Category: Media Watch

Nice to see that Linda Saul-Sena, the former city planner and City Council member best known for her sustainable-growth/historic preservation agenda, has found a public forum for her insights and priorities. She’s now doing a weekly column, “Transforming Tampa Bay,” for Creative Loafing.

Good for us.

Her aim, she says, is “to raise the level of conversation about our surroundings and hopefully improve them.” She wants readers to weigh in and create a “public chat” on our state of place.

Our city, as we well know, is changing as we speak. It will inevitably reflect our aspirations. Those need to be voiced. A sounding board presided over by Tampa’s quintessential progressive is an excellent forum.

* “Finality is not the language of politics.”–Benjamin Disraeli.

* “The most puzzling aspect of our dilemmas is how manageable they are. Unlike Greece and Spain, the U.S. has a fundamentally healthy economy. We have problems, but we have solutions to them.”–Fareed  Zakaria, Time magazine.

* “By the way, we need to fix that.”–President Barack Obama, referring to Florida’s voting issues during his re-election speech.

* “Here’s what people should feel good about: We have a diligent and thorough process, and every vote’s getting counted.”–Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

* “This is the 21st century in the greatest country on Earth and people have to stand in line for eight hours to vote? This is wrong, and it is time for a bipartisan solution.”–Pam Iorio, former Tampa mayor and Hillsborough County supervisor of elections.

* “Obama won the most where the lines were the longest.”–Former state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach.

* “This is not a third-world country.”–Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

* “If they were self-aware at all, Mitt Romney would be president right now. … Their whole belief system…is inherently insulting to everyone outside the tent–and you can’t win votes when you’re calling people lazy, stoned moochers.”–Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone.

* “The Republican Party … is endangered by tardiness in recognizing that demography is destiny.”–George Will, Washington Post.

* “In essence you now have to run two elections. You’ve got to be just as aggressive and just as focused on the early and absentee votes as you are in the Election Day turnout.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.

* “America’s population growth has stalled, and our social welfare burden is escalating as fewer workers support more retirees. The only way to save safety-net programs and escape a crushing debt burden is to have a pipeline of hardworking, talented immigrants.–Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

* “Two-thirds of our voters were not born here, so Florida’s politics have been imported from every other region of the country plus Latin America. … You have every point of view represented.”–Susan McManus, USF political scientist.

In the media business, there can be a thin line between making the news and reporting the news. You do an investigative piece, you put it out there. We get that. You own it. At its best, it’s hustle and headlines.

But it gets increasingly problematic these days when so many media outlets are also engaged in high-profile polling. If you’re a flagship newspaper or network/affiliate with designs on staying relevant and competitive in this ever-expanding digital age, you’re probably polling with a partner. Some are more professional than others; some seem more self-promotion than public service. It’s way beyond side-bar material.

In this market, the Tampa Bay Times reported its own poll results–“Romney remains on top” (51-45)–as an above-the-fold, page-one, stop-the-presses news story the weekend before Romney lost Florida and the election.

The variables are significant and range from sampling–from land-line/cell disparities to “likely” voter definition to party, if any, affiliation to more selective call screening–to how questions are phrased and how frazzled subjects are from being constantly bombarded–even by friendly fire. Results can be easily distorted and contradicted–but make for compelling headlines and daily lifelines for MSNBC and Fox, who require constant snapshots to ponder and posture about. No, these are not your parents’ Gallup Polls providing grist for today’s political-speculation mills.

Polling, we are reminded by the polling media, is as much “art as science.” That might be a smidgen presumptuous, because it implies only “artists” and “scientists” are on the case. But what it surely is–is a business. One that can be a useful societal tool of information–as well as a self-promoting, all-too-impactful voice in the cacophony of today’s electoral politics.

Caught a podcast of Alec Baldwin’s interview with David Brooks, the conservative columnist for the New York Times. Brooks, of course, is no Neanderthal right-wing celebrity pundit, but a thoughtful, even humorous sort who respects both sides of the political spectrum. Refreshing. Prompted the formulation of a new political rule of thumb. “Where there’s wit, there’s hope. Where there’s blunt-instrument derision, there’s no hope.”

* “The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could … prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”–Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

* “China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth.”–China’s official Xinhua News Agency on the ramifications of that country’s one-child policy.

