So when I wrote my post about that deceptive New York Times story about the Dobbs decision, I predicted that they would put the first four paragraphs on the front page and make sure the jump was before the sixth paragraph. That’s because the information that undercut the B.S. in the first four paragraphs began appearing in the sixth paragraph. Here was my prediction:

Moreover, this technique of starting out with a wildly misleading claim and then gradually backfilling the story with facts that totally undercut the initial claim has been around at least as long as I have had this blog (over 20 years) and almost certainly longer than that. I had a regular feature called The Power of the Jump that showed how the L.A. Times routinely fed you one version of events on the front page and tell you the inconvenient facts on the back pages, after the “jump”–where nobody reads.

My guess is, this Kantor/Liptak story will likely appear on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, with the first four paragraphs prominently featured. I bet the jump comes before the sixth paragraph and certainly before the ninth.

But I guess we’ll see.

We did.

Here’s a closer image of the story. Count the number of paragraphs. (And notice the other stories, which have plenty more than four paragraphs on the front page, showing that they are capable of putting eight paragraphs on the front page when they want to.)

Again: “My guess is, this Kantor/Liptak story will likely appear on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, with the first four paragraphs prominently featured. I bet the jump comes before the sixth paragraph and certainly before the ninth.”

Every bit of this was deliberate and planned.

Always trust content from Patterico.

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

I have not written a “The Power of the Jump”™ piece since 2010, but it’s time to resurrect it. The main page of the Los Angeles Times recently featured the following story:

“was shot when officers” . . . dot dot dot. Gee, what comes after that phrase? Here it is, complete with extra space and missing period — and relevant facts:

A man who was fatally shot by a Moreno Valley police officer while lying on the ground handcuffed has been identified as an 18-year-old Ontario resident

Authorities on Saturday said Lamon Khiry Haslip, 18, of Ontario, was shot when officers . . .

Here’s where the story broke on the front page. If you click, through, you see the rest of the sentence:

. . . noticed that he had a handgun.

There’s more:

At the time, Haslip was lying on the ground and handcuffed, but officers said that he had rolled on his side and one “officer backed away from the subject and announced that the subject had a gun,” according to a press release from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

. . .

When the officer attempted to stop the vehicle, Haslip allegedly attempted to flee on foot. The officer captured Haslip and placed him in handcuffs on the ground, police said.

A second officer arrived just before the shooting. The officers reported finding a gun in Haslip’s possession.

Studies show most people don’t click through from the Internet’s front page (or turn to the back pages from the front page of the increasingly irrelevant print edition).

This is how editors gin up outrage where none (or little) would exist — if they told you the whole story up front.

Enjoy . . . the Power of the Jump.™

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Page One of today’s L.A. Times has an article titled Republicans walk the line over healthcare outrage. The deck headline reads: “The GOP could gain from voter anger stirred by the bill’s passage, displayed by threats and vandalism. But Democrats question whether the party has crossed into reckless provocation.”

Want to hear about that reckless provocation, coming only from the Republican side? Editors are happy to lay it all out on Page One:

In the days surrounding passage of healthcare overhaul legislation, Republican lawmakers have been left to strike a fine balance between harnessing voter outrage and fueling it.

Examples of raw anger have piled up. A call to New York Democrat Louise M. Slaughter said snipers would “kill the children of the members who voted for healthcare reform.” Later, a brick smashed her Niagara Falls district office window. Hate messages jammed the lines of Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, the anti-abortion Democrat whose last-minute support helped cinch passage. Law enforcement offered increased protection to at least 10 lawmakers, a security measure usually only afforded party leaders.

Now you can turn aaaaallllllllll the way back to page A17 if you want to read on.

It takes until paragraph 17 of an 18-paragraph story to mention that a bullet went through the window of a Virginia office belonging to Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor — at which point it is characterized as nothing more a claim made by Cantor, as an example of finger-pointing:

As the spring recess approached, emotions at the Capitol ran high. The violence was the talk of the Senate cloakroom. House members pointed fingers at one another. At a news conference, Cantor said a bullet struck a window this week in a building where his Richmond campaign office is housed; the police said someone fired into the air.

