User:Nbahn/Joe Klein sandbox

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sections of article
(I)intro.
(VII)concl.
(II)chronology/timelineDONE!
(III)analysis
(IV)g.g.'s criticisms of MSMDONE!
(V)notable quotes from controversyDONE!
(VI)humorous reactions to the controversyDONE!


Note to the reader: Joe Klein falsely referred to the legislation that he was writing about as "FISA". In truth, FISA was enacted into law in 1978. The legislation he was referring to is in fact actually entitled "The Restore Act". Unless the below article explicitly states otherwise, any mention of FISA is, in fact, a reference to the Restore Act.


The noted author[1] and columnist Joe Klein initiated a controversy with his 21 November 2007 Time magazine column in which he accused Congressional House Democrats of trying to give suspected non-U.S. terrorists the same rights as U.S. citizens.

Contents

[edit] Introduction

This article first presents the controversy chronologically. Then all of the memorable quotes are presented. Then analyses of the major points of the controversy are presented in chronological order. Finally, a series of analyses of the mainstream media -- a distinct but related subject -- are presented.

[edit] Chronology (Time Line)

[edit] Wednesday, 21 November 2007

In his column "In the Arena", Joe Klein accuses U.S. House Democrats of giving suspected non-U.S. terrorists the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Glenn Greenwald explains Klein's "mistakes" in both legal and political contexts.
Joe Klein offers his first defense of his column.
WIRED magazine's Ryan Singel explains Klein's "mistakes".

[edit] Saturday, 24 November 2007

Joe Klein offers his second defense of his column.

[edit] Sunday, 25 November 2007

Jane Hamsher lists a number of things that Joe Klein has done vis-a-vis the controversy.
Glenn Greenwald juxtaposes Joe Klein's reporting methods with that of D.C.-based reporters in general.
Atrios describes the likely outcome if Joe Klein had committed such "errors" against the Republicans.

Atrios Lampoons Time magazine's Joe Klein and Richard "Rick" Stengel

  1. "Shocking"
  2. "Fresh Thread"
  3. "Modern Journalism"

[edit] Monday, 26 November 2007

Joe Klein's third blog entry concerning his 21 November 2007 column.
Ryan Singel analyzes and comments upon Joe Klein's third "Swampland" blog entry on the subject of his column.
The Center For Citizen Media's Dan Gillmor recounts and comments upon the chain of events constituting the controversy.
Glenn Greenwald examines the ethics and journalistic standards of Time's senior editors.
Glenn Greenwald analyzes both Klein's and Time's sense of ethics and journalism in light of Klein's third "Swampland" blog entry.

[edit] Tuesday, 27 November 2007

Ryan Singel analyzes a "correction" that Time magazine placed on its website.
Glenn Greenwald juxtaposes the behavior of Time Deputy Managing Editor Priscilla Painton with the other actions of Time magazine in particular and the mainstream media in general.
Jane Hamsher recounts her -- very brief -- telephone conversation with Priscilla Painton.
Glenn Greenwald argues that this controversy is, in fact, the journalism profession in a microcosm.
Rush Holt rebuts Joe Klein.

[edit] Wednesday, 28 November 2007

In his fourth defense of his column, Joe Klein quotes the "FISA section [sic]" which he claims justifies his assertion that an individual warrant is required to listen into a conversation that is routed through the U.S.
Jon Swift lampoons the practices of the mainstream media.
Glenn Greenwald analyzes Time's second "correction".
Glenn Greenwald compares the mainstream media to stenographers and concludes that it fails stenographic standards.
Harper's blogger/columnist Scott Horton offers his thoughts regarding the column and the controversy.

[edit] Thursday, 29 November 2007

Glenn Greenwald juxtaposes the Chicago Tribune's correction with Time magazine's correction. He also comments upon Pete Hoekstra's National Review Online column.
Ryan Singel analyzes the "mistakes" of Time's second correction and notes that among other things that "[f]or one, the new correction still misstates the very name of the bill passed by the House."
Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell comments upon the differences between the Chicago Tribune's correction and the TIME magazine "correction".
In a National Review Online (N.R.O.) column Pete Hoekstra:
  1. Outs himself as Joe Klein's source;
  2. Defends Joe Klein's column;
  3. Attacks Democrats.

