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January 9, 2006
Wrong When the Governor is Wrong"CNN is so empty-handed in documenting how it knew the men were alive that the producers resort to playing audio tapes of a dispatcher's voice at some unidentified ambulance service, and someone named 'caller' is saying... that's what we heard, yeah, 12 alive."(This originally appeared in the Huffington Post) There’s a little detail in the misreporting of the West Virgina miners’ deaths that you should know about. (A good overview is here, and here. Links to the explanations editors gave are here and also here, where the ombudsmen bring the lumber.) What Becky Wagoner, the reporter for the local daily, did is stay put. She was covering the rescue for the Inter-Mountain newspaper of Elkins, W.Va., which has a newsroom population of 21 and a circulation of 11,000 or so. Instead of running to the church, where the “human” story was supposed to be, and where the families said they had heard the miners were alive, she remained in the briefing room where all previous updates had been received. (This is according to Editor & Publisher.) “We heard that they were found alive through CNN, then it snowballed to ABC, then FOX and it was like a house afire,” recalled Wagoner, who said she was at the media information center set up by the mine’s operators, International Coal Group Inc., when the reports spread. No update about miners being found alive appeared on the Inter-Mountain’s web site, said Wagoner and her editor, Linda Skidmore. What Becky Wagoner did (and didn’t do) is a small detail, but not an insignificant one. Some journalists, like Amanda Bennett, the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer—which reported “Joy at mine: 12 are alive”— have been asking:. “Was there anybody who was there who got it any differently?” There was, but are you interested? The reporters and camera crews fled to the church because that’s where the story was. Wagoner stayed in the place where the information was being given out. Anderson Cooper was on the air at the time for CNN; Jonathan Klein is his boss and the head of CNN/US. They reported for three hours the wrong information: that twelve miners were found alive. AP and other networks did the same. Defending their performance, CNN people have said that primary responsibility rests with the mining company, which did not correct the false reports for two and a half hours, and elected officials, who passed along faulty information. I agree with that. As I wrote in my previous post about this: “I don’t blame the news media for initially false information about the West Virginia mining disaster. I blame confusion, exhaustion, human emotion and poor decision-making by company officials.” But then CNN people (like their counterparts at the AP) have made a second observation: that their mistake was unavoidable. This I do not agree with. (Neither does Howard Kurtz. Also see the Reliable Sources transcript, and Greg Mitchell’s column in E & P.) If a producer from CNN had been hanging out with Becky Wagoner, trying to get someone on the record with the news that the miners were alive, and discovering, as she did, that no one from the rescue operation would confirm it, the story that went out Tuesday night might, possibly, have been different. Sunday night I watched CNN Presents, an hour-long special recapping the Sago mine disaster. When they get to the part where the network “learns” that a miracle had happened, and the men were alive, the producers of the one-hour special have no tape to show. There is no footage of an authorized knower saying it. Nobody ever announced it. We see people rejoicing who said they had heard about it. Townspeople are seen thanking god. There are clips of the Governor, but he’s talking about the one man who was rescued. CNN is so empty-handed in documenting how it knew the men were alive that the producers resort to playing audio tapes of a dispatcher’s voice at some unidentified ambulance service, and someone named “caller” is saying… that’s what we heard, yeah, 12 alive. Gal Beckerman of CJR Daily made a similar point about the nation’s newspapers and their faulty headlines. “A close reading of the articles themselves tells the tale of how journalists bungled the story,” he wrote. “In most, there are no sources at all for the information; in some, the sources are the rumors spread by frantic family members. Those sorts of sources are hardly a solid basis for headlines screaming, ‘They’re Alive!’” Or for concluding: this mistake was unavoidable. Klein’s speech to CNN staff ought to be: “We screwed this up, although we came out looking okay because the Governor was wrong, and we had a wrong Congress person too. Their sources were as bad as our sources. “We’re CNN; we’re supposed to be more reliable than anyone. Our slogan isn’t ‘Wrong when the Governor’s wrong.’ Statesmen are supposed to watch us to find out what’s going on in their world. “It is unacceptable to me that for three hours of live television, with our top talent presiding, we’ve got twelve men alive reported as truth, and we never saw those men, no ambulances for them ever moved, and we had no real confirmation. Just a bunch of people saying: yeah, that’s what we heard. “No one from inside the rescue operation was putting his name, or his ass on the line with those facts. But we did not report that. Yet we put our ass and our name on the line, and Anderson’s, when we had almost no facts. “Totally unccceptable…” Klein ought to be saying. And if I’m Anderson Cooper I’m standing right next to him nodding my head. But this is what Cooper actually said in a first-person “Behind the Scenes” account he wrote on Jan. 5: For those of us in the media, I’m not sure what we could have done to keep this news from spreading like it did. Well, I’m not sure, either. But it might have helped, a little, if CNN had reported “the families say they’ve been told their loved ones are alive, and the governor said he heard the same thing, but we have gotten no confirmation from anyone connected with the rescue operation.” If they had stuck a microphone in front of Becky Wagoner of the Inter-Mountain newspaper she might have said something like that. Cooper wrote: When you have the governor of the state giving you the thumbs-up, a congresswoman talking about this on air, hundreds of relatives and family members jubilant, some of who received calls from mining officials, it’s tough to ignore what they’re saying. “There is only so much you can do” says CNN’s franchise player. My understanding of a network anchorman’s job during a live news event is to keep track of what we know, how we know it, what we don’t know yet, and what we’re learning for the first time. Journalistically, this is why we need anchors. Cooper showed no signs of bearing this skill, and yet he seems satisfied that he did all he could. And from the boss of the operation there is this, via Editor & Publisher: Most bullish of all was CNN president Jonathan Klein, who offered no apologies and hailed his cable network’s performance, which resulted in three hours of faulty coverage. He said the sourcing of the report that the men were alive was “pretty solid,” adding: “This situation points to the strength of TV news coverage because we were able to correct as better information developed.” When at 3:00 am a townswoman walked up to Anderson Cooper and told him—live—that he had been reporting a false miracle this showed, according to Klein, the strength of CNN. As Jeff Jarvis has written, with coverage like that, “It’s not the news that’s live; it’s the process of figuring out what to believe that’s live.” And the figuring out goes on. So if someone tells you it was unavoidable, mention Becky Wagoner, will you? After Matter: Notes, reactions & links… Jeff Jarvis wrote his column for the Guardian about the miner’s deaths: Reporting the truth is a collaborative process. (Jan. 16, 2006) In this age of instant communication, ubiquitous connectivity, and constant coverage, the public is put in the position of having to judge the news and its reliability for themselves. Like a good reporter, the public must be sceptical and must learn that sometimes it takes time for the facts to catch up with a story. So the public has to decide whether to trust the news they hear. The public is the editor. Derek Rose was there for the New York Daily News. He writes a first-person account at his blog that is worth your time: And where are the other miners, we wonder? It must be 2 a.m. or so by now, about two hours since the families first got their update. They are probably being treated and triaged at the scene, we figure. Read the rest. Also, in the comments Derek has some criticisms of this post. Felicity Barringer, New York Times, e-mails PressThink. You can read my reply. Jay: You are critical of journalists in West Virginia for not being rigorous about confirming the initial report that the miners were alive. I’m not sure you mentioned that the report originated with relay communications from inside the mine and was delivered to the jam-packed command center by squawk box. Have you reported on Mr. Hatfield’s description of how the erroneous report was widely disseminated by people in the command center who had heard it from rescuers within the mine? Thanks, Felicity. Standards are at least as high, yes, for those who write about the press. I told Barringer I would have more of a reply in a day or two. Howard Kurtz in an online Q & A with washingtonpost.com readers (Jan. 9): Since most journalists are saying they did nothing wrong, I can only assume that they would do the same thing in a similar situation in the future. What, exactly, would be wrong with saying: “We’re hearing conflicting reports, but the facts are unclear and nothing has been confirmed”? Romenesko today has tons more. Greg Mitchell’s column in Editor & Publisher: “A local professor, who was at the scene, describes what he saw and felt as minutes, then hours, passed and the media got the story so very wrong. At the heart of the problem: officials and reporters alike were not willing to admit uncertainty.” I’ve contacted the Inter-Mountain newspaper to get more information, and I will let you know what happens. Connie Schultz, columnist for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer: I have more sympathy than some for the print journalists who reported that the miners had survived. They all work for newspapers where the editors have one eye turned to TV all day long. I don’t envy any newspaper reporter who tried to convince editors back home that just because TV had it doesn’t mean it was right. Too often, that battle is lost the moment some newscaster proudly crows, “We have just learned…” Broadcasting & Cable Magazine on the selling of Anderson Cooper as the face of CNN: In another print ad, a concerned-looking Cooper is alone in a control room during Hurricane Katrina, holding a soda can. The text there is a quote from him: “Accountability is key. Find the facts. Find the truth. Present that to the audience.” In yet another, he is sitting on a curb in Beirut, taking notes in a reporter’s notebook; the text quotes the promise he made in the two-hour debut of 360 on Nov. 7 to “hold the people in power accountable for their words and their actions.”
Posted by Jay Rosen at January 9, 2006 11:14 AM
Comments
Another good but disturbing piece, Jay. Posted by: Scott Butki at January 9, 2006 11:38 AM | Permalink As I did at the other thread, I would ask anyone interested to read E&P's detailed breakdown of the "sourcing," and then comment. It has been updated since first appearing on Friday. Thanks. Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 9, 2006 11:44 AM | Permalink Number of injuries in combined coal/metal/nonmetal mining industries, nationwide 1931: 94,221 (disabling injuries only) 2000: 16,209 Source: National Mining Association. Under the Bush Administration, then, not only has the number of total mining fatalities from 85 in 2000 down to 57 in 2005, but has also cut the number of total mining injuries by 25 percent. And so what's the headline from the knuckleheads at Knight-Ridder and the San Francisco Chronicle? "Enforcement of Mine Safety Seen Slipping Under Bush." How Knight Ridder can let an article on mine safety go without, you know, mentioning and quantifying publicly available data on MINE SAFETY is beyond me. Somehow the number of unpaid fines is more relevant than the number of injuries prevented? (Smart regulators focus on follow-through on identified gigs - not on running a collections agency.) However, the story line taken reinforces the popular journo meme - if the Bush Administration can be tarred and feathered, let's run with it, and damn the facts. To paraphrase Jesse Jackson, if the Bush Administration walked on water tomorrow, Wednesday's headlines would read "Bush Officials Can't Swim." Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 11:48 AM | Permalink JARVIS: I'm not sure it's a problem. I think it's a new opportunity we have to figure out. We do now have news all the time. We have ubiquitous coverage of news. I think what has to happen is we have to understand that the public now has to act as an editor. They have to be as suspicious as we as reporters always were. But we had hours before the show came on or the edition came out. Now, news is constant. The flow of information is constant. And the public has to learn how to judge news the way editors do. The truth is, I think the public has always done that. [emphasis added] I have a serious problem with Greg's latest piece, in which he writes: In other words, the sources (including bells ringing out and people who had no direct information on the rescue, including the governor) in retrospect were shaky and the reporters should have done more reporting, but we did everything right because it was all based on what "people were saying." This sounds like Judy Miller's defense of her Iraq WMD reporting. The last line tells you all you need to know about the flaws in the criticism of the coverage. If Mitchell really thinks that a comparison between mistakes made in the reporting of "breaking news" and those made in "investigative journalism" is in any way appropriate, he really has asbout as much business being a paid media critic as I do... probably even less than me, since I do know the difference between "breaking news" and "investigative reporting." Mitchell and the rest of the press bashers on this story want to view this whole thing as "black and white" -- when its really all about shades of gray. One gets the impression that Mitchell thinks that the proper approach to the story should have been: "The local yokels have heard some rumor that the miners have been found alive. The church bells have been ringing, the governor gave us the thumbs up, and everyone is celebrating. But we're going to ignore all of that, because the PR department of the mining company hasn't given us a hand-out giving us their spin on the rescue efforts." Jay: Brynaert (who would never claim to be objective) is always correcting people who have their facts wrong, including me. That's because he cares more about getting it right than who's side gets hurt. You can't teach that, it is rare to find it, it's worth everything. Way to go, Ron. Now, how, in all honesty, can you concede that newsrooms are overwhelmingly liberal/Democratic, that conservatives/Republicans are conversely underrepresented in newsrooms, as you do above ... and then state that it is "rare to find" someone who cares more about getting it right than about whose side is getting hurt, and still claim that the leftward demographic skew doesn't make its way into print? If it's so rare to find, how is that even logically or statistically possible? Jason (Reposted because the prior thread was closed before you had a chance to respond) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 12:29 PM | Permalink Newspaper should have verified whether student was telling truth While the editor of The Standard-Times on Dec. 30 admitted that the paper was to blame for running the original story without adequate evidence on Dec. 17, the paper continues to insist that its sources were reliable.Hel-lo? Press Think? Jason: I meant in that comment "rare in the political blogosphere," of which Ron--and you--are a part. You seem to think I see the traditional press as unbiased. I don't. I just don't buy your description of what the bias is. I guess you didn't like my question: what sort of bias should the press have? Not surprised. Almost no one does. Takes away the high horse. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 9, 2006 12:39 PM | Permalink Tim, I'm not sure I follow. Do you see the story of the kid who made up a story about being visited by Homeland Security as an equivalent to the mining diaster story? How is this Press Think? First, it wasn't a breaking story. Second, there wasn't a daily deadline issue. And, as in the link you gave, The key is in the link you cited: The reporter was unable to talk with the student, since the student did not want to be identified. The reporter was also unable to find other corroborating evidence. If all the reporter had was the word of two college professor that the kid told them about the visit, there was no story. Of course it should have been further reported. Also in your link: when other media called about the story and the faculty said they couldn't vouch for the truth of the story, the media interested died on the vine. No story. The Visit story isn't a case of the convergence of circumstances but poor decision making on the part of the reporter and editor at the Standard-Times. Where does this fit into the narrative of the current discussion? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 9, 2006 1:09 PM | Permalink Appreciate CNN reporter Randi Kaye's awesome powers of self-reflection. (She was there.) I was listening to CNN's live programming through my earpiece, waiting to appear on camera, when I heard a woman speak to Anderson Cooper live on the air. "Randi, get confirmation." I just love that. They're running with an uncomfirmed story for three hours, and they don't report how curious that is, but then it's, "Randi, quick, get confirmation!" Great piece, Jay. I'd love to hear what you find out from the Inter-Mountain paper. Maybe you'll talk to Betsy herself.... Wait a minute, it's both Becky and Betsy in the piece. So, whichever, I'd still like to hear from her. Grrrr. I fixed that. It's Becky. But thanks, Jenny. Tim: The Little Red Book story is just too stupid to comment on. The Standard-Times didn't even come close to doing their job. I find it hard to get worked up about, though. This from Connie Schultz in the After Matters section above caught my attention: "They (print reporters) all work for newspapers where the editors have one eye turned to TV all day long." On what planet would newspapers trump TV for immediacy? Certainly not on planet Earth. Newspapers have hurt themselves by attempting to compete with TV, and they always come up short. Print and TV are two different mediums---why are newspapers trying to be the same as TV when TV will always win? Newspapers have their place, but it is for in depth and accurate second day reporting, not the emotion of the moment----that would be TV's bailiwick. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 1:59 PM | Permalink My purpose for linking to the Standard-Times story was not equivalency, or adequacy, or stupidity (well, OK, maybe my stupidity) ... My reasoning was sourcing/"authorized knower" and accountability. Different things that occur at different stages of manufacturing the news, whether compressed or extended in time. Jay. The Little Red Book story was, indeed, stupid. However, it's possible that it might have run longer, misinformed more people--who would not be reached by the correction, if the paper were ethical enough to bother--except for luck. If you will admit this is not the only boner the press commits, you will be facing the question of the cumulative effect on the news-consuming public. Although major explosions take up a lot of time and energy, the lack of a major explosion over this means it's a "garden-variety error" which you admit the press will keep making and not be too concerned about. And, by not reaching the maximum number of journalists with the blast and shrapnel of a major explosion, a teachable moment is passed. It isn't the subject, it isn't the kid in the story, it's the abject failure of basic reporting. There's no indication that the journos in question would come all over professional and competent if the subject were important, is there? If Skidmore's skeleton crew could hang out where the information was, surely the bigs could have found one of their crew to do the same while the rest were getting ready to jump into the pool of emotion at the church with the Big Names of the networks. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 9, 2006 2:08 PM | Permalink Jay what sort of bias should the press have? Demographically, none. The press newsroom political demographics should roughly mirror the political demographics of the country, the same way an index mutual fund mirrors the theoretical contents of an index. Unfortunately, by loading most of our national media into a 10 square block area of mid-town Manhattan, you wind up with the biases of the NYC area - which are vastly different from the tendencies of the nation at large. And by putting so many of its eggs in the midtown Manhattan basket, the national media has basically done the same thing bad fund managers did when they all loaded up on the same 40 Nasdaq stocks in 1999: All the market bears listened to each other. They uncoupled their analysis from reality. Their biased analysis could not be supported by actual earnings. And they drove their shareholders off a cliff. Had stock market assets more closely correlated with earnings, you wouldn't have had the same madness. (Stocks of profitable companies actually LOST 2% in 1999!) Putting everything in midtown manhattan was a stupid idea.We'd be better off with a Chicago, or even Florida-based media. Somewhere where you might even find Red counties with red outlooks within commuting distance of media centers. But the demographic skew isn't something that can't be addressed by the media. They went through great pains to address racial skewness not long ago. It's not a systemic bias in a finite hiring universe that cannot be statistically hedged in a meaningful way. There's no reason why conservatives and liberals cannot be represented within 5 points of one another in the newsroom. Other than people who - while inexplicably warm to affirmative action initiatives for everything else under the sun - deny that there's even a problem. Well, it doesn't LOOK like a problem from the point of view of a cultural Upper West Sider. Of course it doesn't. It's cultural UWSers who run the news. And, God love ya, you actually think you're normal! Hell, you probably even think you don't speak with an accent. Posted by: jwvansteenwyk@hotmail.com at January 9, 2006 2:14 PM | Permalink Jay, Why in the world would print media be looking at TV to see what they should report? In the comments, the local paper was given the excuse of they did not have a deadline, so they had the time to get it right. The same principle works for the morning print media. Since you do have a deadline, unlike cable news and the AP, you have to cover youself in case you are wrong. The reporting was fine, the jumping to conclusions on unreliable information was the problem. The different kinds of media require different attitudes to information speed, cost, and reliability. Posted by: Tim at January 9, 2006 2:21 PM | Permalink The comments of jwvansteenwyk@hotmail.com makes me harken back to my youth when there were only 3 networks and all 3 followed the NYTimes lead. Back then, I didn't have a clue that "the press is too liberal", I just thought the press was too New Yorkish, since what the networks were reporting didn't match the facts on the ground where I lived. In other words, I thought then the national news was provincial. Sometimes, I think that now. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 2:46 PM | Permalink E-mail from Felicity Barringer, New York Times: Jay: You are critical of journalists in West Virginia for not being rigorous about confirming the initial report that the miners were alive. I'm not sure you mentioned that the report originated with relay communications from inside the mine and was delivered to the jam-packed command center by squawk box. Have you reported on Mr. Hatfield's description of how the erroneous report was widely disseminated by people in the command center who had heard it from rescuers within the mine? You know, if you can' t blame greedy corporations and GWB, what's the point? Inquiring minds want to know! Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 3:35 PM | Permalink MAJOR OT ALERT: E&P today acknowledges what many of us have known for a while: a US reporter has been grabbed by "freedom fighters", oops, I mean terrorists. But there is a news blackout to protect her safety. The reporter was a freelancer with CSM, and their spokesperson says that "we have been advised that the less said, the better." Gee, ya think? When has MSM shown such sensitivity toward other "freedom fighter" captives? Don't they normally air the terrorist propaganda video of the victim and the "freedom fighters"? I guess journalists are "special". Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 4:01 PM | Permalink And by putting so many of its eggs in the midtown Manhattan basket, the national media has basically done the same thing bad fund managers did when they all loaded up on the same 40 Nasdaq stocks in 1999. -- Jason I'll buy part of that. The Sixth Avenue media ghetto isn't as homogenous as you think it is, Jason -- just as the self-enclosed claustrophobic bubble that we call the Pentagon isn't the homogenous hive of Robot-like militarist types that most conspiracy-minded liberals think that it is. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 4:07 PM | Permalink Yep. After all, they were so guarded about safeguarding the identities of Nick Berg, Kenneth Bigley, Paul Johnson, Kim Sun Il, and Margaret Hassan. I mean, you'd never know they were ever taken! By the way, Abigail - it's not "freedom fighters." One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, so they say. Didn't you get the memo? The operative term is "rebel." You know, like George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Luke Skywalker. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 4:13 PM | Permalink Steve > Sorry, Steve. Arguing about whether to vote for Kerry or Dean in the Democratic primary doesn't score a lot of diversity points with most of us. Sorry about those clueless tourists from Ohio clogging up the subways. I know how you feel, since the rest of the country spends so much time tripping over those inbred lefties from New York who clutter up the news copy. Haven't you figured out yet that New York's population is not representative of the rest of the country? Even the population of people who move to New York to take media jobs is not representative of the rest of the country, because that population is taken from the small subset of people who are willing to move to New York. Now, not too many people who commute to midtown every day on a reporer's salary is going to be inclined to keep his or her personal vehicle very long. So right out of the gate, you rule out everyone who's upside down with a hefty monthly payment on a pickup truck. Now if that doesn't statistically rule out the heart of Red America demographic, I don't know what does! Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 4:23 PM | Permalink darn...got to the last thread a little too late - but since Jason mentioned me I'll continue also - thanks, Jay, for what you wrote about my Raw Story article on Bill Roggio. But, after a year's attendance at Press Think, I've learned more than my share of lessons here (from you, as well as from most of the commenters...even a few of the anonymous "trolls" that have now been designated outlaws) ami (re:last thread), But...remember...I contacted WaPo about Roggio..so it wasn't just an assault from the right that Howell might be responding to in a future column. Posted by: Ron Brynaert at January 9, 2006 4:33 PM | Permalink Gee, Abigal, gee, Jason -- you must be holding your breath. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 4:39 PM | Permalink I'll confess, Jason, I don't have a pickup truck. But I do have a 1987 Jeep Cherokee, with rusted-out wheelwells. Does that meet your qualification for who's allowed to comment on press performance ? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 4:53 PM | Permalink Steve. As usual, you seem to think we can only know what you tell us, despite the evidence of our lying eyes. To make the case once again, Abigail is yukking it up, if she is, over the notable lack of interest in the security of the other unfortunate folks who got taken. Clearly, that doesn't do you much good so, as a good journalist, you misrepresent her position. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 9, 2006 4:57 PM | Permalink Well, Richard, it shouldn't take long to find out. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 5:09 PM | Permalink Fine, Richard, what would you say if someone 'yukked it up' when a Brown & Root employee got kidnapped by Iraqi thugs because 'they were only there to make money'? Or simply used the capture of of anyone in Iraq solely for a paltry political point? Is it your position - or Abigail's or Jason's - that the news media should ignore the kidnappings? Not raise any attention or interest in the abductions by homicidal ideologues? Or it is simply Ha, Ha, the press got theirs? I'm serious. I don't understand why abigail and jason saw fit to take the conversation down this dreary little path. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 9, 2006 5:13 PM | Permalink Good lord Lovelady, get a grip. Show me the quote where I wish Jill Carroll will be killed. I don't want anyone to be killed by the insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters. My point is that the press handles journalist kidnappings differently from "civilian" kidnappings. Can you at least accept that I don't want ANYBODY killed, no matter their occupation or politics? Jeez! Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 5:14 PM | Permalink I'd like to set fire to that straw man, just to see how long Seve keeps hugging it. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 5:26 PM | Permalink It's cultural UWSers who run the news. And, God love ya, you actually think you're normal! When did I ever boast about being "normal?" When...? :) If you think people in Manhattan go around thinking, "down deep, we're pretty much like the rest of America..." you don't know many who live in Manhattan. I doubt they would say they're a representative lot. Can you at least accept that I don't want ANYBODY killed, no matter their occupation or politics? Since you ask, Abigail, no. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 5:28 PM | Permalink Steve, Your prediliction for kneejerk hysteria has caused you, again, to miss the point: If it is a good idea for the media to keep quiet about the CSM reporter's disappearance, then why wasn't it also appropriate for them to keep mum about everyone else's? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 5:32 PM | Permalink Show me the "glee", Lovelady. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 9, 2006 5:34 PM | Permalink Since you’ve had several days to find out whether ambulances were, in fact, dispatched, I’m sure you regret the inaccurate impression left by your column. And I’m confident you will correct it as visibly as you disseminated it, and explain where you got, and how you confirmed, the information that you give the color of fact. Jay, I do hope that you will explain to this woman that when you wrote: and we never saw those men, no ambulances for them ever moved, that your readers understood that you were referring to the twelve ambulances that had been dispatched to the scene....and which (save one) never moved for three hours after showing up there...which, of course, is what one would expect them to do if the miners had been found alive.... Do we know for a fact that the media overrode requests to not report in other kidnappings? Or is this just more 'everyone knows how rotten the media are"? The E&P link clearly states Post and LA Times editors saying they are always willing to forestall publication of a kidnappee's name if asked. Anyone know otherwise? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 9, 2006 5:45 PM | Permalink Steve, can you come back to the 6th avenue ghetto? Having worked in media in NYC and environs, and now living in the Midwest, I have to agree that the NY media scene is an echo chamber. Things looks mighty different out here in the heartland. Commuting to the train station in your Jeep may seem outrageous in Westchester (or wherever) but no one out here commutes to train stations. It's subtle, but really noticeable when I read the NYT. Or watch network news. There is a sense of "we're in the big city and we're telling you about yourselves" that permeates broadcasts out of NYC. Election results are worst, as though our states are chess pieces in some great East Coast matchup. I wish I could more eloquently explain this. But I believe it, and I see it now. I really didn't see it until I left the coast. You know the saying, that the fish can't see the water because he's living in it.... Jay, Upon further reflection, I think my post that said you don't think you have an accent is an inaccurate analogy. The correct analogy would be to say, yes you know intellectually that you speak with an accent. But when you hear other people speak like you do, you don't hear it, and you don't bother examining it, and the rational thing to do with accents is to shrug it off and say "so what?" Public policy decisions don't ride on accents. They do, however, ride on newsmedia coverage - as do elections. And Manhattan produces news with a decided regional skew. I mean, look at the exhaustive national coverage of the NYC transit strike. Think I care? Will we see the same coverage of a bus strike in Fort Lauderdale, where I live? It's important. But for a local paper. I'd expect the Times to cover it in its non national edition. I'd expect the Post to cover it. Don't particularly need to see it on CNN, since it crowds out real news, like Iraq news. But since everyone at CNN headquarters and Fox News Headquarters and ABC and CBS and NBC was talking about it over the water cooler, because they had a hard time getting to work that day, it occupied a much bigger time slot footprint than it should have in national outlets. That's a decided skew. It wasn't done in bad faith. It wasn't done as part of some nefarious plan to obscure coverage of the Iraqi elections. But it's skew all the same. It's the Manhattan regional accent seeping through. And although you can't see it if you live and work in NYC for years, it's pretty obvious to the rest of the country. Indeed, it's glaring. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 9, 2006 5:49 PM | Permalink Show me the "glee", Lovelady I don't think anyone will have any trouble finding the glee, Beecher, including Carroll's survivors, if it comes to that. MAJOR OT ALERT: E&P today acknowledges what many of us have known for a while: a US reporter has been grabbed by "freedom fighters", oops, I mean terrorists. But there is a news blackout to protect her safety. Gee, ya think ?? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 5:57 PM | Permalink I'm not sure whether it's the Manhattan regionalism or simply the Center of the Known World Syndrome, but I can actually agree with - to a degree - with Jason. Not a sentence you'll see me write often. I don't think it permeates all aspects of the reportage as he does. Some of the regional bureaus are peopled by folks who don't have a Manhattan state of mind. But but there is enough of that geocentric attitude to irritate. The transit strike coverage is a good example. Why do I need to know that many people - including reporters! - had to walk to work? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 9, 2006 6:03 PM | Permalink I'd like to ask all involved in the sarcastic discussion of Ms. Carrol's abduction to stop. I'm sure it's coming from high emotion and frustration on both sides, but it is beneath all of you as well as the situation. I'm hoping with all of my heart and prayers that she is and will remain safe, as I know everyone here is, too. Let's stay on the topic. Posted by: kristen at January 9, 2006 6:57 PM | Permalink Can we try to put this in perspective ?
