I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days, so going to bed by midnight is my attempt at getting to sleep early. Here are a few things that caught my eye today:
Mark Bowden’s ‘The Point’. I had the opportunity to meet Black Hawk Down author and journalist Mark Bowden and interview him for an article while working at my college newspaper five years ago. Black Hawk Down is one of my favorite books and a masterpiece of journalistic work, which Bowden researched partially in Mogadishu (he flew there in 1997 with a photographer sitting on sacks of khat). A national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, he also has a column that appears in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Currents section and has written about US policies at Guantanamo, gangs in Columbia and a shield law for journalists.
His June 2007 column about the future of print journalism is particularly interesting … he predicts about newspaper web sites:
I suspect news sites will open with a bang, displaying the most powerful video image of the day in the way editors have long chosen the day’s most dramatic or informative still images to anchor Page One. In that sense, they will look more like TV news than a newspaper - with this difference: All these production values will lead into detailed written stories.
Unlike with TV and radio, which are stuck with people reading out loud, customers of digital journalism will get the best of all media forms. They can wade into any story that attracts them as deeply as they wish. Readers will gravitate toward prose, while those who prefer sounds and images can simply watch and listen.
But do they vote? Young people are among four groups of voters The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib believes will be key to the election in November. Although this election has generated amounts of interest among the 18 to 30 crowd not seen in years, the question remains: will young voters show up on Election Day?
Seib writes:
The rise in both registrations and primary-election turnout by young voters certainly suggests the possibility of a big showing this year. In a sign of that potential, turnout by voters under age 30 four years ago rose faster than among any other voting group, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan group Rock the Vote.
Yet even with that uptick, young voters turned out in lower proportions than any other age group. Turnout among those under 30 was 49%, compared with 73% of those age 60 to 74, the Rock the Vote data show.
The Quinnipiac survey of Pennsylvania shows Sen. Obama leading among Democratic voters under the age of 45 by a 57%-to-41% margin. But the real turnout test will come in November.
The other three groups that matter? Working-class white males, rural voters and Hispanics.
A measure of racism in America? Roger Simon of Politico writes about an issue that’s been on my mind about the general election: How much will race count in November if it comes down to Sen. Barack Obama vs. Sen. John McCain? Simon tries to quantify just how much the race vote will matter:
There is a percentage of the American electorate who will simply not vote for a black person no matter what his qualities or qualifications.
How big is that percentage? An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that “about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.”
I don’t know if 8 percent sounds high or low to you, but I was amazed that 8 percent of respondents were willing to admit this to a pollster. And I figure that the true figure is much higher.
The same poll also found that 15 percent of voters believe Hawaii-born Obama is a Muslim (he’s actually a Christian). I am not sure how that matched up with the people who said they would not vote for him because he is black, but I’m sure whatever rumors are circulating about Obama being a Muslim are not working in his favor.
Yes, she can! Sen. Hillary Clinton emerged victorious in the important Pennsylvania primary today, besting Obama by 10 percentage points (55-45). Good news if you can’t get enough of the excitement swirling around this primary race. Bad news if November is six months away and you already feel like you’re getting sick of election coverage.
The biggest reason to go open kimono is that the present system does what journalism should never do: it perpetuates a lie. Modern political journalism is based on the bogus concept of neutrality (that people can be steeped in campaigns yet not care who wins) and the legitimate ideal of fairness (that people can place intellectual integrity and rigor over their rooting interests). Voting and disclosing would expose the sham of neutrality—which few believe anyway—and compel opinion and news writers alike to prove, story by story, that fairness is possible anyway. Partisans, bloggers and media critics are toxically obsessed with ferreting out reporters’ preferences; treating them as shameful secrets only makes matters worse.
Disclosure: Poniewozik is TIME’s TV critic, not a regular political writer.
It seems we’re becoming more and more paranoid about this, especially in this election year. Even I admit it — when I read certain articles in certain publications or online sites, I’m always trying to keep in mind what kind of reputation the site has, and the writer has. That’s part of the reason why I can’t watch Fox News anymore. I’m sorry. I just can’t.
The way I see it, there is no way to absolutely-100-percent eliminate personal biases when you write a story, although the best in the business do an extremely thorough job. First of all, whether that story is about the 2008 election or a school recycling project, each individual approaches and views the situation through the lens of his or her own experiences. Which is great, in many ways, because you might get several variations on the same story with different angles and different details in each.
