BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
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For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, May 21, 2004
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SERIOUS
AND NOT. That would be the difference between Attorney General
Tom Reilly and Governor Mitt Romney.
Item one: Romney sends the
marriage-license applications of 10 out-of-state same-sex couples to
Reilly's office and demands that Reilly take action to prevent them
from getting married. Romney: "We all have the same interests. To
make sure the law is carried out." Reilly: "We have an awful lot of
other things going on, so we'll deal with this as it comes."
(Globe coverage here;
Herald coverage here.)
Item two: Six ex-employees of the
Registry of Motor Vehicles are being investigated for their alleged
role in a scheme to sell illegal driver's licenses. The Globe
reports: "Reilly called the allegations 'deeply disturbing' because
of the potential dangers posed by those in the country illegally with
false documents and by dangerous drivers being returned to the road."
(Globe coverage here;
Herald coverage here.)
In other words, when Reilly says he
has better things to do than persecute gay and lesbian couples, he's
not kidding.
IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU
COUNT
From
today's Globe:
New University of
Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson will earn $350,000 a
year plus an array of benefits including hefty car and housing
allowances, under an agreement reached with trustees this week, a
UMass spokesman said.
The salary is higher than that
of his predecessor, William M. Bulger, who earned $309,000 plus
benefits, but falls well short of the $400,000 limit that trustees
set on Wilson's pay before starting negotiations this
month.
From
today's Herald:
New UMass President Jack
Wilson inked a five-year contract this week that could pay him
nearly a cool half-million dollars his first year - $140,000 more
than his predecessor.
The contract was signed late
Tuesday, a UMass spokesman said, giving Wilson, a former
physicist, a handsome pay package of as much as $497,000 for
his first year on the job - his first as university president
anywhere.
As you will see, the facts in both
stories are the same - it's just that the Herald totaled up
Wilson's benefits. Since money is money, I'd say the Herald
provides a truer picture.
TUNE IN SATURDAY AT 3 P.M.
I'll be appearing tomorrow on WBIX Radio in Boston (AM 1060) between
3 and 4 p.m. on Family
Talk Radio, with Deirdre
Wilson and Peter Chianca, to talk about my book on dwarfism,
Little
People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's
Eyes.
If you're out of the signal range,
listen live here.
posted at 10:56 AM |
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Thursday, May 20, 2004
WE POST, YOU DECIDE. Lowell
Sun assistant editorial-page editor Ann Frantz
writes:
Hey, Dan!
Any writer knows it's a snap to
extract a sentence and use it out of context for effect - as you
did with my column, which does not apologize for that photo, but
supports it.
I try to recognize the
motivations that prompt people on different sides of an issue and
address them, maybe even change a mind or two. I don't screech
like a banshee at them....
GOOD journalists don't alter
content to give themselves something for their own juicy column,
just media hacks.
Wishy-washy? Here's something
that you, with your simple black-and-white head, can understand:
Up yours.
And thanks for reading! Didn't
know you actually did much of that.
Ann Frantz
Hey, Ann! As you know, I posted a
link to your entire column so that Media Log readers could decide for
themselves what you were up to. I also did not say, suggest, or even
hint that you "apologize[d]" for the photo. [See
clarification below.] Uh, GOOD journalists don't put words in
other people's mouths.
posted at 11:28 AM |
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NO GUTS, NO GLORY. The
Lowell Sun, spooked by a handful of cancellations,
apologizes
today for publishing a photo of two men kissing at Cambridge City
Hall this past Monday, the day that same-sex marriage became legal in
Massachusetts. A Sun editorial panders thusly:
While the photo accurately
chronicled the new reality in Massachusetts that same-sex couples
are to receive equal rights granted traditional married couples it
represented a shocking element to what has otherwise been a fair
and cautious process conducted on The Sun's news and editorial
pages.
To some readers, the photograph
pushed the envelope too far. Those contacted by The Sun said it
represented an unnecessary, in-your-face intrusion, especially for
parents with young children.
No doubt The Sun underestimated
the photo's impact on a segment of its readership population. By
publishing it, we inadvertently inflamed passions and emotions in
people who are still trying to come to terms with the gay-marriage
issue.
