Then Put The Cat Out And The Bulldog To Bed

November 20, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Kindle, News media | Leave a Comment 

Hat tip to my friend Tracy Wood, Vietnam war correspondent, investigative editor, newspaper consultant, and (if anyone is) an architect of the resurrection of American journalism: The story of how a Longmont, Colorado newspaper owner invited his employees to park cars at his holiday party. At least two have accepted so far.

Bob Felt It Was Time

November 18, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media, Vietnam, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

Bob Woodward finally took Carl Bernstein to meet Mark Felt, who helped bring down President Nixon because RN didn’t name him FBI director and also, because of his own illegal acts, made sure William Ayers wouldn’t go to jail for setting bombs. Pretty influential guy.

The New Media Are Growing Old Already

November 18, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media | Leave a Comment 

Fascinating New York Times article about a new model of scrappy, non-profit news gathering outfits busy in San Diego, Minneapolis, and elsewhere. More proof that that the news business and democracy won’t be saved by the Starbucks-based hackosphere but by diligent, old-fashioned journalists who are paid to generate quality content. Says one San Diego pioneer:

Information is now a public service as much as it’s a commodity. It should be thought of the same way as education, health care. It’s one of the things you need to operate a civil society, and the market isn’t doing it very well.

Non-profit news can work, as NPR and public television show. But the same as education? News in the hands of government agencies like the BBC and Xinhua News Agency? Let’s not go too far.

I Want To See Andrew Sullivan’s Journalism License

November 17, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media, Sarah Palin, Uncategorized | 2 Comments 

Every decent, rational person, I suppose, has one thing that sends him around the bend. The Trig Palin story is Andrew Sullivan’s. Alone among legitimate journalists, he and his Atlantic Monthly-owned web site are keeping alive the false story that Gov. Palin faked her fifth pregnancy — the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign. In this bizarre post, in which he links to a CNN panel discussion about Palin and the media, he writes:

[T]he assumption here is that the Trig maternity story was obviously untrue.

A correct assumption. It is obviously untrue. As everyone knows, a left-wing blog made it up to try to destroy her. He erred in republishing the story before checking the facts and has wasted 100,000 calories of his valuable energy since Labor Day weekend just to avoid saying he screwed up.

Don’t listen to me. Listen to his colleagues. None of the CNN panelists is especially fond of Palin. And yet none invests the pass-the-baby story with even a hint of credibility. One, Julie Mason, even says this about the Trig lie:

Who reported that? Nobody reported that!

She’s saying that Palin is overreaching by claiming that legitimate journalists ran the story. Since the highly influential Sullivan — of the “Atlantic Monthly” and the former editor of “The New Republic” – did run the story, she’s casting him into journalistic outer darkness, at least on this issue. What she means is that nobody worth paying any attention to published it.

Matt Lauer also dissed Sullivan last week when he didn’t demand proof that Palin had given birth to her beloved child. Why would he have done so? Here’s where Sullivan’s tortured logic leads. A number of lying bloggers wrote that Barack Obama was a Muslim. If Lauer were interviewing the President-elect, should he ask to see proof of his Christian baptism? One cringes at the thought. And yet for being exactly that discerning in his questioning of Palin, Matt Lauer, Sullivan says, is ”an embarrassment to [his] profession.” On the contrary.

Andrew Sullivan: Matt Lauer Is “Pathetic”

November 11, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media, Sarah Palin | Leave a Comment 

Another false statement from Andrew Sullivan, who refuses to admit he erred by republishing a blatant lie about Trig Palin’s parentage before checking the facts:

There was no actual refutation of the rumor from the McCain-Palin campaign until the same Michael Goldfarb told Howie Kurtz of the Washington Post the following on September 25, weeks, not days, after the questions first came up…

Completely, flatly, absurdly untrue. New York Post, Sept. 1:

McCain campaign officials said Bristol’s pregnancy was made public in order to counter what one aide called “mudslinging” that has circulated on blogs like Daily Kos.

According to postings on Daily Kos, Sarah Palin allegedly faked a pregnancy and pretended to give birth in April to Trig, who has Down syndrome.

