Day: April 2, 2002

Alex Beam Offers the Worst that Media Have to Offer

Reading all of the online commentary about Alex Beam’s hatchet jobs on weblogs, I saw someone point out (and I want to amplify), Beam’s use of one of the most detestable journalistic constructs — manipulating people to fit the story that journalist’s want to write rather than what the world presents them.

Now, I don’t mean to argue that journalists should be “objective” or “unbiased,” but rather that they cross a line when have a new article already formed in their head and go about manufacturing that story with behind-the-scenes wizardry that the marks in the audience never see.

Beam does an excellent job of making James Lileks look like a moron. Beam writes,

Bestirred by my uncharitable inquiry, Lileks demonstrates that he does have something to say. ”Oh, no. You’re not going to write one of those clueless old-media `blogging phenomenon’ stories, are you? My Bleats are just end-of-the-day remarks. That’s all. Granted, I’m not writing about deathless issues such as the movie rights for the story of a Providence mayor” – ouch! – ”but now and then a few notes on the war just slip in for the few dozen readers interested in the subject.” Lileks also writes for the soon-to-be-extinct newspaper medium and signs off on his message with this comradely quote from Elvis Costello: ”I wish you luck with a capital F.” Double ouch!

The first time I read that through my main reaction was what a pompous ass Lileks is. But, in fact, Beam essentially manufactured the quote he wanted by sending Lileks an incredible rude e-mail which was likely to result in this sort of response. Here’s the text of the e-mail Lileks says Beam sent him,

James, weren’t you once a talented humor writer? Why are you churning out this web dreck? I can’t tell if these bleats about Rod Serling or the Palestinians are diluting your humor work, because I can’t claim to know it well enough, but I certainly have my suspicions.

Feel free to respond: I am writing a column (deadline: Monday 11 am) on bloggers who might benefit from a less arduous writing schedule.

Alex Beam, Boston Globe

Beam wasn’t interested in learning about webloggers and writing about them, he wanted to right an incendiary-filled column and so e-mailed a very rude message to Lileks. Then he gives Lileks’ response without reproducing his own e-mail, making Lileks come across as an idiot. (Beam does say his e-mail to Lileks was “uncharitable”, but that’s way past uncharitable where I come from).

This is the sort of game that reporters play that make people dislike them so much.

The Importance of Blogs

Alex Beam of the Boston Globe doesn’t think weblogs are very important. Just a bunch of losers talking amongst themselves.

I happen to think weblogs are very important and have a nice example of their importance in holding the mainstream media’s feet to the fire about accuracy, or lack thereof.

A few days ago, The Nation‘s idiot-in-chief, Eric Alterman, wrote an article for MSNBC, which is essentially a long list of people he thinks are too pro-Israeli. I skimmed the article but didn’t think much of it.

Then, Glenn Reynolds posted a link to another weblog pointing out that my friend Cathy Young was listed as being one of the reflexively pro-Israeli columnists.

So, I fired off an e-mail to Young asking her if she knew that Alterman had her on his little blacklist. She hadn’t heard of the article, but was none too pleased given that she has never written a single column about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She sent an e-mail asking for a retraction, though as of this morning the article still lists her as reflexively pro-Israeli.

That’s almost instant fact-checking. Without the weblog community, Alterman’s error would have taken a lot long to make the rounds.

The bottom line — as long as mainstream media are going to rely on people as sloppy as Alterman, there will be a need for webloggers to call them on their errors.

The Mixed Message from Monterrey

The United Nations development summit in Monterrey, Mexico, wound up at the end of March with 60 countries agreeing to a broad set of principles to boost foreign aid and help the developing country. Even the United States agreed to increase by $5 billion its foreign aid. But the results of the summit were decidedly mixed.

The Bush administration continues to insist that any aid must be tied to democratic reform within developed countries. This provoked two reactions.

The Economist summed up one reaction which is namely that this is what the Europeans have been doing all along. Well, maybe, but so far they don’t seem to have done a very stellar job at it. It is one thing to talk about requiring internal reform and another to actually follow through.

The other reaction, of course, came from developed countries ruled by corrupt dictators, which claimed that it was colonial oppression rather than corrupt dictators that was responsible for the developing world’s problems.

The chief architect of this vision was Fidel Castro, who insisted it would be wrong for the West to place preconditions on aid packages,

You can’t blame this tragedy on the poor countries. It wasn’t they who conquered and looted entire continents for centuries, nor did they establish colonialism, nor did they reintroduce slavery, nor did they create modern imperialism. They were its victims.

Leave it to Castro who has systematically destroyed freedom and prosperity in Cuba to complain about being a victim.

