Horse Tracks 4/6/09

very good read .. although I don’t agree on some of his thoughts.

You can think and I can think it’s crazy he didn’t like Campbell — who got Washington off to a 6-2 start last year — more than he liked Orton, but it’s the unvarnished truth.

I was scared we’d get Campbell .. he’s terrible. And on top of that he fell apart after starting 6-2 with an ex-QB as his head coach. That tells you one thing, he’s uncoachable.

Imagine Tom Brady ignoring calls from Bob Kraft. It’d never happen. Imagine Dan Rooney getting snubbed by Ben Roethlisberger, or Peyton Manning ditching Jim Irsay. Never in a million years, regardless of how they felt about what was happening with the team.

When it’s put this way, it really shows where the final fault lies in this whole thing.

Find some “slant” and show it to us.

What you really mean is the the facts were slanted against your POV. Denial aint just a river in Africa.

would be that King’s reporting has been more favorable to the organization than others, especially local media. Whether that is slanted or not depends on the facts which I doubt we will every know completely.

I noticed that over the weekend King is not backing away from his contention that cutler sought a trade before the FA period began, yet no one else in the national media seems to be backing that. I’m not sure what it means but it is interesting.

Kirwan’s perspective is that of an outsider. It’s not far-fetched but the staff had already addressed this situation. I wouldn’t mind seeing Gano picked (but only with a late pick, and he won’t last that long) but it’s premature to conclude that Prater doesn’t have what it takes.

King has asserted all along that cutler sought a trade before the FA period. I haven’t seen that reported by anyone else but him, and McD has said that cutler did not ask him about a trade at that time.Yet he was still making that assertion this weekend. If we assume that King beleives that is true (whether or not it factually is so) that would completely explain your take on his slant.

BTW: According to King it was Angelo in Chicago who told him about McD reviewing the tapes on Orton, not anyone from the Broncos.

I agree that King has probably been the most sympathetic to the organization of anyone in the national media. But that is only slant if he is mistaken and others are correct. I don’t think we will ever now the complete truth. Cutler seems to have no problem changing his story and their certainly are discrepancies in the organizations story as well.

The idea that a point of view is being advocated — while true, in some cases — is at home within what has been disparagingly called “cultural relativism,.” which presumes that truth is dependent on one’s POV.

I don’t engage in political conversations while here but I’m closer politically to those cultural relativists than the people who are usually making that charge. However, there are instances in which the charge of cultural relativism is valid, although it’s on epistemological questions and not normative ones (i.e., there are always normative differences that exist in a multi-cultural society).

An interesting example of ‘relativizing’ truth — and one I’ve studied informally — is the “wedge” strategy employed by the Discovery Institute (now renamed). The purpose of the wedge strategy was to promote the idea that a valid disagreement existed over certain biological questions and that one side of the argument was unfairly suppressing the truth by refusing to allow the ‘other side’ of the argument to be taught in schools. As a former student of Evolutionary Biology I won’t pretend to consider ‘both’ sides of the argument valid; one is a religious argument and the other is scientific. Moreover, I’m not questioning the validity of the religious belief as a religious belief. The wedge strategy was openly advocated (on their website) as an attempt to “teach the controversy,” in an attempt to exploit the divergence in POV as a rationale for allowing students to decide for themselves between competing scientific theories. One of these theories had a clear religious provenance and was renamed as Intelligent Design after the Court decision in the late 80s prevented the teaching of Creationism — which was deemed a religious belief — as though it were a scientific theory.

Teaching both ‘sides’ of an issue presumes that the truth is best ascertained when every POV is allowed equal access to the court of public opinion. And the expression “a fair and open hearing” was even used to justify why Intelligent Design should be given the same treatment as theories advocated by what advocates of I.D. referred to pejoratively as “Darwinists.”

THE SOLOMONIC FALLACY — half a kid is better than none

Another issue became home to a similar type of debate — Global Warming. Critics of the theory were fond of pointing out that ‘both’ sides of the issue should be covered in the media. Rather than merely cover one side of the issue, which is anathema in scientific practice, journalists were supposed to present a "full’ view of the issue and note that there were some who disagreed with the picture being presented by climate scientists. The problem was that the con side of the debate had very few adherents, and most of them weren’t climate scientists but citizens (often with prestigious degrees, although usually in other fields), and their disagreements with the the theory of global warming had little to do with science and a lot to do with politics. The expectation that both sides of the issue should be covered was called the “false consensus” since giving equal weight to both sides had the effect of creating an impression that both sides were equal or deserved equal consideration. In fact, one side of the issue was composed of a wide cross section of the scientific community while the other was primarily composed of paid advocates of the fossil fuel industry, who often went to great lengths to hide this connection since it appeared to be (and was) an organized effort to avoid legislation that would cost the fossil fuel industry money.

The question of whether the DP “slanted” their stories to favor the Bronco management’s POV presumes that Cutler’s POV has been unfairly suppressed and that, if given the chance, Cutler’s POV would reveal an equally valid perspective or a ‘grayness,’ that frequently develops when neutral observers are allowed to inspect all the facts at hand.