* “The people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body is ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerated ignorance, recklessness and corruption.”–James Garfield, 20th president of the United States.

* “Republicans are geniuses at getting people to vote against their own self-interest.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.

* “The most puzzling aspect of our dilemmas is how manageable they are. Unlike Greece and Spain, the U.S. has a fundamentally healthy economy. We have problems, but we have solutions to them.”–Fareed Zakaria, Time magazine.

* “I want our president to be on the right side of history. … I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.”–Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York.

* “If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don’t know me.”–New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

* “From ultimate wedge issue to relative nonissue–a stunning transformation.”–Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, on same-sex marriage and gay rights.

* “America’s population growth has stalled, and our social welfare burden is escalating as fewer workers support more retirees. The only way to save safety-net programs and escape a crushing debt burden is to have a pipeline of hardworking, talented immigrants.”–Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

* “Early voting is the greatest change that has happened to our elections. … Had we had early voting in 2000, Al Gore would have been president.”–Former Tampa Mayor and Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Pam Iorio.

* “Two-thirds of our voters were not born here, so Florida’s politics have been imported from every other region of the country plus Latin America. … You have every point of view represented.”–Susan MacManus, USF political scientist.

* “It’s not early voting. But it is voting early.”–Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Earl Leonard on voters having access to over-the-counter absentee ballots that they can fill out and hand in on the spot.

* “We will normalize the temporary entry to the island of those who emigrated illegally after the 1994 migration accords.”–Homero Acosta, secretary of Cuba’s ruling Council of State.

* “As a German citizen who has now fought fierce battles with American telephone companies, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the public schools, I find it strange that Americans fear a socialist state. Because Europe’s bureaucratic nightmares have nothing on America’s.”–Malte Lehming, opinion page editor of Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel.

* “The 1980s–they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”–President Barack Obama criticizing Mitt Romney’s foreign-policy vision during the last debate.

* “Being moderate does not mean being tepid. It will likely take some pretty energetic policies to reduce inequality or control debt.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “My party is full of racists. …To say that Colin Powell would endorse President Obama because of his skin color is like saying Mother Theresa worked for profit.”–Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff during the first George W. Bush administration.

* “My former party didn’t like it because I dared to be decent to a new president. I’m voting for him today. I wish I had last time.”–Early-voting, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

* “When you’re looking at a for-profit organization, their real mission at the end of the day is shareholder value. The not-for-profit mission at the end of the day, at least for us, is improving the health of the community.”–Steve Mason, president and CEO of BayCare Health System, a regional network of not-for-profit hospitals that includes St. Joseph’s in Tampa.

* “Mass transit will never be less expensive than it is today. If we wait too long, it may become so politically expensive that it may not happen. I would like to see some urgency applied to this.”–Chuck Black, chairman of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

* “I don’t blame Jeff (Vinik) for stepping away, and I’m hopeful that he’ll be patient until we can rid this deal of this cancer. I don’t think it’s over by any stretch of the imagination.”–Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn on Vinik’s announcement that his group was suspending efforts to take control of Channelside Bay Plaza due to legal uncertainties surrounding the previous owner’s right-of-first-refusal agreement.

* “A cyber-Pearl Harbor.”–Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s characterization of what could loom as a result of Iranian computer attacks.

* “For the United States, supporting democratic transitions is not a matter of idealism. It is a strategic necessity.”–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

* “If you think politics is ugly now and that the truth has been a casualty in the campaign, just wait for November. If it is another squeaker, the election truthers will be front and center.”–Richard L. Hasen, professor of law at the University of California Irvine and author of “The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown.”

* “No matter their ideology, many voters increasingly inhabit information bubbles in which they are less likely to hear their world-view contradicted.”–Michael Scherer, Time magazine.

* “We don’t collect news to inform us. We collect news to affirm us. It used to be that we disagreed on the solution but agreed on the problem. Now we don’t even agree on the problem.”–Frank Luntz, Republican pollster.

* “If he (Mitt Romney) has been telling the truth about his beliefs and intentions for the past year or so, he’s plainly unacceptable. But if he’s been faking it–if he’s actually the classic moderate Republican businessman we suspect and not the conservative zealot he plays on TV–then it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he won. ‘Not the end of the world’ is not much of an endorsement, and not meant to be.”–Michael Kinsley, Bloomberg News.