[edit] Friday, 30 November 2007

Dan Gillmor summarizes the controversy and comments on the medium of the internet.
Glenn Greenwald quotes blog entries by Dan Gillmor and Robert Niles of the University of Southern California Annenberg School's Online Journalism Review and then juxtaposes them with coverage of the New York Times and Washington Post.
Rovbert Niles of the Online Journalism Review discusses what "fairness and balance" is and is not.

[edit] Tuesday, 4 December 2007

Glenn Greenwald describes and analyzes a number of developments in the controversy. Among other things, he both recounts and summarizes how Time magazine rebuffed the efforts of four Congressional Representatives to correct Time's record.
Radar Online's John Cook analyzes the controversy.

[edit] Thursday, 6 December 2007

Glenn Greenwald mentions a couple of items relating to the controversy.

[edit] Tuesday, 11 December 2007

Eric Boehlert -- a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America -- discusses Howard Kurtz's singular lack of coverage of the controversy and juxtaposes it against the right wing media.

[edit] Memorable/Notable Quotes From the Controversy

  • "Joke Line"
How a number of liberals in the blogosphere are referring to Joe Klein.
  • "Pete Hoaxtra"
How a number of liberals in the blogosphere are referring to Pete Hoekstra.[2]
  • "[T]his is...a political [debate]. ... I'll welcome that debate anytime." [3]
Pete Hoekstra on the idea that the debate will be about protecting civil liberties vs. protecting the U.S.'s national security.
    • "Hoekstra apparently missed it (or has understandably blocked it out), but America actually already had that debate. It was called the 2006 election."[4]
Glenn Greenwald responding to Hoekstra.
  • "It's hard to imagine General Eisenhower going to court to ask for permission to conduct the D-Day invasion on the off-chance [that] Americans might be on the beaches of Normandy."[5]
Pete Hoekstra trying to draw a link between World War II and George W. Bush's "war on terror".
  • "One of the most amazing episodes in modern American journalism has emerged from a flagrantly inaccurate and misguided Time magazine column by Joe Klein. [T]his case may become Exhibit A for what's wrong with the craft today."[6]
Dan Gillmor's early take on the controversy.
  • "This is all a partisan waste of time, fodder for lawyers and civil liberties extremists."[7]
Klein in his first defense of his column.
  • "Let's just ponder for a second how lowly Time's behavior here is. ... [This] whole episode was a GOP-fueled smear on Democrats."[8]
Glenn Greenwald on the further developments of the controversy.
  • Does anyone at Time have any integrity at all? They just smeared House Democrats as Terrorist-coddling national security losers to 4 million Americans...."[9]
Greenwald on the senior editors at Time.
  • "...Time itself has compounded the problem, demonstrating contempt for its audience."[10]
The Center for Citizen Media's Dan Gillmor on the column.
  • "FISA: More Than You Want To Know" [11]
Joe Klein's chosen heading of his third blog entry discussing his column.
  • "What we have not agreed to do is give this or any other President a permanent blank check to spy on...any...American citizen without any judicial oversight...."[12]
Representative Rush Holt responding to Klein's column.
  • "Clearly, I didn't do sufficient vetting of the facts."[13]
Joe Klein in his second blog entry on his column.
  • "I've spent the past few days nosing around in the dispute about what the House FISA Reform bill (The Restore America Act) [sic] actually says. I've reached no conclusions." [14]
Joe Klein's first two sentences in his third blog entry discussing his column.
    • "Klein...admitted [to] not having actually read the legislation in question."[15]
Dan Gillmor on Klein's third blog entry.
    • "Joe Klein doesn't bother to actually read the bill [that] he's writing about;"[16]
FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher on Klein's third blog entry.
    • "But Klein, of course, never bothered to read the bill and still hasn't (even though he is published by Time to 'report on' and opine about this bill). ... The very idea of a reporter and a major news magazine publishing a piece about a crucial bill that neither the reporter nor any editor has even bothered to read is amazing."[17]
