February 10, 2009
Elephant talk (donkeys, too)
.
I presume most professional writers run a spell check on their work upon completion. At the end of its spell check routine Microsoft Word offers the option of presenting certain figures regarding readability, and to a journalist a few of these are important while the others are possibly interesting.
My experience with the MS Word Readability Statistics caused me to find interest in a recent item on HuffPo that compares Barack Obama’s first press conference on Monday night with that of George W. Bush on Feb. 22, 2001. The Obama effort was deemed superior in terms of intellect - no surprise there.
Obviously there are several factors outside of the readability paradigm that account for the difference in the two PCs, primarily the subject(s) at hand. For Bush it was the schwinging out of his saber on Iraq (ineffective sanctions, Sadaam bad, WMD, Chinese presence in Iraq).
Obama’s was well over twice as long, with long-winded answers primarily about the economy but with a few switches to foreign policy and bipartisanship.
Just for shits and giggles let’s look at it from a journalist’s point of view, as I have been told by editors numerous times to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), a concept that, for newspaper articles, is anchored in readability.
First, the Obama presser:
Here is Bush’s:
You can see that both run very close in sentences per paragraph (rather subjective, especially in a spoken press conference) and in characters per word, the latter being somewhat surprising with regard to my assessment of Bush’s vocabularial contentificationism. Of course the big news is the grade level and the related “reading ease,” both determined by brainy linguists under the auspice of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test.
Considering that the room is full of journalists, certainly all college graduates, one might presume that it’s a good thing to have your press conference rated at a 10th grade level. But oh no says Mr. Editor – KISS for our reading public, who average about an 8th grade reading level. The reading ease figures translate thusly:
90–100: easily understandable by an average 11-year old student
60–70: easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students
0–30: best understood by college graduates
I continue this incredibly fun comparison by offering up the stats on a long-winded article of my own:
I have acknowledged that I am a not-so-successfully recovering wordaholic, addicted to sesquipedalian pursuits of the most grandiloquent order. Few of my articles have reached that holy grail of an 8th grade reading level.
The final criteria to cover here is the use of passive voice, to be avoided as much as possible in news writing for the purposes of, say it with me, "Readability" (I consider myself doing well to keep my articles under 12 percent). Obama’s press conference likely had more passive sentences than Bush’s because it was much longer, but credit must be given to Shrubster for his simplisticosity on this one. Those 7th grade Republicans would be proud.
I, on the other hand, appear to be a lost cause:
.
I presume most professional writers run a spell check on their work upon completion. At the end of its spell check routine Microsoft Word offers the option of presenting certain figures regarding readability, and to a journalist a few of these are important while the others are possibly interesting.
My experience with the MS Word Readability Statistics caused me to find interest in a recent item on HuffPo that compares Barack Obama’s first press conference on Monday night with that of George W. Bush on Feb. 22, 2001. The Obama effort was deemed superior in terms of intellect - no surprise there.
Obviously there are several factors outside of the readability paradigm that account for the difference in the two PCs, primarily the subject(s) at hand. For Bush it was the schwinging out of his saber on Iraq (ineffective sanctions, Sadaam bad, WMD, Chinese presence in Iraq).
Obama’s was well over twice as long, with long-winded answers primarily about the economy but with a few switches to foreign policy and bipartisanship.
Just for shits and giggles let’s look at it from a journalist’s point of view, as I have been told by editors numerous times to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), a concept that, for newspaper articles, is anchored in readability.
First, the Obama presser:
Here is Bush’s:
You can see that both run very close in sentences per paragraph (rather subjective, especially in a spoken press conference) and in characters per word, the latter being somewhat surprising with regard to my assessment of Bush’s vocabularial contentificationism. Of course the big news is the grade level and the related “reading ease,” both determined by brainy linguists under the auspice of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test.
Considering that the room is full of journalists, certainly all college graduates, one might presume that it’s a good thing to have your press conference rated at a 10th grade level. But oh no says Mr. Editor – KISS for our reading public, who average about an 8th grade reading level. The reading ease figures translate thusly:
90–100: easily understandable by an average 11-year old student
60–70: easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students
0–30: best understood by college graduates
I continue this incredibly fun comparison by offering up the stats on a long-winded article of my own:
I have acknowledged that I am a not-so-successfully recovering wordaholic, addicted to sesquipedalian pursuits of the most grandiloquent order. Few of my articles have reached that holy grail of an 8th grade reading level.
