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Compelled Speech & Corporations

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I include a section on the media in my critical thinking class and have, over the years, pointed out the ever-increasing media consolidation. One of the major consolidators is Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which own almost 200 local stations and is poised to expand this ownership. One obvious concern about media consolidation is that, by definition, it puts more and more control of the news into fewer and fewer hands. This reduces the options of news consumers and increases the chances of biases dominating the news. This should, obviously enough, concern people on the left on the right—there is no monopoly on bias or media ownership by the left or the right.

It might be objected that consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing, and, in fact, it has some benefits. For example, a large corporation can fund investigative journalism in a way that small operations cannot. As far as the concerns about consolidation, it could be claimed that this is only a problem when companies use their control in nefarious ways, something they surely would not do because of, perhaps, the free market.  The easy and obvious reply is to point out what critics of the “liberal media” have been saying for years about the bias in media.  This bias is, obviously enough, not limited to the left-wing media, as demonstrated by Sinclair’s heavy-handed, Russian style exercise in compelling local anchors to read a script denouncing their fellow journalists.

Deadspin created a video collage of the anchors reading from their script for the corporation, which would have been hilarious if it were a parody and not reality. While some have attacked the stations and anchors that participated (not all of them did), this is clearly unfair. If the anchors believed what they read, then they should not be condemned for being “cowards.” If the anchors did not believe what they read, they should no more be condemned than should hostages forced to read the propaganda of their captors. While Sinclair did not threaten to fire a gun at the employees if they did not comply, there is the clear threat of being fired for not doing what the owners say. While some might still call them cowards for not risking their jobs to take a principled stand, this is a great deal to expect from a person in the economic system we live in. While they obviously would not be killed, being out of work is seriously harmful in the United States. Naturally, anyone who criticizes them as cowards should give serious thought to whether they would risk their job to take such a stand. It can, of course, be claimed that the employees were really not at risk of any reprisals and that the worries of the workers are based on delusions. However, the evidence seems to show that many of the anchors felt compelled to read the script.  I turn now to the matter of compelled speech.

The subject of compelled speech has figured prominently in some recent court cases. One involves the baker who has argued that being forced to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple would be compelled speech. Another features a compelled speech argument against compelling employees to pay fees to unions offset the costs of representation. In these cases, the general argument is that the right to free speech includes the right against compelled speech and thus forcing the baker to bake the cake or the employee to pay fees would be wrong. If this argument has merit, it would also seem to apply to the Sinclair case: forcing employees to engage in compelled speech by reading the script would be wrong.

The easy and obvious counter to this is to point out that the 1st Amendment forbids Congress from making any law abridging the freedom of speech. It says nothing about employers restricting, punishing or compelling their employees regarding speech. Workers, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, do have a constitutional right to talk politics, but no such right to keep their job. As such, Sinclair compelling its workers to speak seems to be perfectly legal. Sinclair is not unique in this—companies do compel workers to engage in partisan political activities and, ironically, do so under the protection of their own free speech rights. There are also those who claim that this practice of compelled speech is standard in the industry, insisting that what Sinclair did was no big deal, because what about CNN and MSNBC?  The fact that it is legal does not, of course, entail that it should remain legal. After all, discrimination and sexual harassment by employers used to be not be illegal, but now are. As such, laws could be created protecting employees from compelled speech. However, there would need to be a compelling reason for such laws.

One obvious argument can be built around the professional ethics of journalists and editorialists. Journalists, as the Sinclair script notes, should not be pushing a biased agenda or engaging in false news. They should, of course, be presenting the truth and making it clear where the facts end, and opinion begins. If an employer compels a journalist to advance a biased agenda or present fake news, then this would be a violation of professional ethics.

While editorialists are in the business of presenting opinions, they are supposed to present their honest opinions and make it clear where their opinion ends and the opinion of another begins. As such, compelling them to express views that are not their own would also be a violation of professional ethics. Compelling journalists and editorialists in this manner would be somewhat analogous to the owner of a hospital compelling doctors to lie to patients, so they could make more money with unnecessary treatments. Both are clear violations of professional ethics.

