The Curse of the Bamb-me-no

Red Sox fans are supposed to be the ones blaming themselves for 86 years of misery, not me. But I'm growing more and more convinced that I'm to blame for the lack of a championship in the Bronx since 2000.

In the Spring of 2000, just before the start of the season, I was interviewed for a job as an editor of Yankees Magazine, the souvenir program. After the first person offered the job had failed a background check, I was given the offer. I thought it over for an evening, and then called back to turn it down. The pay and the working conditions were going to be terrible, though had the Yanks won, I would have gotten a cut of the World Series check and my very own ring.

That summer, I wrote and published an article about that interview experience. It ran in New York Magazine in July. That Fall, the Yankees lost to the Diamondbacks in the Series. They haven't won since, and a few minutes ago, they collapsed monumentally against the Sox. Am I to blame? Probably not. It would be a delusion of grandeur to put myself on a historical plane with the Babe. But when you're a miserable fan--and when all of the world is rooting for you to lose--it's hard not to kick yourself.

Poll-itzer Prizes

A day after I commented on the Washington Post's Daily Tracking Poll, the New York Times ran its own poll (in conjunction with CBS). But I'm more interested in the sidebar article that tries to explain the methodology behind all of the various news organizations' polls.

I'm thoroughly ambivalent about the idea of polls as journalism, but I do like the fact that this article admits to their being an inexact science. I only wish that the poll itself had been a sidebar to this.

Survey says

I'm addicted to the Washington Post's Daily Tracking Poll, and I would get the DTs if they took it away.

But I'm convinced it's bad for journalism. Other pundits have talked about how stories covering campaign tactics to the detriment of policy take away from the seriousness of political coverage. I agree, and I think that polls turn politics into a sport. I say this while I'm watching the Yankees. Reason tells me that I should hate the Yankees. They're overpaid, even by Major League Baseball standards. They win more often than any other team. They're inherently unlikeable. And yet I live and die by Yankees games. Several of my New York City colleagues today commented on how they went to bed at 1:30 a.m. today, after watching the Red Sox steal a game from the Yanks. We have an undeniable emotional connection, though, and no amount of reason (including calculations of hours of sleep) can convince us to cheer for another team.

And the same, I believe, is becoming true of politics. I believe that the unwavering certainty that Ron Suskind ascribes to George W. Bush in yesterday's New York Times Magazine is also infecting the electorate--and on both sides of the aisle. And all we care about is win or lose. I'm as much of a victim of this attitude as anyone.

Republicans are sure W will win. Democrats are sure W will win. Bostonians are sure the Sox will lose (and they're right). But despite the positive blip Kerry got in the polls after the debates (which I liken to the Red Sox 12th-inning win last night) served only to give Democrats their requisite moment of faith before sliding back into their resignation.

I watch the Washington Post daily tracking poll like I read the sports scores. I read other papers' polls--and automatically dismiss the ones with which I disagree. Americans, for the most part, know for whom they will vote in two weeks. The rest is box scores.

Catching up

I've been buried under reading for my classes, and grading student papers, but I have been keeping at least one eye on the media. One night last week, I had to triple-task between the debates, the Yankees, and a stack of papers.

Last week, Daniel Okrent, the Times Public Editor, addressed the question of whether or not the Times is biased toward one campaign or another. I generally tend to agree with his assessment, that no, it's not particularly biased. But then, I also have to admit my liberal tendencies--an admission which may undermine my following argument, but then I don't know what to do about that, except to ask for the reader's trust.

This week, Okrent invited two guest columnists to fill his column. Of course, neither of these columnists agreed with Okrent, which was both predictable, and Okrent's point. Todd Gitlin, a sociologist and journalism professor at Columbia, took the liberal approach, using the argument that being overly "balanced" tipped things in Bush's direction.

Bob Kohn wrote from the Right. He wrote that while the Times may make a good effort to accurately portray Bush's approach to policy, the paper undercuts that evenness by running articles about political issues that fall solidly on the side Bush is not on.

My response to both arguments is the same, and one I have expressed in this space before. One side of an issue can actually be the wrong side of the issue, and mere stenography--which is what Gitlin is accusing the Times of committing--does a disservice to the public. I agree with this, but I direct Gitlin toward Kohn's point. The Times may be committing stenography when it covers what Bush says, but in its surrounding coverage, that error is mitigated. The man, after all, is technically President of the United States, and what he says deserves to be heard, whether or not it is agreed with.

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In two other notes, the Times Magazine this week ran what I had thought until today was the most important non-covered story of the Presidential election, which is the full story, so much as anyone can access it, of Bush's faith and its effect on government policy. Frank Rich writes about the Bush administration's closed-door press policy, and does so much better than I could, so I leave the story to him.