The McCain campaign said Bristol Palin is five months pregnant and that Trig was born on April 18, making the rumor’s timing impossible.

End of story. All that needed to be said to a reasonable person. Only Sullivan needs more, to absolve himself for keeping the lie alive all these weeks. But he’ll never get it. There will never be any excuse for what he did.

As for those who refuse to join his one-man crusade, such as Matt Lauer in this morning’s NBC interview, they get insults and taunts:

When the reporters ask her questions in Florida, will any of them have the balls to ask her for [hospital] records? Or are they going to be as pathetic as Lauer?

Hey, Andrew: Ridicule Her Now

November 11, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Hackosphere, News media, Sarah Palin | 3 Comments 

Gov. Palin, questioned by NBC’s Matt Lauer:

What was the biggest misconception that you would’ve loved to have corrected at the time?

It started off with the rumors, the speculation – even in mainstream media – that Trig wasn’t actually my child, that Trig was somebody else’s child and I faked the pregnancy. That was absolutely ridiculous, and it took days for that false allegation to ever be corrected…Things like that that could so easily have been corrected if reporters would’ve done their job.

“It started off” with the Trig lie, she says. Indeed it did. It was the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign.

“Even in the mainstream media” — Andrew Sullivan was key to that, since he republished and mainlined the lie on his widely respected and read Atlantic Monthly Group-owned web site before checking the facts.

The lie was “absolutely ridiculous,” as everyone knows, which is why neither Palin not the McCain campaign gave Sullivan the fig leaf of medical proof, since that would’ve enabled him to claim he had acted properly.

“If reporters would’ve done their job” — Palin knows more about journalistic ethics than Sullivan, who continues to proclaim that publishing a lie before checking it out is the same as “asking questions.”

The ultimate rebuke of Sullivan: Lauer didn’t ask Palin to prove she was the mother of her beloved child. Why? Because he chose to act decently.

Leave Sarah And Trig Alone

November 10, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media, Sarah Palin | 1 Comment 

I admire Andrew Sullivan as much as anyone in the media. He’ll be a dedicated watchdog in the event of any Obama Administration excesses. His insights will be equally vital as conservatives and Republicans rethink and rebuild.

But his harrassment of Gov. Palin — by repeatedly demanding, or goading others to demand, that she prove that Trig is her son — is sickening.

Just this afternoon, while again calling her a liar, he wrote:

All I did was ask questions…

That is a lie. He republished an obviously falsified story about Trig’s birth before checking the facts. Asking a question is calling or writing and asking someone first; it’s not republishing the lie first.

Please, Andrew, just let this one go.

A Thoughtful Conservative

November 9, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media, Political Philosophy | Leave a Comment 

At the dawn of the Obama Presidency, George Will is hopeful about race:

The election of an African-American discomfits the Democratic Party. It practices identity politics, stressing the relevance of “race-conscious” policies, defending racial preferences in public hiring, contracting and education. But the election of Barack Obama is an American majority’s self-emancipation: We are free at last from the inexpressible tedium of the preoccupation with skin pigmentation.

Conscious that Obama may govern as a moderate, if not necessarily hopeful:

Obama’s first problem will be drawing lines to circumscribe bailout promiscuity. The Bush administration, having executed a swan dive, or perhaps a belly-flop, into the financial sector, now seems to be flinching from extending the interventions into the industrial sector. Democrats in Congress, feeling their oats and hearing clamors from local corporations, will be Obama’s first affliction.

And able to listen even when skeptical:

He especially seemed determined to assuage the unease of those, and they are many, who discern in his cool demeanor an unattractive detachment from the warm, unembarrassed, demonstrative patriotism that is distinctively American. Hence such Grant Park language as: “Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.” That was a prospective commander in chief finding his voice.

DSPQ

November 8, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under DSPQ, Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Deborah Howell, the Washington Post’s ombusdman, has been making a list and checking it twice and, in tomorrow’s paper, she reports on what she found.  The headline tells the story: “An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage”.  Who’d have thunk it?

Among the conclusions:

The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts’ views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain.

