I nominate the OP of this thread for the “Least Pit Worthy Ever” category.
Sheesh.
:rolleyes:
You’ve really gotta be dense to think there’s something significant going on here.
By dense, I mean “blinded by insane, irrational partisanship.”
Well, the link that Jackmannii provided in his bump post was for the National Briefing on October 13.
Here is a story from the National Briefing from the day before, October 12:
Personally, i think that newspapers should be consistent one way or the other about this. If the person is a politician or former politician, maybe it would be a good idea to always give the party affiliation.
Say what? D’oh! :smack: Yes, it should be against the rules. It confuses me. 
Apparently Shelley’s partisan affiliations aren’t a secret to NY Times readers.
Quitting
If only Republicans would spend half as much time and energy lambasting corporate media for their lilly-livered, unquestioning support of Bush’s ‘Lie the Country into War’ agenda. And expend the other half on being lied into a war by Bush (R-Another Planet)
Fortunately for you lovely folk, I happen to have access to Lexis-Nexis at home.
I did a search on “Kevin Shelley” and “Democrat” for the last two years, and selected the NYT. Three long articles came up. All three mentioned Mr. Shelley’s party affiliation. Going back five years and limiting the search to the NYT pulled up five articles, three of which came up the first time. Articles about Gray Davis’ recall did not list Shelley’s party affiliation. The articles about Mr. Shelley’s own problems, however, did.
Now, I have in front of me a copy of the AP’s broadcast stylebook. It does not differ substantially from the AP print stylebook. Here’s what it has to say:
More to the point, though, the NYT probably just didn’t see a need to add political affiliation to a small “roundup” story that it probably got off the wire anyway. The readers who care know, and the readers who don’t care wouldn’t care anyway.
Amazing when a media outlet doesn’t treat its readership like morons.
Robin
Compare to:
Note that nobody’s political affiliation is mentioned in the second case, involving unelected folks; the affiliation is mentioned in the first case, involving elected folks. If there is a deliberate effort to show folks’ affiliations sometimes and elide them other times, it seems likely to me that they do it based on whether the person is elected.
In any case, Jack, what did the NYTimes say when you wrote to them to ask for their side of the story?
Daniel
My bad. Figures I’d skip over the one post I was looking for. I also managed to miss this was a zombie thread. :smack:
Well, that is interesting. A little consistency would be nice. Are these briefings written by one person or multiple?
For Left Hand: The comparison to DeLay coverage is a mite weak.
Anyone who follows the news even minimally knows that DeLay is a Republican leader. By contrast, Ballance’s troubles are far more obscure and most people probably were unaware of his existence (I had not heard of the story before reading the National Briefing item).
If you’re a “newspaper of record”, you print the salient facts. Unless you’ve got an ax to grind.
I agree that it should have been mentioned that Shelley was a Democrat, since his misuse of funds would have benefited Democratic pols, presumably, therefore the information is relevant.
As to the implication that the Times is tilted toward Dems, I don’t think so. If that were the case, I hardly think Judith Miller could have gotten away with being a total hose beast for the Bush Administration during the run-up to the Iraq War, printing so many stories based on Administration lies that they eventually had to apologize for the shoddy quality of her work. If there were a bias against the Repubs/Bushies at the Times, I think her stories would have come under scrutiny a lot sooner.
Not as weak as your comparison. I’m suggesting that (and I’ll go a little farther here) when discussing people who:
- Committed the newsworthy act as part of their job; and
- Obtained their job through a party election
it’s newsworthy to comment on their party affiliation. Otherwise, it’s not newsworthy.
Now, that’s one possibility. Another possibility is that it’s essentially random whether party affiliation appears in discussion of a scandal: to see if this is the case, we need more than half a dozen articles to judge by. Another possibility is that there’s a clear pattern; however, that’s already been disproven, given the scandals in which Democratic affiliation is mentioned and ones in which Republican party affiliation is not mentioned.
If you give a shit about this, I’m sure you can find an email address for the Times and get an answer from the horse’s mouth; doing so will probably take you less time than continuing to defend an untenable thesis here would take.
Daniel
You know, as a matter of general principle, i agree with every thing you’ve said here. I don’t believe that the Times’s ommission of the party affiliation of those Democrats is something to worry too much about, nor do i think it is part of some systematic or conspiratorial attempt to cover up Democratic wrongdoing.
But if it’s not relevant to mention the party affiliation of a politician who’s accused, while in office, of misusing funds and accepting inappropriate donations, then why is it appropriate to mention the party affiliation of a Texas lawmaker arrested for drunk driving in South Dakota, as in the example i gave in post #62?
One possible explanation for all this is, as you suggested, that the NYT simply picks the story off the wire and runs it word for word. In that case, it’s the wire services who we need to examine. And while my sample size is small, there is a pattern here: the two stories provided by Jackmanii in which the Democrats’ party affiliation was not mentioned came from AP, while the story i provided in which the Republican’s affiliation was mentioned came from Reuters. Not sure if this is significant, but it could explain the apparent discrepancy in the Times’s system.