The final criteria to cover here is the use of passive voice, to be avoided as much as possible in news writing for the purposes of, say it with me, "Readability" (I consider myself doing well to keep my articles under 12 percent). Obama’s press conference likely had more passive sentences than Bush’s because it was much longer, but credit must be given to Shrubster for his simplisticosity on this one. Those 7th grade Republicans would be proud.
I, on the other hand, appear to be a lost cause:
.
Labels: Bush, journalism, Obama, words, writing
November 17, 2008
Surprised?
.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to many Americans that, according to the Associated Press, Barack Obama has garnered more death threats than any previous president-elect. The article relates three minor situations, the most repugnant being the "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool" put forth at a convenience store in Maine to guess the date on which he will first be attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," was the charming sales pitch on the sign-up sheet. My personal favorite is the guy from Georgia (hohum) who wants to see Rev. Jeremiah Wright and all the "traitors" of Trinity United Church of Christ be deported. Aside from the obvious ridiculousness of the suggestion, I pondered about where U.S. citizens might get deported.
Sure, I worry a bit that some skinhead pukes will find a way to breach the rigorous security measures of the U.S. Secret Service and cause Obama and his family harm. But I follow BHO's lead, which as chief cool cucumber is a measured "not likely, let's go on about our business." The AP article prompted a response from the editors of the right-leaning Family Security Matters website. I tend to agree with their basic point:
They contend that the AP is "using extra energy to 'build' a case for a lethal threat against Obama, so that an imaginary enemy is created – other than the standard nut cases whom we have among us anyway."
So noted. But since they are a righty entity, I can't let this post, and their article, pass without doling out the GeeDub prize for ideological ironicness. Get a load of this (emphasis mine):
You don't need 20/20 hindsight when the past you're looking at is close enough to express a zit on your ass, you betcha.
.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to many Americans that, according to the Associated Press, Barack Obama has garnered more death threats than any previous president-elect. The article relates three minor situations, the most repugnant being the "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool" put forth at a convenience store in Maine to guess the date on which he will first be attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," was the charming sales pitch on the sign-up sheet. My personal favorite is the guy from Georgia (hohum) who wants to see Rev. Jeremiah Wright and all the "traitors" of Trinity United Church of Christ be deported. Aside from the obvious ridiculousness of the suggestion, I pondered about where U.S. citizens might get deported.
Sure, I worry a bit that some skinhead pukes will find a way to breach the rigorous security measures of the U.S. Secret Service and cause Obama and his family harm. But I follow BHO's lead, which as chief cool cucumber is a measured "not likely, let's go on about our business." The AP article prompted a response from the editors of the right-leaning Family Security Matters website. I tend to agree with their basic point:
...Signs of deranged reactions against politicians are part of the danger zone that we live with in this country. But the AP wants us to believe that a "new emerging threat" is on the rise. Their underlying message is that President-elect Obama is inspiring a political change which is nourishing counter-change violence. And here lies the danger in the AP story: it is predicting violence and pervasive race hatred which doesn't exist sociologically. In short, it is trying to create a new "menace."
They contend that the AP is "using extra energy to 'build' a case for a lethal threat against Obama, so that an imaginary enemy is created – other than the standard nut cases whom we have among us anyway."
So noted. But since they are a righty entity, I can't let this post, and their article, pass without doling out the GeeDub prize for ideological ironicness. Get a load of this (emphasis mine):
In the Third World and within populist ideologies, the manufacture of a mythical danger is a part of the consolidation of a regime. It creates sympathy for the sitting leader and grants him moral power to increase the security apparatus. While we don’t have evidence that the news agency is promoting such activity, we can clearly see a pattern, and perhaps even a strategy, in the way the report presented the threat... And such an imaginary enemy can be used politically for many purposes: national security rearrangements, foreign policy decisions, war on terror reshaping, and all other wilder fantasies.
You don't need 20/20 hindsight when the past you're looking at is close enough to express a zit on your ass, you betcha.
.
Labels: journalism, politix, racism, vitriol
March 22, 2008
Mixed feelings
.
After being skunked in last year's competition, I was happy to hear of my being bestowed with two Georgia Press Association Awards this year. For our division (like 'Q' or something way down the alphabet for tiny twice-weeklies) I received third place for feature writing, which I consider my strong suit, and first place for investigative reporting, by which I was pleasantly surprised but also feel a bit awkward - more on that in a minute.