One might object that as paid employees, they are obligated to speak as their employer requires. If they do not like the work they do, they can quit. The easy and obvious reply is that there is already a job whose professional ethics requires that the employee do just that: the paid spokesperson. If a media employee is to be compelled to speak, they must be properly identified as paid spokespeople and not wear the false mantle of being a journalist or editorialist.

There are legitimate concerns with how laws to protect professionals from compelled speech would be crafted and some might claim that this would be too hard or too harmful to employers. However, protecting professional ethics and preserving the moral right against compelled speech is no harder than crafting other laws and balancing harms. It must also be noted that such laws would need to be narrowly written to protect employees from certain types of compelled speech while avoiding harming the legitimate interests of employers. Since corporations are incredibly devoted to free speech rights, their moral principles should compel them to get on board with protecting the free speech rights of the people who work for them. To do otherwise would be inconsistent and hypocritical. Unless, of course, corporations are a better sort of people than real people.

 

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Fake News V: Fake vs Real

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One of the challenges in combatting fake news is developing a principled distinction between fake and real news. One reason for this is providing a defense against the misuse of the term “fake news” to attack news on ideological or other irrelevant grounds. I make no pretense of being able to present a necessary and sufficient definition of fake news, but I will endeavor to make a rough sketch of how the real should be distinguished from the fake. My approach is built around three attributes: intention, factuality, and methodology. I will consider each in turn.

While determining a person’s intent can be challenging, intent does serve to differentiate fake news from real news. An obvious comparison here is to lying in general—a lie is not simply making an untrue claim, but making such a claim with an intent (typically malicious) to deceive. There are, of course, benign deceits—such as those of the arts.

There are some forms of fake news, namely those aimed at being humorous, that are benign in intent. The Onion, for example, aims to entertain as does Duffel Blog and Andy Borowitz. Being comedic in nature, they fall under the protective umbrella of art: they say untrue things to make people laugh. Though they are technically fake news, they are benign in their fakery and hence should not be treated as malicious fake news.

Other fake news operators, such as those behind the stories about Comet Ping Pong Pizza, seem to have different intentions. Some claim they created fake news with a benign intent—they wanted people to become more critical of the news. Assuming this was the intent, it did not seem to work out as they hoped. To their credit, they wanted to fail in their deceit—but this is as morally problematic as having a trusted figure lie to people about important things to try to teach them to be skeptical. As such, this sort of fake news is to be condemned.

Some also operate fake news to make a profit. Since news agencies also intend to make a profit, this does not differentiate the fake from the real. However, those engaged in real news do not intend to deceive to profit, whereas the fake news operators use deceit as a tool in their money-making endeavors. This is certainly something to be condemned.

Others engage in fake news for ideological reasons or to achieve political goals; their intent is to advance their agenda with intentional deceits. The classic defense of this approach is utilitarian: the good done by the lies outweighs their harm (for the morally relevant beings). While truly noble lies could be morally justified, the usual lies of fake news seem to not aim at the general good, but the advancement of a specific agenda that is likely to create more harm than good. Since this matter is so complicated, it is fortunate that the matter of fake news is much simpler: deceit presented as real news is fake news; even if the action could be justified on utilitarian grounds.

In the case of real news, the intent is to present claims that are believed to be true. This might be with the goal of profit, but it is the intent to provide truth that makes the difference. Naturally, working out intent can be challenging—but there is a fact of the matter as to why people do what they do. Real news might also be presented with the desire to advance an agenda, but if the intent is also to provide truth, then the news would remain real.

In regards to factuality, an important difference between fake and real news is that the real news endeavors to offer facts and the fake news does not. A fact is a claim that has been established as true (to the requisite degree) and this is a matter of methodology, which will be discussed below.

Factual claims are claims that are objective. This means that they are true or false regardless of how people think, feel or believe about them. For example, the claim that the universe contains dark matter is a factual claim. Factual claims can at least in theory, be verified or disproven. In contrast, non-factual claims are not objective and cannot be verified or disproven. As such, there can be no “fake” non-factual claims.

