I’ve been told it’s a sign of aging, but I don’t care. I love NPR.
Much fuss is raised over bias in news sources. Fox News is right wing, according to The Ubiquitous They (TUT), while CNN has a left wing bias. NPR gets characterized as “leftist,” and I’ve got to admit that the radio organization seems to have earned the label.
But in citing differences, folks overlook the biases shared by Fox and CNN. The shared biases are far more dangerous, in my view, and far less commonly cited. My view comes largely from an article I read as an undergraduate by W. Lance Bennett entitled “News Content: Four Information Biases that Matter” which identified four systematic biases in mass mediated news sources.
personalization: news sources are disproportionately likely to report stories that relate to an individual with whom the consumer of news can identify
dramatization: news sources prefer dramatic stories – outside of Bennett’s essay, this preference often leads critics to use the word “sensationalism”
fragmentation: since news is presented to make money, news broadcasts are usually designed to entertain viewers rather than to inform them. as a result of this bias in design, news sources frequently omit background information that would allow the viewer to view a news item as a part of a larger whole rather than as an isolated incident
authority-disorder bias: news sources are disproportionately likely to report on stories in which events may be clearly compared or clearly contrasted with the words or actions of a purported authority figure
My affection for NPR comes from the biases identified by Bennett – the “Four Bennettian Biases”, as I’ll call them. While the NPR newsroom may be justly accused of listing to port, NPR does an unusually good job of avoiding the Four Bennettian Biases. Those biases are more dangerous than a lean to the left or right for at least three reasons:
1) while a left- or right- tilt may slant information, the Four Bennettian Biases often make relevant information unavailable altogether
a. the opposite perspective – that no political tilt evinces a more egregious breach of journalistic objectivity than do the Four Bennettian Biases – is based on the faulty premise that protecting the public from insidious democratic or republican urgings is more important than bringing issues of national importance to the public consciousness in the first place
b. I accept the contrary premise that providing slanted information is better than providing no information at all
c. a preoccupation with mass mediated democratic-republican urgings at the expense of concern for inadequate issue-raising emphasizes the short-term over the long-term, I think
2) the Four Bennettian Biases are more pervasive than biases to the left or right
a. while Fox News and CNN may serve as counterweights to one another, almost all the news sources exemplify the Four Bennettian Biases
b. the only televised news source that may avoid the Four Bennettian Biases is CSPAN
3) the Four Bennettian Biases are largely unrecognized, so consumers may not take those biases into account when consuming news
a. whereas democratic or republican leanings are so frequently denounced that consumers may keep them in mind while reading, watching or listening to the news
The Four Bennettian Biases may also be newer biases than political tilt. Many critics denouncing political tilt in the modern news implicitly hearken back to a time when news was ostensibly unbiased. They bash modern news sources by comparison. But a general rule of thumb for interpreting the words of others is: beware the Myth of the Hallowed Yesterday. Political bias is nothing new. In fact, if we use the beginnings of the American republic and 2005 and endpoints, ignoring what one might characterize as intermediate fluctuations, we see a decrease in the political tilt of news sources. In the days of the Federalist Papers and Paine’s Common Sense, “newspapers” frequently bashed one political candidate or party and extolled the other. There was no semblance of objectivity. Today, by comparison, even what is probably our most politically tilted major source of mass mediated news – Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News – at least pays lip service to the ideals of fairness and balance and, by comparison to the tabloid-like newspapers of the late-18th century, comes close to the mark.
While NPR doesn’t deviate from the ideal of objectivity as much as Fox News does – the “absolute value” of Fox News is less than the absolute value of NPR, if you will – NPR does lean leftward. But NPR does a great job of avoiding the Four Bennettian Biases. We should note, however, that NPR gets government dollars and that CSPAN, the other Bennett-friendly news source I’ve mentioned here, has a tiny viewership. Maybe NPR’s funding and CSPAN’s audience size suggest that a news source in line with Bennett’s values is commercially impossible.
Getting Speculative . . .