First, a small paper doesn't usually have the kind of budget to pay its reporters for long hours on a deep story, but I had the responsibility for covering one subject that was major news in our area for months (and still has a way to go toward resolution and possible closure, if at all). The story, and I hate using that term for someone's real life tragedy, is about a local 911 dispatcher who disappeared and how her cop husband (soon to be ex) became the prime suspect. He was indeed recently charged with her murder despite authorities not having found her body. Lots of intrigue, including another cop buddy charged with lying to authorities and hacking into the woman's computer, and the hubby losing his job after they found C-4 explosive in his work locker. I wrote several articles throughout the months following her disappearance on search efforts, family and friends holding community vigils, and a renowned forensic psychologist who analyzed a very unsettling television interview that the husband gave. The case drew national attention for a while and I appeared (or my voice did) on both CNN's Nancy Grace Show and Fox's On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. Heady times for an ex-welder who had tossed his hat into the journalism game a mere two years prior.
But the accolade comes bittersweetly, and even more so with the fact that I was informed of my achievement one year to the day that the missing and likely murdered woman was last seen by her family. It has been the most difficult assignment in my short career to talk, on several occasions, with members of that grieving family, and frankly it's been impossible to remain neutral in the face of such grief coupled with much strong circumstantial evidence against the husband. I do not aspire to be an investigative reporter - I only submitted the three articles required for the competition because they were eligible and I had worked hard on them. Congratulations seem a bit off-kilter in the light of what the woman's family is going through. It was especially poignant that my own sister passed away rather suddenly during the peak of all this, because I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go see her one last time. This family that I came to know, and the community she lived and worked in, didn't get that chance. And by all accounts their daughter, sister, aunt and friend was a wonderful, kind and caring person that certainly deserved better than being rubbed out and discarded in some unorthodox, anonymous grave. I will hang the plaque on my wall like it is designed to be - a recognition. But it will also act as another reminder of just how fleeting life can be in this all-too-often mean and cold world, one that I cannot say as a reporter that I am glad to be a part of.
.
After being skunked in last year's competition, I was happy to hear of my being bestowed with two Georgia Press Association Awards this year. For our division (like 'Q' or something way down the alphabet for tiny twice-weeklies) I received third place for feature writing, which I consider my strong suit, and first place for investigative reporting, by which I was pleasantly surprised but also feel a bit awkward - more on that in a minute.
First, a small paper doesn't usually have the kind of budget to pay its reporters for long hours on a deep story, but I had the responsibility for covering one subject that was major news in our area for months (and still has a way to go toward resolution and possible closure, if at all). The story, and I hate using that term for someone's real life tragedy, is about a local 911 dispatcher who disappeared and how her cop husband (soon to be ex) became the prime suspect. He was indeed recently charged with her murder despite authorities not having found her body. Lots of intrigue, including another cop buddy charged with lying to authorities and hacking into the woman's computer, and the hubby losing his job after they found C-4 explosive in his work locker. I wrote several articles throughout the months following her disappearance on search efforts, family and friends holding community vigils, and a renowned forensic psychologist who analyzed a very unsettling television interview that the husband gave. The case drew national attention for a while and I appeared (or my voice did) on both CNN's Nancy Grace Show and Fox's On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. Heady times for an ex-welder who had tossed his hat into the journalism game a mere two years prior.
But the accolade comes bittersweetly, and even more so with the fact that I was informed of my achievement one year to the day that the missing and likely murdered woman was last seen by her family. It has been the most difficult assignment in my short career to talk, on several occasions, with members of that grieving family, and frankly it's been impossible to remain neutral in the face of such grief coupled with much strong circumstantial evidence against the husband. I do not aspire to be an investigative reporter - I only submitted the three articles required for the competition because they were eligible and I had worked hard on them. Congratulations seem a bit off-kilter in the light of what the woman's family is going through. It was especially poignant that my own sister passed away rather suddenly during the peak of all this, because I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go see her one last time. This family that I came to know, and the community she lived and worked in, didn't get that chance. And by all accounts their daughter, sister, aunt and friend was a wonderful, kind and caring person that certainly deserved better than being rubbed out and discarded in some unorthodox, anonymous grave. I will hang the plaque on my wall like it is designed to be - a recognition. But it will also act as another reminder of just how fleeting life can be in this all-too-often mean and cold world, one that I cannot say as a reporter that I am glad to be a part of.
.
Labels: death, journalism, me, writing
December 21, 2007
The town cryer from hell
.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
The Federal Communications Commission passed new media ownership rules by a three to two Bushco party-line vote this week. This opens the door for fewer and bigger media companies to decide what Americans see, hear and read in the news as the big fish can more easily swallow up local news outlets. The FCC did this despite a HUGE public outcry - in the required public comment period, 99 percent of the respondents opposed media consolidation! This is because they realize that fewer outlets in the media mean less honest oversight of the news, and more bias because of the pressure of large corporate interests and the emphasis on the bottom line over truth and accuracy.
