Politics in Tweets: Electorals go to College

I find that I’m unable to skip the politics today. I shall endeavor to be brief.

I see now that the 2012 Presidential election was a clever plot to make my head asplode. I can't sleep because my mind is doubling down.—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) November 07, 2012

Obama was working out at the gym. Romney was giving the rowing machine a good go. He glanced over at Obama with his shirt off and said, “Dude. Nice electorals.”

That’s the cue. It’s time for another bit of inciteful political analysis from the Abyss.

The Electoral College as it stands right now, Wednesday morning, is Obama 303, Romney 206 with Florida (29) still up for grabs.

My prediction back on Sept. 9, 2012, was Obama 304 and Romney 234. If Florida breaks for Romney this may be one of the most accurate presidential prognostications of all time. And I did it two months out.

Let’s review how my prediction happened. First up a link to the proof to verify my claim.

Abyss Electoral Projection Map: Obama 304, Romney 234 elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/custom-pr…—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) September 09, 2012

MSM media notices electoral system but I called it four days ago. I'm ahead of my time, i.e. a quarter past who gives a shit. @shoutabyss—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) September 14, 2012

Is it weird that the Wall Street Journal STILL hasn't heard about the electoral college? Or is just their headlines are outright favoritism?—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) November 05, 2012

#WSJ still pumping the lie there is no electoral system. #headline #deadlocked #election—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) November 05, 2012

#Awarkward front page caginess at #WSJ

There was something a skosh awkward with the print edition of the Wall Street Journal today (Friday, August 31st). And I’m speaking as a reader of news, not as a forward observer in the partisan wars.

You just know the WSJ wanted to be in on Romney’s big night. It was finally time for the big acceptance speech. No doubt the WSJ wanted it so bad they could taste it.

There was just one wee problem. The event would occur after their print deadline. I’ve seen newspapers in local markets push back deadlines for things like important sporting events in the evening and such. Editorial closes late, which pushed back pre-production, press deadlines and cascades all the way to distribution. The trucks run late. In my experience it takes an edict from the CEO to push back reliability benchmarks on home delivery. It’s a rather big deal.

Apparently the wait time was too long or WSJ doesn’t have such an option. Under the headline “Romney Vows to ‘Restore’ U.S.’ came news “coverage” (air quotes) consisting of several predictions. I guess we could call it a case of “pre-reporting” (air quotes) the news. In that vein the WSJ became the equivalent of a bulletin board system or newsletter.

News Blues Clues

In the eighties I worked at a major daily newspaper. No, I is was not as a writer thing then back ago. I worked in a different department. I did learn a thing or two about journalism, though. Spend a decade or two in an industry and you pick up a few things.

Surprisingly times were already lean for newspapers, even way back then. The population in our county was growing and our circulation numbers were up. But they were not keeping pace with the population growth. In other words, our penetration was decreasing. Our key metric was households and the percentage of households choosing to partake of our product was dropping.

It was generally surmised that this was a result of people’s lifestyles changing. The fast pace of modern life left little time for a cup of coffee and reading something in the morning before rushing out to the door to get to work. It also seemed generational. Younger folks seemed to like their news in smaller chunks from more entertaining, bite-sized chunks, like television and the expanding world of cable.

Eventually circulation numbers peaked and then started to decline. It was no longer just a penetration thing accompanied by actual growth. The bleeding had started. And this was all happening before the internet. Oops.

Oh noes, gubment is out to get us

Today’s misleading headline comes to us from the good folks at CBS News who tell us:

TSA to Block “Controversial Opinion” on the Web

Yikes! This raises so many questions like: Is free speech brewing terrorism on the net? Why else would the TSA of all things be involved in something like this? What I mean is that the Transportation Safety Administration is tasked with security for all modes of transportation. This must be something extremely serious for them to be involved, right?

Actually read the story, though, and one just might come away with a slightly different interpretation.

You see, the story is actually about TSA computers, not the “web.” Computers that are supposed to be used by TSA employees in the performance of their job duties, you know, doing things to make transportation safe and stuff.