I think you’ve been extraordinarily creative, Baltimore Bronco, in supplying Cutler’s POV as a suggested balance to what you consider unbalanced coverage (although some of these are columns that have a different purpose than news coverage). The biggest logical problem — of course — with inventing plausible sounding explanations for the lack of communication from Cutler’s POV is that it presumes that lack of coverage from Cutler’s POV was a journalistic decision rather than a strategy on the part of Cook and Cutler to avoid contact with the media except off-the-record comments by Cook (presumably the “source close to Cutler” that’s cited frequently) and highly scripted news conferences designed to deliver a particular message, one that’s best understood from a PR perspective.

A second major problem with your presentation of all issues from what you regard as the ‘missing’ Cutler POV, Baltimore Bronco, is that it relies heavily on imagination. We’re not being asked to examine the actual reasons, in a concrete form, for why there was a breakdown in communication, but instead, we’re asked to imagine what the Cutler response would be if it weren’t absent. This technique underlies many PR strategies and is also central to why cognitive biases such as stereotyping and representativeness are persuasive. It’s also been suggested that “plausible deniability” operates on this dynamic, as a basic highly recognizable story form is presented minus any details and the observer invents the details using their imagination. It’s also the apparent centerpiece to Cook’s MO and has been demonstrated in past issues involving him. ‘Incubation’ is used to allow the story to spread, as the media scrambles to fill in details that are missing while a deliberate ‘media lockout’ is imposed by Cook. It has the effect of encouraging speculation during the incubation period, and off-base speculations can even be denied (demonstrating credibility) in the course of making specific denials against the most telling explanations for (Cutler’s) behavior. Thusly, Cooks anticipates the holdout charge and attempts to preempt it by claiming that Cutler will be in camp even while engaging in a lockout strategy by having Cutler fail to appear, which increases the likelihood that a lockout will indeed happen unless Cutler’s demands for a new contract or trade are met.

The problem with the media coverage of the McJaygate issue was never a slanting towards the Broncos’ management. Quite the contrary, media coverage was heavily slanted towards Cook’s & Cutler’s desired storyline of a slighted Cutler who was now due recompense of some sort because of that slight. The slighted Cutler slant dominated early coverage until alternative explanations emerged that cast the original story in a very, very different light. As is typical, sports ‘journalists’ didn’t admit to failings in their original coverage but did attempt to ‘correct’ the issue by pointing out that Cutler & Cook’s behavior could have a very different explanation, and one that the journalists themselves has previously ignored in their rush to cover a hot story in which many of the pertinent facts were still unknown. It’s also highly probable that many of the journalists were burned by their reliance on off-the-record interviews with Cook and their later reaction was an attempt to rectify being spun by Cook previously — although they’re unable to admit to this because of the original confidentiality agreement with Cook. They’re also unable to admit to it for purely psychological reasons — it would be an admission that they were ‘had.’

It’s typical for people to remain in denial long past what we would expect. Once implanted, falsehoods can continue to operate even after their falsity has demonstrated beyond the point where a reasonable doubt still exists. Cherished beliefs owe their existence to the fact that attitudes are often less empirical descriptions of the world than statements about how we’d like to see the world — an aspiring view or wishful thinking perspective. People frequently “side” with a person or perspective when there are empirical doubts. People restore balance to a “dissonant” situation by siding with who (or what) they like. Fans liked Cutler, mostly because of his ability to throw the ball, and they sided with him and against McDaniels when the story broke. They didn’t know McDaniels, so it was easy for people to imagine all sorts of nefarious intentions on his part, since the void of information provided a blank canvas upon which people were able to draw the picture of a villain.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), people are highly resistant to changing negative ascriptions once they’ve formed. People cling to their prejudice and even protect it by erecting elborate defenses, often in the form of fantastic rationalizations that allow them ‘explain’ the schism between observable reality and their beliefs. One of the most well-known examples of denial is the example of holocaust denial, often practiced by naive Germans who couldn’t reconcile their patriotic feelings with the evidence of horrific acts by German leaders. An example of rationalizing in the face of contrary evidence is the end of the world cults who were able to rationalize the fact that the world didn’t end at the predicted time by ‘discovering’ new evidence that explained the discrepant result.

We can agree to disagree and contributor debates are noted for their depth and civility. Thanks for expressing your feelings on this. Many are making the point that we shouldn’t let our feelings about what transpired to color our deeper analysis of the facts, and I agree. It’s a sad situation, made sadder by discord among lifelong fans. I know there will always be some pain associated with looking back at this off season, we can put this behind us and win some games ASAP. Losing a HOF coach and a stud QB in a few short months is reason enough to be sad, but losing a number of hardcore fans to what I believe was a fixable situation in which all sides share blame is downright tragic. That’s why I’m glad we have MHR — a voice of reason where all opinions are welcome and thoughtful analysis is everyone’s responsibility.

As much as I’d like a new first round stud QB to replace the one we lost, the need to repair the D is just too great. All first round picks whether spent, traded up, or traded down, need to be devoted to the D. Besides, McDaniels is sort of known for being the “Denver running game of QB coaches”, turning late round gems into stars. The two you mentioned sound fine to me!