Just a few examples pointed out by Norman Solomon of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting:
And then there's Solomon's exchange with Glenn Beck, CNN's pinnacle of integrity, who had invited Solomon on his show to point the finger at NBC for its conflicting interests in news reporting that affects its parent company General Electric:
So there you have it, the facts that show you’ve got to be careful about where you’re getting your news from (especially that gawldurn LIBERAL MEDIA!). As Solomon said in closing his column, "Wouldn’t it be nice if once in a while somebody came on and said, you know, I don’t really have an agenda except the truth? It’s my truth. If you don’t like it, you should go someplace else."
As Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said in an op-ed response to the FCC vote, "The airwaves are owned by the public, not the mega media corporations. The American people deserve information from many different, independent outlets, with diverse, fair coverage from all sides of an issue, and different points of view."
The last thing our democracy needs is fewer independent media voices. Congress has the power to reverse this rule change, and if you agree that they should, let your voice be heard. Following the vote, a bipartisan group of 26 senators sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, vowing to "immediately move legislation that will revoke and nullify the proposed rule." Please give these Senators a stronger voice by also signing this online petition.
For more on big media and net neutrality matters, checkout Freepress
.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
The Federal Communications Commission passed new media ownership rules by a three to two Bushco party-line vote this week. This opens the door for fewer and bigger media companies to decide what Americans see, hear and read in the news as the big fish can more easily swallow up local news outlets. The FCC did this despite a HUGE public outcry - in the required public comment period, 99 percent of the respondents opposed media consolidation! This is because they realize that fewer outlets in the media mean less honest oversight of the news, and more bias because of the pressure of large corporate interests and the emphasis on the bottom line over truth and accuracy.
Just a few examples pointed out by Norman Solomon of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting:
* ABC, owned by Disney, doesn’t disclose in their relevant news reports about Disney’s stake in sweatshops.
* Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, owned by the same entity - Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp - don’t disclose that the ownership is entangled with the Chinese government to the detriment of human rights but to the advancement of the profit margin of the parent company.
* CNN has a huge multi-BILLION dollar stake in Internet deregulation, and the failure of the Congress to safeguard so far what is generally known as "Net Neutrality." So every time CNN does a news report on the Internet, on efforts to regulate or deregulate or create a two or three-tier system of the Internet, CNN News should disclose that Time Warner, the parent company, stands to gain or lose billions of dollars in those terms.
* Chevron is a funder of key news programming on PBS. They were an underwriter of "Washington Week" last year, and now the massive energy firm currently funnels big bucks to the most influential show on PBS, the nightly "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."
* The corporate funders of the "NewsHour" now include not only Chevron but also AT&T and Pacific Life. There must be dozens of journalistic reports on the program every week - whether relevant to the business worlds of energy, communications or insurance - that warrant, and lack, real-time disclosures while the news accounts are on the air. Meanwhile, over at "Washington Week," the corporate cash now flows in from the huge military contractor Boeing and the National Mining Association.
* And that’s just "public broadcasting." On avowedly commercial networks, awash in corporate ownership interests and advertising revenues, a thorough policy of disclosure in the course of news coverage would require that most of the airtime be devoted to shedding light on the media outlet conflicts-of-interest of the reporting in progress.
And then there's Solomon's exchange with Glenn Beck, CNN's pinnacle of integrity, who had invited Solomon on his show to point the finger at NBC for its conflicting interests in news reporting that affects its parent company General Electric:
Solomon: A major advertiser for CNN is the largest military contractor in the United States, Lockheed Martin. So when you and others...
Beck: I got news for you, Norman. Norman...
Solomon: ...promote war, when you and others promote war on this network...
Beck: Norman...Norman...
Solomon: ...we have Lockheed Martin paying millions of dollars undisclosed. So I would quote you...
Beck: Norman...Norman...
Solomon: "Promoting but not disclosing is a bad way to go."
Beck: Norman, let me just tell you this. First of all, Lockheed Martin is not a corporate overlord of this program.
Solomon: It’s a major advertiser on CNN.
Beck: That’s fine. That’s fine. Advertisers are different. But let...
Solomon: Well, it is fine, but it should be disclosed.
Beck: Norman, let me just tell you something. If you think that it’s warmonger central downstairs at CNN, you’re out of your mind. But that’s a different story.