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 7:12 PM | Permalink "Steve, can you come back to the 6th avenue ghetto? Jenny, you couldn't get me back there for love or money. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 9, 2006 7:20 PM | Permalink Well, judging by my wire, the AP reported Jill Carroll's kidnapping at 12:51 p.m. (that's pacific time -- add three hours, if you live in the center of the known media universe), and an L.A. Times story reporting it moved at 5:47 p.m. So, when you talk about it not being reported ... what are you talking about? Posted by: trostky at January 9, 2006 9:28 PM | Permalink Geez, I remember when discussions of actual reporting techniques didn't automatically, inevitably mutate into discussions of how politically biased the media are. But then I'm getting old. I'm not sure whether it's the Manhattan regionalism or simply the Center of the Known World Syndrome, but I can actually agree with - to a degree - with Jason. Not a sentence you'll see me write often. I do not know many Manhattanites that are dying to visit Cleveland, OH, or Jackson MS., but on the other hand, Manhattan is teeming with the reverse flow! It is indeed the center of the known world:-) -- at least one of the centers. If Ft. Lauderdale doesn't want to read New York City news, it should get its own national newspaper and perhaps show the NYT a thing or two about reporting. This is a free country and many good newspapermen are looking for jobs. In fact, I would even say, the solution to much of this angst is to get your own RED country! Posted by: Phileas Fogg at January 9, 2006 10:05 PM | Permalink Interesting, Phileas, but who would then defend you? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 9, 2006 10:43 PM | Permalink come on people, get a grip! we're talking about rumors at midnight that was corrected at 3 a.m. now if the rumors were at 6 p.m., and corrected at 9 p.m. and all the papers had the wrong stories, then we have something to argue about. this news was corrected the next day. this is not Judy Miller or even Jayson Blair where the erroneous info was not corrected until much later if at all. what is the fuss? Why is it bad for the media to be concentrated in mid-town Manhattan? So should we not trust/appreciate investment bankers, advertisers, publishers, actors, designers, musicians, playwrights, novelists and writers because they are all too New York centric? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 9, 2006 10:51 PM | Permalink I was raised in downstate Illinois and went to grad school in upstate New York (a migration that geographically parallels Mark Twain's in some respects). That allows me to testify to a childhood spent under the thumb of the East Coast establishment as I was taught by Buchanon/Agnew/Nixon and my parents. I daily experienced radical discrepancies between midwestern Republican-defined reality and mainstream news (in fact, I never saw a real life copy of the New York Times until I got to college, but I already knew it was liberal). When I got to Cornell, there was culture shock of two kinds. First, New Yorkers and New York staters WERE provinicial, just like everybody else and they were not very good about seeing or admitting it. For years, their province was the standard of measurement. Second, Republican fantasies of persecution by coastal elites that had some merit in the days of Lyndon Johnson, William Buckley, and Democratic congressional majorities became an embarassing parody of themselves as Republicans took control of all branches of government for decades on end, turned the Congress and Washington D.C. into an organized crime gang with the K Street Project and took over talk radio and cable news. Through Drudge and the internet, RNC talking points became the frame for national "reality" and produced interminable congressional investigations regardless of their ability to produce real world data that remotely resembled their groundless accusations (as opposed to the vacation Congress has been on for five years now outside of cracking down on steroid use in baseball. Where would we be without Republican congressional majorities spending weeks on national policy challenges of this magnitude?). The clearest product of this transformation was the terrorized journalist and media executive suffering from Stockholm (Rove) Syndrome. Major networks and newspapers hired ombudsmen and women with the apparent job description of legitimizing factually baseless RNC disinformation and doing penance for politically incorrect coverage as defined by Republican dogma rather than factual data. Bottom Line: Greater Republican control meant EVEN GREATER Republican "victimization." Republican, heal thyself. Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 9, 2006 10:55 PM | Permalink Interesting, Phileas, but who would then defend you? Clark Kent! (Sorry; couldn't resist:)) Posted by: villageidiot at January 9, 2006 11:05 PM | Permalink By the way, USA Today, which is the No. 1 or No. 2 newspaper these days, in terms of circulation, is based in ... where? ... Orlando, Fla. CNN is based in beautiful downtown Atlanta, Ga. The Tribune Co. is based in the Windy City and also owns the newspaper of record in Los Angeles. The fine national reporting staff of Knight Ridder is based ... I don't know where, but it ain't New York City. The Washington Post is apparently a newspaper of some prominence and influence. New York? What do they publish there? Posted by: trostky at January 9, 2006 11:36 PM | Permalink And, of-course, you forgot to mention The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is apparently housed in the west wing in DC! Posted by: village idiot at January 9, 2006 11:43 PM | Permalink And now, (drum roll, please!) for the winner: the Inter-Mountain newspaper of Elkins, W.Va. Jay's students are making a beeline for their internships in W.Va. with the Columbia grads not far behind! Posted by: village idiot at January 9, 2006 11:58 PM | Permalink I have to say, my personal experience tells me that USA Today, with its focus groups and whatever other means it uses, HAS avoided MANY of the provincial east coast blind spots that used to irritate the hell out of me in the midwest. Why so many people imagine cultural and moral resentment of the provinces bears the remotest relation to the Republican party's pseudo-populist "Welfare for Corporations, Not People!" policies, however, remains a mystery that command of midwest culture has not helped clarify. Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 10, 2006 1:32 AM | Permalink come on people, get a grip! News flash: The whole world doesn't live in the East Coast time zone. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 1:36 AM | Permalink In fact, I would even say, the solution to much of this angst is to get your own RED country! We did. You might not have noticed. It's called America. :-) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 1:42 AM | Permalink New York and L.A. were very much the center of film and TV culture for many decades. That changed quite drastically with cable and talk radio (remember Paul Harvey?) even before the internet wave hit. Of course, we can't forget Detroit's Father Coughlin on the Columbia Broadcasting Network. Those were the good old days. The South's gonna do it again (and the Midwest is coming along for the ride)! Actually, if you count electoral votes, since Reagan the correct tense is,"The South's doin' it again!" Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 10, 2006 1:54 AM | Permalink I heard the CNN tape of 'caller', and frankly, I thought it was a lie at the time. There was something in the manner the caller said 'yeah, it was twelve' as if someone off-mic was coaching. Lies or incompetence, it was a shameful business. Posted by: Jon Koppenhoefer at January 10, 2006 4:47 AM | Permalink Jason Van Steenwyk has been trying to "correct" the lazy "liberal" media's use of mining safety statistics in this thread and the last one. Unfortunately, Jason (like MSHA's summary webpage) only lists fatality and injury numbers ABSENT the working hours during which these fatalities and injuries took place. In fact, working hours in coal mines have dropped forty percent since 1993, so fatalities would have to drop forty percent just to stay at the same safety rate per 200,000 working hours (the way MSHA reported fatality rates on their summaries until 1999. Draw your own conclusion). Jason's statistics radically misrepresent the FACTS. If we calculate underground coal mining fatalities per 200,000 working hours they look like this: The year 2000 was worse than 1999. Over the last twelve years, the most lethal year in underground coal mining was 2001. The next most lethal year was 1996. From 1993 to 2005 per 200,000 working hours: 1993 .04780 So here's the REAL narrative: The numbers show pretty clearly that mine fatalities actually declined consistently and substantially after the Bush Administration took over federal mine enforcement. (The New York Times has soiled itself once again.)What's distressing - or OUGHT to be distressing - is that your own set of assumptions had blinded you to the possibility that the Bush Administration had actually been effective in reducing the number of mine fatalities. All statistics are taken from Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 10, 2006 7:45 AM | Permalink Abigail: Do you have any links, quotes, any bit of evidence at all of the American press using the term "freedom fighters" to refer to the bad guys the US is fighting in Iraq? Has it been found in any news stories? (I hope you saved them, if so) How about one news story? I really don't get your use of that term. What does it have to with journalism, with press think, with the behavior of correspondents abroad-- with anything? Now I am aware (not from you, but from reading others) that because the U.S. press uses the term "insurgents" that signals as clearly as language can that the press is on the side of the Saddamists, Islamists and Al Queda forces in Iraq and would love to see them win, even if the same forces kidnap and kill their journalistic colleagues; and I know too that because Michael Yon uses the term "terrorist" instead of "insurgent" he is the Truthtelling Reporter Supreme and worth 50 "insurgent"-using John Burnses, and I accept the wisdom of all that, I do--it's in the end irrefutable-- but where does "freedom fighter" come from? What relevance does it have? ami: I do hope that you will explain to this woman that you were referring to the twelve ambulances that had been dispatched to the scene... I will, of course, but does anyone know what Felicity Berringer is so angry with PressThink about? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 9:00 AM | Permalink A couple of minor corrections to Trotsky's otherwise admirable post. (Welcome, Leon !) USA Today is based in Reston, Virginia. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 9:03 AM | Permalink Here's an ESPN story on the tragedy. Note the church part. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 10, 2006 9:21 AM | Permalink I don't really care if the press has bias--who can honestly be non-biased? Biases are ingrained over the collective experience of our lives and shape our work, whatever that work is. We should actually embrace our biases and be honest about them with the people we communicate with, in addition to how they influence our work. What can be wrong with that? I think the biggest problem is to pretend that one's own bias-influenced work is somehow unbiased (impossible in my opinion). In a sense, I think editors can be useful in adjusting for bias if the attempt is to balance a piece through additional quotes or sources, in addition to neutralization of qualifying language. In this sense, the end-product of reporting may in fact disguise the author's original bias. But the author cannot then claim to be unbiased. Of course, bias will also be reflected in the whole process of journalistic work in ever decision made for a piece. Posted by: Shawn in Tokyo at January 10, 2006 9:36 AM | Permalink Received this note from Linda Skidmore of the Inter-Mountain newspaper in West Virgina, whom PressThink readers had asked me to contact to she if she would respond to this and the previous thread: Jay: Meanwhile, here is a good first person reflection on the media circus at the Church by a Charleston, WV reporter, Scott Finn. It appears that Geraldo distinguished himself again. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 9:40 AM | Permalink That's a good piece by Scott Finn. I particularly liked his final two graphs: By the way, faithful reader, if you now agree with that woman that I am indeed a spy, I have one question for you. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 10, 2006 9:50 AM | Permalink Well, Ok -- but there are a couple of problems with your calculations - and there is a reason I went with straight numbers of injuries rather than fatalities, and there's a reason I didn't sit around and try to torture the data in some way that would make the numbers more murky, because that's all you've done. First, a massive shutdown after an accident would artificially depress working hours, without necessarily substantially improving safety. Worse yet, making decisions on such a metric would provide a perverse incentive for the mining industry to respond to fatal accidents by INCREASING working hours. Second, I used injuries rather than fatalities because the fatality sample size is too small. With workers sometimes killed in groups of five to a dozen, a narrow stroke of good or bad fortune can radically alter the fatality numbers either way - indeed, in your numbers, using fatalities as the numerator, we would expect to see a couple of bizaare outliers. And indeed, we do - outliers which are right now unexplained. Third, improvements in automation and technology would also artificially reduce the number of hours worked by a higher proportion than the number of injuries reduced. If we assess mine safety practices by your fatalities/hours worked metric, then the mining industry has a perverse incentive NOT to make automation or technological improvements that would reduce the total number of injuries. If you're going to divide by anything, I think the thing to divide by would be production. But even that wouldn't be a consistent indicator except within one kind of mining - coal production isn't the same as gravel production, for instance. And even then, you reward those who react to a fatal accident by increasing production, rather than shutting things down for a short while. At any rate, crunching the numbers like you do still suggests a marked improvement under the Bush Administration compared to Clinton. The 2001 outlier is the first year of the Bush Administration. The new policies would not be taking full effect until the new fiscal year started in October 2002, and any accidents borne of any laxity in enforcement would not be showing up until sometime after that. Stupidity has a latency period. So no - I reject your data mining on statistical grounds. I would hold that absent a massive production slowdown, the best way to measure the safety record of the mine industry at large is to measure the number of injuries. At any rate, the story I cited doesn't even do that. It doesn't bother to examine the most relevant numbers in ANY way whatsoever. And the paper's failure to do that reflects laziness and/or ineptitude on the part of the reporters no matter which way the numbers trend, and there's no way around that. So did I soil myself by coming up with the injury numbers? Not hardly. I'll stick by the raw number of injuries figures, thanks. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 9:53 AM | Permalink I have tried to get the general press interested," says Ellen Smith, owner of the trade publication Mine Safety and Health News. "I just kind of gave up." Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 10:04 AM | Permalink In the interest of advancing lessons learned, I'm linking to a good column by Poynter's Scott Libin on what I call the "epistemology" of reporting: making sure we know that what we know is true, or determining how we know what we know. In particular, some of the questions he says reporters should keep in mind also should be printed out, laminated and kept in wallet/purse. Sorry to return to the offtopic and the bias war -- but has anyone seen this today? As linked to by Kurtz this morning, it appears to be a round table of top-shelf right wing bloggers, taking their marching orders from RNC chief Ken Mehlman (and asking some questions, too). This isn't even bias. It's top-down propaganda dissemination. Not blogs at their best. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 10, 2006 10:37 AM | Permalink Oh, yes -- and the the whole thing was organized by the concerned and impartial Washington Post reader Patrick Ruffino ... Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 10, 2006 10:46 AM | Permalink "It's pretty amazing that a federal agency would hold a briefing on the biggest mining disaster in West Virginia in 40 years and exclude the biggest paper in the state." Hmmm .... sounds pretty lame, I'd say. Posted by: village idiot at January 10, 2006 10:50 AM | Permalink Daniel. I don't know what it makes you. What it makes me is ill. When I see a mike shoved into the face of someone struggling of emotion, I change the channel. When I encounter the equivalent in print, I skip it. If the guys had survived, I'd be happy for them and their families. If not, I sure as hell don't want--nor need--this emotional glop. It's not my business, it's intrusive and vile. The bereaved should be left the hell alone. I want the story of what happened. How did it happen? What did the rescue crews do? How did they do it? And so forth. When my kids were in high school, there was a horrible traffic accident the week of the prom which killed three seniors. During the prom, the local stations tried to crash it to get "the story", the bastards. Parents, warned that this might happen, had hired security, which kept the parents from assaulting the reporters. Not what had been expected, but the boys retreated hastily. And a station which was using a long-range camera from across the street had to deal with a van the security guys had brought which kept getting in the sight line. So, anyway, was somebody inquiring about my attitude to the media...? Somebody was, I think. Maybe not. But how many are there who think as I do? You journos probably don't think about that, but you ought to. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 10, 2006 11:00 AM | Permalink Well, I don't know why there's anything wrong with an overtly partisan blogger meeting with Ken Mehlman, or anybody else for that matter. And I don't think journos would like to spread the idea that the mere fact of meeting someone would compromise their objectivity. Besides, Mr. Simon, did you object equally strenuously when Kos got put on the Howard Dean payroll? Bloggers meeting with people is neither good nor bad. It is what it is. Every blogger can do what he wants with his time and his blog. So we'll have some that have closer ties with political figures than others. Now, is anyone meeting secretly with Mehlman? Sorry, but I couldn't care less if Rightwinger.com meets with Mehlman or Pinko.typepad meets with Howard Dean. That's what makes a market. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 11:01 AM | Permalink That piece by Scott Finn is wonderful. I've been the local reporter on the scene, and then watched it be overrun by the trucks, the hairspray, the North Face jacketed correspondents. It is very ugly, that scene. But that's what bigfoots are all about. If the guys had survived, I'd be happy for them and their families. If not, I sure as hell don't want--nor need--this emotional glop. It's not my business, it's intrusive and vile. The bereaved should be left the hell alone. I want the story of what happened. How did it happen? What did the rescue crews do? How did they do it? And so forth. Very true; exactly how I felt about the seemingly interminable, sycophantic, third-world, government-run TV type coverage that we got for Mr. Reagan's funeral. Posted by: village idiot at January 10, 2006 11:11 AM | Permalink Darn, why do I always think of USA Today and Florida? Something about the paper makes me think of DisneyWorld, which is unfair. USA Today gets a largely undeserved bad rap. Posted by: trotsky at January 10, 2006 11:34 AM | Permalink You know, it seems pretty rich to criticize bloggers for a fully-disclosed meeting with Ken Mehlman, when the Washington DC press corps attends "background" briefings with the White House Chief of Staff all the time - meetings which are frequently not disclosed. At least the bloggers are open about what they're doing. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 11:58 AM | Permalink Another view into the process of reporting at a disaster. This from Derek Rose. Looking back, I think we all did get caught up in the euphoria of the celebration, as Alexa told me. Perhaps we just put aside our natural skepticism for a bit. But put aside journalism for a second … what kind of human beings would we be if we didn’t get overjoyed about the rescue of a dozen miners? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 10, 2006 12:16 PM | Permalink Jay, how did you get the idea that I think the American press use the term "freedom fighter"? Please supply the quote from my comment.Personally I use "insurgent" for the homegrown, and "terrorists" for the foreigners. Looking at my comment again, I see where I may have set the wrong tone, but my use of "freedom fighter" was a jab at the Chomskyites who visit here and didn't have anything to do with the press. I'm astonished that you drew such a bizarre conclusion from my comment. Do show me the part that convinced you I was speaking of the US press---this will be interesting. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 10, 2006 12:24 PM | Permalink This is my response to New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer's note to PressThink: Jay: You are critical of journalists in West Virginia for not being rigorous about confirming the initial report that the miners were alive. Actually, what I wrote and put in the headline of my first post was: "I don't blame the news media for initially false information about the West Virginia mining disaster. I blame confusion, exhaustion, human emotion and poor decision-making by company officials." I also said that the “press” part of what happened in West Virginia is of minor importance compared to the rest of the tragedy. And I said: "There isn’t much here that’s malpractice." These were my attempts to say: this isn't a big press goof. I'm not sure you mentioned that the report originated with relay communications from inside the mine and was delivered to the jam-packed command center by squawk box. I didn't mention it, but I was well aware of it. For this reason that I said: "I blame confusion, exhaustion, human emotion and poor decision-making by company officials"-- not journalists. Have you reported on Mr. Hatfield's description of how the erroneous report was widely disseminated by people in the command center who had heard it from rescuers within the mine? No, I haven't reported on that. Why would I? I'm not aware of any dispute about those facts. Various people in the command center heard a transmission from rescuers in the mine, and from it they concluded that 12 miners were alive. That's how the word got out. Every account I have read has it pretty much the same way. I was in West Virginia, where cell phone and Internet connections are haphazard, when you first posted, and I had a few other things to do. So tell me: Have you mentioned the company's official explanation? It seems relevant, doesn't it? Relevant to what? To blaming the news media for the mistaken reports? Maybe, but as I said I didn't do that. If you're asking were my readers made aware of the company's explanation? then yes, they were. I linked to Betsy Wagoner's story in the Inter-Mountain, which has a pretty complete recounting of the company's explanation. By the way, Howard Kurtz has been much tougher than I have been. Perhaps you should be writing a "how dare you?" note to him. He's quite "critical of journalists in West Virginia for not being rigorous about confirming the initial report." Kurtz: In this case, a misunderstood or misspoken message from rescuers in the mine was relayed to a command center and then to anxious family members, who told reporters. While the mining company's refusal to correct the misinformation for hours is inexplicable, the situation was exacerbated by the journalistic reluctance to say the facts are unconfirmed and we just don't know. Experienced journalists should have understood that early, fragmentary information in times of crisis is often wrong. What I have said is that I agree with journalists who argued that the primary responsibility rests with the mining company, which did not correct the false reports for two and a half hours, and elected officials, who passed along faulty information. Then you write: I'm also curious about the hypothetical formulation that you recently put in the mouth of the CNN executive, which is written as if incorporating widely-known "facts." You write: "It is unacceptable to me that for three hours of live television, with our top talent presiding, we've got twelve men alive reported as truth, and we never saw those men, no ambulances for them ever moved, and we had no real confirmation. Just a bunch of people saying: yeah, that's what we heard." What I was referring to in my fictional speech from Klein to CNN staff is that the stream of ambulances that had arrived anticipating twelve miners alive did not leave and take twelve miners to the hospital, except for the one survivor. Thus my post has an imaginary Jonathan Klein say: "we never saw those men, no ambulances for them ever moved." Betsy Wagoner from the Inter-Mountain in E & P: "Then we were hearing reports that 12 ambulances had gone in [to the mine area] but only one was coming out." That section could have been more clearly written, but it wasn't informational in the first place. It was intended to convey the feeling of a news executive's shorthand. It was not me saying to PressThink readers: "here what happened at the mine with the ambulances." And that is readily apparent from the context. As I recall, standards for those reporting on the press are at least as high as those to which you hold other journalists. Yes they are. I admit to being puzzled by this note and the indignant tone in which it is written, especially since the New York Times and its reporting aren't mentioned at all in the two posts I wrote about the episode. In the first one I addressed myself to what editors back at home wrote by way of explanation after-the-fact. I was critical of those editors who focused only on the accuracy of the reporting, and I praised those who spoke to the question of truth. In the second one I agreed with CNN people that primary responsibility for the errors must lie with the company and elected officials, but I disagreed with their contention that the network's erroneous reporting for three hours was unavoidable. Maybe you think it was unavoidable. If so, we have a difference of opinion, but I'm sure you'd agree that is no scandal. In various comment posts at PressThink I have also said that "families say" is accurate sourcing but not very solid sourcing. And I wrote: "If a producer from CNN had been hanging out with Becky Wagoner, trying to get someone on the record with the news that the miners were alive, and discovering, as she did, that no one from the rescue operation would confirm it, the story that went out Tuesday night might, possibly, have been different." Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 12:29 PM | Permalink Abigail: You convinced me of nothing. I asked you what relevance the term "freedom fighters" had to press coverage or to PressThink's stated concerns. You have answered: "none." That's the long and short of it. I have never heard that term used at this blog by anyone in reference to the US opposition in Iraq. You are the first. Thus my puzzlement. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 12:44 PM | Permalink Richard B. Simon -- Good catch -- but blog attacks orchestrated and paid for by political operatives are nothing new. