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Mar
8
Okay class, here’s another lesson in media literacy.
This Plain Dealer editorial from today is about the Ohio governor’s delay in getting information to the Ohio auditor’s office. Let’s take a look:
State Auditor Mary Taylor got the head lines she wanted last week by blasting the bookkeeping of Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration. But Republican Taylor couldn’t have drawn that ink if a) there weren’t, in fact, a paperwork problem and b) if word play by Democrat Strickland’s budget aides hadn’t confused Ohioans about the state’s finances.
Can anyone spot Lesson #1 and 2 in this graph? I’ll give you a hint – they are both in the very first sentence.
State Auditor Mary Taylor got the head lines she wanted last week by blasting the bookkeeping of Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration.
The first lesson has to do with verbiage. I’ll focus in for you a little bit more:
State Auditor Mary Taylor got the head lines she wanted…
Let’s walk this through, shall we?
“State Auditor Mary Taylor” – okay – that’s the who.
“Got the head lines she wanted” – okay – that’s the what.
Now – “got the head lines she wanted.”
Hmmm, let’s see now – “got”? the head lines she wanted?
Well, who “gave” them to her? Oh. Yeah. That would be the mainstream newspapers. They gave her what she wanted.
Because if she “got” something, someone had to be the “giver” right? And the giver of the head lines? Newspapers. Or any news outlet. Take a look at these articles that mostly “give” Taylor what she wanted, though a few try to stick to the facts without invective.
And that brings us to Lesson #2:
State Auditor Mary Taylor got the head lines she wanted last week by blasting the bookkeeping of Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration.
Where’d the notion of “blasting” come from? Ha! What a surprise! Check out a previous PD head line about the story whose editorial filter decided 1) to “give” Taylor what she wanted and 2) to label her statements about the tardiness as “blasting”:
Ya think those editors are trying to have the readers believe that Taylor, you know, was “blasting” Strickland? Because we wouldn’t be able to gather that on our own if just reading a straight telling of what she said and why?
The editorial also leaves out the fact that Taylor’s office itself was late in turning in information – I wrote about that yesterday – and so that technically, her office was just as unauditable as Strickland’s for almost two months and for the exact same reasons.
I dropped my PD subscription in November 2006 because of this kind of editorial writing: incomplete and biased without support for the position it wanted the reader to judge and possibly accept.
The more sources readers consult, the less effective – and rightly so – these editorials will become, to the extent they’re effective at all right now. I would urge editorial writers to keep in mind just how independent its readers are in finding and reading other news sources and POVs (point of views) about topics.
When news consumers can consume the same news from multiple sources, it makes this type of pummeling of one view and one view only more fringe and less credible.
So what’s the lesson? As a reader, don’t take one editorial as The Truth in regard to a news story that’s been covered in multiple places by multiple types of outlets (blogs included). As an editorial writer, I’d leave the loaded language for your conversations and drafts and stop underestimating your audience’s ability to go elsewhere.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:41 am March 8th, 2009 in Politics
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4 Responses to “Media Literacy 101: How to read a Plain Dealer editorial”
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Good post. Too many people just blindly accept what they read.
I’m having trouble with this one for a variety of reasons, first if the positions were reversed and it was a Democrat who was the sole office holder in a Republican administration, anyone who believes they wouldn’t have done the same exact thing, does not know politics.
Second, we are talking about two months of being late versus over 8 months of being late. It’s been fairly accepted that these things happen late and the only reason this was newsworthy is it’s really late this time.
Third, despite all of the hype about OAKS being a Taft thing (ala the latest press release from our party today which it appears you should have gotten credit for since it references what you pointed out yesterday) the simple fact remains that from what I can gather in searching through the legislation of the General Assembly that the 125th House voted for OAKS by a vote of 91 to 1 – with Mary Taylor abstaining and Chris Redfern voting yes. The only no vote was Brinkman.
Which means…the Taft plan, supported by a huge majority of the Ohio General Assembly, may not be such a great thing and the real lesson behind this is? The never ending game of pointing political fingers never ends.
Hi Lisa Renee -
We haven’t seen a sole Dem in an all GOP admin so I can’t say. I observe a conservative bias in this particular line of reporting. I can’t at present think of what to compare it to – but maybe someone else can come up with one from the past?
I think the “it’s really late this time” – why’s that make it so newsworthy? Why wasn’t the fact that the OAKS system implementation was making any office – even the auditor’s – late at all news? The PD didn’t report on it back in the fall or late winter – only when Taylor spoke up about Strickland it’s news? I think the news is in the implementation problems of OAKS, not the “really” late part.
That third point info is fascinating – wow.
I’m with you on the never ending game of pointing fingers – what I never understand is why, rather than realize how there’s enough blame to go around re: they all voted for it, why do they not then let each other cancel each other out and just get the gosh darned thing WORKING?
But again – this post was about the bias I observed in the reporting – my interpretation, I own in – but I feel that it’s very blatant. And – based on your very valid third point, why didn’t the editorial speak to THAT – the implementation problem – and say, you know – so what – he’s late, she’s late – the system wasn’t properly planned for and the state gets mucked down in trouble – fix it.
But I see the paper’s editorial going along with playing the politics too.
Thanks for the comment. Interesting.
UPDATE: Lisa Renee has a post about this topic here.