Solomon: Well, upstairs, when I watch Glenn Beck, in terms of attacking Iran, it certainly is. It’s lucrative for the oil companies, as well as for the major advertiser on CNN, Lockheed Martin.
So there you have it, the facts that show you’ve got to be careful about where you’re getting your news from (especially that gawldurn LIBERAL MEDIA!). As Solomon said in closing his column, "Wouldn’t it be nice if once in a while somebody came on and said, you know, I don’t really have an agenda except the truth? It’s my truth. If you don’t like it, you should go someplace else."
As Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said in an op-ed response to the FCC vote, "The airwaves are owned by the public, not the mega media corporations. The American people deserve information from many different, independent outlets, with diverse, fair coverage from all sides of an issue, and different points of view."
The last thing our democracy needs is fewer independent media voices. Congress has the power to reverse this rule change, and if you agree that they should, let your voice be heard. Following the vote, a bipartisan group of 26 senators sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, vowing to "immediately move legislation that will revoke and nullify the proposed rule." Please give these Senators a stronger voice by also signing this online petition.
For more on big media and net neutrality matters, checkout Freepress
.
Labels: analysis, gummint, journalism, media, politix
November 17, 2007
How about "Fatigue Outrage" instead?
.
I am grateful to Aiko Annie for turning me on to SF Gate columnist Mark Morford, and like her I now can't help but link to his masterful progressive commentary.
There's been a lot of outrage fatigue going around in the progressive neighborhoods of Blogovia through which I commute, and in my own household the calmer, smarter half has expressed concern over my anger at all things Bush. To some degree she is justified, and so it was with great relief that I came across this paragraph about outrage that Morford wrote in the above-linked column:
Maybe I wasn't as wigged out as all that, but I was definitely considering the next exit toward despair. It's going to take so long to fix this shit, but Morford has inspired me to chill and thereby take stock of my reality to determine a reasoned course for contributing to the restoration with healthy outrage.
Here's how it's done (Keith Olbermann, October 18, 2006 and worth all 8 mins):
.
I am grateful to Aiko Annie for turning me on to SF Gate columnist Mark Morford, and like her I now can't help but link to his masterful progressive commentary.
There's been a lot of outrage fatigue going around in the progressive neighborhoods of Blogovia through which I commute, and in my own household the calmer, smarter half has expressed concern over my anger at all things Bush. To some degree she is justified, and so it was with great relief that I came across this paragraph about outrage that Morford wrote in the above-linked column:
"It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all."
Maybe I wasn't as wigged out as all that, but I was definitely considering the next exit toward despair. It's going to take so long to fix this shit, but Morford has inspired me to chill and thereby take stock of my reality to determine a reasoned course for contributing to the restoration with healthy outrage.
Here's how it's done (Keith Olbermann, October 18, 2006 and worth all 8 mins):
.
Labels: Bush, journalism, politix, rants, terms of enragement, words
September 19, 2007
They "report," we must cry
September 18, 2007
There is hope for journalism yet
.
Back in July investigative reporter Katherine Eban had her article Rorshach and Awe, about C.I.A. torture tactics established in the early days of the Wawr on Turrr, posted on Vanity Fair.com. The crux of Eban’s report was the conflict created when the Bush administration shifted gears and authorized coercive techniques for the interrogation of detainees, aka "enemy combatants" for a convenient sidestepping of the Geneva Convention guidelines.
The FBI had obtained much credible information from one al-Qaeda lieutenant named Abu Zubaydah. Using time-tested methods of rapport building which assume that an interview will yield better information from a comfortable and secure-feeling subject, Zubaydah spilled the beans on a host of info regarding the planning of 9-11. All this went out the window when then-director of the C.I.A. (and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient) George Tenet blustered his interrogation teams in to institute practices established in a military training program known as SERE (for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) which trains U.S. soldiers to endure captivity at the hands of an enemy who does not follow the Geneva Conventions. Let's pause here to let the irony of that sink in.
As Eban reports, Steve Kleinman, an Air Force Reserve colonel and expert in human-intelligence operations, was astonished that the C.I.A. ended up choosing "two clinical psychologists who had no intelligence background whatsoever and who had never conducted an interrogation to do something that had never been proven in the real world."
The psychologists work, which was essentially reverse-engineering the SERE program for use by the C.I.A., was looked at askance by many of their colleagues as well as terrorism experts. Michael Rolince, former section chief of the F.B.I.'s International Terrorism Operations, told Eban the tactics were a "voodoo science."
