| Number 283 | December 31, 2004 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, This issue is the 47th and final issue of Nygaard Notes for the year 2004. I promise subscribers a minimum of 44 issues per year, and have always put out more than that. Just so you know. For the past couple of years I have used the final edition of December to publish a Nygaard Notes Year In Review, in which I give a month-by-month summary of what I've published in the preceding 12 months. I guess it's a tradition now, so I hope you like it. There are several reasons I've decided to keep doing this. One is that it's a heckuva lot easier than doing all the research that goes into a typical Nygaard Notes, so it gives me a kind-of break around the New Year holiday (any honest publisher/editor will tell you that this is part of what motivates all this end-of-the-year stuff). Another reason (and, actually, this is how this tradition started) is that it gives me a chance to think about what I have done and assess whether there's too much of this, or too little of that, or if I've been off base in emphasis or tone, or what-not. After I did this the first time, I realized that the summary I had produced might be of interest to readers, as well. Some people don't read every issue when they arrive (What's wrong with them? I don't know.) and they might want to know what they have missed. But the main reason I do this is for the new readers. Every year many people come to the Notes for the first time, and I think it's a good idea to summarize the past year of the Notes to give a hint of what they missed by coming on board so late in the game. So, it's good for me, good for you old-timers, and good for the new kids on the block. It's a win/win/win, doncha think?! Remember, the complete text of every issue can be found on the fully-searchable Nygaard Notes website at www.nygaardnotes.org, thanks to Awesome Webmaster Walker. Dare I hint at what is to come in 2005? Don't hold me to it, but I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about Social Security, the income tax, so-called "tort reform," and the usual media literacy tips, critical thinking exercises (I never call them that!), and Strolls Through the News. Just think of how smart and capable you'll be if you keep reading Nygaard Notes regularly! Here's to a great 2005! Nygaard |
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An excellent opinion piece appeared in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) on December 27th, titled "This Season, Realize That State Budget Is a Moral Document." Authors Vic Rosenthal and Suzanne Bring of Jewish Community Action in St. Paul state that, "While most people are focused on giving gifts to their own families, many are very charitable" during the holiday season. Then they said this:
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For almost the entire month of JANUARY I focused on health care. I told a personal tale, talked about state cutbacks, and reported on various organizing and legislative efforts for single-payer universal health care. I also discussed the idea of health care as a human right, an idea that is gaining ground in this country, and finally, I described how a universal system of national health insurance might work. I also took time in January to feature some words from a document called "A Pastoral Letter on Racism" put out by the Catholic Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Harry Flynn. I started out FEBRUARY by taking a look at an important study by political scientist Robert Pape called "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism." There's a logic to such things? Pape says there is, and I explained why, adding some thoughts about the political significance that such a "radical" understanding might have for the most powerful nation on earth. I did lots of media analysis in February, also, with looks at reporting on nursing shortages, at a visit to my city by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Norman Borlaug, at reporting on Haiti, at the continuing wage gap between men and women, and at public opinion around the world in regard to the U.S. Have you heard of the world's first public health treaty, just enacted last year, called the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control? I talked about that in February, as well. I started off the month of MARCH by giving some useful resources for following what I called the Unavoidable Spectacle, the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. I also took a brief look at the effect that the U.S. attack on Iraq is having in the world of public relations - yikes! The better part of March was spent taking apart the federal budget proposed by the Bush administration, looking first at the philosophy that drives such budgets, and then at the details. I concluded with a brief explanation of so-called "Supply-Side Economics," which underlies a lot of this looniness. In March I also published an original poem, something that doesn't happen very often in these pages. I offered more on the federal budget in APRIL, this time looking at the process of budgeting, specifically some proposed rule changes that "would vest more power in the executive branch." During the Nygaard Notes Spring Pledge Drive I included a piece called "Why Is Nygaard Notes Unique?" which might be of interest to new readers. I also found time to talk about how "get-out-the-vote" campaigns get perverted when they are conducted by corporate entities, in a piece called "Commercializing Democracy," a version of which was later published in Z Magazine. In MAY the story of "the abuse scandal" - which was really a "torture scandal" - in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq broke into the news. I helped readers to understand "The Mind of a Torturer," publishing a story with that title about a United Statesian man named Dan Mitrione. Also in May I contrasted individual safety with social safety, reported on a new study of kids in poverty, discussed the uncovered story of the REACH chemical-safety law in Europe, and mentioned how there had been a court challenge to the USA-PATRIOT Act that was kept hidden from the public because of secrecy provisions in the USA-PATRIOT Act. (And, no, I didn't make that last one up.) In JUNE I talked about a couple of themes that seem to recur in the pages of Nygaard Notes: Philanthropy and Opinion Polls. In the first case I talked about the charitable giving and the profits of a locally-based "health care" corporation. In the second case I looked at a variety of polls about Iraq, about health care, about the state of the nation, and more. The polls have been surprising, I said at the time. They continue to be surprising. In JULY I commented on the education that we all get from "negative" campaign ads, reported on the sorry state of the nation's infrastructure (bridges, transit, schools, sewage systems, etc), and had a lot to say about the International AIDS Conference held in Thailand that month. I also offered some highlights of a major national report called "The State of The News Media 2004." In AUGUST I wrote about Systems Theory, which was "Part 1 in the Who-Knows-How-Many Part "How Not To Get Depressed" Series. It turned out to be four parts, actually, with the other three running in NN #s 268, 278, and 279. In SEPTEMBER I reported on a couple of reports, namely the "National Report Card on Higher Education" and the "Wage Outlook in Minnesota Labor Day 2004." The month also saw my first feature on Social Security since January of 2003. In OCTOBER the "major" presidential candidates debated, and I wrote about what they debated (in "Debating the Future: 'Scare The Hell Out Of Them'"), what they did not debate (in "What the Candidates Aren't Debating"), and why (in "Why Are Some Things Not Debated?"). On October 22nd I published the piece "Seven Steps to Better Elections," which many of you said you liked. IN NOVEMBER was the autumn version of the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive. (A success, thanks to you all!) I conducted a small case study of the U.S. attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, using a National Public Radio story to illustrate how distorted and propagandistic is the coverage in this country of our imperial adventures. In another piece I illustrated one of the many subtle ways that racism plays itself out in the media. Finally, I gave some post-election thoughts on the meaning of these things we call "elections." DECEMBER in the Notes found pieces on the use of breast cancer to sell products at Target Stores, on the irresponsible use of "anonymous" sources in reporting on Iraq, on the contrast between the political power of the Salvation Army's brand of religious practice with that of the United Church of Christ. The last thing I did was to talk about how journalists sometimes act like mind-readers. In a separate piece in this issue, I summarize ten different media literacy lessons that appeared in the pages of the Notes this year. Wow! Did I do all that in one year? Apparently so. Throughout the year, of course, the Notes had tons of the usual "Quotes" of the Week and Strolls Through the News. More to come in 2005. |
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Every year I spend some time going beyond specific comments by specific news outlets on specific issues, choosing instead to illustrate some general theories and observations about the media. Here's a brief summary of some of the basic Nygaard Notes Media Literacy Lessons from 2004: In "The 'Reversing the Headline Trick' Explained" (NN #243), I showed how useful it can be to take a headline, or a news story, and simply change the characters. The example I gave was the headline: "U.S. Tries to Give Moderates Edge in Iraqi Elections." I suggested that readers change it to read like this: "Iraq Tries to Give Moderates Edge in U.S. Elections." If the second one sounds outrageous and the first does not, then you can start to see a little bit of the power of the jingoistic propaganda that is at work in our own heads. Also in #243 I ran a story called "He Said, She Said" in which I criticized the highly-valued idea of journalistic "balance." I argued that, when simple matters of fact are routinely reported as if they were open to debate, the effect is to give readers the idea that there really are no "facts" at all. This, in turn, opens the media door to such things as innuendo, convenient mythology, self-serving fantasy, and deliberate propaganda. In NN #262 ("Quotation Marks in the Mainstream Press") I explained how one of the most popular punctuation marks found in the media should often be a red flag to alert you to the use of propaganda. NN #267 offered "The Media's PET." PET stands for Placement, Emphasis, and Tone. P = WHERE a story appears; E = WHICH PARTS are emphasized or de-emphasized; and T = HOW it is reported. In this article I spelled out The Media's PET in a bit more detail, since it's so basic to understanding the news. I used a current media story about a Census Bureau report to illustrate. Much of the news of the world that most of us get in our local papers comes from a very small group of journalists based in New York or Washington, DC. In "Who Produces the News in the 'Local' Papers?" (NN #271) I took a look at how that reality plays out in the modern age of centrally-collected and distributed information. The following week (NN #272) I published "Where Are The Front Page Stories?" In it, I noted that many people look at the front page of the paper or listen to the news updates on the radio and think they are getting "the day's top stories." Using a few examples from the daily press, I illustrated why that ain't necessarily so. In NN #275, in a piece called "Big, Small, and Uncorrected Errors," I gave a couple of reasons why I don't like the "Corrections" columns that run in most major newspapers. People who study media are aware of the awesome power of words. Sometimes a single word can be a clue to an important truth that wouldn't otherwise be obvious. That's what I talked about in an article in NN #280 called "Quiet! Media Sleeping." In this case, I looked at the use of the simple word "quietly," pointing out that "If a major piece of news is not widely known, the media have failed to do their job. And when the media themselves tell you that the people involved took some major action 'quietly,' they are confessing to that failure." Just last week I ran a story called "Mind-Reading and Propaganda: The Amazing Powers of Journalists," which looked at how "spin" is subtly transmitted through the media. This piece gave a hint as to how, once you train yourself to notice some extremely common journalistic practices, you can get a lot more out of the news than you might have thought was there. There you go. Those are some of the Media Literacy lessons from the 2004 edition of Nygaard Notes. There's lots more lessons to be learned, so stay tuned in the New Year! |