Browsing Tag: media

    Miscellany

    Media bias can show up in subtle ways (#2)

    January 26, 2020

    Here are the two most recent TIME magazine covers, each featuring two of the most powerful people in Washington, DC.

    On the left, a dramatic black and white photo that was posed and lit to highlight the subject’s thoughtful demeanor as she weighs the decisions she’s made and the ones she’s yet to make. She’s looking into the distance, facing the light and with the darkness behind her. The photo is meant to be both inspirational and aspirational, and it succeeds.

    On the right, a bland color photo that was posed and lit to present the subject in the most dull and uninspiring way possible. He’s in the most basic stance a person can make, looking straight at the camera with hands at his side — the kind of pose you’d do for an elementary school photo. His tie isn’t straight. The bottom of his suit jacket is open enough to sloppily show the tie beneath and one jacket sleeve is high enough to show the shirt beneath, while the other shows a bit of his watch.

    Now in your mind, flip these two covers. Imagine the Pelosi cover with her standing back to a wall, plainly looking at the camera, somewhat disheveled in appearance … and then imagine the Kushner cover showing him in striking black and white, staring ahead toward the light.

    Quite a different impression, isn’t it?

    As I’ve said before (and will certainly say again), media bias can show up in very subtle ways: “I love journalism. I hate the way our current president (and his predecessor) attacks journalists. I think the work that our press does is utterly critical to a strong democracy. But I also hate how so many of them let their personal biases slip into their work.”

    That applies to you, too, TIME magazine cover designers.

    Miscellany

    Media bias can show up in subtle ways

    January 20, 2019

    Read this paragraph, please:

    This is from a recent TIME magazine issue, in an article about how Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) is one of the last moderates left in the Senate. The “jagged weeks” mentioned is a description of the time immediately after she voted to confirm Brett Kavanagh to the Supreme Court.

    The article says Collins dealt with

    • coat hangers mailed to her office as a symbol of back-alley abortions
    • phone calls threatening murder
    • phone calls wishing her staffers would die during abortions
    • chemical scares/threats

    Ask yourself: if this was a Democratic Senator and these things were being done by right-wing nutjobs, would the author have passed them off as “an onslaught of pressure” and “harassment”?

    I don’t think so. In that case, it would probably be described as “right-wing attacks,” “fascist violence” or maybe even “terrorism.” It would definitely not be described as “an onslaught of pressure.”

    I love journalism. I hate the way our current president (and his predecessor) attacks journalists. I think the work that our press does is utterly critical to a strong democracy. But I also hate how so many of them let their personal biases slip into their work.

    Miscellany

    Am I a snarky techie?

    September 11, 2009

    Well, sure, it’s pretty cool to see your name in the Wall Street Journal (even if it is only online and just one of their blogs, not the actual paper), but I’m not too sure I like being called a snarky techie. Would you?

    wsj

    Hmmmph. I much prefer the “Ruud Questions” interview that’s just been posted on Search Engine People. Ruud Hein asked me questions about U2, faith, SEO, blogging, and much more. Really fun Q&A with a lot of variety. Although I suspect U2 fans will recognize that I kinda-sorta borrowed the opening line from Bono a wee little bit. But it’s true, and that’s what matters.

    Miscellany

    Ban the AP? I did that 12 years ago

    June 16, 2008

    There’s a firestorm happening online over an AP decision that bloggers aren’t even allowed to quote AP stories. (What a joke!) Seems the AP has told the Drudge Report to stop excerpting brief passages of AP stories … even though there are Fair Use laws that specifically allow such excerpting.

    You can guess how bloggers have reacted to this: by banning the AP.

    Ha! This is a serious case of deja vu for me. Twelve years ago, when @U2 was less than a year old, some guy from the AP emailed me out of the blue. He demanded that I remove the two AP articles that I had posted in full on the site. Fair enough, that was his legal right. I was doing more than excerpting; I was reproducing the full articles.

    But I did the same thing: banned the AP. For 12 years, we’ve not posted AP stories on the web site. (We actually made one exception when we found that the only article about Adam Clayton’s marijuana arrest came from the AP. So we have one AP article in our database of 5,000+ articles.)

    Can’t say I’m surprised at all by the AP’s shortsightedness. It goes back a loooong time. Meanwhile, other news organizations are smart enough now to email us to make sure we know about their latest U2 article. They want us to repost their material because it gets their name in front of thousands of eyeballs. A typical news article on @U2 will get several thousand pageviews per month. That’s pretty good exposure if you ask me. Just don’t tell the AP; they wouldn’t understand.

    Miscellany

    The Internet ain’t so scary!

    August 6, 2004

    Here’s a nice change of pace…. Despite what you see and read about online scams, the FTC says the Internet is not the biggest source of fraud. What is? Print advertising! According to the FTC survey, 33% of scams came from ads in newspapers, magazines, direct mail, etc. The next biggest source is telemarketing at 17%, and the Internet is third at 14%. Rounding out the list of fraud and scam sources is TV and radio advertising at 11%. So the Internet isn’t that big, scary place a lot of people make it out to be.

    FTC Consumer Fraud Survey