So in this month’s print issue of VF a letter to the editor responding to the article is published. It comes from C.I.A. deputy director of public affairs Paul Gimigliano, who claims that Eban's article is "gravely flawed." He continued by maintaining that "A great deal of myth has grown up around the C.I.A.'s terrorist-detention program. That is the cost of denying al-Qaeda knowledge of the interrogation methods used so effectively against its operatives."
But with 10 months of investigation and interviews with more than 70 sources, Eban maintains the consensus is that the myth is of the effectiveness of the SERE tactics. SERE was developed during the Korean War based on Communist interrogation techniques which were never designed to get good information. Their goal, Kleinman told Eban, "was to generate propaganda by getting beaten-down American hostages to make statements against U.S. interests."
In a rebuttal to Gimigliano, Eban states, "Many experts and insiders I interviewed say that American interrogators could have stayed within the Geneva Convention guidelines and achieved equal intelligence gains, with far less stain on our reputation abroad."
In light of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's cavalier, arrogant and hypocritical attitude toward those guidelines, I found this to be one of the most interesting parts of the article:
Once again, Pogo's famous statement holds true.
.
.
Back in July investigative reporter Katherine Eban had her article Rorshach and Awe, about C.I.A. torture tactics established in the early days of the Wawr on Turrr, posted on Vanity Fair.com. The crux of Eban’s report was the conflict created when the Bush administration shifted gears and authorized coercive techniques for the interrogation of detainees, aka "enemy combatants" for a convenient sidestepping of the Geneva Convention guidelines.
The FBI had obtained much credible information from one al-Qaeda lieutenant named Abu Zubaydah. Using time-tested methods of rapport building which assume that an interview will yield better information from a comfortable and secure-feeling subject, Zubaydah spilled the beans on a host of info regarding the planning of 9-11. All this went out the window when then-director of the C.I.A. (and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient) George Tenet blustered his interrogation teams in to institute practices established in a military training program known as SERE (for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) which trains U.S. soldiers to endure captivity at the hands of an enemy who does not follow the Geneva Conventions. Let's pause here to let the irony of that sink in.
As Eban reports, Steve Kleinman, an Air Force Reserve colonel and expert in human-intelligence operations, was astonished that the C.I.A. ended up choosing "two clinical psychologists who had no intelligence background whatsoever and who had never conducted an interrogation to do something that had never been proven in the real world."
The psychologists work, which was essentially reverse-engineering the SERE program for use by the C.I.A., was looked at askance by many of their colleagues as well as terrorism experts. Michael Rolince, former section chief of the F.B.I.'s International Terrorism Operations, told Eban the tactics were a "voodoo science."
So in this month’s print issue of VF a letter to the editor responding to the article is published. It comes from C.I.A. deputy director of public affairs Paul Gimigliano, who claims that Eban's article is "gravely flawed." He continued by maintaining that "A great deal of myth has grown up around the C.I.A.'s terrorist-detention program. That is the cost of denying al-Qaeda knowledge of the interrogation methods used so effectively against its operatives."
But with 10 months of investigation and interviews with more than 70 sources, Eban maintains the consensus is that the myth is of the effectiveness of the SERE tactics. SERE was developed during the Korean War based on Communist interrogation techniques which were never designed to get good information. Their goal, Kleinman told Eban, "was to generate propaganda by getting beaten-down American hostages to make statements against U.S. interests."
In a rebuttal to Gimigliano, Eban states, "Many experts and insiders I interviewed say that American interrogators could have stayed within the Geneva Convention guidelines and achieved equal intelligence gains, with far less stain on our reputation abroad."
In light of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's cavalier, arrogant and hypocritical attitude toward those guidelines, I found this to be one of the most interesting parts of the article:
On December 2, 2002, [Rumsfeld] granted [a] request to apply coercive tactics in interrogations. The only techniques he rejected were waterboarding and death threats. Within a week, the task force had drafted a five-page, typo-ridden document entitled “JTF GTMO 'SERE' Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure.”
The document, which has never before been made public, states, “The premise behind this is that the interrogation tactics used at US military SERE schools are appropriate for use in real-world interrogations” and “can be used to break real detainees.”
The document is divided into four categories: “Degradation,” “Physical Debilitation,” “Isolation and Monopoliztion [sic] of Perception,” and “Demonstrated Omnipotence.” The tactics include “slaps,” “forceful removal of detainees' clothing,” “stress positions,” “hooding,” “manhandling,” and “walling,” which entails grabbing the detainee by his shirt and hoisting him against a specially constructed wall.
“Note that all tactics are strictly non-lethal,” the memo states, adding, “it is critical that interrogators do 'cross the line' when utilizing the tactics.” The word “not” was presumably omitted by accident.
