Entries Tagged 'Media' ↓

CNN assembled a panel of media and political insiders to make their predictions for 2009. We’ll hold them accountable and check to see how they did next year. It seems that most of them simply extrapolated from today’s situations, for good or bad. What does not get predicted, of course, by definition, are the surprising events, which tend to prove the most significant.

Now that the Democrats are safely in power, the Washington Post can relax and change its tune. On today’s front page are two big articles with the sub-heads The War, in a Sense, Is Over (on the remaining challenges for Iraqis) and Bolten and Hadley Decry ‘Mythologies’ (two insiders saying that it was a “myth” that President Bush was uninformed and unengaged and that V.P. Cheaney really called the shots; indeed, quite the contrary and that he was actually a pretty good president).

Victor Davis Hanson, with a wicked allusion to George Orwell, predicts that as soon as Barack Obama is president, the media will change our bad news into good news. From Life At New Animal Farm Won’t Be All That Bad:

By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media∗ begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place.

All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that, by historical levels, unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. “Depression” will transmogrify into “recession” which in turn by July will be a “downturn” and by year next an “upswing” on its way to boom times.

Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush.

The Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, and other properties, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Meanwhile, the New York Times has mortgaged its building to raise much-needed cash.

Before we gloat about the end of print journalism, with its liberal bias, and hail its replacement with the internet, consider. . . . When you read news on the internet, notice that it is nearly always linked to a newspaper. What newspapers do is pay people in your town and around the world to dig up news and then write it up. The internet is free, but that means that the internet is not paying anyone to perform that service. That we can now get news free does wreck the newspapers’ business model, but until people pay for internet news–enabling a true migration from print-on-paper to online news organizations–we will not have anything to replace what newspapers, for all of their current faults, do.

Remember the recent furor over the discovery of the ancient manuscript entitled “The Gospel of Judas”? The media reported that the document presented Judas as a good guy, implying that the church had gotten it wrong over all these centuries and that we would now have to re-evaluate our knowledge of Jesus. Some accounts made it sound like the manuscript was written by Judas. The translation became a bestseller and National Geographic, which was behind the publication of the text, made a TV documentary on the subject. But now read the rest of the story from the authoritative Chronicle of Higher Education on how genuine scholarship got high-jacked by media sensationalism, pop culture superficiality, and commercial temptations. An excerpt:

One of the seven million people who watched the National Geographic documentary was April D. DeConick. Admittedly, DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University, was not your average viewer. As a Coptologist, she had long been aware of the existence of the Gospel of Judas and was friends with several of those who had worked on the so-called dream team. It’s fair to say she watched the documentary with special interest.

As soon as the show ended, she went to her computer and downloaded the English translation from the National Geographic Web site. Almost immediately she began to have concerns. From her reading, even in translation, it seemed obvious that Judas was not turning in Jesus as a friendly gesture, but rather sacrificing him to a demon god named Saklas. This alone would suggest, strongly, that Judas was not acting with Jesus’ best interests in mind — which would undercut the thesis of the National Geographic team. She turned to her husband, Wade, and said: “Oh no. Something is really wrong.”

She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That’s when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word “daimon,” which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as “spirit,” an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as “demon.” In this passage, however, Jesus’ calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. “O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?” becomes “O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?” A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.

Then there’s the number 13. The Gospel of Judas is thought to have been written by a sect of Gnostics known as Sethians, for whom the number 13 would indicate a realm ruled by the demon Ialdabaoth. Calling someone a demon from the 13th realm would not be a compliment. In another passage, the National Geographic translation says that Judas “would ascend to the holy generation.” But DeConick says it’s clear from the transcription that a negative has been left out and that Judas will not ascend to the holy generation (this error has been corrected in the second edition). DeConick also objected to a phrase that says Judas has been “set apart for the holy generation.” She argues it should be translated “set apart from the holy generation” — again, the opposite meaning. In the later critical edition, the National Geographic translators offer both as legitimate possibilities.

These discoveries filled her with dread. “I was like, this is bad, and these are my friends,” she says. It’s worth noting that it didn’t take DeConick months of painstaking research to reach her conclusions. Within minutes, she thought something was wrong. Within a day, she was convinced that significant mistakes had been made. Why, if it was so obvious to her, had these other scholars missed it? Why had they seen a good Judas where, according to DeConick, none exists?

There is much more about this case of scholarly “malpractice.”

The folks that are bringing you “Issues, Etc.” are working to bring you a whole online radio network! Look what else Pirate Christian Radio is planning:

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In an extraordinary spectacle, a number of Barack Obama supporters attack John McCain’s military service. It ranges from Gen. Wesley Clark saying that a pilot locked up in a North Vietnamese cage for five years doesn’t have executive military experinece like generals at their desks to the 1960s peaceniks who revive the “baby-killer” libel against Vietnam Vets. That’s news, right? An example of going negative on an issue that McCain supporters assumed would be one of his strengths?

So the Washington Post covers this controvery in the last few paragraphs of a frontpage story about Obama defending HIS patriotism! Read Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism and be astounded at the way professional journalists are doing of campaigners’ job of spin doctoring.

Here is a tip for identifying media bias, one that comes from the study of literature: Notice the POINT OF VIEW of a story; that is, not just the ideas as such, but, as in literature, the character through whose mind everything is presented. Who is the “us” and who is the “them”?

In yet another in its ongoing series of idiotic cover stories, Newsweek has a big spread on the newsy topic of which was greater, Lincoln or Darwin? See, the two were born on the same day, February 12, 1809 (not even this week!), so the journalist thought it would be a good idea to compare them. The story presents them as two revolutionaries (which Lincoln wasn’t), but it just doesn’t make sense. That’s because you can only compare two things of the same kind. Two scientists would work (Darwin or Einstein?), or two statesmen (Lincoln or Washington?). But mixed comparisons (Einstein or Washington?) just don’t work!

As the saying goes, you can’t compare apples and oranges. Actually, you CAN compare apples and oranges since they are both fruits, and, as such, they have common points of comparison (taste, texture, nutrition, etc.) that you can go back and forth with. But you can’t compare apples to shopping malls or oranges to television sets. So, Newsweek, which is greater, Darwin or the first Star Wars movie? Lincoln or Bach’s Brandenburg concerto?

I had three conference calls yesterday, plus meetings and deliberations, so I missed the premiere of the new “Issues, Etc.” Could someone report on how it was, what the subjects were, etc.?

UPDATE: Here is Mollie Hemingway’s account.

Mollie Ziegler, at her new blog, reports receiving this notice from Todd Wilken:

Everyone:

In case you haven’t heard…

Issues, Etc. will re-debut this Monday, June 30, 3:05pm CST.

The show will be LIVE and on demand from 3:05-5:00 at www.issuesetc.org.

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By the way, you can shorten “San Juan Capistrano” to “SJC”

To make it easy for you, I will give you THIS LINK, by which you can listen to the show at 4:05 ET, 3:05 CST, 2:05 MT, and 1:05 PT. Bookmark it, listen daily, subscribe to the podcast, and see what all of the fuss has been about.