A Rare Re-Post: The Real Media Bias

I usually link to my old posts instead of reblogging them… but this one’s important enough that I want to have it saved here if LiveJournal ever goes down.  Plus, with all the debates I’m currently entangled with in my conservative friends, I wanted to have this in prominently.
The news posts this refers to are old, but the theories are valid.  The conservatives will cry that the media is clearly biased towards Obama, and the liberals cry that it’s biased towards Republican ideals.  Neither are true.  Let me explain why…. again, with the understanding that there was a time in the media when Bush got away with all sorts of things, and then later a time when Bush could do no right.  And that wasn’t just what the people wanted – it was Bush and Cheney and Rove playing the media expertly until it backfired.  But Republicans often win because they have a better narrative going, and the smart ones know this.
Unfortunately, Romney doesn’t know how to play that game well.  He’s got the rich guy’s handicap in place, where he seems overly stunned by every mean thing that gets said about him.  G’wan, ask Kerry about that.
Anyway, original post:

“We noticed that people couldn’t play [The Sims] without attaching a story to what they were seeing.
This seems to be a natural way in which humans understand, remember, and communicate experiences.”
– Will Wright, on The Sims

Most of us will agree that the media is clearly biased. The problem is, we can’t agree which way it’s biased. Ask a conservative, and she’ll tell you how the media never puts the UN Blood-for-Oil scandals on the front page, thus proving that the media is hopelessly lefty; ask a liberal, and you’ll hear the tales of how the WMD evidence was shoved under the carpet until after the invasion and Fox News Fox News Fox News.
The problem is, I think both sides are wrong. The media is not slanted towards the left or the right; it’s slanted towards stories.
The media focuses heavily on news items that they can create a compelling narrative out of. The most basic screenwriting book will tell you the classic ways to create a plot, and they’re pretty simple: You need a good guy. You need a bad guy, or at the very least an obstacle that will serve as a bad guy. And you need to put the good guy in a place where things will be changing shortly, so you can root for the good guy (or maybe, in some circumstances, the bad guy).
Those are the kinds of stories that get major media attention. Thus, the sketchy WMD was pretty much ignored while the war was ramping up, because we had a good guy – George Bush, who positioned himself as the avenger of 9/11 – a clear-cut bad guy (Saddam), and an exciting new outcome shortly down the road.
Everything else, including the factual basis of the evidence, was simply not important to the media because it detracted from the story they wanted to tell. They related it on the back pages, because the media usually report the facts… But the facts they highlighted as “important” were always the ones that fit the ongoing story, and the front-page news is the only thing that most Americans are aware of anyway.
But just about at the time we were invading, we had the Blood-for-Oil scandal that made the UN seem horrifically greedy and amoral… But there was no clear bad guy. Like most scandals, there was no single person to point a finger at and say, “He did it!” Furthermore, the Blood-for-Oil scandal wasn’t a slam-dunk homer that would shake up the UN and get people fired, so it wasn’t like there was going to be any change in the near future. Why headline it if nothing new and exciting is going to happen in the new week?
Thus, the scandal wasn’t really a story so much as it was, well… News.
Right now, both sides are unhappy by the media’s coverage of Iraq, and that’s because Iraq isn’t really a story. It’s a problem.
The liberals are upset because the daily casualties and carnage aren’t making front-page news any more, but that’s because a story has to have a clear resolution somewhere in sight. The violence in Iraq has been going on for a long time and doesn’t look likely to change – so unless there’s some dramatic violence that promises to cause an immediate change in either US or Iraqi positions, it’s not front-page news.
The conservatives are upset because the good things that are happening in Iraq aren’t being reported… But again, we have the issue of dramatic change. Nothing good has happened enough to shake things up – which is further compounded by the fact that there’s no Good Guy in Iraq any more. Bush has freed Iraq, but now he has a vested interest in making Iraq look good… So he can no longer be the untarnished Good Guy when it comes to Iraq. Right now, the media is looking for someone in Iraq to serve as Iraq’s Good Guy – someone we can cheer on as they win or lose. Until that happens (and Iraq’s designated Good Guy starts to win), nothing good will make front-page news in Iraq.
And both sides get hosed because all the major outlets are looking for some story to hang off of Iraq – some of which will piss off the lefties and some that will piss off the righties. If we’re losing in Iraq, that’s a clear story with a Good Guy (America) who’s losing… But we’re not really losing so much as not winning, so we can’t say that. Likewise, much of Iraq’s still a violent mess and it’s not clear that they will have elections, so the conservative story – we’re winning! – gets no foothold, either.
The problem with story-based news is that it leaves out a lot of stuff that’s important but has no clear place in a narrative. The ongoing Social Security costs (and whether we can sustain it) is one of the more critical issues in American politics… But it’s not important because there’s no Good Guy to attach to it, and any change that happens to it will be slow and incremental. Likewise, the various Halliburton scandals can’t be clearly tied to Cheney, thus robbing us of a Bad Guy to hang the story off of.
(But believe you me, if Cheney is tied to any of the scandals, the lead prosecutor/investigator will become a Good Guy if he shows the slightest friendliness to the press corps.)
Thus, the media does not provide facts, but rather attempts at providing some bastardized movie-of-the-week complete with likable characters and a foregone conclusion. Yet their plots tend to be short-sighted and rapidly-changing because they’re constantly making wrong assumptions about how this plot should go, missing it, then reframing the story in a new narrative.
Don’t believe me? Well, what’s the media seem to think is the most important thing about the Presidential race? Is it what policies the two men have? Is it about how likely it is that either of them will carry out their campaign promises? Is it about the issues that face the nation?
No. It’s all about who’s winning the race, and why. “Who’s ahead” is what makes the headlines. And “who’s ahead” is, from a factual and social perspective, the least important thing about the Presidential race… But the other bits don’t make for a good story.
Instead, we have two men fighting. One will win. Who triumphs?
Film at eleven. Actual facts much later.

