Owens Rhetoric

I noted, a bit ago in the media bias post, my inclination towards NPR.  As to why, I submit Laura Sullivan’s report today during All Things Considered on the economics of prisons and bail.  Really a solid piece of journalism.

They are here because they can’t make bail — sometimes as little as $50. Some will wait behind bars for as long as a year before their cases make it to court. And it will cost taxpayers $9 billion this year to house them.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were both a bit fanciful; and, reading Federalist 27 along with some contemporaneous Jefferson letters, I saw two idealistic pictures indeed; but painted with very different presuppositions.

Hamilton’s two main points in F27 are that people will love (really, love) the federal government; and, if not, the federal government will be better than regional governments in quelling rebellions.  He begins by refuting the “presupposition that the people will be disinclined to the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an internal nature.”  But why would folks be so disinclined towards federal government? “Unless we presume at the same time that the powers of the general government will be worse administered than those of the State government, there seems to be no room for the presumption of ill-will, disaffection, or opposition in the people.”

In other words, the federal government will work so smoothly that folks will naturally regard it fondly.  Hamilton reminds us why, summarizing the ways that the papers have argued the “general [federal] government will be better administered than the particular [state] governments”: (1) of the larger national selection pool from which federal politicians can be selected; (2) state legislatures will choose able Senators; and (3) the national forum of leaders will be more free from faction than local politics.

So, “until satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion, that the federal government is likely to be administered in such a manner as to render it odious or contemptible to the people, there can be no reasonable foundation for the supposition that the laws of the Union will meet with any greater obstruction from them, or will stand in need of any other methods to enforce their execution, than the laws of the particular members.”

A charming aspect to Hamilton’s F27 is his notion that the more entrenched the federal government becomes in the daily life of Americans, the more they will love the government.  I’ll quote at length, as this is Hamiltonian idealism at its most poignant.

I will, in this place, hazard an observation, which will not be the less just because to some it may appear new; which is, that the more the operations of the national authority are intermingled in the ordinary exercise of government, the more the citizens are accustomed to meet with it in the common occurrences of their political life, the more it is familiarized to their sight and to their feelings, the further it enters into those objects which touch the most sensible chords and put in motion the most active springs of the human heart, the greater will be the probability that it will conciliate the respect and attachment of the community. …The inference is, that the authority of the Union, and the affections of the citizens towards it, will be strengthened, rather than weakened, by its extension to what are called matters of internal concern; and will have less occasion to recur to force, in proportion to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency. The more it circulates through those channls and currents in which the passions of mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent and perilous expedients of compulsion.

But, what if the springs of the human heart ossify and the communities of America fall out of affection with the federal government?  If rebellions do arise, a strong federal government will be best in preventing and disarming them.

The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the former sentiment and to inspire the latter, than that of a single State, which can only command the resources within itself? …If this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the Confederacy than to that of a single member.

It is interesting that Hamilton is using the insurmountability of the federal government as a factor in favor of the new Constitution. The argument stems from quite a different set of assumptions from those that formed the dream of, say, Jefferson’s blood-fed tree of liberty.  Jefferson penned the letter to William Smith that gives us the tree of liberty, by the way, about one month before the New York Packet published Hamilton’s 27th Federalist. He had just received a copy of the proposed Constitution.

I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: & very bad. I do not know which preponderate.

The oft-quoted bit in Jefferson’s letter, about the tree of liberty, comes in his response to world-wide rumors about America being in a state of anarchy; stemming, according to Jefferson, from an overreaction to Shay’s Rebellion - the “single instance of Massachusetts.”    That uprising, consisting mainly of poor farmers angry with their debts and taxes, became the National centerpiece for those that wanted to chat up a stronger centralized government than the Articles of Confederacy provided.  Jefferson saw that talking-point developing, and worried that the rebellion would be blown out of proportion and manipulated.

Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.

Earlier in 1787, Jefferson remarked similarly in a letter to James Madison:

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

And a month later, in a letter to Abigail Adams: “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.”

Abigail had been updating Jefferson on the Shay’s happenings.  Apparently the updates left Jefferson cliff-hung:

They were the latest I had seen or have yet seen. They left off too in a critical moment; just at the point where the Malcontents make their submission on condition of pardon, and before the answer of government was known. I hope they pardoned them.

Jefferson’s seat-edged excitement feels to me a bit like a child awaiting the end to a bedtime story; and that’s a point I take away from this exchange: Jefferson was distanced from the actual rebellion  he praised.  Would he have been so happy with uprisings if they unsettled Monticello while he was home?

By the way, and to conclude with a return to F27, I think Hamilton’s best argument is in his final two paragraphs.  In a league of state-entities such as that under the Articles of Confederation, legal enforcement relies, really, only on force.  It is analogous to international law, where shame and force are the only bindings to the “law.”  In a unified government as proposed in the Constitution, the states and citizens are bound to a legal structure with several mechanisms apart from force with which to enforce laws.

Talking about media and bias.