It is not clear whether the guidelines were ever formally adopted. But the instructions suggest that the military command wanted psychologists to be involved so they could lead interrogators up to the line, then stop them from crossing it.
In a bizarre mixture of solicitude and sadism, the memo details how to calibrate the infliction of harm. It dictates that the “[insult] slap will be initiated no more than 12–14 inches (or one shoulder width) from the detainee's face to preclude any tendency to wind up or uppercut.” And interrogators are advised that, when stripping off a prisoner's clothes, “tearing motions shall be downward to prevent pulling the detainee off balance.” In short, the SERE-inspired interrogations would be violent. And therefore, psychologists were needed to help make these more dangerous interrogations safer.
Once again, Pogo's famous statement holds true.
.
.
Labels: irony, journalism, law, turrists, violence inherent in the system, war
July 31, 2007
Out in left field (go team!)
Muley: "Who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company?"
Land agent: "It ain't anybody. It's a company."
-- The Grapes of Wrath
Last week I received one of the many documentary selections I’ve queued up from Netflix,* The Corporation. It’s a 2003 Canadian film which chronicles the rise of the corporate entity, chiefly in North America. There is no doubt the film is strongly to the left in its point of view, and so barring some minor shortcomings I of course found it very appealing and engaging.
Quickly, just two beefs: I concur with Roger Ebert's review that, at 145 minutes, the film overstays its welcome like "the dinner guest who tells you something fascinating, and then tells you again, and then a third time." I see now that the directors have released an enhanced version DVD with eight hours of "bonus" footage. Good news for the type of person who makes a career out of attending anti-globalization demonstrations, I guess. The other gripe I have is that the music is in that overwrought style of spooky tones so popular in modern documentaries. I'll cut it some slack as it is a social cause film and not some "voyage of the cute and fuzzy whatevers."
The central themes in The Corporation are that today's companies enjoy the same status in liberty as individuals, and that society is suffering from the privatization of elements traditionally held in common in western society since its emergence from the Dark Ages. Several anti-globalization stalwarts such as Dr. Vandana Shiva and Noam Chomsky are interviewed, along with a few unrepentant capitalists for good documentary measure, like Milton Friedman and some jerky floor trader who unabashedly pointed out how good 9-11 and the Iraq war were for the stock market.
The film posits that corporations are today's dominant institutions, replacing the likes of monarchies and other bygone regimes. One of the film’s primary themes is in assessing today’s multinational companies according to the renowned Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM - the bible of the American Psychiatric Association). The latest edition identifies 297 disorders, but the film concentrates on six areas. Dr. Robert Hare, psychology professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath based on the following symptoms:
- Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
- Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
- Reckless disregard for the safety of others
- Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning of others for profit
- Incapacity to experience guilt
- Failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors
The analysis? We’re all going to hell, or at least those of us who can’t squeeze through the eye of a needle on our camels. Okay, lame biblical reference – it doesn’t get that gloomy, but it gives a plethora of evidence to support the notion that we are heading fast in the wrong direction. Good examples of the insidious nature of corporations abound in the film.
Economist Jeremy Rifkin tells us how in the 1980s a scientist for General Electric “invented” microorganisms that ate hazardous waste. GE went to the U.S. Patent Office claiming they had invented these bacteria and needed a patent. The patent office immediately turned down the request citing a living organism cannot be patented. GE corporate lawyers went to court to fight for their patent rights, and lo and behold the patent office was overruled. Rifkin himself appealed this decision by going to the Supreme Court. His argument was that if the verdict was upheld, the blueprints of life would be owned by corporations without Congress or the public's consent. By a ruling of 5-4 Chief Justice Warren Burger upheld the decision, and seven years later the patent office wrote into its laws one sentence that stated any life except a full birth human being can be patented. Rifkin points out that now the race is on in the corporate biotech world to cash in on the Human Genome Project so they can patent the genetic code that causes all known diseases (Ebert aptly comments that Right-to-Lifers should be aghast at the prospects, but "If there is one thing more sacred than the Right to Life, it is the corporation's Right to Patent, Market and Exploit Life"). Rifkin, who is dubbed by his critics as a scaremonger and “the intellectual guru of the neo-Luddites," finishes by stating that within ten years corporations will not only own all human life but that of every other species on Earth. That does sound a tad mongery to me, but Rifkin is a really smart dude and I think he’s perhaps not far off the mark.
