Ain't no power outage gonna hold me down! It's the interholiday week, but school's in session on Ranked Choice Voting. Plus, media silence about "filtered 'pool coverage'" with wolves.
School's back in session on ranked choice voting.
I wrote a bit back about ranked choice voting and educating ourselves. I thought I would bring you another quick lesson.
Let's start with the local material first. Then we'll move on to the talking points advocates of ranked choice voting are likely to use.
The Complete Colorado story below (just another quick plug--if you want to keep track of local stories about things that you won't often see in other mainstream outlets, go check out Complete Colorado's Page 2) is about how the Colorado Forward Party is seeking minority party status here in the state.
Guess what kind of voting the party supports? Yeah. Ranked choice voting. In fact, they line up pretty squarely with the recent ballot proposal by Ken Thiry to rewrite a whole lot of election rules here in Colorado.
More context and connections among the players in the link below.
The second link below is from the Federalist and provides an interesting look behind the curtain at the strategy some are using in trying to sell ranked choice voting, based on a survey done in Arizona (yet another state where people are pushing it).
I'll leave it to you to read the article and also to read the strategy document prepared based on the AZ survey, but I did want to look at the conclusions from the strategy which I attached here as a screenshot.
The bullet points you see in the screenshot are the talking points that you'll likely hear in Colorado seeing as how we, like AZ, have a substantial number of independent voters.** See the first bullet point for what I'm talking about here.
When you see talking points like these, more often than not, what you're looking at are examples of framing. The same kind of device used, for example, to say that if you disagree with gun control it's because you don't care about children dying.
And the good news, is that once you learn how to respond to framing, the issue being framed doesn't really matter because the response can generalize pretty well: you just need to ask questions and really push the other party to define things specifically.
Take, for example, what you see in the second bullet point. It's clear that this is an attempt to tie ranked choice voting to typical American conceptions of fairness and the venerable Declaration of Independence.
A good response would be to ask in what way candidates and voters are not treated fairly currently: if the contention is that regular voting doesn't treat everyone the same, in what way do you mean and how would ranked choice voting be more fair?
The other question would be "how is it that tossing 'exhausted ballots' fair?" If you didn't catch my first post on ranked choice voting, check out the third link below and/or the graphic attached as screenshot 2 for more context here.
I'll do one more example. Look at the third bullet point. Be wary of, and do not forget to question, things that are stated emphatically as fact. This one is not so much framing but rather a belief, an opinion, stated firmly and those can be awfully easy to blast past without much thought.
Part of being a skeptic, however, is stopping to question the things you read. No matter the confidence of the writer. Why is it that "every registered voter in every community should be able to vote in every election for any candidate they want"? How is it that doing so would "...[treat] every candidate and voter equally"? How are they not equal now?
It might be, depending on the policy that some of these things are true or perhaps partly true, but you shouldn't just stop at reading the "good words" (see screenshot 3 from the link put fourth below).
An effort at expanding ranked choice voting (in one form or another) is coming to this state. Brush up. Keep your wits about you.
Do not be afraid to ask questions. Do not be afraid to look at details.
As I hear and see more, I'll post more on the topic.
**I still dispute that they're truly independents. My money is on them being largely Democrats who are still in the closet or who moved here, got automatically registered to vote by getting a license, and never bothered to declare.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/12/08/group-pushing-ranked-choice-voting-colorado-minor-party-status/
https://thefederalist.com/2023/11/20/ranked-choice-voting-advocates-are-forced-to-lie-about-fairness-to-get-voters-on-board/?fbclid=IwAR0bLHAh7r8S1NNHCFu9CkWBDt7QRtKVbcN-pqLqxgHSIQWuiE9y2yFu0Zk
https://thefga.org/research/ranked-choice-voting-a-disaster-in-disguise/
https://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~bpoulter/2001/pdfs/propaganda.pdf
Filtered pool coverage?
Yes, that's right friends, per our First Gentleman, you really shouldn't get your news on wolves anywhere but the official government source.
