P to the U to the T-I-N

By Jennifer J. Foster

You’re familiar with the concept of politicians putting on various masks—literally and figuratively—to win the support of otherwise skeptical voters?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may have jumped the shark on that.

From Reuters:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rubbed shoulders with rappers and was hailed with “respect” in a television show on Friday that could help boost his flagging ratings.

Putin, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jacket, went on stage to present awards to participants in “Battle for Respect”, a hip-hop music contest run by Muz TV, a Russian rival to MTV ...

Despite hip-hop’s violent image, Putin had a stern message for the rappers about healthy living.

“I do not think that ‘top-rock’ or ‘down-rock’ breakdance technique is compatible with alcohol or drugs,“ Putin told cheering hip-hoppers who responded with chants of “Respect, Vladimir Vladimirovich”.

Whoo boy.

Putin’s advisers insist that Hip-Hop Putin—like Bare-Chested Putin, Siberian Tiger Putin and Biker Putin—have nothing to do with his flagging approval ratings.

Hey, maybe they’re just setting the stage for a line of Putin action figures.

It would be a lot less embarrassing that way.

Sparks on White Hall

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Ron Sparks camp today:

Statement by Ron Sparks on Supreme Court Ruling

“The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday indicates the urgency of the platform I’ve put forward.  This ruling puts at jeopardy an industry that brings hundreds of millions of dollars to both state and local governments in Alabama.

Currently, the people of this state are financing the services of governments in surrounding states.  The Supreme Court ruling does nothing but continue to play politics with one of the most urgent issues facing our state.  As governor, I will push for statewide regulation, local referendum to determine if gaming will be allowed, and taxation of gaming to provide funding for both education and Medicaid.”

Refer to news story:

http://www.whnt.com/news/sns-ap-al—court-bingo,0,4721976.story

Sparks is referring here to the Alabama Supreme Court decision Friday to strike down a preliminary injunction that kept the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling from conducting another raid of White Hall Resort and Entertainment Center. The decision is a blow to electronic bingo games, which some local officials and Attorney General Troy King have argued are allowable under Alabama law.

See also:

“Video bingo has Alabamians yelling everything but,“ from The New York Times. This article explores the patchwork nature of Alabama’s gambling laws and the way that patchwork opens the door for vague interpretations and helter-skelter enforcement of local ordinances.

Ignorance run amok

By Jennifer J. Foster

If you are a member of the Auburn Family, or if you are a fan of any football team in the Southeastern Conference, you need to read “Southern Football’s Dating Game” in The Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately, friends, I’ve seen my share of poor excuses for journalism. But this one is right up there with the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t know whether the editors in charge of assigning and reading this article were out to lunch (or out of the country), but I surely hope this is an anomaly for the Journal.

Go ahead and read the story. I’ll wait.

***

Most of the time, when I read bad articles, I just shake my head and let them go.

Not this time.

My e-mail to Hannah Karp, the reporter, follows below.

Dear Ms. Karp,

I read, then re-read in stunned confusion, your article called “Southern Football’s Dating Game.“ Fraternity football seating? As a professional journalist, I must say, it is difficult to conceive of a less relevant topic for The Wall Street Journal to cover, even in Life & Style.

As a Southerner and a graduate of Auburn University, it is difficult to conceive how you could have written a more obnoxious story if you had made a concerted effort.

I do hope that you are just the latest in a long line of know-it-all, big-city reporters from the North who parachute into our area and try to impart your knowledge and culture to us poor, hapless Southerners. If not—if you actually live or have lived here and have any frame of reference for that of which you write—then your research and observation skills are among the poorest I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering.

The tradition of Southern men and women dressing up for football games is neither new nor unique to Auburn University. Hence, the word “tradition.” I’m not sure why you chose to focus your story on Auburn, but I am confident that if you would have spent any time researching your subject, you would have found—from sources from visiting schools, no less—that Auburn is one of the classiest places in the country, let alone the South, to attend a football game. It is unfortunate that you chose to highlight one letter to the editor from one disaffected student upon which to hang your entire story.

I did a simple Google search and found the following here in about 60 seconds (emphasis mine):

“And I wonder why people from the South seem to have such a bad taste for these papers. Had they done their research they would know the Auburn honors college has block seats, AFROTC, and several other non fraternity groups. And furthermore no group is handed the seats, fraternities must compete with spirit points to get them. And if you have ever been competing for spirit points it is not easy nor fun. It is tons of community service and going to AU tennis, volleyball and soccer matches to get them. So they help out the school and community a lot.”

What? You mean, the entire premise of this article – that frat guys are handed seats as an entitlement, and they are taking girls to games to try to keep them – is dead wrong?

Researching stories properly is a time-consuming, meticulous process. And what you find out can get in the way of the story you’ve already got planned. Perhaps that’s why you didn’t bother doing it.

It is also unfortunate that you lump Auburn into the same category with the ongoing controversy at The University of Mississippi. There is nothing here that echoes what you mentioned there. Your comparison is completely baseless.

To read your story, one would think that there are no fraternity men who take sorority women to football games up North, and no college students ever get rowdy at football games up there. I hope you wouldn’t intentionally insinuate something so ridiculous.

From a broader perspective, I am personally extremely disappointed in the Journal. Your story, as is plainly seen in the comments you have drawn, has only contributed to the cultural divide in this country; worse, it has done so needlessly and on the basis of poorly reported and completely misunderstood notions that you treat as “facts.“ This story is a disgrace to anyone who calls herself a professional journalist, and carrying it is a disgrace for any media outlet that purports to be a legitimate source of news.