One segment that is particularly poignant to me as a journalist shows how a crew at Fox News’ Tampa, Florida affiliate battled with the top brass in New York over their investigation of agricultural giant Monsanto in the late 1990s. Reporters planned on airing an investigative report on the negative effects of the bovine growth hormone Posilac used to boost milk production in dairy cows. Before the story aired corporate lawyers for Monsanto threatened to sue Fox News if the story went on. Fox Broadcasting Company owned 23 separate stations at the time and did not want a loss in advertising dollars, so they agreed to cooperate with Monsanto’s lawyers. After more than 80 rewrites to the story it still wasn’t aired and the reporters were eventually fired. They sued and won $425,000 in damages. The decision was overturned on appeal after Monsanto lawyers found a way to remove the reporters’ “whistle-blower” status on the grounds that falsifying news is not technically against the law. Today, some of the U.S. milk supply still comes from cows that have been modified with Posilac to produce more milk.
The most moving portion of the film for me was seeing the personal testimony of Raymond L. Anderson, chairman of one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers. The guy looks like a salty old corporate big wig, and for decades he played the part to a “T,” which makes more poignant his description of an epiphany he had about his company and its contributions to/detractions from the planet. He says that in 1994 he read The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken and realized that his company was creating product at an unsustainable rate and thus harmful to the environment. Hawken’s book, voted in 1998 as the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools, introduced the principle of “comprehensive outcome,” which accounts the entire result of an event or process to all parties, not just the immediate participants. Considerations for natural resource depletion, pollution and the side effects of the production, distribution and consumption processes are key to the calculations. Hawken contrasts this to a merely “culminative outcome” which is simply the obvious result visible to the buyer at the moment and point of purchase, and the profit made therein by the supplier.
So since 1995 Anderson has reduced his company’s waste by a third, and plans to make the company on a completely sustainable platform by 2020. During the first three years of the company's drive toward sustainability it saved $50 million in reduced materials costs, reduced energy costs, and reduced waste. That’s $50 million for their bottom line (and thus more for shareholders) instead of for the atmosphere and the landfill. I firmly believe like my very good friend Al Gore that the key to environmental change is to prove that it pays to go green.
There is a scene where Anderson is speaking to a chamber of commerce group, and he points a finger at the audience and flatly proclaims that not one of their companies operates sustainably, and that the corporate world ignores this at our planet’s peril. The audience was stunned, perhaps not knowing what to think of a speaker who would come to their chamber and not give the standard “cheerleader for growth” speech. Having been an observer to not a few of these meetings myself, I admit to having gotten choked up a bit. Right on, salty old corporate dude!
The Corporation – Three Thumbs UP.
SOURCES:
Fast Company magazine
Speech by Raymond L. Anderson
Wikipedia
OFFICIAL FILM WEBSITE: www.thecorporation.com
* I’ve got to hand it to Netflix. Their selection is incredible and their queue system politely suggests/links other titles which may be of interest to the subscriber. It was thus I perused their numerous documentaries and came across today’s subject film.
.
Labels: film, journalism, terms of enragement
December 18, 2006
Congratulations to all of You
.
One down, one to go. Ro-llin' Sto-owwwwn...
I always knew that this blogging thing would pay off. We, that is You, have been named Time magazine's Person Of The Year.
Actually, as I see it (which I suppose must be the way You see it as well) it seems the editors have again copped out with another of their nebulous selections à la "The Middle Americans" (1969), "The Computer" (1982), or "The Whistleblowers" (2002).
It could be worse. They could have chosen George W. Bush. For the third time. Or pulled a repeat of 1990 with "The Two George Bushes" (the nut may be close to the tree but is decidedly one dimensional in comparison).
But alas, I'll spare you further attempts at wit and simply refer you to Nora Ephron's column on today's HuffPo. There are some interesting takes in the comments posted to be sure.
.
One down, one to go. Ro-llin' Sto-owwwwn...I always knew that this blogging thing would pay off. We, that is You, have been named Time magazine's Person Of The Year.
Actually, as I see it (which I suppose must be the way You see it as well) it seems the editors have again copped out with another of their nebulous selections à la "The Middle Americans" (1969), "The Computer" (1982), or "The Whistleblowers" (2002).
It could be worse. They could have chosen George W. Bush. For the third time. Or pulled a repeat of 1990 with "The Two George Bushes" (the nut may be close to the tree but is decidedly one dimensional in comparison).
But alas, I'll spare you further attempts at wit and simply refer you to Nora Ephron's column on today's HuffPo. There are some interesting takes in the comments posted to be sure.
.
Labels: Fame, journalism, Time, You