Greenwald on Klein's -- and Klein's superiors's -- sense of professionalism.
Greenwald on Klein's third blog entry.
  • "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right (ADD: about this minor detail of a bill that will never find its way out of Congress)."[18]
From Klein's third blog entry. It is arguably his most memorable/notable sentence in this entire controversy.
    • "That's been the point all along (although one doesn't need 'legal background' -- just basic reading skills and a molecule of critical thought)."[19]
Greenwald responding to Klein's third blog posting.
    • "By your own admission you have reached no conclusion about what the bill even says, and you don't have the 'time' to figure out what it means. All you have told us about FISA is that you are utterly clueless about FISA, which I'm afraid everybody already knew."[20]
Commenter "Zota" commenting on Klein's third blog entry concerning the column.
    • "Grow up. Get a clue. Get a grip. Get some help."[21]
Commenter "sy" commenting on Klein's third blog entry concerning the column.
    • "[Klein's next] post artfully shifted the issue from whether the bill says what he said it says to whether his Republican sources or Democratic sources were correct in their interpretations (who knows? This law stuff is complicated) before actually committing to pixels the following words, which will live on as one of the finest specimens of sheer journalistic hubris ever issued from one of the genre's most accomplished practitioners: 'I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right....' I don't have time [to] find out if what I write is true, people! I'm too busy claiming that other things are true. And even if I did have time, I'm not qualified to say whether the things I write are true anyway!"[italics in original][22]
Radar Online's John Cook commenting on Klein's third blog entry on the TIME column.
  • "I may have made a mistake in my column...although it's difficult to tell for sure given the technical nature of the bill's language.... ... [W]e are talking about relatively obscure and unimportant details...."[23]
Joe Klein on his column in his second blog entry.
    • "In other words, Klein sat down to write a column about obscure and unimportant technical details."[24]
Radar Online's John Cook responding to Klein's second blog entry.
  • "I need further clarification, just to be sure [that] I get it right[...]this time."[25]
Joe Klein's last line in his second blog entry on his column.
    • "Yesterday -- Saturday night on Thanksgiving weekend -- Klein returned to the TIME Blog to write an extremely conditional, weasely, self-justifying and partial 'correction'...."[26]
Glenn Greenwald on Klein's second blog entry.
    • "Joe Klein has just posted yet again about his FISA confusion.... If Time has any dignity at all, someone there will intervene and put a stop to this. It's actually difficult to watch."[27]
--Greenwald again Klein's second blog entry.
      • "The phrase 'pit bull' is a bit shopworn, and often inappropriately used, but Greenwald is exactly that."[28]
--Harper's blogger/columnist Scott Horton on Glenn Greenwald vis-a-vis the controversy.
      • "...Glenn Greenwald...God love him, has approached his subject with the tenacity and righteousness of an obsessive-compulsive IRS auditor...."[29]
Radar Online's John Cook commenting on Glenn Greenwald's coverage of the controversy.
  • "In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid."[30]
Arguably Joe Klein's two most notable sentences in his column.
    • "'Well beyond stupid' is a good description for what Klein wrote here. 'Factually false' is even better."[31]
Greenwald on Klein's column.
    • "...Klein is well beyond stupid. He's dangerous."[32]
Wired Magazine's Ryan Singel commenting on Klein vis-a-vis the TIME column.
    • "The whole paragraph is so wrong, it's not clear where to start."[33]
Singel on the critical paragraph in Klein's original column.
  • "Who gave this man a column?"[34]
Wired Magazine's Ryan Singel on Klein's third blog entry on the TIME column.