Because of this story and your newspaper’s reckless decision to publish it, The Wall Street Journal has suffered a significant—and potentially irreparable—hit to its credibility throughout a large portion of the country. I know it has among the hundreds of thousands of Southern football fans who don’t care for your attitude as you sit in judgment of their values.

In the future, if you happen to cover anything in the South, I implore you to make a better effort to educate yourself and limit your ignorance. Otherwise, at the very least, please make at least a minimal effort to conceal your contempt for things you do not, and choose not to, understand. We would appreciate it, and it will help you to not come off as such a self-important, condescending snob.

Thank you,

Jennifer Foster

P.S. I am copying this note to your editor in hopes that he or she can sit down with you and explain to you the difference between “maybe” and “may be” (e.g., “no matter where in the world they maybe” from your sidebar, “A Sampling of SEC Traditions”). If not, contact us in the South. We may love our football, but we know the difference, and we’ll be glad to talk you through it.

If you would like to send Ms. Karp an e-mail of your own, her address is hannah(dot)karp(at)dowjones.com.

War Eagle!!! We know why we say it, even if they don’t.

Pawlenty to headline ALGOP’s RWB dinner

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Alabama Republican Party today:

ALGOP Announces Speaker for 2010 ‘Red, White & Blue Dinner’

Birmingham, AL – The Alabama Republican Party is pleased to announce that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will be the keynote speaker when the Party hosts its 2010 “Red, White & Blue Dinner” on February 5th at the new Renaissance Hotel in downtown Montgomery.  For information on the dinner, please call the ALGOP headquarters – 205.212.5900.

Representative Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn), Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, released the following:

“We are honored to have Governor Pawlenty join us in Alabama, “ Hubbard said. “His visit will be a great way to kick off a highly anticipated election cycle in 2010.  Governor Pawlenty’s conservative leadership in Minnesota and his proven record on taxes, veteran’s affairs, education and fiscal responsibility are many of the reasons that we believe he will be a popular draw. We look forward to welcoming him to Alabama and appreciate his interest in the Party’s success in 2010.“

Anonymous sources, trust and the media

By Jennifer J. Foster

The ombudsman for The Washington Post had this article Sunday about the haphazard use of anonymous sources at that newspaper.

Andrew Alexander writes:

In the run-up to last week’s Virginia gubernatorial election, The Post published a front-page story quoting unnamed White House officials dumping on Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds.

“Senior administration officials” said they were frustrated with how Deeds was handling his campaign. A “senior administration official” said Deeds had “badly erred on several fronts.“ And “administration officials” predicted he would lose on Tuesday ...

Anonymous sources often are necessary. And too many of them appear in The Post.

But there’s another problem. When they must be used, The Post doesn’t do a good enough job of explaining why.

Alexander goes on to document how Post reporters not only don’t follow internal policies about the use of anonymous sources—“Of roughly 100 Post news stories using unnamed sources, fully a third provided no meaningful description”—but also:

A few months ago in this space, I criticized The Post for routinely ignoring its strict rules on anonymous sources. Many staffers confessed they hadn’t read them in years. And about two-thirds of the nearly 30 reporters I questioned said editors never or rarely demanded to know the identity of an anonymous source, which is required under Post policies.

Read that again: Staffers hadn’t read the rules governing the use of anonymous sources in YEARS, and editors RARELY OR NEVER questioned them about the identity of those sources.

Wow.

Ever wonder how Jayson Blair was able to do what he did?

This sort of take-your-word-for-it attitude is how.

I agree with Alexander that the provision of sufficient supporting information is critical to the reader’s ability to trust an anonymous source. But let’s back up a minute. Here’s the sentence that preceded his accounting of the “roughly 100 Post news stories using unnamed sources”:

A review of anonymous-source usage over the past month shows that readers often got only bare-bones attribution.

So ... that’s roughly 100 stories with anonymous sources in one month.

You can do the math and get the daily average.

I have commented here before—and often—about the media’s growing reliance on anonymous sources. Once reserved only for sensitive topics like national security, anonymous sources have become so ubiquitous that they are part of journalists’ daily course of work.

That is not OK.

Alexander seems rather unconcerned about the frequency of anonymous sources creeping into copy:

Readers write me constantly to complain about the overuse of anonymous sources. Some are troubled that they appear at all.

They’re often essential. Without them, readers would be deprived of important disclosures about official corruption, misconduct, high-level policy debates or diplomatic disputes.

That is true. But it used to be that reporters would use anonymous sources to develop on-the-record sources; they would be directed to documents to seek and examine. They would build on the whispers until they could write their stories in full voice.

So the issue, then, isn’t just whether readers should trust a reporter’s anonymous sources: It is also whether the reader should trust a reporter who relies on those shadows so often.

Alexander concludes his piece this way:

The Post must be relentless is trying to keep anonymous sources to a minimum.

If they must be used, The Post can at least strengthen the bond of trust with its readers by explaining why the sources should be believed.

If journalists will focus on the former, they won’t have so much trouble with the latter.

See also:

The Jayson Blair reference involves some unintended irony. Some of the stories Blair plagiarized or just plain made up involved his supposed coverage of the D.C. sniper case, the 10 murders attached to it and the trial that followed. That sniper, John Allen Muhammad, was executed for those killings in Virginia tonight.