Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote a baffling column today (1/24/12) praising part of Newt Gingrich's political persona--not the bad stuff, but man "of big ideas," as he put it (italics his). Cohen gives one example:

Out of nowhere, he has exhumed Saul Alinsky, whose fame is limited to university sociology departments, and yet whose name is so perfectly evocative of old-style radicalism, vaguely European in sound, that it fits Gingrich?s recent formulation, "people who don?t like the classical America." Who dat, Newt?

The reference, although a tad obscure, is nevertheless intriguing. It shows that Gingrich is familiar with the late father of community organizing who died in 1972, and who by occupation and residence (Chicago) is suggestive of Barack Obama. Alinsky was no communist but he was a radical, and to have his name mentioned by a presidential candidate is just plain thrilling--also chilling. This is the bright and the dark side of Gingrich. He knows his stuff and often can't stop from showing off.

Out of nowhere? Using Alinsky to bash Obama has been a staple of right-wing media for at least the past four years. Alinsky was regularly included in Glenn Beck's shrill conspiracy theories. Linking Obama to Alinsky doesn't prove Gingrich knows his stuff--it means he listens to a bit of radio, or perhaps watched some Fox News Channel over the past several years. [...] Read more»

Arianna Huffington had an announcement (1/19/12) about a new section in her Huffington Post:

I'm delighted to announce the launch of Global Motherhood, a new section within HuffPost Impact dedicated to the health and well being of mothers and babies around the world, and sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.

It goes without saying that it's a bad idea in general to have a corporation in the health industry sponsoring health coverage; the potential for conflict of interest is obvious. But given that these kinds of special sections are typically created to meet an advertiser's need--an impression strengthened by the fact that the second paragraph of Huffington's announcement focuses on Johnson & Johnson's efforts to "use technology to improve the lives of mothers and babies"--one has to ask, why this section for this advertiser?

You don't have to dig very far back into the Huffington Post archives to get a clue. [...] Read more»

To me, the most interesting observation after the South Carolina primary came from New York magazine reporter and regular TV pundit John Heilemann, who said this on MSNBC (h/t Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars):

Gingrich is going to get so much free media attention over the next few days. It is going to be wall to wall Gingrich, and I think it is fair to say that, in some ways,  the "liberal media," as Gingrich would put it, is kind of rooting for Gingrich right now. They want this--they/we, want this race to go on, so he is gonna have, he is gonna get more attention and in some ways more favorable coverage, at least for the next couple days, than he would ordinarily from people who would normally give him tougher scrutiny?

So the guy who's been running against the "liberal media" might actually see his campaign boosted by that very same media? Yes. Heilemann thinks it's about the press wanting to see a competitive race, which is certainly part of it.

But it's worth pointing out that Gingrich's attacks on the media from the debate podium don't tell us much about how he really feels about the media. As  Ginger Gibson of Politico reported (1/20/12), Gingrich can be quite the charmer when the cameras are off: [...] Read more»

A new research paper by a team of economists got a lot of pretty favorable press because it appears to deliver results that would seem to confirm what many in the media believe about American schools: If you could just use standardized test scores to weed out underperforming teachers, you would see serious improvement in school achievement.

Media coverage often glosses over the core problem here, which is how you measure teacher performance in the first place. The "value-added" research that is touted by many pundits--using test scores to determine a teacher's effectiveness--is controversial in large part because critics don't think it does what its supporters say it does (not to mention that dramatic swings in such scores from year to year, which can make a teacher "great" one year and below average the next). These are rather important criticisms that value-added boosters should engage.

Or they can be New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. In Kristof's first column on the research (1/12/12), he cheered the study's suggestion that good teachers boost student incomes: [...] Read more»