By the way, Jason Brown, the leftist nut who issued all those death threats to Sarah Palin, seems pretty pleased about the bullet through Cantor’s window:

Congressman Cantor tries 2 blame dem 4 incitin violence only cause he had a shot fired at his office he was cheerin sunday cry baby!yea#hcr

also this:

Eric Cantor wishes his ass wont laughin when a bullet came thru his office, his pussy ass shouldnt be fuckin wit that dumb TP

Brown’s threats to Palin don’t appear in today’s front-page story at all. Guess we’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s front page? (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Page One of today’s L.A. Times says:

From front to back and on nearly every page, President Obama’s new budget plan delivers a stark message: It’s time for the rich to lighten the load on the middle class.

That’s right, rich folks! You’ve been avoiding your fair share of the taxes for far too long! Stop putting so much of the load on the middle class!

Of course, this is nonsense. In 2006, one of the Evil Years of the Bush Administration, the top 10% of wage earners paid fully 70% of federal personal income taxes. The top 25% paid 86%. The top half paid 97%. Numbers were similar for other years.

Now turn allll the way back to Page A14. Here’s the first paragraph you see:

Some Republicans denounced the priority shift in Obama’s budget as class warfare, and the budget is sure to face several tests as it works its way through Congress. Also, some economists warned that higher taxes on the affluent could reduce their entrepreneurial energy and were unfair because upper-income Americans already pay a large share of the government’s total revenue.

Amazing how they always manage to snip the article just before the part that helps undo the false implication on the front page. And the part that sets forth the Republican point of view.

Well, I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Just like all those other times I’ve documented over the years.

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Memo to those people in the media who keep trying to tell us that they are just trying to tell us the facts: You guys want to know why we don’t trust you? It’s because of stories like the one I’m about to describe.

A front-page story in our beloved Bible of fact, the Los Angeles Times, reveals the shocking news:

Wow. She supported a “road to nowhere.” Why would a Governor spend $26 million on a “road to the nonexistent bridge”? I can conceive of no rational explanation.

Except for the completely exculpatory and eminently reasonable explanation offered on Page A23 — namely, the road might connect to a much-needed ferry service.

Turn with me — won’t you? — allllll the way back to Page A23. That’s the burial ground for inconvenient facts that must be published out of “fairness” — but that the editors really don’t want you to see.

Read past the allegations of deception. Past the descriptions of the project as a “dead-end road.” Past the descriptions of the letter-writing campaign begging Palin to stop this pointless insanity.

Keeeeeep reading. Make your way down to the 31st paragraph of this 33-paragraph story. There it is!

State officials said alternatives to the $398-million bridge could include improved ferry service or less costly bridges that would link to the Gravina road. “Gov. Palin understood that a more cost-efficient, sensible solution could still be implemented” in place of the original bridge plan, said Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin’s campaign.

I remember the original debate on the bridge to nowhere. The argument was that, because the island has so few residents, the cost of the bridge wasn’t justified. Yes, the residents should have an alternative to the bridge, so that they didn’t have to get on an airplane just to get to the mainland. But it didn’t have to be a bridge; an expanded ferry service would do.

But even a ferry service requires a road, so you can get to it. That’s what this is.

It’s not necessarily a road to nowhere. It’s not necessarily a dead-end road. Palin isn’t necessarily being deceptive. And you can learn all these facts — if you turn to Page A23 and read down to the 31st paragraph.

Of course, if you don’t bother getting your fingers dirty, you’ll be left with the false impression that Palin wasted money on a pointless multi-million dollar project. And that’s precisely what the editors want you to think.

So, media types, keep pushing the line that you’re doing a fair job. Keep telling us you’re not out to do a hatchet job on Sarah Palin.

It’s just another lie you’re telling us.

Why does John McCain have it harder in this election? Simple.

Barack Obama has only to fight John McCain.

John McCain has to fight Barack Obama and a wholly deceptive media that is in Barack Obama’s pocket.

