What's With the NYT?

Specifically their automated hyperlink system. The Times has a program (I assume) which runs through their articles and turns various words and phrases into links to other web resources. Sounds cool? Depends on the link because sometimes that program is dumb.

Consider this article about Pixar hoping Toy Story 3 will get best picture. Some links make sense: "Tom Hanks," "Toy Story," " the top-grossing film of the year." But consider this sentence from the article:

On a visit to the Pixar campus here, in an old canning factory a short drive from San Francisco, I got a brief lesson in the laborious art of animation.

Which word or phrase should be made into a link? Pixar? San Francisco? Nope; it was canning (click on the link for more articles about canning!) But that's not the worst one. At the end, the interviewer jokingly asks Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich if he has an animated version of himself.

"No," he said. "That would be really creepy. No, thank you."

Don't think that sentence deserves a link? The Times disagreed. Clearly, people want to know more about the word, "no," especially the 1998 Canadian comedy.

The thing is, I find it equally likely that the Times does this on purpose in an attempt to be cute. Is it cute? No.

Very Good Sentence

Perhaps the behavioral economists can come up for a solution for our apparently excessive focus on behavioral economics?

That's from Ryan Hahn at the PSD blog at the World Bank.

The Blessed Death of Newspapers

Gideon Yago appeared on MSNBC arguing "there's no question we need the newspapers," going so far to suggest that the government subsidize the failing medium. Commentators joked that the death of the printed word marks a golden age for corrupt politician.

Yago mistakes the death of one medium with the death of all media. The reason newspapers are doing poorly is because other sources, notably the Internet, do the job so much better. New technology changes things, but people still want investigative journalism. The method changes but the content will ultimately be the same, because preferences on content haven't changed. The fourth estate is not limited to the screaming Jamesons and inquisitive Lois Lanes of the comic book world. The legions of writers and bloggers that parade the Internet do it, too, but in a form superior to newspapers in virtually every way. Yago might as well said the end of the horse drawn carriage is the end of travel. Quite the opposite, actually.

Fifteen Lawyers On a Dead Man's Chest

Pirates portrayed in popular media were not the kind of heroes we make them out to be today. Like the modern Somali pirates, they disrupted trade and threatened fortunes. They murdered, raped, and stole. They burned ships and killed innocent people. Centuries ago, pirates would occasionally be acting on the behalf of a government, acting as a Crown thug rather than the rugged rogue we think of them as. Perhaps their only endearing quality is that some were made up of sailors dodging the English draft.

Cyber piracy is different story entirely, highlighted by the Pirate Bay Trial. Internet pirates download and/or view copyrighted material without paying for it. Studios argue that they are stealing media and more than one commercial depicts it as the same as swiping a CD from a store. But that's not quite true.

Granted, it is possible that downloading illegally is effectively the same as taking a hard copy. Taking a hard copy is always denying the company revenue, even if you would never buy it because your theft denies someone else from buying that particular CD. But downloading a file copies it, leaving the original in tact. Your consumption of it does not deny someone else from consuming it. The company loses revenue only if you pirated instead of paying for it. If you were never going to buy it (you value it less than the price but more than zero), the studio/actors/retail store/etc lose nothing. There are no distorted incentives and no real theft.

In an ideal world, only those who download for few are those who wouldn't have paid in the first place. But I know of no way to reasonably get to that world for it requires each consumer to honestly determine what they are willing to pay for, act accordingly, and, when appropriate, resist the romantic call of a pirate's life.

A Debate Worth Watching

Was There Too Much Sex And Profanity In The HBO Presidential Debate?
HT: Mike Mills

Keep Your Favorites To Yourself

The lack of media coverage over the Paralympics induced NPR to comment why they received so little attention compared to the Olympics. One caller blamed corporations, not the lack of demand. Corporations set the agenda and since they don't sponsor these games, they don't show them even though we want to see them.

If this was true, if we really are empty vessels to be filled, then why don't companies sponsor the Paralympics and then cover it? We'd watch something we want to watch and they'd get more airtime for sponsors. This doesn't happen because what matters most is viewership. This is why if a basketball game runs over, it cuts into sitcoms after it. This is why most shows get canceled after the first season. This is why we have any sort of entertainment at all and not corporations force-feeding us an endless stream of ads.

This caller likely replaced their preferences for the desires of everyone else. Just because your preference isn't popular doesn't mean it's because of some secret cabal is holding you and your brethren back. Maybe you just like unpopular stuff.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

Recently I just finished reading Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, and October Surprises. The book goes through each presidential election in US history and focuses on how dirty each was. Each election gets 2-6 pages or so. Here are some of the highlights:

In 1800 Jefferson’s people called Adams “a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” Adam’s supporters responded with “Jefferson is a mean-spirited low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” They also spread rumors that Jefferson was dead.

