K Marx The Spot

News, Weak

Word comes that the Washington Post Company is trying to find a buyer for Newsweek, because it has been losing "tens of millions" of dollars annually.

I know one way to save money! Make some cuts, and fast, on that Newsweek.com web site!

A recent Newsweek "web exclusive" had the brilliant Ramin Setoodeh explain that

[F]rankly, it's weird seeing [Sean] Hayes play straight. He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is....

For decades, Hollywood has kept gay actors—Tab Hunter, Van Johnson, Anthony Perkins, Rock Hudson, etc.#8212;in the closet, to their own personal detriment. The fear was, if people knew your sexual orientation, you could never work again. Thankfully, this seems ridiculous in the era of Portia de Rossi and Neil Patrick Harris. But the truth is, openly gay actors still have reason to be scared. While it's OK for straight actors to play gay (as Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger did in Brokeback Mountain), it's rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse.

This is arrant nonsense. Rare? The idea that gay or lesbian actors cannot play straight roles is absurd. I do not pretend to be completely up on popular culture, but I do not remember John Gielgud playing gay role after gay role, or Lily Tomlin playing only lesbian roles, or Ian McKellen flopping when he played straight roles, or Derek Jacobi seeming like he was hiding something about himself, or Richard Chamberlain being wooden and insincere. Just because Sean Hayes is undistinguished hardly proves anything.

The truth is that actors and actresses stay in the closet because there are a lot of bigots out there. Some are in show business and don't want to hire gays or lesbians. Others are the garden-variety bigots who view gays and lesbians as somehow subhuman—coming out of the closet means that one and one's partner are out of the closet in real life, and that is not always easy or safe or even possible.

Labels: heterosexual privilege, Newsweek, Stupid reporting tricks

Thanks for Not All That Much

Dear Newsweek:

I was pleased that you asked Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear threat in your interview with him. But did you ask him about Israel's own nuclear arsenal? Surely one has a better appreciation of Iranian motives if one considers what Iranians consider to be Iran's external threats.

Labels: Iran, Israel, nuclear proliferation, Stupid reporting tricks, the nuclear arsenal that dares not have its name be spoken

Recipe for Disaster

A cookie recipe that calls for four ingredients and only a bit of sugar? Sounds intriguing. Until you get to the end of the accompanying article.

I made seven batches and only two came out right. A couple of batches were as flat as sugar cookies, others looked good on the outside but weren't airy on the inside, and still another tasted right but were too smooth on top, lacking the distinctive craggy texture. Food editor Sheryl Julian and another tester tried it eight times, adjusting the flour and the oven temperature, and every one of them flopped.

Two people who cook for a living tried this recipe 15 times with 13 failures? And it's still running in the paper? Someone at the Boston Globe has a sick sense of humor.

Labels: Nothings, recipes, Stupid reporting tricks

Why Newsweek is Teh Suck

My Newsweek subscription lasts through 2010 and I know for sure that I'm not renewing it. (It was a gift from my late father-in-law.)

There are lots of bad magazines out there, but why is Newsweek egregious in its own, Washington Post-owned way?

Take the 8 June 2009 issue. Among the features are two worthy articles on the Guantanamo Bay detention camps: one on the difficulty of reforming jihadists and one on the thorny problem of how to repatriate detainees. Both of these problems are real problems that our government faces now, and both are problems that our previous government ought to have foreseen.

Do either of these articles even get mentioned on the cover? No, the cover has Oprah Winfrey on it and the featured story is how many of Oprah's medical guests are pretty much frauds.

Um, we knew that. Oprah made Doctor Phil famous. (To be fair, Oprah also allowed Sesame Street to introduce Doctor Feel, who is only slightly more of a buffoon.)

Labels: Guantanamo Bay, Newsweek, Oprah Winfrey, Stupid reporting tricks

Turn Off Your Non-Electronic Devices

Ever wonder why the print media seems moribund? Maybe it's not the media. Maybe it's the editing! Our latest case in point: Business Week, which is supposedly up for sale, may be showing why no sale has yet occurred. A recent issue talked about small airports so ineptly that it was noteworthy, even for the magazine that features the columnar stylings of Jack and Suzy Welch.

