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February 3, 2005
The Befuddling Complexity Defense"Sarah Boxer's article about Iraq the Model was really about the Net and how you can't trust anyone or anything that originated on it. Leaving the situation opaque, at the level of a brouhaha, was part of the point. It remains, however, a strange assignment."Daniel Okrent, public editor at the New York Times, recently handled the complaint put forward most forcefully by Jeff Jarvis against a Times article by Sarah Boxer on the pro-American website, Iraq The Model. The article—it appeared Jan. 18 in the Arts Section, the jurisdiction of the Culture Desk—went into the lives of the three blogging brothers, Omar, Mohammed and Ali, who are behind the site. (They’re Iraqis.) Jarvis called it “unjournalism,” in part because it peddled gossip about CIA connections, but also because it did not seem well reported. (See Ed Cone on that.) Okrent, who knows Jarvis, is supposed to investigate if he finds cause to investigate. Here was some of the cause: Among the many readers who wrote to me, one, a Boston Globe reporter, was especially direct: “This story was, quite simply, vile. It repeats unsupported allegations that three guys in Iraq who run a pro-American blog are actually C.I.A. agents. It produces not a shred of evidence for such claims. And by giving the claims the prestige of The New York Times, the story has put a bull’s eye on the heads of those bloggers. This story was beneath contempt.” That’s a signal to Times staffers: it’s not just bloggers, ok? It’s people in your own family. (The Globe is owned by the New York Times Company.) Okrent asked culture editor Jonathan Landman to respond. Landman is the one who, as metro editor, said “We have to stop Jayson [Blair] from writing for the Times. Right now.” Boxer is a staffer whose beat is “arts and ideas on the Internet.” I reproduce the editor’s response in full because there is something strange in there. Here’s the statement. I’ll see you on the other side… New York Times Culture Editor Jonathan Landman: Now for the strange part of this explanation. Landman says the aim of the Boxer article was to convey a situation in its opacity. But good reporting is ordinarily the opposite of that: the situation should be more intelligible, and less opaque, when a Times journalist gets done with it. This did not happen with the Boxer piece. “Sarah was trying to give a sense of the befuddling complexity of an Internet brouhaha.” She was? Who told her to do that? It seems like a more appropriate place to begin the assignment. Culture Desk to Sarah: “All we have here is the befuddling complexity of an Internet brouhaha; maybe you can sort it out.” That’s the journalism part, isn’t it? The finished report is supposed to reduce the “befuddling complexity” of the online world, not produce a more exquisite sense of it. The article, according to Landman, is “saying that there are lots of wild charges flying around.” It is? Well, why do we need that? “Lots of wild charges getting thrown around” is where a good reporter begins. That is not where the thoroughly reported piece is supposed to wind up. Something else Boxer was trying to give a sense of, according to her editor: “the layers of potential manipulation what with astroturfing and blogtrolling and invisible dueling backers.” Potential manipulation is what journalism is supposed to overcome, not be “about.” That is true in cultural reporting, in arts journalism, and in every other kind I know of. “Pro-American Iraqi Blog Provokes Intrigue and Vitriol,” read the headline on Boxer’s piece. Now I know there’s intrigue. Now I know there’s vitriol. When do we get to the journalism? Landman explains: it should have been labeled a “Critic’s Notebook.” But that means way more to insiders than everyone else. Buzzmachine by Jeff Jarvis: now that’s a critic’s notebook! We can page through it and find Jeff’s thoughts—good and bad, right and wrong—on just about everything he cares about, including Iraq The Model, which Jarvis has championed. Landman says this counts against his complaints: “Buzzmachine is run by the well known conservative blogger Jeff Jarvis who… has helped set up blogs run by some of his (Ali’s) Iraqi friends,” he wrote. “So Buzzmachine is possibly not the most dispassionate source of analysis on this subject.” Okrent took care of that one: “Labeling Jarvis… a ‘well known conservative blogger’ is both inaccurate and irrelevant. Either his charges are justified or they are not.” (Jarvis voted for Kerry.) But notice how the Times is the more dispassionate source of analysis and the Boxer analysis should have been labeled “critic’s notebook.” I guess the Culture Desk looks for those dispassionate critics. Here’s what I think: Sarah Boxer’s article about Iraq the Model was really about the Net and how you can’t trust anyone or anything that originated on it. Leaving the situation opaque, at the level of a brouhaha, was part of the point. (And in that context, suggesting a CIA connection