We learned a valuable lesson and
hope to benefit from it....
If The Sun could turn back the
clock, we most likely would select a less intrusive photograph not
because the original photo was wrong but because it didn't fit the
go-slow approach we've endorsed for a better understanding of this
sensitive issue.
Assistant editorial-page editor Ann
Connery Frantz compounds
the outrage with a remarkably wishy-washy exercise in hand-wringing
that includes this absurdity: "Parents want to protect their kids
from behavior that offends. Although I suspect many children are more
understanding than they're given credit for, I have also felt the
impulse to keep them innocent, at least while they still
were."
So if you're gay or lesbian and
living in Greater Lowell, here's the message: you can get married.
But don't act so, you know, married.
Clarification: The
Sun's editorial apologized for running the photo, not
Frantz's column. Media Log apologies for any
misunderstanding.
THE SEVENTH-GRADER THEORY OF
POLITICAL GAMESMANSHIP. The New York Times' Elisabeth
Bumiller writes
today:
Both White House and Bush
campaign officials said there were no plans or debate about
changing the president's re-election strategy, which is to run on
national security. Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush were also described as
adamant that the president not admit publicly to any mistakes in
war planning and the American-led occupation of the country, as
Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and intellectual
godfather of the Iraq war, did in a hearing on Capitol Hill on
Tuesday.
"There is a theory in the White
House that they don't want to appear like Jimmy Carter," said one
Republican adviser. "They think that's weak."
So how many Americans and Iraqis
must die so that no one will confuse George W. Bush with Jimmy
Carter?
Don't worry, Mr. President. No one
is going to confuse you with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, that's for
sure.
NEW IN THIS WEEK'S
PHOENIX. The
big story: With Iraq taking
center stage, other news gets squeezed. Plus, Danny Schechter goes
public, Spare Change News goes pro, and the Globe goes
porn.
posted at 8:45 AM |
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004
FAKE RAPES AND LYING LIARS.
You will not be surprised to learn that the right is lying about the
Boston Globe's role in promulgating those fake photos of
American troops raping Iraqi women. The pictures were unveiled at a
news conference last week by Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and
black-community activist Sadiki Kambon. Click here
and work backwards for the full story.
To recap briefly: the Globe
published an article about the news conference by reporter Donovan
Slack that conveyed great skepticism about the pictures, and that
quoted a military spokesman as saying the photos might well be an
Internet fraud. In fact, it turned out that WorldNetDaily.com
had already exposed them as frauds. Where the Globe
went wrong was in running a George Rizer photo of Turner and Kambon
in which the fake-rape pictures were clearly visible; and then, when
editors realized what a mistake they'd made after the first edition
rolled off the presses, shrinking the photo rather than removing it
altogether from subsequent editions.
A screw-up? Yes. A really bad
screw-up? Absolutely! But not the one that right-wingers wish
the Globe had made. That's not going to stop them,
though.
Here,
for instance, is Mark Steyn, taking a break from the hard work of
ridiculing
triple amputee Max Cleland:
In the last few days, the
Mirror, a raucous Fleet Street tabloid, has published pictures of
British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners, and the Boston Globe,
a somnolent New England broadsheet, has published pictures of
American troops sexually abusing Iraqi women. In both cases, the
pictures turned out to be fake. From a cursory glance at the
details in the London snaps and the provenance of the Boston ones,
it should have been obvious to editors at both papers that they
were almost certainly false.
Yet they published them. Because
they wanted them to be true. Because it would bring them a
little closer to the head they really want to roll - George W.
Bush's.
Writing in National Review,
John O'Sullivan accuses
the Globe of "Willing Gullibility," adding:
Two newspapers - the
Daily Mirror in Britain and the Boston Globe in the
U.S. - have published fake photographs of British and American
soldiers abusing prisoners. In the British case the fakes were
quickly detected once they had been published, and in the American
case, they had been detected before the Globe
published them. Neither the media's vaunted "skepticism" nor
simple fact-checking on the internet were employed in either case
by the papers. The fakes were, in the old Fleet Street joke, "too
good to check." There was a rush to misjudgment.
