Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Kurtz curse

Ordinarily I respect Howard Kurtz's opinion as a media expert.  But his story today on the second presidential debate is a bridge too far.

Kurtz:
By attacking moderator Candy Crowley for inserting herself into the middle of that argument, the Romney camp is diverting attention from the fact that an energized Obama often dictated the terms of the argument and frequently put their man on the defensive.
Kurtz is partly right.  Mr. Obama was energized and largely dictated the terms of the argument.

But what about Crowley's role in allowing the president to dictate the terms of the argument?

  1. Crowley interrupted Romney far more often than she did the president
  2. Crowley afforded the president substantially more speaking time than Romney
  3. Crowley chose the questions the town hall participants would ask, which did much to set the stage for placing Romney on the defensive

It's simply the cherry on top of all this that Crowley in addition blurted out a partisan spur-of-the moment fact check in Mr. Obama's favor.

Yes, Mr. Obama marginally outperformed Romney in the debate.  But the way the cards were stacked against Romney has to be part of the story. 

Shame on Howard Kurtz for trying to minimize that part of the story.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Thanks to Northeast Musings

I appreciate Cynthia Van Doren recognizing on her Northeast Musings blog my new Zebra Fact Check project as well as the AllSides project for getting past the distortions of media bias.  J.D. and I highlighted AllSides (coincidentally?) at the PolitiFact Bias site.

Thanks, Cynthia!


10/16/2012  Fixed hyperlink/thanks to J.D. for pointing out the problem

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Massive changes

My apologies to regular visitors to Sublime Bloviations for the lack of recent updates.

I've been working for some time on a new project intended to let me do the type of work I do best.  I've started "Zebra Fact Check" from scratch with the aim of competing with the best of the mainstream fact checkers.  Right now that's Annenberg Fact Check, no contest.

Because of this new project most of the subject matter I've emphasized at this site will belong elsewhere.  No more "Grading PolitiFact" or "Piquing PolitiFact."  I'll still engage in those activities, though using a somewhat different approach.

And what of "Sublime Bloviations"?

I don't have a fixed plan for this blog's future.  I've covered quite a bit of ground here, and I'm leaning toward keeping it going as a place to occasionally post about things other than facts and fact checking.  Music and theology/philosophy will probably get the most attention.

I'd be honored if my readers here would check out my new site, Zebra Fact Check.

And feel free to also visit PolitiFact Bias.  I'll also continue working on that site, though probably a bit more behind-the-scenes than previously.