I think it was in my media law class that I learned about the factious early-American pamphlets and their difference to today’s purportedly neutral press.  But, I never looked into why that norm shifted. In support of my point below, I’m obliged to NPR.

The Planet Money crew, in the December 28 podcast, “The Price of Bias,” interviews Matthew Gentzkow to dig into the economic causes for the transition from bias to purported neutrality in media.  That, by the way, is what is so great in the podcast – they’re like Freakanomics, but not sold out.  Here’s my summary, but I suggest clicking over for the real thing.

Bias, in early American print media, was expected; in point of fact, most publications were explicitly affiliated with factions and parties.  Publishers did a basic cost-benefit and made an economic choice.  In return for trumping a party, publishers tended to get, from the party, government printing contracts, government posts (like the lucrative post office general), and straight up cash.  Those rewards tended to outweigh the money to be gained from selling the publications to a broader than partisan audience.

Then, some big post-Civil War changes in publishing came about.  Literacy rose and the telegraph sped along wired news.  And, the cost for material on which print was printed fell drastically.  One likely read reports of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in columns printed on linen.  The introduction of paper made from wood pulp, somewhere around the 1870s, made the physical part of publishing far cheaper.

So the factors going into publishers’ cost-benefit analyses changed, resulting in the conclusion that it was better to sell more (cheaply produced) papers to as many as would buy.  Thus, neutrality, and the larger bi-partisan audience, became the norm for news publishers.

Now, there’s one bit to that story about which I’m left wondering.  Gentzkow said in the interview that neutral/balanced papers tended to sell more copies when this change in the 1870s came about.  Would that be the case today?  Was it really the case back then?  Cass Sunstein has built a school of lectures on the notion that we’re a society of choirs to whom we love to be preached.  We feign fair-mindedness, but unconvincingly.  If we are, as I suspect, a partisan society, how do neutral papers sell more copies?

I thought it would be fun to draft an outline of items with which we can quantify problems in news media.  For the most part, I list bullets in an order of descending problematic weight; but, the main categories (facts, analyses, and presentation) are of equal weight.

So far, I intend the outline to address an individual story, rather than an entire news outlet such as NY Times, NPR, or Fox.  To analyze the entire outlet, I imagine two main steps: (1) apply the outline to a sample of individual stories and (2) weigh the ‘problematic score’ of those stories appropriately based on their respective prominence within the outlet (for instance, a page D18 story in the Post would not rate equally with A1; however, a story in the middle of All Things Considered is really equal to the front piece because that show loops and is not usually heard start to finish, in my experience).

Here’s a first crack at the outline – and it’s just that; I’ll revise on reflection and comment.  And note: transparent bias is not a problem; bias, for purposes of this outline, is that which distorts truth or that affects a purportedly neutral story.

• Factual errors (biased research): Inaccurate reporting resulting in a story more favorable to X
  • Wrong facts intentionally used
    • No sources apart from journalist
    • 3^rd party sources researched by journalist while knowingly ignoring contrary evidence
    • Bias party’s (X’s) sources used by journalist without checking for contrary evidence (willful ignorance)
  • Wrong facts unintentionally used
    • Bias party’s (X’s) source, but journalist does not know source derives from X
    • Reporter’s assumption erroneously used as fact

• Analytical errors (biased conclusions)
  • Conclusion resulting from assumed/biased premise
  • Failing to conclude
    • Allowing opposing arguments equal status without concluding on their veracity
      • (this is not so much bias as journalistic laziness; however, it can weigh as more heavily biased if the story concludes that reasonable people differ)
    • Allowing an argument to serve as a counterpoint when it does not, in fact, address the substance of the point

• Biased presentation

• • Misleading headlines – where headline or lead in do not match with logical conclusion to the story
  • Context
    • Selected context selected to misrepresent language or action
    • Failing to provide context of item
    • Incomplete context
  • Biased story-structure
    • Allowing opposing arguments equal status in order to present side as legitimate
  • Wording/Tone
    • Use of descriptors that present an overall bias

A friend and I had a good, but short, debate on news-biases after he buttressed his claim to neutrality in news-listening by noting his propensity to be equally disgusted hearing the bias in Fox News and NPR.  Having been on the “What Liberal Media” beat a few years ago on this site, I had to engage him on this one.

For purposes of transparency: I argued that NPR has the least profit-motivation and is the most accurate.  I also argued that NPR fell least into the error of thinking that fair reporting equals allowing two people from a story’s opposing sides to have their say (who determines those sides, and the representatives of those sides).  My friend embraced the notion that a news outlet should aim to tell the truth of a story rather than present sides, and largely based his perception of bias in the substance of what NPR chooses to report.  We were cut short, at that point.

After that discussion, I saw this bit, from a column in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

We love nearly everything about NPR’s supremely well-done shows, except for two things: (1) the navel-gazing personal essays in which every third word is “I,” and (2) the supercilious leftism that pervades the programming like the odor of patchouli at an Earth First! powwow.

