In a widely-syndicated column earlier this week, Richard Reeves ruminated darkly on the future of robotic war-making as it was presented in an earlier report from the New York Times In wondering about the consequences of using robots to replace soldiers on the battlefield, he asks, "The new Dr. Strangeloves are trying to revolutionize and, in a way, sanitize warfare. Why should the public, the masses, be bothered with unpleasantness when we can zap the bad guys from afar?"
That very same question can be asked in America's debate about the future of schooling, as "new Dr. Strangeloves" of education are striving to revolutionize and sanitize one of America's messiest problems that the elite levels of our country desperately want to ignore. Over the past two weeks, a full-court press pointed to how the ruling elite in business, government, and philanthropy showed how this is going to play out. Let me explain . . .
If you have ever spent any time watching Fox News Network's cable news programming, and especially Bill O'Reilly, you would know just how much the network relies on Rasmussen Reports. Why political commentator Dick Morris is practically a shill for Rasmussen. In fact, during the 2010 election cycle, Fox News commissioned Rasmussen via one of its subsidiaries, Pulse Opinion Research, to conduct polling for the Murdoch owned network. The great irony of all this is, that like Fox News, Rasmussen is also anything but "fair and balanced." In fact a study of more than 100 polls conducted by Rasmussen revealed a pattern of bias towards the Republican Party and a level of accuracy far below that of the competition.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight concluded:" The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Moreover, Rasmussen's polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen's polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases - that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued."
Silver went on to further point out: "Rasmussen's polls have come under heavy criticism throughout this election cycle, including from FiveThirtyEight. We have critiqued the firm for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single, 4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone rather than using a random selection process; does not call cell phones; does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys. These are cost-saving measures that contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples. Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious since party identification (unlike characteristics like age and gender) is often quite fluid." Moreover further analysis by FiveThirtyEight revealed discrepancies in Rasmussen Poll results on the subject of the president's favorability ratings which go all the way back to the beginning of the Obama Administration. Rasmussen's byline is "The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere". Surely that claim is a bit of a stretch even when viewed in the most generous light.
In contrast to Rasmussen that had the highest combined error and bias scores, the top tier firms surveying voter sentiment in this election had error scores below 4 points and most had bias ratings below 1.0. These results were obtained even though Rasmussen conducted far more polls than any of its competition. The methodology employed by FiveThirtyEight was to analyze all the polls for average accuracy in predicting the margin of victory for the top two vote recipients and then to see to what extent the polling consistently missed the trends. Thus a very fundamental question comes to the fore. To what extent are the folks who rely primarily on Fox News for their political views being led astray by consistently faulty information? Or to put it another way, how can anyone who is interested in forming an unbiased conservative political opinion do so if Fox News is his or her primary information source? Don't these findings call into question the very integrity of Fox's political and news presentation? How can the Fox News Network continue to display its "fair and balanced" byline given its heavy reliance, if not its incestuous relationship with Rasmussen Reports? Based on the evidence produced by FiveThirtyEight, there is little reason to believe that the conservative audience is being well served if it is spending its evenings watching Fox News in search of fair and balanced programming upon which to shape its opinions. In fact one could conclude that America's conservatives are being deliberately led astray.
The recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments made on the Fox News and his affiliation with that network has created an interesting sidebar to this now all too familiar affair. The renewed scrutiny of NPR for its alleged liberal bias has resulted in an interesting byproduct. That byproduct is an increased level of attention now being paid to Fox, its parent the News Corp., and its wealthy conservative CEO, Rupert Murdoch.
The practice of allowing candidates to solicit campaign contributions while appearing on Fox News is a significant departure from what is generally considered television news broadcasting. Mr. Murdoch has abided this practice along with his own well-publicized million dollar contributions to Republican campaign organizations and other efforts to promote positions on the far right. That raises a fundamental question: Is Fox a legitimate news organization or has it morphed into something between a news organ and a political action operation even to the point of being considered a shill? A shill is defined as: "a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty." A political action committee is defined as:"a type of political committee organized to spend money for the election or defeat of a candidate." Mr. Murdoch has a record of promoting conservative ideas no matter what the cost. He has continued to prop up the conservative "The New York Post" in spite of its staggering losses to the tune of between $15 million to $30 million. According to Business Week magazine: "The Post has lost so much money for so long that it would have folded years ago if News Corp. applied the same profit-making rigor to the tabloid as it does to its other businesses." What then is the purpose of the continued support of a newspaper the commentary of which often resembles old-fashioned agitprop? There can only be one logical explanation and it's because the Post represents Mr. Murdoch's primary organ for presenting the conservative line in what is one of the bluest regions in the country and he is willing to spend whatever it takes to do so.