UPDATE: Some of you argue in the comments that Sarah Palin’s defense — that the road may lead to improved ferry service or lower-cost bridges — is clearly bogus, and therefore it’s okay for the paper to bury that defense in paragraph 31 of a 33-paragraph story. I explain why this story is still irresponsible in this post — with the aid of a former L.A. Times reporter who agrees with me.

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Above the fold in their Sunday edition, the L.A. Times asks in its lead story: “How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects?” The deck headline: “A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.”

The story is by our old friends Jason Felch and Maura Dolan, who so badly botched the statistics in this area before.

Here’s their lede:

State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona’s DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.

The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches — each seeming to defy impossible odds.

Wow! So the matches Troyer found were statistically unexpected, right?

Mmmm . . . not so much. Here’s the crucial passage, which was buried at page A20:

Indeed, experts generally agree that most — but not all — of the Arizona matches were to be expected statistically because of the unusual way Troyer searched for them.

Indeed!

In a typical criminal case, investigators look for matches to a specific profile. But the Arizona search looked for any matches among all the thousands of profiles in the database, greatly increasing the odds of finding them.

Well, there you have it! And you have only to turn to Page A20 to learn this! And, of course, every loyal L.A. Times reader does exactly that!

Just ask around! You don’t know anyone who just scans the headlines and the front page, do you?

What’s that? That describes most people you know?

Well . . . . that’s OK, I guess. I’m sure none of those people will end up as jurors on our DNA cases . . .

UPDATE: David Kaye has an excellent post on this that helps put it all in context.

Last night, I was shocked to see that the L.A. Times had clearly and prominently told readers that Obama had made (and has now violated) a pledge to use public financing.

Readers were told about Obama’s pledge right up front, in clear headlines. Also, readers were told that Obama had said “yes” when asked if he would use public financing if the Republican did. The “yes” was not portrayed as a mere promise to pursue an agreement with McCain.

All in all, it was a surprisingly fair story.

Thank God, some editors got hold of that story and fuzzed it up so that Obama doesn’t look so bad.

In the version appearing on the front page of today’s print edition, any evidence that Obama actually made a pledge is buried on Page A12, and so watered down that the reader can’t quite tell what he really promised.

Yup, this is the story I had expected to see.

The headline in the print edition, which is now the headline used on the main web page, reads as follows:

Obama sets his own terms for race

He rejects federal funds for the chance to spend much as much private money as he wants, some of it in red states.

Oh, well hey, good for him! We want people to set their own terms! That’s certainly a very positive thing, wouldn’t you agree? Who wants to have their terms set by someone else?

Similarly, in the current web version of the story, any hint of going back on a pledge has been removed from the headline, as well as the deck headline, which reads as follows: “The likely Democratic presidential candidate is poised to spend big, with the extra money going for ads in red states.”

Good for him again! And the lede sentence makes it clear that he has been freed from a restraint, which is also a big positive;

Freed from a serious fundraising constraint, Barack Obama is positioned to mount a general-election campaign on a scale the nation has never seen, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations.

It’s so wonderful to break free from fundraising constraints. Especially serious ones. This is so great for him!

In the seventh paragraph, we’re told that McCain accused Obama of breaking a pledge:

He accused Obama of breaking a promise to abide by the federal spending limit.

Those crazy presidential candidates! Always with the accusations! What a grumpy old guy that McCain is.

Any hint of evidence that McCain might be right comes in the ninth paragraph. And guess what?

That’s on the back pages.

Yup, the story moves to page A12 right there in the eighth paragraph, so that the first hint that McCain was right — that Obama really did break a pledge — comes on the back pages, where most readers don’t bother to turn.

And just look how they soften the blow:

Though Obama’s decision made strategic sense, it left some good-government groups discouraged, predicting it would only fuel the money chase in politics. Complicating matters for Obama, he wrote in a campaign questionnaire last November that he was committed to public financing.

Yes, that does complicate matters for him. Rather inconvenient, that.