In the past 18 months alone, airports in nearly 100 cities, including Springfield, Mass., saw their last remaining carrier pull out (though some, including White Sulphur Springs, have regained limited service).

When I read that, I thought it peculiar. The main airport that serves Springfield, Massachusetts is Bradley International, about 20 miles away by car in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. (Bradley is about equidistant from Springfield and Hartford and this serves two smaller markets fairly well, or at least well enough to still have some international flights.)

Springfield itself does not have an airport and has not had one in recent memory. But, aha! The old Westover air base, 8 miles from Springfield, was in fact used sporadically for 2 decades until 2008 as a commercial airport. Its last tenant was Skybus, the low-cost carrier that specialized in not just third-rate airport locations but also a bizarre pay scheme that paid flight attendants $9 per hour plus 10% commission on their in-flight sales.

But not even Skybus referred to Westover as "Springfield"; instead, it was "Hartford (Chicopee)."

Labels: Business Week, stupid airline tricks, Stupid reporting tricks

Great Moments in Theology

It's no surprise that Senator Ted Kennedy is not a well man; he was diagnosed with brain cancer in May of 2008. And perhaps it is news when he has the president convey a letter to Pope Benedict.

But when the contents of the letter are kept private, which is sillier: publishing almost 1000 words in a newspaper of record about a letter whose contents are unknown, or being a purportedly smart academic and, well, pontificating in public about that letter?

I'm going with the latter. Remember, the letter might have, essentially, told Pope Benedict that his acts to coddle Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites were an embarrassment to Catholics everywhere.

"I find it quite moving," said the Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a Catholic theologian at Boston College. "Clearly, when one Catholic asks another to pray for him, this is a sign both of vulnerability and of trust. To have the opportunity to ask that of the pope is, in addition, a sign of devotion and respect for the one Catholics hold to be the successor of St. Peter with a special role in maintaining the unity and apostolic tradition of the church."

Labels: fact-free journalism, Pope Benedict, Stupid reporting tricks, Ted Kennedy

Boston Globe Death Watch

This is what a supposedly liberal paper looks like. Jeff Jacoby is the house conservative for the Boston Globe's op-ed page, and when it comes to most things, there is only one way to think, the facts be damned.

I suppose that I should be glad that the house conservative thinks that a two-state solution to the problem of Israel and Palestine is good, at least in theory. But I despair that he nonetheless shows that you don't need to be factual when you're a columnist.

Who favors a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict?

President Obama does, of course, as he made clear in welcoming Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Monday. So does former president George W. Bush, who began advocating Palestinian statehood in 2002 and continued until his final days in office. The Democratic Party's national platform endorses a two-state solution; the Republican platform does, too. The UN Security Council unanimously reaffirmed its support a few days ago, and the European Union is strongly in favor as well....

International consensus or no, the two-state solution is a chimera. Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs' goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down....

Over and over, the pattern has been repeated. Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."

The problem is that it isn't 1967 anymore. In 1978, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords. Egypt sought peace with Israel, negotiated with Israel, and even recognized Israel. In 1994, Jordan signed the Washington Declaration. By doing so, that Arab country demonstrated that it was good to seek peace with Israel, negotiate with Israel, and recognize Israel.

It is unfortunate that more Arab countries have not been able to emulate Egypt and Jordan. (One should point out that the previous inhabitant of the White House was not exactly bending over backwards to get either a comprehensive peace accord signed or a more specific one with, say, Syria.)

Writing, in essence, that the Arab countries are immutably opposed to peace is ignoring the glaring fact that Israel is at peace with two of its three immediate neighbors. Alas, doing so would be an opportunity for nuanced thinking about Israel and Palestine, and in the United States, even so-called liberal newspapers would rather have arrant nonsense than nuance.

Labels: Boston Globe, Egypt, Israel, Jeff Jacoby, Jordan, Stupid reporting tricks

Dissociated Press

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has already told the Associated Press that it plans to drop the wire service in 2010, because of a large rate increase.