The argument that Fox News has become somewhat of a political operation is more than apparent when one examines the following evidence. Former Ohio Republican Congressman and now candidate for Governor, John Kasich, appearing during prime time on "Hannity" was given time to solicit campaign contributions while on the air saying:" If you have extra nickels or dimes, please send it our way." According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times this is not the first time Kasich has used an appearance on Fox to raise money for his campaign. Quoting Stelter: "The channel was the subject of an election complaint in Ohio because Mr. Kasich was able to ask for money and display his Web site address during an interview in August on "The O'Reilly Factor," Fox's biggest prime time talk show. Mr. Kasich used to host a weekend show on Fox, and Mr. Murdoch has called him a friend." Moreover Stelter points out that Fox employees have engaged in more direct political action both on and off the air: "Sometimes the most outspoken of the Fox hosts go out and raise money directly. Mr. Hannity has headlined several fund-raisers for Republicans this year. And just last week, Mr. Beck donated $10,000 to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce to defend it against criticism from President Obama - and challenged his radio listeners to donate as well." Beyond these various forms of political action is the fact that several likely candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination are presently on the Fox payroll or regularly appear on the network, including Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.
When you look across the political spectrum to Fox's chief rivals: MSNBC, CNN and NPR you see several object lessons in how competing news organizations have different values. Political action at MSNBC, for example, is much more constrained, to the point that there is very little deviation from what could considered legitimate news reporting and commentary. Again quoting Stelter: "All this political activity has spurred at least a little bit of hand-wringing at the channels. NBC News, which operates MSNBC, recently reiterated its rule that employees may not engage in political activity, but said it had carved out an exception for some MSNBC hosts." To date whatever exceptions exist at MSNBC, they are not even remotely close to the on the air solicitation of funds, public activities related to fund raising by network commentators or the employment of prospective presidential candidates on the network's payroll which is presently the case at Fox. At NPR political activity of any variety is virtually nonexistent. In the final analysis what we have witnessed at Fox News is the evolution of a news organization into something beyond what is commonly considered political reporting and commentary into something short of a political action committee, a sort of quasi-political news organ if you will. That said shouldn't the Fox News Network scrub the subtitle of "Fair and Balanced" from its headline banner seeing as it can no longer legitimately make that claim in light of the fundamental transformation that has taken place within the Fox organization?
This week in a San Francisco Federal District Court, a legal odd couple will be on display. Attorney David Boies, who represented Al Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court in the infamous 2000 case ofBush v. Gore, and conservative attorney Ted Olson, who represented George W. Bush, are joining forces to overturn California's Proposition 8. It will be their contention that the initiative passed by voters in 2008 banning same-sex marriage in the Golden State violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution, singles out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status, and discriminates on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
Regardless of which side prevails, experts agree the case is likely to be appealed all the way to the highest court in the land.
Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it's time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.
We have heard a lot about the...how can I put this politely...challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:
Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites...which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.
is not that it's a right-wing platform for war, intolerance, and greed; it isn't that it's spreading propaganda in support of an out-of-control White House that is hoarding unprecedented levels of power; it isn't that they engage in relentless and unfounded attacks on Democrats, progressives, and the rest of the 72% of Americans that Fox portrays as unpatriotic because they disapprove of Mr. Bush and his war; it isn't even that it sits at the center of a politically charged media empire run by Rupert Murdoch, a monopolistic ideologue with no allegiance to country or the common good.
Certainly any one of those things would reasonably explain a sharp increase in chronic anxiety, and the combination could set off an epidemic of cerebral aneurysms. But these are not the problems with Fox News.
Brought to you by... News Corpse, The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
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