Screenshot 1 is from First Gentleman Reis. His advice is to be careful and only refer to official government sources regarding wolves.
Hmmmm. Maybe it's just me, but I think I'll continue my current habits.
Still, a fair number of outlets I regularly watch seem content by their silence to be in accord with the First Gentleman's dictums.
That is, despite at least one member of the media having concerns about using ONLY the material the state provided them (see screenshot 2 from a media newsletter I subscribe to), other liberal outlets in the Front Range seemed more sanguine about it.
Take a look at the Sun article and the Next segment linked below (linked in that order). Do you note any outright mention of the fact at least a part of their reporting on the topic comes solely from what the government gave them? Me neither. This echoes a silence from same on social media.
You will see attribution to a government source (if you bother to look up who exactly this Jerry Neal is) as a little graphic or in the caption, but will you see any hint of what McIntyre characterizes as "filtered 'pool coverage' from government agencies"?
And, lest you think that reporters faced the choice of not covering this or using government-provided media, I would point you to the AP article linked third below. This is what CPR put out.
It is not a big leap from there to question what the boundaries on this sort of quiet acceptance are, which is, of course, where my mind went next.
I reached out to the Sun (the reporter and editor) along with Mr. Clark for their thoughts. A screenshot of the email I sent is attached as #3.
As of this writing, I have heard from Sun editor Larry Ryckman and Sun reporter Jason Blevins.
Mr. Ryckman, first replied with "Did you actually read our coverage? If you had, you would have answers to some of your questions." When I followed up and asked for him to point to the parts of the article that "would have answers", I was told that "Jason was there in person and reported what he saw with his own eyes and ears."
Mr. Blevins, for his part first replied with "Hi Cory … I was there … thanks for reading The Sun! Merry Christmas". He later sent an email (unbidden--I didn't ask for a second reply) saying "Cory you send these emails often [he and I corresponded on 3/30/23, 12/8/23, and 12/24/23] and each and every time it reveals deficits in your reading comprehension … can I unsubscribe please? Merry Christmas!"
I have yet to hear back from Mr. Clark or 9News (I forwarded the email there as well). If I hear back, I will update.
I will take up the comments from the Sun editor and reporter in a later post (or op ed) about trust in the media and how they handle those that question them.
In the meantime, keep in mind that amid all the wisecracks about people holding plywood and slow-mo glamor shots of wolves running free, what you didn't hear.
I'm glad to hear that at least the Sun had a human (not from the government) on the scene when the wolves were released, but in their coverage any images you saw were solely provided by the government. Whether any reporter saw anything other than what the State of Colorado provided remains an open question.
Similarly, the decisions of 9News and Next--whether they had a human there in person, whether the videos they show were witnessed by a reporter--are an open question.
Transparency in news coverage and media ethics should have dictated a clear statement as to the source of the photos, video, and anything else used because whether or not it's large or small, simple or complicated, important or puffery, when it comes only via the government, the media consumer should be made explicitly aware.
News outlets should also have some sort of policy on when and how they will accept material that has solely been provided by the government, something that no one outside of Ms. McIntyre seems to have bothered to comment publicly on.
One last thought: I will be curious to hear what if anything (likely nothing) the left-leaning media has to say about Mr. Reis' statement above. We all know what they'd be doing if similar words came out the mouth of a Republican, or, God forbid, Trump.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/18/colorado-wolf-reintroduction-grand-county/
https://www.cpr.org/2023/12/18/colorado-releases-first-5-wolves-in-grand-county/
Related:
From the same media newsletter as the quote above. See the screencap.
Interesting words by the political commentator. It dovetails with my own experience.
Yes, reporters (and not just left-leaning ones) are lazy. They do not read studies they reference carefully.
You've, if you've read my writing for any length of time, seen a king's ransom of examples.
All the more reason for you to NOT be lazy. Even if it comes at the expense of the breadth of what you know, you're better off having more depth in what you read and getting a full account of what you're shown.
And yes, that includes what you read here. Please follow up on what I say. That's why I include links and am careful (though I won't claim perfect) to include sources.