The Star-Tribune's contract calls for a two-year notice, but I still suggest that the paper tink twice before it runs many AP stories. Apparently the Associated Press considers newspaper readers to be fools. The following story ran in the Star-Tribune earlier this month:

A Murfreesboro [Tennessee] woman says she returned $97,000 she claims to have found in a Cracker Barrel restroom, but police said Tuesday they have no report of the find. Billie Watts, 75, told The Daily News Journal that she discovered the money inside a tapestry bag hanging from a hook on a stall door last Thursday.

But five days later, the money and its anonymous owner remain something of a mystery in the community, where police said that they have no report of the find.

While digging through the bag to figure out its owner, Watts says she found a bundle of neatly stacked $1,000 bills.

Watts said she and her husband took the money home, but later called the restaurant back and asked if there was a lost-and-found department. She was told yes, and left her number.

A woman called about 15 minutes later and verified she was the owner by identifying pictures left in the bag. Watts returned the bag to the owner, whom she described as an elderly woman, but said she does not have the woman's last name or phone number.

I have sympathy for Billie Watts, who seems to be desperate for posituve attention, yet does not seem to be trying to make a buck off of a story she made up.

Her story is not impossible on its face, but there is one thing that makes it nearly impossible. $1,000 bills have been out of circulation since 1969 (and were last printed in 1945). It is very, very, very unlikely that anyone who is not a numismatist has had 97 of these puppies sitting under their mattress for the last four decades.

Labels: Associated Press, Billie Watts, Stupid reporting tricks

What Were They Thinking?

What were the Boston Globe's crack sports editors thinking when they let loose this whopper on Page 2 of the sports section today? (Remember, this is the same Boston whose Celtics now have 17 world championships.)

The Globe has a weekly feature entitled "What They Were Thinking" that presents the story behind an interesting photograph. And today, it describes Mark Joe taking a 3-point basketball shot at the court at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. And he is. Only the text describes "an NBA-length 3-pointer." But it is obvious that the 3-pointer is a college-length 3-pointer—the dark line of the longer 3-pointer is only a foot behind the high-school 3-point line that touches the top of the key (the semicircle above the free-throw area).

The real NBA 3-point arc is four full feet behind the high-school 3-point line.

I should point out that the college 3-point line was only moved out a foot in conjunction with the upcoming college basketball season. But surely a newspaper department that is devoted to basketball, and to college basketball, and to the rules of college basketball, ought to get those rules right.

Imagine the mistakes that a sloppy paper makes in its political coverage, where the details are not so obvious even to the casual observer.

Labels: 3-point line, basketball, Boston Globe, Stupid reporting tricks

Bad Barron's

Barron's is certainly an odd beast until you think about it a bit. There is a lot of the old lean-Republican trope in its editorial pages, but there is also a good amount of fair coverage of corporate misdeeds. And the latter is particularly useful to lefties, even those the typical Barron's readers simply want to avoid getting fleeced any more than they have to.

Anyway, here is an exemplar of the bad Barron's, from Thomas Donlan's editorial two weeks ago:

Where are the Congressional hearings to put Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), in the hot seat? He should be grilled about his judgment and integrity, along with hundreds of other legislators of both parties who indulged and subsidized home buyers, house builders and mortgage lenders, and started the country down the road to nationalized banking.

Where is the eagerness to make Frank—chairman of the House Financial Services Committee—eat his most intemperate words? In 2003, he said: "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation toward subsidized housing." He also said then that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the dice-rollers, were "fundamentally sound."

Actually reading the actual hearing text provides, as one might expect, a bit of context. At the time, Frank was the ranking minority member of the House Financial Services Committee; Republican Michael Oxley was chairman. In fact, even if Barney Frank could get every Democrat to act with him on anything, he would need Republican support just to get a bill through the House, let alone keep it from getting vetoed.