Waay, waaaay, waaaaaaaaaaaay down in the story we’re given the details of the questionnaire, which they now manage to spin as a mere promise that he would “aggressively pursue” such an agreement:

When he answered the campaign questionnaire in November, he was asked by the Midwest Democracy Network whether he would take part in the public financing system. Yes, he replied, adding that if he became the nominee he would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with his Republican counterpart to “preserve a publicly financed election.”

This makes it sound like he said: “Yes, I will aggressively pursue an agreement.” That’s not what he said. In the first sentence of his answer, he said: “Yes.” Period, full stop.

It took seven more sentences to mention pursuing an agreement.

Once again, here is the quote from the questionnaire. Note the beginning of the answer: “Yes.” Only seven sentences later, after a bunch of claptrap about how much he loves public financing, does he talk about pursuing an agreement:

If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?

OBAMA: Yes. I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

This is much more the kind of story I expected from the L.A. Times. Peter Nicholas and a clueless headline writer were far too clear and direct in the first version. Luckily, a new reporter came in to help, and some experienced editors helped layer some gook and muck on there, to confuse the issue and make Obama’s pledge seem much more watered down.

So now I don’t have to parade naked after all.

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

There were high-fives all around the Clinton campaign this morning after they picked up their paper and read this article on the front page of the L.A. Times. Marvel at the bootlicking apparent in the first few paragraphs:

Wow. “She always came prepared.” She was “a force to be reckoned with as a decision-maker.” She “emerged as Bill Clinton’s most influential campaign strategist and policy advisor.” She was “forceful and methodical in shaping the Clinton administration’s domestic policies and political strategy, and proved to be a disciplined partner” to Bill. She was “commanding, opinionated, daunting.” She came to meetings “[a]rmed with an exhaustively researched grasp of the issues at hand.” And in argument, she was commonly found “lacerating opposing arguments with surgical precision.”

Surgical precision!

She had an “all-access pass into the West Wing” which “gave her an intimate education in presidential decision-making that none of her opponents can claim.”

This article could hardly be any more sycophantic if Hillary’s own campaign had written it.

Yeah, sure, there are “buts” coming — but they are safely tucked away on the back pages, where most readers will never turn. Here’s what you see if you turn aaaaaallll the way back to page A18:

government works, and she learned painfully from her missteps how easily it bogs down.

Yet Clinton has never exercised ultimate executive authority. Unlike some of her campaign rivals, she has no experience in managing massive state budgets or city bureaucracies, a critique pointedly raised by former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

The healthcare initiative started out as Clinton’s most ambitious experiment in policymaking and ended up as her greatest management failure, trailing criticism that her performance was flawed by hubris, inflexibility and a penchant for secrecy and political combat.

Yup, all the negatives are neatly tucked away out of view. Just at the exact moment the negatives begin, the article snips them off the front page, with great precision.

Why, one might even call it . . . surgical precision!

By the way, late, late in the piece — on page 3 of the online version’s 3-page article –the paper notes an interesting issue:

She appeared sensitive to scrutiny from the start. Just three days after her husband gave her authority over the healthcare plan, she was already considering limits on public access to the plan’s records. In a Jan. 28, 1993, memo, deputy counsel Vincent Foster advised the first lady and Ira Magaziner, who devised the complex healthcare process structure, that task-force records might be withheld from release under the Freedom of Information Act if the files remained “in the control of the president.”

Her response is not known because many of her healthcare documents have not been released. The Clinton library in Little Rock has released scores of healthcare memos sent to the first lady. But none of her own memos or notes is available, and though some are now scheduled for release early next year, others may remain locked away until after the 2008 election.

Gee, why would that be?

Oh, well. All they are, are documents that show how she handled the most significant task ever assigned her in the Executive Branch. I don’t know why there would be any kind of demand for documents like those! After all, they’re locked away! I’m sure she has no say in that!

Actually, as the local rag noted earlier this month — and props to them for that — she probably does have some say. If she and her husband pressured the archives to release the documents, they would almost certainly release them.

I think this is a major issue that needs more sunlight. She’s been asked about it in a debate. But there should be more pressure.

Remember when newspapers like the L.A. Times told us we needed to see decades-old Reagan-era memos from Sam Alito and John Roberts — and privilege be damned? Remember the editorials and the constant drumbeat?

