Jackson Free Press

This issue marks the beginning of Volume 7 for the Jackson Free Press—our seventh year in business. We love these milestones here at the JFP not only because they mean we're still here—always a plus—but also because they give us an opportunity to reflect on the state of Jackson, its creative class community, and the progress that we've made together as writers, readers, artists, activists, merchants, citizens and others who strive to make Jackson a better place.

We do exactly that in this issue, which follows our birthday tradition of taking a look at the "development fever" in Jackson that's taken over large swaths of downtown. This year, we may be seeing a workable plan for Farish Street, and a nice little influx of downtown and urban-dwelling residential for a variety of Jackson neighborhoods. (See Adam Lynch's cover story starting on page 14.)

Last week, Donna Ladd and I got an opportunity for a week-long vacation on the Florida Coast that even the reports of last week's Hurricane Ike couldn't keep us away from. It was an interesting time to get away, wedged between two issues that are generally pretty big for us—the Fall Arts Preview and our Anniversary Issue—but that time offered an opportunity for some much-needed relaxation and reflection.

We left much of the production of these issues in capable hands—Events Editor Vince Falconi was the key driver on the Fall Arts Preview (hopefully, you got a copy last week to keep on your coffee table for the next few months), while Adam, Maggie Burks and Melissa Webster have held down the fort on both issues, while Ronni Mott has been chasing some amazing stories about Gov. Sarah Palin, "paleo-conservatives" and secessionists. Oh, my!

On the beach, I thought as little as possible about the Jackson Free Press—not to mention Jackson, Melton, printing bills, payroll and skyrocketing gas prices—but occasionally I reflected on the past six years. And when I did that, my thoughts wandered where they often do: to the future of journalism, the need for community journalism and the damn crying shame that is the mainstream media in this country.

Two stories that dominated the headlines last week brought it home for me—the "sample ballot" controversy in Mississippi and the McCain/Palin campaign's, er, challenges with the truth.

On the national level, McCain's "Hail Mary" pass of choosing the relatively unknown Sarah Palin as his running mate (and their successful domination of the news cycle that followed) passed into an intriguing "McGamble" phase, wherein the McCain campaign seems dead set on "changing the game" by lying with gusto while blaming the media when it takes them to task. It's a gamble worthy of the 21st century, where ethics in national journalism is at such an ebb that it may, in fact, be perfectly acceptable to just keep lying about the earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere and rely on the media's so-called "balance" to keep uncertainty in the air.

This time it's pretty brazen—Bush/Rove were at least a bit more coy in their dissembling—but we'll have to wait and see how it plays out for Team Maverick. (Kudos to ABC news not so much on "Charlie" Gibson's interviewing as for the fact that they've been doggedly tagging their coverage of Palin's stump speeches with snippets of actual truth. And note she left out the "Bridge to Nowhere" line in Alaska, where they know the real story—she was for it even after Congress was against it.)

Meanwhile, back on the homefront, The Clarion-Ledger headlines Gov. Barbour's most recent power grab in this way: "Opinions Jumble Ballot Debate." (You know, if The Clarion-Ledger ever ran a "Man Bites Dog" story, their headline would read "In Man-Canine Dispute, Blood Drawn.")

The actual news in that piece was the legal opinion the attorney general of the state of Mississippi has given in this case; but to read the Clarion-Ledger, it's just "he said, he said." The governor said this, the AG said that. Then, to further "balance" the piece, the C-L quotes the private attorney hired by Barbour and Hosemann to argue the case in Judge Tomie Green's courtroom.

Steeped in this "coverage," locally and nationally, I took note of a brilliant line by liberal blogger and muckraking reporter Josh Marshall: "Of all the shortcomings of the establishment press today, none is more central to the corruption of the profession than the decision to prioritize balance over accuracy."

Balance over accuracy. He was talking specifically about a Los Angeles Times piece that tried to balance exaggerations from the Obama campaign with the outright distortions and demonstrable falsehoods from the McCain campaign.

But the notion of "balance over accuracy" is something that can be equally applied to the way The Clarion-Ledger reports nearly every day. Over our six years we've seen it again and again—with tort reform, with Frank Melton, with plant shootings, with Barbour's special-sessions shenanigans and now with this upcoming election in Mississippi.

For people who don't spend 51 weeks a year working at a newspaper, maybe this feels like insider baseball. But the truth is, when the dominant media makes a practice of punting on accuracy and settles for pitting two opinions against each other, you end up with a citizenry that is not fully informed. Often, it's simply inaccurate to present two "sides" of a story as "equal," particularly when one is demonstrably unequal to the other.