In 1828 John Quincy Adam’s supports taunted Andrew Jackson in the hopes that he would challenge someone to a duel. Jackson supporters spread rumors that Adams had offered his wife’s maid to the czar as a concubine.

Davy Crockett in 1836 said that “Martin Van Buren is laced up in corsets, such as women in a town wear, and if possible tighter than the best of them. It would be difficult to say from his personal appearance, whether he was a man or a woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers.”

One of the worst elections ever was 1876. Tilden’s supports said that Hays shot and wounded his mother “in a fit of insanity.” Hays people claimed Tilden got syphilis from an Irish whore which made him susceptible to blackmail.

For the 1896 election the New York Times published an article called “Is Mr. Bryan Crazy?” It stated that if Bryan was elected “there would be a madman in the White House.” Two days later another article appeared that said Bryan suffered from megalomania, paranoia querulent (complaining too much), and querulent logorrhea (talking about complaining too much).

It was an enjoyable read, and I learned a lot not only about dirty political tactics but American history as well. I recommend this book, especially if you think that politics has never been worse than it is today.

The Writing's On the Sign

Day One of the writer's strike leads to an interesting economic question. Not if writer's deserve a cut of new media revenue. Or how long a company should holdout before serious negotiations begin (though the strike does dispel the myth that firms care only about short-term profits and won't shoulder a huge expense for a long-term gain). No, the question is why are the slogans so uncreative?




Presumably, the WGA would be interested in conveying their side of the argument for the national news media, a capacity that increases as the writing improves. Pithy slogans, especially concerning the topic at hand, would certainly serve the organization better than simply "On Strike" paired with a cheesy lightning bolt/pen (note the illustration's better than the writing). The three signs pictured here seem to be making up the vast majority of them, mass-produced by the Guild.

Thus the puzzle. It only takes one person to make a good slogan that thousands can use. With over 10,000 in its membership, why didn't some of them come up with something better? They are writers, after all; this should be second nature, at least to a few. And it's not like they didn't know the strike was coming; the picture of the man in the clearly written shirt is a member passing out material three days ago. Even if you claim that they just have a bunch of generic signs "just in case" it begs the question, why aren't the generic signs interesting? You'd think their potential for reuse would make them more likely to be pithy, not less.

Strikes are costly, not just for the studios but for the writers. It's in their best interest to sway public support to their side in order to encourage their employers to fold sooner. Perhaps this is evidence that the studios really are paying them more than they contribute. Maybe they don't deserve any new media revenue.

Lou Dobbs Thinks I’m Dumb

Last year the Independent Institute issued a letter on immigration. The letter argued that immigration is not all bad for the country and in fact makes us better off as a whole. I signed the letter, agreeing with its premise. It was a short and simple, and now over a year later Lou Dobbs picked up on it. Economist Alex Tabarrok from George Mason University appeared on his show recently, and can be seen here. Dobbs took the arguments given by simply responding that the signers are "idiotic," "dumb," "jackasses," and "completely out of their minds." I can’t say I agree with Powell’s extreme open border position, but I still think more immigration will make America better, even if that makes me dumb.

Why oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps? (Autism Edition)

According to the AP:

The court is being asked to decide whether there is a link between autism and childhood vaccines.

The court doesn’t decide if there is a link or not. If there is a link and the court rules there isn’t, that doesn’t mean that the existing link suddenly disappears. If there is no link and the court rules that there is, autism won’t suddenly be transmitted via vaccines. The court is being asked to examine the evidence and come to a conclusion the best that it can.

Why oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps?

A recent article in the NY Times gave the statistic that the pretax income for the top 1 percent of American households rose 7 percent, to 16; while the income share to the bottom four quintiles fell 7 percent. And then this sentence:

It’s as if every household in that bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent.

That’s not even a remotely true statement. The first problem is the oft quoted “They aren’t the same people.” Those in the bottom quintile in 1979 are not the exact same people there today. I would be willing to bet that the majority of people in the bottom quintile today weren’t even in the labor force in 1979. Furthermore, all quintiles have gotten richer since 1979, but the rate of growth for the quintiles has been different. Just because the top 1 percent has risen faster, doesn’t imply that the bottom 80 percent are sending checks in the mail to them from their helpless exploited state. It could be (there’s really no way of knowing for sure one way or the other) that if the top 1 percent didn’t increase as much the bottom quintiles would have grown slower.