It might be tempting to protect the expression of values (moral, political, aesthetic and so on) in the news from accusations of being fake news by arguing that they are non-factual claims and thus cannot be fake news. The problem is that while many uncritically believe value judgments are not objective, this is actually a matter of considerable dispute. To assume that value claims are not factual claims would be to beg the question. But, to assume they are would also beg the question. Since I cannot hope to solve this problem, I will instead endeavor to sketch a practical guide to the difference.

In terms of non-value factual claims of the sort that appear in the news, there are established methods for testing them. As such, the way to distinguish the fake from the real is by consideration of the methodology used (and applying the relevant method).

In the case of value claims, such as the claim that reducing the size of government is the morally right thing to do, there are not such established methods to determine the truth (and there might be no truth in this context). As such, while such claims and any arguments supporting them can be criticized, they should not be regarded as news as such. Thus, they could not be fake news.

As a final point, it is also worth considering the matter of legitimate controversy. There are some factual matters that are legitimately in dispute. While not all the claims can be right (and all could be wrong), this does not entail that the claims are fake news. Because of this, to brand one side or the other as being fake news simple because one disagrees with that side would be unjustified. For example, whether imposing a specific tariff would help the economy is a factual matter, but one that could be honestly debated. I now turn to methodology.

It might be wondered why the difference between fake and real news is not presented entirely in terms of one making fake claims and the other making true claims. The reason for this is that a real news could turn out to be untrue and fake news could turn out to be correct. In terms of real news errors, reporters do make mistakes, sources are not always accurate, and so on. By pure chance, a fake news story could get the facts right, but it would not be thus real news. The critical difference between fake and real news is thus the methodology. This can be supported by drawing an analogy to science.

What differentiates real science from fake science is not that one gets it right and the other gets it wrong. Rather, it is a matter of methodology. This can be illustrated by using the dispute over dark matter in physics. If it turns out that dark matter does not exist, this would not show that the scientists were doing fake science. It would just show that they were wrong. Suppose that instead of dark matter, what is really going on is that normal matter in a parallel universe is interacting with our universe. Since I just made this up, I would not be doing real science just because my imagination happened to get it right.

Another analogy can be made to math. As any math teacher will tell you, it is not a matter of just getting the right answer, it is a matter of getting the right answer the right way. Hence the eternal requirement of showing one’s work. A person could simply guess at the answer at the problem and get it right; but they are not doing real math because they are not even doing math. Naturally, a person can be doing real math and still get the answer wrong.

Assuming these analogies hold, real news is a matter of methodology—a methodology that might fail. Many of the methods of real news are, not surprisingly, similar to the methods of critical thinking in philosophy. For example, there is the proper use of the argument from authority as the basis for claims. As another example, there are the methods of assessing unsupported claims against one’s own observations, one’s background information and against credible claims.

The real news uses this methodology and evidence of it is present in the news, such as identified sources, verifiable data, and so on. While a fake news story can also contain fakery about methodology, this is a key matter of distinction. Because of this, news that is based on the proper methodology would be real news, even if some might disagree with its content.

 

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Fake News IV: The Role of the State

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While there has been considerable speculation about the impact of fake news on the election, the recent incident at Comet Ping Pong Pizza shows that fake news can cause real harm. Since one duty of the state is to protect citizens from harm, this leads to the matter of the proper role of the state in regards to fake news.

While people typically base their beliefs about a policy on how they feel, such matters need to be approached based on the consistent application of a principle about what the state should or should not do. “The state should do what I want and not do what I do not want” is no more adequate as a principle of policy than it would be as a principle of law. As such, a proper principle is needed.

Starting with the assumption that the state has a responsibility to protect citizens from harm, it follows that a key part of the principle would be based on this responsibility. The challenge is sorting out whether the harms inflicted by fake news fall under this responsibility.

One reasonable way to approach this is to consider the significance of the harms. As a practical matter, the state cannot afford to expend its resources protecting citizens from all the minor harms. As such, the harms caused by fake news would need to be significant enough to cross this practical threshold. There are two clear points of dispute here. One is the threshold for state involvement in protecting citizens. The other is whether fake news meets that threshold.