* “Although individual contributions to a particular candidate remain severely restricted–no more than $5,000–the amount someone can pour into a super PAC is limitless. The means by which the country finances its campaign is utterly broken.”–Joe Nocera, New York Times.

* “The court–the next president will get one or two Supreme Court nominees. That’s how close Roe vs. Wade is.”–Vice President Joe Biden.

* “Water is the most important issue facing Florida now and facing Florida forever. Water–you better pay attention to it.”–Former Florida Gov. Reubin Askew.

* “No fair, impartial court means no justice, no freedom.”–Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince.

* “I want to make myself very clear. I very much support the aquarium. The aquarium is an economic-development engine for the city. It’s one of the reasons we located down here. But in my opinion, they are not staying to their mission by switching gears here and going to an event facility.”–Troy Manthey, president and chief executive officer of Yacht StarShip, on The Florida Aquarium’s $15 million expansion plans that include an event center.

* “There’s a love affair this community has with this theater. I’m confident we’ll get there.”–Tampa Theatre president John Bell on the $150,000 fundraising campaign to buy a digital projector and matching sound equipment.

* Recently Barack and Michelle Obama were guests on “The View.” It wasn’t his first time. Earlier this year the president also was on “Entertainment Tonight.” And, of course, on David Letterman and Jay Leno.

I get it. It’s exposure to a demographic that doesn’t necessarily watch “Meet The Press,” check out cable TV political partisans or regularly read an editorial page. As a candidate you want your shot at impressing those who may actually cast a ballot and possibly not be privy to your unfiltered message. And, yes, the practice goes back to Jack Kennedy going on Jack Paar, Richard Nixon on Steve Allen and later Bill Clinton on Arsenio Hall. And continues with Mitt and Ann Romney going on “Live! With Kelly and Michael.”

The big difference–and I know it sounds naively old school–is that the others were candidates, not incumbent presidents. A little dignity, please, for the office of the presidency amid all pop culture all the time.

But if a sitting president, one with a built-in bully pulpit and a continuous media bubble, still feels the need for additional niche exposure, here’s some advice. When you’re debating your opponent in front of an estimated 67.2 million viewers, take advantage of it. Then you might not need to suffer the Elizabeth Hasselbecks of popular culture.

* Not much to add to the commentary criticizing President Obama for his underwhelming performance at last week’s debate with Mitt Romney. He deserved it. Obviously he was playing it safe; obviously he wasn’t engaged enough. Some thought he needed more press conference practice. Al Gore thought altitude might have been a factor. John McCain said the president missed his “adoring media” comfort zone.

Then there’s this: There is a historical pattern of presidents not being on their game in an initial debate. And of non-presidents such as Walter Mondale and John Kerry benefiting, albeit briefly. Then came the next debate, which mattered more in our snapshot politics. One other thing. Sometimes an incumbent’s day job, arguably the most stressful, 24-7 responsibility in the world, doesn’t afford as much preparation time as preferred or needed.

* There ought to be a better term than “super voter” for those citizens who always vote.  Shouldn’t they just be called “voters”? Since when is consistently exercising the franchise “super”? It’s, if anything, a super-sad commentary on American democracy. But it could be worse. They could be called “awesome voters.”

* Check out the setup for next Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y. The topics will be both domestic and foreign policy; the format will be town hall. And audience questions will be offered up by Gallup Organization-selected undecided voters. “Undecideds?” Three weeks out? Who the hell are these people who still don’t know enough to make the call between Romney and Obama? Have they recently regained consciousness? Are they scamming Gallup to get on national TV? Enough with the mid-October “undecideds.” This gives gimmick a bad name. Jim Lehrer would be better. Almost.

* I’m a “Doonesbury” fan. I like the satire, the characters, the continuity. And, yeah, I especially like the politics. But it belongs on the editorial page–not nestled between “Marmaduke” and “Family Circus.” Will this comics-page misplacement never change?

* Notice how prevalent the term “photojournalist” is these days? It’s equal parts liberating technology and professional inflation. Well, picture this: The current exhibit at the Tampa Museum of Art features the pioneering work of French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) and will be there through Jan. 13. Find a way to see it. The 330-image retrospective, across the decades and continents, is a reminder of what an archetypal photojournalist truly is. The juxtapositions, the contrasts, the universal portraitures, the historical contexts. Merci.