served quite well.) It remains, however, a strange assignment. After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…. “The internet isn’t a gallery…” Jeff Jarvis responds: “… Sarah Boxer and Jonathan Landman: Start your own blogs. You want to be on the fuzzy edge, then be the first on your block at 43rd Street to put your own views. After all, you are critics. Critics are allowed to have opinions. So share your critical perspective with the audience — and learn what comes next.” Seth Finkelstein, author of Infothought, in the comments: “When one boils down the dispute, the core issue is that the Times article treated it as a joke accusation, that basically wasn’t to be taken seriously. It’s a SNARKY article. The hawkish (not ‘conservative’, and I’ll avoid ‘pro-war’) bloggers find that viewpoint itself unacceptable.” Ed Cone, same day the Boxer article came out: “Sarah Boxer reports (to use the term loosely) on Iraq the Model, a pro-US Iraqi blog. Some critics ask if it’s a US-backed propaganda tool. Fair enough, good question, interesting aspect of understanding blogs, let’s start digging… or not.” His conclusion: not much digging. Jeff Sharlet, editor of The Revealer, NYU’s online review of religion and the press, in comments: I needn’t defend Boxer’s article to disagree with one of Jay’s key assumptions here: “Landman says the aim of the Boxer article was to convey a situation in its opacity. But good reporting is ordinarily the opposite of that: the situation should be more intelligible, and less opaque, when a… journalist gets done with it.” Plus… My reply to Jeff. Daniel Radosh at Radosh.net: I disagree with Jarvis and Rosen that a “critic’s notebook” must always illuminate and untangle murky debates — there is a place for simply informing people that a murky debate is taking place, and wallowing in the murk — but unless the writer really understands and respects the milieu in which these debates take place, the result is always going to obscure more than it informs. Charles Cooper of CNet narratizes: “Did a New York Times story raising questions about the affiliations of the authors behind an Iraqi blog blow their CIA cover —or did the story just blow?… The paper’s public editor Daniel Okrent has responded with a detailed post on his Weblog but reverberations continue to echo.” A new study profiled by Peter Johnson of USA Today says journalists are among the most ethical of occupational groups. “No significant differences were found among various groups of journalists, including men and women, broadcast and print reporters and managers and non-managers. But journalists who did civic journalism or investigative reporting scored significantly higher than those who did not.” But I’m not sure what “scored higher” means. Or if it means anything. Here’s more about the study from Missouri. And here’s more about the Defining Issues Test, which purportedly “measures moral development.” Hmmm…. really? This page suggests the test is “aimed at gauging the ethical decision-making patterns” of professionals “based on responses to dilemmas and ethical consideration statements.” Dialing edu-blogger JennyD: this is up your alley. What do you think?
Posted by Jay Rosen at February 3, 2005 1:01 AM
Comments
The bottom line here was that Boxer's article was just your average piece of Times journalism, and that Jarvis went bat-sh*t because she didn't present the Fadhil brothers as the best thing since sliced bread. The idea that mentioning the speculation concerning the CIA would lead to further endangerment of the Fadhil brothers is, of course, completely ridiculous. How much more danger could they be in AFTER they had met with President Bush and had agreed to allow that meeting to be publicized and widely used in Bush's propaganda efforts? How much more danger could they be in AFTER announcing their candidacy for the Iraqi Paliament as part of a pro-US political party of their own creation? The most notable aspect of this whole story is that Okrent devoted time to it---its just one more example of how "insiders" have access to the levers of power, regardless of the validity of their concerns. Considering all of the rather serious problems with Times reporting, Jarvis should never have gotten the time of day form Okrent. Jarvis still hasn't explained why Boxer's article is worse than his own speculation that another blogger (Salam Pax) was a Ba'athist in the weeks after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Nor has Jarvis explained how he could make the "mistake" of accusing Boxer of endangering the Fadhil brothers by mentioning their last names. Jarvis, of course, has been promoting these brothers for ages, has followed the reporting on them, and not only knew that the brothers full names were available in the public sphere, but that Jarvis himself had disclosed their names in the past. But somehow we are expected to believe that Jarvis's accusation against Boxer was a "mistake", and that he didn't realize that the Fadhil brothers were not anonymous bloggers?
Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 3, 2005 6:46 AM | Permalink Further factual information: One click away from their blog, on the FRONT PAGE of their website of their political party http://www.english.iraqdemparty.org/ (my emphasis): "Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party...We believe that we represent an important segment of the Iraqi people that was never organized before under any category as a result of the oppression of the past regime. Now this segment has come to see the necessity to contribute to the building of a new Iraq in a way that is entirely different from the old ways." (Ali Fadhil) And http://www.english.iraqdemparty.org/about_pr.shtml Baghdad, IRAQ August 18th, 2004 -- Two popular Iraqi webloggers, Ali Fadhil and Mohammed Fadhil, today announced their candidacies for the Iraqi National Assembly. They're public candidates for office. Their names weren't a secret. Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at February 3, 2005 11:55 AM | Permalink Seth: Asked and answered, counselor. See my post yesterday. The issue is the absolutely groundless speculation about ties to the FCC or DoD. Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at February 3, 2005 12:03 PM | Permalink note how Jarvis claims that the speculation about the Fadhil brothers is 'absolutely groundless'? yet there is ample documentation that the Bush regime is trying to control/influence what information comes into and out of Iraq----and speculation that the Fadhil brothers are part of that effort is not groundless, given that they write like they've been reading Free Republic all their lives..... Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 3, 2005 12:25 PM | Permalink Uh, I mean CIA not FCC. Different bad guys. Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at February 3, 2005 12:26 PM | Permalink Further: "conservative blogger" ... That's the wrong word. The meaningful and factually accurate word here would have been "hawkish". "Sarah was trying to give a sense of the befuddling complexity of an Internet brouhaha." She was?" Yes, she was. That was very clear. The whole article is a basically a long riff about "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog". I mean, that's clear from the first sentences: "When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A CIA operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq?" To me, it's clear from the tone she doesn't really believe he's a CIA agent. The approach is indeed: That wild and wooly Internet, where you can never be sure if the person running the website is a dog or not - look at this brouhaha where all these bloggers are throwing around such silly charges. Secret Agent Man, wooo! Jay, I think the "real" story for PressThink is how everyone with a press agenda jumped all over this bit of fluff. But sadly, there's no reputation-points for doing it. [Just read Jeff Jarvis's reply as I was composing this - with great trepidation, I post and continue ...] When one boils down the dispute, the core issue is that the Times article treated it as a joke accusation, that basically wasn't to be taken seriously. It's a SNARKY article. The hawkish (not "conservative", and I'll avoid "pro-war") bloggers find that viewpoint itself unacceptable. Hence, the specifics of the full names serve as proxies for the VIEWPOINT. This is why the repeated publication of their names isn't considered a refutation - it's all really all about the assumptions about Iraq which are the viewpoint of the piece. Basically, beneath the rhetoric, everyone is agreed that her sin was that she took the issue lightly. The hawkish bloggers believe that it's wrong _per se_ to take the issue lightly, and all else follows from that. You (Jay) are then following their framing of the issue, and saying taking an issue lightly is bad journalism. The dovish bloggers are saying she took it lightly, so everyone else should lighten up. The hawkish bloggers erupt in flames at that. Much more heat than light. Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at February 3, 2005 12:32 PM | Permalink Seth, my wife and I happen to be dovish, not hawkish. Yet as journalists with some knowledge of blogs, including Iraqi blogs, we found the story to be poorly executed -- thinly reported precisely because it does not respect the complexity of the subject matter. My post, which was up before I read anything from Jeff, made no comment about the outing-the-non-anonymous-blogger flap. Ed, I don't think there's practically anyone saying it's a great article. Rather, the opposite take is that it's a trivial bit of cotton-candy column-filler piffle. The key aspect here - which is what outrages the hawkish bloggers, is the idea that one could have words such as Iraq, blogs, and "CIA agent" in the same paragraph - and IT'S NOT IMPORTANT. That's almost sacrilege. Now, there's more than two sides here, there's a minor journo side which keys off blog rather than Iraq (and of course, some people do both!). But the underlying cry is "How can you dare write about this critical topic AND NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY?" (segue into: must be an agenda, what does it really mean, they're taking it seriously behind the scenes and it's a way to trivialize us, etc. etc.) Fundamentally, there's no way to resolve this in terms of viewpoint. I suppose the best that can be done is to outline the various different views on what matters and why. Some people believe should never write the word "God", and to do otherwise is profane. That's vaguely akin to the dispute here, in an oversimplified fashion. Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at February 3, 2005 3:20 PM | Permalink But, Seth, our complaint was exactly the one you mention, that the article did not take a serious subject seriously. We don't fit into your neat explanation. Neither does the fact that Instapundit linked to my post before Jeff wrote his, and didn't add a word about the CIA stuff. Do politics enter into this for some critics? I'm sure they do. But that's true for some critics of the critics too, it seems. Not "unacceptable," Seth, maybe "dangerous" or "irresponsible." SNARKY is fun (sometimes), and has its place (I guess), but IMO you shouldn't have to be particularly "hawkish" to find the whole episode disturbing. The New York Times chose to handle an unsubstantiated accusation in such a way that a casual reader, especially one not familiar with the ins-and-outs of decoding New York Times Arts Section Snark, might believe to be an endorsement of its accuracy. (After all, you just spent four paragraphs making a case for your interpretation of the article, and that to an audience which has already read it.) Now suppose the casual reader has an IED and a grudge against Iraquis who work with the Americans: Somebody could get killed because of this. I can't believe that you'd want to put someone at risk of death just to allow some Times writer to be "clever" in a snarky article, and I can't believe the Times still doesn't seem to understand that words have consequences. Posted by: Old Grouch at February 3, 2005 3:44 PM | Permalink Seth -- Everyone seems to agree that the article was a collection of baseless "piffle," to use your word. The disagreement, then, is between feeling that the Times should be in the business of publishing articles that are comprised of baseless piffle or not. You seem to be of the former opinion. Of course, there are implications to this position. For the Iraqi blogger his life is at stake, even if the Times has gone into the baseless piffle business, that may not be known to certain people in Baghdad with suicide bomb packs in their closets. So I guess then the dispute becomes between those who think it's OK to trifle with someone's life by publishing baseless piffle in the Times and those who think it's not OK. Again, you seem to be on the former side. Posted by: Lee Kane at February 3, 2005 3:54 PM | Permalink Lee, Grouch, and Ed: Thanks; couldn't have said it better myself. Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at February 3, 2005 3:59 PM | Permalink I'm curious. How many of the critics of the NYT for endangering ITM bloggers were also critics of CNN for not telling the "whole" story in Saddam's Iraq because it might endanger someone (especially someone working for CNN). I think the concern for Omar, Mohammed and Ali is laudable and the NYT piffle piece had minimal to zero impact on their security situation. Their security situation is what it is because of where they are and what they're doing - brave men. I am more concerned with the editorial machinations at the NYT that thought this was an article worthwhile to print - anywhere. Does the NYT have a piffle section? Is that the Arts section? Is it the tabloid journalism goes here section? The other part that bothers me is the seeming admission by Landman that (paraphrasing), "We really don't know what we're doing when it comes to reporting/commenting on the Internet (and blogging). We don't know the people involved (mislabeling Jarvis). Any attribution is worth considering 'cause everyone starts out a dog on the Internet to the uninitiated. So we took a shot. Well, that's my complaint about much of journalism. Science, math/statistics, military, etc., is all just "a shot". "We're not expected to actually help the reader understand this stuff, just make sure all sides (or at least a minimum of two) get their say.", is considered above-piffle journalism. Thanks, Jay, for trying to shine light on the real issue. "I can't believe that you'd want to put someone at risk of death ..." "For the Iraqi blogger his life is at stake, ... OK to trifle with someone's life ... I believe my point has been proved. Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at February 3, 2005 4:42 PM | Permalink I needn't defend Boxer's article to disagree with one of Jay's key assumptions here: "Landman says the aim of the Boxer article was to convey a situation in its opacity. But good reporting is ordinarily the opposite of that: the situation should be more intelligible, and less opaque, when a... journalist gets done with it." Is that really true about all kind of journalism? I ask with some defensiveness, since my goal when writing a long feature is to reveal the situation as MORE complex, and perhaps less immediately intelligible. If I write about Clear Channel, for instance, I don't want the reader to come away thinking, "Ok, now I know: Clear Channel is good/bad." In that instance, I want to convey, the opacity of a massive media company. Right now I'm writing about Colorado Springs. Dozens of journalists have sounded off on the new capital of Christian conservatism, usually with a verdict, or a cheap kicker that lets a Christian conservative, or a critic of Christian conservatism, have the "last word." I don't have a verdict. And there is no "last word." The reader who reads my story and thinks they've got Colorado Springs' number -- well, they probably had THAT number before they started reading. Would Boxer's story have been better had she been able to conclude that the bloggers were, or were not, involved with the U.S. government? Of course. But a story is still a story when it doesn't result in clear answers. Posted by: Jeff Sharlet at February 3, 2005 5:32 PM | Permalink Personally, I think that Dick Thornburgh and Lou Boccardi put my life in danger by saying that I was the person who told Mary Mapes about a rumor about additional Bush documents being available, and that I have a web site where I post "disparaging analyses of President Bush's National Guard service." There are a lot of wingnuts out there who hate anyone who criticizes Bush, and I gave Mapes that information in confidence---and had made every effort to keep myself out of the public eye (including turning down all "on the record" interviews about my research.) But somehow, the wingnuts who are so concerned with the Fadhil brothers safety aren't concerned with my safety. Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 3, 2005 5:56 PM | Permalink Great comment, Jeff! "I ask with some defensiveness, since my goal when writing a long feature is to reveal the situation as MORE complex, and perhaps less immediately intelligible." I think that's an excellent journalistic goal. So, I need to ask a question from you, or another wordsmith. Is complexity == opacity == ambiguity == intelligability == "we said"? OK, I threw ambiguity and "we said" into the equation from elsewhere. But, still, I'd appreciate any thoughts. When we consider articles and editorials for publication, if we cannot provide illumination, we don't print it. It is a yardstick that sidesteps what otherwise would be a comment thread of unending and irresolvable bickering. Okrent should have distilled his reply down to, "The Boxer article provided no illumination so it never should have run." re: Defining Issues Test Great, more proof that journalists are liberal. Liberals and moderates scored significantly higher than conservatives did in postconventional reasoning on the DIT-2 but not on the SSMS. These results support findings of previous research demonstrating the political dimensions of the DIT, as well as reinforce the multidimensional nature of moral behavior and moral judgment.Or not ... Politics, moral reasoning and the Defining Issues Test: a reply to Barnett et al. (1998) The findings overall, however, only partially support the view that political identity influences moral reasoning. We conclude that, although degree of preference for conventional or Stage 4 reasoning is a function of political identity, principled reasoning may be unrelated to political orientation. We also propose that these two forms of reasoning do not reflect successive development stages and that preference for one may be independent of preference for the other. "No significant differences were found among various groups of journalists, including men and women, broadcast and print reporters and managers and non-managers." How about columnists? Posted by: Anna at February 3, 2005 9:39 PM | Permalink Jeff Sharlet (who is teaching a course at NYU this term on religion and journalism): I said good reporting is ordinarily the opposite of opaque, and that the situation should be more intelligible when the journalist's labors are completed. You ask if this is always true in all forms of journalism. There probably are exceptions. I can think of a variety of situations where a really fine piece of journalism would complicate our understanding, or try to render certain situations harder to grasp with the idea set popular at the time. In fact, I occasionally have this aim myself, as a writer or explainer of the scene. When I write about the media bias discourse I am definitely at war with simple-ness. But I think there is a difference between trying usefully to complicate the reader's understanding, and leaving things opaque. Landman's language is interesting here: “Sarah was trying to give a sense of the befuddling complexity of an Internet brouhaha, of layers of potential manipulation." When you are trying to understand a situation, and indeed explain it to others, do you call it a "brouhaha?" I don't. It sure sounds to me, not like an attempt to complicate our understanding, but to confirm an existing picture of the Internet as a factual wild west, yes, but also a realm of magical indeterminacy, such that statements like, "How can you believe anything on it?" make, as it were, factual sense. I see Boxer's account as driven by this narrative. And I hear Landman saying: "You gotta understand, we were portraying a realm of truthlessness." I would be interested in what others heard in his statement. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 3, 2005 10:35 PM | Permalink I think you're onto something, Jay -- the word "brouhaha" may indeed be a clue, and I think you're onto something with regard to the Times' approach to alleged brouhahas on the internet -- a sort of bemused detachment, a wink that says, "Now, you must understand that we don't actually BELIEVE any of this -- these people are playing imaginary games." With some exceptions, that's a variation of the approach taken by mainstream secular media to the coverage of religion. That's what's going on when you read a "human interest" story about a "black church" filled with gospel and speaking in tongues. That, to a press conditioned to evaluate stories by their factual verifiability only, is a kind of brouhaha. And that's also what's going on when secular reporters try to cover politically active religious people in strictly political terms, as if the faith that animates their involvement in politics is, well, a brouhaha. Take Ted Haggard, one of Bush's main religious advisors and president