  • "Klein's reactions...to his...critics are precious goldmines of self-aggrandizing pretense that must be savored at length to appreciate their rich subtleties and overtones."[35]
Radar Online's John Cook commenting on all three of Klein's blog entries on his -- Klein's -- TIME column.
  • "Swampland's commenters have joined the battle with glee; the first comment to one of Klein's first posts on Swampland read simply: 'Just because I hate to see the lefties get all of the credit, let the record show that at least one moderate Republican finds you dispicable.'"[36]
Radar Online's John Cook relating a quote from the comments section of one of Klein's earliest blog entries.
  • "I don't want the focus here to be on Klein himself. It's beyond well-established what he is and what a slothful, easily manipulated and dishonest 'reporter' he is."[37]
Greenwald beginning to focus on larger issues in the mainstream media.
  • "[Washington Post Media Critic Howard] Kurtz, however, found time to address multiple questions on such pressing matters as the new Don Imus Show and football."
Glenn Greenwald on Koward Kurtz's refusal to provide meaningful coverage of the issue.[38]
  • "The episode is...a testament to the power of the Net to surface traditional-media wrongdoing -- and to hold to account the people who have...enormous influence over what people believe about key issues. ... [T]he fact that Time (and Klein) felt obliged to respond at all, however grudgingly and incorrectly, is a direct result of the growing ability of new media to be heard. There's little to celebrate in this debacle, but we can at least take some satisfaction from that."[italics in original][39]
Dan Gillmor drawing a connection between the blogosphere and TIME's subsequent "corrections".
  • "[T]he original column is no longer a dangerous misunderstanding of a complex issue by a two-bit columnist.
"Instead, it's now an institutional lie."[40]
WIRED's Ryan Singel on the perniciousness of Klein's falsehoods.
  • "But when Joe's bad, he's awful. And this was the worst thing [that] I've seen emerge from the Klein pen in quite some time."[41]
Harper's columnist Scott Horton blogging on Klein's consistency in analyzing issues.
  • "So, Time's Editors got brave today. They decided to write an actual declarative sentence about what the bill actually includes. That's progress, I suppose."[emphasis in original][42]
Greenwald on TIME's second correction.
  • "Time Tries Again
"The editors went today and corrected yesterday's correction. They should keep trying."[43]
Greenwald's header for his blog entry on Time's second correction.
  • "So, right off the bat, the correction doesn't even know [exactly] what bill [Joe] Klein was trying to write about."[44]
Wired 's Ryan Singel explaining one of the "errors" and misreprestations of Time's first correction.
  • "[Time] [M]agazine has proved itself too incompetent to write about anything more complicated than John Edwards' haircut."[45]
Wired's Ryan Singel's conclusion after reading Time's first correction.
  • "Perhaps Time's correction writer is out with an extended tryptophan Thanksgiving coma, but when she gets back, she's got some serious work to do."[46]
Wired's Ryan Singel on the column.
  • "If conservatives seized on a mirror image of the journalistic cluster****ery of Joe Klein [then] it wouldn't stop at Glennzilla beating up on him and the rest of us laughing at him. Drudge would put up a big siren. Limbaugh would spend a week turning Joe Klein into enemy #1 for his dittoheads. Howie Kurtz would devote several columns to the 'controversy' and devote his show to the topic, likely with commentary from Laura Ingraham. Instapundit would suggest that Joe Klein was working for 'the other side.' Bill O'Reilly would send a Fox News camera crew to his house. The New York Post would run his mug on the front page with a nice big cruel headline. The conservative blogosphere would unearth a picture of Joe Klein with his children (no idea if he has any, but if he does) and declare that they are now 'fair game,' digging up and publicizing as many personal details about them as they could find. All of this would continue until Joe was fired and Rick Stengel and Jay Carney apologized to Hugh Hewitt."[47]
Atrios on the likely outcome if Klein had produced similar "errors" against the Republicans.

