear program: “They are certainly moving on that path, but we don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.”

Not only does Gingrich dismiss the opinion of the top American military officer, but he also badly misstates Iranian political dynamics. On NPR this morning, Mehdi Khalaji — an actual Iran expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — pointed out that Iran’s actual dictator is not President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Iran is lead by a Supreme Leader, who holds the office for life and makes many of the state’s final decisions. Khalaji said:

The main decision maker on crucial issues, including the nuclear program, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. … We have to bear in mind that he’s not only Iran’s supreme leader, he’s the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Khalaji’s latter comment means that Ahmadinejad cannot start a war — with Israel or anybody else — and that responsibility rests instead with the Supreme Leader.

If Gingrich wants to “listen to dictators” in order to justify his hawkish views, he should be free to do so. But it’s disconcerting that he doesn’t even know who the dictator is that he should be listening to.

Security

NPR Ombudsman On Iran Nuclear Program: ‘Shorthand References Are Often Dangerous’

By Ali Gharib on Jan 17, 2012 at 9:55 am

NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos

A consensus seems to be developing on Iran’s nuclear program among those hired by major news organizations to keep an eye on their own reporting. Much of the discussion so far has focused on the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear program, the most comprehensive publicly-available evidence on the issue. In the document, the IAEA expressed “serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.” As a White House official said at the time, the IAEA report neither indicated that Iran has a nuclear weapons program nor that Tehran has made a decision to build a bomb.

A spate of ombudsmen and public editors of major news organizations have come out and bolstered the more accurate reading of the IAEA report — one that raises worries but does not conclude that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. First Washington Post ombud Patrick Pexton said so, urging extra caution because overstating evidence about the program can “play into the hands of those who are seeking further confrontation with Iran.” He was followed by New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane, who wrote that hewing closely to available facts matters “because the Iranian program has emerged as a possible casus belli.” Now, they’re both being joined by Edward Schumacher-Matos, National Public Radio’s ombudsman, and Public Broadcasting System (PBS) ombudsman Michael Getler.

Responding to reader complaints, some from a letter-writing campaign, Schumacher-Matos addressed an NPR story that referred to Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.” Discussing the IAEA report and the story, he wrote:

It was the closest the UN agency had come to saying that Iran was engaged in a nuclear weapons program, but still stopped short of saying that the country actually had one. The NPR story in wording and in tone accurately reflected this position.

Shorthand references are often dangerous in journalism, and listeners are correct to be on the alert for them. Repeated enough as fact—”Iran’s nuclear weapons program”—they take on a life of their own.

According to [NPR senior editor for national security Bruce] Auster, NPR’s policy is to refer in shorthand to Iran’s “nuclear program” and not “nuclear weapons program.” This is a correct formula, it seems to me, in part because Iran has proudly announced its nuclear program — while asserting it is for “peaceful” purposes, not for making weapons.

Though the NPR piece in question referred in one instance to Iran’s “nuclear weapons program,” Schumacher-Matos noted that, when taken in context and observing the entire story, the item described Iran’s nuclear program in the measured way described by NPR’s ombud-approved guidelines. Therefore, NPR issued no correction and the ombudsman didn’t call for one.

Separately, PBS faced criticism from the left-leaning media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) over one of its reports. Ombudsman Michael Getler wrote in response, “I think FAIR makes a good journalistic catch,” but denied FAIR’s contention that an edit in the piece was “dishonest.” In Gelter’s column, PBS NewsHour Foreign Affairs and Defense Editor Mike Mosettig wrote that it’s “clear from what we did air, that Iran is not at this moment putting a bomb together.”

NEWS FLASH

Poisoned Places: EPA’s Secret Watch List | “Two decades ago, Democrats and Republicans together sought to protect Americans from nearly 200 dangerous chemicals in the air they breathe,” the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News reports. “That goal remains unfulfilled. Today, hundreds of communities are still exposed to the pollutants, which can cause cancer, birth defects and other serious health issues. A secret government ‘watch list’ underscores how much government knows about the threat — and how little it has done to address it.” Polluters on the list include BP, First Energy, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, DuPont, ExxonMobil, Marathon Petroleum, Questar, Shell, Tesoro, and Union Carbide.