Our survey results are comparable to figures for the national news media from a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It found that from June 9, when Clinton dropped out of the race, until Nov. 2, 66 percent of the campaign stories were about Obama compared with 53 percent for McCain; some stories featured both. The project also calculated that in that time, 57 percent of the stories were about the horse race and 13 percent were about issues.

…Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager.

No doubt some slack should be cut because the horse race aspects of this campaign were particularly exciting  (not least during the highly contested primaries), and because the historic nature of the Obama candidacy was a story in and of itself.  And Ms. Howell makes the case for cutting said slack.

But the media’s shameless and shameful abdication of its hitherto much vaunted prerogative and responsibility of fearless and favorless coverage will end up being one of the most significant outcomes of the 2008 election.

Andrew Sullivan’s Malignity In Victory

November 6, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media, Political Philosophy, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | 7 Comments 

Andrew Sullivan continues to savage Sarah Palin. He erred in republishing the transparent lie that she wasn’t Trig’s mother, which proved to be the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign. As recently as election day, he was keeping the lie alive. So he is fully vested in her political demise.

The GOP must nonetheless ask itself if Palin, as we know her today, is its phoenix. Sullivan and other proponents of classical conservatism are right that Republicans must use their wilderness time to decide what they believe, what makes them indispensable, and how they’ll win. Angry and sure of themselves today, they need to find their way to curiosity and even self-criticism. One of the study questions is whether their rootedness in social issues is a help or hindrance.

So if Palin and her advisers really envision her as the new Reagan, I’m not so sure. But the new Nixon…?

Another Proud Nixon Family Member

November 6, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, News media | Leave a Comment 

The St. Petersburg Times (the one in Florida) has a local angle on Alice Nixon Cooper (featured in Sen. Obama’s speech Tuesday night) that’s even better than ours. Her grandson Ernest Hooper is a columnist:

I made sure to call my grandmother Wednesday before 11 a.m., because she watches The Price Is Right at 11, and no one can interfere with that. Luckily, I got her on the telephone before the show and before the television crew from India came by her Atlanta home. Crews from Britain, Japan and the NBC Nightly News also planned to pay a visit.

This is what happens when the personal story of a 106-year-old woman becomes interwoven with one of our nation’s most historic moments. Yes, Barack Obama chose to include the remarkable story of my grandmother, Ann Nixon Cooper, in his victory speech Tuesday night.

Newsprint’s Last Hurrah?

November 5, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008, Media, News media, Richard Nixon, Sarah Palin | Leave a Comment 

It’s hardly news that print media has been in steady decline ever since the moment that the ball came down in Times Square on December 31, 1999, and the world realized that these newfangled computers were not going to all crash and were here to stay. This morning, further proof arrived when Mort Zuckerman’s US News And World Report, always the straggler in circulation among the three newsweeklies, announced that it was switching to monthly publication to better focus on its more popular features such as its college ratings.

But today also saw a moment - perhaps not a defining moment of the kind our President-elect likes to mention, but a moment nonetheless - when that decline was reversed, if only for a day.

Usually, when I stop at the 7-11 or proceed to the snack room adjoining the cafeteria at my place of work to pick up the Washington Post or Washington Times, there are plenty of papers to be had - and in the case of the 7-11, that includes the Baltimore Sun and New York Times or News or Post and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today too. But this morning all the papers were gone. Every one. “The Post said they might bring some more,” the clerk said.

So I walked a block to the Tastee Diner, where vending machines outside stock most of these papers as well as the Washington Post’s giveaway daily Express and the DC edition of Philip Anshutz’s Examiner. But again, there were no papers to be had - except one single copy of the Examiner.

What all these newspapers had in common this morning was that the face of President-elect Obama was on the front page. And, according to the New York Times website today, millions of people across the country were buying a paper - any paper, as long as Obama was on it - and taking it home to put in a plastic bag, much as many people did when JFK or Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King died or, in fewer numbers, when Elvis moved on to the Promised Land - or when President Nixon resigned.

