05.17.07
Posted in Writing at 10:40 am by Bryan
I have a concern. While the core of my concern could be boiled down to a matter of politics, it goes deeper than that. It goes to the responsibility which has been abdicated by journalists specifically, but authors more generally. My concern arises from my day job as a librarian, a reference librarian, a reference librarian responsible for selecting non-fiction titles to include in our collection of books, a reference librarian responsible for helping students in the community locate materials to use in their research.
In a perfect world, journalists are unbiased reporters of fact. In truth, that’s more the exception than the rule, and it always has been. Journalists have helped start wars. They’ve helped intervention in wars and they’ve advocated the abandonment of wars. Journalists helped ratify The Constitution and elect Presidents and on occasion announce the wrong winner of an election.
Call me an idealist, but I believe in the utopian ideal of journalism, and so do most journalists, or so they say when asked directly. But if you ask why they went into journalism in the first place, they rarely say that they want to lay out the facts. They usually answer that they are interested in being an advocate, or an activist, or a means of change. Not necessarily in those words, but they want to do something. They want to play a part in shaping the world.
That’s fine. That’s journalism, and it always has been. It’s not what they claim, but being a reporter of facts is loftier, nobler, than being a shaper of the news. The latter seems dirtier, akin to “Yellow Journalism”. Nobody would willingly give themselves a job title of Purveyor of Falsehood and Lies. And let me back off of that just a bit. I don’t even believe that of them. But neither do I hold on to the notion that journalists are unbiased.
Fake, But Accurate
One of the more glaring examples of media bias is CBS News’ investigation into George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. The investigation began in 1999 by looking for evidence of preferential treatment. None was found other than one hearsay statement by former Texas State Representative Jake Johnson regarding a conversation with General James M. Rose in which the General claimed to have “put Bush in the TANG”. The story was dropped until mid-2000.
In 2000, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett alleged that Bush’s military records had been “scrubbed”. CBS did not pursue the story further until the summer of 2004.
Lieutenant Colonel Burkett reappeared in early 2004, making the rounds on television news programs. Almost immediately, contradictions began to appear in his story. In early September 2004, he met with Mary Mapes, Dan Rather’s producer on 60 Minutes Wednesday, and supplied her with documents which purported to show that Bush had been suspended from flying status, and that pressure was applied in order to get a good officer review. They ran with the story. These documents were later proved to be forgeries, but CBS continued to defend the story they aired on September 8th for months. Even now, Mapes and Rather contend that the documents may have been fake, but the story was accurate.
CBS’ own internal investigation of the failure to ensure a fair and accurate story had this to say:
While the focus of the Panel’s investigation at the outset was on the Killian documents, the investigation quickly identified considerable and fundamental deficiencies relating to the reporting and production of the September 8 segment and the statements and news reports during the aftermath. These problems were caused primarily by a myopic zeal to be the first news organization to broadcast what was believed to be a new story about President Bush’s TexANG service, and the rigid and blind defense of the segment after it aired despite numerous indications of its shortcomings.
CBS News is still feeling the backlash from this episode. The ratings for The Evening News dropped precipitously, and even today, with Katie Couric as the anchor, the ratings continue to fall, though more likely due to other reasons.
(An aside here, because, while Couric is going to take the blame along with an American public that is “not ready” for a female anchor, and potential women news anchors will pay the price, I believe the blame still lies with CBS News. The organization decided that it would “soften” the news to fit its anchor, rather than allowing Couric to adapt her style to hard news. CBS never gave her the chance to prove herself, and thereby doomed her to failure.)
So why do I care about broadcast journalism? I began this piece whining about my responsibilities as a reference librarian, right? Well, guess who writes the books that wind up in Dewey 070? Journalists. They also write in the 300’s and the 900’s. Mapes and Rather each have books, and each have written in defense of a flawed news report. Each continues to believe that Bush’s service in TANG was somehow less than honorable.
It’s Not All Politics. Well, Okay, Maybe It Is.
Why would a significant portion of the country continue to advocate fighting a war that can’t be won and, even if it can be won, probably shouldn’t be fought in the first place? What? No, I’m not talking about Iraq. I’m talking about Global Warming.
You’re probably confused because I jumped straight into my closing argument without arguing the beginning first.
Ask a teenager, any teenager, who is the preeminent expert on Global Warming? If he doesn’t say “Huh?” because you used the word “preeminent”, he’ll probably say AlGore. And he’d be wrong. There are many scientific problems with AlGore’s book, not the least of which is the simple fact that he ignores the problem of Global Warming on Mars. What’s that got to do with anything, you ask. Well, if Mars is undergoing a similar period of global warming, and there are no humans on Mars, then how can anything that we humans do be attributed as the largest contributor to the phenomenon? What is the single factor affecting climate that both Mars and Earth have in common? Right, the Sun. So, why would people who believe that humans adversely affect the natural order of things advocate that humans intervene in a natural process?
Well, because that’s not really what it’s about. It’s about power. It’s about political systems.
One of my favorite reference items to hand out to college kids looking for sources on Global Warming is the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek. It contains an article on the Global Cooling crisis and mentions possible options like melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with a black soot, and diverting arctic rivers. That was only 32 years ago.
A scientific consensus is not proof. It is the lack of proof that signals the need for a consensus. We no longer require a consensus to say that the moon revolves around the Earth. It is an accepted fact. We need a consensus to say that CO2 is the key ingredient to Global Warming because the competing theory is that solar radiation is the key ingredient, and we have no control over the Sun. If it’s solar radiation, there is no solution, and therefore no grant money. And this, my friend, is why AlGore ignores Mars.