By Brad Johnson on Nov 7, 2011 at 10:09 am

Special Topic

Radio Show Distributed By NPR Fires Host After She Takes Part In Protests

By Zaid Jilani on Oct 20, 2011 at 10:20 am

Lisa Simeone

On Tuesday, Roll Call ran a story noting that Lisa Simeone — a radio personality who hosts the shows World of Opera and Soundprint — has been taking part in and serving as an informal spokeswoman for anti-war protests in Washington, DC known as October 2011 (which are separate from the Occupy D.C. demonstrations). The Daily Caller and Fox News soon picked up on the story, attempting to stir a controversy.

These media sources implied or incorrectly stated that Simeone worked for National Public Radio (NPR), noting that NPR has prohibitions on “engag[ing] in public relations work, paid or unpaid.” The truth is that Simeone was not an NPR employee and rather served as a host on a show that was distributed by some NPR stations.

Yet NPR reacted sharply to pressure from conservative media outlets, sending out an e-mail to its staffers noting that it was “in conversations” with radio station WDAV, which produces one of Simeone’s shows, about “how to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously.” And late last night, the station that hosts Soundprintcaved to pressure from NPR and fired Simeone from her job hosting the show after NPR’s code of conduct was read to her.

In an interview with journalist David Swanson, Simeone noted that she wasn’t even an NPR employee and that her show did not cover politics. She also noted that a wide variety of NPR’s other employees appear as commentators on conservative media or take speaking fees for their work:

Simeone told me: “I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen — the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly — on my own time in my own life. I’m not an NPR employee. I’m a freelancer. NPR doesn’t pay me. I’m also not a news reporter. I don’t cover politics. I’ve never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I’ve done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I’ll do — insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly?

“This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses. Does NPR also send out ‘Communications Alerts’ about their activities?”

Last month, NPR’s ombudsman explained that the station was choosing not to cover the protests on Wall Street because it didn’t view them to be sufficiently newsworthy. Now, it appears that the station is going out of its way to pressure independent stations to fire hosts who take part in similar protests.

LGBT

Ten Things NPR Got Wrong Defending The Falsely Balanced Ex-Gay Story

By Zack Ford on Aug 5, 2011 at 12:32 pm

Last evening, National Public Radio’s ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, responded to criticism about Alix Spiegel’s story on ex-gay therapy that aired Monday morning. The nine-minute piece, which profiled ex-gay Rich Wyler and ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano, had two major flaws. First, it created a false balance by suggesting that ex-gay therapy may be legitimate and is still up for debate. Second, it omitted the fact that Wyler makes his entire living perpetuating the false ideas of ex-gay therapy. Rather than admit the mistakes of the piece and apologize for the potential harm done by it, Schumacher-Matos, Spiegel, Spiegel’s editor, and NPR’s senior vice president all defended the piece, making only very small concessions about how it was reported. In doing so, they continued propagating false ideas about ex-gay therapy and the false balance of their reporting. Here are 10 problems with NPR’s response:

1. TOSCANO’S REMARKS MISREPRESENTED: Spiegel defended her piece by saying “From Toscano’s perspective, there might be a handful of people like Wyler who benefit from this therapy.” But that was a complete misrepresentation of what Toscano said, as he clarified on his own blog yesterday:

TOSCANO: In particular Alix Spiegel summarized something I said and reported that I felt that reparative therapy can help a handful of people. No, absolutely not. Over at Beyond Ex-Gay we recognize that some say they have been helped by ex-gay treatment. For our part the treatments did not work and usually caused us damage. From meeting over 1,500 ex-gay survivors and seeing up close the lives of many ex-gays and from understanding the positive outcomes from working with ethical trained professionals compared, I believe ex-gay treatment is unnecessary, ineffectual, and most often damaging.

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