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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (2244)	6/17/2003 4:45:46 AM
From: RinConRon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

Squabble between news outlets over ethics. This kind of carping wouldn't be happening but for the Times troubles. CBS Denies POW Lynch 'Checkbook' Offer 1 hour, 55 minutes ago By Andrew Grossman NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - CBS News on Monday fired back at the New York Times after the newspaper reported in a front-page story that the network had dangled carrots from other Viacom divisions in order to land an interview with rescued POW Jessica Lynch. Reuters Photo The story raised questions of whether a new form of "checkbook journalism" -- whereby a media outlet pays for an interview or access to a news story -- had arisen in an era of media consolidation. In a statement, CBS said the Times had quoted liberally from a letter sent by CBS News senior vp primetime Betsy West but had excluded the parts that tended to exculpate the network from accusations that it was trying to woo Lynch with offers from CBS Entertainment, MTV Networks, Simon & Shuster and other Viacom units. "Unlike the New York Times' own ethical problems, there is no question about the accuracy or integrity of CBS News' reporting," CBS News said. "CBS News does not pay for interviews, and it maintains a well-established separation from other parts of Viacom. The letters selectively quoted by the Times, when read in their entirety, make that explicitly clear." CBS declined to distribute the entire letter to reporters, instead opting to quote from passages that the Times had opted to paraphrase. It did not deny the accuracy of the Times' quotations from the letter. "Attached you will find the outlines of a proposal that includes ideas from CBS News, CBS Entertainment, MTV Networks and Simon & Shuster publishers," West wrote, according to the Times. The entertainment division executives "tell us this would be the highest priority for the CBS movie division, which specializes in inspirational stories of courage," the letter stated. Another section noted that Simon & Shuster "is extremely interested in discussing the possibilities for a book based on Jessica's journey from Palestine, W. Va., to deep inside Iraq (news - web sites)." In response, the network said the Times left out the following parts of the letter: "'CBS News maintains editorial independence from the entertainment division; we never tie interview requests to entertainment projects; and we wanted to make sure that CBS News' proposal was being considered as a single entity,"' CBS News said. Said a Times spokesman in a statement: "We believe our coverage was thorough, accurate and fair -- and fully representative of the complete document in our possession." Both ABC and NBC news division spokespeople insisted that their proposals to Lynch mentioned only news division opportunities. CBS News' rebuttal left several journalism academics wondering why the network would even mention Viacom's other divisions in such a letter. "I'm not questioning CBS' integrity or intention," said Aly Colon, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "But even with the lines that CBS adds ... it could be very easy for one to potentially assume, 'If I do that, something else might play out."' CBS insisted that it only wanted to lessen the barrage of interview requests that Lynch and Walter Reed Hospital -- where Lynch is recuperating from her war injuries -- have received by consolidating the companies' information into a single letter. But Colon said CBS News should have known that "it's very hard today to know where one part of the company starts and another part stops." Similarly, Dow Smith, an associate professor of broadcast journalism at Syracuse University, said, "Why even mention it in the same letter if they're not trying to cloud up the issue, particularly if they are dealing with someone who is not terribly sophisticated with media-thons." He added, "They are trying to have it both ways" by maintaining the unit's independence while hinting broadly to Lynch that "if it acts like a connection and smells like a connection, they would be hoping it is a connection." Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

To: LindyBill who wrote (2244)	6/17/2003 9:31:57 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

High-Stakes Research by MARGARET E. RAYMOND & ERIC A. HANUSHEK - EDUCATION NEXT Looks to me as if you've changed the thread topic form a Carville-Rove forum to an education forum. Nonetheless, a quick reaction to this piece. 1. Did the website educationext or whatever publish a response from Amrein and Berliner? If not, why not? It's hard to assess the claims of only one side without arguments from the other side or, alternatively, and none of us will do that, checking the data itself. Serious social science research, and this piece is certainly a part of the dialogue which produces such, is a conversation, a back and forth. If educationnext is simply a propoganda site for one point of view, then we will not see a rejoinder from Amrein and Berliner posted there. And since all the articles you've posted from it to date are only one side, it's fair to assume that's what it is. 2. If part of their argument is that the media gets social science research results wrong, well, welcome to the crowd. I was an up close follower of the wonderful 70s research that was published in places like Newsweek that claimed to support the notion that women should not have careers because if they didn't marry by 35 or so, they had no chance of doing so. Wrong. But it was newsworthy and was grabbed before that conclusion was carefully vetted. 3. As for pejorative comments of the order that these authors are doing rigorous scientific study as opposed to the sloppy stuff of Amrein and Berliner, one's view of that should await some rejoinder from A & B. However, on one occasion, a point they start a section with, it's just not true. They are troubled that A&B chose to drop interval level data of magnitude of differences in favor of binary contrasts of "increase," "decrease," and "unclear." There is nothing more or less scientific involved in such a decision. I happen to prefer the strategy advocated by your authors for the reasons they offer; but the A&B strategy is perfectly acceptable methodology. So long as they make it public. And, apparently, they did. 4. The following point is very interesting. I'll quote it and then comment. Reporters need not be experts in statistical analysis any more than they must be fully versed in biochemistry or investment-banking regulations. But when a report is commissioned by an organization like the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, a Midwestern group sponsored by six state affiliates of the National Education Association, it would seem to call for a reasonable dose of skepticism. Why not bring in some outside expertise to review such a report before heralding its arrival? There will definitely be further opportunities for review. After all, the Arizona State shop promises that this is just the first of many annual reports on the impact of high-stakes testing. Not a bad point. Right. But, given the political place of the Hoover Institution, precisely the same can be said for research commentary (this piece is not original research, rather reporting on the literature) about its work. If one were genuinely serious about the question of "accountability research", one would need to read the literature. Not just quote from one side. Beginning to wake up. Coffee is working.