I’d like to see a constant drumbeat over this.

Again, this is about the most significant responsibility Hillary was ever given in the Executive Branch. She screwed it up, royally. Let’s find out why.

Make her release the documents.

Last May, in a Power of the Jump™ post, I noted the misleading nature of an L.A. Times front-page assertion that women “routinely” served more time than men convicted of identical crimes in Los Angeles.

I observed that, when you turned to the back pages, you learned that women sometimes served more time than men, and men sometimes served more time than women. And, at the time the article was published, men and women were serving the same percentage of their sentences. Yet the paper emphasized on the front page only those periods of time when women served more time than men, undoubtedly fooling many readers who never read the story past the jump.

Ironically, the group of people fooled by this deceptive tactic includes . . . L.A. Times reporters and editors.

Witness their recent article on the all-important story of the jailing of Paris Hilton, which had this paragraph:

[B]ecause overcrowding is less acute in the female facilities, women sentenced to 90 days or more of county jail time regularly have been serving a greater percentage of their sentences than men: 25% compared with 10% for men.

That 25% vs. 10% statistic is straight out of last May’s L.A. Times story. But the statistic was already outdated as of May 2006, as men and women were serving equal percentages of their jail sentences (a fact buried on the back pages). And guess what? The situation is now reversed, with men serving half their sentences, while women serve only 10%, as a correction explains:

Female inmates: An article in the May 11 California section about Paris Hilton’s potential jail sentence stated that female inmates have regularly been serving a greater percentage of their sentences than men. That was true for much of last year. But additional bed space has been made available for men, and Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials say all men now serve at least 50% of their jail sentences, and women serve at least 10%.

The Power of the Jump™: they fool themselves with it too!

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

“OK, team. We all know that Richard Armitage leaked Valerie Plame’s identity. But how can we suggest that the leaker was really Dick Cheney, without actually coming out and saying it?”

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the editors of the L.A. Times asking themselves that question, as they put together yesterday’s article on the first day of the Scooter Libby trial.

The article is titled Cheney’s key role in leak case detailed. That headline alone implies Cheney was behind the leak. The deck headline continues the misdirection: “A former aide testifies in Libby’s trial that the vice president directed the effort to discredit a CIA agent’s husband.” Everyone knows that the leak of Plame’s identity was part of that effort to discredit Wilson, so the implication is reinforced. And the lede sentence reads:

In the first such account from Vice President Dick Cheney’s inner circle, a former aide testified Thursday that Cheney personally directed the effort to discredit an administration critic by having calls made to reporters in 2003.

What about Richard Armitage? Richard Armiwho? The article professes ignorance of the identity of the real leaker, and continues to imply that Cheney was behind the leak:

Cheney dictated detailed “talking points” for his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and others on how they could impugn the critic’s credibility, said Catherine J. Martin, who was the vice president’s top press aide at the time.

Libby is on trial on charges of obstructing an investigation into how the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, became public. The government says her identity emerged in conversations Libby had with several reporters. It is illegal to knowingly divulge the name of a CIA employee.

(Actually, no. It’s illegal only if it’s a covert employee.)

Not until Page A17 does the article finally admit — in passing, in the 15th paragraph — that the witness had no indication that Libby or Cheney actually leaked Plame’s name:

But Martin said that neither Cheney nor Libby had suggested that the identity of Plame be divulged as part of the game plan. She said that she had no knowledge of either actually doing so.

Coming as late as it does, this does little to rebut the clear implications of the headlines and first paragraphs that Cheney and Libby leaked Plame’s identity. Worse, the name of the actual admitted leaker, Richard Armitage, is not mentioned once in the story. Armitage’s admission is mentioned only at the tail end of a misleading accompanying timeline — one that also suggests, until the very end, that Libby was the leaker.

Business as usual at the L.A. Times, which has worked hard over the years to distort every aspect of this story against the Administration.

Thanks to Curt W.

P.S. The web version of the story is accompanied by this picture:

Cute. They’re not saying it, mind you — because there’s a question mark! That makes it okay — and so very objective!