According to the Times article, the Washington Post anticipated extra demand today and printed 30,000 copies to supplement the 100,000 normally circulated. These were all gone by mid-morning, and lines started forming at the door of the Post building and stretching for blocks as people sought a newspaper. So the Post printed a special edition in 100,000 copies, selling it for $1.50 instead of the usual 50 cents. That flew out of the newsstands and grocery stores as well. By afternoon the paper was ordering another 350,000 copies.

Brian Williams noted on NBC tonight that the demand for newspapers today is of a scale not seen since the day following 9/11 - but, as he pointed out, for a much happier reason.

It’s hard to picture a situation where this phenomenon will be repeated - for one thing it seems pretty unlikely that huge numbers of Americans will put a newspaper announcing the election of the first female President (whether Gov. or perhaps Sen. Sarah Palin, ex-Justice Hillary Clinton, or someone else) into baggies to keep in the attic. But at least for today, the newspaper, as the old riddle has it, was black and white and, if not re(a)d, at least in demand all over.

Fox Blues

November 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Brit Hume went straight to an extended and eloquent reflection by a choked-up Juan Williams immediately after the election was called for Sen. Obama. Hope there’s a video or transcript.

Will the Media Re-Group?

November 4, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Jennifer Rubin on media’s road to self-correction:

It seems they have two options. One is to continue down the same road, in essence becoming the press office for the Democratic Party and choosing partisan fidelity over good business sense. (How many papers would the Los Angeles Times have sold by publishing a full transcript of the 2003 Obama-Khalidi dinner?) The other option is to reassess, relegate cheerleading back to the opinion sections of their papers, aggressively cover both parties, and resume the role of independent adversary to those in power. That would entail wholesale personnel changes and a redirection of effort for many outlets.

 

Sullivan: From The Mountaintop To The Gutter

November 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Hackosphere, News media, Republican Party | 1 Comment 

As the AP reports, the doctor of the vigorously healthy young GOP VP nominee has written precisely the kind of letter about her health that the doctor of the healthy young Democratic Presidential nominee wrote about his. In response, Andrew Sullivan closed out months of political coverage by writing:

We need documentation to verify [Palin's] last pregnancy…

Not true; not true at all. We need nothing of the sort. Only Sullivan needs it, to justify his republishing the malicious and transparent lie that then 16-year-old Bristol was actually Trig’s mother and that she and her family engaged in a massive effort to cover it up. Among legitimate journalists, only Sullivan is keeping the lie alive. If the McCain campaign had released proof of Trig’s parentage, Sullivan would’ve said that it had replied to his legitimate questions. Now, he doesn’t even have that fig leaf. Good for Sen. McCain.

Sullivan and his Atlantic Monthly Group-owned web site will forever be associated with the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign. Earlier Monday, he posted a magisterial endorsement of Sen. Obama, bracing and uplifting. From the mountaintop to the gutter on the same day.

Guess We Need Bigger Tank

November 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Bush 41 speechwriter, preeminent baseball authority, and political commentator Curt Smith on the media and the election:

As I write, the 2008 campaign’s People’s Choice and Runner-up have not been decided. The second-largest winner and loser have: Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who died in 1994 and 1996, respectively; and the national media, most of whose honor died long ago.   

As president, Nixon famously deemed the media as fair as crooked cards. At one time or another, his 1969-73 vice president lashed an “effete corps of impudent snobs” and “radiclibs” and “rotten apples” and “nattering nabobs of negativism.”   

Many felt that Agnew exaggerated. This election suggests that he and Nixon understated. How much have television, newspapers and magazines been in Barack Obama’s tank? “The nation’s newsrooms look like overcrowded aquariums at PetSmart,” marvels columnist Michelle Malkin.

Ich Bin Ein Magaziner

November 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

“Economist” readers foreign and domestic favor Sen. Obama.

I Can Take The Heat

November 1, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

TNN blamed for McCain victory.