The commercial impossibility of Bennett-friendly news points to a deeper-rooted problem in the US – citizen apathy. After all, Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the news tycoons are only selling the public what it wants. Murdoch & Co. would provide unbiased, detailed news if doing so was profitable. But the citizenry doesn’t want news disentangled from the Four Bennettian Biases and free from political tilt; it wants entertainment tailored to the viewers’ preexisting beliefs. Citizens don’t seek unbiased information because they don’t care about unbiased information. They don’t care about unbiased information because they don’t care enough about problems of national governance. American citizens take their nation’s prominence and solidarity for granted, as did the citizens of the late Roman republic, and the resultant unconcern for things political will foment the demise of American hegemony. Such is the path of dominant nations. No nation, especially a republic, can long endure without a concerned and informed public.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
December 19, 2005
As a young fellow I see that there are many ideals and goals to which folks my age may aspire and to which we are invited to devote our lives. One might be, you’re never too busy to pet an old dog. No task is important enough to excuse doing a shoddy job of living.
December 18, 2005
Old married couples, long acquainted with one another’s thoughts and external representations of those thoughts, communicate masterfully. Often, they don’t use words. I’m that way with Preacher. That’s important, because Preacher can’t speak and can’t understand when I speak.
Preacher is my horse. We bird hunted all day today with a long column of hunters. Dad, who handles the dogs, directs the hunt from the head of the column while Preacher and I function as a kind of satellite. We rove from side to side locating missing dogs or move up and down the column visiting with guests. Such roving is tough for a bird hunting horse. Most horses walk with the rest of the herd behind the dog handler. Asking a horse to move away from his fellows stresses the mind of a creature hard-wired by eons of evolution to stay with his kind. Horses are afraid. Many horses become unmanageably afraid when riding alone. Preacher doesn’t like splitting off, but our communication is sophisticated enough, and effective enough, that now he and I can ride away from the herd while I look for dogs, keep in visual contact with Dad and find a route through unroaded terrain at the same time.
At one point this morning I moved up through the column of riders all the way from the rear to the front. I rode alongside one of our guests for awhile, then I passed him, waited for a wide spot in the trail and threaded between two other horses to move up. Eventually I rode abreast of Dad. When I reached the head of the column I realized that I hadn’t consciously told Preacher to do anything.
The signals he interprets are subtle. During the rest of the day I glanced occasionally at my rein hand to see what I was doing. I rarely moved anything but my fingers or wrist. A flexing of the fingers could stop Preacher, and hold him, no matter how anxious he was to move. Preacher turned in response to a lateral bend of my wrist and tender pressure on the reins sufficed to move him from a lope to a rack. The slightest nudge along his right ribcage got Preacher started and a shift of weight could signal that he should accelerate.
The communication runs both ways. I often know when Preacher will speed up from a walk two steps before he does it. I can feel it when he prepares to sidle and I know when he thinks I’m holding his reins too tight. I know when he wants to slow down, when he’s contemplating sneaking a bite of nearby greenery or when another horse’s proximity makes him nervous.
There are probably means and subjects of communication between Preacher and I still don’t recognize, even after cogitating on the subject. It’s not only possible, but probable, that he and I both recognize signals so idiosyncratic that no other horse or rider would use or recognize them. Our evolved communication obviates not only words, but sometimes intent.
Preacher is my horse. We bird hunted all day today with a long column of hunters. Dad, who handles the dogs, directs the hunt from the head of the column while Preacher and I function as a kind of satellite. We rove from side to side locating missing dogs or move up and down the column visiting with guests. Such roving is tough for a bird hunting horse. Most horses walk with the rest of the herd behind the dog handler. Asking a horse to move away from his fellows stresses the mind of a creature hard-wired by eons of evolution to stay with his kind. Horses are afraid. Many horses become unmanageably afraid when riding alone. Preacher doesn’t like splitting off, but our communication is sophisticated enough, and effective enough, that now he and I can ride away from the herd while I look for dogs, keep in visual contact with Dad and find a route through unroaded terrain at the same time.