As noted above, some claim the fake news impacted the election, perhaps causing Trump’s victory. The manipulation of voters through lies does seem like a significant harm to the citizens who were robbed of an honest decision. The easy counter to this is that politicians often win by lying and these lies are not regarded as falling under the compulsive power of the state. This could be objected to by saying that such lies should be forbidden, but this goes beyond the scope of this short essay.

The Comet Ping Pong Pizza incident does serve as single example of the harm fake news can do—a person who believes a fake story might decide to engage in criminal activity based on that fake news. The easy counter to this is that one incident, even if it is vivid, does not suffice to show that there is a threat of significant harm. It could be countered that even one incident is too many and that the state must step in to protect the citizens.

The response to this is that the incident does not seem serious enough to warrant general state action against fake news and there is the obvious concern about whether there will even be other incidents. The state should only use its coercive power to the degree the harms are significant and likely to occur.

The fact that this matter involves the freedom of expression also complicates things. If the state were to create the machinery to control fake news, this would set a precedent for the gradual expansion of this power. After all, the state tends to expand its powers rather than curtail them. It is easy enough to imagine the control of fake news expanding outward from factual untruths to include matters of ideology. While this slide is not guaranteed, such expansions of power into the realm of basic liberty need to be regarded with due concern. While I am worried about fake news, I do not think it is yet significant enough to justify using the coercive power of the state. There are some obvious exceptions, such as when fake news breaks existing laws (such as libel or slander laws).

But, suppose that the harms of fake news are significant enough to warrant the attention of the state even in the face of the freedom of expression. While this would be a step towards justifying the use of the coercive power of the state, there is still another point of consideration. This is the matter of whether citizens and non-government organizations are unwilling or unable to effectively address the problem. If citizens can adequately address the harms without the state using its coercive power, then it is preferable to have the state remain uninvolved. For example, a couple that is involved in an emotional disaster of a relationship can be suffering considerable harm, but that should be handled by the couple or other people whose help they request (if it does not escalate to actual violence).

Fake news, I contend, can be adequately handled by citizens and non-government organizations. Individuals can take some basic efforts to be more critical of the news, thus protecting themselves from the harms without the state getting involved. Fake news is not like a foreign invader or deadly disease that is beyond the power of the citizens to defend themselves—it is well within their power to do so, if only they would take a little effort to be informed and critical.

Non-government organizations can also counter fake news (and are already doing so).  For example, the real news companies and the fact checkers have been fighting fake news. Companies like Facebook and Google that enable the monetization of fake news can also do a great deal to combat it. While there are clearly concerns about such control of the news, policing of the news is something that the existing networks do. As such, expecting Facebook to accept some basic responsibility for what it profits from is not unreasonable and is already standard practice in traditional news media. This is not to say that concerns about the policies of media companies are irrelevant, just that the fake news does not really create a new situation—all media companies already have policies regarding the news.

In light of the above discussion, the state should not use its coercive power to control fake news. My position is contingent on the facts—should fake news prove to be a significant harm that citizens and non-government organizations are unwilling or unable to counter, then the state could be justified in stepping in.

 

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Fake News I: Critical Thinking

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While fake news presumably dates to the origin of news, the 2016 United States presidential election saw a huge surge in the volume of fakery. While some of it arose from partisan maneuvering, the majority seems to have been driven by the profit motive: fake news drives revenue generating clicks. While the motive might have been money, there has been serious speculation that the fake news (especially on Facebook) helped Trump win the election. While those who backed Trump would presumably be pleased by this outcome, the plague of fake news should be worrisome to anyone who values the truth, regardless of their political ideology. After all, fake news could presumably be just as helpful to the left as the right. In any case, fake news is clearly damaging in regards to the truth and is worth combating.

While it is often claimed that most people simply do not have the time to be informed about the world, if someone has the time to read fake news, then they have the time to think critically about it. This critical thinking should, of course, go beyond just fake news and should extend to all important information. Fortunately, thinking critically about claims is surprisingly quick and easy.

I have been teaching students to be critical about claims in general and the news in particular for over two decades and what follows is based on what I teach in class (drawn, in part, from the text I have used: Critical Thinking by Moore & Parker). I would recommend this book for general readers if it was not, like most text books, absurdly expensive. But, to the critical thinking process that should be applied to claims in general and news in particular.