And the “controversial opinion” that TSA employees will be blocked from? (Check out those quotation marks in action, used for dramatic effect, to make things sound so chilling.) One example is that employees will be blocked from playing online games.

Wow. That is chilling. Oops, please excuse me. I just accidentally snorted some Jack Daniels up my nose.

TSA employees will also be blocked from other things like criminal activity, extreme violence, chat/messaging, and yes, even the aforementioned “controversial opinion.”

In other words, they’ll probably have to spend more time doing their jobs. We can only hope that surfing porn (like they do at the SEC) will fall under one of those broad (no pun intended) categories.

So here’s a tip of the hat to CBS News and their attempt to sensationalize their headline to induce clicks. It certainly worked on me.

A tale of two headlines

Yes, my little liebchens. The posting blitzkreig continues. Is there no limit to how far I’ll whore myself out for some stats? Apparently not. Now post, damn you, post! Schnell!

Some dipshit from BP testified before Congress today. Or something. Whatever.

So I log in to my iGoogle home page tonight.

I normally eschew the iGoogle thing. It’s a bit lame. But I got this new widget thingie with a hamster that runs in a wheel, and, well, frankly, it makes it worth the trip.

Anyway. I get on iGoogle and the following two headlines blast me right in the face:

Fox News: BP CEO’s Day in Congress’ Kangaroo Court

New York Times: BP Chief Offers Few Answers, Frustrating Lawmakers

Oh, God. What a treat. Seriously, I just adore Dove moisturizing liquid, relaxing baths in Calgon, boxes of fine chocolates, sweet Zinfendel wine, and, of course, good belly laughs. Voila! My after work pick-me-up of the day.

Neither link went to a page that was clearly labeled as “opinion.” Remember in the newspaper they actually denoted which pieces were news and which were editorials? “Opinion” had its own page. On the web these days those lines seem to be blurred. To be fair, however, the Fox News piece was served up under the heading “Common Sense.” Riiiiiiiight.

Dateline unknown

We open today with a scene from “The Terminator,” circa 1984, Act I, as originally written by Shakespeare:

Kyle Reese: What day is it? The date!
Cop in Alley: 12th… May… Thursday…
Kyle Reese: WHAT YEAR?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Sometimes I feel a lot like our hero, Kyle Reese. Naked except for a trench coat and a sawed-off shotgun strapped to my thigh, not even sure of the year.

The internet can be useful. Open the search engine of your choice. Tap tap tap and click the search button. I usually do this countless times on any given day.

Then a quick scan through the results shown. By now most of us have learned to differentiate the meaty links from the fluffy ones just by looking. Our search engine instincts kick in and somehow we just know which links might bear fruit and which are pure crap. I try hard to listen to my gut and get it right on the very first try. It’s not that I’m that busy but it becomes sort of a game and a matter of pride to find what you want on the very first click without having to wade through the plethora of time-wasting sludgy garbage that clogs that series of tubes we love so much.

So a promising web page has been found. Now what? First I read the article. Is this really what I wanted? If it looks promising, I begin to dig a little deeper.

• What web site am I on? Do they have an “about” page?
• Perhaps a quick check of Wikipedia is in order to tell me a little more about this site? Is it funded by Murdoch or Brietbart?
• Who is the author of this article?
• When was this article originally published?

Whoops. Hold on a second. No date??? Whiskey tango foxtrot. Sup with that?!?!?!?

One thing I’ve noticed, and perhaps you have, too, is: How many times do you come across articles published on the internet where something as simple and obvious as the date has been omitted?

This sort of thing really blows my mind. In fact, this just happened to me a few minutes ago – which is what prompted this post leapfrogging to the top of the heap.

I’ve seen this on news sites. I’ve seen it on blogs.

Even a WordPress template like mine doesn’t bother to show the year. Take a look right now. The year isn’t shown along with the post. It only has this cutesy little colored tab that is part of the design that says something like “15 Mar.”

When it’s a blog you can sometimes get the date other ways. Try checking the URL showing in the address bar. (Normally web surfers aren’t supposed to be looking at what’s found in their address bars.) If you see something like “2010/02/25″ in there then you know you’ve found the date of publication. (This trick didn’t work on the site I visited a few minutes ago.)

