Pushback on Quote Approval

July 23, 2012Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Obama, Romney and many other politicians have gotten used to quote approval. This means that before a reporter publishes a story, he must send it to the campaign and have the quotes in it approved. It’s a pretty absurd tactic as it allows the campaigns to change and manipulate their words after the fact. Well, from the New York Times today:

In a memorandum to the staff, Ron Fournier, National Journal’s editor in chief, said, “If a public official wants to use NJ as a platform for his/her point of view, the price of admission is a quote that is on-record, unedited and unadulterated.”

The Washington Examiner said the same last week and the Times itself is now reviewing its policy.

This really shouldn’t be a hard decision. Quote approval is absurd. It takes the point out of an interview. Public officials can just go back after the fact, edit what they said so that it’s exactly what they want to say and then have the writer publish it that way. That’s just a fluff piece.

It’s about time all news organizations adopt this requirement. If you’re a journalist and a public official denies you an interview because of this rule, instead write that for your article. Rip into the official for a lack of transparency and an unwillingness to speak. Pretty soon, officials will be talking on the record and maybe, just maybe, there will be less lying and deception in politics. It certainly can’t hurt.

Do Fire Drills Work?

July 19, 2012Danny Vinik Leave a comment

So, I was woken up this morning at 5:30 am in my GW dorm to the fire alarm going off. While I can’t say for sure it was a drill, no fire trucks arrived and security seemed well aware that there wasn’t a fire. Did I mention it was 5:30 in the morning?

Now I was certainly not happy to be awake, but what may have annoyed me most was the whole idea of a fire drill. Do these things really work at all? I’m very skeptical.

In some places, I see the value of fire drills. In schools or camps where teachers and counselors keep attendance and can make sure everyone is accounted for, they are very valuable, especially with younger kids who would panic and run around aimlessly.

But in a dorm of a few hundred college kids? There’s no way for anyone to do a headcount. At South Hall (the dorm I’m in), there are two staircases and everyone slowly filed through them and out the doors and moved away from the building. There wasn’t much to it. In fact, there was nothing to it.

If a real fire were to happen in the dorm, everyone would head right for those stairs, even if we hadn’t had a drill. They would probably move a lot quicker and there’d be a good bit more pushing, but a fire drill just isn’t going to reduce people’s panic if there was an actual fire. In fact, fire drills have begun desensitizing students to the alarm. Everyone now just assumes it’s a drill, slowly gets their things together and heads outside.

At Duke, many kids don’t even bother coming outside, assuming there isn’t an actual fire. If the school didn’t conduct fire drills, the opposite would be true. Students would assume it was a real fire and would head outside quickly. And since in that hypothetical world where there are no drills, it’d be a good thing the students assumed it was a real fire and moved quickly since it would be a real fire.

And this is without bringing up the fact that this was at 5:30 in the morning and everyone in their building had to get to work in just a few hours. Imagine doing this in an apartment building full of adults. People would be furious.

I tried to find a study on whether fire drills like this (not school fire drills) actually work. I came up empty though. If anyone can point me to a study or present me with a good reason that shows me the value of them, I’m all ears. But I just don’t see what this morning’s drill accomplished. In fact, I think it actually makes fires more dangerous because of the desensitization.

Oh, and the number of fires has been steadily decreasing for years so these drills are becoming even more pointless. (Image via)

Coburn vs Norquist on Ethanol Subsidies: Point Coburn

July 18, 2012Danny Vinik 1 Comment

In a recent blog post I wrote for the Monthly, I examined the on going battle between anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist and Republican Senator Tom Coburn:

Coburn calls Norquist “the boogeyman” and repeatedly attacks him for refusing to even consider a grand bargain. The junior senator concludes the piece saying, “The majority of Democrats and Republicans understand the severity of our economic challenges. They know they have to put everything on the table and make hard choices. Legislators who would rather foster political boogeymen only delay those critical reforms.”

My article was in response to an Coburn’s op-ed denouncing Norquist’s pledge. Well, Norquist wasn’t going to just let that go. He struck back later. The Hill has the story:

Norquist told The Hill that the piece is filed with “lies” and said that Coburn is violating, and trying to get colleagues to violate, a pledge they made to voters.

He said Coburn is wrong to target him, a mere advocate, and should instead acknowledge to his constituents that he is betraying them.

Okay, so that’s relatively normal fighting between a politician and a leading lobbyist. What intrigued me more is the bill that Coburn specifically pointed out in his op-ed:

Consider the evidence: I recently proposed amendments to end tax earmarks for movie producers and the ethanol industry. Mr. Norquist charged that those measures would be tax hikes unless paired with dollar-for-dollar rate reductions. And yet all but six of the 41 Senate Republicans who had signed his pledge voted for my amendments.

And Norquist of course shot back against that too in The Hill‘s article: Continue reading “Coburn vs Norquist on Ethanol Subsidies: Point Coburn” →