Craig Cheatham vs Dick Fleming

Chad Garrison at the RFT flagged a pretty fascinating confrontation between KMOV reporter Craig Cheatham and Regional Chamber and Growth Association President Dick Fleming. Chad offers some color commentary and a poll about who makes out better, but all I really have to say is, "Wow."

Wagman: McCaskill Voting To Protect Middle Class Is "Cultivating An Image"

Ed Martin is running for something, and that inevitably means that his buddy Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch will be publishing a string of nonstop attacks on Martin's opponents. This past week, Wagman has been stretching out the McCaskill-paying-her-taxes-late story with a eye for trivial details that was never applied to, for example, Roy Blunt. Today's hit piece was questioning whether Claire McCaskill's wealth would be a liability for her.

Here's the most absurd part:

That type of financial wherewithal is a stark contrast to the image McCaskill has cultivated in nearly three decades of politics in Missouri — where she has traveled the state in an RV and stumped with her mother — and in Washington, where she has fought to increase the minimum wage and railed against Wall Street bonuses.

Actually, voting for the minimum wage and railing against Wall Street bonuses are not "cultivating an image." They are standing up for members of the non-leisure class.

But this is exactly what's wrong with our modern media, and with Jake Wagman in particular. The media is supposed to inform the citizens about issues that matter. Of course, what really matters are the policies under discussion and the effects those policies would have on people's lives. But this is precisely what the modern media does not want to discuss, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's hard work to understand policy, and some reporters are stretched thin and others are busy watching the Cardinals. Second, describing policy opens them up to charges of "bias" from people who have an interest in distorting reality. Thus, today's media adopts the cowardly position of "Democrats say this, Republicans say that," on all policy issues, and then does "investigative reporting" on relatively trivial issues like whether McCaskill has money. When I say "relatively trivial," of course I realize that having a lot of money can affect someone's judgment; however, it's not nearly as important as the actual political positions a person takes. Senator McCaskill's track record has consistently been one of standing up for the middle-class (at least, relative to the current D.C environment).

So here we are, with a mainstream media that inevitably focuses on the trivial while leaving readers uninformed about the actual issues. And this plays right into the Republican Party's hands since, after all, an informed public would never tolerate Republican's nonstop pandering to corporate giants who screw consumers, screw taxpayers, and don't even live up to their own stated ideology of "loving free markets."

Would The St. Louis Media Report Responsibly On An O'Keefe/Breitbart Smear Job?

A couple years ago, James O'Keefe worked with a small group of students at Washington University to set up a mock "gulag" that warned about the "dangers of Communism" while blasting loud music across campus. O'Keefe created a video claiming that "University Political Officials Shut Down a Gulag Memorial" and his partner John Burns claimed the university shut down the display because it was "too offensive." These claims turned out to be blatantly false, as even members of the student group who co-sponsored the display, Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), admitted that the group only got permits for passing out fliers and never mentioned that they would be building a display in the middle of campus. Also noted by the YAL members, the university is quite accommodating to different viewpoints, as long as the rules are followed, which they were not in this case.

Despite the blatantly misleading spin of O'Keefe, Burns, and the Breitbart websites, the local St. Louis media never pointed out the facts. Both KMOX and the Post-Dispatch covered the story, but neither bothered to fact-check the blatantly misleading claims from the O'Keefe/Breitbart crew, which could easily have been verified by asking the university for the specific policies. The Post-Dispatch does mention the university perspective, but presents it as a "one side says this, the other side says this" story rather than bothering to get the actual facts. Readers were not given an opportunity to come to an informed opinion about the incident, because they were not provided with the facts needed to do so.

But that was a while ago, at the beginning of the new era of right-wing smear jobs posing as "citizen journalism." Since that time, a number of things have happened that should discredit Breitbart's websites and James O'Keefe in the eyes of anyone who has the slightest concern for the truth. For example:

James O'Keefe entered a Senator's attempting to illegally record phone conversations. They were arrested under suspicion of wiretapping, and later plea bargained down to a charge of entering a federal building under false pretenses.

James' O'Keefe's videos on ACORN for Breitbart's site were said to be severely and misleadingly edited by the Attorney General of California and many other public officials.

O'Keefe was caught trying to sexually humiliate a CNN reporter by luring her onto a boat full of sex toys and trying to "seduce" her under false pretenses.

Breitbart released misleadingly-edited videos suggesting that USDA employee Shirley Sherrod was "racist" when in fact she was telling a story about how race doesn't matter.

