More Santorum

It's not just in the Times, it's also on NPR, and some people are unhappy.

Take this ombudsman's note defending their coverage of the Santorum story.

The ombudsman found that covering the story was a legitimate journalistic enterprise.

I have to say that for myself, I sympathize with Wolff but agree with Sydell. It would be disingenuous to ignore what anyone can see on Google. We Latinos call that trying to cover the sun with a finger. Sydell's story, at least, gives a responsible explanation of why you find what you find on Google. And why Santorum has a problem.

Of course it was. Journalists have no business pretending a real news story isn't news. Even if the subjects of those stories don't like it.

My favorite part of this whole thing, though, is the phrasing of the letter of complaint. Read this sentence:

All Things Considered has stepped out of bounds for this cheap political smear.

He said it, I didn't.

I've always been partial to Bob Kerrey's definition of Santorum, but I have to agree that Dan Savage has really topped him.

Don't you wonder, though, why Santorum's friends are working so hard to keep the meme alive?

Answering one question

There was a great story on NPR tonight about research being conducted to ascertain the shape of the electron.

Round, right? I bet you were going to bet that it's round.

Well, we'll leave that question for a minute while I talk about something else.

When you hear theists talk about evolution, or pretty much any kind of science, one of the things they always get into is their claim that scientists claim to know everything. "They're just so sure of themselves. They think they know everything."

Of course, the exact opposite is true. It's the theists who think they know everything because their god told them, and now they never have to think about anything ever again. All that thinking's been done for them.

So this story describes the entire set of experiments, going on over twelve years, with 25 million repetitions, and they were able to get the measurements to the level of precision that if the electron were magnified up to the size of the solar system they would have the measurement within the thickness of a human hair.

Pretty damn precise, wouldn't you say?

And what does the "arrogant" scientist say about his results?

“As best we can tell, you know, to our experimental precision, the electron seems to be round.”

Go over that one again:

“As best we can tell, you know, to our experimental precision, the electron seems to be round.”

That's the difference between science and religion right there. Science will not go beyond the evidence.

So the next time you hear one of these religious nuts droning on about how scientists claim to know everything, remember the shape of the electron.

Hey, NPR, slow down!

Shouldn't people know better by now?

The scandal of the week was that James O'Keefe, the guy whose lies and distortions brought down ACORN and Shirley Sherrod (temporarily), had struck again. This time his target was another of the favorite punching bags of the extreme Right: National Public Radio.

I'll give you NPR's initial story on this, since this became the canonical version of the tale:

The top fundraiser for NPR has resigned after a videotape became public showing him openly disparaging conservative groups during what he thought was a fundraising meeting. The video was recorded secretly during a lunch Ron Schiller had with two people who claimed to be eager to contribute to public radio.

ARI SHAPIRO, host:

The top fundraiser for NPR, who had already announced that he was leaving NPR for another job, officially resigned last night. A videotape became public showing him disparaging conservative groups during what he thought was a fundraising meeting. The video was secretly recorded during a lunch with two people who claimed to be eager to contribute to public radio.

Eventually the fundraiser and the president of NPR were fired because of this, providing two more trophies for O'Keefe's wall.

The rest of the story came out Sunday, and it comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with O'Keefe's modus operandi.

Wait for it . . .

That's right: O'Keefe lied.

And he did it the exact same way he has lied to create these other stories: by creative editing to create a fictional account of what happened.

Keep in mind what Schiller said, as reported by NPR:

ABRAMSON: Schiller says the Tea Party, in particular, is, quote, "not just Islamaphobic, but I mean xenophobic. I mean, basically they believe in sort of white, middle America, gun toting - I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people," unquote.

This wasn't a big deal to some of us, except that we were pissed that NPR was firing people for telling the truth.

People at NPR lose their jobs for telling the truth? I guess that's why people at Fox have job security. #teaparty

It turns out that it was even worse than that. The Blaze reports what really happened.

4. The “seriously racist” Tea Party

NPR exec Ron Schiller does describe Tea Party members as “xenophobic…seriously racist people.”

This is one of the reasons why he no longer has a job!

But the clip in the edited video implies Schiller is giving simply his own analysis of the Tea Party. He does do that in part, but the raw video reveals that he is largely recounting the views expressed to him by two top Republicans, one a former ambassador, who admitted to him that they voted for Obama.

This is the key point right here: Schiller and his boss, Vivian Schiller, were fired largely for the claim that he was expressing his own views of the Republican Right, which confirms the right-wing view of NPR. What we now know is that he was quoting some large Republican donors, not expressing his own views (although it does appear that he was endorsing those views).

Still, if the headline had been, "According to NPR executive, top Republicans accuse Tea Party of xenophobia" it would have been no big deal.

What made it a big deal was the way O'Keefe used editing to lie about what Schiller said.

So this raises a big question in my mind: why haven't people learned yet? We know now that the very fact that James O'Keefe says something, that is prima facie evidence that it's a lie?

And why do serious people and organizations get their panties in a twist, and immediately take precipitous and irrational action, when we hear one more of these lying stories from O'Keefe?

Daniel Schorr, Dead at 93

Regular listeners to NPR will remember Daniel Schorr's last year as a sage, avuncular presence on Weekend Edition. He will be missed in that role.

What is more important to remember, though, is how he got to be Daniel Schorr. If you read his Times obituary you see that his journalistic career is a record of getting fired repeatedly by the so-called liberal media for standing up for his principles: Facing down a contempt of Congress charge for refusing to name a confidential source, leaking an important story to the Village Voice when CBS was too cowardly to run it, refusing to cohost a panel discussion of the Republican National Convention with party apparatchik John Connally.

Of course, his greatest honor was to be named on Nixon's infamous Enemies List.

He can serve as a model for all of us.

A voice from our history

If you were listening to NPR this morning (doesn't everybody?) you might have heard this story about dangerous pesticides in use in the strawberry fields in California.

The story was interesting in itself, but what jumped out at me was this quote:

"This is very likely — because of its chemical structure — to be highly toxic," says John Froines, a chemist and professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA. "It is very worrisome, even frightening, to a chemist. And therefore it should be to the public as well."

Does the name sound familiar? I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't, but John Froines was one of the "forgotten" members of the Chicago Eight. He and Lee Weiner (I used to work with his daughter) were acquitted by the jury of all charges, and what they had in common was that unlike the other defendants, neither would have been considered a "professional" activist at the time.

His work is a good reminder that, regardless of how much attention our work may or may not get, we can continue doing good, socially constructive work, throughout our lives.