How I Never Forgive Someone

There are things you can do that I will never forgive you for.  That’s a very hard barrier to cross, and few have, because to get on my “out” list you have to violate my trust the same way, multiple times, with multiple warnings… but a handful of brave souls seemed hell-bent on pushing past my complaints.  I don’t talk to them any more.  I won’t forgive them.
Which is not to say that I don’t think they’re capable of change.
Look, I never feel good when someone hurts me so badly that I have to remove them from my life like some unwanted tumor.  Some people have this protective barrier that when someone violates their trust, they get righteously enraged, towering with justification, and that gets them through the sadness.  Me?  I just feel like I lost a friend, someone who wasn’t quite as good as I thought they were, and I feel bad for me and worse for them.
Because it’s tough to alienate me.  I figure if they’re making me not want to deal with them, they’re living a very restricted life; they’re usually mowing through friends on a regular basis, or dealing with a small core group of friends with similar issues where they all tolerate each other’s psychoses and wonder why the world is so mean, or both.  It’s usually not a fun time they’re having, so I pity them.
And I think they can change, and hope they do.  I was a pretty shitty guy at twenty-two, and now that I’ve doubled my age I’m a lot better – maybe not wonderful, but certainly a more compassionate and less dramatic human being.  When I hear about those people having straightened up, I think, “Good!  Maybe they’ve learned something.”
But I won’t let them back into my life.
It’s not that I don’t believe in the act of forgiveness, repentance, or growth.  It’s that for me, these people have shown me to be not worth the risk of having them around.  They weren’t perfectly toxic in the first place, or they never would have been my friends; there was something I liked about them, enough to give them multiple chances.  They probably did at least one very good thing for every two bad things they did.
Eventually, I realized that I didn’t like continually wondering what hurtful thing they might do next.  The damage of always cringing in preparation for the next blow is, in some ways, worse than the actual blow.  And as such, letting them back into my life would mean cringing on some level… and I won’t do that.
They’ve burnt their time with me.  I hope they can learn to make other people happy; I hold no malice.  But they’re not allowed back, no matter how many proclamations of change they make, no matter how many people vouch for them.  It’s not that I think they are bad, it’s that I am no longer willing to find out.
Go in peace.  But without me.