While many claims are not worth the bother of checking, others are important enough to subject to scrutiny. When applying critical thinking to a claim, the goal is to determine whether you should rationally accept it as true, reject it as false or suspend judgment. There can be varying degrees of acceptance and rejection, so it is also worth considering how confident you should be in your judgment.

The first step in assessing a claim is to match it against your own observations, should you have relevant observations. While observations are not infallible, if a claim goes against what you have directly observed, then that is a strike against accepting the claim. This standard is not commonly used in the case of fake news because most of what is reported is not something that would be observed directly by the typical person. That said, sometimes this does apply. For example, if a news story claims that a major riot occurred near where you live and you saw nothing happen there, then that would indicate the story is in error.

The second step in assessment is to judge the claim against your background information—this is all your relevant beliefs and knowledge about the matter. The application is fairly straightforward and just involves asking yourself if the claim seems plausible when you give it some thought. For example, if a news story claims that Hillary Clinton plans to start an armed rebellion against Trump, then this should be regarded as wildly implausible by anyone with true background knowledge about Clinton.

There are, of course, some obvious problems with using background information as a test. One is that the quality of background information varies greatly and depends on the person’s experiences and education (this is not limited to formal education). Roughly put, being a good judge of claims requires already having a great deal of accurate information stored away in your mind. All of us have many beliefs that are false; the problem is that we generally do not know they are false. If we did, then we would no longer believe them.

A second point of concern is the influence of wishful thinking. This is a fallacy (an error in reasoning) in which a person concludes that a claim is true because they really want it to be true. Alternatively, a person can fallaciously infer that a claim is false because they really want it to be false. This is poor reasoning because wanting a claim to be true or false does not make it so. Psychologically, people tend to disengage their critical faculties when they really want something to be true (or false).

For example, someone who really hates Hillary Clinton would want to believe that negative claims about her are true, so they would tend to accept them. As another example, someone who really likes Hillary would want positive claims about her to be true, so they would accept them.

The defense against wishful thinking of this sort is to be on guard against yourself by being aware of your biases. If you really want something to be true (or false), ask yourself if you have any reason to believe it beyond just wanting it to be true (or false). For example, I am not a fan of Trump and thus would tend to want negative claims about him to be true—so I must consider that when assessing such claims.

A third point of concern is related to wishful thinking and could be called the fallacy of fearful/hateful thinking. While people tend to believe what they want to believe, they also tend to believe claims that match their hates and fears. That is, they believe what they do not want to believe. Fear and hate impact people in a very predictable way: they make people stupid when it comes to assessing claims.

For example, there are Americans who hate the idea of Sharia law and are terrified it will be imposed on America. While they would presumably wish that claims about it being imposed were false, they will often believe such claims because it corresponds with their hate and fear. Ironically, their great desire that it not be true motivates them to feel that it is true, even when it is not.

The defense against this is to consider how a claim makes you feel—if you feel hatred or fear, you should be very careful in assessing the claim. If a news claims seems tailored to push your buttons, then there is a decent chance that it is fake news. This is not to say that it must be fake, just that it is important to be extra vigilant about claims that are extremely appealing to your hates and fears. This is a very hard thing to do since it is easy to be ruled by hate and fear.

The third step involves assessing the source of the claim. While the source of a claim does not guarantee the claim is true (or false), reliable sources are obviously more likely to get things right than unreliable sources. When you believe a claim based on its source, you are making use of what philosophers call an argument from authority. The gist of this reasoning is that the claim being made is true because the source is a legitimate authority on the matter. While people tend to regard as credible sources those that match their own ideology, the rational way to assess a source involves considering the following factors.

First, the source needs to have sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question. One rather obvious challenge here is being able to judge that the specific author or news source has sufficient expertise. In general, the question is whether a person (or the organization in general) has the relevant qualities and these are assessed in terms of such factors as education, experience, reputation, accomplishments and positions. In general, professional news agencies have such experts. While people tend to dismiss Fox, CNN, and MSNBC depending on their own ideology, their actual news (as opposed to editorial pieces or opinion masquerading as news) tends to be factually accurate. Unknown sources tend to be lacking in these areas. It is also wise to be on guard against fake news sources pretending to be real sources—this can be countered by checking the site address against the official and confirmed address of professional news sources.