Indeed, what was clear to the members of the committee was that regulation in 2003 was inadequate and that the government needed something better. Remember, this is chairman Michael Oxley speaking:

There is a broad agreement that the current regulatory structure for the GSEs is not operating as effectively as it should. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight is underfunded, understaffed and unable to fully oversee the operations of these sophisticated enterprises.

This was reflected in the surprise management reorganization by Freddie Mac and by Wall Street reports stating that GSE oversight is viewed with skepticism because OFHEO is largely seen as a weak regulator.

A strengthened regulator will send a signal to the markets that these entities have solid management and are engaging in safe and sound activities. Confidence will be restored in the GSEs and they will be able to get back to their important work of expanding home
ownership opportunities without the distractions that have been plaguing them over the past several months.

I should point out that Donlan's criticism is reasonable in one respect, in that it is not clear that Frank ought to have proclaimed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to have been fundamentally sound in 2003—on the other hand, the combined market capitalization for the two companies at the time exceeded $100 billion at the time.

The bigger problem here is that Donlan is conflating subprime lending with subsidized housing. If he bothered to read the hearing transcript, he would find that the members of the committee and a number of witnesses discussed (1) housing subsidized under the federal low-income housing tax credit (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been longstanding leaders in tax credit investing); (2) the Affordable Housing Program of the Federal Home Loan Banks and whether it could inspire similar programs; and (3) the need to have housing subsides for older rural and urban housing stock that was about to age out of existing programs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I worked with one of the witnesses, Terri Montague, when we were both with a previous employer.)

Indeed, when Frank makes his "roll the dice" comment, he was discussing the need for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue to have a commitment for low-income housing and not just the weak provisions that banks fulfill under the Community Reinvestment Act.

The problems that sank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had almost nothing to do with their commitments to low-income housing; rather, they got too clever with leverage. A good version of Barron's would feature columnists who knew how to read the original versions of the sources they quote.

Labels: bad Barron's, Barney Frank. Thomas Donlan, Barron's, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Stupid reporting tricks

New Frontiers in Geography

In a story about parking in Boston and the utter lack of accountability to the supposed limit on commercial parking spaces, we find the following sentence:

Suffolk County, which encompasses most of Boston, received a D grade last year from the American Lung Association in its "State of the Air" report, which showed seven days of unhealthy ozone levels.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Suffolk County comprises Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. So, if "encompasses most of Boston" means that bits of Boston are not included in the county, then the crack staff of the Globe is far off. And if it means that most of the Boston area is in Suffolk County, then it is further off.

The most charitable reading is that the story meant to explain that the City of Boston is the largest part of Suffolk County—but even that reading shows that the crack staff of the Globe is having a difficult time understanding what "encompass" actually means.

Worse for the readers, the story claims that commuting by car in Boston has tripled since 1985. That does not seem even remotely possible. Indeed, non-car commuting for Boston residents did not change at all from 1990 to 2000. (I sus;pect that the Globe is comparing statistics from 1985 for those living in the City of Boston and from a recent year for those working in the City of Boston.

There would be a good story in these numbers if the reporter asked the right sort of questions—why are there so few carpoolers in Boston? How do we increase public transit use? Is it really necessary to spend literally tens of billions of dollars to subsidize those who need to drive into a congested city when there are easy alternatives?

Labels: car culture, geography, Stupid reporting tricks

Great Moments in Comparative Religion

This is what happens when neither reporters nor editors have any idea how to check the alleged facts in their stories.

Earlier this week, the Boston Globe led its Food section with a story on a local company that makes the ersatz fruit slices that are particularly popular during Passover. Alas, there are at least two bizarre mistakes in the piece that make one wonder whether anyone at the Globe has any conception about what is kosher and what is treif.

[General manager Rick] Hiera boasts that the local product is superior ... because of the fruit-juice flavor made at a "flavor house" halfway across the country (he won't disclose which one), because of the gelling agent agar (he says other companies use pectin, which makes the candy stick to your teeth) ...

So far, so good. But things get worse quickly.