Forgiving, But Not Forgetting, All This Gay Chicken

So I posted to Teh Tiny Social Medias yesterday about Chik Fil-A walking back their stance on supporting anti-gay organizations, and wondered whether it was okay to eat there yet. And a common response was, “Too little, too late.  Chik Fil-A’s lost my business forever.”
I humbly suggest this is a very unhelpful attitude.
Look, I get Chik Fil-A did a lot of wrong… But if you hold fast to that stance forever, no matter what Chik Fil-A does in the future to rectify it, then you’re encouraging companies to never change their mind.  Because if there’s really nothing they can do to make it up to you, then you’re rigging the system so there’s no reward for changing their behavior.
And you gotta remember: with rare exceptions, companies are all about the money.  Take it away from them, they’ll change… but only if they think there’s a chance of getting that cash back.  If you write to a company and tell them, “I am never ever shopping with you again!”, and they believe it, you’ll be lucky if they waste postage on a reply.  No, the trick is to tell them, “You have offended me heartily, and yet you have a chance of regaining my business!”, which gets you your best chance at creating change.
If someone does wrong – and Chik Fil-A’s done a lot of wrong to gays – then you want to give them encouragement for doing the right thing, however grudgingly it may be.  Otherwise, what you’re telling them is, “If you screw up, double down!  Because it’s not like there’s forgiveness in this world anyway.  You’re gonna be punished for your past, so might as well keep committing the sin!”  It feels like chewing tin foil, but those rewards are important… especially in circumstances where in learning to please you, they run the risk of alienating old friends.
Strangely, this works in rehabilitating both corporations and people.
A Chik Fil-A sits right across the street from me.  And you know what I’m doing this morning?  Not eating there.  Because while I will return to eating at Chik Fil-A when I’m convinced they’re serious about their anti-gay statements, the company itself has made no announcements – all we have is an alderman’s word that they intend to change.  And if a) Chik Fil-A announces officially that they will no longer donate to anti-gay groups, or b) they go a period of time without donating to anti-gay groups, then I’ll return to eating there again as I used to – which is to say, sporadically.
I want them to change.  But I also have to see evidence of the change before I start giving them credit.  That, too, is a good way to run your personal life.

Thirteen Years.

Every year, on this day, I am filled with quiet amazement. Thirteen years.
Had you polled my friends back when I was twenty-five, I don’t think you would have found a one of them who would have thought I’d get married… and if I did, they’d probably have thought that any marriage I was involved with would have shredded itself in bouts of psychodrama.  I was infamous for having slept with over eighty women back then, which seemed impressive to some, but the truth was closer to “Charming enough for eighty women to let him into their bed, enough of a neurotic mess that none of them wanted to stick around.”
Yet here I am, a husband of thirteen years.  And I am still amazingly, dazzlingly, in love with my wife.
It’s been said about writing that a good novel is so big, the writer has to grow to meet the challenge of writing it.  Gini is a woman so wonderful that I’ve had to grow considerably just to stay married to her.  Because she deserves the best from me.  We fit.  She’s witty, and she deals admirably with my many depressions and setbacks, and she’s competent, and she’s genuinely compassionate in her work as a bankruptcy lawyer.
I love the scent of our bedroom when Gini’s been sleeping in it, the pillows suffused with her.  I love the way we look up from the Internet to trade bad jokes and news.  I love the way we both get so psyched when the right movie comes on television.  I love the way we turn into douches at dinner, discussing taste profiles and declaring who won the meal my getting the better dish.  I love the way we still hold hands freely, lovingly, wantingly.
Yesterday, I was talking with my therapist about a bump we’d had on Friday, where she’d hurt her ankle while I was out on a date, and Gini wound up feeling abandoned.  And I told him how I was mad at myself because I should have seen it from Gini’s perspective, and been better to her, and my therapist noted how unusual it was that I was angry for not being compassionate enough to my spouse.
But why wouldn’t I be?  She’s been compassionate to me.  If I ever appear wise in my writings, it’s because Gini is there to guide me.  If I appear to grow over the years, it’s probably because Gini needs me to be a better person. She’s such a part of my world view that it’s hard to imagine what I’d be like without her.
In the past, when I dated women, I changed grudgingly and with cost – sure, maybe I’d try to act differently, but you owed me.  My Star Wars-loving wife, however, is different.  I know how much she wants me to be me, so growing into a better human for her is effortless.  If you’d told me thirteen years could pass this pleasantly, and politely, and with such fucking hot sex, well, I wouldn’t have believed you. As you can see from my essay on the day of our wedding, I was cynical – but Gini made me believe in love.
Thirteen years is the longest time I’ve been with anyone.  I hope it’s thirteen more.

