I KNOW THIS IS SILLY, BUT. . .

I've been trying to get my head around the problem of empirical verification of media bias in coverage. One of the most annoying claims made by contemporary politicos is that the media is bashing Bush by over-covering certain issues. This usually takes the form of the claim that the media is paying more attention to Bush with respect to X than Clinton with respect to X'. It's an argumentative distraction, partly because it's a pain to try and figure out whether or not such a claim is actually true.

So here's what I did, on Lexis.

First I did a full text search for the following terms: Clinton, w/s draft, w/p Vietnam, for the period 1991-1992. For Northeast Regional News Sources, I got 266 hits.

Then I did a full text search for the following terms: Bush, w/s national guard, w/p Vietnam, for the period 1999-2000. For Northeast Regional News Sources, I got 156 hits.

Then I did the Bush search for two time periods: 1/1/2003-1/1/2004 (41 hits), 1/1/2003-4/1/2004 (310) hits.

So in the northeastern print media, Clinton's draft service gets more hits than Bush's national guard service during their respective election periods, but Bush's guard service has gotten about the same number of hits in the first part of 2004 as Clinton got for the whole period 1991-1992.

With news transcripts the story appears similar (and this would be important on the assumption that more people pay attention to TV than to the newspapers; I didn't try to disaggregate TV and radio transcripts for the purposes of this search, though). For Clinton, between 1991-1992, the same search got for news transcripts garnered 112 hits, and a search for Bush in the period in 2003-2004 garnered 215 hits. So you might conclude that the news media has been "overcovering" Bush, compared to its coverage of Clinton.

But with the news transcripts, there's a hitch. I also did a few full text searches of news transcripts for common words, in the periods 1991-1992 and 2003-2004, and here are the results, listed with the number of hits for the earlier search first:

Lake Tahoe: 42 - 646

Oswego: 8 - 259

house majority leader: 264 - 922

pug: 6 - 275

detriot tigers: 108 - 741

islamic fundamentalism: 171 - 175

real estate investment trusts: 21 - 863

Conclusion? For news transcripts, the broader coverage, the explosion of media, and perhaps the different aggregating and archiving practices all result in a larger number of hits for common terms, "islamic fundamentalism" excepted. Not sure why that would be the case. But at any rate, compared to the forty-fold increase in coverage of REITs, the larger number of news transcript mentions of Bush compared to comparable mentions of Clinton seems paltry.

PS: Thanks to James at Outside the Beltway for merging me into the Beltway Traffic Jam. . .

GRADING, HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING

Following Greg Goelzhauser's advice:

I have not just finished writing exams that will be taken tomorrow, and I am not now sitting here thinking about the somewhat daunting task of grading all of them in the hypothetically not-so-distant future.

But if I were, I would most assuredly not be seeing ghostly images of stacks of blue books and scantron sheets, towering over me, clutching at my arms as I flee my now-quite-starkly-furnished office. Nor would I have a feeling of bittersweet joy that my teaching at Oswego has come to an end and that I am now moving into the occupational unknown, pregnant with possibility. Nor sadness that tomorrow is likely the last time I will see most of my students.

None of this is -- or would be -- true. Believe me.

I WONDERED ABOUT THAT, TOO

Mark Kleiman wonders (with Mickey Kaus) about precisely what lesson the Pentagon folks who watched The Battle of Algiers took away from the movie:

Mickey Kaus suggests that the film can be read another way: as endorsing the view that torture is a necessity in counterinsurgency operations.

No doubt that wasn't the intention of the filmmaker. Perhaps it wasn't the intention of whoever arranged the screenings. But it might have been the lesson taken home by some of the viewers.

I wondered about that, too. Unfortunately, I don't have at hand my copy of Howard Simpson's excellent memoir Tiger in the Barbed Wire. Simpson was in French Indochina as an unwelcome American advisor in the 1950s. As he saw the French defeat and escalating American involvement in the area, he came away with the impression that the Americans had steadfastly refused to learn from the French failures. After all, we had helicopters and they didn't. I hope that folks who watched Battle didn't take away the lesson that we have resolve and moral authority and the French didn't.

Simpson also wrote a gripping account of the siege of Dien Bien Phu (subtitled "The Battle that America Forgot). This year was the 50th anniversary of the French defeat. See this NPR report.

CHRISTO V. CRUISE

Christo can wrap it, but Cruise can't film in it. I suppose that's fine with me, but, taken together, the two cultural events (or one event and one non-event) conspire to create an odd kind of artistic statement of anti-transparency. Or perhaps it's just anti-Hollywood.

I was in Berlin when the Reichstag was wrapped, and it was brilliant. The field to the west was filled with Berliners merrily picnicking, and the setting sun cast the building -- and the people near it -- in a wonderful pinkish-blue hue.

CHARLES NYAGA

In December I had a short post on Charles Nyaga, the Kenyan immigrant who may be deported because the INS failed to process his diversity visa application on time. Nyaga hasn't been deported yet, and Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) has proposed legislation that would help him out (full story here) :

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) has introduced a bill (S. 2089) that would help Nyaga and other immigrants who won a shot at legal status through an annual "diversity lottery" program but lost out because immigration authorities did not act on their applications before an annual deadline.

. . .

Chambliss' office said it has heard of several dozen people in Nyaga's situation nationwide.

The bill is in committee, where most bills die of neglect.

Seems to me that this one is worth writing to your representatives about.

MORE: See also Nyaga's April 28th testimony before the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, here.

Absent a systematic legislative fix of the problem, a private relief bill is the best shot for Nyaga himself, but that would still leave lots of people in the lurch.

POTA COURTS

For two recent stories on Mohammed Afroze, an admitted member of al-Qaeda who was before a Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court in Mumbai last week, go here and here. The second story is very weird:

Yesterday, the POTA court asked Solkar to submit draft charges against Afroze, which should have been done by public prosecutor, Ujwal Nikam, who was absent.

Moments later, Solkar came back in the role of a defence lawyer. He told the court that he would file a discharge application on behalf of Afroze and his brother, co-accused in the case.

(No idea how common it is in India to ask the defense to submit the charges if the prosecution doesn't show up. Doesn't seem like a great idea to me, though!)

Note also this story about the Indian Supreme Court's rejection of a POTA prosecution of Tamil Nadu politician Vaiko and this story about a POTA court responding to government requests to release accused Kashmiri separatist Ghulam Moinuddin Bhat.

Two things are likely to strike American readers about these stories. First, even in terrorism cases, Indian courts are willing to grant bail, release prisoners, and otherwise do their jobs in a relatively normal fashion. Second, the special POTA courts are willing to respond to arguments rooted in politics -- in Bhat's case, the politics of negotiating with separatist groups.

For more on POTA, see my posts from last December here, here and here.