On the other hand, the Bush administration rightfully appeared as hypocritical with its ongoing insistence that developing countries adopt free trade principles, while Washington reserves for itself extremely protectionist policies. The United States has refused to lower tariffs for Pakistani textiles, just slapped ridiculous tariffs on wood coming into the United States from Canada, and placed tariffs and limit on steel imports. As the Economist put it, seems to support free trade except for the Carolinas.

That is wrongheaded and divisive. It is time to lead by example, Mr. President.

Sources:

UN summit ends with cash pledge. The BBC, March 23, 2002.

What the president giveth . . . The Economist, March 30, 2002, pp. 12-13.

Memo to JP Goodwin: Think First, Then Write

Awhile ago I mentioned a presentation by a researcher named Stephen Davis that argued that a mix of ruminant/pasture agriculture would cause fewer animal deaths than a strictly vegan agricultural system. A newspaper in Connecticut picked up this story, which apparently infuriated JP Goodwin who, typically, didn’t bother to actually carefully read the story before writing an angry reply. Here’s the text of a letter from Goodwin being circulated on the Internet,

I hope the piece in your April 1st issue describing
veganism as a “killer diet” was some sort of April
Fools joke. If not, then I have now officially heard
every absurd argument ever conceived.

This article reported on a certain agriculture
professor from Oregon that claimed a strict vegetarian
diet caused animals to suffer. He made this point by
arguing that animals are butchered when crops are
harvested.

What this meat industry apologist failed to mention is
that far more crops have to be grown to fatten
livestock than would ever be consumed by human beings.

If you are concerned about field mice being hurt when
corn is harvested, then don’t eat meat. Most of that
corn is used to feed livestock. A vegetarian diet
would drastically reduce the amount of crop land
needed to feed billions.

John Goodwin
PO Box 21780
Washington, DC 20009
202 251 2748

The emphasis on the next to last paragraph is mine, because it’s a good example of the sort of nonsense Goodwin spouts. Of course the article in the Connecticut newspaper clearly indicated that this was not the case,

On the other hand, grazing animals produce food and reduce the need to drive farm equipment into the fields. Mr. Davis said less wildlife is lost to the mower blades and more find stable habitat in grazed and untilled fields.

Apparently these two sentences went over and above Goodwin’s limited reading comprehension ability so let’s be very clear. Davis is not arguing that fewer animals are killed in the current agricultural system than would be killed in a hypothetical vegan system. Instead, he is arguing that a hypothetical agriculture system that relies on pasture grazing cows and plant agriculture would result in fewer animal deaths than a hypothetical vegan agriculture system.

His point, which is apparently difficult for some animal rights activists to comprehend, is that the vegan view poses a conundrum for utilization of land ideal for bovine grazing. If you eliminate the cows and put that land into crop production, the result is clearly far more animal deaths than if you simply allow cows to graze the land and kill the cows for food.

Source:

Veganism is a killer diet. The Waterbury Connecticut Republican American Newspaper, April 1, 2002.

Untitled Letter. John Goodwin, April 2, 2002.

French Researchers Clone Rabbits

Researchers in France recently announced they had successfully cloned rabbits. Their report, published in the Nature Biotechnology, describes how the researchers used cells from an adult rabbit to produce several cloned rabbits.

Like other cloned animals, this procedure required hundreds of cloned embryos to produce six live births. Two of the rabbits died shortly after birth, leaving four clones that appear to be growing and reproducing normally.

Rabbits are an important research tool because they are genetically more similar to human beings than are other lab animals, such as mice, but they have a much shorter gestation period than larger mammals such as sheep or cows.

“The advantage is that rabbits reproduce so quickly,” Dr. Jean-Paul Renard told The BBC. “The pregnancy lasts one month, then it takes four months to sexual maturity…” The average gestation period for a rabbit is only 31 days, producing an average litter size of 8.

Combined with the cloning technique, this would allow researchers to create genetically modified rabbits for medical research purposes very quickly.

For example, one of the areas that the French researchers are already working on is creating a rabbit model for cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is caused by a defect on a gene that happens to be very similar between human beings and rabbits. The ability to produce a large number of rabbits with a similar defect on this gene could lead to a much better animal model for cystic fibrosis and improved progress on understanding and treating the disease.

Rabbits are also used in heart disease as well as the production of monoclonal antibodies (which animal rights activists like to pretend are non-animal alternatives to research). The rabbit’s immune system is similar to human beings, and studies of how rabbits cope with organ transplants has yielded important information on preventing organ transplant rejection in human beings.

In fact, as The Washington Post noted, cloning technology itself rests in part upon advances in the understanding of reproduction obtained through extensive research in rabbits.

Sources:

Rabbits join the cloning club. The BBC, March 29, 2002.

A big hop forward: Rabbits cloned; Research promise seen in second lab animal to be replicated. David Brown, Washington Post, March 30, 2002.

These Easter bunnies are clones. Roger Highfield, Daily Telegraph (London), March 30, 2002.