Which is why, even though I do not watch it, I can see the need for Fox News. And, yes, I do realize that my thoughts on this come from — tada! — my own personal biases.
Now, there are different ways to tell a story, but readers love to point out when it’s the WRONG way. Again, this is going to depend on your background and your personal opinion. We get this all the time at the Advertiser. Just ask the guys who answer the phones.
For a reporter, if you are covering a story, there should be no shred of doubt in your heart about your ability to write about that topic objectively IF you are trying to pass the story off as truly objective, which newspapers are supposed to be. But that assumes that anyone and everyone reading the story believes it to be truly 100-percent objective and without bias. Is this really the case?
So, back to the original question: reporting and voting.
For myself personally, I haven’t decided whom I’m going to vote for yet. I did not vote in the Hawaii’s caucuses, but I do plan to vote in the general election. I was a Political Science major, I’m interested in politics, government and the process, and I definitely want to have a stake in who will be America’s president for the next four years. So I admit that, yeah, I do care. I will eventually vote, which indicates that I will eventually come to the conclusion that one candidate is better than another.
At that point, should I cease writing about anything having to do with the election? In articles? In this blog?
I finally watched Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union“, which some are hailing as one of the most important speeches on race in America in recent years.
Having spent some time studying both politics and public relations, the thing I found most surprising about the speech was its honesty, and Obama’s willingness to just come right out and talk about race — and “the racial stalemate we have been stuck in for years.”
Here’s why: It’s a huge challenge to explain to people the subtleties of a situation where it seems to nearly everyone watching that you are in the wrong. Campaigns have become political horseraces — see CNN’s “Ballot Bowl” — and as a result, multi-faceted situations are all-too-often boiled down to black and white. In that case, sometimes there is an apology from the candidate, sometimes, there is a choice to completely ignore the accusations, move on and pray that everyone forgets.
Rarely is there an instance where the person targeted appears to explain himself in a thoughtful and detailed manner, addressing people as intelligent beings, and not simply stepping over the issue, following the oft-used elitist philosophy: “the masses are asses.”
That said, the speech was not only important in the way it was delivered and how it directly addressed the issue of race, but in what it said.
The topic, race relations, certainly has implications for Hawaii and its “melting pot” image. In Friday’s Advertiser, columnist Lee Cataluna writes that Obama’s comments on race resonated here in the Islands, where not everything is hunky dory:
Here in our Islands, we stubbornly repeat the hopeful delusion of the melting pot where everybody gets along. But this fiction has worn thin, and there is evidence every day that racial tension exists here. No matter what your ethnic heritage may be, somebody out there will hold it against you.
I know many people share her viewpoint. I offer, though, that while this may be an accurate picture of attitudes towards race in Hawaii, it is certainly a bleak one. True, Hawaii may be “less of a melting pot than a tossed salad.” But Obama’s speech wasn’t ONLY about pointing out that race relations in this country aren’t perfect.
I’ve mentioned in past posts that I really struggled with my Hawaii/Asian/Caucasian/mixed-race identity perhaps for the first time when I went to school on the mainland. I also noted an attitude among Asian and other minority groups at my school that I had not experienced in Hawaii. It was a feeling of victimization that I believe caused many of them to be suspicious of others and self-segregate themselves from the larger community.
It scares me when I see echoes of that in the Advertiser blogs and online forums.
Yes, Obama’s talk about race should resonate in the Islands. But it should resonate for the message of hope it expressed about acknowledging and moving past racial differences, not acknowledging them and stewing in a climate of suspicion and fear.
In the years ahead, Americans, as well as those of us in Hawaii, are going to have to ask some difficult questions about race. The 2008 campaign has kicked open the door. Hawaii may not exactly have achieved racial harmony, but we are certainly in a position to start a dialogue.
That might include questions like those Peggy Orenstein asks in a New York Times piece yesterday. Orenstein, who is Jewish, whose husband is Japanese American, and whose daughter is hapa, writes:
I sometimes wonder what will happen in another 50 years. Will my grandchildren “feel” Jewish? Japanese? Latino? African-American? Will they be pluralists? “Pass” as Anglo? Refuse categorization? Will Hapa Nation eventually make tracking “race” impossible? Will it unite us? Or will it, as some suggest, further segregate African-Americans from everyone else? The answer to all these questions may be yes. Regardless, watching Senator Obama campaigning with his black wife, his Indonesian-Caucasian half-sister, his Chinese-Canadian brother-in-law and all of their multiculti kids, it seems clear that the binary, black-and-white — not to mention black-or-white — days are already behind us.