Hackosphere: Piper Palin Joins The Coverup

November 1, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Hackosphere, News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Charming interview with the Palin family on Fox News last night. There sat the governor and Todd, Bristol with Trig on her lap, and six-year-old Piper, taking questions from Greta Van Susteren. It reminded me of the nice story Tina Fey told Conan last week about the family’s visit to SNL:

Gov. Palin was like, “Oh, did Alice go home? Oh, ’cause Bristol woulda babysat.” She offered Bristol Palin to babysit Alice… And it was Bristol’s birthday, too. I was like yeah, that’s exactly what 17-year-old Bristol Palin wants to do at SNL is babysit the toddler of the lady that goofs on her mom… but they’re a nice family.

Don’t say that to Andrew Sullivan. They’re a family under sinister mind control or strict discipline. Either that, or Sullivan has yet to atone for the worst ethical lapse of the year by a legitimate journalist.

Over Labor Day weekend, without waiting to check the facts, he republished on his Atlantic Monthly Group-owned web site the obvious lie that the governor and her pregnant minor daughter had engaged in a massive conspiracy to trick the world into thinking Trig was actually born to Sarah. Even now, he keeps the lie alive by putting “pregnancy” in quotes when referring Sarah and Trig. Thanks in large part to Sullivan and the boost it got from his influential web site “The Daily Dish,” the pass-the-baby story was the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign.

If Sullivan were right, little Piper, of course, would know the truth — that mommy didn’t really have Trig and that she lied and told everybody she had. Even Bristol, linchpin of the conspiracy but nonetheless a teenager, is probably not unfailingly dependable when it comes to keeping big secrets. So why did the plots’ evil architects, Sarah and Todd, risk bringing their family into the enemy camp at 30 Rockefeller Center? Even among friends such as Van Susteren and Fox, the kids might have blurted something out. Those awful Palins must have scared their children into thinking they’ll be severely punished if they reveal the truth. Maybe Todd was hiding a taser under his shirt.

Sound ridiculous? That depends entirely on you. There’s probably a web site that explains to the credulous how and why a governor and her staff, security apparatus, and family have managed their successful coverup of a teenager’s pregnancy. The testimony of top obstetric authorities is brought to bear. Photographic evidence is carefully analyzed. Think Dealey Plaza and the puff of smoke on grassy knoll.

Add it up, and all it proves is that Andrew Sullivan amplified a lie that hurt innocent people, and that the self-congratulating, Starbucks-is-my-newsroom, long-on-opinion, short-on-facts “new media” aren’t ready for prime time. If there’s one thing scarier than the wrong candidate being elected this year, it’s the newspaper industry continuing to deteriorate financially, leaving the job of informing the electorate in the hands of the Hackosphere.

David Broder’s Best

November 1, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

The dean sums it up, with a gracious nod to both candidates. No demonizing and name-calling, unlike the so-called, self-congratulating, hyper-partisan new media, which is characterized by chest-thumping, hysteria, distortions, and lies:

For decades, I have said that the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign was the best I ever saw. But most of the drama in that contest came after Labor Day. This time, the excitement was generously distributed over a whole year, with moments of genuine humor from Huckabee, a torrent of uninhibited conversation from McCain and Biden, and rare eloquence from Obama and both Clintons. The country faces a choice between two men who both promise the nation a more principled, less partisan leadership.

And meanwhile, what a show it has been — the best campaign I’ve ever covered.

Channeling Nixon?

November 1, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Kirsten Powers says that Obama camp’s decision to ax the DMN, NYP, and the WT is reminiscent of President Nixon, Dorothy McCradle and the WAPO:

Longtime Washington Post correspondent Lou Cannon covered the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White Houses as well as presidential campaigns starting in 1968. He says this move is reminiscent of Richard Nixon.

But even Nixon didn’t kick The Washington Post (which had broken the Watergate scandal) off the campaign plane. Says Cannon, “I never had that experience - and I covered people who didn’t care for me, but you were treated more or less professionally. They would have their pals, but I never had any problem on any campaign plane, even with Nixon.”

After he was re-elected, though, the Nixon people retaliated - first by cutting off access to The Washington Post’s Dorothy McCardle, then barring the paper from press pools.

