Argumentum Ad Upperwestsidum
More than 100 people who attended a "community gathering" at St. Petersburg, Florida's Poynter Institute last Tuesday evening were blessed, according to the next day's St. Pete Times, by a visit and remarks from "the closest thing to newspaper royalty." The reference here was to New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., otherwise known--St. Pete Times business columnist Robert Trigaux mischievously observed--as the chairman of a publicly traded corporation whose circulating stock has lost 30 percent of its value since mid-2002.
But so what about that? The Scrapbook comes not this week to question good King Pinch's West 43rd Street boardroom chops--nor even his asserted dominion over the broader realm of American journalism. Nay. The Scrapbook mentions the sovereign's visit to Florida, truth is, only so's we might help call public attention to the priceless moment of unwitting self-exposure the trip involved.
"To his credit," Trigaux acknowledges, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. "tried to answer a range of tough audience questions" at the Poynter event. And at least one such question apparently concerned his paper's "liberal leanings." But this particular question Sulzberger seems not to have tried all that hard to answer. Instead, quite the contrary, he "laughed" it off, thusly: "I hear more complaints that the newspaper is in the pocket of the Bush administration than that it is too liberal."
The Scrapbook can't decide which is weirder: that more people than not in Mr. Sulzberger's business and social circles think the New York Times guilty of a pro-Republican tilt--or that Sulzberger could fail to see how such an admission tends to confirm, rather than rebut, a Times bias in the opposite direction.
Great Moments in Blogging
A February 7-10 Gallup Poll, for the sixth time since early 1999, asked more than 1,000 randomly selected American adults, "Whom do you regard as the greatest United States president?" And randomly selected American adults being who they are, the top eight finishers looked like this (by percentage of respondents naming each listed president):
Ronald Reagan - 20 Bill Clinton - 15 Abraham Lincoln - 14 Franklin Roosevelt - 12 John Kennedy - 12 George W. Bush - 5 George Washington - 5 Jimmy Carter - 3
Next, on February 20, two days after Gallup released these figures, a fellow named Chris Bowers--co-proprietor of MyDD.com, one of the better-trafficked lefty blog sites--plunked down at his computer to offer us an interpretation. Measured from the last such Gallup "greatness" survey in November 2003, Bowers noted, "Reagan and Clinton are rising, while Washington is fading." And what is much the most remarkable aspect of a nationwide survey in which, by a three-to-one margin, our 42nd president is held in higher historical esteem than our first?
To Bowers, the answer was obvious. It was the first and only thing he thought of. "When I see polls like this," Bowers wrote, "it becomes even more shocking to me that there are really Democrats out there who believe Hillary would be unelectable."
Great Moments in Broadcasting
Sitting in for regular Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan on February 21, National Public Radio's Frank Stasio conducts an appropriately subversive call-in memorial for the suddenly-late "gonzo" journalism pioneer Hunter S. Thompson:
Stasio: My guest for this part of the conversation is Ben Fong-Torres, former editor of Rolling Stone magazine. . . . Chris is on the line from San Diego. Hi, Chris. You have a question for us? [Crosstalk and background chatter.] Chris: Yeah, yeah. Well, first I'd like to say we're all very sorry. I mean, Hunter Thompson. He was a--he started a mantra for us in high school, you know, that we would beat our drums by, and just--really sorry that he's gone. But my question is, Thomas Friedman is a good example that comes to mind as somebody who's a first-personal journalist who takes himself--you know, that's a little bit more of a serious subject, Beirut to Jerusalem and a couple of others--but do you think somebody like that was influenced by Hunter S. Thompson? And I'll take my question off the line 'cause I'm driving in San Diego rain right now. Stasio: Okay. Chris, thank you. Ben? Fong-Torres: Yes. Who's the author he was talking about here? Stasio: Thomas Friedman. Fong-Torres: Oh, I don't even know who that is.
Great Moments in Self-Parody
The February 25 New York Times "Corrections" column contributes to modern statistical science as only that paper can:
"A sports article yesterday about Doug Glanville, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who is an outfielder in spring training with the New York Yankees, misstated the number of Ivy Leaguers who have played with the team since 1965. It is two--Jim Beattie, a former Dartmouth pitcher who played in 1978 and 1979, as well as Steve Adkins, a former Penn pitcher who was with the Yankees in 1990."
The Scrapbook might otherwise here mention that Messrs. Glanville, Beattie, and Adkins seem to make three Ivy Leaguers all together, not two. But honestly, now: What self-respecting grownup cares about such stuff?
Another Statesman Heard From
Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al Bashir, during a February 18 interview on Arabic-language Al Alam TV, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute:
"It is a known fact that to this day, Israel hasn't determined its borders, and everyone knows that the two blue stripes on the Israeli flag symbolize the Nile and the Euphrates--that is, that the Nile and the Euphrates should be within Israel's borders. Therefore, Israel's expansionist and aggressive intentions are fundamental, and anyone who thinks otherwise is trying to bury his head in the sand--like an ostrich. . . . We know that Israel wants to annex Iraq and the Egyptian delta to the 'Greater Israel.' This 'Greater Israel' is an indispensable part of their faith."
For the record: The blue stripes on the Israeli flag's white background were designed to evoke the tallit, Judaism's prayer shawl.
Good News, Bad News
Central Florida's WKMG-TV6 Sports, reporting on its website from Orlando, February 14:
"What was supposed to be a magical moment at Sunday night's Orlando Magic basketball game instead turned into an embarrassing memory for one man, according to Local 6 News.
"The unidentified man asked his girlfriend to marry him in front of thousands of fans at the Magic's 97-94 victory over the New Orleans Hornets at the TD Waterhouse Centre.
"The man, who was standing on the court, dropped to a knee and asked the woman to marry him.
"Instead of answering, the woman turned and ran off the court with her face in her hands.
"Meanwhile, Steve Francis scored 22 points and handed out 10 assists to lead Orlando. Hedo Turkoglu also had 22 points in the win."