I don’t have a high opinion of the material that comes out of the TD editorial page, particularly when it has the Palin/Giuliani tone of sarcastic.  I’m not sure what he has in mind on criticism #1; and his hot hatred of haughty environment-loving liberals is just off-putting.

His conclusion exposes his notion of fair media – choose supposed spokespeople for supposed legitimate views in a debate:

Ironically, NPR execs complain that by airing commentary from Liasson and Williams, Fox can deflect the charge that it’s dominated by right-wing voices. “Fox uses Mara and Juan as cover,” an NPR source complained to Politico.

Perhaps. But at least Fox leavens its right-wing bias with liberals. Still doubt NPR is even more biased than Fox? Just imagine NPR inviting Sean Hannity as a regular guest commentator.

I’m reminded of a phrase that my Torts professor used, and that I like: “reasonable people can differ.”  I like that, because it is important to remember that reasonable people can maintain opposing presumptions or conclusions on a given item – and the important thing in a debate is to identify those points of difference, and examine, where possible, the weight of evidence supporting the opposing views.

Remembering that, two major flaws in much news media come to mind:  One, sometimes reasonable people cannot differ – it is, in fact, unreasonable to hold some opinions.  Two, the news ought not feel it’s job done in airing the opposing sides when reasonably differing – a news source ought examine and report the evidence that allows the audience to determine which view persuades.

News is about truth-telling.  (By the way, none of all this is to say that news is the best source of civic information.  I’ve argued on here before that I would rather read transparently biased civic opinion, like 18^th Century pamphlets, than feeble-minded news that fails to knock the door of substance.)

A couple more things.

It is helpful to remember our college paper-writing, and the difference between primary and secondary sources.  The primary source is the thing, and secondary sources explain the thing.  The primary source is Federalist 26, the secondary source is Lilly’s description of F26 below.

With news, primary sources are legislative bills, press conferences, fires, battles, and other things that get reported.  Secondary sources are the scripts read by Brian Williams.

Largely because of the internet, we are much more able to study the primary sources that we used to rely on secondary sources to convey.  Anyone can go straight to the latest health reform bill.  I’ve argued before that, with blogs, there is no inherent authority; so, good blogs hyperlink to the primary source (be it a bill, an article, or youtube clip) on which they offer exegesis.

The accessibility of primary sources, I think, is one of the crucial changers to news.  And that is why the question of bias, as pondered in most conversations I hear, is off-point.  A secondary source inevitably carries with it a perspective and a background bias toward some end – be that in political viewpoint, an urge for commercial success, or aesthetics.  Access to primary sources relied upon by secondary sources allows the news recipient a more complete knowledge than in a setting wherein the recipient simply absorbs.  Thus, bias has as much to do with the audience than the news source.

Finally, I don’t think there is any way to have perfect news.  My call for pamphleteering is a response to that conclusion – it is better to have transparent bias than purported objectivity.  It is more useful to me to read two opposing arguments, court style, than one summary that purports to get it right.  The items in the outline ought not be understood as a checklist that can be conquered.  Rather, they are items that we can keep in mind while receiving news; much like the rules of evidence that guard against the fallibility of our information intake.  In other words, to repeat the sentiment of the penultimate paragraph, the items are more relevant to the news audience than the reporters.

Congratulations to Adam Bertocci – if anything deserves virility, it is an invention of “Ethan and Joel Shakespeare.”  Happily, his Elizabethan Big Lebowski, the Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, is available for all.

CHORUS
“The Knave abideth.” I dare speak not for thee, but this maketh me to be of good comfort; I deem it well that he be out there, the Knave, being of good ease for we sinners. I hope he proveth well in the tourney.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And all wrapp’d up be this idle theme,
A noble and a pretty story-dream
Made me laugh to overtake the band,
Parts, in sooth; and others less so scann’d.
I did not like to see Sir Donald go,
But then, the fellow wise is like to know
That on the way’s a little Lebowski
Perpetuating human comedy
Down through the generations; westward on,
Across the sands of time—but heed my song;
I ramble again, and so must take my leave,
And hope thou liked my tale of the good Knave.
If we be friends, I’ll catch thee down the trail
And we shall share sarsaparilla ale.
For never was a story of more glee
Than this of Geoffrey and the big Lebowski.

Point of the day, from this Times Magazine column questioning the popular notion that walking away from a mortgage is immoral:

John Courson, president and C.E.O. of the Mortgage Bankers Association, recently told The Wall Street Journal that homeowners who default on their mortgages should think about the “message” they will send to “their family and their kids and their friends.” …He was speaking about the rising number of folks who are voluntarily choosing not to pay.

…

Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral — perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with. But the average American, as if sprung from some Franklinesque mythology, is supposed to honor his debts, or so says the mortgage industry as well as government officials.

…

There are two reasons why so-called strategic defaults have been considered antisocial and perhaps amoral. One is that foreclosures depress the neighborhood and drive down prices. But in a market society, since when are people responsible for the economic effects of their actions?