The slices are kosher year-round, but to make it kosher specifically for Passover, the plant replaces the corn syrup ingredient with potato or tapioca syrup. (Corn syrup usually isn't kosher for Passover because its production isn't supervised by a rabbi.) The company also shrinks the number of flavors it makes from 13 to four during the holiday season to ensure all ingredients are wheat-free. The Passover slices come in cherry, orange, lemon, and lime.

At the factory, the day starts at 6 a.m. with fruit-slice makers boiling the sugar and gelatin mix in a stainless-steel cooking kettle only to immediately cool it.

The reason that corn syrup "usually isn't kosher for Passover" is that Ashkenazi Jews, who vastly outnumber Sephardic Jews in North America, generally regard corn, rice, peanuts and legumes as chometz during Passover because they are often used to make bread. (In Israel, corn products can and often do get certified as kosher for Passover because these grains are regarded differently.) It has nothing to do with rabbinical supervision—a rabbi could run the syrup plant and it would still be chometz to Ashkenazi Jews. A call to one of literally hundreds of local experts—rabbis, say, or professors of religion—would have cleared that up.

And if you want to describe agar as gelatinous, that is fine. But it is not gelatin.

Labels: candy fruit slices, chometz, Passover, Stupid reporting tricks

Hot Air

The local broadsheet has, today, a fascinating article about a college student who successfully memorized the first 3,141 digits of pi. I say that's impressive—I decided that the first 45, ending in 69399, were good enough for government work.

The online version explains how he does it.

When memorizing numbers, [James] Niles-Joyal, 22, does not simply repeat the digits over and over. Instead, the Ashburnham native sees shapes, emotions, and contours in the otherwise nondescript, non-repeating set of numbers. A series of digits can evoke a "white glow" in his brain, while other sets might look wealthy, or dull, or happy.

"I don't think what he's doing is completely different. All of us do unconsciously use mnemonics to remember," [Boston College psychology professor Elizabeth] Kensinger said. "We know someone's name is Steve because they remind us of another Steve."

Alas, the print version, thanks to the crack reporting and copy editing staff, had the following explanation from Dr. Kensinger:

All of us do unconsciously use pneumonics to remember.

So it's all that hot air that helps me remember stuff. And no wonder I had trouble getting things done when I had bronchitis that time.

Labels: Boston Globe, James Niles-Joyce, revealing typos, Stupid reporting tricks

Agressively Stupid Question of the Week

Mark Feeney, in today's Boston Globe writes the following aside in his article about children's cinema:

(How much does the existence of Eddie Murphy's Donkey character in the series owe to the title quadruped in "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble"?)

Let's see. Donkey, in the Shrek movies, is a glib, annoying, wise-ass whose original owner tries to sell him for a few coins, and whose natural family is entirely absent. Sylvester, in Steig's book, is a kind and introverted fellow whose family clearly loves him and who spends most of the book as a rock.

I believe that the answer to Feeney's question is none at all, besides the idea that they both are donkeys.

I thought this is why newspapers had editors. But apparently the bar for acceptable editing is pretty damned low nowadays.

Labels: Shrek movies, Stupid reporting tricks, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

The Globe News Department Thinks We're Stupid

What is extraordinarily puzzling about newspapers nowadays is where the straightest talk about labor issues will be.

Sports reporters are not always the most objective sources of news, but an assiduous reader of the sports pages will get detailed and generally accurate news about labor relations in almost any sport, from baseball and football to hockey and soccer.

Similarly, the writer's strike that has affected the movie and television industries has received ample attention in the normally breezy entertainment sections of newspapers.

No one would expect a television writer to refer to, say, an association of animation studios as a group of "nonunion writers." But that is what the news section—you know, the section that is supposed to have facts about the news—of the Boston Globe did with a local group of contractors.

Nonunion construction workers are opposing Governor Deval Patrick's casino legislation, arguing that it discriminates against them by encouraging developers to use union workers.

"It's not a level playing field," said Ronald N. Cogliano, president of the Merit Construction Alliance, which advocates for nonunion contractors.

"The appearance is that the governor is trying to give a little political payback to his biggest supporters. That's troubling."