I agree with this post also, but again, it does raise the question of why the party affiliation of a guy caught drunk driving is relevant to the story, as i discussed above.
Still, on the whole, i agree that our sample size is far too small here to draw any definitive conclusions. Also, these National Briefings are very short pieces, and as others have pointed out, if you wanted to find out more on the issues they discuss then you’d have to look for longer, more in-depth articles which would, undoubtedly, carry the person’s party affiliation. No-one (except parhaps the OP) is using these Briefings as their main source of information.
Good point, and it also occurred to me that Ballance almost certainly committed his crimes while in his role as an elected official; my theory is shot out of the water. Still and all, Jack’s is, too.
I’ve just sent an email to the NYTimes asking for clarification of their policy. I’ll let y’all know if I get an answer.
Daniel
Real journalist checking in here. There are lots of reasons why the Times might have left out the party affiliation –
“Briefs” sections are often compiled quickly just before the publication goes to press without intense scrutiny and often by people with less experience. They are most often compiled merely by lopping off the top two or three sentences of a longer story and they are given cursory inspection, especially if they are from a reputable wire service like the Associated Press. Even if problems are noticed before publication, corrections will not be made unless there is an affirmative error. So, if there are minor style problems or small pieces of information missing, such as the party affiliation, they will not be fixed.
Furthermore, national news agencies often care little about state-level politics and many editors will not bother to insist on information like party affiliation, especially when it is “only” a briefs section that must be completed quickly so that the paper can be sent to press.
Additionally, editors often cut ruthlessly because the No. 1 important feature of briefs is that they fit the space allocated to them. If the section is too long, an editor will start cutting out all sorts of information in order to cut it down to size. When you start getting to this point, there’s no time for rewriting, so an editor will start cutting out individual words. Whatever words can be cut out such that the sentence is still understandable and readable will be cut.
From this post, dated 04-14-2002, from the "FAQ - guidelines for posting at the SDMB"
As an ex-journalist, I am amazed that someone allegedly in the business would claim that when a politician is enmeshed in scandal, his party affiliation is a “small piece of information”. :dubious:
Left Hand: If the three examples provided of how the Times has played similar stories in different ways depending on party are not enough to raise your eyebrows, why would six be conclusive? I have a feeling that if I dredged up six, you’d say they were just “anecdotal” and a study by Fairness and Accuracy In Media conducted by PhD-level researchers would be necessary before we could draw any conclusions. As to what the Times might say, it would be interesting to hear the ombudsman’s take on the matter.
I don’t think this is necessarily a matter of the Times or its defenders hewing loyally to the Democratic Party. Given the level of fear and loathing towards the Bush Administration (and viewing it in the context of It’s A Wonderful Life), it may be the conviction that every time an opposition figure is acknowledged to be acting sleazily, a bell rings and Karl Rove gets to eat another baby.
We don’t have three stories. We’ve got more than that, and not all of them support your thesis. Thirty stories, in which, say, 80% of them supported your thesis would go a long way toward convincing me. But the plural of anecdote is not data, as you know; and three swallows does not make a summer.
Meanwhile, there’s an alternate thesis out there, and an email to NYTimes.
Your theory just doesn’t hold water currently. Give me thirty stories with enough accuracy to suggest something beyond random chance, and I’ll take it seriously.
Heck, you can start with 10 stories, eight of which support your pattern and which you’ve chosen in some systematic fashion. That’d be a good start.
Daniel
Really? Which National Briefing stories about a Republican politician involved in scandalous or criminal behavior fail to mention his/her party? I have seen none cited here.
Now you need 24 stories to be convinced, up from 6? At the rate your demands for proof are escalating, we’ll need a couple hundred stories by the end of the page.
Yeah, just pick and choose one small phrase thus removing the entire context of what I’m telling you.
Yes, when you’re on deadline, on the floor, cutting for space, and the typesetters and the managing editor are yelling at you to get the page off the floor, lots of things become “small pieces of information.” As I said, any word that can be removed and leave a sentence readable becomes fair game.
And when it’s the party affiliation of some freaking state official, it’s even more fair game, because who cares about officials of other states? Yes, it’s a mindset that might be in error generally and it might be in error for a particular story, but on deadline, decisions are made quickly.
I’ve never seen anyone or heard of anyone at a mainstream news publication removing party affiliation intentionally with the intent of keeping it hidden from readers. First of all, only a very stupid editor would think that something like that would work.
Your pattern is also broken by National Briefing stories about Democratic politicians involved in scandalous behavior that do mention the party. And the DeLay one doesn’t mention party, which you say is due to the fact that everyone knows the party–something new to your argument.
It took me awhile to figure out what you were on about. Is this what you’re talking about?
In your world, is six more than half a dozen? The “half a dozen” was a reference to the articles we currently have, not to the ones we need.
Daniel
Yeesh.
Last time I checked, (1974) the NYT didn’t even have a comics page.
Translation: It’s not like they’re a real newspaper. Why do you even care?