Brenda Starr, 2008 Edition

October 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Internet, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Ana Marie Cox is a journalist in Washington who first gained notice in 2004 when Nick Denton, the Englishman who oversees the Gawker.com family of blogs, hired her to write the politically-themed Wonkette.com.  After two years offering her sassy style of reporting to innumerable readers online, she moved on to co-write Time.com’s “Swampland” blog.  This work was initially full-time but earlier this year Time recontracted with Cox on a strictly freelance basis, so she joined Maer Roshan’s magazine Radar as Washington correspondent.

Radar, a magazine founded in 2003 (with funding from friends and family of Roshan, formerly of Tina Brown’s Talk) died after two issues that year, was revived in 2005 with backing from Mort Zuckerman, died again after three issues, and, in 2007, was relaunched yet again with funding from Jesse Jackson’s son Yusef and (reportedly) supermarket mogul/Clinton crony Ron Burkle.  In this incarnation Radar lasted, very remarkably in an increasingly unfavorable climate for print media of any kind, for a year and a half as a bimonthly, although the magazine’s website attracted more comment than what appeared on paper.  Cox’s articles and posts at both the magazine and site kept her in the public eye; last week she appeared on Larry King Live.

And, last Friday, Radar abruptly gave up the ghost; its backers dismissed the staff and sold the name to American Media, publishers of the Star and various other magazines, which promptly remade the Radar.com site as an imitator of TMZ.com.  Cox, who had been planning an article for the magazine about the last days of Sen. John McCain’s campaign, was left with a wish to cover the story for whoever would buy such an article, but no way to pay her expenses and no time to pitch to an editor.

Presumably inspired by the example of Sen. Barack Obama’s and Sen. Howard Dean’s online fundraising, she hit upon the idea of appealing to her readers in cyberspace, via her personal blog (and its PayPal feature), to send her whatever they felt like contributing to help her cover the last of the campaign, specifying that her expenses would come to $1000 for each of four days and $1500 for Election Day.

Her appeal was posted on Saturday morning.  Within 24 hours she reported receiving $2000 in contributions, and by Tuesday morning she said she had gotten $7000, enough to secure a seat in Gov. Sarah Palin’s press section and go back on the road.  Today she is to board McCain’s plane and finish covering the race for the Washington Independent.

What do Cox’s readers who contributed receive in return? Well, for a $1000 contribution she promises a one-on-one dinner and in-depth postmortem of the campaign; for $500, a phone call from McCain HQ on election night; for $250, an MP3 of her asking a “senior McCain staffer” the question of one’s choice and the reply; and so on down to a thank-you email for a ten-dollar contribution.  (However, today she asked permission to add $10 contributors to her Facebook page instead of emailing them.)

Time will tell if other journalists, left out in the cold by abrupt magazine closures (and they’re going under left and right now), will attempt similar strategies to keep going.  But anyway, it’s another indication that media is entering a whole different era.

Mother Jones v. Tito The Builder

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Barack Obama Was Born On Jupiter

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Hackosphere, News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

More bluster from Andrew Sullivan as he continues to seek expiation for republishing lies about Gov. Palin and her minor daughter Bristol on his Atlantic Monthly Group-owned web site before he checked the facts.

As Sullivan perpetuates the fiction that Trig Palin was not born to Todd and Sarah, here’s what his argument is like.

I (actually, no way; “I” as someone with influence comparable to the globally-read Sullivan) republish a story from a fringe web site saying that Sen. Obama was born on Jupiter. His campaign says it’s ridiculous and unworthy of further comment. Virtually every journalist in the country agrees and moves on. But I demand access to the Obama family’s travel records and receipts. Only when they’re released, I insist, can we definitively put to bed the idea that Obama was born on Jupiter.

All I’m doing is asking questions. Isn’t that my job? If I repeat this often enough, the absence of the records, and not my republishing a bizarre lie, becomes the issue.

I also cobble together a complicated narrative (written with the teeth-clenched prose of Kennedy assassination conspiracy hounds) raising other questions about what the Obama family may have been up to around the time I had alleged they were hiding out on Jupiter awaiting the babe’s birth. I hope that other journalists will join me demanding records. If I’m lucky, an anchorperson may actually ask Obama for them on camera.

