MATH FOR PUBLISHERS

By Chris Daly

In today's Times, there's fresh evidence of the insanity in the trade-book publishing world. 

On page A26, there's a full-page, color advertisement for Ted Turner's new ghost-written autobiography. (If you don't write it yourself, is it still an auto-biography?)

Inside the Business section is a story about how the book came to be "written." Bad enough that we have to read that the ghost-writer, a former Turner employee, Bill Burke, in order to do his work on the  book, "skipped between Mr. Turner's ranches, three in Montana and one in the Patagonia region of Argentina." Not only that, but the ranch-skipping writer also had to put in a couple of hours a day fishing with his subjects. Phew!

In any case, the most objectionable part of the whole enterprise is this: Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette, paid a $5 million advance. 

For what, I wonder? 

Surely, Mr. Turner did not need $5 million to sustain him during the "writing" of the book. In the latest Forbes magazine listing of the "400 Richest Americans," Mr. Turner checks in at No. 190, with a net worth estimated at $2.3 billion. To him, $5 million represents less than a quarter of 1 percent of his net worth. That hardly seems like enough money to motivate Turner to do something (as if he needed motivation anyway -- he is hardly the retiring type).

Neither, presumably, did Mr. Burke need the money. He made a bundle working for Turner as head of Turner Classic Movies, then got, according to the Times, a "high-level digital job at Time Warner," then bugged out to Maine.

Here's my gripe with the $5 million advance: Instead of throwing money at already-rich pseudo-authors, Hachette could have used the same $5 million to award 50 advances of $100,000 each to 50 real writers. To most writers, $100,000 would make an enormous difference in whether they can consider a project or take it to completion.

Not only that, but consider this: There is a good likelihood that a book like Turner's -- which is essentially a vanity project about a guy most people feel they know all too well already -- will never "earn back" a $5 million advance. So, Hachette will end up losing money on the deal.

By contrast, if a publisher places 50 bets on promising projects by real writers, the likelihood is that at least a handful will turn out to be spectacularly successful, and earn back their advances multiple times. 

Am I missing something here? Please let me know. 

ON STUDS TERKEL

By Chris Daly

The Times offers "An Appraisal" today of Studs Terkel, who died last week. Studs was a great figure -- journalist, radio host, raconteur, pioneer oral historian, citizen of Chicago.

I thought I detected a strangely pinched and begrudging tone in Edward Rothstein's piece, as if he were groping for a category to put Terkel in (when he was truly sui generis), or as if he were reaching for a political basis to fault Studs for truly and consistently sticking up for the little guy.

In any case, I just wanted to add my own note of appreciation to Studs. Aside from all his well known accomplishments and his well deserved plaudits, Studs was also notable as an inspiration for me and others, who followed his work into journalism, history, and allied undertakings. When I was in graduate school studying U.S. history, I know I was under the spell of his great book Working, which took working people seriously as individuals. For me, Terkel's book was an important antidote to most traditional history, which viewed working people as a problem, and most Marxist history, which viewed working people as a magical force. 

Studs showed a example of a way to see people as groups and individuals at the same time. He'll be missed.  

CLASSROOM INDOCTRINATION?

By Chris Daly

The Times carries a piece today that asks the question: "Professors' Liberalism Contagious?"

The headline offers an answer: "Maybe Not."

Below is a story reporting on new research findings suggesting that the views of professors do not spread directly into the brains of our students. (Imagine that! We speak, and they don't immediately retain, accept, and embrace what we just said? ! ? Shocking... if true.)

It's a timely story, of course, with the obvious "news peg" of tomorrow's presidential election. And the research addresses a long-standing conservative hobby-horse: the supposedly liberal/radical bias that pervades university campuses and seeps into the minds of students.

The piece is worth considering, but I would just add a personal note, based on more than 10 years spent teaching at BU:

It is indeed important for every professor, during every class session, to make sure that every student feels comfortable expressing any honestly held view. Students also deserve to know that their work will be judged on its merits (and not on how closely their arguments conform to the professor's views).

 

The issue, I think is not really partisanship. The issue is the openness of minds, on all sides. 

NEW CHAPTER

I have just posted a version of the latest chapter of my book, Covering America. Chapter 11 covers the 1960s -- as defined by me, to run from 1962 to 1974. 

As always, any feedback is much appreciated.

Just roam on over to the section under the photo headed READ MY BOOK, and click on Covering America. 

Now, it's on to the FINAL chapter, which focuses on the digital revolution sweeping through all news media. That one should be ready in January.