At one point this morning I moved up through the column of riders all the way from the rear to the front. I rode alongside one of our guests for awhile, then I passed him, waited for a wide spot in the trail and threaded between two other horses to move up. Eventually I rode abreast of Dad. When I reached the head of the column I realized that I hadn’t consciously told Preacher to do anything.
The signals he interprets are subtle. During the rest of the day I glanced occasionally at my rein hand to see what I was doing. I rarely moved anything but my fingers or wrist. A flexing of the fingers could stop Preacher, and hold him, no matter how anxious he was to move. Preacher turned in response to a lateral bend of my wrist and tender pressure on the reins sufficed to move him from a lope to a rack. The slightest nudge along his right ribcage got Preacher started and a shift of weight could signal that he should accelerate.
The communication runs both ways. I often know when Preacher will speed up from a walk two steps before he does it. I can feel it when he prepares to sidle and I know when he thinks I’m holding his reins too tight. I know when he wants to slow down, when he’s contemplating sneaking a bite of nearby greenery or when another horse’s proximity makes him nervous.
There are probably means and subjects of communication between Preacher and I still don’t recognize, even after cogitating on the subject. It’s not only possible, but probable, that he and I both recognize signals so idiosyncratic that no other horse or rider would use or recognize them. Our evolved communication obviates not only words, but sometimes intent.
December 17, 2005
It rained on the hunt again today. Just a drizzle. With bird hunting – which refers, of course, specifically to the pursuit of Colinus virginianus, the bobwhite quail – that’s not all bad. The low pressure that accompanies rain keeps the birds’ scent close to the ground in reach of the dogs, and moisture helps the dogs smell as long as it isn’t excessive. This morning the raindrops didn’t even drum on a hat brim. Just big enough to speckle a mud muddle.
This bird season is still new, and we’re still finding our rhythms. The dogs did well but bumped a few birds. My horse had trouble finding his rack. Dad and I missed more birds than we hit. But the birds were out there, and that’s what you look for early in the season. There were a few moments when the symphony of dogs, horses, humans and birds hit perfect pitch. On one covey rise when one dog pointed, the other backed and the horses ground tied I fired both barrels and dropped two birds. When I went to pick them up they were lying within four feet of each other, stone dead in the underbrush. One male and one female. Hunting is not without its sadness. It often lies alongside pleasure.
A bobwhite quail’s feather pattern balances function and form. It hides him well, so that hunters normally require the assistance of their dogs to pick up dead birds. Commercial camouflage patterns have been computer-designed on the basis of bobwhite coloration. But a bobwhite’s garb is undoubtedly stylish. His upper back is a resonant chestnut, trending into a bluish gray toward the wings and tail, where the feathers are edged with a light brown or dull yellow. His underside is lighter, with the whitish feathers tipped in black. The chestnut of the bobwhite’s upper back stops thins at the neck, where a narrow stripe of brown protrudes forward atop his neck and covers the very top of his head. A jet black band of feathers begins the base of the neck and runs forward, touching the underside of the eye, to the bobwhite’s beak. Between that band and the bobwhite’s chestnut-brown cap, the color of the sexes differs. In that area – the forehead to temple, if you will – the hens wear the same golden brown that outlines the wing and tail feathers. But the males – the bobs – wear pure white, a touch of flashiness at the expense of practicality.
With bobwhite quail, as with almost all vertebrates among which the sexes can be readily differentiated, the sex that is more active in the rituals of mating is the dressier sex. Northern cardinals and wild turkeys are the same way. So are mallards and wood ducks. Among the societies of frogs equipped with inflatable colored membranes at the throat, such membranes are distributed exclusively to males, and among whitetail deer, bucks grow antlers for the rut while does forsake the nutrient-demanding appendages altogether. Other species beautify themselves exclusively for the mating season. The legs and beaks of some species of gulls, brown or black during most of the year, turn yellow or orange when the season for loving arrives.