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 12:50 PM | Permalink Jason, I should not care less about bloggers meeting with the RNC chair -- but these are folks who regularly chastize actual journalists for having some kind of agenda, and here they are, aligning their own verbiage with the agenda of the Party. The meeting was arranged by the fellow who complained to the Washington Post's editors about Dan Froomkin's column being left-biased, and here he is setting up a meeting with bloggers designed to get them to disseminate the Republican Party's agenda. It is absolute hypocrisy. When the same idea appears all over the media at all levels -- blogs, newspapers, television -- simultaneously, it is clear that it is emanating from a point source. That means that these bloggers, at least some of whom seem to try to present themselves as objective critics of the mainstream media, are disseminating Republican Party propaganda. That's dishonest. I don't follow Kos, but I don't think anyone who is presenting him or herself as an objective source of information should take money or talking points from anyone. I am glad that this meeting with Mehlman was disclosed. But many readers of these bloggers' work will never know that they are simply parroting the party line, which is that any corruption in Congress is because of "big government" -- in other words, in the parlance of the Conservative movement, it is the liberals' fault. This, by the way, from the party of "accountability" and "responsibility". Gingrich said it. Brooks said it. Will said it. Mehlman said it. Now all these bloggers will say it, too. Just watch and let's see if these folks say that Mehlman told them that the Party believes that big government is the problem -- or if they just say "big government is the problem." That's the difference between disclosure and non-disclosure of source. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 10, 2006 1:07 PM | Permalink I don't see anything wrong with known conservative bloggers meeting with Ken Mehlman. Same thing happens on the DNC side. Also, Richard, you might be surprised over who lectures whom at these meetings. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 1:07 PM | Permalink Richard, Is anyone who meets a party, lobbying or governmental operative and discloses it a propagandist? I am being harsh here, but the media is just a distribution channel for ideas. The more you can capture the distribution channels, much like shelf space in a grocery store, the better it will be in selling your ideas. Everyone does it, the media understood that they could be captured corporate interests in the 1920's. They are just realizing they they could be prey to governmental, partisan, and lobbying interests in the same way. The battle we are seeing is a change in the distribution channels of ideas. Isn't change fun? Jay, Right. Actually, I was going to say that I'd bet that the bloggers would take the opportunity to tear Mehlman a new one. Richard: I should not care less about bloggers meeting with the RNC chair -- but these are folks who regularly chastize actual journalists for having some kind of agenda, and here they are, aligning their own verbiage with the agenda of the Party. Oh, nonsense. That's only a problem if the bloggers claim to be nonpartisan journalists who don't write POV stories. There aren't too many of those. Actually, there are more leaps of logic in your last post than I can even count. You make the assumption that simply meeting Ken Mehman means Mehlman is issuing "talking points." That's silly. You can do that by email. Further, you cannot establish that Mehlman is issuing anything. If anything, my suspicion is that Mehlman is soliciting the bloggers for ideas and criticisms in a safe and confidential place, and that the useful information will flow from the bloggers to Mehlman, not the other way round. Moreover, you also make the assumption that if Ken Mehlman issues talking points, the bloggers will run with them. That's a pretty silly assumption. For example, I have a blog. It's generally conservative, and mostly pro-Bush. And I receive talking points. But the ONLY talking points I receive, ever, are from John Kerry's staff. I have no idea how I wound up on his mailing list. Someone must have read a post critical of Bush and added me, but the email comes every week or two. I got them from CFLCC too, when I was in Iraq - they'd come out with every new FRAGO - mostly to help officers express American policy to Iraqis, and remind us not to discuss the Israeli Palestinian conflict with locals. If sending talking points to bloggers is a bad thing, then John Kerry's one of its biggest practicioners. I thought nothing of it... it happens all the time, from every PAC and party with any organization whatsoever. By accusing Melhman of "hypocrisy" because he accused the Washington Post of running a biased column, and then arranged a meeting with bloggers you're also assuming that a bunch of partisan bloggers = the Washington Post. That's nonsense. In fact, it reflects a shocking naivete about how the sausage is made. Here's a news flash: Mehlman expresses a particular point of view. It's his job. It's not his job to be neutral. It's what the RNC pays him for, just like the DNC pays Howard Dean. They are opposing advocates. The Washington Post, however, gets paid NOT to argue a POV, but to remain neutral between them. It's where the WaPo gets its credibility from. If they run a slanted piece, they fail in their job-in their function. If Mehlman or Dean write a slanted piece, they may well succeed in doing theirs. When the same idea appears all over the media at all levels -- blogs, newspapers, television -- simultaneously, it is clear that it is emanating from a point source. Welcome to the information marketplace. You don't think the DNC does the same? I am glad that this meeting with Mehlman was disclosed. But many readers of these bloggers' work will never know that they are simply parroting the party line, No, that does not follow, at all. You can't establish that they'll "parrot the party line." Hell, a lot of times there ISN'T a single party line, but a substantial policy debate within the party. You don't think their readers realize these bloggers are pro-republican? At any rate, so what if they are? No blogger has a monopoly on the blogosphere. The same cannot be said of the newspaper business, which is the last of the great monopoly enterprises. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 2:21 PM | Permalink
Steve Lovelady: The blogosphere long ago ceased to be an aggregate of disinterested commentators not on the take. Much of it has devolved to mouthpieces on some political payroll or another -- usually not disclosed, of course. (Although every once in a while, a refreshing burst of truth-in-labeling emerges, as in Blogs for Bush.) Heh. This should be interesting. Ok, Steve: Which blogs, specifically, are "on the take," and which have not disclosed the same? You've set up quite a standard here, by asserting that blogs (Millions of us?) are "on the take, " and that the arrangement is "usually" (Let's define that expansively at 51% of the time). I'm thinking your flights of fancy are getting the better of you. Can you back that up? Can you support the argument to any kind of accepted journalism standard? Or are you just talking out of your Levis? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 2:28 PM | Permalink Jason -- I base those comments on my experience in 2004, back when CJR Daily was Campaign Desk and people were running for president. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 4:31 PM | Permalink You don't think their readers realize these bloggers are pro-republican ? Of course not. What single blogger could compete with millions of prepubescent girls daily blogging their diaries ? Well, except maybe for Technorati's top ten ... or, for broader sweep, let's say its top one hundred. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 4:45 PM | Permalink Hmmm Well, no sooner do I write that nobody ever sends me talking points do I receive an email from a PR firm retained by the Army, offering me and a few other military bloggers "exclusive content." Not much of an opportunity for me, though. No money in it. Not even a blogad. If you do see several prominant military bloggers running similar pieces in coming months, that's probably what's happening. My response to them was to feel free to send anything they wanted; Countercolumn is an independent blog with a different voice than what they would write, though. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 10, 2006 5:08 PM | Permalink Is the major media saying its mistake was "unavoidable" because it relies, without checking, on information provided by company sources? It's been clear for a while that those guys are lame - but who would have expected them to be sloppy thinkers as well? Posted by: jim in l.a. at January 10, 2006 5:48 PM | Permalink Actually, "major media" doesn't talk, think, have feelings, or put forward ideas. Specific news organizations do, the people who work for them do, the people who run them do, and sometimes committees of journalists do, but Media, Big Media, MSM, Major Media-- these abstractions do not have the ability to speak. They exist so people can say any damn thing they want about the media. Just as no one takes responsibility for what the MSM "does," no one has to take responsibility for what is said about the MSM. Yet there is magic in our deceptions and after a while we start to think that things like "MSM" actually exist, and have intention. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 6:10 PM | Permalink Jason -- S. Lovelady, Consultant to the Stars Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 7:03 PM | Permalink Wow, it is nice to see that the comments at PressThink are still as useful and intelligent as ever (and Steve Lovelady continues to do his part). Of course, that doesn't stop periodic organized invasions of comments sections orchestrated by special interests -- but at least here their point men are usually obvious enough to be spotted and discounted. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 12:50 PM | Permalink Links would help too. Or, as ten thousand editors have told ten thousand reporters, "Don't tell me; show me." Posted by: Steve Lovelady at December 19, 2005 09:06 PM | Permalink Source? Posted by: Walter Duranty in the House at January 10, 2006 8:35 PM | Permalink Lex over in Greensboro: what are your, personal lessons learned from the reporting on the miners, or are you sitting in the blown out of proportion section? If Lisa Williams is lurking about, I'd love to know what she thinks about the episode. Also, Lisa: I wanted to recommend to you this long and well-argued and highly interesting post by Tim Porter on why everyone's blowing it in local news. Everyone who's "media," that is. I find him invaluable sometimes. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 10, 2006 10:35 PM | Permalink There you are, "Walter" -- right on cue. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 10, 2006 10:43 PM | Permalink You have a link for that opinion, Walter. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 11, 2006 12:22 AM | Permalink Any source for that term "opinion," Dave. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 12:25 AM | Permalink Insightful comments from all. I never accused Mehlman of hypocrisy. He's doing his job. And yes, bloggers is as bloggers does. But if you are warmly greeted in a swank hotel in what boils down to a strategy session with the RNC's top hacks, then you go out and accuse a press that is doing its job of being biased, you don't really have a leg to stand on. Unless that leg belongs to Karl Rove. The Administration and the Republican machine have been working to discredit the press. It's unfortunate that bloggers, who have such important roles to play in subverting top-down, P.R.-based message reporting, are becoming tools of the machine they should be smashing. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 11, 2006 12:37 AM | Permalink Richard: Bloggers aren't trying to say we're your go to guys for objective new stories, but they are amused when journalists stop them in the street, point at them, shout at them, and say: "These guys are supposed to be the new go-to guys for objective news stories? Are you kidding me..." Which I think is a funny situation all around. But to jump to a part of your point that is serious. The Harriet Miers nomination is probably when the true relationship between the party and the bloggers stood revealed. If you want to look at it that would be the episode. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 12:47 AM | Permalink It's funny that you say the MSM is not a sentient, conscious entity (and largely I'll agree with you there), but you refer to the GOP's relationship with "The bloggers," as if "The bloggers" themselves could organize a family trip to the movies. If you have a random distribution of bloggers along the political spectrum, then some of them are going to correlate closely with the GOP. But there was a minor revolt in the conservative blogosphere over the Miers nomination, which - as you would expect - closely mirrored the revolt within the GOP which caused her nomination to be withdrawn. The GOP bloggers are a very small subset of "The bloggers," and the pro-Miers bloggers were an even smaller subset of the GOP bloggers. The bloggers are no more unified in POV than traditional media - and, indeed, are a far more diverse group, in that, while the number of conservatives in the conservative blogosphere approaches 100 percent by definition, if you take the blogosphere as a whole, Liberals don't outnumber conservatives by 4-to-1. Which, I suspect, is part of what drives you bonkers - the blogosphere doesn't think and act like Manhattan. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 11, 2006 9:23 AM | Permalink Just wanted to point out that these kinds of straegy meetings occur all the time, both sides. Wasn't there a story about John Kerry meeting with his strategists at AL Frankin's NYC apartment way back when: "In an effort to galvanize the message Kerry wants to deliver in the time remaining, he convened a powerful roster of journalists and columnists in the New York City apartment of Al Franken last Thursday. The gathering could not properly be called a meeting or a luncheon. It was a trial. The journalists served as prosecuting attorneys, jury and judge. The crowd I joined in Franken's living room was comprised of: Al Franken and his wife Franni; We sat in a circle around Kerry and grilled him for two long hours. In an age of retail politicians who avoid substance the way vampires avoid sunlight, in an age when the sitting President flounders like a gaffed fish whenever he must speak to reporters without a script, Kerryís decision to open himself to the slings and arrows of this group was bold and impressive." Did this happen? And if so, any thoughts, Mr. Simon? Posted by: kristen at January 11, 2006 10:02 AM | Permalink Here's more on mine safety, from a writer who notes a couple of things I didn't: 1. ) Even including the 2001 statistical outlier, the average number of mine deaths per year under Bush is 30 percent lower than under Clinton. 2.) The long term downward trend in mine fatalities per year actually stalled under Clinton's stewardship. http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011006A Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 11, 2006 11:06 AM | Permalink Jay wrote,
Well ... actually, no. There were only three mine company officials giving out information: CEO Ben Hatfield and VPs Gene Kitts and Roger Nicholson. They would make a circuit: start at the mine, tell the families at the Sago Baptist Church what they'd learned, and then tell the media assembled at the mine headquarters a few miles down the road. When Hatfield & Co. weren't around ... there was literally no one there except for the media. I can't say for certain that CNN had a producer at that briefing room. But I would tend to think so; there was certainly a lot of TV people permanently stationed there. And there was really nothing they could do from midnight to 3 a.m. except sit around twiddling their thumbs. I gave up going to the briefing room during the day Tuesday because a) my editors back in New York could watch the briefings live on CNN and b) by hanging out down the street from the church, I could learn from the families what the mine officials were saying before the media briefings were held. They were always reliable ... right up until just before midnight Tuesday. I have a very long post on this whole thing; thanks Dave for giving the link earlier. Posted by: derek rose at January 11, 2006 11:22 AM | Permalink Jay, That's a good, honest piece by Captain Ed. Point taken that ideas are flowing in both directions in these meetings. The net folks are "talking up" to the political parties in a way that parallels what online writing is doing to journalism (and, I suppose, the same people, too). Good news for democracy so long as it remains dynamic. I applauded how this elevated Dean (a moderate farm-state pragmatist who speaks plainly and accurately and has thus been vilified), so I'd have to also appreciate that this has happened on the right, as well. Kristen, I don't know first-hand whether that meeting really happened or not. I'll take your (and WR Pitt's) word for it for the sake of discussion ... and I seem to recall reading about it before, as well. Is there a difference between the candidate meeting with journalists (certainly including left and left-biased opinion writers, but not exclusively) to be "grilled" and a meeting between the top political strategists and bloggers? On some level, I would say no -- it is a formal interface between the political establishment and those whose work helps shape opinions. But on another level, there is a difference -- and part of it is the difference between journalists and bloggers, whatever that is. In any event, what I'd be wondering is whether Kerry's talking points were then disseminated by these folks in a way that echoed, in the same words, throughout their work -- and then throughout the large media, as was the talking point "Kerry is a flip-flopping liberal who wants to raise your taxes." We are in the middle of a Cold Civil War here, so it is to be expected that different elements of different factions meet to strategize and/or swap ideas. But my read is still that the GOP is waging the information war much differently from how the Dems are doing it. Perhaps I'm just very naive, or else I can't see through my own lenses. The disseminated talking points make me awfully nervous, because they are very similar to "the big lie". Maybe they just wax a bit differently coming from a dominant power in complete one-party control over the world's sole superpower than they do from a struggling opposition party that is being given the out-group treatment. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 11, 2006 11:25 AM | Permalink "The Administration and the Republican machine have been working to discredit the press." You know, Richard, that statement is so asinine that it's hard to know where to start. Even if it's true, on whom, precisely, do you believe that the evil machinations of Rove et al. are working? The short answer, and the obvious one, is "the converted". Nobody who didn't already think that the media is biased is going to be swayed by anything those cats have to say. And there's very little, short of running bumpers with the Proud American Eagle morphing into a fighter jet, that is going to convince those folks that CNN isn't biased. Posted by: Phil Smith at January 11, 2006 11:28 AM | Permalink From Blogs for Bush: The past few days have been fantastic. It really is something to have Senators reaching out to us and understanding the contribution we make to political discourse and to countering the media. ... Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 11, 2006 11:53 AM | Permalink "Blogs For Bush is privately owned and maintained. All contributors are volunteers unaffiliated with the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign and/or Republican National Committee. Material published and opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the authors of this site. Copyright © 2003-2005 Matt Margolis" I honestly don't see how this is a problem. His bias is right out front, he's not hiding anything. This doesn't fit in with the paranoid narrative at all. Posted by: Phil Smith at January 11, 2006 12:07 PM | Permalink Mr. Simon---since my last post, I found that the meeting actually did take place. Here’s the New Yorker’s take">http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content?040726fa_fact">take, 7-26-04, written by Philip Gourevitch in Campaign Journal: "On the day after his appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, last December, he spent the better part of two hours at the Upper West Side apartment of the comedian and Democratic activist Al Franken, trying to justify the vote to a couple of dozen pundits and reporters. It was a parochial gathering, all male, overwhelmingly Jewish, and, with the exception of a few professional agnostics, openly identified as liberal or, at least, unhappy with Bush. A friendly crowd, you would think, but Kerry tied himself in knots..." You admit that maybe you see things through your own lens (don’t we all?) and the point that the “bias warriors” make is that, to them, much of the news article choices, headlines, and content in papers and TV all mimic the Democrat talking points. As a savvy news reader/watcher in 2006, I feel pretty comfortable discerning on my own where everyone is coming from… I like Jeff Jarvis’s description (Jay mentioned it earlier) that I have actually become an editor. I’ve been mulling that over and think in some ways that’s exactly right. I read or watch things on the news that seem weak or that I question and I simply go off online and spend a couple of minutes gleaning add’l info and thus have a fuller picture of the story. Blogs like Press Think are important because they keep pressure on people in the press to make choices and judgements that will regain our trust and thus effectively allow them to perform their role. Right now, much of the press is not doing that. Most of the commenters on this blog have a left-leaning political view, which is not mine. So what? But you’re all crazy if you think I’m comfortable with the right side “taking over.” I don’t have to be a liberal to be concerned with Republicans holding the majority in all three branches of government. I’m leery of power, period, and what it does to people and institutions because I know no one is immune. The mere fact that there is such vigorous debate within the press on this mining story with numerous press people saying “I’m not seeing any obvious missteps” is revealing. That’s the problem. It always goes back to the idea of trust. Posted by: kristen at January 11, 2006 12:33 PM | Permalink Regarding Richard's statement ("The Administration and the Republican machine have been working to discredit the press.") Phil wrote: You know, Richard, that statement is so asinine that it's hard to know where to start. Phil, you might start with the essays and discussions here on the subject of press decertification. Jay's ideas are certainly disputed by some, and those comment threads didn't reach consensus, but I don't think a reasonable reader can dismiss the concepts involved as asinine. You may or may not find David Brock credible -- the polarity of his credibility shifted when he switched teams -- but you can always read his book and decide whether or not you believe the infrastructure he describes is something new and significant or just political PR as usual. Anyway, absent that background, you might want to rethink the "asinine" defense. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 12:41 PM | Permalink kristen: Most of the commenters on this blog have a left-leaning political view, which is not mine. So what? But you’re all crazy if you think I’m comfortable with the right side “taking over.” I don’t have to be a liberal to be concerned with Republicans holding the majority in all three branches of government. I’m leery of power, period, and what it does to people and institutions because I know no one is immune. bless you, kristen. that is the heart of the matter. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 12:46 PM | Permalink I remember the reports of that meeting in Manhattan with Kerry and the liberal, male, mostly Jewish opinionizers. Eric Alterman wrote about it at the time; it wasn't any secret. That was at a moment when Dean was getting all the attention, and raising a lot of money, and the online left was emerging around him. Kerry was close to slipping off the radar screen entirely. But Kerry didn't know from bloggers; he was concerned about the more traditional political media and why he wasn't getting the love or attention. I didn't have a problem with Kerry doing it, and I don't have a problem with some conservative bloggers meeting with Mehlman. Richard is right, though, that the information strategies on the left and right, among the Democrats and the GOP, are different, partly owing to the fact that the Democrats are out of power. Characterizing those differences is the hard part. And Jason, when I said "the bloggers" in that particular comment I meant the limited number of GOP-friendly political bloggers who have significant readerships, which is a finite universe. Trying to make empirical statements about bloggers overall is indeed foolish. Your notion that what drives me "bonkers" is "how the blogosphere doesn't think and act like Manhattan" is dumb, and wrong, and getting tireseome so after this I think I'll stop replying to it. Suffice it to say that in your reasoning-by-zip-code you don't understand the role that I or PressThink play in mediating between new and old media. If you observed it a little more carefully I'm confident you would revise your view. Here's a post about a meeting in Manhattan that'll give you some hints. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 1:12 PM | Permalink Derek, that's a great blog entry on your experiences in West Virginia. Very gritty, hour-by-hour account. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 11, 2006 1:21 PM | Permalink Fine, retract the asinine. I will take some time to look at the "press decertification" issue as well. Posted by: Phil Smith at January 11, 2006 1:42 PM | Permalink Also see: In the Press Room of the White House that is Post Press. De-Certifying the Press, Cont. and... From Meet the Press to Be the Press. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 2:06 PM | Permalink I had forgotten about the Kerry meeting at Frankenhaus. But I haven't forgotten about the flak that George Will took for doing the same thing for Ronald Reagan, prior to one of his presidential debates, and then writing a positive review of Reagan's performance. Did Kaplan from Slate write positively for Kerry after that? Did Alterman from MSNBC (since he's better known to me as a Nation guy, I'll bet he did.) Did Kelly? Did Greenfield? I'll bet some did. But they get a free pass, because the media echo chamber thinks like them. Will didn't get a free pass (even though Cohen is no less a WaPo columnist), because Will doesn't reflect the Manhattan media party line. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 11, 2006 2:25 PM | Permalink If the media, writ large, plays politics down the middle and gives both parties a fair shake, then why would the GOP make an effort to discredit the media? Because they're in power? Well, do you really think complaints about a leftward biased media started with Bush's inauguration? If the media weren't biased, neither party would be trying to do an end run. The fact that there is a red-state focused effort to discredit blue-state media is itself evidence of a leftward bias, in the same way that the presence of antibodies in an immune system indicates the presence of a virus. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 11, 2006 2:29 PM | Permalink "Did Kaplan from Slate write positively for Kerry after that? Did Alterman from MSNBC (since he's better known to me as a Nation guy, I'll bet he did.) Did Kelly? Did Greenfield?" --Jason I don't know the answers to those questions, Jason. ( It is hard, however, to imagine Kaplan agreeing with Alterman on anything. And the affable Kelly is so relentlessly middle-the-road that I challenge anyone to recall a single political position he has ever taken on any issue.) However, if you read the Gourevitch piece in the New Yorker that kristen cited, you'll see that both before the Council of Foreign Relations the previous day, and at Franken's apartment, Kerry's audience started out skeptical and left even more skeptical. That's the point of the passage -- that even when Kerry "twisted himself into knots;" he couldn't win over those ostensibly sympathetic to his candidacy. That doesn't quite jibe with your fervid imaginings of what went on -- or of what goes on today -- in the minds of those who were present. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 11, 2006 3:12 PM | Permalink How depressing. A stroll down memory lane by reviewing "In The Press Room", "De-Certifying the Press", "From Meet the Press", and "Rollback", I'm stuck by the diminished quality of commenting over the past year. Very sad, but probably inevitable. Posted by: Agnes English at January 11, 2006 3:15 PM | Permalink Let’s try to keep history straight, Jason. With a little help from Wikipedia, you can learn that: It wasn’t so much that George Will helped Reagan prepare for his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter that had folks question his journalistic ethics but that Will forgot to mention his involvement. Especially when he discussed Reagan’s debate performance with Ted Koppel later on Nightline. Carter complained that Will had stolen the Democratic candidate’s secret debate briefing book and gave it to Reagan. Will denies that, but in 2005, a short 15 years after the fact, acknowledged that his involvement with Reagan’s campaign was ‘inappropriate.’ In 1996, Will, again as a news commentator on TV, Will spoke favorably on a presidential campaign speech by Bob Dole, without revealing that his wife, a senior advisor to Dole, had helped read it. It seems that journalist Will was doing exactly what you claim to abhor: not coming clean about his political leanings in his reports. I’ve no idea if Richard Cohen or others announced their involvement with Kerry. I assume so, since I don’t remember any particular GOP uproar about them. But if so, I’m sure you’ll let us know. The fact that there is a red-state focused effort to discredit blue-state media is itself evidence of a leftward bias, in the same way that the presence of antibodies in an immune system indicates the presence of a virus. How do you write this stuff with a straight face? It's no more 'proof' of political bias in reporting when the right claims it than it is of rightist bias when the left complains. And the left does complain. Look at the complaints in Atrios' comment section sometime. They could give the right some pointers. Political partisans complain of bias and unfairness and 'balance' because of vested political interest. They want their side to look good. They want the other side demonized. Fact, Truth or viral infections has little to do with it. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 11, 2006 3:19 PM | Permalink Here's another account of Kerry's meeting with the East Coast Liberal Elite. Truthout.org is not exactly a right wing blog. Back in '04 I had a lot of fun with this post, especially those who wanted to believe that the national press is objective. I would list the participants--many columnists, but some editors, and inevitably, my opponents would frame this meeting as some sort of "editorial board meeting"----at Al Frankens house no less! But my favorite part from this account comes toward the end when Art Spiegelman advises Kerry: "Senator, the best thing you could do is to just come out and say you were wrong to trust Bush. Say that you're sorry, and then turn the debate towards what is best for the country in 2004." Kerry replies:"You're right. I was wrong to trust him. I'm sorry I did." What a campaign slogan that would be: John Kerry: So Dumb He Believed Chimpy McHalliburton. Sounds like a winner to me! Here's the reverential Truthout.org account. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 11, 2006 3:44 PM | Permalink Speaking of wikipedia, there's already an entry on 2006 Sago Mine disaster. Check it out. Derek, thanks for writing that blog post about being in Sago. Very human and informative. My favorite part: Geraldo is there, as is Chris Cuomo, co-anchor of ABC’s Primetime Live. Chris, who hasn’t yet had to file a report, is uneasy about how this is being reported. How would you do it, I ask. He says he’d be clear this is information from the families, that authorities hadn’t confirmed it. I don’t have any such qualms. And how could you run video of that celebration without leaving a clear impression in people’s minds, that these miners were all alive? You write in your earlier comment: I can't say for certain that CNN had a producer at that briefing room. But I would tend to think so; there was certainly a lot of TV people permanently stationed there. And there was really nothing they could do from midnight to 3 a.m. except sit around twiddling their thumbs. What I don't get is why no one at CNN thought it odd--and worth reporting--that for two and half hours there is no official briefing or happy announcement at all, even though there's suposed to be good news to announce ("miners alive!"). My point, Derek, wasn't that there was good stuff to report at the briefing center and gullible reporters went to the church instead. No. It's the absence of any action at all at the briefing center-- that was (possibly) significant. TV deals in video verification. The fact that CNN did not have on tape anyone telling the world that the miners were alive should have been knawing at someone in their operation. It bothered Chris Cuomo of ABC (your post tells us) but they weren't on the air at the time. CNN was. And not only "on the air," it had pulled out all the stops. This was the full CNN-- bigfoot anchor on location, live coverage, constant updates, a team of reporters and producers supporting Cooper. They went with the story (understandable); they forgot all about the information (not understandable). Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 4:17 PM | Permalink Jay, Your last post brings up a good point. The media seems to do an excellent job in reporting what happened. What they seem to miss is "the dog that did not bark". I could be generalizing here, but isn't that the editor's job to catch that sort of stuff? So this has probably been mentioned a million times, I've not been following posts/comments lately, but it keeps occurring to me: As a non-journalist, so many of these problems/missteps seem to be caused by the seemingly rabid, bloody competition to "break" the news. Now I appreciate and recognize competition within fields of endeavor, but just wanted to say I'm fairly certain (not aware of studies/stats) that 99% of viewers have no recollection what network, newspaper, station, talking head, etc. was the first one to tell them of some event. I have no idea what channel I was watching the towers burn on on that blue-sky morning for example, and I doubt pretty much anyone outside the industry would remember either. I suppose there's no feasible way to address or change this, it's just a shame that something with such public effects seems pretty significantly compromised by what would appear to many non-media people as petty competition. I'm sure that description can apply to other fields (probably all to an extent), but this situation seems especially blatant and/or wide-ranging in its effects. I don't have any suggestions really, just an observation... how is this matter viewed in the media itself? An inherent part of the occupation? "Just how it is"? Healthy? Like many of us, ToddG is hankering for an abolitionist press----a press where "who's accurate" trumps a press concerned with "who's first". Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 11, 2006 4:58 PM | Permalink I don't think I'm enough of an optimist to hanker for it. Nor am I certain what "abolitionist" means in this context, or if I'm for it. I don't think you can remove the initial haziness of most stories before they firm up all facts. I'm just thinking more like "everyone take a deep breath and think for a minute..." rather than repeating everything "telephone game" style. The vast majority of what we (traditional press) write about really isn't a matter of "getting it first" but being the first to recognize the significance of a trend, or a effort, or an idea, or a person, or a group. This process is no way similar to being part of a press gaggle. The majority of the "breaking-news" first-reports you read on the wires or announced on 24-hour cable news channels are just restated official announcements, sometimes enhanced by eye-witness material, eventually supplemented with related angles, as editors and producers try to figure out how to develop the story in the absence of new developments. It's really a hard field of endeavor in which to be brilliant, although occasionally some people show stand-out talent or insight. Those of us who come from the print side tend to be myopic about the influence of TV. We know it's there, but we don't always confront its influence on our thinking and decision-making head-on. But here it is: When cable news of whatever stripe settles on a "live, breaking story," there is typically very little new information in each 10-minute segment. There's the "welcome back" recap after a break, then the anchors talk to the reporters again, getting "color" and "perspective," and then we go back to the experts in the studio, who don't have any news but offer background on the issues/systems/persons involved, then there's the "for-those-of-you-just-joining-us" recap, and another whip around the horn... every now and then you get actual news added in, or there will be a potentially significant but unconfirmed detail introduced. unlike a print newsroom, where this stuff happens out of view, 24-hour TV news has to work out its stuff in public. they get stuff wrong all the time, but let's face it -- we understand something about the immediacy of TV news, and so as an audience we're more forgiving when an anchor goofs a name or a relationship. print, on the other hand, we expect to be more deliberative. In the majority of what we produce, that's true. When it comes to breaking news outside our areas of expertise, though, we're riding a tiger. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 5:36 PM | Permalink Jay Rosen: It's the absence of any action at all at the briefing center-- that was (possibly) significant. That and Thornton (and others?) wouldn't confirm it when asked (yes, I know Steve Lovelady thinks Thornton's lying, Skidmore and Wagoner are deluded, and Greg Mitchell's off on another one of his wild goose chases). The Wall Street Journal has tried to be an abolitionist press----a press where "who's accurate" trumps a press concerned with "who's first" -- for years, and on most days it succeeds at that task. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 11, 2006 5:58 PM | Permalink That and Thornton (and others?) wouldn't confirm it when asked (yes, I know Steve Lovelady thinks Thornton's lying, Skidmore and Wagoner are deluded, and Greg Mitchell's off on another one of his wild goose chases). That's actually a pretty good summary, Tim. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 11, 2006 6:07 PM | Permalink I'm with Steve. It's amazing how fast public figures will throw reporters under the bus the minute they come under public scrutiny. Which is why I love my Zen Micro MP3 player -- it's also a lightweight, highly effective digital audio recorder. I use it as backup at all my interviews, and not only does it give me much greater accuracy and confidence in the quotes I use and the summaries I create, it also defends me against defamation by my sources. Now I just need something equally effective for my phone interviews (fyi, I also encourage anyone who is nervous about a media interview to record the exchange for their own protection -- mutually assured accountability is a great thing for everyone involved). Again, I think a lot of this comes down to who you're personally inclined to trust. If you're a fan of well-ordered authority, you're going to believe the official who says "I was misquoted -- I never said that." On the other hand, if you've ever been stopped by a cop and cited for a traffic offense you didn't commit and then listened to the officer lie in municipal court, you might be a bit more skeptical of what authorities have to say in public. Slick vs. scruffy might be a bigger culture war divide than liberal vs. conservative. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 6:33 PM | Permalink According to Steve, Thornton is lying, Skidmore and Wagoner are deluded, Greg Mitchell's off on another one of his wild goose chases, even CJR Daily's Gal Beckerman is touched by the fever, PressThink's Rosen is guilty of event inflation, and Howard Kurtz, I guess, temporarily lost his mind. What did you think of this from Kurtz, Steve? I don't recall your saying: Sure, the bum information came from West Virginia's governor, and the coal company shamefully refused to correct the record for hours. But the fault lies with the journalists for not instinctively understanding that early, fragmentary information in times of crisis is often wrong. You don't broadcast or publish until it's absolutely nailed down, or at least you hedge the report six ways to Sunday. This was, quite simply, a media debacle, born of news organizations' feverish need to breathlessly report each development 30 seconds ahead of their competitors. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 6:41 PM | Permalink "It's amazing how fast public figures will throw reporters under the bus the minute they come under public scrutiny." I agree with that, Dan. But would you not agree that in a situation like the one that night, if Thornton said, "I can't confirm that," it's amazing how quickly reporters (who believe they know what happened) would conclude that Thornton's lying, and that he can confirm but won't.. unless I show him that I know already, and push... right? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 7:01 PM | Permalink Jay: Yes. I can see that. Absolutely. I'm more inclined to believe the reporters, because in my personal experience, that's been the case in the past. That really doesn't mean anything about what happened in Sago. It just reveals my bias. And before anyone misses my meaning, let me be clear: I've been on the receiving end of media interviews, and I've been misquoted, quoted out of context, etc. What's worse is when the quote is accurate, but the reporter didn't understand the subject, so the whole story is just ... dumb. It happens. I try to understand both points of view, and I don't automatically wind up on either side in these disputes. In this case, though, based on what I've read, I'm more skeptical of Thornton. Can't prove it, and I'm not trying to. Just evaluating information and credibility in a subjective way. Just like everybody else. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 7:35 PM | Permalink Steve Lovelady: But you forgot to add that you apparently think Thornton is a noble public official brought down by that lying nefarious creep, James Dao. Forgot? Apparently? No, I didn't forget. Those aren't my words to have forgotten. That's you, Steve. All you. Do you really think others won't notice that you used the weasely word apparently to falsely ascribe motives and intentions to me? I do appreciate Jay giving you the opportunity to spread that smear around. This was, quite simply, a media debacle, born of news organizations' feverish need to breathlessly report each development 30 seconds ahead of their competitors. Jay, this false miracle happened at midnight to 3 a.m. for everyone on the scene -- media, families, company and public official. A feel good story (had the miners survive) without wide impact. IMHO, there are plenty of errors to critique the media on. The criticism here far outweighs the mistake. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 7:50 PM | Permalink Also, I would go back to something that I just cannot get past: the effect of hours of continuous TV coverage of people celebrating a mistake -- based not on bad media information, but a bad rumor. You could have hedged that all night, but the only way to have controlled for its obvious emotional impact on viewers (and editors, and reporters, and governors, and spokesmen) would have been to have kept it off the airwaves. Which just isn't going to happen. Not once the news channels show up. Those happy families weren't the story (by this I mean that the real story was 12 dead miners), but they were -- and are -- an obvious part of the story. Where that celebration fit into the story got reversed, but none of us can wish it away. This may sound self-serving, but it's true: I happened to see MSNBC that night as I was turning off the TV, and so I caught the story as it was happening, switched around to see how CNN and FOX were covering it, too. And one of the reporters (I don't remember which one), while talking about emergency breathing aparatus, raised a great question in passing, saying "we still don't know how they managed to survive." As I went to bed, I told my wife "they say they found most of those miners alive." And she said how that was great. And I said "Yeah, well, but there's something strange about the story. Nobody is saying how they survived, and the only thing anybody can think of is that they found a lucky air pocket, which seems kinda far-fetched." So yeah, it struck me as funny as a viewer -- but the point being, I don't think I would have picked up on those points if it hadn't struck some of those reporters as funny, too. I think some of those TV reporters were doing what they could to raise those points within the context of everything that was happening. Compared to the emotions that were released that night, you kinda lose the finer points of practical skepticism. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 11, 2006 8:00 PM | Permalink You don't broadcast or publish until it's absolutely nailed down, or at least you hedge the report six ways to Sunday. Sorry, but "hedging six ways to Sunday" doesn't make a difference. Look at the way the 2004 election was covered. It didn't matter how much the reporting was hedged, the lack of an official confirmation of "who won" didn't change peoples perception of the race as it developed. You don't wait until the Olympic medal ceremony to announce who "won the gold".... you go with what your senses tell you. Regardless of how much "you" hedged, there was a story at the church that had to be reported. All the hedging in the world wouldn't have made any difference -- the viewers and readers would have been left with the same impression that the miner had been rescued -- and been left with a secondary impression that the mine company wasn't very good at press relations. *********************** As a resident moonbat, I tried to stay out of the discussion of the "Ruffini/Melhman/wingnut bloggers" stuff. But really guys, why do you let these wingnuts get away with this stuff. There is NO COMPARISON between the Kerry meeting and the Melhman/bloggers meeting. Kerry met with skeptical columnists before any of the Democratic primaries in an attempt to get their support -- or at least some "positive" mentions. Mehlman was talking to a bunch of robotic acolytes -- discussing political strategy, etc. Big difference. And there is NO COMPARISON between the Kerry meeting with journalists in December, and George Will prepping Reagan for his debate. The Kerry meeting was not debate prep. There were no "time limits", no "debate format", no criticism of "style" in the Kerry meeting -- Kerry was there to explain his position, not "win a debate." Columnists may have offered their opinions, but did not do so as "Kerry supporters", but simple as observers. Will was there solely to advise Reagan on how to "win the debate" as a Reagan supporter. Stop letting the wingnuts who haunt this blog get away with this kind of crap comparisons. Or the next time you ask a question, I'll demand a source. :) I linked to this ESPN story earlier. Sam Stalnaker saw it all: Jubilation replaced by shock, anger mixed with agony. He was among the hopeful packed into Sago Baptist Church Tuesday night -- on hand when 12 men were said to be alive, mistakenly. On hand when 11 were subsequently pronounced dead. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 8:01 PM | Permalink Browsing through the new Wilson Quarterly this p.m., I came upon this little gem by William Powers, dated November 4, 2005: "News is cheap and the big Washington stories that transfix the media pack are in many ways the cheapest of all because all of the major outlets are on them together. Keeping track of who got which story first would be a full time job, and an absurd one. The true exclusive isn't the story that beats the clock, or the pack. It's the one that the pack never cared about. The one that reported the news so well, you remembered it days later, wanted to read it again, marveled at how it changed your understanding of the world. It's the one that never had to call itself an exclusive, because that was obvious." Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 11, 2006 8:10 PM | Permalink This is very informative thanks guys for the information. Posted by: Christian at January 11, 2006 8:12 PM | Permalink Sticking to the Thornton question (which I know at least a little about): Of course, he could be lying about telling anyone soul that he could not confirm the rumor. Or the NY Times' Dao could be lying. Or, quite possibly, Thornton told several or dozens(as he claims) that he could not confirm but told Dao something different. But follow my logic here: What we do seem to know is that Dao had Thornton's phone number in the command trailer, and reached it. Unless he was the only reporter at, or away from, the scene to have it, others, or many others, must have reached Thornton that night. The question then remains: If Thornton CONFIRMED it to anyone else, why didn't a single other reporter that I know of report this very significant confirmation? If he did NOT CONFIRM, why didn't a single reporter say so? Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 11, 2006 8:48 PM | Permalink Exactly, Greg. Maybe Derek Rose can tell us. Andrew Cline at Rhetorica has a contribution. He cites my observation about the story vs. the information. Then: In my JRN370 News Writing & Reporting class, I teach how to get the story and tell the story as a story (including plenty of discussion about the dangers of narrative bias). Part of my teaching includes this oft-repeated bit of advice: You don't have a story until you have all the information. A good story is founded on thorough reporting. Italics mine. Bears on my earlier question: what exactly was Anderson Cooper doing there? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 9:00 PM | Permalink The question then remains: If Thornton CONFIRMED it to anyone else, why didn't a single other reporter that I know of report this very significant confirmation? If he did NOT CONFIRM, why didn't a single reporter say so? I think the explanation is probably obvious... Thorton said he could not officially confirm, because he was not in a position to do so "officially".... then started explaining what a logical person would assume would be happening if the story was true. One of the problems here is that "media management" has become an artform in and of itself -- and reporters expect "events" to be "managed". So it was no big deal that the company hadn't confirmed that the miners were alive "officially" --- the "official" announcement had to be properly choreographed, with all the officials who had to be given "credit" there on the podium, ready with their own statements, etc. etc. etc..... .... I mean, once the "miners are alive" announcement is made officially, the story loses its potency. If you do it with just a hand-out on paper, you're missing a huge opportunity..... the camera crews start packing up to move onto the next story, Anderson Cooper's assistant books his flight home, and Nancy Grace remembers where Aruba is again. So, to the average reporter, who is working in an environment where almost everything is choreographed, it probably wasn't significant that the company hadn't made an official announcement... Explanation "obvious"? That's fine, except you are overlooking one crucial point: Thornton, a longtime press spokesman for state agencies, was inside the command center--with the company officials, and with the state officials--and was viewed as an official spokesman, certainly by Dao, and probably by others, including those inside the trailer. Second, even if he told the callers he could not "officially" confirm or not confirm, the fact that a spokesman, in the command center, was NOT confirming was quickly buried or not mentioned at all in press and TV reports. Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 11, 2006 9:47 PM | Permalink I made this comment over at Derek Rose's joint. Derek: My imagination might be instructed, and my understanding improved, if, in your post, you had sketched the field of operations for readers struggling to picture it. How big an area are we talking about, where are things in relation to other things going on, what’s the “map” on which the events take place? Because that’s totally real to you, and but a blank for us. Can’t you get satellite images of the area nowadays? (And write around that...) Regardless of that, if you sketched the area for us it would have helped me out. ami: I like that phrase of yours, "probably obvious." That's clever. I don't necessarily believe Thornton. I can easily see where an official in that spot would claim afterwards, "I never told him that," when, getting swept up in things, he actually had. But Greg's questions make a lot of sense to me. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 9:52 PM | Permalink According to Steve, Thornton is lying, Skidmore and Wagoner are deluded, Greg Mitchell's off on another one of his wild goose chases, even CJR Daily's Gal Beckerman is touched by the fever, PressThink's Rosen is guilty of event inflation, and Howard Kurtz, I guess, temporarily lost his mind. -- Jay Jay, you're investing wayyy too much here in your assumptions. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 11, 2006 10:14 PM | Permalink 99.99% of the time why would reporters need to confirm with Thornton when they have company officials, the governor (i could be wrong here) and *family members* in a church? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 10:14 PM | Permalink Steve, why not so much admiration for Howie? he's prolific ... Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 10:20 PM | Permalink the fact that a spokesman, in the command center, was NOT confirming was quickly buried or not mentioned at all in press and TV reports. Greg.... I tried to explain that --- the failure of a spokesman to "officially confirm" is not an indication that a story is questionable in this day and age. Announcements are choreographed.... and the fact that a press spokesman refuses to confirm something is by no means an indication that a story is not true --- all it means is that the "officials" for whom the press flack works wants to be the person who makes the news "official." "I can't confirm" doesn't mean a story isn't true.... most of the time it means "my boss wants to keep it a secret" or "my boss wants to make the announcement himself, on live television." ami: I like that phrase of yours, "probably obvious." That's clever. I wish I was better at detecting sacasm... :) Actually, I can see possibilities other than Dao is lying or Thornton is. Many come to mind. They're both mis-remembering is one. Thornton said something ambiguous is another, and neither wanted to clarify it so both could believe what they wanted to believe. They seduced each other, a third. But I wasn't trying to "shoot" at you, Steve. I was pulling together what I thought you said. Seems from your reply that I was reasonably accurate in my paraphrase. And from what I can tell, Dave M. ami, Mr. Jaw and most of Conover mostly agree with you. I think it's good that you challenge (doubt) Greg Mitchell, good that you tell me I'm off base. These things are essential. Disagreement is vital. I would love to know more of what you think about Kurtz's reporting and commentary, where he gives it. My way of studying the American press often calls on me to seize on things considered "small" by others who know journalism well or do it every day. It can be annoying. Here's what I think I am arguing a week later: The mistake made by journalists was large, but their culpability in it is low. This is precisely why reflection on what happened is vital. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 10:45 PM | Permalink If culpability is so low, why spend so many words on it? Everyone knows the mistake was large. I disagree, obviously. Saying journalists--meaning everyone from reporters on the scene to editors back home--can hardly be blamed only feeds what is the most depressing part of all this for me: not the poor reporting but the defense of it, from so many quarters, for so many days, despite the much clearer picture we now have of the "sourcing." Therefore: few lessons learned, no apparent determination to do better next time (since no one did much wrong this time) or even just putting in place new copy desk procedures for qualifying headlines and assertions that are lightly sourced. Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 11, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink Jay, how do you know i'm a Mr.? i find it disturbing that Wonkette is now an Asian guy. not anything against Asians or guys. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 11:06 PM | Permalink Excellent, then we all disagree. But it's not that journalists "can hardly be blamed," Greg. It's that they can't be primarily blamed. That is what I meant by low culpability, which is not "no" culpability. The company, and the Governor and Congress person have culpability that is primary, in my opinion. Journalists might have screwed some things up, and we should examine what they are. Editor & Publisher has done that very very well. Like you, I have been critical of the explanations and "the defense of it," some of which has not shown the quality of reflection it should. Hence: "Today, we fell short." vs. "I'm not seeing any obvious missteps. Jaw: I do not know you are a Mister. That was sloppy of me. But thanks for the details. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 11:22 PM | Permalink Greg, aren't we all suckers for a feel good story? especially in that claustrophobic situation for those miners and their community? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 11, 2006 11:28 PM | Permalink I forgot, Greg asked why spend so many words on it if culpability is low. I was motivated to do so by what I read in Editor & Publisher: Most bullish of all was CNN president Jonathan Klein, who offered no apologies and hailed his cable network’s performance, which resulted in three hours of faulty coverage. I couldn't understand why he would take that view. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 11, 2006 11:48 PM | Permalink I just emailed Jay this, but I'll leave it as a comment as well. An excellent request. Here is a link to a google map of where it all happened. And here is a link to a screengrab of that map I have annotated using Flickr. (There are to the best of my recollection, I can't promise they're exactly accurate). I'm afraid I can't really shed much light on the Dao/Thornton exchange. I didn't spend a lot of time talking to Thornton because it didn't seem like he knew a whole lot. He'd just tell us when the next briefing from the governor would be. I honestly can't remember if I saw him between midnight and 3 a.m., either. I do know that earlier in the night he had been roaming around and it's conceivable that a reporter could have buttonholed him for a brief one-on-one chat. Posted by: derek rose at January 12, 2006 1:32 AM | Permalink Ami: As a resident moonbat, I tried to stay out of the discussion of the "Ruffini/Melhman/wingnut bloggers" stuff. But really guys, why do you let these wingnuts get away with this stuff. What utter tripe. Meeting with a political party chair isn't something Americans "get away with." It's something Americans do. I doubt you had similar objections when Howard Dean actually put Kos on the payroll. We live in a democracy. And as part of that democracy, citizens associate freely. And if citizens who happen to be bloggers choose to meet with the chairman of the political party they choose to affiliate with, there is nothing unethical or untowards about it. I doubt they keep Howard Dean in a bubble in solitary confinement. There is NO COMPARISON between the Kerry meeting and the Melhman/bloggers meeting. Kerry met with skeptical columnists before any of the Democratic primaries in an attempt to get their support -- or at least some "positive" mentions. Mehlman was talking to a bunch of robotic acolytes -- discussing political strategy, etc. Big difference. As a self-described "resident moonbat" I don't think you have any standing to characterize anyone else as "robotic." You don't know what happened in that meeting, and I doubt you know much about the people in it. You certainly haven't established their robotic nature, except by asserting your own kneejerk bigotry. We live in democracy, ami. You might look into it someday. People actually associate, and pols will occasionally meet with supporters. Those of us in the reality-based community actually think that's a good thing. Grow up. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 12, 2006 9:49 AM | Permalink Actually, I can see possibilities other than Dao is lying or Thornton is. Many come to mind. They're both mis-remembering is one. Thornton said something ambiguous is another, and neither wanted to clarify it so both could believe what they wanted to believe. For what it's worth, the worst printed error I ever made came out of exactly this ambiguous statement/neither-wanted-to-clarify situation. I was filling in for a sick cop reporter and trying to be polite to a police chief in a sticky situation. I was more focused on being nice and respectful than asking him hard, direct questions. He didn't understand what I was asking. I didn't understand what he was saying. The story was 100 percent wrong and that was 100 percent my fault. So the reason that "most of Conover" agrees with Steve is that both truths must be held lightly in the hand: Reporters and editors are responsible for their work; Sources under pressure have a long history of evading punishment by blaming reporters. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 12, 2006 10:03 AM | Permalink re: story. Storytelling isn't just the way writers make information interesting, story is what makes information comprehensible. When someone says "Oh, well, when you put it that way..." they're not saying that you found better words, but that you put the information in a context that made sense to them. And our brains seem to be hardwired to understand things in a story format. Which is why lay-people don't understand articles in scientific journals, but they tend to love science articles written for a general audience. The difference isn't just the words used, but the context provided by a narrative. An article about a local chemist with an alternative theory of evolution becomes a story about a maverick and the blind spots in the peer-review process. People understand that universal "maverick" narrative, and because they grasp it, the information about his theory and the process that would validate/invalidate it becomes meaningful. Choice of narrative is, of course, an essential part of the bias/credibility debate (as it should be). But what people don't seem to grasp is that even if I were to consciously remove all but the most formulaic narrative structure from one of my reports, the readers receiving that report will still assemble the information into something that makes sense to them by using their own narrative devices. Information only sticks in our heads if it becomes part of the story of our lives. Stray facts just disappear. Which is why we cannot see what we cannot imagine. It's also why pretending that Anderson Cooper doesn't exist only takes us so far toward fixing the Sago problem. We're in trouble as an industry right now because we pretend that all sorts of things don't exist, or aren't important, or shouldn't be given credibility, or shouldn't be discussed in public. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 12, 2006 10:19 AM | Permalink Great discussion of story. I think many of us learn to use story to create meaning in our early religious training. This may be part of why Americans of different religious persuasions are reading world events so differently: we were raised on different texts. It's why folks can point to John Kerry and a room full of New York Jews and say "see! There it is! Liberal bias!" Posted by: Richard B. Simon at January 12, 2006 12:16 PM | Permalink Thanks for the map, Derek. It helps put much of this discussion in perspective. There is a tendency in post-mortems of media activity to clarify and simplify the reality of coverage of disasters that rarely captures the difficulties, the confusion and the conflicting events on a deadline-driven story. Why didn't reporters just go chase down the authorities for comment? Or stay at the briefing center? Why didn't they simply call someone or double-and-triple check assertions? Why did they bother those poor victims? Things rarely go smoothly in reporting disasters. Spokesman don't speak. Briefers don't show up. The official word often doesn't come because the officials don't have enough information to give. These things frequently occur in places where cell coverage is sparse or overwhelmed, internet connection is spotty or absent. You have to make snap judgments on where to go and to whome to talk on the flimsiest information. Some call it a reporter's intuition. It's really luck. There may be hours without any new information or the the info may flow in a thousand conflicting bits of fact and rumor intermixed. It the majority of events, you can get most this sorted out before deadline, weeding out the false trails and rumor. And, as Daniel explained, we also try to put the fragmented moments of the disaster into a narrative, tell the story of what happened and how it affects human beings. (which is why we focus on the victims.) When, as at Sago, the information wave breaks only minutes before deadline, the potential for problems can easily become a perfect storm. But you go with what you have. It's not a matter of right or wrong. It simply is. Adding new details and correcting the information becomes the second-day story. So yes. I fall in the Lovelady and most-of-Conover camp on this one. With one caveat: My experience is all in print, which guides my perspective. Why TV does what it does is beyond my understanding. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 12, 2006 1:07 PM | Permalink I'm sorry, you do not just "go with what you have." You make sure it is factual and the truth, or at least you (or your editors) heavily qualify it. "Correcting the information" is the "second-day story"? Don't you think that is a little...cavalier? Here's something new to chew on. Just days after the mishap in the mine rescue coverage, the NY Times and other papers carried a fairly minor Sago story yesterday that echoed the first in certain eerie ways. You may have seen or heard the news yesterday that the trapped miners tried to "bust out" of the mine by using a nearby rail car. When I read the account in the Times, it seemed like a trip down bad memory lane. (Link.) The only source for this dramatic escape attempt was the family of the sole surviving miner. They said that the mine company boss Hatfield had told them this. But the Times could get no confirmation from the company. The governor's office said the miners did try to escape--but did not specify by rail car. Now, the Times and some papers did qualify the "Rail Car Break Out" headline on the story, attributing it to "family says." But some papers did not. And the Times, in what I think is a highly unusual move for a story by one of its own reporters, attributed the report to the AP no less than 3 times in the first 3 grafs. Maybe a lesson was learned, after all. But here's the kicker--the Times and others report today that the rail car story was completely false! (Link.) It's still not known if Hatfield mislead the family or they misheard him--or misreported it to the AP. In any case, while qualfied, the false story did get wide play, for a day, based on secondhand information. Make of it what you will. Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 12, 2006 2:02 PM | Permalink What do I make of this? I can make a hat...a brooch, a pterodactyl...and we can establish that the press corps covering the story can all qualify for a group rate for charter memberships in the Smaller Bus Club. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 12, 2006 2:30 PM | Permalink Greg, for the most part, I agree with you. Particularly in something like the 'rail car' story which was not either a breaking story or one on deadline. How AP failed to get it nailed down, I don't understand. Was this an electronic pickup by AP of a local newspaper's story or AP's own report? Regardless, it shouldn't have happened. But I disagree with your first paragraph. Perhaps I didn't narrow the focus of my comment sufficiently. I'm talking specifically about reporting breaking news on deadline. At 12:58 a.m. and the presses are rolling, you do go with the best information possible. That's not cavalier. It's just reality. In the Sago mine disaster, those deadline reports appeared to be true and confirmed. The company officials weren't talking and wouldn't for nearly three hours. And as reporters at the scene have told us, the jubilation of the families wasn't a rumor. The church bells ringing out good news was a fact. And, for that moment, the good news was the story. Had all these events unfolded at 9 pm, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The 'miracle' would be an ironic paragraph buried in the middle of the story. And I'm not saying it was perfect reporting. It wasn't. Time pressures, fatigue and the overwhelming display of emotion aside, the story could have been more qualilfied. But it wasn't. But to make it a casebook example of bad reporting is myopic. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 12, 2006 2:33 PM | Permalink I couldn't disagree more. The reports were "confirmed"? By what standards? Have you read the full E&P probe of the sourcing? "The jubilation of the families wasn't a rumor. The church bells ringing out good news was a fact." All of it based on misinformation. You call this proper sourcing? "And, for that moment, the good news was the story." No, the good news was a rumor, not "the story," unless you made it one--without heavy qualfiers. "Had all these events unfolded at 9 pm, we wouldn't be having this conversation." No, we would, because the same thing would have happened--except the 3 hours of wrongness would not have ended up in print the next day (except in some places). Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 12, 2006 2:40 PM | Permalink Greg, the North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin was a story based on misinformation. Yet it was reported and significantly sourced. Are all those reports bad reporting because the ultimate truth wasn't confirmed and reported for decades? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 12, 2006 2:59 PM | Permalink Accuracy. Truth. Which one "grounds" the standards in professional journalism? "No, it was accurate..." "Yeah, but it was untrue." Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 12, 2006 3:17 PM | Permalink I think there's a useful distinction to be made between relying on sources - including official sources - who happen to be lying, when no reasonable independent verification is practicable on one hand ... And reporting an unconfirmed rumor on the other when official sources remain silent and NO primary sources confirm, and going with it anyway. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 12, 2006 3:26 PM | Permalink Can anyone find a link to the AP story on the rail car that the Times story referred to? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 12, 2006 3:49 PM | Permalink We don't deal in truth. Truth is too abstract. We deal in acceptable facts, and what's "acceptable" is as ever-morphing as that "community standard" for obscenity. But if the acceptable facts later turn out to be wrong, then we say "The story was accurate, but the sources were not." This situation sucks, but it's what the old rules created. A public statement is a kind of fact, even if what is said in the statement is wrong. We report all sorts of incorrect and/or misleading statements by politicians, even though it may take months or years (or, in some cases, forever) for those statements to be exposed as false or misleading. Are there other "facts" that could have been brought into those stories sooner? Typically, yes. But editors sweat the details. Are they acceptable facts? How many agenda-driven individual bloggers suggesting potentially relevant issues equals one official spokesperson? Who has standing? Whose opinion counts? Whose opinion or collection of facts will our reports grant normative authority? Is this system sufficient? No. But it's what we've got. ********* And, just in case you've missed it, here's Lovelady writing on the irony of post-Sago press criticism over at CJR-D: Three of the favorite complaints about the press on the part of the right-wing attack machine are: Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 12, 2006 3:51 PM | Permalink It was accurate that there was a report that the miners were alive, it was accurate that the families had reacted to that report was accurate, it was accurate that the governor and other officials had given the report, it was accurate that the company had not given any indication about the report is accurate, but it was NOT accurate that the miners were alive. If you look at the headlines, that is what was reported. Until you had better sources, the ambulances moving, a company statement, etc, the reporting that the miners were alive was inaccurate. And if all of this had happened at 9:00 pm, the headline about the miners probably would not have read as it did. "We don't deal in truth." Daniel: I agree. But professional journalism never quite found the language for saying that it didn't. So people expect that it will. Now journalists are faced with: maybe it should! Steve's piece is a must, if you've been following this conversation. My favorite part was the conclusion: "we think that if there is a lesson here, it is..." Once politics is (for the most part) stripped from the equation, the way that people think and feel about the performance of the press in any given situation changes radically. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 12, 2006 4:05 PM | Permalink Jay-- The "accurate" vs "true" distinction is evident as a term of art among journalists although, probably, not accessible to the lay person. I am thinking of these two phrases... "This reporter has learned that the miners are alive..." and "This reporter has been told that the miners are alive..." Both tell the audience that the information has been obtained from a source. The first form of words guarantees the underlying truth of the information (since one cannot learn a false thing); the second form of words merely guarantees that the information has been accurately relayed without regard to the underlying truth (since one can be told true things or false things). The distinction is meaningful but, inasmuch as it is not transparent to laypeople, probably more legalistic than enlightening. Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at January 12, 2006 4:12 PM | Permalink Daniel: I agree. But professional journalism never quite found the language for saying that it didn't. So people expect that it will. Now journalists are faced with: maybe it should! If only the press could develop a way of lowering expectations the way candidates try to do before debates. This is really the biggest issue in all press criticism... expectations are too high. There's hardly any room for general fuck-ups anymore without going into defensive mode. Posted by: catrina at January 12, 2006 4:35 PM | Permalink That, cat, is why Andrew Heyward said what he said in The Era of Omniscience is Over, and why PressThink published it. For a sign of how little Hayward's mesage penetrated, take a look at this Public Eye interview with the new executive producer of "CBS Evening News," Rome Hartman. He neither reduces expectations nor increases transparency. What can CBS News provide in a crowded landscape? His answer is "context." Everything he says is consistent with the "omniscience" era, because the language of that era is still in charge. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 12, 2006 4:40 PM | Permalink It's a little difficult to get Truth in 15 column inches, Jay (or 35 if it's a big story). But you can get a number of facts, and most of them are true. I think you're absolutely on target that the media are their own worst enemy by offering themselves up as purveyors of the Truth. This has always been a schizophrenic business. On one hand, you're the supposed rock on which the truth is built. And on the other, your the first draft of history, cast in fishwrap. But then, no one should ever assume this is an easy job. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 12, 2006 5:15 PM | Permalink So, how does the press speak truth to power? Isn't that part of the ideology? If it's a limited number of facts, most correct, how does that work? How does the press speak with a humble and moral voice as interlocutors ... and be watchdogs? I would submit that if you can not be speak with a humble and moral voice as interlocutor, you will not have the credibility, the public trust, to speak as a watchdog. That hasn't always been true. It's a change in the noetic field. Well, Sisyphus, we also have to consider the possibility that the press has been operating for a long while with an incoherent philosophy that is not in the end consistent and does not make total sense. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 12, 2006 5:43 PM | Permalink Sisyphus -- "Apparently" is not a weasel word. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 12, 2006 5:59 PM | Permalink OK. I admit it. I had to look up the definition of noetic field. And I'm still not sure I understand what it is or how it changed. But even still, I'm going to lean more toward Jay's argument for an incoherent journalistic philosophy. Journalism has always been more fragmented, complex and diverse than the plural noun "media" comfortably defines. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 12, 2006 6:01 PM | Permalink An update on the "rail car escape" story, from the ever-belated Ben Hatfield (as added to an E&P report today): "Hatfield told reporters at a press conference that the trapped miners did try to escape on a rail car but it 'clearly impacted some sort of blockage, probably a piece of debris in the middle of the track.'" Posted by: Greg Mitchell at January 12, 2006 6:04 PM | Permalink I've always thought truth to power was a cudgel, to quote Froomkin, that some on the Left uses to bash the press, similar to how the Right wields the liberal bias. truth to power and watchdog are among the many roles? the fourth estate is a business, not a non-profit agency. isn't the press a medium to disseminate information? Steve, please elaborate on why you have "not so much admiration" for Howie Kurtz. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 12, 2006 6:13 PM | Permalink "We report all sorts of incorrect and/or misleading statements by politicians, even though it may take months or years (or, in some cases, forever) for those statements to be exposed as false or misleading." -- Conover Amen, brother. It took 50 years and more before historians -- forget about journalists -- working in dusty archives and cross-indexing with other dusty archives uncovered some of FDR's lies. I expect the same will prove true for any president in living memory -- although Nixon may be the exception, in that he has been pretty combed-over already. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 12, 2006 6:28 PM | Permalink bush's jaw: "Speak truth to power" is a formulation of the writer's duty as espoused by Albert Camus, the novelist -- not by anyone in journalism. Some journalists have adopted the idea, because it's a more eloquent description of the task than any of them (with the possible exception of George Orwell) have come up with. As for Kurtz -- in one way, I'm an admirer. He's as prolific as anyone writing about the press -- or maybe as anyone writing about anything. It's like watching a waterbug, zipping around the pond all day long, but never stopping for long in any one place. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 12, 2006 6:54 PM | Permalink thanks steve. never knew that phrase came from Camus. that's the respect most people have for Howie. is it approach or forte? as in some of us are sprinters while others are marathoners. while it's admirable, but not everyone goes into journalism or aspires to the Camus ideal. some of us just wanted to write for a living or not fit to do anything else and fell into the biz like Russell Baker. that said, the bulk of the work is the reporting, not the writing. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 12, 2006 7:35 PM | Permalink "Well, Sisyphus, we also have to consider the possibility that the press has been operating for a long while with an incoherent philosophy that is not in the end consistent and does not make total sense." I think this is both an accurate statement and the truth so thank you, Jay, for that. kristen Posted by: kristen at January 12, 2006 9:56 PM | Permalink That's a private conversation, not for attribution. Well, so much for the transparency idea. But seriously - why anyone could concieveably post on a bulletin board, accessible to hundreds of employees, some of whom (notably Kurtz) are tasked with reporting on the press, INCLUDING the Washington Post, and labor under the fantasy that they have an expectation of privacy is beyond me. All leaked internal memos from the Times, or from any other organization, is similarly confidential. Why would that stop the Washington Post from covering them? Has it ever stopped them before? My problem isn't with Kurtz. It's with knuckleheads who post to bulletin boards full of reporters under their own names and then think it's a "private conversation." That ranks right up there with running with chainsaws and swimming less then an hour after after eating. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 13, 2006 9:12 AM | Permalink "Well, Sisyphus, we also have to consider the possibility that the press has been operating for a long while with an incoherent philosophy that is not in the end consistent and does not make total sense." I just finished giving my first series of PowerPoint talks yesterday, and I'm pissed. If This would have been said two days ago, this would have been on one of my slides, dammit. Too long for a bumpersticker. Think I'll have to print it on a T-shirt instead. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 13, 2006 9:41 AM | Permalink And we might add that certain contradictions within it, which were always there, were survivable during one media era, but have become unworkable in our own. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 13, 2006 10:06 AM | Permalink Sorry Jay, but that's just not going to fit on a T-Shirt. Keep your day job. How about "New Tools Change the Rules" instead? Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 13, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink I always keep my day job. It has tenure. How about "New Tools Change the Rules" instead? Sure, that works. So would "Game Over." You gonna put your Power Points online? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 13, 2006 10:50 AM | Permalink jason, i'm sure those knuckleheads are not posting anymore my point is moot since those WaPo bulletin board things were covered by blogs as well. but that's inside baseball anyway. Woodward's disclosure was the news. WaPo's staffer's reaction is a minor part of that story. i found their thoughts in the subject interesting as a reader. but if i were working there and were *quoted* by Kurtz, i would be PO'd. journos aren't comfortable being the source of news. if an employee of a mortgage company gets a loan from the company, would the employee pay the same fees as a customer on the outside? of course not, the employee would get special handling, discounts. reporters better get comfortable with being the source of news with all of these leak investigations. This is an interesting piece from Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 10:54 AM | Permalink So true, b-jaw. My guess is that the NYTimes and other media outlets will rue the day they beat the drums so loudly to have Plame investigated. Of course, the Times only wanted the Bush Administration examined, and not the press, but how realistic was that? How could any special counsel only investigate one side of the leak game? Now that the Plame precedent has been established, journalists will be required to behave as citizens and not deities with supra-Constitutional powers---at least one can hope. The press no longer has the support of the public as they did during the Watergate era, so I think the time is ripe for some judicial activism. It's become obvious that the press will never change unless compelled by the courts. Unlike other US businesses, the press doesn't seem to care that it's credibility is in the tank or that it's revenues are falling. What other way is there to make the press change other than the fear of trial lawyers, which drives businesses at all levels in this country? Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 1:54 PM | Permalink Somewhat OT. New reports of bulk purchases of disposable cell phones (harder to trace) by men of Middle Eastern appearance. Cops have become involved. After the NYT story on the NSA. The response: 1. No connection 2. It's the price we pay for.... 3. Can't think of another one. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 13, 2006 1:57 PM | Permalink i dunno Abigail. newspaper companies (media conglomerates) are publicly traded, so i wouldn't say they don't care about falling revenues. gotta get rid of whips and put motors on the buggy. markets will force the change. wall street is cut and dry, won't stand for falling revenue. maybe Soros will buy newspaper companies and operate them at a loss. funny thing about breaking news competition vs. abolitionist press. i also had worked at Dow Jones News Service. DJ went head to head with Bloomberg, competition measured in seconds and minutes, not hours or days. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 2:47 PM | Permalink In further breaking news, while Ted Koppel has ensconsed himself in respectable lefty venues (NPR & NYTimes), Nightline reporter Dave Marash has signed on with the US version of al-Jazeera. I predict that al-Jazeera (to begin in late spring) will become the Fox News of the Fitzmas Kids. I say power to 'em---we need more diversity in the press, not less. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 3:14 PM | Permalink Well, OK b-jaw, what do you think it will take for the press to reform itself---or is it even possible? Or do you think the press even needs reforming? Do you think part of the problem is that many media outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, WSJ, etc.) are part of massive comglomerates, where press decline can be used as a tax write-off? Personally, I dunno. The business plan for much of the press seems to scream "tax write-off". Is that really the best course? Doesn't that contribute to press dysfunction? Isn't the press already dysfunctional enough? Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 3:31 PM | Permalink Abigail, you're prolly asking the wrong person. i don't think the press needs reform. it's not as liberal as the Right makes it out to be. (ask Clinton if he got favorable coverage.) and the press is not carrying water for the Bush WH as some on the Left claim either. the press goes after any party in power. the internet and technology have affected many industries, not just the media. ask Kodak or Xerox. remember a few years ago when Amazon was putting the fear in all retailers, Wal-Mart included? AOL acquired Time Warner. Yahoo was rumored to take over Disney. now Time Warner has punted AOL, and Google leaped ahead of Yahoo. no matter how the content will be delivered, professional reporters and editors will exist no matter if it is on newsprint, online, or your wireless device. consumers and the financial markets will dictate. Change occurs on Internet time now, so we will find out sooner rather than later. yet the more things change, the more they stay the same (as in professional editors and reporters.) I love this description from Baker: What is a newspaperman? A peeper, an invader of privacy, a scandal peddler, a mischief-maker, a busybody . . . a comic-strip intellectual, a human pomposity dilating on his constitutional duty, a drum thumper on a demagogue's bandwagon, a member of the claque for this week's fashion, part of next week's goon squad that will destroy it. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 4:11 PM | Permalink Did the NYTimes report on NSA domestic spying lead to an increase in attempted purchases of disposable cell phones to Middle Eastern men? Richard Aubrey apparently thinks so. That or no connection are the only possibilities Richard can imagine. Come on, Richard, you need to try harder. It could be that throw-away phones have long been a favorite of terror groups and criminals because they are hard to track. Fact is, President Bush cited disposable cell phones as an important justification in expanding the wiretap laws via the Patriot Act. Long before the New York Times report. That's in the ABC News report that talks about the increased sales. Really, Richard, that's not OT. That's off-the-wall. Now, back to "When Sources get it wrong." Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 13, 2006 4:21 PM | Permalink Don't misunderstand me b-jaw, I'm not one of those who think the press has a liberal bias. I was alert and awake during the 2000 election, and I saw what the press did to the hapless Al Gore. What the national press does is go easy on those they like and go hard on those they don't like. Yes, it's true---reporters are human. Who knew? And you are so right about how technology allows the the public to rise up and deliver the press they want, rather than being sheep and accepting the press they have. Two examples: On the left 1) Josh Marshall hiring two investigative reporters to delve into the wrongdoing of elected officials (well, Republican officials, since we all know that in Joshworld, Democrats never do anything wrong har!har!) and on the right 2) Michael Yon is asking for retired military to volunteer to vet blogs from active soldiers to form a new forum that will allow soldiers to get their stories out and bypass the filter of national media, that sees all military as "victims" (even though we have an all volunteer army, the press is stuck in the quagmire of VietNam). So I am encouraged. We'll never be free of MSM, but we'll be able to enhance and improve them. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 4:37 PM | Permalink Do you think part of the problem is that many media outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, WSJ, etc.) are part of massive comglomerates, where press decline can be used as a tax write-off? Abigail, your counterparts on the Left say this is precisely the reason why the press doesn't speak truth to power. NBC is under GE's thumb. how can two opposite sides of the sprectrum see the same/reverse bias? that is why i comment under bush's jaw, linking to the HuffPo item. my theory is the bias/problem is in the beholder, not the object. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 4:38 PM | Permalink So true, b-jaw. Back in the day, the only press critics were a few on the extreme right. Now the press is getting fire from the extreme left, plus those of us in the center, who believe the press has fallen down, and they can't get up. The terminally demented, like Walter Cronkite, say that if everyone hates what the press is doing, then the press must be doing a good job. What other business/craft/profession professes this as it's credo? I live on the border of Iowa, and I saw up close what happened during the 2004 election. The grassroots part of the Democrat party (newly formed, to be sure) saw the MSM (those who were meeting with Kerry at Al Franken's house) as part of the problem, and hence every bit "the enemy" that GWB was. This is why Kos, et. al despise the MSM---they represent the status quo, and the elite, not the grassroots (netroots, as they say). And please, b-jaw, do not stereotype me as a right-winger, I'm not. Except compared to those on this board, I'm a centrist/libertarian. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 5:07 PM | Permalink "my theory is the bias/problem is in the beholder, not the object." mmmmm....I don't know... is it too much of a stretch to think that maybe it could be both? Posted by: kristen at January 13, 2006 5:20 PM | Permalink ok, i won't label you. but reading you in the pass, you appear conservative/right leaning to me. Cronkite terminally demented? reporters have always been criticized, sometimes for the strangest things. it's a badge of honor. that's partly why, imho, Jonathan Klein said what he said about CNN's mining coverage. when you get constant carping, you tend to tune it out. on my first stories years ago, a company threatened to sue me and the paper. my editor said, welcome to the job.
Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 5:34 PM | Permalink kristen, click on my link and read those comments about the jaw thing. like Shearer, i have no idea what jaw tic means, if anything at all. but the comments were straight down party lines. the left saw illness, drug use. the right saw a the Prez containing his laugh because of judge Roberts' son. it's just my little theory. there are plenty people out there who see the bias in the object. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 13, 2006 5:49 PM | Permalink Okay, if it's bias, we need an experiment. Compare and contrast the coverage of Clinton's Echelon to the current NSA coverage. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 13, 2006 7:28 PM | Permalink They're not comparable, Richard, and it has nothing to do with bias, perceived or otherwise. When you go OT, you don't mess around. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 13, 2006 8:08 PM | Permalink Why aren't they comparable Dave? Certainly the NYTimes was for this type of surveillance when Clinton was President. What's the difference now? (Except for the fact that Bush is in the WH, of course.) Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 8:32 PM | Permalink So true, b-jaw. My guess is that the NYTimes and other media outlets will rue the day they beat the drums so loudly to have Plame investigated. Just curious; Is there ever an instance when your 'guess' might actually be complimentary of the Times? If so, don't be too bashful in sharing such guesses as well periodically, just so the readers here are preempted from being able to 'guess' your guesses! Posted by: village idiot at January 13, 2006 8:46 PM | Permalink Good lord b-jaw, that thing by Harry Shearer is the most juvenile thing I've read today. Maybe I'll use "Dean's Salami" for a screen name. Sheesh! To vi: Several threads back I stated that the only thing I find useful in the NYTimes is the reporting of John Burns. That hasn't changed. Also, I've been called many things, but "bashful" ain't one of 'em. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 13, 2006 9:02 PM | Permalink One is a world-wide secret signals intel and analysis network that intercepts up to 3 billion electronic communications daily. The other is an NSA program that by-passed FISA to listen in on U .S. citizens without a warrant. That's why they're not comparable, particularly as perceived evidence of anti-Bush bias by the New York Times. There have been reports that Echelon circumvented US law of listening to citizens' communications by having the Brits do it. And we did the same to them. This may have happened automatically, withoput human intervention, according to Wikipedia. As much a charming legalism as that may be, it's hardly comparable to a U.S. government approval of overtly intercepting U.S. citizens' phone calls without a warrant. If I wanted to discuss the finer points electronic intercepts and signals intel, I find someplace to do it. And whether the NYTimes supported Echelon, that's richard's and your contention. And it's irrelevant. This, I guess is where you and richard come back with "T'is too!" Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 13, 2006 10:10 PM | Permalink bush's jaw--I read the Shearer piece via your link and now understand your name choice more fully, so thanks for clarifying that. When you first made the comment about bias I presumed your "object" in the statement was the press, hence my remark. I'm actually not even sure now what you meant so let's just move on .... Posted by: kristen at January 13, 2006 10:51 PM | Permalink As to the disposable phones, I guess the reporters may have gotten it wrong. Why didn't I think of that?
Echelon was used by the Clintons, in part, for domestic political purposes. That is one reason some in the intel community came forward. Anyway, whether you admit it or not is hardly relevant. Any longer. Oh, yeah. Remember. Nothing goes away, including the NYT's reporting and editorializing on the subject. We can, as the man said, fact-check your whatsit. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 13, 2006 11:01 PM | Permalink Richard, It's an interesting world view you have. Up is down. Day is night. And rain falls up. I wish you luck with it. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 13, 2006 11:20 PM | Permalink Unlike other US businesses, the press doesn't seem to care that it's credibility is in the tank or that it's revenues are falling. here's a part you might want to bear in mind: newspaper revenues aren't performing up to expectations... but those expectations are for 20 to 30 percent profit margins. I like the way my former professor, Phil Meyer, put it: The newspaper industry is stuck because it expects monopoly profits because and doesn't realize that it has lost its monopoly. The way i put it: newspapers aren't likely to change because the act of their slow demise is turning out to be so damned profitable. So anyway, get this point: despite all their flaws, newspaper remain terribly profitable, knocking down 15 to 20 percent margins even in bad years. Compare that to your average grocery store or fast food chain, where 3 cents on the dollar is a great year. now, about credibility: Credibility is something that is given, not something you manufacture. We're probably doing a better job than ever before, but we're delivering a better typewriter. Users have moved on to different expectations. Credibility is perception. If I lie really well and push your buttons with expert skill, you'll believe me, and so long as I keep fooling you, you'll judge me trustworthy and o-so-sympatico. Credibility isn't the same thing as accuracy and intelligence. Which is why I wrote in a previous thread about the difference between being credible and being popular. FOX News is extremely popular with its viewers, who give it high marks for credibility. But 2004 FOX News viewers were more likely to be misinformed on certain war/political topics (you've all heard this stat) than viewers of channels that are not ranked as high in these polls. Getting high marks for credibility from people who've got their facts mixed up isn't my metric for success. We've got to change as an industry, but popularity contests aren't the answer. Not that this is what you advocated. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 13, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink kristen, now i'm confused. you were correct the first time, the press is the object. my point is that the jaw tic is an objective item, no point of view, no meaning really in the tic. the comments/analysis of the jaw tic are pure bias by the viewer of the video. if you like Bush, you say he was trying to contain his laugh because of judge Roberts' son. if you don't like Bush, you say the tic is evidence of drug use or illness. now, there is no way anyone, not even a doctor, can look at that video and diagnose anything about the jaw. of course, you were correct before that bias could be both, the object and the observer (beholder) of it. my theory on bias that often times, the observers brings their bias to what they look at. more so than the object itself is biased. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 14, 2006 5:52 AM | Permalink Dave. Didn't you get the part about it doesn't matter what you admit? Do you expect the local press to report they were wrong about the FBI investigating the cell phone purchases? Do you expect the NYT can retroactively change what it reported a decade ago? It would appear the answers are no, yes, and yes. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 14, 2006 9:17 AM | Permalink On profits: Isn't the source of most (all) of those newspaper profits a local monopoly on distribution of local advertising for retail and professional services? And classifieds. One thing the Internet seems to demonstrate is that large numbers of people will not pay for even high-quality general news of the kind published by even the best newspapers. It does not appear to me that "news" is more than a commodity. We will pay a fee to have it delivered to our door in a handy paper format. But we will not pay for the "news" itself. Is it possible that news isn't all that important in the end and we spend much too much time sweating about its decline? Posted by: John at January 14, 2006 9:27 AM | Permalink Jay Rosen: Well, Sisyphus, we also have to consider the possibility that the press has been operating for a long while with an incoherent philosophy that is not in the end consistent and does not make total sense. Jay Rosen: And we might add that certain contradictions within it, which were always there, were survivable during one media era, but have become unworkable in our own. This is the contribution of PressThink. A succinct expression of many essays posted here. I'm glad to see it well received by commenters. This is common ground for journalists and bias hunters on the Left and Right. A working theory in search of a way to deal with change. A way to remove heat and noise from the debate. Not an attempt at a perfect, or unifying, theory of journalism. Posted by: Sisyphus at January 14, 2006 10:02 AM | Permalink Conover,thanks for your comments. Your views on credibility were especially interesting and unusual----gave me something to think about. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 14, 2006 11:06 AM | Permalink John, the problem for newspapers is how to move the classified, advertising and circulation revenues away from print to the new format, yet to be determined format. I don't know if the NYT or WaPo or any othe paper will only exist on a website. news and advertising have a symbiotic relationship. advertisers place ads in newspapers (and online) knowing people will see ads when they read the news. so i don't think we can say news isn't important in the end. but editorial trust and transparency (very important issues) aren't the only drivers for revenues. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 14, 2006 11:39 AM | Permalink BJ - I agree the problem for newspapers is whether the revenue streams (circulation revenue in many cases, I believe, covers the cost of the actual circulation operation and little more) will follow the content. But if the market no longer values the content, will the revenues follow? The newspaper as a bundle of different kinds of information (and a family habit) could and still does command respectable market penetration -- making it attractive to local advertisers. But, it is entirely possible that "hard news" has always been more of a free rider than a driver of the business model. I don't know that, but I wonder. If the unbundled hard news can't find a market niche big enough to command generous revenue streams, then sooner or later it will not be tenable as a kind of journalism. I.F. Stone will always be able to publish his kind of journalism, but in the Internet age would even Stone have been able to command the meager subscription fees that supported his work? Maybe journalism will be the part-time sidelight of tenured professors and others with the time and means to participate in the gift economy. The key challenge for media organizations is that it is much easier to harvest current market share by cutting the bottom line than it is to come up with and implement new business models that actually grow revenue. For one thing, that kind of strategic imagination requires rethinking what media organizations are. Posted by: John at January 14, 2006 12:02 PM | Permalink John, it's the legacy issue that other industries are faced with. take broadband for example, the former local phone companies like BellSouth use DSL to leverage the copper phone wires going into homes, instead of say wireless or cable to deliver broadband. newspaper aren't going to do scrap the newsprint/ circulation model entirely if it is still generating revenue. If all newspapers stop giving free access to their websites, what would happen? would you pay an online fee for your local paper because you can't get local news elsewhere? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 14, 2006 12:27 PM | Permalink John, the problem for newspapers is how to move the classified, advertising and circulation revenues away from print to the new format, yet to be determined format. I don't know if the NYT or WaPo or any othe paper will only exist on a website. what I find most interesting is that on-line papers still don't seem to have figured out how to take advantage of the web to attract advertisers.... Pajamas Media sucks, but it has figured out how to get companies like Best Buy and Verizon to advertize in a way that actually gets the consumer's attention --- without annoying the crap out of him/her. newspaper circulation managers tell publishers: "our website is killing our circulation. why would someone pay for our print product when our web guys are giving it away for free?" the answer that circulation managers want is: Make people pay to read online just like they do in print. Publishers love the sound of that. to which i respond: we already give away our NEWS product for free. You're paying for the easy-to-read object (the paper) and its delivery, not the news and information in it. Would you pay for that general local news online if that was the only place you could get it? Maybe, but that's not a meaningful question -- there are already too many "free" alternatives: local TV and radio broadcasts, but increasingly blogs, too. And wherever news organizations try to sell that content online, they will beget startup grassroots competitors who will pay $150 a year to Typepad and go about kicking some serious traditional media ass. Personally, I'm convinced that the "answer" to making money off online news and information is going to come from a business model that employs multiple revenue streams. Right now we have only two, and they're extrapolated from the print model: 1. paying to see content; 2. advertising. Which is short-sighted bunk. If we're smart, we'll figure out ways to be -- for certain kinds of local markets -- what Amazon is to books and music. Not just a way to buy things -- a way to research, discuss and compare those things before people buy them. Hubs for information and commerce. And by doing so, we'll improve our journalism -- because we'll put the reader/user/buyer at the focus of all our efforts. We don't do that today. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 14, 2006 1:38 PM | Permalink Would you pay for that general local news online if that was the only place you could get it? Maybe, but that's not a meaningful question -- there are already too many "free" alternatives. i meant that if there were value to the content, would people pay for it online? local TV, radio and blogs don't cover a community like a newspaper does. only a newspaper could do this series. but i don't pay much attention to local news where i live. i pay for the Wall Street Journal online, and I would pay a fee for NYT and WaPo, if I had to. but are we back to the triumphalist debate? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 14, 2006 2:03 PM | Permalink Since we're on the topic of news reports that need correction.... ...and given Richard's attempt to hijack the thread with a complaint about the Bush illegal spying story resulting in "terrorists" trying to buy disposible cell phones... I think this deserves some mention. It turns out that the reports that the people purchasing cell phones were connected to "terrorists" were, to put it bluntly, untrue. However Vanderland said Thursday after the ABC report aired that assertions of a connection between a terror cell and the men who attempted to purchase cell phones from a Midland Wal-Mart were invalid. This completely erroneous story spread like wildfire throughout the wingnut blogosphere (and much of the mainstream blogosphere--- thanx Richard). How much effort will Richard and other bias warriors put into making sure that everyone knows that the story was untrue? My bet....not much, since I'm the person who has to correct the record on this blog. bush's jaw: "but are we back to the triumphalist debate?" Good god, b-jaw, thanks for killing the conversation. I hope you're happy now. Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 14, 2006 3:12 PM | Permalink Jeez ami, you give megalomania a bad name with this:"...I'm the person who has to correct the record on this blog." Posted by: Abigail Beecher at January 14, 2006 3:52 PM | Permalink Somebody has to do it, abigail. Correcting Richard's record is a full-time job. But the cell phone story - and it's eventual correction - raises an interesting counterpoint to what we've discussed here about the mine disaster story. The cell phone story spread across the blogosphere, quickly becoming a warning of impending terror attacks by swarthy men. Of course, it wasn't true, but who cares? Michelle Malkin certainly doesn't. What role to blogs - and blog readers - have in passing on false news? And what responsibility to we, as users of any news medium have in correcting the record? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 14, 2006 4:05 PM | Permalink Richard's agenda is venting his press hate-- that's what his comments are about, the facts cited and issues raised are incidental to it, there is no theme but that one, and the reason he's here is so others will feel the hate he does. The sooner regular participants grasp that the better off they will be. As I've said before, I wish it would stop but I do not think it will, so draw the appropriate conclusions and move on. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 14, 2006 4:48 PM | Permalink With all due respect, I first heard about the Disposable-Cell-Phone WalMart-in-Midland Target-in-Hemet boogeyman on my local ABC nightly news broadcast Thursday night. I live in Los Angeles. They may have gotten their information from Malkin or Drudge -- it seems that many news producers do -- but this was a mainstream news broadcast in a major market. To my knowledge they haven't corrected it, either. Posted by: Phredd at January 14, 2006 6:13 PM | Permalink Well, I believe the papers who reported it should be the ones correcting it. If ABC got it wrong, ABC should correct it, don't you think? Anyway, just in case I had been dehydrated or something and couldn't remember what I said, I went back and checked. Golly, I didn't say what you claim I said. I checked the source (me) about what I said. There are a several reasons to misrepresent somebody's position. One is incompetence. Another is because the reality is too uncomfortable. Another yet is habit. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 14, 2006 6:40 PM | Permalink I'm not sure I would pay for the online version of what I get on my doorstep every day. I am not a believer that web content kills paper circulation (other than the newspaper in the mail kind). At least it is not terminal. What I see more and more of is people realizing that newspaper just doesn't fill any need for them. Peter Drucker once wrote that people don't buy drills, they buy holes. He meant they buy stuff because they have particular needs to satisfy. I'm not so certain there is a need in the wider population that is satisfied by hard news -- at least not in the numbers necessary to sustain expensive things like salaried reporters and editors. Without comics, weather, obituraries, high school sport box scores, Dear Abby, letters to the editor, and grocery ads to hook people on the daily newspaper habit, would this free-rider hard news be able to pay its own freight? Posted by: John at January 14, 2006 9:49 PM | Permalink Richard, this isn't very complicated. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 14, 2006 10:21 PM | Permalink The thing is, Steve, neither Malkin nor Drudge ever correct their stuff. Everyone knows that, or should. That's why their stuff shouldn't be used, particularly by organizations like ABC and CNN and NBC and Howard Kurtz at Washington Post, who should know better. They shouldn't be broadcasting or printing unsubstantiated claims at all, but particularly not from people who have been proved time and time again to push malicious stories that are untrue. But of course they do; the stories are just too juicy to worry about whether they are true. The major broadcast organizations remain unaccountable for that: I've very rarely heard them broadcast an admission of error. The print media is a little different; since their words are recorded on hard copy, they occasionally issue corrections. Posted by: Phredd at January 14, 2006 10:49 PM | Permalink Phredd: I couldn't have said it better. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 14, 2006 11:11 PM | Permalink With things happening as rapidly as they do now, and with the volume of stuff that's there to be processed, it seems to me that the light switch response (publish/don't publish) isn't enough -- at least not online. Memory is becoming more important than immediacy. Posted by: Daniel Conover at January 14, 2006 11:26 PM | Permalink "memory is more important than immediacy." And that's part of the problem: What shapes the memory? A story such as the cell phones crisis - part factual reporting, part hyped drama - gets absorbed into the blogosphere and splits into a thousand fragmentary parts that are shaped and reshaped as it bounces from blog to blog like some strange game of telephone. The story is cheered and jeered, explored, dismissed and circles the world before Truth can get her boots on. Soon it transmutates into a story of hoards of swarthy Islamo-fascists buying up Wal-Mart's cellphones in preparation for the Next Big Terror Attack. Which version to people remember? Where is the call for accountability to truth or even factual reporting that traditional media were excoriated for failing to do in the mining disaster story? How does the record ever get corrected?
Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 14, 2006 11:50 PM | Permalink I like that about the digital code (publish or don't) not being enough. It's similar to what I was saying about Keller. "Watch our pages" isn't enough to make what you're doing intelligible. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 14, 2006 11:51 PM | Permalink Without comics, weather, obituraries, high school sport box scores, Dear Abby, letters to the editor, and grocery ads to hook people on the daily newspaper habit, would this free-rider hard news be able to pay its own freight? John, would you pay for comics, weather, obits, high school sports etc. online? let's say technology is stagnant. are you a newspaper subscriber today for comics, weather etc. today? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 14, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink Wait a minute. I guess there are two questions: Was there an incident, or more than one, of bulk buying of cell phones which employees reported to the police sparking some kind of investigation? Was there a ME connection? I get the impression that the answer to the second was "no". What about the first question? I heard that bloggers know nothing that the MSM doesn't tell them. Has ABC corrected its story? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 12:10 AM | Permalink Oh, and has anybody asked the Midland Police for their view on the FBI assertion? Or do we take the FBI's assertion as gospel? Since it settles the question. At least, the article says that ABC has been unable to corroborate...but the reference to what is not corroborated is not clear. Still, that's a step. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 12:20 AM | Permalink Hey, ami. Says it's confirmed as authentic. I dunno about the FBI. There have been a number of people killed by Muslims in this country (DC sniper, LAX shooting) whose fate the FBI tells us is not linked to terror. Maybe we should find out what their definition is so we could all use the same one. Might clear up communication. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 12:28 AM | Permalink Good Lord. Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 15, 2006 1:07 AM | Permalink That crazy "liberal" media is up to its old tricks again, printing RNC hit jobs without bothering to identify the very RNC operatives they are using as primary sources! This time it's Howard Kurtz and Shallagh Murray and their ever vigilant editors on the Washington Post print side such as John Harris who fall flat on their "RNC work-the-ref," actively context avoidant, "gullible" faces--just like last time! Whoda thunk it? Right here in the US of A? Fools or tools? They don't report, but you decide. Murray Waas, Whatever Already! Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 15, 2006 1:43 AM | Permalink Is Cybercast News the new Talon? Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 15, 2006 1:53 AM | Permalink A Virtual Katrina of Deaths Every Week in US Due to Racial Health Gaps Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 15, 2006 1:57 AM | Permalink True Katrina Fatalities May Never Be Known Posted by: Mark Anderson at January 15, 2006 2:10 AM | Permalink So, anyway, Dave, we have what seems to be a valid report of the buying of cell phones in bulk. Is that a "good Lord" story? How about this: The bulk purchases did happen but it only proves the rednecks are right to be worried so we'll "good Lord" this until it goes away? Plus, even though ABC reported it, we'll blame the bloggers for it. A number of people have been concerned about the FBI's requirements to prove some act of violence or other is actually terrorism. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 8:51 AM | Permalink Now remember your interpretive principles, class. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 11:13 AM | Permalink Does anyone know what Deborah Howell is doing? Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 12:07 PM | Permalink Geez. Richard's a critic of the press. Calling a press critic a "press hater" is as reflexive and dumb as calling a critic of the Administration an "America-hater." We don't critique the press because we hate it. We're critical because we love it and we want it to be even better. Otherwise, we just wouldn't care at all. BTW...just what WERE all those cell phones for, anyway? I mean, I don't have any links to known drug dealers. But if I were spotted filling my shopping cart buying bulk drano, iodine, and over-the-counter cold medicines, you're damn right I'd get stopped, the cops would probably get a warrant for a search. And if anyone sold me more than 9 grams of bottled cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine at any one time, that person could be arrested, too, and charged with a crime. Why would the bulk purchase of dozens of untraceable cell phones warrant any less suspicion? After all, the reporting of individuals buying up ingredients used to make crystal meth is an important part of antidrug law enforcement. I don't see why cell phones should be any different. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 15, 2006 12:15 PM | Permalink Does anyone know what Deborah Howell is doing? hallucinating, perhaps? By the way: Here's a story that apparently depicts a man who was arrested, charged, and convicted on nothing more than the simple possession of hundreds of cold tablets and lithium batteries. http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=56384&pub=1 Why should we be any less vigilant about middle eastern immigrants with dozens of cell phones, in the absence of a bona fide business reason? Are we that stupid? And if they just want to send them home to their families so THEY can use them to circumvent US surveillance, I don't know why we would have to tolerate that. It's a better argument for them, if they're US persons, to claim THEY wanted to avoid surveillance than if they conspired to grant that same ability to non-US persons. If they're US persons. They can only qualify if they are permanent residents, though. I'm not even sure that argument holds much water-you may not even be able to use some US prepaid phones overseas. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 15, 2006 12:30 PM | Permalink In the case of the Target-in-Hemet boogeyman, it turns out that Target had a Christmas special on disposable phones for 19.99, and a reseller, who I guess was a "swarthy" man, bought a bunch of them for resale. (I assume that $19.99 is cheap for a disposable cell phone.) ABC, in reporting the story, explicitly linked it to terrorism. The story was a follow-on to the NSA spying story and, although I don't remember the exact language, used the words "Middle Eastern" and "terrorism" several times. (I don't have access to my LexisNexis on this computer, sorry.) They showed scenes of the London bombing, and "swarthy" people using cell phones. They then followed that story with another terrorism story about the video of Zawahiri, the "number two al Queda lieutenant." Whether Malkin got it from ABC or ABC got it from Malkin, I don't know. But ABC has the responsibility to clarify these stories WHEN THEY REPORT THEM by doing their due diligence in checking their accuracy. They need not have hyped these stories and could have held them until the specifics became more clear. It isn't in Malkin's and Drudge's interests to confirm the accuracy of boogeyman stories. Their goal is to push the boogeyman stories without regard to whether they are true. That's why they never correct their stuff. It isn't in their interest to do so. Presumably it is in ABC's interest to do so. But apparently they'd rather hype up the boogeyman aspect. Else why would they stick a story about a guy who bought a bunch of bargain-basement cell phones at a sale at Target? What about phone cards? They can't be traced either. Are phone cards a terrorist threat? Are we going to require citizenship and ID to buy phone cards? What about using a phone booth? That can't be traced. Shall we require citzenship and ID to use a phone booth? Walkie-talkies, even? Isn't it rather absurd, when you think about it, that a so-called "terrorist cell" whose base is purportedly in a mall, according to Malkin, would conspicuously send a bunch of men to buy a bunch of cell phones from WalMart at the same time? I mean, c'mon! Posted by: Phredd at January 15, 2006 2:01 PM | Permalink Those damned "swarthy" guys. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 15, 2006 2:58 PM | Permalink Remember the Year of the Shark Attack? All of a sudden, it seemed we had been invaded by legions, armies, hordes of sharks. Weeks and weeks, story after story of shark attacks! All sharks, all the time! The stories were full of blood and gore and some blond surfer dude consented to an interview. Oh yeah? I have a Girl in a Bikini who was chased by a shark! Yeah? I'll raise you a CUTE KID who saw a shark! Yeah? Here's your cute kid! I have a PUPPY who escaped from the JAWS of a shark and barked to warn his OWNER, possibly SAVING him from a deadly shark attack! After a reality check, it turned out that there wasn't any greater number of shark attack that year than normally occur. It was just the broadcast media humping a couple of good stories full of blood and gore. And so it goes. The cell phone story is like that. Posted by: Phredd at January 15, 2006 3:33 PM | Permalink Jason, do you get a discount on the straw you use to create strawman arguments? If you bother, you'll notice that no one here said ANYTHING and the validity of story subject. No one said ABC shouldn't have reported a story about bulk cell phone sales. The questions come in ABC's over-hyping the Middle-Easterness of the purchaser and the more than quick linkage with terrorism. The story's one 'fact' was the Midland police report which turned out not be true. My question was why Blog World, which excoriated the major media for printing falsehoods on deadline in the mining disaster, swallowed the cell phone story whole - than mutated it to a new terrorist threat? Richards answer is, "It's Big Media's fault." Of course, that's always Richard's answer. He alluded to FBI collusion in the cell phone story (which prompted my "good lord" comment). My question remains: If we're in this new paradigm of news dissemination, which incorporates old media, news aggregators, blogs, etc.) where is the accountability to correct false stories? It's fine and good to say ABC should have been more careful. I agree. But the story took on a life of its own in the blogs, reshaping the story to more drama and innuendo that the original story. How to we prevent a story of six or so men apparantly from Pakistan questioned about cell phone purchases from becoming lodged in the collective memory as the emergence of a new terror cell WHEN THERE ISN'T A SINGLE FACT TO SUPPORT THAT CONTENTION? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 15, 2006 3:54 PM | Permalink After a reality check, it turned out that there wasn't any greater number of shark attack that year than normally occur. It was just the broadcast media humping a couple of good stories full of blood and gore. And so it goes. The cell phone story is like that. Exactly. However, do you think the shark story's mutation through the Web concreted it more deeply in our consciousness as 'the killer shark summer'? Posted by: Dave McLemore at January 15, 2006 3:58 PM | Permalink I've read all the posts and links on the Froomkin debate as well as following Deborah Howell's columns online for the last 3 months. Could someone summarize in just a couple of short sentences why she is viewed here with such disdain (I mean, "...hallucinating" ??? ) What I'm getting from the tone and comments is anyone with real press credentials just KNOWS how not-up-to-par her columns are, sniff, sniff. Maybe I'm misreading her or just don't understand these "rules" that determine exactly what role a paper's ombudsman is supposed to take but I like the discussions she's generated and the info she's shared. Plus, frankly, for me, I'm tired of the same old same old line of "we could have done a better job at "fill in the blank" blah, blah, blah." Ombudsmen in other fields have a number of different but related roles. Is she choosing a role that is just not appreciated or liked by the press within? Have readers complained about her? Posted by: kristen at January 15, 2006 4:47 PM | Permalink "What a great job the post did on this Abramoff story; meet the reporters who did it..." seems to me a waste of precious space and critical attention. I don't think it's appropriate for a twice-weekly column by the number one in-house critic of the Post. Her Froomkin column showed no awareness of what she was doing in signing on to the political staff's complaints about "liberal bias." But the worrisome thing for me is that Howell seems not to have the ability to get outside her professional skin. She cannot step back from the newsroom's rationalizations; nor does she take a step forward into the outraged readers' world, and try to view things the way they do. The result, for me, is that all her columns lack the quality of insight, or mature reflection. They tend to recycle the reflexive pressthink of her peers. They have no tension in them. And they appear to be written by someone who thinks the Post gets beat up too much by know-nothing outsiders. So far (she's still new) it looks like we're going to have two years of "the left thinks we're too easy on Bush, the right things we're itching to undermine him, but journalism is not supposed to have a political agenda." For an ombudsman to be thinking at such a simplistic level in 2006, after everything that's happened, is depressing. It's inane, and it goes nowhere. And yet Howell seems to think that's her job. Jane Hamsher isn't happy, either. "Deborah Howell is an outrage." Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 5:50 PM | Permalink How does anybody know the Midland PD report is wrong? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 6:58 PM | Permalink I am afraid I have to agree with Ms. Hamsher on the Indian-Tribes-being-equated-with-Abramoff aspect of Ms. Howell's article. It is a serious lapse and betrays dearth of journalistic competence. I would not be surprised if this ended up being a Pressthink thread. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 6:59 PM | Permalink What you sense from Howell is: Not only does the Post have to be balanced, and the ombudsman's column balanced, but the K Street scandal has to be balanced, and Abramoff's campaign contributions have to be balanced too. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 7:07 PM | Permalink Thanks, Jay, for your response. Some follow-ups: “Her Froomkin column showed no awareness of what she was doing in signing on to the political staff's complaints about "liberal bias." “ Clarify, please…. Do you mean by this that if she had known what kind of hoopla she would be creating she wouldn’t have taken “sides” in what many viewed as an internal Post debate? (I actually didn’t think of her column in that light but other people did, I know.) And, BTW, I would have thought that flatly stating, “Political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal,” created quite a bit of tension, even though on the face I thought it was an accurate statement. Is it possible that because you demonstrate a pretty rigid view that discussing bias is never meaningful, you feel itchy when someone else not only discusses it but takes sides, no less? I hate to even say it b/c I know it will probably trigger all sorts of negative comments, but she kind of reminds me of Bush. Just say what I think, do what I will, and oh well, I’m already moving on ….. Some people don’t mind that “less-nuanced” approach. “They tend to recycle the reflexive pressthink of her peers.” I agree with you that she periodically seems simplistic and even a little cliché-ish in her thoughts. She hasn’t really written that many columns yet so I was just wondering why all the emotion about her. Posted by: kristen at January 15, 2006 7:17 PM | Permalink v.i., where does Howell equate Indian Tribes with Abramoff? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 15, 2006 7:18 PM | Permalink That is very charitable of you, Jay. As for me, I am increasingly reluctant to give her the benefit of doubt and characterize her actions as 'obsessively seeking balance'. Random errors are okay, as long as they are few and far in between, but the two errors that I can readily recall in Ms. Howell's short career as an ombudswoman are both in the same direction, i.e., benefiting the right. The first was portraying Mr. Froomkin as having a liberal bias and generally acting as the mouthpiece of Mr. Harris in his attempts to rein in WHB/WPNI, and now propagating the notion that that Mr. Abramoff was an equal-money dispenser (if there is such a term). Twice may be coincidence, but many folks will be keenly watching to confirm such! Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 7:31 PM | Permalink b.j.: this is what she says in her article . Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money. I believe this statement is false. The Indian Tribes were the ones that gave the money, not Abramoff. The difference is quite significant, as you may well be aware of. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 7:53 PM | Permalink where does Howell equate Indian Tribes with Abramoff? Jaw: In writing this: Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money. She makes it sound like the Dems got contributions from Abramoff. But none did. Some Dems got contributions from Indian Tribes that were his clients. That's how Indian Tribes get equated with Abramoff in Howell's column. Josh Marshall sorts and explains. Howell is turning balance into a monster that destroys critical thought. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 8:02 PM | Permalink I mean, come on. Like the information on this is so cut and dried that anyone here can state categorically that they know the real truth? I think Ms. Howell probably feels OK about using the Post's own charts in defending her statements... Posted by: kristen at January 15, 2006 8:13 PM | Permalink Her statement sounds very cut and dry to me. It is factually false, irrespective of what charts she is using. In fact, if the charts are inaccurate, she has some responsibility in having them corrected, let alone propagate the falsehood. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 8:22 PM | Permalink She makes it sound like the Dems got contributions from Abramoff. She actually had written that Dems got money from Abramoff. I didn't know that that was an error. now, was that a poorly written sentence or intentional (in saying Abramoff instead of tribes) on Howell's part? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 15, 2006 8:23 PM | Permalink "Abramoff money" is sloppy shorthand that reporters developed to describe money from his clients; and for the ombudsman (who polices sloppiness) to be using it without examination is an example of what I meant by insufficient critical distance from the newsroom. By the way, the Post's Sue Schmidt is on C-SPAN now (8:45) being interviewed by Brian Lamb. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 8:27 PM | Permalink From the Guardian: US and Pakistani officials have also said that the missiles were launched from American pilotless predator drones, which have previously been used to target senior al-Qaeda figures. A man alleged to be al-Qaeda's third-in-command was killed in a 'stand-off' missile attack around a month ago. However, several eyewitnesses spoke of seeing planes and illuminating flares over the village, which if true would indicate the use of missiles from planes guided in by special forces teams on the ground rather than CIA-operated drones. The Guardian seems to be giving away 'National Security' information in this article. Perhaps we should ask for the article's reporters and editors to be extradited to stand trial in the US? Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 8:30 PM | Permalink village. Posted by: Richard Aubreyt at January 15, 2006 8:46 PM | Permalink I have to say that Hamsher makes the Indian boodle sound like the cleanest cash ever spent in DC. Village. Is the error Howell makes in referring to Froomkin as having liberal bias? In other words, he doesn't. Or is it in saying so when she should not be saying so for various reasons having to do with her position? Posted by: RIchard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 8:49 PM | Permalink I see the NYT is trying to convince us that an old artillery shell is a piece of the American missile. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 15, 2006 9:10 PM | Permalink In my eyes, her error was actually in being so eager to join ranks with Harris'. Her role was to function as an advocate for reader's concerns, not to reinforce her boss(?) in his turf battles. As it happens, Harris made a mess of himself subsequently in defending the Froomkin-is-a-liberal (he was co-opting the words of an RNC operative) position. That should have prompted a column from Ms. Howell explaining to WaPo's readers Mr. Harris' strange choice, but she compounded her initial error of judgement further by electing to stay silent. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 9:13 PM | Permalink advocate for reader's concerns isn't the role more neutral than advocate? according to the Organization of News Ombudsmen: A news ombudsman receives and investigates complaints from newspaper readers or listeners or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness, balance and good taste in news coverage. do we need the change the def? Posted by: bush's jaw at January 15, 2006 9:26 PM | Permalink There is more on Ms. Howell's mischaracterization of Abramoff's campaign contributions on Media Matters. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 9:30 PM | Permalink B. J.:I cannot disagree with the definition other than the part about 'good taste':) Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 9:35 PM | Permalink v.i., i don't see the difference between money directly from Abramoff and money that Abramoff directed his clients (Indians) to give. if the Tribes gave money independent of Abramoff, then there is a distinction. Posted by: bush's jaw at January 15, 2006 9:41 PM | Permalink very well, we all have our perspectives; but, if you were to write Ms. Howell's column, would you word it the same way? Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 9:45 PM | Permalink no, i wouldn't word it the same way. but then you are asking me now, after the debate on this thread. i see the criticism for being imprecise with "Abramoff campaign money." Posted by: bush's jaw at January 15, 2006 10:04 PM | Permalink The Tribes do give money independent of Mr. Abramoff, so the distinction is significant (in your words), and therefore it is likely that you would have worded the article differently even absent this discussion, because you would have been duty bound to check the record for veracity before publication. Now that they know the inaccuracies, we will see if they correct the record, if so, how quickly. Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 10:23 PM | Permalink The Indian tribes were Abramoff's victims. Abramoff pled guilty to bilking them for tens of millions of dollars, which he gave to Republicans. He did not give a dime to Democrats. This fact has been established time and again. Look in the FEC records. The victims, i.e., the Indian tribes, also made donations to Democrats. Some of the Democrats who received political donations from Indian tribes were members of the donating tribe. Some of the Indian tribes were constituents of Democrats, such as Harry Reid. Political donations from special interest lobbyists, including Indian tribes, is perfectly legal and not unethical.. To conflate the two, Abramoff's crimes (to which he pled guilty), and legal donations from Abramoff's victims, is reckless and dishonest. That this has been done repeatedly by a major newspaper such as the Washington Post is unconscionable. Journalists who care about the credibility of their profession should be baffled, perplexed, and concerned that the Washington Post 1) issues a prominent correction, 2) ensure that such a reckless journalistic crime doesn't happen again, and 3) wring their hankies and clutch their pearls while dabbing at their tears of contrition in their sincere apology to their readers and to the Democrats who they have repeatedly smeared. Posted by: Phredd at January 15, 2006 11:07 PM | Permalink Howell is turning balance into a monster that destroys critical thought. Reluctantly, I must agree.