Second, the claim made needs to be within the source’s area(s) of expertise. While a person might be very capable in one area, expertise is not universal. So, for example, a businessman talking about her business would be an expert, but if she is regarded as a reliable source for political or scientific claims, then that would be an error (unless she also has expertise in these areas).

Third, the claim should be consistent with the views of the majority of qualified experts in the field. In the case of news, using this standard involves checking multiple reliable sources to confirm the claim. While people tend to pick their news sources based on their ideology, the basic facts of major and significant events would be quickly picked up and reported by all professional news agencies such as Fox News, NPR and CNN. If a seemingly major story does not show up in the professional news sources, there is a good chance it is fake news.

It is also useful to check with the fact checkers and debunkers, such as Politifact and Snopes. While no source is perfect, they do a good job assessing claims—something that does not make liars very happy. If a claim is flagged by these reliable sources, there is an excellent chance it is not true.

Fourth, the source must not be significantly biased. Bias can include such factors as having a very strong ideological slant (such as MSNBC and Fox News) as well as having a financial interest in the matter. Fake news is typically crafted to feed into ideological biases, so if an alleged news story seems to fit an ideology too well, there is a decent chance that it is fake. However, this is not a guarantee that a story is fake—reality sometimes matches ideological slants. This sort of bias can lead real news sources to present fake news; you should be critical even of professional sources-especially when they match your ideology.

While these methods are not flawless, they are very useful in sorting out the fake from the true. While I have said this before, it is worth repeating that we should be even more critical of news that matches our views—this is because when we want to believe, we tend to do so too easily.

 

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Will Obama Win?

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Obama recently promised his donors that he will win. Obviously, no candidate is going to tell the people who have given him (or her) money that he (or she) is going down in political flames. No doubt his donors have faith in him (or are at least hedging their bets). What remains to be seen is whether he can keep his promise when election day rolls around.

Predicting a candidate’s chances is a tricky thing. National politics is a complex subject and the relevant factors shift and change constantly. However, it is possible to provide a general assessment of his chances by considering his strengths and weaknesses. Interestingly enough, many of Obama’s strengths and weaknesses are the same.

First, Obama is young. While he is older than I am (so I rather like hearing people say how young he is), he is considered somewhat young for a Presidential candidate. This can help him or hurt him. On the positive side, youth is valued in our culture and many Americans look back favorably on another young Democrat (Kennedy, of course). Some Americans also seem to be looking for a President who has vitality and energy and Obama has both. This can give him an edge over the much older McCain especially among the younger voters On the negative side, many voters prefer an older leader. The stereotypical image of a President is often of an older man and this seems to indicate a bias towards older candidates. The fact that Obama is spoken of as being young shows that he is up against this perception. While it is close, I think that the country is leaning more towards youthful energy and I think this will help Obama.

Second, Obama is not a Washington insider. While he is a senator, he has not been one for long and is not perceived as part of the old system. On the positive side, this helps to separate him from the old system and the dismal approval ratings of both the President and Congress. Americans seem to be eager for a change from the old Washington and Obama clearly is in a position to deliver. On the negative side, as much as people claim to dislike Washington insiders, they seem very inclined to keep supporting them. After all, to become a Washington insider a politician has to be re-elected regularly. Thus, if Americans really loathed Washington insiders and it strongly impacted their voting behavior, then there would not be many (or any) Washington insiders. I think this outsider approach (which McCain is also trying to tap into) will help him, provided that the approval ratings for the insiders remains low.