On a somewhat related note, Don Boudreaux directs us to Steve Landsburg.

Bouncing Against the Mold

Warren and I have a mutual interest in the economics and politics of science. Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute addressed such a topic last week, with a particular emphasis on global warming.

It's a lovely reminder that nothing forged by men is sacred. Every human institution, including peer reviews and scientific journals, are subject to politics over facts. Indeed, the great paradox that Higgs alludes to is that even though most people have a great deal of faith in the scientific process (with good reason), it is far more subject to distortion than other institutions. I hate quoting at length but his writing is just too good:

Science is an odd undertaking: everybody strives to make the next breakthrough, yet when someone does, he is often greeted as if he were carrying the ebola virus. Too many people have too much invested in the reigning ideas; for those people an acknowledgment of their own idea’s bankruptcy is tantamount to an admission that they have wasted their lives...Research worlds, in their upper reaches, are pretty small. Leading researchers know all the major players and what everybody else is doing...The whole setup is tremendously incestuous; the interconnections are numerous, tight, and close.

Higgs wrote also of what the alliance between politicians and scientists (the former hands out grants and the latter raises faux concern to make it easier to get earmarks) as well as emphasizing that scientists should know their place (saying X, Y, and Z will happen is one thing, making normative statements on importance and urgency is another). What he did not emphasize, however, is the role of the media, which is the great megaphone for all these concern. When it's cheap to scare people and those holding the microphones want you to scare people, people get scared a lot and with little justification. And with no one capable of silencing the hysteria getting a fair say, is it any wonder why so much of the population is scared all the time?

Curse Against the Machine

What do you think of when you think of road rage? I imagine people so angry and frustrated at traffic that they ram into other cars, driving on sidewalks and other pedestrian zones or even taking out a gun and shooting people. That's rage.

But AutoVantage thinks rage is something else: rudeness. It's not just "bad" driving but tailgating and swearing all count as "rage." Really? Tailgating's annoying and no one likes being sworn at but since when has stalking and name calling been anything even remotely close to "rage?"

There's a strange "conventional wisdom" that our world is flying apart at the seams. Already I can hear the calls for government regulation to "control the anger." But it's not on the verge of collapse, it's just a bunch a people think rude people are simply irrational. Has anyone ever stopped to think that some drivers deserved being sworn at?

Commentator's Dilemma

Tonight Larry Kudlow discussed the firing of Don Imus and the quality of media debates. Paraphrasing, Kudlow asked if civilized, adult debate possible. Can we evade name calling, slurs, and low brow "arguments"? Can debates, especially in the political sector, become conversations and not yelling matches?

The whole thing is classic prisoner's dilemma. If two pundits agree to be civil, then there's a lot to gain for the defector. If one person is trying to keep the conversation high brow while the other calls him a jerk, then, to many people, the former looks soft and the latter looks like she knows what she's talking about. So they both act like jerks.

One way to get out of this dilemma is to force people to respect each other: introduce a moderator. But good luck finding someone who can be trusted to be neutral about such high-profile issues.

As April 15 Approaches

Keep in mind why you must pay taxes, Donald Duck style.

“Every dollar you spend for something you don’t need, is a dollar spent to help the Axis.”

Boudreaux On Elephants, Boudreaux On Statistics

Don Boudreaux and his wife Karol Boudreaux both published excellent articles in the past week that are worth taking a look at.

Don wrote for the Christian Science Monitor, succinctly describing a common mistake made in interpreting data concerning averages.

Karol wrote for the The Nation, showing how lifting the ban on hunting elephants can actually increase the elephant population. (I've made a similar point last week if you are in search for more free market environmentalism.)

Passionately Neutral

Peter Johnson of USA TODAY wrote a wonderful piece about how news anchors tend to adopt a handful of pet issues and focus on those during their broadcasts. Bob Woodruff on army medical services. Lou Dobbs on immigration. Chris Hansen on child predators. Douglas Kennedy's on the dangers of attention-deficit-disorder drugs prescribed to children. The list goes on and on.

From an economics point of view, this is yet another example of the nature of competition. Each anchor is vying for the attention of an audience so it should not be surprising we see specialization in the media market place. And even though I disagree with what some of these advocates have to say (notably Lou Dobbs), one must appreciate this combination of free speech and free markets.

