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CAMPOS: Thin slice of journalism

'Skinny' Obama story slightly sourced

By Paul Campos, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 6, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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This is a cautionary tale about how journalism sometimes gets practiced in contemporary America.

A few weeks ago, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal named Amy Chozick got a bright idea for a news story: In a nation where, according to our public health authorities, nearly two-thirds of the adult population is too fat, is Barack Obama too skinny to be elected president?

Now you may think that sounds like a very unpromising hypothesis upon which to construct a piece of investigative journalism. After all, the idea that a svelte as opposed to a fat build might be a disadvantage for a presidential candidate seems wildly implausible given that we live in a culture that celebrates thinness and despises fatness.

On the other hand, have you ever worked for one of America's major newspapers? Read on and learn how through the magic of the Internet it's now possible to "report news" you in fact largely invented yourself, thereby creating a national and indeed international news story out of very thin air.

I emphasize that Chozick wasn't writing an off-the-wall opinion piece in the style of, say, the increasingly off-the-wall Maureen Dowd (about whom I'll say more in a minute). Instead, she was supposedly doing investigative journalism, which requires, at a minimum, some investigation.

Here's the method she employed to determine whether Obama's skinny physique might be a problem for him in the presidential race. She posted the following message on a Yahoo Internet message board: "Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his 'no excess body fat'? Please let me know. Thanks!"

And here are the results she gleaned from this intrepid bit of journalism: a total of one purportedly substantive response from what Chozick characterizes as a Clinton supporter but which reads like someone yanking Chozick's chain. Nevertheless, Chozick quoted this source - somebody going by the name "onlinebeerbellygirl" - to confirm the thesis of her story: "I won't vote for any beanpole guy."

Keep in mind that this quote was solicited by Chozick herself from an unmoderated Internet message board - something she failed to reveal to her readers. If I got it into my head to write a story about how some Americans might be hesitant to vote for Obama because they suspect he's really a space alien from somewhere in the Oort Cloud, I guarantee I could elicit a whole bunch of anonymous quotes on the Internet to confirm my hypothesis.

This wasn't the only faux pas in Chozick's story. She also included, without attribution, a passage that closely paraphrased a McCain campaign news release criticizing Obama's nutritional and exercise habits, and she made the egregious mistake of claiming that there hasn't been an "overweight" president since William Howard Taft. In fact, according to the definitions used by our public health authorities, most U.S. presidents over the past century have been "overweight," including the present occupant of the office.

Yet within 24 hours this absurd exercise in creating news for the purposes of reporting it had taken on a life of its own. National and international media repeated Chozick's findings. The Times of London ran a feature on how some American voters were supposedly concerned about Obama's weight, citing (naturally) Chozick's piece as evidence.

The following day, in The New York Times, Maureen Dowd used Chozick's reporting as a basis for a column on why some Hillary Clinton supporters were purportedly failing to warm up to Obama's candidacy.

Thus does our contemporary media echo chamber operate, mistaking its own weird little obsessions for the actual concerns of the audience it's supposed to be edifying.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.

Comments

  • August 6, 2008

    6:39 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ItsJustme writes:

    Gee, PC, are you being disingenuous or do you just have no sense of humor. The article you're referring to was obviously a whimsical one. Here's a quote from it: "Food faux pas have plagued presidential candidates in the past. On a 1976 visit to Texas, Gerald Ford bit into a tamale with the corn husk still on. He lost the election to Jimmy Carter. In 2003, Mass. Sen. John Kerry was labeled effete when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak with Swiss instead of the usual Cheez Whiz topping." Sometimes I think your obsession with weight gets in the way of your writing.

  • August 6, 2008

    7 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    malis writes:

    Paul, for a different take, look at this Tim Noah article in Slate:

    http://www.slate.com/id/2196756/

    Title: When "Skinny" Means "Black" -- The Journal stumbles over racial subtext.

  • August 6, 2008

    7:49 a.m.

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    HolierThanThou writes:

    Amy Chozick wrote a fluff piece. Forests are felled into paper, half of which will be used for publishing nonsense. This is one reason why so many newspapers are in trouble.

    Readers tend to have a lower threshold of tolerance for media puke than, say, television viewers who don't read. Publishers seem to forget this from time to time. Then they apply TV yellow journalism to their own medium. There's an entire genre of press dedicated to gossipy tedium: supermarket tabloids.

    There's a glaring and ugly example of this obsession right on your web site as I write this. The murder of Chandler Grafner, while horrifying, does not warrant a blow by blow blog to regale us with the countless gory details. I can't even read that thing anymore. I just want Jon Phillips to be convicted of his heinous crime and have done with it. But judging from the shear volume of posted responses, emotionalism carries the day. So, I'm in the minority on that one.

    I will not let go of my belief that public media has a duty to report news that effects the public. This duty is often set aside for the sake of sensationalism and propaganda. While that may sell product over the short term, the long term says that it leaves a bad taste and has terrible consequences. Many of us resent it when you fail to report important events that, while not sensational at the time, effect the lives and fortunes of us all.

    Throw rotten tomatoes at Amy Chozick. Her piece is an insult to our intelligence. But let's not forget that those who are publishing that insult bear a greater share of the blame. I say, let's have more rotten tomatoes on them.

  • August 6, 2008

    7:50 a.m.

