Letters to the Editor
bystander
Published Letters: 1348
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Master Narratives
[Read the article: Demand answers from Time magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paul Dirks premise of the master narrative that Joe Klein (and others) seem to be following, has me pondering. Charlie Savage and Jay Rosen have waxed extensively on how the media missed the master narrative reporting on the Bush presidency. (A link that summarizes the issue is at my signature.) I know from reading Marc Cooper (member of the faculty at the USC Annenberg School for communication and Associate Director of its Institute for Justice and Journalism) that journalism schools/faculty care about this issue. So, on a professional level, there ought to be a concern for the enduring characterization Paul Dirks has described here. And, as Jay Rosen has written, change the master, come up with a better one, and it changes the coverage. Apart from the sheer laziness of, I'm used to the master that I have and don't want to expend the energy to measure what I report against a new narrative (which is what I imagine Joe Klein says to himself), I'm baffled as to why Time's Executives and Editors don't seem to care. That would make them as inept as Joe Klein. The current master narrative seems intractable, but it shouldn't be. I'm just not sure what it's going to take to change it.
When is your new book coming out, Glenn?
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the risks in hammering Klein
[Read the article: Demand answers from Time magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apparently, Time has a limited amount of patience. If a person commenting at FDL reported accurately, Time not only blocked her from commenting at Swampland, they blocked her access to Time online altogether. I wouldn't recommend those taking Klein to task overdo it. 'Course, someone else would have to tell me whether it's possible to deny someone access to a site. Easy enough to block comments, I imagine. But block the site?
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Frames, theories, models, and narratives
[Read the article: Demand answers from Time magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ondelette (I’m sorry. I keep inserting an o where an e should be.),
Now the question is whether journalists are by and large paid to write to the frame. -ondelette
I dunno. This is where it gets interesting to me. If I exchange theory for master narrative, frame, or idealized cognitive model, and slide over to Glasser’s grounded theory, they *would* be paid to write the frame, because the frame should emerge from the phenomena itself. What I understand Charlie Savage to have done was to step back and consider what was emerging from the phenomena, the Bush administration, didn’t fit the frame he was accustomed to working with. Ergo, he needed a different frame/narrative/theory from which to do his reporting. His narrative failed to capture the phenomena; it didn’t fit (Fit: has to do with how closely concepts fit with the incidents they are representing, and this is related to how thoroughly the constant comparison of incidents to concepts was done. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Socialenterprise:theory).
What I understand Paul Dirks (and you) to be suggesting, is the media has allowed Republican operatives to write the frame, and folks like Joe Klein have been shoving Democratic phenomena into the Republican-provided frame ever since. The value folks are finding at Glenn’s, Jane’s, Digby’s, Duncan’s, Kevin’s, Josh’s, etc websites has to do with more accurate reporting, because the theory’s concepts more closely align with the phenomena’s incidents.
The problem for alternative media is the same for a viable third political party; who owns the current infrastructure? Murdoch, for example, has all but gone on the record as saying he doesn’t care if his news outlets run in the black; they’re playthings to him. Where is a progressive equivalent to Murdoch when we need them? I highly doubt we’re going to get satisfactory responses from Klein, Painton, or Stengel, on FISA, or any other issue yet to come. That isn’t to say we don’t keep their feet to the fire, however. (Let ‘em at least think about what the next dog-poop on the shoe might cost them.)
We really need a glossy rag that can be part of that end-aisle display as people approach the check-out lane at the grocery store featuring (the above) as the rising internet media stars [*trumpets*]. There really ought to be a way to sell “you’re missing out.” F.S.M! If people will go out an acquire a Dalmatian on the strength of a Disney movie, or a Border Collie on the strength of Animal Planet (people do like to perceive themselves as smart, hip, and in the know – not matter what the Border Collie might say of them), there ought to be a way to generate demand for The Web’s Hottest Political Reporters.
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shotgunfreude
[Read the article: Demand answers from Time magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For the journalist's privilege, the true privileged beneficiary is the public at large, especially in its collective role as the sovereign body of a democratic government.
-shotgunfreude
This is a key insight. Thanks for this!