politics

I had a proposal for PCAACA’s “Politics in a Mediated World” accepted. It turns out it was accepted during Ike, but I didn’t realize it. Whoo hoo!

My proposal reads (pretty much) as follows (with liberties taken with paragraphs for more bloggable readability):

FoxNews.com: Fair and Balanced?
An Analysis of Pre-convention Presidential Campaign Coverage

FoxNews.com presents itself as a neutral news source, using slogans such as “fair and balanced” and “We report. You decide.” However, many criticize Fox saying it has a clear right-leaning bias (Slate Magazine, Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, MoveOn.org).

Based on a quick perusal of high-traffic sources, it would seem that FoxNews.com is biased. However, the anecdotal evidence is insufficient to determine whether or not FoxNews.com exhibits a political bias in its reporting.

A rhetorical analysis of four days’ postings from FoxNews.com inspected for bias in the coverage of the presidential candidates gives an intriguing perspective. The analysis of digital rhetoric was limited to stories about and pictures of the two major party candidates taken from links on the homepage, the politics front page, and the election coverage main page.

The number of pictures of the two presidential candidates were examined, providing an analysis of bias in visual rhetoric (22 to 14). A simple count of stories, number per candidate, provided a second means of examining bias (35 to 18 with 6 about both).

These straightforward statistics do not take into account negative headlines or unflattering pictures, so to minimize possible skewing, a rhetorical examination of headlines and headline verbs was instigated. Rankings for connotation were determined by trained raters.

Unsurprisingly FoxNews.com is biased, but it is not quite as unambiguous as many suppose.

Thomas Benton has a thoughtful article on the stupidest generation… the one we have now.

I recognized exactly what he was talking about, though not all of his points are strong.

I see too many students who are:

Primarily focused on their own emotions — on the primacy of their “feelings” — rather than on analysis supported by evidence.

Uncertain what constitutes reliable evidence, thus tending to use the most easily found sources uncritically.

We’ve talked about these issues at home as well. Our critical thinking sons will often accept what they read on the net based on what else the person said that they agree with. So someone who is a video gamer and very credible there is also considered credible on politics.

Convinced that no opinion is worth more than another: All views are equal.

I’ve actually seen this be more an issue with teachers than students.

Uncertain about academic honesty and what constitutes plagiarism. (I recently had a student defend herself by claiming that her paper was more than 50 percent original, so she should receive that much credit, at least.)

Well, they see their politicians doing it.

Unable to follow or make a sustained argument.

Uncertain about spelling and punctuation (and skeptical that such skills matter).

At least part of the blame for this lies with the educational system. If we do not expect it of them, they will not develop it.

Hostile to anything that is not directly relevant to their career goals, which are vaguely understood.

Increasingly interested in the social and athletic above the academic, while “needing” to receive very high grades.

Not really embarrassed at their lack of knowledge and skills.

I think these are all of a piece. They need high grades to get a vague job making lots of money and they don’t see why they need to know how to do anything in order to obtain it.

Certain that any academic failure is the fault of the professor rather than the student.

I agree. Many feel academic mediocrity is the result of the professor!

found via Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred

Big Arm Woman at Tightly Wound:

1. The media is sexist. Well actually this one wasn’t a news flash. I mean, I’m not a big HRC fan, but come on–if you’re gonna criticize a woman for having birthing hips on the campaign trail, then I demand equal time for some analysis of the Biden Comb Over. Because really, that thing is scary.

There are more!

Based on the headlines in the news stories today, both on the web and on the radio, Washington outsiders and reformers are our heroes, too.

“Palin presented herself as a Washington outsider”

“Palin paints herself as a Washington outsider and reformer”

America’s heroes can be deduced from who our politicians refer to in their speeches. Let’s look at Sarah Palin’s speech for our heroes:

John F. Kennedy:
Our nominee for president is a true profile in courage

Our troops:
[Track] he’ll deploy to Iraq with the Army infantry in the service of his country.
My nephew Kasey also enlisted, and serves on a carrier in the Persian Gulf.

Our families:
We met in high school, and two decades and five children later he’s still my guy
My parents are here tonight, and I am so proud to be the daughter of Chuck and Sally Heath.

Harry Truman:
Long ago, a young farmer and habber-dasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.

A writer observed: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.” I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

Jesus:
But we are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and … a servant’s heart.

Obama is lauded as everyman says the LATimes.

Found the following info on a teacher at a California college.

Kuro5hin says, “A speech class professor, Rosalyn Kahn, told students they could get extra credit for writing an anti-war letter to President Bush. To receive credit, the letter had to protest the war, and the letter had to be mailed to President Bush. (I would find this just as worthy of mention if she had required students to write a pro-war letter.) Then, according to a press release, “One week later, Kahn again required students to write letters with a specific political viewpoint, this time to California State Senator Jack Scott. Professor Kahn collected the letters from the class and personally delivered them to Scott.”

When the administration found out, they took care of the problem. This letter was from the president of the college to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

I found this interesting for a number of reasons.

One is that I am a college teacher.

As a college teacher, I have given extra credit for writing letters. Those were to members of the armed forces during the Gulf War and to missionaries (when I taught at a Christian college). I did not ask to see the letters. I did ask for them to be turned in inside an envelope that was addressed and stamped. However, I was an ENGLISH teacher. The students were getting extra credit for doing a writing assignment. Writing assignments are normally the pervue of an English teacher.

I was a bit dismayed by the fact that this teacher picked which side the letters were to agree with. (Although I hope none of the students wrote the servicemen and women and told them they were baby killers!) But I have had assignments which weren’;t made with the best judgement. Unfortunately, teachers are human too and make mistakes.

I thought the administration did a good job of taking care of the problem. I was amazed. I have worked under an administration in which the whistleblower gets in trouble, not the person doing the wrong thing.