O'Keefe misleadingly edited a video to suggest that NPR executive Ron Schiller called the tea party "racist" when in fact Schiller was recounting what someone else said.

So given this clear track record of blatant dishonesty from the Breitbart and O'Keefe school of smearing, would any credible journalistic institution still take their word on videos without first fact-checking? Unfortunately, given recent statements from Steve Parker at the Post-Dispatch and the overall pathetic media performance around the NPR video, I'm not very hopeful about the answer to that question. Nevertheless, I have some things to say about how a media institution that was motivated by the ideals of responsible journalism and a pursuit of the truth might react to material from Breitbart and O'Keefe in the future.

First, it should be obvious that a credible media institution shouldn't take the word of anyone at Breitbart's websites at face value without fact-checking. This should be true of taking the word of anyone for journalists, but is especially the case for institutions that have a proven track record of distorting the truth. Passing on information from a Breitbart web site without fact checking given what we now know about them exhibits a blatant disregard for the truth and for honest journalism.

Second, video stories from Breitbart web sites should not be reported on unless the full videos are released. This should be standard practice, but again is especially crucial in cases where you're dealing with people with proven track records of twisting the truth. This applies to O'Keefe, to Breitbart, and to local folks like Adam Sharp and Bill Hennessy who have been caught lying and engaging in disingenous tactics. Posting information before getting the full facts has resulted in a number of innocent people being fired, and our modern media shares some of the blame for this fact.

Third, and finally, these outlets should not blast out a "BREAKING!" story without speaking to the people highlighted in the smear videos and giving them an opportunity to look into the issue and produce a thoughtful response. Of course, the pressure of the modern news cycle makes this difficult, but journalistic institutions need to be about having their audience's trust first, and focus on the "OMG BREAKING" stuff second. In particular, O'Keefe and Breibart often link their stories to grand conspiracy theories that implicate their political enemies, and news organizations should be particularly careful to resist guilt-by-flimsy-association allegations.

And this, ultimately, is the most important point. If you call yourself a "new organization," you should engage in careful, thoughtful pursuit of the real facts. If you lazily or sensationalistically pass on information from Breitbart, O'Keefe, or their local lackeys, you are betraying your audiences trust. And while you may think it's worth it to push for those short-term ratings boosts, in the long run this approach to news will lead to the demise of organizations who practice it.

KMOX Edits Eye-Witness Reports Out of Story About UMSL Beating-Updated

Yesterday, I remarked that I was glad that the mainstream media was finally picking up on the story of the beating of UMSL student Brian Massey. I quoted the following text from KMOX:

Massey, who suffers from diabetic neuropathy and says he’s listed as a disabled student by the university, said that police then began punching him and kicking him in the sides. Police agree that they were forced to “apply striking blows to soft tissue areas.”

Witnesses say Massey displayed “amazing calmness” as he was struck, eventually going down on one knee in hopes of avoiding further confrontation. But, he says, that only made him an easier target.

“They then hit me in the side, hit me in the legs again, pushed my head into the wall, and start hitting me in the head.”

It was only when a campus employee stepped between the officers and Massey did the beating come to an end, according to witnesses.

However, today, at the exact same link, all of that text has been removed and the story has been changed to include only the statements of Massey himself as the counterpoint to the official UMSL police account. The reports from witnesses have been entirely removed. I can see why they'd want to update their story after speaking with UMSL, but I don't understand why a news organization would remove eye-witness testimony from their story. I called the KMOX newsroom and spoke with a very nice and helpful woman, but the person who edited the story was not yet at the station. I'm hoping to speak with him later today.

Unfortunately, since it didn't even occur to me that a news station would remove eye-witness testimony, I didn't get a screen shot of the original article. However, I have the next-best thing. I have a screen shot of the google search for terms in the original article that links directly to text from the KMOX article:

Also, here's a screen shot of the story posted yesterday on facebook, where you can see that the original story was framed around the testimony of witnesses:

The new KMOX story also contains some remarkable claims from UMSL spokesperson Bob Samples:

Samples says Massey grabbed the right wrist of an officer and was told he was under arrest.

Police say, as Massey was being handcuffed, he swung around and tried to strike an officer.

Massey was subdued and Samples says one officer was injured. Massey says he was kicked and punched.

