Update: Terry Mattingly makes a similar point at Get Religion today.
You may have heard that Dave Weigel has made a fool of himself again. He got all upset that a number of what he considered distracting stories from the recent Democratic convention attracted a large interest. He calls what happened, that some small web-based publications published the story and that started a firestorm, "trolling".
And then it gets really weird, Weigel insists he means "trolling" in a non-pejorative way and even says he agrees with one source who said it should be just described as "reporting". So why use the word "trolling" at all?
The answer is because Weigel doesn't consider the stories—they concerned the Democrats dropping "God" and any mention of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from their platform—to be important. He can't deny that they are news because these things did happen he just wishes that people wouldn't pay so much attention to them.
He doesn't admit it, but Weigel is a Tory. He believes certain institutions, such as the Democratic party, are suited to lead and others are not. He isn't stupid, he knows that both God and Israel are big news for a lot of people and that they will be controversial if reported. Which is why he doesn't want them reported. He doesn't hate people who believe in God or who care deeply about Israel either. He just thinks they aren't the people who are naturally suited to lead.
That's worth keeping in mind as you follow the news these days.
Notice anything interesting about the following story?
You can read the rest of it here if you are so inclined.The thing I find interesting about it is something the person who wrote it, a guy named David Pugliese, would probably not find interesting or puzzling. For what I find interesting is that it is news at all.
He, on the other hand, obviously thinks it is news and his employers at The Ottawa Citizen think it is important enough to put on the front page. But why? Surely it is obvious to anyone that janitorial services have to be done by someone so some outsourcing will happen. Is there some weird God-given law whereby only permanent and unionized employees can do these jobs? Obviously the union thinks so but notice how the union's perspective is quietly taken as legitimate by the story.
"Downsizing is beginning to look like outsourcing"? Well, duh. Is David Pugliese stupid or something that he couldn't figure that if you eliminate the job of janitor you will have to outsource cleaning? Why is this being reported as something worth getting excited about? (This is the reverse of what Dave Weigel considers trolling; giving significant prominence to a story most readers don't care about in the hopes that they will start caring because it's getting such prominent press attention.)
If you read the whole thing you'll notice that the story takes this tone throughout. This tone being to take the union's world view as the norm. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the union was the source for this story in the first place. They are the source for a lot of stories critical of the government in Canada and other western nations.
Unions are well placed to do this. There members are everywhere and they can tell someone who can tell someone. The journalist who is the end of the chain obtains the necessary documents to research the story but that gets a lot easier if you know which documents to request doesn't it?
Journalists never disclose this but huge amounts of what they consider news comes from a very small set of sources whom they regularly consult. Unions tend to rate way up the scale in these consultations because reporters assume that unions should exist because they have faith in these institutions the same way Weigel does in the Democratic party.
David Pugliese has no trouble seeing that unions have problems. He knows that they are corrupt and that they add billions of dollars to the public debt. He probably wishes that the unions would smarten but he and his colleagues tend not to report these because they are Tories and the unions are one of the established institutions that their Toryism rests on.
Was this what it was like in the days before the ancien regime finally collapsed. In a sense, journalists, like the old nobility, know that they and the public service unions are in decline but there is another sense in which they obviously just don't get it. Dave Weigel considers a story that inflamed millions of readers to be a distraction and not news. David Pugliese is so certain of his narrative that he cannot imagine doing even the most basic critical thinking about a story he is writing. They just don't see it coming.
You may have heard that Dave Weigel has made a fool of himself again. He got all upset that a number of what he considered distracting stories from the recent Democratic convention attracted a large interest. He calls what happened, that some small web-based publications published the story and that started a firestorm, "trolling".
And then it gets really weird, Weigel insists he means "trolling" in a non-pejorative way and even says he agrees with one source who said it should be just described as "reporting". So why use the word "trolling" at all?
The answer is because Weigel doesn't consider the stories—they concerned the Democrats dropping "God" and any mention of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from their platform—to be important. He can't deny that they are news because these things did happen he just wishes that people wouldn't pay so much attention to them.
He doesn't admit it, but Weigel is a Tory. He believes certain institutions, such as the Democratic party, are suited to lead and others are not. He isn't stupid, he knows that both God and Israel are big news for a lot of people and that they will be controversial if reported. Which is why he doesn't want them reported. He doesn't hate people who believe in God or who care deeply about Israel either. He just thinks they aren't the people who are naturally suited to lead.
That's worth keeping in mind as you follow the news these days.
Notice anything interesting about the following story?
DND to pay $100 million to private firm to replace laid-off workers
Unions angry as downsizing begins to look like outsourcing
Just months after issuing notices to public servants that their jobs were being eliminated to save money the Defence Department is looking at paying a private firm $100 million to provide those same services, according to DND documents obtained by the Citizen.
The contract would cover management services, maintenance and repair and janitorial services for army installations in western Canada, including 10 training areas and 17 armouries.
But the proposed contract, to run from 2013 to 2018, has union leaders angry and accusing the Conservative government and DND of using the public service layoffs as a guise for privatizing more federal jobs.
You can read the rest of it here if you are so inclined.The thing I find interesting about it is something the person who wrote it, a guy named David Pugliese, would probably not find interesting or puzzling. For what I find interesting is that it is news at all.
He, on the other hand, obviously thinks it is news and his employers at The Ottawa Citizen think it is important enough to put on the front page. But why? Surely it is obvious to anyone that janitorial services have to be done by someone so some outsourcing will happen. Is there some weird God-given law whereby only permanent and unionized employees can do these jobs? Obviously the union thinks so but notice how the union's perspective is quietly taken as legitimate by the story.
"Downsizing is beginning to look like outsourcing"? Well, duh. Is David Pugliese stupid or something that he couldn't figure that if you eliminate the job of janitor you will have to outsource cleaning? Why is this being reported as something worth getting excited about? (This is the reverse of what Dave Weigel considers trolling; giving significant prominence to a story most readers don't care about in the hopes that they will start caring because it's getting such prominent press attention.)
If you read the whole thing you'll notice that the story takes this tone throughout. This tone being to take the union's world view as the norm. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the union was the source for this story in the first place. They are the source for a lot of stories critical of the government in Canada and other western nations.
Unions are well placed to do this. There members are everywhere and they can tell someone who can tell someone. The journalist who is the end of the chain obtains the necessary documents to research the story but that gets a lot easier if you know which documents to request doesn't it?
Journalists never disclose this but huge amounts of what they consider news comes from a very small set of sources whom they regularly consult. Unions tend to rate way up the scale in these consultations because reporters assume that unions should exist because they have faith in these institutions the same way Weigel does in the Democratic party.
David Pugliese has no trouble seeing that unions have problems. He knows that they are corrupt and that they add billions of dollars to the public debt. He probably wishes that the unions would smarten but he and his colleagues tend not to report these because they are Tories and the unions are one of the established institutions that their Toryism rests on.
Was this what it was like in the days before the ancien regime finally collapsed. In a sense, journalists, like the old nobility, know that they and the public service unions are in decline but there is another sense in which they obviously just don't get it. Dave Weigel considers a story that inflamed millions of readers to be a distraction and not news. David Pugliese is so certain of his narrative that he cannot imagine doing even the most basic critical thinking about a story he is writing. They just don't see it coming.
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