What of humans? Traditionally, the male has filled more aggressive role. The male asks the female to his high school prom and, later in life, will drop to a knee in suggestion of matrimony. For much of human history, human garb has reflected this ritualistic assignment. In most bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states, the male has taken more pains to ornament himself with paint, beads or clothing. Ever seen a painting of Louis XIV? He wore tights and high heels.
In the latest of centuries, in the most economically complex of cultures, this tendency has begun to change. I wear no makeup or jewelry. In my society, women wear the paint, beads, tights and high heels. The perpetuation of cultural mythos notwithstanding, what does this reversal tell us about the relative activity of the sexes with regard to breeding? Has Homo sapiens diverged from the rule which has described Colinus virginianus and the rest of vertebrate life for as long as we can find records? Or are females more active than males in some modern societies? I enjoy the human mating game immensely. But as I tucked the birds, one hen and one bob, into my game pouch and walked back toward the horses, I harbored a developing suspicion that I’m not as decisive in the mating game as I have sometimes believed myself to be. In breeding, as with any encapsulation of life essences, pleasure and sadness often lie side by side.
This bird season is still new, and we’re still finding our rhythms. The dogs did well but bumped a few birds. My horse had trouble finding his rack. Dad and I missed more birds than we hit. But the birds were out there, and that’s what you look for early in the season. There were a few moments when the symphony of dogs, horses, humans and birds hit perfect pitch. On one covey rise when one dog pointed, the other backed and the horses ground tied I fired both barrels and dropped two birds. When I went to pick them up they were lying within four feet of each other, stone dead in the underbrush. One male and one female. Hunting is not without its sadness. It often lies alongside pleasure.
A bobwhite quail’s feather pattern balances function and form. It hides him well, so that hunters normally require the assistance of their dogs to pick up dead birds. Commercial camouflage patterns have been computer-designed on the basis of bobwhite coloration. But a bobwhite’s garb is undoubtedly stylish. His upper back is a resonant chestnut, trending into a bluish gray toward the wings and tail, where the feathers are edged with a light brown or dull yellow. His underside is lighter, with the whitish feathers tipped in black. The chestnut of the bobwhite’s upper back stops thins at the neck, where a narrow stripe of brown protrudes forward atop his neck and covers the very top of his head. A jet black band of feathers begins the base of the neck and runs forward, touching the underside of the eye, to the bobwhite’s beak. Between that band and the bobwhite’s chestnut-brown cap, the color of the sexes differs. In that area – the forehead to temple, if you will – the hens wear the same golden brown that outlines the wing and tail feathers. But the males – the bobs – wear pure white, a touch of flashiness at the expense of practicality.
With bobwhite quail, as with almost all vertebrates among which the sexes can be readily differentiated, the sex that is more active in the rituals of mating is the dressier sex. Northern cardinals and wild turkeys are the same way. So are mallards and wood ducks. Among the societies of frogs equipped with inflatable colored membranes at the throat, such membranes are distributed exclusively to males, and among whitetail deer, bucks grow antlers for the rut while does forsake the nutrient-demanding appendages altogether. Other species beautify themselves exclusively for the mating season. The legs and beaks of some species of gulls, brown or black during most of the year, turn yellow or orange when the season for loving arrives.
What of humans? Traditionally, the male has filled more aggressive role. The male asks the female to his high school prom and, later in life, will drop to a knee in suggestion of matrimony. For much of human history, human garb has reflected this ritualistic assignment. In most bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states, the male has taken more pains to ornament himself with paint, beads or clothing. Ever seen a painting of Louis XIV? He wore tights and high heels.
In the latest of centuries, in the most economically complex of cultures, this tendency has begun to change. I wear no makeup or jewelry. In my society, women wear the paint, beads, tights and high heels. The perpetuation of cultural mythos notwithstanding, what does this reversal tell us about the relative activity of the sexes with regard to breeding? Has Homo sapiens diverged from the rule which has described Colinus virginianus and the rest of vertebrate life for as long as we can find records? Or are females more active than males in some modern societies? I enjoy the human mating game immensely. But as I tucked the birds, one hen and one bob, into my game pouch and walked back toward the horses, I harbored a developing suspicion that I’m not as decisive in the mating game as I have sometimes believed myself to be. In breeding, as with any encapsulation of life essences, pleasure and sadness often lie side by side.