As for me, I remain completely focused on my own ethics problem. By now I’ve figured out that Obama was born on the planet earth, but I’m out on a limb on the Jupiter story because, try as I did (I even took a two-day break from work), I just couldn’t let go once I’d run it.

If Obama’s travel records are ever released for any reason, I’ll announce that my actions were justified, since Obama has finally provided the definitive documentation I’ve been asking for. I’ll happily proclaim the subject closed.

It won’t work. Sullivan will always be the Atlantic Monthly journalist who helped mainline the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign. There will never be an excuse for what he did.

Sullivan’s fixation on Sarah and Bristol may have distorted his journalistic barometer in other ways as well. He once would’ve given all four major ticket candidates roughly equal skeptical attention, no matter what his preferences. Now, amid his innumerable Palin posts, his cavalcade of alleged lies designed in part to distract attention from his complicity in the biggest lie of the campaign, he’s run virtually nothing about Sen. Biden’s role in the brewing credit card meltdown. They call him the senator from Mastercard because of his umbilical ties to the consumer credit giants. If the VP matters this year, it’s not because of Palin’s gifts or failings. It’s because the Presidential candidate promising to clean things up may be moving into the White House with Pig Pen.

The Tribune Co.’s Myth of Confidentiality

October 30, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

A LGF reader received this email from a Tribune Company spokesman on their refusal to release the Obama-Khalidi tape:

Mr. Smith,

I’m sorry you feel this way. I understand this may be frustrating to you.

Allow me to explain further. Protecting confidential sources and standing by agreements made in order to get information is a cornerstone of good fundamental journalism, and a free press. If we break an agreement with a source, we risk other sources not coming forward with information vital to the public. In this case, the tape was written about extensively and only came to light because the LA Times made a promise not to publish it or reveal its source. That promise means not publishing the tape even to a high level conservative, however trustworthy that person may be.

Despite the public pressure, it is important that the LA Times honor its agreement.

Thanks,

Gary Weitman

As John Taylor noted, I think we’re all curious. Now that The Times drew the proverbial line in the sand, where were the marks of ethical journalism when their sister paper, The Chicago Tribune, sued for the confidential child custody records of Senate candidate Jack Ryan when he ran against Sen. Obama in 2004? A fumed Jack Ryan explained when personal revelations that doomed his candidacy ultimately became public:

The media has gotten out of control. The fact that The Chicago Tribune sues for access to sealed custody documents and then takes unto itself the right to public details of a custody dispute — over the objections of two parents who agree that the re-airing of their arguments will hurt their ability to co-parent their child and hurt their child — is truly outrageous.

Understandable, however juicy the story might have been, The Tribune Company and other media companies have a duty to honor the progressive and time tested right to personal privacy. After all, will people even talk to the press knowing full well of its imminent invasion? Maybe they will think twice before giving “information vital to the public;” just ask Joe the Plumber.

Opportunity for New Media or New Government?

October 30, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under News media | Leave a Comment 

As newspapers, cable, and network news are downsizing their coverage of international issues, Michael Yon is being supported by Pajamas Media to report from the War Zone in Afghanistan. Yon call this a moment of opportunity for the new media to take the lead:

The New York Times employs courageous and outstanding reporters who are providing excellent coverage from Afghanistan — and I hope that isn’t curtailed. There are stories that the Times, with its editors, researchers, and backup staff, can report and publicize in a way that alternative sources simply cannot match. Nevertheless, one consequence of this media downturn is that yet more market share will be left on the table for alternative media outlets. To be able to take advantage of this opportunity, alternative journalists have to meet the financial challenge and figure out how to provide news about critical events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and whatever comes next that people won’t get elsewhere.

This translates into a moment of opportunity for alternative sources — but only if it turns out that readers value alternative sources and are willing to keep them afloat during these stormy times. Pajamas Media is an example of an alternative source that is making an impact. PJM reaches millions of people and they sent a video camera to me in Afghanistan. Please stand by for videos of our folks and Afghans telling you directly what they think. Perhaps PJM will host us live from Afghanistan from time to time, and then you can ask soldiers and Afghans what they think and get a live, completely unedited answer.