Thanks to all readers. 

SEE THIS VIDEO

before everyone else on the planet has. It's called "Boybama," and, Boy, does it make you think about Obama in a new way.

[Full disclosure: the leader of the band, in the blonde wig, is my nephew, the incomparable Nate Houghteling.]

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1dudz3SKjQ

Politics and the English Language

By Chris Daly

In his latest op-ed column (10/13), William Kristol lamented the state of the McCain campaign and recommended firing everyone and starting over. In his column, he made the following assertion: "The media is hostile." That statement is regrettable because it gets in the way of clear thinking about the issue. 

Surely, Mr. Kristol knows that, as a grammatical matter, the media are plural -- that is, "media" is a noun referring to more than one medium.

Still, it would not be correct to say, "The media are hostile." 

As a political matter, the fact is that the various media have diverse outlooks. Some are liberal; some are centrist; some are conservative. Mr. Kristol, who has made his living for many years in the employ of frankly conservative media, should certainly know this. 

p.s. The title of this post is borrowed from George Orwell; it was the title of his timeless 1946 essay by that name, which is worth re-reading in every election year.  

MATH FOR JOURNALISTS

By Chris Daly

In recent days, there has been a burst of reporting about the inclusion of "earmarks" in the new omnibus spending bill in Washington. 

We can learn that there are more than 2,300 earmarks in the budget, totalling some $6.6 billion. That sounds bad, and it was bad enough in a meaningful way to Republicans that it became an applause cue in John McCain's acceptance speech.

How how bad is earmarking?

That's hard to say, because when numbers about earmarks are presented in news stories, they usually appear with no useful context. 

One basic question: how do earmarks compare to the total federal budget?

Let's see what happens if we use just a smidgen of math, the kind we can all do in our heads. 

Total U.S. spending is about $3 trillion, which is $3,000,000,000,000.

10% of that is $300,000,000,000 (or, $300 billion)

10% of that (or, 1% of the total)  is $30,000,000,000 (or, $30 billion).

O.K. So, that $6 billion earmarking figure now appears to be less than 1%. As we can see at a glance, it's about a fifth of 1%, or 0.2% of federal spending. 

Now, people may still be honked off about earmarks, and they are entitled to be so. But, as readers, taxpayers and citizens, they are entitled to see it in terms of the big picture. 

So, what is a journalist to do? Having done this kind of calculation, anybody could see that earmarks are a drop in the bucket. Eliminating them altogether would not really change anything meaningful about taxes, the budget, or the deficit. Should a reporter mention all this? 

Isn't it partisan to do so? 

Isn't it partisan not to do so?

 [My personal view, FWIW: After covering budgets on the state level, I must salute John McCain for finding an issue that he can use to rile people up. On the other hand, I feel pretty certain that if McCain wins and really presses this issue in Washington, all he is going to do is to antagonize about 500 members of Congress, throw sand in the gears of government, and end up with not much to show for it all. Just a hunch.]

Great new site

I've been enjoying a new site that ranks the political pundits. 

It's called No Punditry Intended.

Full disclosure: two members of my family are involved. 

But don't hold me against them. Check it out. 

UNQUOTE

By Chris Daly

What is a “quote” ?

In the news business, we love to quote other people. We operate on the grounds that the use of quotations in stories gives our prose energy, flavor, and versimilitude. Quotes are also treasured because they put newsmakers “on the record” and thus allow them to be held accountable for their threats, promises, or boasts.

But the fact is, there is no universal standard for deciding what constitutes a quote. Here is a high-stakes case in point from this week’s coverage of Wall Street’s financial crisis in the Times.

On Thursday, as part of its package of financial coverage, the Times ran a sidebar that began on Page 1, by Ben White and Eric Dash, under the headline,
As Fears Grow,
Wall Street Titans
See Shares Fall

The story reported on the efforts by the two remaining giant investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to stay afloat. The story jumped inside to page A29. There, the reporters presented information about talks between Morgan chief John Mack and a possible merger partner, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup.
Mack and Pandit reportedly spoke Tuesday evening. During the call, the paper informs readers, Mr. Mack said, “We need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it.”

That is an amazingly candid statement from a business executive under pressure. It is also a perfectly grammatical complete sentence that richly illustrates the main thrust of the piece. In other words, it seems suspiciously too good to be true.

How, I wondered, did the Times know that?

--Was a reporter included in the phone call? No.
--Was a reporter present in the room and thus able to hear at least one of the parties? No.
--Was the call recorded and shared with the paper? No.
--Did one of the parties to the call repeat his statements for the reporters? No.

