The value of "Letters to the Editor" in daily newspapers

In a recent posting, we complained about the lack of coverage by American media of the traditional, long-standing Olympic sports, notably Track & Field. We remarked that such sports as gymnastics, swimming, and beach volleyball, while themselves respectable, were emphasized disproportionately, that this was the case because NBC (National Broadcasting Network) was delivering audiences to its sponsors while disrespecting history, the perception being that few people these days would prefer Track & Field over swimming and volleyball. We will never know.

In any case, we take note of a recent Letter to the Editor in the Los Angeles Times Sports Section which agreed with our critique of the abysmal television coverage not only of Track & Field, but of many of the other 28 sports represented at the Beijing Olympics, allowing us to understand that others may share our view. The letter, written by Ric Taylor of Los Angeles, read:

"I don't have cable, and like an idiot I tuned into NBC's Olympic coverage. I wanted to see the world's best athletes compete in 28 sports, and as usual, NBC showed me basically four: gymnastics, volleyball (indoor and beach), basketball, and swimming (including every Michael Phelps event).

This wasn't the Olympics, this was "Americans winning medals." Now excuse me, I have to go watch the closing ceremony and the last sports event of NBC's coverage--Americans playing volleyball."

The deeper point of all this is that American media has moved ever more sharply in servicing the interests of their employers--the corporate owners of most of the nation's media. Yet it is one thing to complain about an imbalance in the coverage of athletic competition, it is quite another when viewed from the perspective of political coverage: How is Change-of-Government reported by the American media? How is the United States' foreign policy covered? Is American media moved and shaken by the same corporate ownership and their interests, in this case political interests? The answer is resoundingly, "Yes."

We print below a paraphrase of an interview between media critic Robert W. McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Suzi Weissman, professor of political science and Los Angeles radio host.

McChesney: I'm talking about the political economy of the media. We must ask who are the media? What kinds of issues do they raise? Much of current over-the-air and cable television programming during prime time reveals that American viewing audiences are obsessed with celebrities, scandal, sex, and death. Of the latter, Americans have particularly supported programs dealing with the forensics of death; that is, they appear unnaturally interested in cadavers whose live bodies experienced violent death. This is unsettling. It all projects an odd panarama of the carnival and the morbid as displayed in the viewing habits of the American television audience.

Yet, from this same media, the media we depend upon to mediate the politics and other important areas of our culture, we hear not much about the pressing needs of most Americans: rising food and fuel prices, the 7,000 houses being repossessed daily, (that is, the plummeting economy). Few in the media discuss much the loss of respect for the United States by other nations in the world; few discuss or analyze in a sustaining way the environment and what sacrifices we might consider to preserve it. In fact, environmentalists are often ridiculed as "tree huggers" and the like by the right wing, corporate owned media. Would you rather drink the water overseen by a "tree hugger" or the water downstream of a Jack Welch run company?

Even so, surveys indicate that most Americans are not enthusiastic about war and empire. They are, however, concerned about the growth of inequality and the collapse of health care system. Clearly, the Right Wing's mantra of "Let business run everything" has been completely exposed as a non governmental, non regulated approach to running a society. (Read non productive for most Americans). The evidence of ruin lies all about us: People paying more that thirty percent of their income on rent; "About 10.4% of the entire African-American male population in the United States aged 25 to 29 is in prison, by far the largest racial or ethnic group." (2,299,116 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails – an increase of 1.8% from year end 2006. Yes, societies need formal governance by fairly elected representatives. Yes, civilized political cultures require regulatory bodies that function properly.

What is the responsibility of media? It is to mediate the truth of what occurs politically and otherwise in human affairs. The role of media is to define important political and social issues while placing them side-by-side with similar historical events thereby putting current events into perspective, a perspective which enables citizens to make sound decisions.

All this is not occurring. All this is not the case. What has happened to change how media works in the United States? Answer: CORPORATE CONTROL, ADVERTISING SUPPORT, and CONCENTRATED MEDIA MARKETS in which owners mediate their own political views. The fact is journalists working for corporate owners HAVE INTERNALIZED THE VALUES and the desired range of debate of those owners.

The fact is American journalists are largely politically liberal, but they do not write and report the news that way; they report it to the RIGHT because they internalize the values of their employers, the owners of the media; they are pointed toward asking certain kinds of questions while not asking others; they emphasize certain themes at the expense of others); example: It is not a "legitimate" issue to debate the "right" of the United States to invade other countries.