Cogliano sent a letter yesterday to Patrick and legislative leaders, arguing that the legislation should not discourage casino developers from using nonunion laborers.

Patrick's casino legislation has provisions that would encourage casino developers to use union workers, and it also gives organized labor a seat on an advisory committee that would have influence over casino regulations.

The headline on this masterpiece was "Nonunion workers oppose Patrick on casino legislation." The problem is that Ronald Cogliano does not represent nonunion workers, but instead he represents their bosses. Any reporter in the sports or entertainment pages would have recognized the difference, but apparently standards are not as high as they might be in the Globe news department.

Yes, technically, Ronald Cogliano is a non-union worker. He is the executive director of the Merit Construction Alliance of Massachusetts, whose website encourages contractors—not construction workers—to become members at $1,000 to $5,000 a pop. Indeed, its 2005 tax return claims "approximately 58 members" who contributed $130,000 in dues.

Incidentally, Cogliano might want to think a bit about that nonunion status: he supposedly works 40 hours in a typical week—at least that is what he signed to under the penalties of perjury, yet he earned only $22,342 in compensation and expense reimbursements and $0 in retirement benefits. That's $10.74 an hour, which surely does not go very far. (It is possible that the 2005 tax return did not reflect a full year of compensation; still, in 2004, when there was no executive director, the group's president earned only $37,500 for an ostensibly full-time job.)

Labels: Merit Construction alliance, owners, Stupid reporting tricks, workers

Weather or Not, Redux

It bears repeating. As I mentioned last week, bad weather does not significantly reduce voter turnout, especially when voters care about either voting in general or about the election in question.

So why do stories about the Maine caucuses mention high turnout and bad weather like they need potent emulsification to exist together?

The turnout was high at many caucus sites, despite harsh weather. Many people in Maine's 420 cities and towns were taking part in the state's delegate-selection process for the first time, driven to participate by excitement over the highly competitive race.

"If it wasn't so close I wouldn't vote," said Mark Antoine, who waited more than an hour in line at the state's largest caucus site, Portland High School, to cast his vote for Obama. Antoine, 20, said it was the first time he had participated in any election.

There was no parking for several blocks around the school, and some stood in slushy snow and shivered in lines that extended around the block.

"At the end of the day, we're from Maine and snow is not going to stop us from getting out," said Arden Manning, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party.

It should come as little surprise that when potential voters think that their vote is important, venturing out in the rain or snow is hardly going to dissuade them from something that they can only do once every one to four years.

Why journalists cannot even intuit that voting might have a different set of motivations than going out for a jog or running errands, to pick two things that might get deferred because of bad weather, is a mystery.

Labels: Stupid reporting tricks, voter turnout, weather

Unclear on the Concept

This headline is currently on the Boston Globe's web site: Temperatures near 20 below.

Really? The temperature here was 9°F this morning, and I would not expect 30-degree differences between one part of the Boston area from another. A hint to the problem is the headline of the article itself ("Bitter winds push temperatures near 20 below"). While winds might bring cold air into a region, the winds themselves have nothing to do with the temperature.

Here are the first two paragraphs of the article, which seems to have been written by the Globe equivalent of Alan Smithee ("Globe staff"):

A howling west wind gusting near 70 miles per hour pushed temperatures today more than 16 degrees below zero as Massachusetts shuddered in a blast of arctic air.

The state low wind chill of 16 degrees below zero was measured at 6 a.m. at Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory and again at 8 a.m. in Worcester.

A word to the wise and also to the "Globe staff" responsible for writing about the weather: temperature and wind chill are different things. When you write that temperatures are near -20°F, when they are really 30 degrees higher, you come across looking foolish.

Labels: Stupid reporting tricks, temperature, wind chill

Weather or Not

It is primary day in Massachusetts and it has rained off and on all day. And this means that the local media are playing up how the weather will affect turnout.

The gray, gloomy rain that had soaked early primary voters stopped this afternoon when storm clouds moved south. The dry weather is predicted to last until after the polls close at 8 p.m., which may give turnout an extra bump in an election that is expected to draw 1.3 million voters across the state.