Edit ~ by the way, contrary to popular belief, the climate is not now hotter than it’s ever been. It’s hotter now than it’s been in recorded history, which in temperature recording is only since the late 1800’s. You know that place, Greenland? The place that’s so cold even the Canadians don’t want it? The place when they were figuring out who got what, the Danes kinda looked around before raising their hand and saying “Yeah, sure, why not? We’ll take it.”? Yeah, that place. It was called Greenland because the Vikings actually thought it looked like a pleasant place to live. Of course, that was before the Little Ice Age came along and they all froze to death. We still haven’t fully recovered from that little episode yet.
So, I ask again, why would a significant portion of the country continue to advocate fighting a war that can’t be won and, even if it can be won, probably shouldn’t be fought in the first place?
But more importantly, when choosing books for the collection, should my section on climate change include all theories, only those theories accepted by a consensus, or only the theories I agree with, and should I try to influence the researchers selection of the materials available to him when I’m asked for assistance?
Lies and Damn Lies.
By far, my biggest concern in selecting non-fiction books is when the book in question is known to be suspect from the beginning. Two recent books have major problems, and both are books that you can’t not have. Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid is one example. There were so many problems with the book that Kenneth W. Stein actually resigned as Executive Director of the Carter Center, and wrote an extended rebuttal to the book in The Middle East Quarterly.
Another problem is George Tenet’s book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA which similarly has factual problems, not the least of which is a very vivid recounting of a conversation he had on the steps of the White House on September 12th, 2001 with Richard Perle in which Perle supposedly said “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.” The problem: Perle was in France on the 12th and, since airlines were grounded, was unable to return to the US until the 15th. Perle says that not only did he not say that on September 12th, he never said that.
So what do I do? Here I have two books, one by a former President of the United States, the other by a former CIA chief who, under two different Presidents, was perhaps one of the most important actors at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and neither source can be trusted. It’s fine, if you begin your research with the understanding that these sources have problems, or in the process of researching you discover that others point to these flaws, but what about the poor kid who really just wants the bare minimum of sources. Suppose he’s doing a report on President Bush and the only two books he checks out are by Mapes and Rather. He gets the same story, twice, and they’re both wrong.
I have a concern. I liked non-fiction a lot more before I became a reference librarian.
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05.16.07
Posted in Writing at 2:56 pm by Bryan
I just want to clear up one thing, and it’s probably a matter of semantics, but I do not post excerpts. The Mallory posts are created on the fly. Everything that exists in the Mallory world has been posted, and new words are not created until a new post is required.
So, unlike some people, I don’t have half a manuscript worth of stuff to pull from. I have to sit, and think, and write. The really bad part is that I don’t even have a plot. You know what happens next? Yeah, me neither.
One thing I did notice, and I believe that the method, or lack of method, is a contributing factor, is that the voice is different. In the first post, before I realized he was going to become a recurring character, Mallory was much more cliche’ in his speaking style. He used the word “dame” for crying out loud. As he’s grown, he’s become more up-to-date, though still heavily influenced by the Dashiell Hammett-like character he was. This was not an intentional change, just one that happened because I was in a different mood when I wrote it. If Mallory ever does become a character for the printed page, he’ll have to fix on one speaking style and stick to it.
Anyway, all this is to say, it ain’t as easy as it looks.
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05.11.07
Posted in Writing at 9:13 am by Bryan
So, yeah, originally this was going to be poetry, but then, um, no. Self-awareness kicked in and convinced me that, not only would it pretty much suck, it would probably be pretty stupid too.
Note - Doritos were involved.
But this post is dedicated to orangehands, and many, many others. While writing a blog is not indicative of the ability to write a book, it does give one many opportunities to assess one’s ability, to float ideas, to get that feedback in a lifestyle that is essentially solitary. Some of my friends here are writers. Some are readers. Others are family just looking for news because I rarely call. But everyone comes here to read what I’ve written, and that, my friends, is pretty special.
Worthy of an ode, even.
It’s hard to imagine that I’ve only been writing about writing for a year now (officially next week is the anniversary). In that year, I’ve met a half-dozen imaginary people, spoken to another half-dozen imaginary people on the phone, and consider many other imaginary people to be my friends. But just as important as the friendship, perhaps more so, is the support.
It seems that when my doubts are the strongest, I’m able to post something that inspires people to inspire me. How weird is that? It still hasn’t translated to a finished book, but progress is being made.
For that, you have my thanks.
And an ode to orangehands.
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05.01.07
Posted in Writing at 9:15 am by Bryan
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Not necessarily why do I write, but more along the lines of why do any of us write? It’s not a competition, is it? We don’t read each other’s work and think to ourselves, I can do better than that. Tolstoy? Ha!
But then again…
There are two pieces to the puzzle, I think. First, we have to have a story to tell. And that story has to be insistent. It has to want to be written. It has to drive us nuts, until, exhausted with the thinking about it, we can’t stand it any more and have to write it down, for no other reason than we just can’t sleep at night.
But then, we need to have a certain confidence in ourselves. Not delusions of grandeur, mind you, but a confidence that we can do our story justice. I will most likely never be studied in school alongside Shakespeare or Twain or Poe. But with my story, I can do a decent job. I’m better than some, not nearly as good as others.
We’re not writers because we want to be the best. We’re not even really that concerned about whether we get an agent, or a publisher, or how high up the best-seller list we go. In the end, all we really care about is putting the story on the page in the best way we know how. In the end, it’s really about hoping one day to get a good night’s sleep.
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