In effect, people in power set the themes in the news cycle and how those themes will be interpreted. For example, the United States invades Iraq by using lies and deceiving the American people, but criticizes Russia for invading Georgia.

The sustained right wing attack on journalists, saying that they report with liberal bias has left Americans believing that reportage has a left-leaning bias. The two ideas do not cohere. It is not a fact that journalists, liberal in their private views, report the news with a left-leaning bias. The opposite is true and can be shown. The point: A society can not hope to be politically literate unless it has the opportunity to experience viable, balanced journalism, particularly at the local level.

The Internet is not necessarily the solution to the problem. People can not simply go online and read blogs to become informed (including this blog). Blogs are important, but they are the improvisers of information, they do not gather the information nor decide which themes will be emphasized. Blogs merely play off themes by repeating them and interpreting them. As we have noted, television certainly proves not the cure for these ills unless you change the programming, and this will not occur so long as corporations own the airways and choose which programming to put on the air. As we have seen, they prefer the culture of celebrity, scandal, and cadavers.

Good journalism involves journalists going after those in power on all levels. You will find a few of those journalists still working for some of the nation's large newspapers, but more certainly you find their work in small, non corporate print journals such as The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Harper's, and such online media as The Huffington Review, Counterpoint, and of course, Media Matters. Finally, don't forget to read the Letters to the Editor to monitor what your fellow citizens are thinking, even if it only applies to televised coverage of the Olympic Games.

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Pictures may speak volumes

Many words may be spoken about the elaborate opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Outperforming the opening of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, for example. That's saying something since "Hollywood" helped produce that ceremony. And we thought communists were supposed to be boring.


Not when they run the third largest economy in the world and currently produce more billionaires than the other economic juggernauts.

Be that as it may, like many onlookers, I was moved by the guileless beauty of the Chinese children, the sound and light issuing from the stadium, and the athletes parading before the crowd. An element of hopefulness briefly emerged from the deep well of cynical, political reality. Then, in the final phase of the pageant a group of stern-looking, goose-stepping Chinese soldiers porting the Olympic flag and raising it cleared the brain of its sentiment.

I reflected that in the ancient games in Olympia, Greece all militant actions of war were put off. All ornaments and military trappings were set aside. Here we have the Chinese military goose-stepping with the flag, its five rings representing the five major regions of the globe firmly in their grasp.

Then again, we know that Chinese soldiers have been used for purposes other than military engagement before, as when they were ordered to don Buddhist robes in order to impersonate Tibetan monks in a movie. Is the word propaganda out of order? Note the red robes in the soldiers' arms in the photograph below.








But was this really so contradictory a conclusion to the opening ceremony? After all, Baron Pierre de Coubertin who conceived and promoted the revival of the modern Olympics at the beginning of the last century "...was convinced that the sports-centered English public school system of the late 19th century was the rock upon which the vast and majestic British empire rested."

On with the games.

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If you can't write, how can you be a good consumer or voter?!

The U.S. Department of Education has found in its "Nation's Report Card" (National Assessment of Educational Progress) that only in the City of Cleveland have students scored worse in writing skills than Los Angeles.

Nationally, "private school students scored higher than public school students, and Catholic school students scored the highest of all." Perhaps most interestingly, eighth grade girls are twice as likely to "score at proficient levels than boys."

Because Los Angeles has many immigrant children learning to write in English, its average grade has remained low each year. It is important to add that "California students fluent in English score near the national average. But let's look closely at the national average? "The report makes clear that many American students have barely a basic grasp on written expression of English, with just over a third of eighth-graders and fewer than one-quarter of 12th-graders scoring at or above the "proficient" level in writing.

Doesn't bode well for Democracy, not to mention literate consumers in the largest consumer economy in the world.

As writing goes, so goes the ability to discern truth, as truth goes, so goes the democracy

Language Truth & Logic, and the Essay Form

If we are simply a nation which absorbs information through sound bites (see below) and have become "visual junkies" deficient in our abilities to read information in full context, how can we be literate users of information in the world-at-large? That is, how can we be good consumers in a consumer marketplace, or more importantly, truly informed voters in a democratic republic? If we cannot write or think in a literate fashion, how can we test the truth of an idea?

The argument for writing literacy (the essay and documented paper form) goes like this: If a means of verifying truth is brought by studying the propositions found in sentences, and sentences are used to build arguments in everything from commercial promotions to political speeches, then we need to teach writing as a means of thinking. In this way writing can be used by a thoughtful public to improve its own social condition. Here, we are not referring to elementary reading and writing, that is, merely decoding language in order to read a cereal box or scribble on a Post-it note, but something much more.