This is an absolutely extraordinary claim. In the three and a half weeks since this happened, the UMSL police have discussed the incident on two other occasions, and never said anything about Massey trying to "strike" an officer. Here's one previous description:

During the response, the lead officer observed an individual whose presence elevated the anxiety of the student in crisis. Building and radio station officials asked the individual to leave the area. When he refused, two officers were asked to intercede,” Samples said. “The individual was not cooperative. In the process of determining identification, the individual in question grabbed the arm of an officer. The officer advised the individual that he was under arrest for assault.”

Van Ness said the student complied when asked for identification, providing both a state ID as well as his UM-St. Louis student ID. “But as the officer walked him out he grabbed the officer’s wrist and tried to remove documents from officer’s possession,” Van Ness said. The student was then told he was being placed under arrest.

“There was resistance on part of the student to avoid full incarceration,” Van Ness said. “We used prudent professional techniques that are used to force compliance on part of the noncompliant party. In this instance because everyone was so close to everybody we couldn’t deploy pepper mace. We were forced to put hands on the student to control his behavior, to apply striking blows to soft tissue areas.”

Van Ness also commented on a second story in the UMSl Current, and again said nothing about Massey trying to strike officers or officers being injured (note as well that the articles has several witnesses taking issue with the claim that Massey grabbed the officers arms). So we are now supposed to believe that Massey was beaten because he tried to strike an officer and that an officer had been injured, but that the police had just forgotten to mention those facts for the past three weeks?

At this point, as someone who has been closely following the story, I know of at least five people who have witnessed the arrest. Absolutely none of them have said that Massey tried to "strike" the officer. This is a story for good journalists to dig in to, not run away from, and I hope KMOX steps up to the plate.

Update: I spoke with the editor who said he changed the original story. He said he was "balancing" the original story after speaking with UMSL officials. He also said that they removed the witnesses from the updated story because they had spoken to any of them directly. But, of course, the original articles in the UMSL Current cited at least three witnesses who all disagreed with the official police story.

Sometimes It Sucks To Be Right: NPR Panders to Loesch

A couple weeks ago, when Dana Loesch called for NPR to be defunded, I tweeted the following:

And, like clockwork, NPR proved me right today, including a sound bite from Loesch in their story about "tea party clout:"


This is just the latest in a series of spineless moves from the media that provide an incentive for the tea party to trash them as much as possible. These outlets are putting themselves out of business by empowering people who want to destroy them.

St. Louis Tea Party Can't Understand Why Anyone Was Offended by Bloody Congressman Corpse

A new controversy erupted locally as St. Louis Tea Party members accused the local media, SEIU, and Democratic politicians of "making a mountain out of a molehill" after members of the public criticized the Tea Party's decision to simulate beatings, torture, murder, and unspeakable sexual acts on a bloody corpse mannequin with the words "Democrat politician" written on it. The Tea Party leadership brought the mannequin to a rally protesting the idea that taxes would increase for the wealthiest 1% of wage earners in order to ensure that all Americans had access to health care.

"This whole thing is an outrage, and is directly attributable to Charlie Dooley, Russ Carnahan, President Obama, and MoveOn.org," said conservative blogger Jim Hoft, who brought the bloody corpse mannequin. "We used the mannequin for fun carnival games, like Burn the Communist Alive and Drive a Stake Through the Evil Vampire's Shriveled Heart. Heck, we even had our children playing the game."

Some critics suggested that the actions might be going a little far. "It seems to me like when you practice gouging the eyes out of a stuffed corpse while chanting 'let's all murder the bloody tyrants who are planning to steal our money,' you might be encouraging other people to commit actual violence," one astonished onlooker said. But the Tea Party was quick to dismiss such charges.

"This is nothing more than the liberal establishment trying to silence all dissent," said Tea Party co-founder Bill Hennessy. "The idea that Stab the Hippie is a violent game is completely disproved by the fact that we said a prayer at the beginning of the rally for all of the unborn fetuses that Obama has murdered in cold blood."

97.1 radio host Dana Loesch devoted her entire show to the topic, saying that the incident was direct proof that Democrats hate free speech. She pointed out that some Democrats had claimed that the Tea Party hung the bloody corpse mannequin from a street light poll. However, after analyzing video and photographs from twelve different angles, Loesch said that it was clear that the corpse was actually hung from a traffic light, which proves that all liberals are liars. Loesch also claimed that the incident proved that liberals were racist and sexist, but she didn't bother to explain why.

Make sure to tune in tonight for a special Fox 2 News segment titled: "Murdering Politicians: Irresponsible Stunt or Good-Natured Fun?" to hear more about this incident.

(note: the above is satire, but IMHO not very far from the truth)