Beef, Ground on a Bias

Conservatives like to complain about the "liberal mainstream media."  A lot.  They blame the "MSM" for a laundry list of evils, for everything from fawning coverage of Democrats at the expense of Republicans to ignoring "real news" to gibberish about them advocating the indoctrination of kids.  Prime targets: New York Times, MSNBC, National Public Radio, ABC, CNN, and so forth.  (Always mysterious to me why Faux Noise with all its ratings dominance is excluded from the MSM category.)

This nonsense aside, there are much better grounds for pointing out liberal bias than whining about unfairness.  Case in point, today's New York Times article about the dangers posed by ground beef.  Starting with the horrific story of a young woman, Stephanie Smith, who became paralyzed after eating a hamburger tainted by E. coli, the writer goes on to describe "why eating ground beef is still a gamble":

The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.

Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows.

Yuck.  E. coli is an ever-present danger, and apparently, my beloved hamburger is the biggest vector of this bacteria.  Who knew you could become paralyzed from E. coli???

Anyway, point well taken.  I will now never buy ground beef unless I know that it was ground at the grocery store from a good (single) cut of meat, or maybe if I'm buying from a local, reputable rancher.  I'm definitely never buying anything from Cargill.  I even applaud the Times for their fantastic exposé of meat grinding practices.  Good journalism.

But, then, they have to go and say this (emphasis mine):

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen. 

WTF?  How do you make the leap from exposing unsanitary meat production practices to fingering the federal government for not sufficiently regulating meat grinding?  I don't need more federal laws, I just need more investigative pieces like these that uncover the unsavory side of food production so that I, as a consumer, can be informed and make appropriate choices.  This, dare I say, would be an old school conservative point of view.  Their liberal bias is what leads the Times to blame the federal government for not preventing all hazards out there.

Guilty Until Proven Guilty

The Connecticut medical examiner's office confirmed today what was apparent from the beginning of this tragic case, that Yale student Annie Le was indeed murdered.  For some time now, the media has been reporting titillating details about one of the police's "persons of interest," Raymond Clark, who worked as a lab technician on campus.  We know that the police detained him yesterday in order to take DNA samples and also searched his home and car.  We also know, thanks to the breathless journalists on the chase, where Mr. Clark lives, what kind of vehicle he drives, the name of his fiancee, his criminal record, and for all we know, his brand of toothpaste.

Now, this astonishing piece of investigative "journalism" from ABC News that all but condemns Mr. Clark as the murderer based on unnamed sources, scattered facts, innuendo, blog entries by his fiancee from last year, and "suspicions" voiced by a neighbor.  ABC News also ominously tells us that Mr. Clark's landlord served an eviction notice on him to kick him out of his apartment.

Have I mentioned the fact that Raymond Clark is not under arrest?  The police briefly detained and then released him because they do not have enough evidence to arrest him.  Here's what the New Haven Police Chief had to say:

At a press conference Wednesday evening New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said Clark has retained an attorney and therefore could not be questioned further.

Lewis refused to comment on whether there was a relationship between Clark and Le beyond working together in the same building. He would not speculate as to a potential motive.

The chief would not confirm whether Le had been a victim of sexual assault.

Clark is being monitored by the police. Authorities continue to question other people in the building but they have not served search warrants against anyone else.

"We're still in the process. We don't want to be accused of tunnel vision. We're still making sure who was in that building," said Lewis.

But, ABC Noise has no problem with tunnel vision, getting around the inconvenient fact that Raymond Clark was not actually arrested with this "journalistic" masterpiece of convoluted logic:

ABC News consultant and former FBI agent Brad Garrett said that though he had been investigated by authorities for days, it's likely police did not take Clark into custody sooner because he was not a threat to other students.

"If you do not believe they are a danger to anyone else, then you may let him go," Garrett said. "If this is a crime of passion, you're not concerned about anyone else."

Brilliant.  The fact that he was not arrested immediately is itself highly suggestive that he is guilty.  What the fug do they teach in journalistic ethics these days?

If the facts are so damn clear that Raymond Clark did it, then arrest him already.  Until then, the New Haven Police Chief should plug his leaky department and stop enabling the media that has already judged him guilty.

Bias? Common Sense? Journalism?

What do you, noble reader, expect of your journalists?

a) Present the facts and let the smarty audience decide.
b) Go ahead and point out outright falsehoods when reciting the news.
c) Make up stuff that I want to hear.
d) News? Ha!

Many journies brag about following the first approach, but it is clearly difficult to present all the facts of any given situation due to space/time constraints, so, the reportahs must, to some degree, present what they think is relevant. But, what about "simply relaying" something that Ms. X and Mr. Y said when you know Mr. Y's talking gibberish? Is that making a false moral equivalency, if you pretend not to notice that one is a raving lunatic, all in the name of letting the audience decide?

CNN's Campbell Brown seems to think so, and is attempting to "cut through the bull****" in her new show: No Bias, No Bull. Campbell uses the following example to make her point: If one person says it's raining outside, and another says it's sunny, the journalist should have the common sense to look out the window and report which person ought to be gently led away. ('gram to Campbell: Suggest tweak example STOP It possible both sun and rain STOP)

Personally, I applaud her efforts, if she is truly sincere and not just toying with our emotions, to wrest back the mantle of "no bias" from the Bill O'Reillys and the Keith Olbermanns whose shrill partisanship is dismaying. (Not, of course, that there's any moral equivalency between the two; one of them is a complete jackass.) By some stroke of luck, Campbell Brown's show is scheduled for the same time slot as the aforementioned shrillsters. (Centrism...that's our rallying cry! And money maker!)

This whole discussion brought to mind something Paul Begala (no shrinking violet himself, in terms of the spin ability) said last month (ignore the candidate-bashing):

If John McCain and Sarah Palin were to say the moon was made of green cheese, we can be certain that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would pounce on it, and point out it's actually made of rock. And you just know the headline in the paper the next day would read: "CANDIDATES CLASH ON LUNAR LANDSCAPE."
Why doesn't somebody call Neil Armstrong? He's been there. Or go to the Smithsonian and open the glass case that contains a piece of the moon. The moon is a rock. That's a fact, Jack.

Hyok, hyok. Mr. Begala, here's the truth: Neil Armstrong never went to the moon. NASA faked it all.

How's that for journalistic excellence?