But before the legendary news giants take that hard fall, can they get their own corporate bail-out by an activist administration? Ostensibly, would a fairness doctrine include a subsidy for left-wing news? After all, as Sen. Obama stumps, those out-dated free market principles haven’t really worked out as of late.

Howard’s Ends — And Means

October 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Howard Fineman of “Newsweek” advises Sen. Obama’s supporters not to say what they believe but what undecided voters want to hear:

Here’s my advice to Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters: Stop predicting that the Democrats will sweep into the White House and Congress come January with a mandate to expand Big Government.

That prospect, coupled with some of your candidate’s own tax and health-care plans, could scare swing voters you need next Tuesday.

The Death Of American Journalism

October 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Kindle, News media | 2 Comments 

Those not desiring an Obama Presidency are by and large not feeling nostalgic about the newspaper business this week. And yet this posting at a very cool website, Lifehacker.com, misses the point of the stunning announcement by one of the nation’s most important papers:

The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer-winning daily newspaper, announced yesterday that it will stop printing daily editions and focus on its web site, as well as use the savings to keep foreign bureaus open. Media pundits have been claiming the End of Print for decades, but the CSM is the first large-scale news operation to really take the plunge. We’re obviously pretty keen on free digital information at Lifehacker, but also wondering if we, and maybe our readers, will some day miss the portability, the lack of battery power or Wi-Fi connections, and the general look and feel of print newspapers. Are you in the same boat, or do you think the writing is on the wall when it comes to news delivery? Would you settle for a half-way solution, like a Kindle-esque news reader or print-on-demand papers?

Keen on free digital information? Me, too! But the content at CSM, NYT, LAT, WP, and AP is the work of highly trained and motivated reporters and editors who devote months or years to becoming experts in what they cover. Many work in expensive-to-maintain bureaus in Washington, London, or Beijing, where really important things happen that are sometimes pretty complicated. Newspapers pay them what are called salaries from revenue generated from subscriptions and advertising. Even TV news professionals, skilled though they may be, depend on newspaper reporting.

As for the free digital information we all love so much, if it’s good, it’s usually being given away on traditional new organizations’ websites, which hope that you’ll look at advertising while visiting. Otherwise, the free information is either gathered from these sources and repackaged or pastiches of opinions, rumors, or lies produced by people sitting in their bedrooms or Starbucks. When the traditional news-gathering organizations atrophy, what will we have left? Right: The crap.

Lifehacker seems to think news is all about the medium instead of the content. Both the NYT, still the greatest newspaper in the world, and the LAT, which used to be great, are bleeding pages and personnel. What happens when they have to close their Beijing bureaus? Who’s going to tell us what’s going on in the next superpower — the Xinhua News Agency? The State Department? Wonkette?

The protection of freedom depends on well-informed populaces, which depend on professional journalism, which runs on money. That’s why the Kindle is such a miracle. It’s cool and green, and its users pay for content. Get one today and help news organizations save democracy by developing a new financial model. Because there’s no such thing as free digital journalism that’s worth a damn.

Sullivan And “Trig”

October 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Hackosphere, News media, Republican Party | 4 Comments 

Over Labor Day weekend, Andrew Sullivan republished lies about Sarah Palin and her minor daughter without checking the facts. Now he uses quotation marks to associate himself and his Atlantic Monthly Group web site directly with the most effective libel of the 2008 campaign:

We have yet to see any medical records, let alone those documenting [Palin's] mysterious “pregnancy”…

Keeping Secrets At The LA Times

October 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Israel and Palestinians, News media | Leave a Comment 

Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are demanding that the LA Times release a videotape showing Sen. Obama at an event with Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar. The paper had previously reported that Obama said nothing controversial. Still, it seems strange for it to be battling so hard to keep the tape secret. It reported this morning:

The Times has said that making the recording public would violate a promise to a confidential source.

So how about calling the source and saying pretty please? Now that it’s become an issue, and the paper’s remaining editorial personnel have drawn a line in the sand, I’m really curious. Aren’t you?

If Irritating Andrew Sullivan Is All That’s Left…

October 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Hackosphere, News media, Republican Party |