A "balanced" media might say, "Well, all candidates lie." Whereas an accurate media might say, "Good God Almighty—did she just say 'No Thanks' about that Bridge again?"

Locally, a newspaper focused on accuracy might ask why the governor seems so hell-bent on taking his sample ballot to the Supreme Court if, you know, shucks, it's not like it'll affect the votin' none.

Our ethic? Stick with accuracy. Do the best we can to ask the tough questions, ferret out the truth and report it. We strive for the truth, and let the partisan chips fall where they may. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat (Mr. Mayor) or a Republican (Mr. Governor); when the JFP calls, we'll be looking for an answer, not a sound bite.

I wonder if that's why neither of y'all will return our calls?

Previous Commentsshow

This Washington Post column takes on the point Todd is making about media putting "balance" over accuracy: Economists are not generally known for their lyrical phrasing. But the other day, one told me something about the election that has stuck with me: He cautioned against succumbing to the "symmetry of sin." This unexpected snippet of political poetry, from a Democrat advising Barack Obama, was prompted by my expressed desire to hold both campaigns accountable for their lapses from good policy and honest argument. At which point my eloquent economist invoked the lure of false symmetry. He was peddling a self-interested, but important, point: All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency. In the 2008 race, and especially in the past few weeks, the imbalance has become unnervingly stark. Ideological differences aside, John McCain's campaign has been more dishonest, more unfair, more -- to use a word that resonates with McCain -- dishonorable than Barack Obama's.

DonnaLadd

Sep 17 2008

Happy birthday, JFP, and many more! Love the look, Todd. :P

LatashaWillis

Sep 18 2008

Here's what Time's Joe Klein is saying about Liar-Gate—and how a desperate McCain has just gone too far: Almost every politician stretches the truth. We journalists try to point out the exaggerations and criticize them, then let the voters decide. When McCain says, for example, that Barack Obama favors a government-run health-care system, he's not telling the truth — Obama wants a market-based system subsidized by the government — but McCain's untruth illuminates a general policy direction, which is sketchy but sort of within the bounds. (Obama's plan would increase government regulation of the drug and insurance industries.) Obama has done this sort of thing too. In July, he accused McCain of supporting the foreign buyout of an American company that could lead to the loss of about 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. McCain did support the deal, but the job loss comes many years later and was not anticipated at the time. That, however, is where the moral equivalency between these two campaigns ends. McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics. Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting "lipstick on a pig" was another clearly misleading attack — an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the "élite media" for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life — actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press — was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions. It seems the real "Hail Mary" is not the Palin pick—but McCain's willingness to ruin his own reputation and legacy by running what it becoming one of the sleaziest campaigns in memory.

DonnaLadd

Sep 18 2008

Gail Collins dissects the new McCain; the "Socialist" line is classic: olks were wildly enthusiastic as the event began. That was partly because Sarah Palin was also on the bill. (With Todd!) And when McCain took the center stage, they were itching to cheer the war hero and boo all references to pork-barrel spenders. Nobody had warned them that he had just morphed into a new persona — a raging populist demanding more regulation of the nation’s financial system. And since McCain’s willingness to make speeches that have nothing to do with his actual beliefs is not matched by an ability to give them, he wound up sounding like Bob Dole impersonating Huey Long. Really, if McCain is going to keep changing into new people, the campaign should send out notices. (Come to a rally for the next president of the United States. Today he’s a vegetarian!) “We’re going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street — enough is enough!” this new incarnation yelled, complaining angrily about greed and overpaid C.E.O.’s. Slowly, people begin to peel out of the crowd and drift away. Even in these troubled times, there are apparently a number of Republicans who think highly of corporate executives and captains of high finance. [...] It is also disconcerting, of course, to hear the Republicans rail against Washington as if the Socialist Workers Party had been running things there for the last eight years. But really, what would you do if you were McCain? There aren’t a lot of options, and he never did like George W. anyway. This new tactic is different. McCain has always, genuinely, believed in dismantling government regulations, and there he was, vowing to create new “comprehensive regulations that will apply the rules and enforce them to the fullest.” It makes you think that he’s trying to impersonate something he’s not. Or wasn’t. Or might not be. The image is getting fuzzy.

DonnaLadd

Sep 18 2008

Chartjunk does a good job debunking claims about the candidate's proposed tax cuts, by simply putting the cuts in proper perspective by population. If you read the text, you come across this word: truthier. Now if that's not a word for American politics in 2008... should it's corollary be "lie-ier"?

Ronni_Mott

Sep 18 2008