of the NAE. The only media outlet to engage seriously with the motives of his political engagement -- a belief in "spiritual warfare" with demonic forces that work through actual secret covens of witches, as he's written about extensively -- was "This American Life." The problem, I think lies with a misunderstanding of stories as somehow "not real." "Facts" are verifiable. But so, in a sense, are stories, at a deeper level than that proposed by Boxer's critics. Ideally, Boxer would have either a)proved that the bloggers accept American government help; b)dug into exhaustively enough to say, with caveats, that there is no evidence of such a relationship. But regardless, there's another "fact" here which is important: The fact that a lot of people believe that they do have such contacts. That's a story that is out there, working in the world, shaping what people believe. And it may well be unprovable one way or the other. In which case, Boxer should have written a story about the power of rumors in the Iraqi blogging community, illustrated by this case. What would that have done? It would have revealed the opacity of the situation. Without resorting to the Times' condescending -- and obfuscating -- approach of reporting on "brouhahas." Posted by: Jeff Sharlet at February 3, 2005 11:47 PM | Permalink Yep. It is much like those situations. There's another tip off moment. Ali says at the close of the account: "My brothers have confidence in the American administration. I have my questions." And Sarah Boxer brings things to a wrap: "Now that seems genuine." End of article. Doubt is genuine. Belief is a brouhaha. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 4, 2005 12:14 AM | Permalink When you are trying to understand a situation, and indeed explain it to others, do you call it a "brouhaha?" I don't. too bad Sarah Boxer did not use the word "brouhaha" in her article. It now appears that your attacks on Boxer have descended to objecting to the language used by someone else to describe her work. And you had a hard time with the Shafer piece? Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 4, 2005 6:30 AM | Permalink [Off Topic] Commentary is not journalism... unless viewers think it is. Look at what one journalistic dolt did to free speech at nearby Hamilton College where an academic dolt was scheduled to speak. Do you suppose Bill O'Reilly's style is in part responsible for the absence of civil discussion and the resulting Red State-Blue State gulf? See: 'We report. We decide'. Paul: So I didn't put 2+2 together now... So you're the guy who launched Mapes.... Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at February 4, 2005 10:17 AM | Permalink re: Defining Issues Test Jay: "But I'm not sure what "scored higher" means. Or if it means anything." Journalists Pass Social Responsibility Test Posted by: Sisyphus at February 4, 2005 12:48 PM | Permalink "Paul: So I didn't put 2+2 together now... So you're the guy who launched Mapes...." That's what Thornburgh and Boccardi said, and if you think they are credible, then it must be true. Of course, they identified me as an "anti-Bush blogger" and I've never blogged in my life, and although I am supposedly the first person in the very short chain to the Killian memos, they never even bothered to contact me----which tells you three things. 1) Thornburgh and Boccardi had a specific political agenda of their own 2) Thornburgh and Boccardi flat out lied about me 3) Thornburgh and Boccardi did not bother to determine the actual meaning of the Killian documents within the statutes, regulations, and policies and procedures of the relevant era, and most of their critiques of the 60 Minutes segment were based on complete ignorance of Bush's military records. Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 4, 2005 4:12 PM | Permalink The NYT article was badly written and badly reported. I'm always finding these 'aww isn't that cute' moments when someone in power realizes that people on the internet are actually people. It's really quite irritating. Once again, though, we are down to a challenge to our assumptions about what is knowledge and how to package information so that it becomes knowledge. The floundering around we see here is because the Times doesn't have a firm grasp of their answer to this question anymore. Posted by: Matt Stoller at February 4, 2005 5:49 PM | Permalink Lets see now....a President, his party, and the entire mainstream media spreads lies and innuendo about Iraq's WMD capability, not merely endangering the lives of some Iraqi's, but resulting in the very real deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis---and the wingnuts are not outraged. But, mention the existence of speculation that an Iraqi blogger might be getting support from the US government, and all hell breaks loose. Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 4, 2005 6:40 PM | Permalink Great work on that "ethics" test, Tim. It didn't sound right to me. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 4, 2005 10:24 PM | Permalink Daniel Radosh at Radosh.net: I disagree with Jarvis and Rosen that a "critic's notebook" must always illuminate and untangle murky debates -- there is a place for simply informing people that a murky debate is taking place, and wallowing in the murk -- but unless the writer really understands and respects the milieu in which these debates take place, the result is always going to obscure more than it informs. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 4, 2005 10:31 PM | Permalink |
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