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    VVVV writes:

    If there was a law that guaranteed personal jail time for anyone who published lies, whether knowingly or not (just like the laws that affect the rest of us), every newspaper in the country would be reduced to 2 pages plus comics, the internet would be vacant, and politicians would never open their mouths.

    I think that's what my version of heaven will look like.

  • August 6, 2008

    9:19 a.m.

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    HolierThanThou writes:

    No, Gene, no one cares about his bowling game. But we remember that three point shot, all net and no rim.

    Bowling is not Obama's game just like intelligence isn't yours.

  • August 6, 2008

    9:27 a.m.

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    Marshdale writes:

    Newspapers and espacially electronic media are both losing. Is it any wonder, when anchor people on the news inject multiple adgectives into a story to elicite some kind of emotional response. It is pathetic. I did an experiment several months back in which I recorded all news programs for a week and then went back and counted all of the adgectives used in the same stories. FOX was far and above the worst, but they were all guilty of it. Granted it was only one week of viewing, so not exactly scientiffic. FOX just happened to be the worst in that particular week. What the people want is just the facts, at least the people I know. Why don't these news organizations do the that? Its getting real old FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. There is a shift in the American conciousness, and we are looking elswhere for better reporting and news that actually has a bearing on our lives. We are tired of fluff stories and crapy journalism. In the end mass media will be the losers and we will be the winners because we are sick of it.

  • August 6, 2008

    9:59 a.m.

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    FlyfishDude52 writes:

    Where's Joe Friday when you want, "Just the facts, please."

  • August 6, 2008

    11:20 a.m.

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    Achilles writes:

    Lesson learned: female "journalists" are mostly vapid and superficial; also, mainstream "journalism" continues its decline in relevance.

    I usually have the same reaction to "journalism" when it comes to economic "reporting" from hard-core "objective" "reporters" like Jeannine Aversa of the AP.

  • August 6, 2008

    12:25 p.m.

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    WestminsterJ writes:

    Gene- You should work on your own masculinity, then you wouldn't have a homoerotic attachment to "swagger" figures like W or McSame.

  • August 6, 2008

    1:05 p.m.

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    WestminsterJ writes:

    Up yours, Jean

  • August 10, 2008

    9:28 a.m.

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    woodwose writes:

    The Chozick article was a piece of whimsy, nothing more. The article itself isn't disturbing, but the reaction to it most certainly is.

    Timothy Noah and other members of the liberal media describing it as a villainous, racist attack on Barrack Obama using the code word "skinny" is truly alarming.

    Paul Campos attacking the article as if it was a serious news article instead of an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek piece published on the editorial page is only somewhat alarming, Campos is a clueless clown anyway, and is only looking to pile on in the made-up firestorm of criticism that the mainstream media tries to generate when anyone fails to treat Obama with anything short of awed obeisance.

    If Timothy Noah can throw the RACIST! label at Chozick for her innocuous article, then no one can make any criticism of Obama without fear of by labeled the same.

    Apparently the political debate this year is going to boil down to this.

    Point: I think Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal that is going to tax this country into a Depression.
    Counterpoint: YOU'RE A RACIST!

    P: I think Obama is too inexperienced to be president.
    C; YOU'RE A RACIST!

    P: Obama saying we could save all the oil they (Republicans) are talking about drilling for by keeping our tires inflated was a dumb thing to say.
    C: YOU'RE A RACIST!

    P: Two weeks ago, Obama said releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was a "gimmick," now it's part of his energy "plan." Isn't that a bit of a flip-flop?
    C; YOU'RE A RACIST!

    It's going to get old really quick...

    If it hasn't already.

  • August 11, 2008

    7:03 a.m.

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    malis writes:

    woodwose, Obama realizes that to be elected he must come across as (in another’s words) “the least aggrieved Black man in history.” At the same time, he has a rational understanding that in this election, race is the ‘Elephant in the Room’—a topic people would prefer not to talk about (sometimes even to acknowledge) because it makes them uncomfortable. But he understands that race can’t simply be ignored so, throughout the campaign, he’s made the simple observation that 1) he looks different from anyone else ever elected, 2) that fact makes some people uncomfortable, and 3) some opposed to his election will attempt to encourage that discomfort.

    McCain is not a racist (a point Obama has repeatedly made). McCain’s campaign, however, fully understands the value in ensuring that the topic of race comes up as often as possible. One way to do that is to cry “Race Card! Race Card!” as often as possible. For the campaign’s purpose, the substance of the issue matters far less than just keeping it simmering…keep that discomfort level up.

    So, at first it seems odd that the people most often bringing up racism are those, like you, opposed to Obama. It’s less odd when you realize it isn’t racism—it’s just a cynical exploitation of race issues in the furtherance of political goals.

    I see two primary justifications for opposing Obama. First is his relevant inexperience in the public sphere. Second is his relative liberalism (not, by the way, the gross exaggeration of his positions common on talk radio). Both provide entirely rational reasons to vote against him. Again, please make your choice based on YOUR OWN understanding of the ability, intelligence, knowledge, views, positions, judgment, and moral strength of your favored candidate; not on someone else's distortions of that candidate.

  • August 12, 2008

    10:36 a.m.

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    fatheromalley writes:

    God said, "Let's see, let's take an infinite amount of monkeys, with an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of paper and pens and establish a basis for all the literary classics to be written, along with a lot of !@#$^^&%$#! of course.. hah.. .he was right!

    And it didn't even take an infinite amount of time, it took just several hundred million years.