On a right-wing website called
OpinionEditorials.com,
someone named Lee P Butler (no period, please!) blurts
out:
The mainstream media has
joined the attack of our military as The Boston Globe, a
subsidiary of The New York Times, published photos that show what
they said were American soldiers taking part in 'gang rapes' of
Iraqi women without ever verifying their authenticity. They have
since been proven to be pictures taken from an internet porn site.
The newspaper has since given what they consider an apology but
still refuses to accept their own complicity.
I'm sure I could find more examples
if I kept looking.
Of course, none of these accounts
is even remotely accurate, but they follow one of the right's
favorite scripts: that the liberal media - in this case, the
Globe - so hate America that they eagerly seize upon dubious
claims of heinous behavior on the part of US soldiers. It doesn't
matter that the Globe reported no such thing. It doesn't
matter that the paper didn't "publish" the fake pictures, instead
accidentally capturing them in a photo of Turner and Kambon. (And
before you dismiss my contention that it was an accident, ask
yourself if you really believe that any mainstream-newspaper editor
would knowingly run graphic photos of oral sex and gang rape.
Pause. Okay, you've got your answer, don't you?)
The right has its lies and myths to
promote. And it will never, ever let the truth stand in the
way.
posted at 2:06 PM |
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TECHNOLOGY'S TOLL. The
Boston Herald's Elisabeth Beardsley today has a
must-read
on rude and obnoxious toll-takers. But that's not what this item is
about.
The Herald's website has a
feature that highlights certain keywords and lets you click for more
information. Toward the end of Beardsley's piece is a reference to an
"Indian Orchard man." (Indian Orchard is a small town in Western
Massachusetts.) India is highlighted. Select it, and you get a
bunch of stories related to India, the nation.
Although nothing on last week's
election and subsequent political machinations.
Calling IT!
TATTOO WHO? Continuing this
morning's theme of petty gotchas, here is the lead of a
story
in the Boston Globe by Christina Pazzanese: "After
Massachusetts legalized tattoos in early 2001, Nashua firefighter
Roger Hall began exploring what kind he might get."
What does this mean? Nashua, as we
know, is in New Hampshire, where tattooing has been legal pretty much
forever. And even if Hall was a Massachusetts firefighter, couldn't
he have driven to New Hampshire? Was there a reason that he had to
wait for tattooing to become legal in Massachusetts? Or is it simply
that no one edited this?
posted at 8:56 AM |
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
THESE OPINIONS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
... The Boston Globe announces today that it will
begin
accepting ads on the op-ed
page. This is unsurprising: the New York Times has been taking
such ads for years. No doubt officials at the New York Times Company,
which owns both papers, have been grumbling that if it's good enough
for the Times, it's certainly good enough for the
Globe. And let's face it - the Globe op-ed page does
not often seem overwhelmed with stellar material.
Still, having an ad-free op-ed page
was always a distinguishing feature of the Globe, and it's too
bad to see it go away. I imagine that it will result in fewer pieces
by outside contributors - many of which, let's face it, are snoozers,
but which nevertheless diversify the page.
HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?
"CORRECTION
- An editorial yesterday misstated the name of Julie Goodridge, one
of the gay marriage plaintiffs."
Coming tomorrow: the Globe
screws up the president's middle initial.
A RACK IN BLACK.
Here
is the Boston Herald's Andrew Miga this morning on Alexandra
Kerry's black dress, which was the talk of Drudge,
Wonkette,
and Kaus
yesterday. Kerry wore a slinky number to the Cannes Film Festival,
which - in photos beamed across the Web - turned out to be entirely
see-through. (Media Log's verdict: not bad!)
Kaus, at least, is honest enough to
admit that the effect was almost certainly the result of the cameras'
flash, although that doesn't stop him from wondering if the pictures
prove that she is "a bit vain, selfish and opportunistic."
Really.
But there is simply no way Kerry
could have looked in the mirror, seen what the photos depicted
yesterday, and said to herself, "Perfect! That is exactly how
I want to look tonight!" I mean, let's be serious.