Perhaps that discussion can be started by our youngest citizens, people like my friends, who grew up in an increasingly racially-mixed environment where half or more of our high school classmates were of mixed ethnicities.
Do I have an unbelievably sunny outlook on race relations in Hawaii? Probably.
Can that attitude be more useful than believing that somewhere, someone will always hold my ethnic heritage against me? Absolutely.
When it comes to choosing our leaders, which matters more: character or issues?
I’ve heard people describe Barack Obama as “visionary” and “inspiring,” a leader of the younger generation.
But others have expressed concern on this blog that people, especially young people, are voting for Obama because of his leadership qualities and rock-star appeal — not because of the specific policies he has articulated.
As one commenter put it:
[M]uch like Obama’s campaign itself…I believe younger people are attracted to him for superficial reasons, not for substance. He has not articulated a clear, concise, cohesive plan with details on where he is going to take this country (and, by default, the rest of the world) in the next few years.
In fact, both Democratic and Republican voters may be placing character over issues. As Gerald Seib wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 5:
[T]he election of 2008, thus far, is less about ideology and ideas and more about governing style and leadership ability — intangible qualities on which voters are placing a higher priority than on issues. The tenor seems a reflection of the country’s mood: Many voters are in revolt against the partisan wars and bouts of gridlock that have gripped Washington in recent years, and are seeking effectiveness above all.
We all have our reasons for supporting certain candidates. On the local level in Hawaii elections, it may be as simple as recognizing the person who walked up and down your street discussing community issues with folks, or the guy you’ve known from way back, who was a loyal friend or faithful teammate. Perhaps you really liked their communication skills or their ability to be a team player, and you figured they’d make great leaders because of those qualities.
We aren’t ever asked to justify our votes when we make that decision in the voting booth. You could vote for a candidate because you thought she had a fantastic smile, and your vote would count just as much as the one cast by the person in the next booth who spent hours and hours analyzing the most pressing policy issues facing the United States today. One man, one vote. Regardless of the justification.
So, in this election, which is more important to you: personal qualities, like leadership skills, or what the candidate has said he or she will do if elected?
Does it matter what criteria we use to choose our leaders?
With 68 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama appears to have won Hawaii by a landslide. Obama had 20,974 votes, or 76 percent, to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 6,529 votes, or 24 percent, as of 11:39 p.m.
The turn-out was incredible — far more than maybe anyone had expected.
“I don’t think we could have prepared for this,” one of the caucus organizers at Jefferson Elementary told me mid-way through the evening.
I’m sure there will be much debate in the days to come about the process. With the overwhelming number of people, many sites ran out of materials or even took good faith pledges from people that they would register as Democrats afterwards if they were allowed to cast ballots tonight.
The site I was at ran out of both printed ballots (they had to handwrite them) and name cards (which they used to write down the precinct in which each person was voting). One person compared it to “choosing your high school prom king and queen.” That was less than an hour into the voting.
As soon as I finished talking with people in line at Jefferson Elementary, I grabbed a seat at a table where ballots for one of the smaller precincts were being collected and watched the action from there.
It was chaos. The only organized elements appeared to be the tables, arranged by precinct, and the line. There were hundreds of people crammed in the cafeteria and thousands outside. People stood on tables. Every 10 minutes, someone would go to the microphone and assure people that Everything was fine, No, the rules had not been changed, we’ve just run out of ballots.
Some people who arrived around 7 p.m. saw the line, which was at that point wrapped around several school buildings, and turned away. Others probably just couldn’t find parking in cramped Waikiki and gave up. I parked at the Waikiki Shell and walk over to the school.
But the mood among those who stuck around were surprisingly upbeat. Les Among, a member of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, likened it to “neighbors who haven’t seen each other in a while.”
It was this great, big crazy mass of people who knew they were taking part in something big, even though they may not have known exactly what to do, how the caucus worked or even if they were registered Democrats.
It will be interesting to see if this momentum holds up till the general election.
Just walking onto the site and catching sight of that never-ending line was a personal thrill. I realized tonight that I’ve never actually gone to a polling place to vote in an election, since I left Hawaii at 18 for school and so have since been an absentee voter by default. Checking the little box and sending the ballot in the mail is definitely not the same thing. Here were people who had taken the time to come to the site, and waited in line for probably over an hour just to make a little mark on a piece of paper that was then shoved unceremoniously into a manila envelope.
They say democracy is messy, and tonight most certainly proved it.