The only problem is the lie they tell us every day. Each anchor (with surely some exceptions) claims to be a neutral voice. In one moment they are passionately discussing their chosen issue. In the next moment they remind us they speak only the Truth; bias is not in their vocabulary. According to Kennedy, this is perfectly consistent: "You can be objective and still take on an issue that is important to society and to you personally." Let me take this moment and remind the media that they are not gods. Things that are personally important to anyone are things they can't be trusted to be neutral about.

Panic at the Exchange

A few hours ago, ABC Money posted this article which casts worry over the latest drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This 200 point fall, the story goes, suggests we are in a slow-growth economy and the market is due for a correction.

First, the DJIA isn't nearly as important as people think it is. The number is the average stock price of 30 companies--just thirty--adjusted for stock splits. Granted, these are important companies whose performance has wide ranging implications. But they are not everything.

Second, the world is a messy place. This drop may be a correction for past over-optimism or next week may be the correction for today's panic. The latest tick of the market is not automatically indicative of its overall quality.

Each move of the DJIA isn't news worthy. Even big moves. They aren't nothing, but there are more important items to report. What is news worthy is the economy's next big thing, but because we don't know it we have to admit any measures of the quality of out economy--any economy--is subject to tremendous error.

Brian's Song

I knew I had to write about this the moment I read the title: Enough About You: We've made the media more democratic, but at what cost to our democracy? It's an editorial by Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in this week's Time. The piece is a direct criticism of the emerging culture that spawned this year's Person of the Year: You.

Or rather everyone that's contributed to the plethora of user-created content that's swamping the Internet and influencing everything else. Blogging. Wikipedia. YouTube. It is hard to overestimate their impact in how people are exchanging ideas and spreading information. But Williams thinks it's trouble brewing.

It is now possible--even common--to go about your day in America and consume only what you wish to see and hear...The problem is that there's a lot of information out there that citizens in an informed democracy need to know in our complicated world with U.S. troops on the ground along two major fronts. [Original emphasis]

There is no doubt that, in part, he is right. People can live their lives without being exposed to other ideas. Of course, they could always live their lives that way: it is very easy to not read or watch something you don't like.

What Williams is saying, though, is that he doesn't like what people are specializing in and they should turn to the "unbiased" media for the whole picture. But no one is unbiased; everyone frames or colors a story to their liking and while some are more neutral than others, no one is innocent. When anchors such as Williams insist what they report on is what matters to everyone, they not only lie by assuming an air of god-like neutrality, they arrogantly assume everyone cares about the same thing or views the world in the same way.

Because everyone knows that user-created content is biased, they are more willing to search out the other side to get the full picture. True, there are those that won't and simply consume what they like, but you can't do anything about them. They have always existed and they always will. But today it is harder to be them because it is so much easier to be challenged. Everyone knows everyone else's sources are biased so people are more likely to read up (and it is easier to do so).

And this points to the great flaw in William's article. He argues that we might miss the next great idea because we focus so much on "the same tune we already know by heart." But these great things, by definition, are for everyone and their truth appeals a mass audience. In the previous world of the narrow media, revolutionary concepts more easily fell through the cracks--only a relatively few people had to miss them. But today's wide media catches so much more. The constant spread of information makes it less likely--not more--that we will miss the next big thing. It is not that we might miss the next revolution; Williams is concerned because we might now recognize the absurdity of his selections.

The Rant, the Recount and the Petty Ridicule

Last night, Mike sent me this link containing video of Keith Olbermann's 9/11 commentary. Granted, I thought it was rather long and some parts were a little strange but he makes a critical point: five years later Ground Zero is still empty. No memorial, no construction.

To me this speaks of government bureaucracy, infighting and politics. If Donald Trump was in charge of rebuilding the WTC, we'd be halfway there by now. (Trump World Tower, a 72-story residential building, took only two years to complete.) Sadly Olbermann's focused on the blameful Bush rather than take a stab at government in general but we can only hope for so much. A favorite passage:

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Shortly after the video hit the internet, NewsBusters, a self-proclaimed "liberal media" watchdog, posted this article which recounts Olbermann's commentary but never seriously refutes it.

Another NewsBusters article accuses Olbermann of using Ground Zero partisanly while complaining others do just that. Perhaps it was mere politics (though in this case the point was to show everyone that nothing has been done rather than use it as a prop for political grandstanding). Also note that when one side of the aisle legitimately accuses the other of doing something wrong, the other side paradoxically attempts to save themselves by throwing the accusation back. They don't refute it--indeed sometimes they agree they did wrong--they just say others do it too as if that makes it alright. But somehow I doubt "well my neighbor tried to kill someone, too" would hold up in front of a judge. It's sad it works so well in the court of public opinion.