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December 15, 2005
A stream in north Georgia's Blue Ridge WMA. December 2005.
Inauspicious beginning.
Got up at five am. Checked my maps. Not deer season in Union county. By six I driving east. By eight, sloshing down forest service roads in the rain looking for a new place to hunt. Icy branches crashing across windshield. Almost slipped off mountain. Very fond of four wheel drive. Found a place to which I could return. By ten, was parked next to some pastureland asleep across my bench seat with the heater running. At eleven, cows crowded near the fence and lowed at my truck. I woke up.
In the afternoon, drove back into the woods and parked. Took rifle and folding chair to a clearing. Sat two and a half hours. Icicles hanging from tree branches. Very cold. Rained. Saw a chickadee. At dark I walked back to the truck. Very cold. Truck was stuck. Put it in reverse; floored the pedal. Tires spun. Got out. Walked three miles to ranger station, found old couple. Asked for ride. Denied. Squatted in the mud. Full moon cast silhouette. Fine figure of a man. Ate granola bar. Walked another mile. Headlights behind me. Stood in road until the driver stopped.
He was a bighearted fellow who worked up at the Army Ranger camp a few miles north of where I'd gotten stuck. He gave me a lift in his Range Rover back to my truck and we pulled it out with no trouble. The only lasting damage was to a piece of plastic that used to be attached to the bottom of my front bumper. Now what was formerly an "air dam" dangles at a rakish tilt, dragging the asphalt on the left side. Kind of jaunty. Like a derby hat cocked sideways.
All in all, a fun day. Now I’m warm and dry in motel room in Dahlonega, Georgia with the time and the inclination to reflect on the type of fun that one must often be alone to enjoy.
Got up at five am. Checked my maps. Not deer season in Union county. By six I driving east. By eight, sloshing down forest service roads in the rain looking for a new place to hunt. Icy branches crashing across windshield. Almost slipped off mountain. Very fond of four wheel drive. Found a place to which I could return. By ten, was parked next to some pastureland asleep across my bench seat with the heater running. At eleven, cows crowded near the fence and lowed at my truck. I woke up.
In the afternoon, drove back into the woods and parked. Took rifle and folding chair to a clearing. Sat two and a half hours. Icicles hanging from tree branches. Very cold. Rained. Saw a chickadee. At dark I walked back to the truck. Very cold. Truck was stuck. Put it in reverse; floored the pedal. Tires spun. Got out. Walked three miles to ranger station, found old couple. Asked for ride. Denied. Squatted in the mud. Full moon cast silhouette. Fine figure of a man. Ate granola bar. Walked another mile. Headlights behind me. Stood in road until the driver stopped.
He was a bighearted fellow who worked up at the Army Ranger camp a few miles north of where I'd gotten stuck. He gave me a lift in his Range Rover back to my truck and we pulled it out with no trouble. The only lasting damage was to a piece of plastic that used to be attached to the bottom of my front bumper. Now what was formerly an "air dam" dangles at a rakish tilt, dragging the asphalt on the left side. Kind of jaunty. Like a derby hat cocked sideways.
All in all, a fun day. Now I’m warm and dry in motel room in Dahlonega, Georgia with the time and the inclination to reflect on the type of fun that one must often be alone to enjoy.
My truck, Squatter, stuck in the mud. On the tailgate is the sign I carried to show passing motorists as I walked out. Blue Ridge WMA, December 2005.
December 14, 2005
My environmental professor once ridiculed these mountains. He had climbed Mt. McKinley and many other very high mountains, and in climbing them he had lost several fingers to frostbite. He was sitting at the head of the table when he did the ridiculing. “Those mountains?” he said one day of the southern Appalachians. “Those are hills.” He waved a hand dismissively. It had only two whole fingers.