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at January 15, 2006 11:12 PM | Permalink Kristen: "Is it possible that because you demonstrate a pretty rigid view that discussing bias is never meaningful, you feel itchy when someone else not only discusses it but takes sides, no less?" Yeah, it's possible. Rigidity when one's views are known is a danger. It's also possible I'm a lousy writer, a terrible thinker, inept at research, and incompetent to judge what journalists do. Even worse things are possible. I have said that the bias discourse makes people dumber about the press. The more you speak it the dumber you get. I said that as an educator, and I said it based on a lot of experience with bias criticism. My "law" applies to Deb Howell, and it even applies to you, kristen. Deborah Howell didn't mean what she wrote when she said Froomkin's column is liberal. What she meant is that she thinks Froomkin is clearly opposed to Bush, and it's just her lazy journalistic shorthand that caused her to use the word "liberal." That's not forgivable. For of course Republicans can be opposed to Bush, swing voters can be opposed to Bush, conservatives (true conservatives) can be opposed to Bush, people who are turned off by mendacity in public life can be opposed to Bush, anyone who believes in smaller government and was foolish enough to think Bush meant it when he said he believes in it too could be opposed to Bush, a citizen who thinks the fight against Islamic terror is priority one and resents the Administration for dragging us into Iraq could be opposed to Bush; and this is why I say her shorthand was lazy. For her to have meant what she wrote about his column being liberal, she would have had to have found in Froomkin's writings expressions of sympathy or support for classically liberal positions, by which I mean things like: pro-choice on abortion, against the death penalty, in favor of affirmative action, for stronger environmental protections, for higher taxes on the wealthy, against further de-regulation of business, in favor of government efforts to battle income inequality, in favor of public transportation, against vouchers for private schools, and so on. But she didn't find that, and she couldn't find that. "White House Briefing" is not about that. Dan doesn't write a column filled with expressions of support for classically liberal positions. He just doesn't. Howell's formulation is lazy, uninformative as well as ill-informed, and it also shows her lack of imagination. (All columnists are opinion columnists; all opinion columnists must be liberal or conservative.) What she found in looking at Froomkin's work is lots of slams against Bush for not answering questions, for evading his opponents criticisms, for saying things that bore scant relationship to the truth, for refusing to engage in any argument at all, for using straw men like some people take vitamins, for insulating himself from contrary views, for obscuring what his administration has actually done, for having an un-spokesman like Scott McClellan who doesn't believe in answering questions, for banning anyone who doesn't agree with him from his public appearances, for creating the Bush Bubble, for trying to duck responsibility for "Mission Accomplished." These slams were not what Howell would expect to find in a "straight" news report about the White House or an overview of the day's news from the presidency. (She was correct about that.) It was for this reason she said Froomkin's column is "highly opinionated and liberal." It was for this reason she sided with John Harris. Again, it's "the newsroom is my horizon, I cannot look up." On top of that Howell seemed to write in complete ignorance of how the term liberal is used to discredit the press everywhere, and will be used against her some day. Thus: “Her Froomkin column showed no awareness of what she was doing in signing on to the political staff's complaints about 'liberal bias.' “ Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 15, 2006 11:34 PM | Permalink Bravo, Prof.! Is there any room in your program at NYU?:) Posted by: village idiot at January 15, 2006 11:46 PM | Permalink I have also seen the discussion that they were having. Here's another correction of a different Howell column that the Washington Post had to print: Deborah Howell says in her Dec. 25 Ombudsman column on military recruiting that the National Priorities Project analysis in 2004 is not "nationally representative." She quoted people as saying the "entire recruit population" needed to be examined. What is going on with this woman? She couldn't pick up the phone and clarify that very significant fact with the author of the study before writing such an egregious mistatement in her column? With all due respect, Jay and Steve, her errors and misjudgements seem to be a little more than just narrow focus. Posted by: Phredd at January 16, 2006 9:10 AM | Permalink One more sentence that Ms.Howell may come to wish she had written differently (from Brad DeLong): "Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." This appears to weaken the notion of 'Abramoff Money sloppy shorthand' put forward by Jay in that it unequivocally attributes the contributions to Mr. Abramoff. Posted by: village idiot at January 16, 2006 10:54 AM | Permalink now, was that a poorly written sentence or intentional (in saying Abramoff instead of tribes) on Howell's part? its an intentional error -- by intentional I mean that Howell deliberately set out to make it appear that both Democrats and Republicans are implicated in the Abramoff scandal, when the facts prove otherwise. The fact is that there are hundreds of Native American tribes in the United States, most of whom give money to both political parties because their interests are represented by politicians from both political parties. Dozens upon dozens of tribes signed for Abramoff to lobby for them because of his connections with the GOP -- and he directed contributions to the GOP and Republican congresscritters exclusively. (in fact, IIRC in one email he expresses regret that he can't prevent tribes from contributing to Democrats.) Abramoff also bilked four of the tribes that he represented which had gambling interests of millions of dollars -- and that is the heart of the scandal. Abramoff used the money that he bilked from these tribes to make his own contributions -- and these went exclusively to Republicans, who were more than happy to do favors for Abramoff. There is absolutely nothing suspicious about Democrats like Reid (who represents Nevada, which has both gambling and Native Americans interests), Dorgan (who represents North Dakota, a state with a lot of Native Americans, who is also the ranking Democrat on the senate subcommittee that deals with Native American affairs) and Brad Carson (who is a member of the Cherokee nation, and was running against someone who considers the treaties that were signed by the US with Native American tribes a "joke). The GOP talking points are that BOTH parties are wrapped up in this scandal, but the facts make it clear that this is an exclusively GOP scandal. Howell has gone out of her way to repeat GOP talking points, rather than tell the truth. what REALLY was going on with the Howell piece was an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of one of the Post's most notorious reporters "Steno" Sue Schmidt. Schmidt is infamous for simply channelling the RNC/Bush White House/GOP leadership spin on every story. Howell wanted to recast her as some kind of "investigative reporter" -- a very large joke for anyone who reads Schmidt on a regular basis. The particular Schmidt piece that Howell mentions was a massive smear of Abramoff by his GOP cronies that appears as soon as reports came out that Abramoff was going for a plea bargain -- it even included some decided anti-semitic rhetoric in its efforts to "distance" Delay from Abramoff, and make it appear (despite considerable evidence to the contrary) that the Abramoff/Delay relationship was "strictly business." It wasn't -- and Schmidt knew that better than anyone, yet she went out of her way to ignore what she knows to be the case, and quoted "associates" of Tom Delay saying that there was no "personal" relationship between Abramoff and Delay. In other words, this wasn't actually about Howell getting the Abramoff story wrong -- it was Howell's attempt to legitimize "Steno Sue" and her "reporting" that is little more than repeating what Ken Mehlman and his cronies want to appear in the Post on any given day. Actually, I thought the photo of the Afghan tribesman was pretty interesting. The photo, by Thir Khan, apparently a stringer for AFP/Getty Images, shows a photo of an old Pakistani man standing next to what the caption says is an "unexploded ordnance at his house which was damaged in an alleged U.S. Air Strike" on Saturday. Photo: Thir Khan/AFP/Getty Images I didn't see it in the NY Times, but a reader forwarded it to me, wondering if I thought it was possible the photo could be legit. It did run in the Globe and Mail and at the moment is still on their site accompanying a story on the strike. The photo is clearly a fraud. One glance at the photo establishes that the guy is standing next to an ARTILLERY round, not an aerially-delivered missile. What's more, the fuse is missing, indicating that the round was probably never even fired. Here's a link: http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2006_01_14.html#005714 The photographer undoubtably grew up in the region - that's why he's able to navigate the Pakistani border region. It's unbelieveable to me that he doesn't know what he's looking at. You can't grow up in that part of the world and not know what an artillery shell looks like. The photo was either staged to fool a gullible photojournalist, or the photobug staged the shot to have a saleable photo. And the idiots in the press corps are so inbred they aren't even intellectually equipped to say "hey, wait a minute - what IS this thing in the photo" before they pass the fraud onto their readers. Reminds me of the flap in 2004, when the Boston Globe ran photos of US soldiers allegedly raping Iraqi women. Well, a local politician was using those photos to demonstrate how awful US soldiers were, and the Globe ran his comments uncritically in the paper, and ran a photo of him holding up the photos. The problem: They weren't US soldiers at all. They weren't wearing anything close to US uniforms. The photos were staged photos taken from a porn site. Any veteran could have slapped that story down in an instant. But apparently, too many cousins were marrying in the Boston Globe newsroom. Just another instance of how the lack of newsroom diversity is damaging to news coverage. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 16, 2006 11:37 AM | Permalink "unexploded ordnance at his house which was damaged in an alleged U.S. Air Strike" on Saturday. I have not seen the picture you are referring to, but in the interest of clarity, what part of the above sentence are you trying to debunk? Posted by: village idiot at January 16, 2006 12:01 PM | Permalink Well, Jay, I understand where you are coming from relative to the “bias discourse” making everyone (else) dumber. I just happen to disagree that she created an unpardonable sin by taking sides in that particular debate. Good Heavens. As far as the Abramoff money, I have a question. I’m getting the “sloppiness” argument, and the imprecise language. But the overall insistence of removing the tribes from the monetary equation also makes the entire “scandal” much smaller, does it not? It seems as if the Abramoffs themselves gave around $175,000 to Republicans (assuming that the Capital Eye data is correct) . Ok…. And….. ? Assuming the money was stolen…. How does that equate to “ tens of millions of dollars,which he gave to Republicans.” Either the tribes are included or they’re not, right? And my point is that because all these reporters who have access to the sources and the data can’t get it straight and report on it accurately, I’m left, as an interested source, in getting more info from the “biased” Jane Hamshers and Michelle Malkins of the world. Ridiculous. It’s obvious from the remarks about “balance” that the concept is transmogrifying (thank you, Calvin) into a negative idea here. Now I know you and Steve Lovelady would say that it’s only when you take it to where Deborah Howell is taking it, for example, that it’s bad. I guess that goes back to the “eye of the beholder” concept. I think balance means looking at information from enough points of view to be sure that the story presented is as close a representation to the “truth” as you can get. That has nothing to do with equating Hitler to FDR. I think that’s using sloppy shorthand to score a point that’s actually unrelated to the core discussion of balance. Posted by: kristen at January 16, 2006 12:04 PM | Permalink Jason I had no idea what you were refering to about the Boston Globe running staged or faked porn pictures of US Soliders raping Iraqi women. The only links I could find referencing this story were to right-wing news source WorldNetDaily whose articles I don't trust. Then I found this BostonPhoenix (a great local alternative weekly) article which actually explains what happened. A Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and black-community activist Sadiki Kambon had a press conference. THEY showed the images. The Boston Globe ran a story about the press conference and included a photo but the reporter and the article were highly skeptical of the claims. After the first edition rolled, the Globe's editors did indeed verify the photos as a hoax and fixed it for later editions. As the Phoenix says...it was a screw up, but not *quite* as big as the screw up you portrayed. The Globe never really signed onto the theory that these photos were legitmate because they were reporting on the press conference of a City Council Member. Here's my guess...you probably neither read the original article in the Boston Globe nor the correction. You simply read the same second-hand WorldNewsDaily reports I saw or some blogger referring the WND reports (so third hand). So the Boston Globe's "posts faked photos" becomes as much to you a real incident as if you had actually read the Boston Globe with your own eyes or evaluated the real transgression with your own judgment instead of using other parties opinions. Posted by: catrina at January 16, 2006 12:23 PM | Permalink But the overall insistence of removing the tribes from the monetary equation also makes the entire “scandal” much smaller, does it not? If the Tribes are indicted, or are being investigated for criminal wrongdoing, they should get included in the monetary equation. Are you suggesting that the Press should criminalize the Tribes' behavior just to make this scandal bigger. I am reminded often that reading for comprehension is not my forte, but that is how I am reading your comment. Posted by: village idiot at January 16, 2006 12:30 PM | Permalink catrina -- thanx for providing us with the facts on the "globe photo" case (I no longer respond to Jason, so I no longer bother to check out his various bogus claims). *************** special to Kristin -- if you are going to comment on press coverage and its critiques with regard to specific stories, you should become a lot more familiar with the stories themselves. Otherwise, you come off looking like a "kinder/gentler" troll like Jason. The Abramoff scandal isn't just about the money that Abramoff himself donated -- its about the money he directed his Native American clients to donate to the GOP. There is ABUNDANT evidence that Abramoff directed donations to large numbers of GOP public officials, and NO EVIDENCE of Abramoff ever directing a PENNY to a Democrat. In other words, it helps to understand the coverage, and the critiques of the coverage, if you have a clue. a little more digging on the Boston Globe allegation by Jason.. The photos aside, Slack's story sounds all the right notes of skepticism. She quotes a spokesman for the Defense Department as saying, "I would caution that there are many fake photos circulating on the Internet." She also notes that the Nation of Islam, which purportedly supplied the photos to Kambon, would not verify their authenticity. Turner told reporters, "We cannot document their authenticity. But you have the ability to do that." Nor did the Globe give this story a lot of play. It's a short piece on page B2, beneath the bland headline "Councilor Takes Up Iraq Issue." The subhead, "Turner Releases Purported Images of Rape by Soldiers," reinforces the notion that the story is about a city councilor speaking out more than it is about the subject of his outrage. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/medialog/2004/05/chuck-turner-iraqi-rape-allegations.asp Posted by: catrina at January 16, 2006 12:50 PM | Permalink Since I'm not the best at always accurately expressing my thoughts, villageidiot, I'm sure I didn't make myself clear... I'm not saying that the press should criminalize the tribes behavior, first off, because I don't even know that they did anything wrong. What I'm not clear on is how much money is specifically involved in the wrongdoing admitted by Abramoff? The Post's chart implies and other people here have said there's "tens of millions of dollars" that are involved, but according to the charts and even the Capital Eye data, to get to millions you have to include all donations made by the tribes themselves, and that went to both parties, although more to Reps. But if you only address money given by Abramoff and his wife, as you say, for example, then it doesn't even reach $200,000. I'm just not understanding the whole thing, especially since it's a story that started out somewhat complicated and has now been spun so much. Posted by: kristen at January 16, 2006 12:54 PM | Permalink VI... methinks Kristen is a troll. She obviously has no interest in understanding the Abramoff scandal, and that it involves a lot more than just "campaign contributions" --- this is classic "benign troll" behavior....the "I don't get it, please explain it to me, over and over and over....." troll technique. My saying "The post ran the fake pictures" was inaccurate...as I clarify later in the same post, the Globe ran the photo of the local pol showing the photos. But the photos themselves were clearly visible. And even a glance at the photos would tell any competent analyst, or anyone with the slightest clue about US military uniforms and camouflage practices, that the photos were fake. "Sounding the right notes of skepticism" isn't enough. Actually, with a fraud this obvious, it's pathetic. They should never have had to go as far as checking with the Defense Department - the photos were faked on their face. Just how dumb was the Globe reporter? And the editors who looked at the story? Sorry. You guys are so used to finding excuses for journos who fall on their faces, but my point stands. The lack of newsroom diversity at the Boston Globe hurt coverage. The story SHOULD have been an immediate backlash against the pol: "Ummm, I'm Joe Laptop from the Boston Globe--why are you trying to pass off those obviously fake photos on us?" Instead, the story became something else. Sorry, that's just lousy reporting, lousy editing, lousy hiring, lousy everything. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 16, 2006 1:46 PM | Permalink An easy starting point in understanding the Abramoff mess. Posted by: village idiot at January 16, 2006 2:01 PM | Permalink Well, you can make excuses for the Globe all you want. But you don't have to believe the Word Net Daily reporter, because even the Globe admits they got it wrong: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/13/may_13_2004/ To wit: Editor's Note: A photograph on Page B2 yesterday did not meet Globe standards for publication. The photo portrayed Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and activist Sadiki Kambon displaying graphic photographs that they claimed showed US soldiers raping Iraqi women. Although the photograph was reduced in size between editions to obscure visibility of the images on display, at no time did the photograph meet Globe standards. Images contained in the photograph were overly graphic, and the purported abuse portrayed had not been authenticated. The Globe apologizes for publishing the photo."
You know what, though? Days after the photo came out, the idiots at the Globe STILL hadn't corrected the record. The editor's retraction linked to here only said the photos "could not be authenticated" and "did not meet Globe standards." They editors, hamstrung by their own cluelessness, could not bring themselves to admit that the photos were obviously faked. These things were screaming fakes, and the Globe couldn't figure that out. Isn't it "guessing" that gets journos in trouble, anyway? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 16, 2006 2:25 PM | Permalink Sorry. You guys are so used to finding excuses for journos who fall on their faces, but my point stands. no Jason. You lied. Your point does not stand. The Globe did not run the photos -- you lied about that. The Globe did not run the comments of the local politician uncritically. You lied about that. And the reported made it abundantly clear that there was NO EVIDENCE that the pictures themselves were anything but bogus... Here is what the reporter wrote.... Holding a news conference with activist Sadiki Kambon in the wake of congressional hearings over incendiary photographs of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, City Councilor Chuck Turner said, "The American people have a right and responsibility to see the pictures." I see. So the Globe posts that they regret running the photos that they didn't run. Interesting logic. If the Globe was so skeptical, then where was the headline that read "Local politician uses porn photos to accuse US troops of rape?" Why on earth didn't the reporter, Donovan Slack, do a bit of homework (These photos had ALREADY been circulating on Islamist sites and had ALREADY been debunked). I mean, that's like looking at a puppet and saying "There's no evidence that would indicate that the small anthromorphic wooden figure is a real boy." No, you idiot, it's a PUPPET!!! Why did they run the photos over the objections of the reporter, anyway, without first authenticating them? (And yes, Virginia, the Globe DID run the photos, albeit within another frame. Why are you making excuses for what was so obviously a screw-up that even the Globe admits the error?) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at January 16, 2006 2:50 PM | Permalink I agree with Jay, that the bias discussion does make everyone dumber. However, it is the language of omniscience that reflects both the news and many of these comments that bother me. Everyone thinks that the other side is up to no good, even if a simple mistake is made. And then someone MUST be made to pay the price. How can someone go through a learning process if everyone is supposed to be perfect first time around? ALL of the media is going through changes NOBODY understands yet. The triangle of newsworthy, news distributer and news receiver is changing rapidly, with everyone trying to "game" the system for their own benefit. The entire industry will be ineresting to watch to see how they react to technolody changing around them. Jason I'm not disputing that the Globe didn't fuckup in running even an image-within-an-image photo of the porn picture. And the Globe did issue a retraction. *They* are clearly sorry they ran the photo as it did. But this entire thread was started about how does one quantify the news media's mistakes about Sago and you see how much discussion and divergence of opinion there was between how *culpable* the press was for a clear fuck up. Can't you see the same divigence of opinion about the Boston Globe photo-story? For the record...it did run on B2 (or is that indispute as well?) It was not a banner, front-page headline. But there is the problem in that the photos were faked. Were we are disagreeing is what is the Boston Globe's culpablity in this particular situation the same way we are discussing what is the press culpability in the Sago Mine story (which was also wrong). You are arguing (I gather) for some kind of deliberate or gross negliance on the part of the Globe reporter/editor because either they wanted to run the worst story possible about US Soliders or they're just incompetant people. Really, really, incompentant. I'm arguing (just to be clear here) that the story seems to be a minor one, and the reporter and editor did their best to write a particularly skeptical article about a press conference statements. The one thing they didn't say because they couldn't 100% confirm it at the time of publication was that the photos were indeed porn photos. They tried to confirm they were real and got NO confirmation (even the press conferance particpants who displayed the photos didn't know if they were real and said "we don't know if they are real, that's your job." Maybe the reporter errored in trying to prove the photo was real which lead them to some blind alleys rather than trying to prove they were porno photos. Sorry. You guys are so used to finding excuses for journos who fall on their faces, but my point stands. Your point is that the Globe fucked up. I agree, the Globe fucked up. But where we disagree is the scope and magnitute of the fuck-up and I guess the cause. I feel this is a minor mistake about a truly minor story. This is not unlike the disagreements about the Sago Mine which this thread was discussing. But really I just wanted to follow one of your statements because I had no idea what you were talking about. I don't know why you feel as you do about the Globe...but I doubt I or ami are going to convince you of anything about this incident just as you are unlikely to convince me of it. I don't know if I would use the word troll, because ultimately, at the other end of those posts of yours there is a person truly at rage with the press. So certainly the feelings behind the "Well, a local politician was using those photos to demonstrate how awful US soldiers were, and the Globe ran his comments uncritically in the paper, and ran a photo of him holding up the photos." statments are real. Suffice to say then maybe you love the press but hate reporters? Sort of like how one can like medicine but hate the doctors who dispense it. Posted by: catrina at January 16, 2006 3:17 PM | Permalink Since the NYT and others ran a staged photo of the supposed Hellfire strike, there's no evidence that it was taken anywhere within a hundred miles of the strike site. Some people with better software than mine have refined the picture and are of the opinion the shell had been fired--see the grooves on the rotating band--and that the fuse has been deformed by impact. It's a dud, then, and that means there is strong possibility that the thing could explode while the journo is hauling it into position. But anyway, this is an example of gross incompetence, if you insist it isn't bias. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at January 16, 2006 3:31 PM | Permalink Hi, Jay, sorry I'm so late on this one. If this happened in Watertown, I would concentrate on two things: 1. Pointing to and archiving all available material -- stories, news conferences, photos, video, mine safety reports, memorials. Things I wouldn't do: 1. Try to go toe-to-toe with CNN. Reporters at such an event would outnumber me 50 to 1, and their equipment would not come from Best Buy. It's better in such a case to point to their coverage and do what they can't: provide space for the community to engage each other directly. One thing a community site can do is allow people -- residents, officials, even reporters working elsewhere -- to talk to each other directly, rather than firing salvos over the wall at each other with alternating press releases, news stories, and press conferences -- firing over each other's head instead of communicating.
Posted by: Lisa Williams at January 16, 2006 3:35 PM | Permalink Okay, that was three things -- more coffee, please! Posted by: Lisa Williams at January 16, 2006 3:35 PM | Permalink it should be noted that the reason the Globe apologized for running the "photo within a photo" was because the image was pornographic not because it was "faked".... the Globe make it clear that the accusations related to the photograph in question were not dubious at best --- but it was the fact that the "picture within the picture" was obscene that "did not meet Globe standards".... right wing liars try to make it seem that the Globe apologized for the story..... it didn't --- it apologized for printing a dirty picture. Say goodbye to another PressThink thread. Thanks to all for their contributions. Shifting gears, a new post is up: The Walter Winchell of Montclair: Guest Writer Debra Galant on the Joys of Local News Blogging. "It’s satisfying, when you find yourself standing in a long line in the new $8.6 million parking deck on a Saturday night because there are only two pay stations, to be able to whip out your cell phone, take a picture and then post it on the blog – and to have the mayor write in almost immediately..." She's the founder of Baristanet.com. See you there. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 16, 2006 3:55 PM | Permalink |
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