Well, okay, not too
serious.
posted at 9:17 AM |
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Monday, May 17, 2004
MARRIED, OFTEN WITH
CHILDREN. The biggest story in the country today is gay marriage,
and Massachusetts is the epicenter, as same-sex marriage becomes
legal here for the first time anywhere in the United States.
(Globe coverage here;
Herald coverage here.)
Not to focus on the negative, but I
feel compelled to reproduce the first few paragraphs of Howie Carr's
column in Sunday's Herald. Unlike his fellow columnist Joe
Fitzgerald, who at least appears to be a true
believer (sub. req.), I
find it hard to accept that the sneering Carr really cares one way or
the other. Yet this is how he began his hateful
little screed (sub. req.)
yesterday:
Gay marriage, another
mega-embarrassment for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but what
else is new? Imagine the circus this evening out on Mass. Ave. in
front of Cambridge City Hall - one shudders to think of what sort
of XXX-rated products the hawkers will be trying to peddle to
those who once were referred to in simpler times as "brides" and
"grooms."
"Hey, get your amyl nitrites
here. Poppers here, poppers!"
This is the liberal credo: If it
happens in Abu Ghraib prison, it's a war crime. If it happens at a
rest stop on I-495, it's true love.
Welcome to Massachusetts. The
Gay State. Sodom and Begorrah.
And everyone has to pretend that
this will be the end of it. You will be hounded by the PC Police
if you state the obvious, that if the perversion du jour is "gay
marriage," then tomorrow it will be polygamy, and the day after
tomorrow incest, and then the final frontier ...
bestiality.
Elisabeth Beardsley, Thomas
Caywood, Thea Singer, Marie Szaniszlo, Franci Richardson, and other
Herald reporters trying to cover gay marriage with the
seriousness it deserves must cringe when they see garbage like
this.
The Globe's
anti-gay-marriage columnist, Jeff Jacoby, complained
yesterday that "the media depiction of the same-sex marriage
controversy has been strikingly one-sided." No doubt I'm caught in my
own paradigm, but I can't help but think that that's because there is
a right and a wrong regarding gay marriage, and that the vast
majority of the media have sided with those who are right.
Jacoby continued:
Those of us who think this
week's revolution is a terrible mistake need to do a much better
job of explaining that the core question is not "Why shouldn't any
couple in love be able to marry?" but something more essential:
"What is marriage for?" We need to convey that the fundamental
purpose of marriage is to unite men and women so that any children
they may create or adopt will have a mom and a dad.
Marriage expresses a public
judgment that every child deserves a mom and a dad. Same-sex
marriage, by contrast, says that the sexual and emotional desires
of adults count for more than the needs of children. Which message
do we want the next generation to receive?
Well, marriage is for many things,
but I agree with Jacoby that child-rearing is by far the most
important. I would even agree that there are many advantages to
raising children within the context of a family headed by a mother
and a father - advantages that are difficult to replicate with two
mothers, or two fathers, or a single parent.
But this is theory. The reality is
that there are already same-sex couples and single parents raising
children, and that, in many cases, they are doing a far better job
than some traditional families. Children are raised by actual people,
not by theories about what constitutes the ideal. We ought to
recognize that. And today, at least in one state, we do.
RUMSFELD'S LAST WEEK?
Here
is the latest from Seymour Hersh, in the current New Yorker,
on a secret order signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that
may have led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The most chilling
paragraph:
The government consultant
[a source of Hersh's] said that there may have been a
serious goal, in the beginning, behind the sexual humiliation and
the posed photographs. It was thought that some prisoners would do
anything - including spying on their associates - to avoid
dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends. The
government consultant said, "I was told that the purpose of the
photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could
insert back in the population." The idea was that they would be
motivated by fear of exposure, and gather information about
pending insurgency action, the consultant said. If so, it wasn't
effective; the insurgency continued to grow.
When you consider the incredible
damage that has been done to American interests by the abuses and
torture at Abu Ghraib - when you consider that terrorists executed
Nicholas Berg in retaliation (or at least used it as a convenient
excuse) - then, if this is true, Rumsfeld's resignation should be on
President Bush's desk by noon today.
Yeah, right.
posted at 9:29 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