I’m in a warm hotel room in Blairsville, Georgia, which occupies a mostly level spot in the southern Applachians. In the summer, tourists come. There is much fishing and buying of split-sapling furniture. In the winter, the locals get the town back and Blairsville becomes the type of place where you would like to sit in front of a hardwood-fed fire with a furry dog and a mug of chocolate, add some whiskey if you’re feeling frisky. Hardwood floors, of course, and the fire must crackle. You might also add a comely young woman, if you’re a young fellow with a tendency to think along such lines.
It’s funny how winter changes our choices of adjectives. Not only does “newfallen” make its annual appearance, but words like “cozy” and “comely” become more popular. Winter changes the way we think about things. Earlier tonight, as I was sitting in “Cook’s Country Kitchen,” a blonde-haired girl of about twenty walked in with her mother. I was eating alone. The girl was a little wider abeam than I usually prefer, but tonight she looked nice. I smiled at her. After her uninterested and slightly bovine return glance, I had the good fortune of being able to enjoy my own thoughts through dinner. I thought of a skinny man I once knew. I do not have to worry about him reading this, because he cannot read, but he was educated in other ways, as we shall soon see. He had a taste for wintertime women. “Jeb,” he would tell me, “my wife weigh 250 pounds. When it get cold at night I just curl up under her and go right to sleep.”
Tonight I will have cause to appreciate his wisdom, for I will be sleeping alone. Not even my beloved bird dog, Chap, is with me. But I suspect I will sleep soundly, because I am going deer hunting in the mountains tomorrow and it will be very cold. Something about cold mornings makes warm nights very restful. That is one of the benefits of winter. But I believe that the benefits of a wintertime worldview should be balanced against the need to preserve one’s digits, which is why I’m glad I’m in the southern Appalachians instead of on Mt. McKinley or on any other mountain tall enough to be called by its own name rather than that of the range to which it belongs. Not that it has helped me any, but no Appalachian peak is so tall that one cannot carry a warm ladyfriend up it.
I’m in a warm hotel room in Blairsville, Georgia, which occupies a mostly level spot in the southern Applachians. In the summer, tourists come. There is much fishing and buying of split-sapling furniture. In the winter, the locals get the town back and Blairsville becomes the type of place where you would like to sit in front of a hardwood-fed fire with a furry dog and a mug of chocolate, add some whiskey if you’re feeling frisky. Hardwood floors, of course, and the fire must crackle. You might also add a comely young woman, if you’re a young fellow with a tendency to think along such lines.
It’s funny how winter changes our choices of adjectives. Not only does “newfallen” make its annual appearance, but words like “cozy” and “comely” become more popular. Winter changes the way we think about things. Earlier tonight, as I was sitting in “Cook’s Country Kitchen,” a blonde-haired girl of about twenty walked in with her mother. I was eating alone. The girl was a little wider abeam than I usually prefer, but tonight she looked nice. I smiled at her. After her uninterested and slightly bovine return glance, I had the good fortune of being able to enjoy my own thoughts through dinner. I thought of a skinny man I once knew. I do not have to worry about him reading this, because he cannot read, but he was educated in other ways, as we shall soon see. He had a taste for wintertime women. “Jeb,” he would tell me, “my wife weigh 250 pounds. When it get cold at night I just curl up under her and go right to sleep.”
Tonight I will have cause to appreciate his wisdom, for I will be sleeping alone. Not even my beloved bird dog, Chap, is with me. But I suspect I will sleep soundly, because I am going deer hunting in the mountains tomorrow and it will be very cold. Something about cold mornings makes warm nights very restful. That is one of the benefits of winter. But I believe that the benefits of a wintertime worldview should be balanced against the need to preserve one’s digits, which is why I’m glad I’m in the southern Appalachians instead of on Mt. McKinley or on any other mountain tall enough to be called by its own name rather than that of the range to which it belongs. Not that it has helped me any, but no Appalachian peak is so tall that one cannot carry a warm ladyfriend up it.
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