All that readers were told is that the Mack made that startling admission “according to two people briefed on the talks.” In other words, we are supposed to infer that one or both of the Times reporters (or perhaps the Times business columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who received an italicized credit line at the bottom of the story for the reporting that he contributed) recreated this apparently verbatim quotation from Mr. Mack. We are expected to believe that Mack or Pandit (or both) got off the phone and then “briefed” a bunch of other people about what they had said. Then, we are supposed to believe that two people who got those “briefings” accurately conveyed the exact same quotation in separate conversations with the Times.

Whoa.

Since when is that the standard for quotations?

Granted, there is no written, universally accepted definition of what qualifies as a direct quotation. But why not aim high?

When I was being trained as a reporter at the Associated Press, we had a very tough, clear definition: Material that we placed in news stories inside quotation marks had to be the exact words of a speaker, in the exact order they were uttered, with no words added or omitted.
[For another day: the practice of “cleaning up” quotes to render spoken English into standard written English by eliminating pauses, verbal tics and the like.]

In my experience, that is the gold standard for direct quotations. All the rest is hearsay and rumors.

Back to the Times.


Late Thursday night, I noticed that the Times had updated the Mack story. In the new version, the direct quote was dropped, replaced by a denial. Here is a section:

But as the fear that gripped markets after Lehman Brothers failed also enveloped the firm,John J. Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, spoke Tuesday evening with Citigroup’s chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, about a possible combination, according to people briefed on the talks.
On Thursday, however, Morgan Stanley vigorously denied a report in The New York Times that Mr. Mack had said that Morgan needed to seek a merger in order to remain in business.
Mr. Mack was said to have made the comment in the conversation with Mr. Pandit. Citigroup, which had declined to comment on Wednesday night, also denied Thursday that such a comment had been made during the conversation…

In that on-line version, the Times also appended this somewhat strained Editor's Note:

Editors' Note: September 18, 2008 
An earlier version of this article cited two sources who were said to have been briefed on a conversation in which John J. Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had told Vikram S. Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive, that "we need a merger partner or we're not going to make it." On Thursday, Morgan Stanley vigorously denied that Mr. Mack had made the comment, as did Citigroup, which had declined to comment on Wednesday.
The Times's two sources have since clarified their comments, saying that because they were not present during the discussions, they could not confirm that Mr. Mack had in fact made the statement. The Times should have asked Morgan Stanley for comment and should not have used the quotation without doing more to verify the sources' version of events.

So, that is quite an admission. I did not think the Times made it a practice to present direct quotations, using quotation marks, for re-constructed statements made by people out of earshot of the paper's reporters. That is sub-standard practice, and I would not stand for it from a student in my intro-reporting class.

In this case, the Times should have candidly established the context for the quote, perhaps along these lines:
Two guys who were not on the phone call between Mack and this other guy were told about it later, then they tried from memory to describe it to our reporter, and here's our best guess at the exact words used in a phone call we did not take part in and did not even directly overhear: “We need a merger partner….”

With a candid intro like that, readers would be put on proper notice.

LIBEL ON THE WEB

By Chris Daly

For anyone who blogs in Massachusetts, there is a very interesting legal case going on that involves a charge of libel against a blogger on Cape Cod. The case (Dugas v. Robbins), filed in Barnstable County Superior Court, is one of a growing number that pose the question: If bloggers act as journalists (by gathering and disseminating information), then aren't they subject to the same legal duties as all journalists? 

Thanks to the estimable Citizen Media Law Project hosted at Harvard's Berkman Center, many of the key documents in the case are available on-line.

As described in a story in today's Boston Globe, (a story, incidentally, that should have a lot more links than it does), the case is going forward, and a hearing is set for September 16. At issue are disagreements over the wisdom of dredging the harbor. Blogger Robbins wrote a post that criticized some of the abutters, who include the plaintiff, Dugas. 

The legal question for bloggers is this: If you disseminate factual assertions about an identifiable individual and those factual assertions are false and damaging to the person's reputation in a measurable way, you may well have committed libel. In that case, you are liable for the damages, and you could be ordered to pay the victim -- just as if you were a giant media conglomerate. To some plaintiffs, it won't matter if you are poor; they will come after you for whatever they can get, even for the proverbial peppercorn if that's all you have.

One more point: If you blog under a pseudonym, you cannot count on that guise. If the case has merit, a judge will probably order the discovery of your true identity. 

An excellent introduction to all these issues is available at the Citizen Media site.