Good Golly
Reading some writers, including columnists, just makes me happy. That's why I was pleased to find a recent column by Don Wycliff, who is the Chicago Tribune's public editor, on one of my favorites, Molly Ivins.
How can you tell a journalist from a propagandist? The litmus test, I've always thought, is the person's attitude toward facts. A journalist will insist on rendering the facts correctly, even if it's painful to do so and hurts his or her argument. To the propagandist, winning the argument is everything, no matter how much the facts may have to be bent, spindled or mutilated.
Case in point: Molly Ivins.
Last week, Ivins, the syndicated columnist whose work appears on the Tribune Commentary page, used more than half of her column to apologize for a grievous factual error and set the record straight on the issue of civilian casualties of the Iraq war.
In her June 30 column, in the course of explaining why she opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she wrote: "I think we have alienated our allies and have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did."
Not even close. As she noted in last week's column, most estimates of the casualty toll from 24 years of Hussein's rule are in the 300,000 to 400,000 range. Most estimates of the civilian toll from the U.S. invasion are in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. Ivins could have protested that she was expressing her personal belief ("I think ...") and, hey, everybody's entitled to her own beliefs, so no correction was in order. She could have said, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway because you can't prove I'm not right." She could have sulked in stony silence and refused to acknowledge any questions.
Instead, she wrote: "This is a horror. In a column published June 30, I asserted that more Iraqis [civilians] had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. Wrong. Really, really wrong."
By my litmus test, Ivins is a journalist. [Emphasis added]
Ivins' correction wasn't buried deep within the pages of each paper her syndicated column appeared in; it formed the better part of her next column. Yes, she made a mistake, a sizeable one, but she self-corrected it. In my years of reading her, she rarely makes such mistakes, so her mea culpas are rare, but she has no qualms about issuing them. I think a lot of journalists, whether columnists, op-ed writers, or reporters would do well to follow her example and be more interested in providing their readers with as much of the truth as they can uncover than with carrying the water for any particular 'side.'
But back to Ms. Ivins and her writing. Here is a sample of both her wit and her truth telling:
One of the most profound insights I have ever had about our national life is that you cannot outlaw bad taste in America. The Texas Legislature occasionally tries -- usually in an effort to prevent teen-agers from getting interested in sex. This is as effective as the time they passed a law rounding off the mathematical function pi to an even three. Some people just like old refrigerators on their front porches, fountains of little boys peeing and plastic roses. Get over it. ...
Austin is a prime example of why suburban sprawl is becoming a major political issue. The Number One Gripe in Austin is no longer the heat (summer is a clever ploy we use to keep the place from being overrun by Yankees), it's the traffic. We have built these monster suburbs all over hell and the aquifer, and the result is no one can get anywhere any more. They sit there in their SUVs, fuming about the traffic while, of course, the air quality gets worse and worse.
The Ledge, kicking and screaming and under the gun of federal sanctions, finally came up with a tepid little plan to reduce air pollution. But while tentatively dealing with the consequences of sprawl to the atmosphere, the Ledge simultaneously encouraged it with a monumentally dumb move. Breaking the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging), they passed yet another tax-abatement program, this one designed to attract more manufacturers.
John Sharp, the former state comptroller, observed that if Texas had taken every nickel it has granted in tax abatement over the last 10 years and put it into the schools instead, we'd not only have better schools, all those employers would have moved here anyway. This is a classic case of throwing good money after bad.
It's that kind of writing I go to when the faux news gets under my skin.
How can you tell a journalist from a propagandist? The litmus test, I've always thought, is the person's attitude toward facts. A journalist will insist on rendering the facts correctly, even if it's painful to do so and hurts his or her argument. To the propagandist, winning the argument is everything, no matter how much the facts may have to be bent, spindled or mutilated.
Case in point: Molly Ivins.
Last week, Ivins, the syndicated columnist whose work appears on the Tribune Commentary page, used more than half of her column to apologize for a grievous factual error and set the record straight on the issue of civilian casualties of the Iraq war.
In her June 30 column, in the course of explaining why she opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she wrote: "I think we have alienated our allies and have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did."
Not even close. As she noted in last week's column, most estimates of the casualty toll from 24 years of Hussein's rule are in the 300,000 to 400,000 range. Most estimates of the civilian toll from the U.S. invasion are in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. Ivins could have protested that she was expressing her personal belief ("I think ...") and, hey, everybody's entitled to her own beliefs, so no correction was in order. She could have said, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway because you can't prove I'm not right." She could have sulked in stony silence and refused to acknowledge any questions.
Instead, she wrote: "This is a horror. In a column published June 30, I asserted that more Iraqis [civilians] had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. Wrong. Really, really wrong."
By my litmus test, Ivins is a journalist. [Emphasis added]
Ivins' correction wasn't buried deep within the pages of each paper her syndicated column appeared in; it formed the better part of her next column. Yes, she made a mistake, a sizeable one, but she self-corrected it. In my years of reading her, she rarely makes such mistakes, so her mea culpas are rare, but she has no qualms about issuing them. I think a lot of journalists, whether columnists, op-ed writers, or reporters would do well to follow her example and be more interested in providing their readers with as much of the truth as they can uncover than with carrying the water for any particular 'side.'
But back to Ms. Ivins and her writing. Here is a sample of both her wit and her truth telling:
One of the most profound insights I have ever had about our national life is that you cannot outlaw bad taste in America. The Texas Legislature occasionally tries -- usually in an effort to prevent teen-agers from getting interested in sex. This is as effective as the time they passed a law rounding off the mathematical function pi to an even three. Some people just like old refrigerators on their front porches, fountains of little boys peeing and plastic roses. Get over it. ...
Austin is a prime example of why suburban sprawl is becoming a major political issue. The Number One Gripe in Austin is no longer the heat (summer is a clever ploy we use to keep the place from being overrun by Yankees), it's the traffic. We have built these monster suburbs all over hell and the aquifer, and the result is no one can get anywhere any more. They sit there in their SUVs, fuming about the traffic while, of course, the air quality gets worse and worse.
The Ledge, kicking and screaming and under the gun of federal sanctions, finally came up with a tepid little plan to reduce air pollution. But while tentatively dealing with the consequences of sprawl to the atmosphere, the Ledge simultaneously encouraged it with a monumentally dumb move. Breaking the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging), they passed yet another tax-abatement program, this one designed to attract more manufacturers.
John Sharp, the former state comptroller, observed that if Texas had taken every nickel it has granted in tax abatement over the last 10 years and put it into the schools instead, we'd not only have better schools, all those employers would have moved here anyway. This is a classic case of throwing good money after bad.
It's that kind of writing I go to when the faux news gets under my skin.
posted by Diane at 5:25 AM
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