* Sunday’s New York Times carried a photo of Tampa’s own La Teresita restaurant, where Mitt and Ann Romney greeted diners last Friday night. Presumably handlers weren’t looking to replicate the campaign’s approach to Miami’s Versailles Restaurant last month.

* “We have planted many seeds across Venezuela and I know that these seeds are going to produce many trees.”–Defeated candidate Henrique Capriles, who lost to President Hugo Chavez.

* “The one area where Romney could have really challenged Obama on foreign policy was on the president’s bad decision to double-down on Afghanistan. But Romney can’t, because the Republican Party wanted to triple-down.”–Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times.

* “Gov. Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be president you owe the American people the truth.”–President Barack Obama.

* “Fox News is an overreaction…sort of like the lupus of news…I think any time you run an organization where more (viewers) believe the president is a Muslim than believe in evolution, there’s a problem.”–“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart.

* “The main obstacle for economic growth  is the unusually high wall of uncertainty related to the presidential election and the fiscal cliff. It increases the value of waiting.”–Frank Velling, chief strategist for Copenhagen-based BankInvest.

* “The individual (Affordable Care Act) mandate recognizes that millions of Americans who could buy health insurance choose not to, because it requires trading away today’s wants for tomorrow’s needs. The mandate is about personal responsibility–a hallmark of conservative thought.”–J.D. Kleinke, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former health care executive.

* “The brutish goals of Jim Crow America never died, but simply reshaped themselves to the sensibilities of the 21st century, learned to hide themselves in the bloodless and opaque language of officially race-neutral policy.”–Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.

* “We had to speak out and educate, otherwise the attacks would go unanswered.”–Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince.

* “The cruise business is changing. If we want to be a big player in the long term, it could be a growth area for the future. But 10 years from now, you might not have a cruise business if you can’t handle those mega cruise ships.”–Richard Wainio, recently resigned director of the Tampa Port Authority.

* “It’s a bargain for these guys…They obviously see this as something which could be leveraged into a profitable business.”–Gil Thelen, former publisher and president of the Tampa Tribune, on the Trib’s sale to a Los Angeles-based private equity firm for $9.5 million.

*”It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”–Myanmar’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

* “Red lines don’t lead to war. Red lines prevent war.”–Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

* “For my part, I think Obama should indeed set a red line–warning Netanyahu to stop interfering in American elections.”–Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times.

* “If I were American, I’d vote for Obama.”–Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

* “The United States has demonstrated more than respect in the large amounts of aid we give to Arab countries. Then there is what we pay for their oil. That they have mostly not used those enormous resources to elevate their people, especially women, is not America’s fault.”–Cal Thomas, Tribune Media Services.

* “As a candidate, Mitt Romney is awkward, off-putting and hollow, so bad that if he were a Bain company, he would shut himself down.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.

* “Cutting capital gains taxes will not turbocharge the economy, and raising them would not usher in a depression.”–Syracuse University economist Leonard Burman in testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

* “In the last year alone, the cumulative net worth of the wealthiest 400 people, by Forbes (magazine) calculation, rose by $200 billion. That compares with a 4 percent drop in median household income last year, according to the Census Bureau. One would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of how powerfully income inequality has taken root.”–Joe Nocera, New York Times.

* “In the polarized political conflict with liberalism, hostility toward government has become the organizing conservative principle.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “We’re going through a period where apparently voters are more suspicious about the motives of the court, and that’s unfortunate. The court is the only branch of government that explains the reasons for its decisions.”–Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

* “We have incredible renewal energy resources. The bad news is they’re where there are not many people. We need a distribution system that can accommodate that.”–U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

* “Voters will see 11 of the most complex, confusing and, in some cases, misleading constitutional amendments proposed in recent memory.”–Excerpt of a League of Women Voters written statement characterizing the 11 proposed constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.

* “What we’re seeing is that our participation in the labor force is declining.”–Amy Baker, Florida Legislature economist.

* “It’s not just a matter of allowing the free speech, you actually have to protect it.”–Tampa Police Department Assistant Chief John Bennett.

* “People beat up Tampa’s streetcar because they do not recognize its economic development benefits.”–Michael English, Tampa streetcar board member and principal with Tindale-Oliver & Associates, an urban design and community planning firm.