The Republican Problem

As a liberal-leaning-centrist-who-calls-himself-a-Democrat-because-there-are-no-other-workable-choices, I’ve been told gleefully by conservatives how unpopular my opinions are.  “People don’t want a public option for health care!” they’ve cried.  “People don’t like your ideas!  That’s why you lose!”
The problem is, the Republicans have walled themselves off from reality for so long that they appear to be curdling.
Look, FOX News did a lot for Republicans in terms of energizing their base, getting the word out, to the point where the Republicans actually handed us our ass a lot of times when they shouldn’t have.  (Gore handed Bush the election, and I’m still shocked that Bush beat Kerry when his numbers were so low.)  But the problem is that FOX News became an echo chamber, telling people that it’s not just Republicans, but all people think that way… and now, they’re dealing with the repercussions of that chamber.
A lot of people say that Sarah Palin cost McCain the election, and she was a foolish choice.  But she wasn’t.  The problem McCain was attempting to solve was that a lot of Republicans were pissed at him for not being as Hardcore as he should have been, and as such he needed someone ridiculously hard-core and charming to fit the bill.  Bingo!  Palin solved that.  Suddenly, Republicans were lining up to flood the McCain/Palin campaign with cash, and a lot of Republicans were thrilled that there was a real person to represent them.
Problem is, Palin was so inexperienced and simplistic that she won over the die-hards, but alienated the swing voters.  McCain consolidated his base, at the cost of the election.
And I think you’re seeing that now, with Romney.  Why’d he pick Ryan?  Because he needed someone to energize the base!  But the guy who’s good at energizing the base is so hostile to Medicare that it’s losing them Florida.
What you’re seeing now, I think, is this bizarre no-win situation where the Republican candidate has to be die-hard enough to satisfy the Republicans without looking incredibly reactionary to swing voters.  And that can’t be done.  If you appear middle-of-the-road enough that you might get elected, the Republicans won’t vote for you because hey, you’re not following Our Tenets!  You gotta speak fluent looney – because we are the majority, whether anyone believes it or not!
So what’s happening is that the Republicans are shrinking.  I have no doubt that Romney’s supporters will turn out, making this appear to be a close race.  (He may even win – yeah, I said it.)  But I think what will most likely happen is that fumbling old Romney will get a lot of really energized voters, but in the process of getting the base to his side, he’ll have alienated the front.
Yeah, the public option didn’t poll well.  But neither do a lot of Romney’s beliefs, when stated openly.  But he has to state them, as loudly as he can afford to, in order to prevent a division in his base. Which sends more people scurrying away.  Which may be the new Republican tradition, if they’re not careful; a frightened, cautious guy at the center who’s trying desperately to please to masters, along with a bright, happy psycho at his side with opinions that would repel most of America if stated publicly and proudly.
We’ll see how he comes off in the debates.  One suspects better than the liberals would give him credit for, but not enough to swing it.  But there’s still two months, mang.  Anything could happen.