Third, Obama does not have very much experience. He is young and his national political experience is limited to being a senator for a short while. On the plus side, this lack of experience separates him from the failures of the past. It also means that there is little political dirt that can be dug up on him and that he is far less beholden to those with whom he has become entrenched. These factors can help him in the polls. On the minus side, a lack of experience makes him an unknown quantity and people tend to be a bit wary of the unknown. Further, the Presidency is not generally regarded as an “entry level” position. Like employers, voters generally seem to prefer someone with experience. McCain has an edge in this regard, although it makes it harder for him to claim that he is not part of the Washington establishment. Somewhat ironically, when McCain attacks the Washington establishment he seems to help Obama. While McCain used to be regarded as an outsider and a maverick, that image seems to have worn down by the necessity of appealing to the party base. Overall, I think that this lack of experience will help Obama, provided that he can keep playing on the past failings of experienced politicians.

Fourth, Obama is liberal. On the positive side, many voters are liberal and much of his “liberal agenda” consists of causes that are currently very popular such as health care reform and ending the war in Iraq. Naturally enough, the catastrophic failures of the Bush administration are helping Obama out a great deal here. Neo-conservatism and conservatism are no longer as well regarded as they were in the past. McCain is stuck in the unenviable position of having to be conservative to appease the Republican base while distancing himself from the failures of the Bush administration. On the negative side, there are still many people who are conservatives and while they are not very happy with Bush, they have no desire to vote Obama into office. If McCain can convince voters that he is a true conservative while also making them believe that he will not be serving Bush’s third term, then Obama will have quite a fight on his hands. I think that some Democrats are making the mistake of thinking that unhappiness with Bush means support for Obama. This need not be the case.

Fifth, Obama is male and is not Hillary Clinton. On the positive side, all Presidents have been male and the stereotype for the President is also male. On the negative side, there are some female voters who will remain die hard Hillary supporters and might not support Obama. While there are rumors that some will turn to McCain out of spite, this seems unlikely. Even if it does happen, the impact will be minimal. The main worry is that such voters will stay at home or write in Hillary’s name on the ballot. While these will not be votes for McCain, they will be lost votes for Obama. I think that while a few hard core Hillary supporters will give into their spite, most will fall in behind Obama.

Sixth, Obama is Christian. On the positive side, many Americans claim to be Christian and many of them seem to have a positive view of having a Christian President. On the negative side, some people still think Obama is a Muslim and this could lead to them not voting for him. However, I think that the people who would be inclined to believe that he is Muslim probably would not be voting for him anyway. As such, this factor is not a critical one. Overall, his professed Christianity will help him a bit.

Seventh, Obama lived outside of the United States. On the positive side, this means that he has had exposure to non-American culture and this can help him. On the negative side, this has provided fuel for attacks against him that attempt to portray him as foreign or exotic. As with the Muslim attack, I think that these attacks work best with people who would not vote for him anyway. As such, the impact of this will be minimal, although it has and will generate a lot of noise.

Eighth, Obama is regarded as being black. On the positive side, this seems to be helping him with some key demographics. Obviously enough, many commentators attribute his success with African-Americans and other minorities to this factor. Also, some claim that liberal white also support him because of this factor (of course, they would support a white Democrat as well). Minority votes will obviously be important in the election and Obama seems to have an edge here. On the negative side, racism is still a factor in the United States and this will impact voting behavior. McCain is obviously no racist, but no doubt some people will vote for him because he is white and Obama is black. It is difficult to predict how much of an impact race will have in terms of people not voting for Obama. Obviously, black candidates can get elected in the United States (Obama is, after all, already a senator). But it remains to be seen whether a black person can win a Presidential election now. I suspect that the race factor might balance out. While some will not vote for him because he is black, some will vote for him because he is black. Others will vote for or against him based on other factors.

Much could change between now and November, but I suspect the election will be a fairly close one. I am inclined to think that Obama will win, but only a fool picks a winner before the starting gun has even been loaded.

Obama and Media Love, Part 2

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John McCain and others have accused the media of being in love with Obama. Recently, Gabriel Sherman wrote an article in the New Republic with the suggestive title “End of the Affair.” The article is interesting and it lays out examples in which the press has felt slighted by Obama.

When I read the article, I was not surprised. First, while the media is often presented as a monolithic entity (“the media”), this is not the case. The media is composed of individuals with varying political views and emotional states. Some of these people are clearly very fond of Obama. Others have been consistent in their lack of love for the man. Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are both major media figures and neither one of them has ever shown any love for Obama. Quite the opposite, in fact.