If you are on a WordPress site you can also look for the calendar widget. Of course, this widget is optionally installed per the wishes of the blogger, so it just might not be there.  If it is installed and you’re viewing an individual post, then the calendar will automatically be showing the date of publication. So that’s another way to get the year. (This didn’t help on the site I visited a few minutes ago.)

That last trick is to see if the site allows comments. These days this is common on blogs and also on a lot of news sites. And if there are comments, they just might be properly dated. BINGO! I finally got the date on that web site I visited a few minutes ago. Boy, they sure made me work for it.

What really amazes me, however, is how many times I come across missing datelines on friggin’ news sites. This is simply unconscionable. Unconscionable! I mean, really. You are a news organization and you can’t report a fact as bloody simple as the date of publication? Suddenly I find myself feeling uneasy about your ability to report the news.

Let’s say I’m looking for information regarding tax rates on the wealthy. (This is just an example.) I find a story dated “July 28th” and learn that the tax rate was over 70 percent on that day. Hey, that’s fairly interesting and nifty information! Hell, it might even be what I was looking for. But, alas, I’m unable to determine the year. That makes the information absolutely useless to me and I have to keep on slogging those search engines.

And another frequently omitted piece of information? The name of the author. It’s nice to know for various reasons including the possibility I’d like to check out other articles they have written.

Once you know to look for this phenomenon you might be stunned by how often you dates and author names omitted from what you read on the web.

This is “Omitted” and reporting live from somewhere in time within this morass also known as the abyss. Back to you, Bob!

Crazy like a FOX journalism

Here’s an example of some bad journalism. At best it’s sloppy. At worst it is crass deceitfulness. I’ll just go ahead and report and let you decide.

This is a story about a small town news report that ended up getting some national attention.

Last month the owner of an apartment building in Albany, Oregon, decided to implement a ban on flags on vehicles in the parking lot. The story was picked up by the local newspaper, the Albany Democrat-Herald, with the unfortunately misleading headline: Apartment bans U.S. flags. In actuality, the policy banned all flags. A resident of the apartment complex was understandably upset and took the policy as an attack against his U.S. flags which, like all flags, were included in the ban.

From the local newspaper’s original story:

… American flags and others such as Mexican flags and college team flags were no longer allowed on vehicles parked at the complex … the rule applies to flag decals as well …

The newspaper later ran an editorial that further clarified the policy:

The management explained that it had a rule against flags of all sorts, including college and team banners as well as national flags, in order to avoid possible friction among the tenants.

A ban targeting the American flag while permitting others certainly would be offensive and it’s easy to see why that would get people riled up … if only that had been true. Based on the local newspaper reporting, however, it is crystal clear that the ban was not targeted at any specific flag. The policy applied to all flags regardless of content.

The story then got national legs as a ban of the American flag. In a slight twist on the truth, a local FOX affiliate in Boston then picked up the story and ran coverage under the headline: Let It Rip: Apartment flag ban. A video graphic on the site shows the American flag.

People living in an Oregon apartment complex are up in arms after their landlord asked them to keep the American flag off their cars.

…

Managers say they made the move because the image is offensive to some people.

Nowhere in the FOX coverage did they indicate that the ban was on all flags and didn’t specifically pertain to U.S. flags. In my opinion this is sloppy reporting because they probably wrote their short and and fluffy coverage. I suspect they didn’t conduct any investigation or attempt to interview anyone before they took the original piece of news and published it from a slightly different perspective. Like I said, I don’t know it was a deliberate attempt to deceive or not, but I do think it was sloppy.

Due to the national attention and bowing to pressure, no doubt exacerbated by the misleading focus on U.S. flags, management for the apartments eventually rescinded the policy.

The thing that confuses me the most is that this was essentially a non-story. If the nation wants a debate about a flag banning policy, go ahead and have that debate. The debate ended up being about a ban on U.S. flags, but that was never the policy. It was a total red herring. Of course, that sort of story is much more sensational and creates a lot more excitement than the more mundane actual truth.

Score another victory for opponents of critical thinking.