Have we become reduced to a society of specialists who may be "numerate" ("good at counting beans") and who increasingly turn to electronic games for diversion, or can we return to mid twentieth century form and once again value literacy (skill at using language as a tool for thinking)?

In mid last century, philosophers (logical positivists) like Alfred Jules Ayer spent their careers trying to determine, through language, how ideas can be verified. These people might have been moved by their experience of living through the attack on language (and democracy) brought by Fascism. Nevertheless, what concerned them then should concern us now. (Isn't it obvious?). We must decide if such endeavors in our schools (and out of them--grownups can continue to practice thinking!) are useful or not. Or, do we prefer the narcotized state of the world of sound bites and meaningless visual glitter currently raining down upon us? Has our ability to think become so much confetti?

Soundbite: In film and broadcasting a soundbite is a very short piece of footage taken from a longer speech or an interview in which someone with authority or the average "man on the street" says something which is considered by those who edit the speech or interview to be the most important point. As the context of what is being said is missing, the insertion of soundbites into news broadcasts or documentaries is open to manipulation and thus requires a very high degree of journalistic ethics. Politicians of the new generation are carefully coached by their spin doctors to produce on-demand sound bites which are clear and to the point.

Professor Ayer, referred to above, formulated that a sentence can only be meaningful if it has verifiable empirical import, otherwise it is either "analytical" if tautologous, or "metaphysical" (i.e. meaningless, or "literally senseless"). (Wikipedia).

Don't be daunted by all this. Get with it. Support writing as a tool for thinking. The essay form remains an unexcelled platform to teach thinking and to test it in others. How many of us "numerate bean counters" are truly literate?

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The elephant in the room, plagiarism in America

Tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva, translation: "You will get nothing written or created unless Minerva helps." Horace 65-8 B.C.

While the Roman goddess of wisdom and patroness of the arts might have helped Horace and his peers in ancient Rome, praying to the goddess in our own time to produce an essay or paper certainly won't work. Actually, Horace might have been waxing poetic, something he did quite well in his Odes, for he had been practically educated by the "best Roman grammarian" as a young man, after which he enrolled in the University of Athens. William Rose Benét, The Reader's Encyclopedia.

Thus, Horace did not actually require the aid of Minerva but learned the art of writing painstakingly resulting in his practicing it artfully. The name "Horace" put after Horace's writing meant that Horace actually wrote the piece, a fact that comforts us if we read his writing. Yet you don't have to be Horace to provide this comfort, this may be said of anyone who writes.

Modern student writers might not have Minerva to turn to, but rather, the Internet, and it is not for inspiration but for the practice of plagiarism. Put in the key words "essay writing help," and you will find ingenuous parties willing to teach the art of writing. Put in "Moby Dick essay help," or "Moby Dick paper help," or "Death of a Salesman essay help," etc. and you will find plenty of services willing to either sell you a paper or compose one for you. An example promotion from such an on-line service follows:

"Over 40,000 of our high-quality term papers, essays, book reports, course works, and research papers are available for SAME-DAY, email delivery at only $39.99 each—regardless of length! To place an order, please use our...." and more,

"Our premium search engine enables you to browse thousands of unique term papers, essay topics, reviews, book reports, research papers, and Moby Dick coursework essays that are NOT available through our $39.99 service."

We assume the service adds this latter information to indicate that it is leading the purchaser to "helpful resources." Perhaps, but also leading to resources which one may conveniently plagiarize, and why should not the student be trained to accomplish this feat on his/her own? The essay service quoted above offers a link to a website attempting to legitimately confront the problem of plagiarism called Essayfraud.org. Yet, one need not be a cynic to view this linking by the essay service as a self-serving ploy for credibility.

At a time in the United States when "math & science" mastery is urged, we should not forget mastery of the language in written and oral form. Is linguistic literacy equally important to math & science numeracy? We argue a firm "Yes," and add rhetorically, what are the qualities we desire in citizens living in a market economy and political democracy? We may add with emphasis, what are requisite qualities of worthy "citizen/consumers?"

Recently, one of the better private schools in Los Angeles experienced a cheating scandal resulting in the expulsion or suspension of students who had stolen a test. Observed the headmaster of the school, "I've been at the school for 21 years, and I have never heard of an exam or test being stolen." One wonders how many headmasters, principals, classroom instructors, or parents realize how many papers are not written by students but plagiarized. Here, we are not referring to those students who work earnestly with their teachers or tutors as apprentices learning an art, but rather those who simply order their paper off the Internet. This is the "elephant in the room" no one speaks of.

The Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles revealed in a recent survey that "young people display deeply entrenched habits of dishonesty." Additionally, the "2006 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth" (a survey conducted every two years) found high rates of cheating, lying, and theft...(and that) 60% of students said they had cheated on a test, and one in three used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment" (emphasis mine), (Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times).

Post Script: Recently, we learn in a headline: "Bush aide quits over plagiarism" James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times). Sub headline: "White House liaison to conservative groups admitted lifting material for newspaper columns he wrote." This individual, who wound up in the highest level of federal government, undoubtedly was one of the three who cheated earlier on in his "education." Oddly, one of his essays included the plagiarized words: "The goal of education is to form the citizen." "The citizen" indicating an ethical person who makes wise decisions.

To return to Horace, it was said of him that "his personality was always evident" in his writing. What are we to think of those "one-in-three" who cheat. What is their personality? What do they really think? Do educators believe they are "forming" two out of three ethical "citizens"? If so, is 66% a worthy goal?

While skipping the Latin, we end with Horace: "You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one (piece of writing) seem original." We may add, the skill having been learned by the writer of the original piece as well as the earnest apprentice. Horace would flinch at skilful copying. Attributing proper recognition to those who originate intellectual materials is a seemly approach toward cultivating good citizens from every crop of students. Citizens, who in turn, help formulate decent cultures.

Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing chastens nonreaders, Take Note!

Author's note: I'm hopeful the content of this blog comports with Ms. Lessing's standards indicated below. Nevertheless, we all need to act in tempered ways once we walk through the URL gateway if we are to reemerge productive members of our respective cultures.

The British writer Doris Lessing casts a cold, sad eye on those nations whose "educated" classes no longer read. Below, an excerpt from the speech Doris Lessing wrote on accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007:

"What has happened to us is an amazing invention -- computers and the Internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked, What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print? In the same way, we never thought to ask, How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by this Internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc.

Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education, and our great store of literature. Of course, we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning. But it is on record that working men and women longed for books, and this is evidenced by the founding of working men's libraries and institutes, the colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reading, books, used to be part of a general education.

Older people, talking to young ones, must understand just how much of an education reading was, because the young ones know so much less. And if children cannot read, it is because they have not read.

...The storyteller is deep inside every one of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is ravaged by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise. But the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us--for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative."

Be a reader. On occasion, experience a story through the lens of your mind instead of the dictatorial lens of the camera. Not that all is lost on the Big Screen. Recently found through email, a comment on Daniel Day Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood, based upon the Upton Sinclair novel, Big Oil, which you are encouraged to read after experiencing the movie.

"Last night, after experiencing the movie There Will Be Blood, I had the distinct feeling, still do, that Daniel Day-Lewis' bravura performance may not be outdone in my lifetime. That’s saying a lot, I realize, but it may come true. Two forces came together to make it happen, Day-Lewis’ rare abilities linked with cultivated discipline, and writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's savvy in staging an opportunity for the powerful actor to gather the momentum necessary for rendering a herculean performance. Here, I speak of both script, (even though flawed) and a set "to play in" (to paraphrase Day-Lewis). Give Anderson credit also for drawing upon Upton Sinclair’s novel Big Oil for inspiration. Paul Dano was accomplished in his work, providing a helpful counterpoint for Lewis to complete his masterful interpretation of the Daniel Plainview character."

How Long Can a Democracy Or Even a Market Place Last Without a Literate Public? Oh Yes, And What About the Arts?

A recent report released by the National Endowment for the Arts finds that "an increasing number of adult Americans were not even reading one book a year." Further bad news: 72% of high school graduates were "deemed by their employers as 'deficient' in writing."

NEA chairman Dana Gioia emphasizes that 9-year olds read well, indicating that elementary grade educators are succeeding; while 17-year olds who "never or hardly ever" read for pleasure has doubled, to 19%, with a consequent diminishing of their comprehension scores. The cause: a lack of "counterbalancing the electronic culture" kids enter after age 9.

The report emphasizes that "literary readers" are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work, demonstrating that reading "creates people who are more active....(and that) People who don't read, who spend most of their time watching television or on the Internet, or playing video games, seem to be significantly more passive. Finally, the report projects that at a time not so far off, "The majority of young Americans will not realize their individual, economic or social potential."

The above implied commentary quoted liberally from an article in the Los Angeles Times written by Hillel Italie of the Associated Press called, "Writing's on the wall, but who will read it?"

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