However, the criticism that some people’s objectivity seemed to have been impaired by a pro-Obama bias does seem to be a reasonable one. Despite this, it seems that the claim that the media loved Obama was exaggerated. That said, members of the media do need to work on their objectivity. This applies to those who have been biased for Obama and those who have been biased against him.

Second, many people in the media are fickle. If you look back through the relations between the media and various political candidates, you will see the love come and go. For example, some allege that the media largely gave Bill Clinton a free pass during his administration and then turned against him (or he against them) during his wife’s Presidential campaign. As another example, McCain was well liked by the media when he was a maverick back in 2000. Now that he is running against Obama, the love seems to have gone away. The fact that people in the media are fickle is hardly a shock. After all, most people are fickle and media is no exception. Further, Sherman’s article seems to indicate that certain people are feeling spite towards Obama because they believe that he has wronged them somehow. Some have complained about lack of access, some have complained about how Obama’s people handle them, and others tell of various other perceived slights. I suspect part of the problem is that certain people in the media expect to be treated in a special way and react very badly when they do not receive that treatment. Hence, they are expressing their spite by withholding their love.

This does, of course, raise questions about how a candidate should handle the press. While the ideal would be complete openness, the reality of politics makes this a practical impossibility. Obama is competing with McCain and hence he needs to keep certain information private. To use an analogy, a football coach doesn’t allow reporters complete access to all his game plans, practices and his play book. That said, a candidate for President is a public figure and does have an obligation to be accessible to the people. Naturally, people in the media see themselves as having a special right to this access and get a bit miffed when they do not get all they see as their due.

Another factor that would legitimately limit press access is the fact that candidate only has so much time and many things to do. As such, the people in the media have to expect certain limits on their access. However, this seems to upset certain people. For example, theTime’s Karen Tumulty complained that if a reporter was given ten minutes for an interview with Obama, she would only get ten minutes and no more. However, she has no grounds to be upset. If she was promised ten minutes and got five, then she would have grounds to upset. However, a person who gets what she was promised seems to have no justification for any spite or complaints.

To use an analogy, as a professor I only have so many office hours and I also have classes that I need to teach. If a student comes in to make up a test twenty minutes before I have to leave for a class, I can give her those twenty minutes. When I leave after twenty minutes, she has no legitimate grounds to be upset. After all, I have an obligation to the students in that class. It would be wrong to place her need to make up a test over the rights of the 35 people in the class who are waiting for me to come and bore them about Venn Diagrams, Descartes or ethical theory.

Likewise, if a reporter is given her promised ten minutes and then Obama has to move on to something else on his schedule, then she has no cause for complaint. Unless, of course, she is so special that what she wants overrides other concerns.

Now, if a reporter is in love with Obama, then she would probably expect him to make time for her. After all, love is supposed to make a person special. If Obama limited his wife to ten minute meetings and restricted her access, then she would be justifiably upset. Interestingly, some of the complaints made by the media sound much like the complaints of a lover who is not being treated in the special way she expects.

However, reporters (as reporters) should not expect such love from candidates. After all, they need to act like professionals and accept that there is a limit to what one professional can expect of another. Also, the media is supposed to provide (in the ideal) objective reporting. Letting love and spite interfere with this is unprofessional and unacceptable.

As a professor, I face a similar sort of problem. I interact with my students as people and hence cannot help but like or dislike certain students For example, I tend to like students who share similar interests with me, show up to class, and are active participants in their education. I tend to dislike students who show up late (or rarely), try to disrupt the class, or otherwise express contempt and hostility towards the education process. However, I cannot allow my personal likes and dislikes influence how I evaluate a student’s academic performance. Like all professors, I have had very likable students do poorly or even fail my classes. I have also had very unlikable people do very well. Good professors try to be objective and focus just on the academics and not on feelings. I think this was best expressed by a friend of mine when she said “I really started to hate that guy and wanted to fail him so badly. But he did excellent work and earned that A. It hurt to put that in the grade book, but it would have hurt me more not to.” The people in the media need to take the same approach and keep their feelings of love or spite in check and do their jobs like professionals. It can be hard thing to do, but it is what should be done.

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