Stop it. Stop the incessant and inane chatter about how weather and turnout are necessarily linked. When political scientists analyze actual elections and actual voters and whether they actually vote, they find that there is no support for linking bad weather to overall turnout. The only significant correlation is for voters who are unlikely to vote in the first place ("those respondents scoring low on the standard National Election Studies civic duty indicator").

Think about it. If you have thought about the issues and the candidates, and think that voting is important, is a little rain really going to stop you?. Only in cloud-cuckoo-land, and in the mainstream media.

Labels: National Election Study, Stupid reporting tricks, voter turnout, weather

Great Moments in Journalism

The Boston Globe recently devoted a slew of column-inches not to the presidential campaign but to the meta-campaign. In other words, why waste time analyzing campaign positions when one can analyze campaign signs.

Republicans who have not already declared that "I'm with Fred" might be enticed to "ask Mitt anything" at a town hall meeting or to explore a webpage devoted to answering the question, "Why Rudy?"

Democrats have the opportunity to join Team Hillary, perhaps as Hillblazer youth activists or, if they have deep pockets, as HillRaisers. High school students are signing up to be Barack Stars.

Never have so many presidential campaigns so aggressively branded their candidates with their first names, and none more so than Hillary Clinton's. Even in her detailed 15-page healthcare reform plan, it is difficult to find her last name. Staffers, advisers, and friends generally speak of her as Hillary, not senator or Mrs. Clinton.

Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney also lean heavily on first names for signs, websites, and slogans, while Democrat Barack Obama's campaign uses his first name more selectively.

This would be a more interesting article if the reporter had realized that the Romney campaign was insisting on using Willard Mitt Romney's middle name.

Labels: Boston Globe, presidential campaign, Stupid reporting tricks

Unreal Estate

Around here, the end of the month brings with it the latest monthly news about the slumping housing market. The best data comes from The Warren Group, which uses data from registries of deeds. The local realtors report on the housing market each month, as well, but prefer not to include foreclosure data, perhaps because that data is so depressing.

More importantly, the local realtors are always putting a positive spin on the market, for it is always a good time to buy.

"While sales were down last month, it is important to note that year-to-date residential sales activity is off only 2 percent from this time last year," Doug Azarian, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said in a statement. "In addition, residential inventory continues to decline from a year ago, and mortgage rates have come down in recent months. For qualified buyers, this remains a good time to buy."

Last month was also a good time to buy.

Doug Azarian, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said a pickup in sales of higher-priced homes this year is also shoring up median prices across the state. "It'll be interesting to see what October brings" after the steep decline in September sales, he said.

Despite September's decline, Azarian noted that overall sales in the third quarter were still the fourth highest in 27 years.

And another good time to buy was September.

Doug Azarian, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, also issued a statement.

"It is definitely a positive sign to see two consecutive months of year-over-year sales gains to end the summer," Azarian said. "Combined with the recent interest rate drop by the Fed and continued legislative action on Capitol Hill, the potential for continued sales growth through the fall is good."

In August, Azarian was not quoted, but the local broadsheet found another realtor to exude optimism; we are told that "[t]he savvy buyers are out there picking up all kinds of wonderful deals."

In June, the real estate market was poised for recovery.

Doug Azarian, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said the spring market has been disappointing, but contended that there are signs it is moving closer to a turnaround. In addition to the stabilizing or slightly higher prices that his organization reported, inventories are shrinking....

"I'm optimistic that inventories are coming down," Azarian said. "The spring market was not as strong as we had hoped, but we are making progress in bringing supply and demand into balance."

In April, the market was supposed to be a stable one.

"They're hovering where they were a year ago, which shows the market has stabilized," said Doug Azarian, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

Realtors generally represent sellers, not buyers, but that they also make money only when sales happen. They have economic incentives to spin every morsel of housing data in a way that encourages buying, especially buying right now. Anyone expecting them to report on the housing market in an objective, historically informed manner might as well expect to get a real pony for Christmas.

Labels: real estate, realtors, Stupid reporting tricks