[edit] Humorous Responses to the Controversy

Photo that appeared in one of Ryan Singel's blog entries. (click image to read it)

Atrios's 1st comment
Atrios's 2nd comment
Atrios's 3rd comment

Jon Swift offers these 20 priceless rules of journalism.

[edit] Analysis

[edit] "He simply doesn't know what he's talking about...."[48]

Klein's 21 November 2007 Time column is centered around "this train wreck of a paragraph:[49]

The Democratic strategy on the FISA legislation in the House is equally foolish. There is broad, bipartisan agreement on how to legalize the surveillance of phone calls and emails of foreign intelligence targets. The basic principle is this: if a suspicious pattern of calls from a terrorist suspect to a U.S. citizen is found, a FISA court warrant is necessary to monitor those communications. But to safeguard against civil-liberty abuses, all records of clearly nontargeted Americans who receive emails or phone calls from foreign suspects would be, in effect, erased. Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — House Republicans believe would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. (Democrats dispute this interpretation.) In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.[50]

Singel then dismantles Klein's key paragraph (saying in part: "The debate over what powers the nation's spy agencies should have to wiretap America's internet and phone infrastructure is a complicated one, but it grows even more cloudy when pundits like Time magazine's Joe Klein are allowed to spout dangerous propaganda in the nation's largest media outlets.") before concluding: "[T]his kind of stupidity deserves widespread attention, not to mention a correction."[51] Greenwald also zeros in on Klein's central paragraph and he doesn't pull his punches, either:

But Klein's far more pernicious "error" is his Limbaugh-copying claim that the House bill "require[s] [that] the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls [must] be approved by the FISA court." It just does not. ... The only reason why Congress began considering amendments to FISA in the first place was because a FISA court earlier this year ruled that a warrant was required for foreign-to-foreign calls incidentally routed through the U.S. via fiber optics. Everyone -- from Russ Feingold to the ACLU -- agreed that FISA [was] never intended to require warrants for foreign-to-foreign calls that have nothing to do with U.S. citizens, and thus, none of the bills being considered -- including the bill passed by the House -- requires warrants for such foreign-to-foreign calls."[52]

Before the day is over, Klein (apparently in response to Greenwald and Singel) posts (his first of eventually three) to Time's "Swampland" blog a defense of his column in which he continues to insist -- contrary to all of the facts -- that:

  1. .There was some "bipartisan bill that was being negotiated by House Intelligence Committee members..." that was personally quashed by Nancy Pelosi;
  2. ."The...House legislation requires that every foreign...target be passed through the FISA court because that target may...communicate with U.S. citizens or resident aliens."[53]

[edit] Klein's second blog posting

Klein defends his column for the second time, making a conditional and partial correction by employing a he said/she said template while still insisting (again, without any evidence) that there was some sort of a "bipartisan" bill "opposed by the Democratic leadership...."[54]

[edit] "Time magazine's FISA fiasco shows how Beltway reporters mislead the country"

Greenwald dissects Klein's first sentence of his second blog entry (because in it, somebody is lying)[55] and then juxtaposes it with section #2 of the Restore Act:

SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES. Section 105A of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) is amended to read as follows: “clarification of electronic surveillance of non-united states persons outside the united states 105A. (a) Foreign to Foreign Communications.— “(1) In general.—Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.[56]

[edit] Klein's Third Blog Posting

Klein cites section #3 of the Restore Act (he refers to it as "The Restore America Act") to justify his revised claim that the Restore Act "could be interpreted" to require an individual warrant for every non-U.S. target (see below).[57]

3. ADDITIONAL AUTHORIZATION OF ACQUISITIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES WHO MAY BE COMMUNICATING WITH PERSONS INSIDE THE UNITED STATES. Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) is amended to read as follows: “additional authorization of acquisitions of communications of non-united states persons located outside the united states who may be communicating with persons inside the united states 105B. (a) In general.—Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General may jointly apply to a judge of the court established under section 103(a) for an ex parte order, or the extension of an order, authorizing for a period of up to one year the acquisition of communications of persons that are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States and not United States persons for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information (as defined in paragraph (1) or (2)(A) of section 101(e)) by targeting those persons. “(c) Specific place not required.—An application under subsection (a) is not required to identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property at which the acquisition of foreign intelligence information will be directed.

That same day Greenwald analyzes the above-mentioned blog entry and in the process eviscerates it.[58] Also that same day Jane Hamsher conclusively shows that it was Priscilla Painton who edited Klein's column, thus raising the very real question of what the senior editors knew and when they knew it.[59]

[edit] Various Analyses and Criticisms -- Mostly From Greenwald -- of the Mainstream Media

[edit] "Time magazine lavishly rewards journalistic malpractice"

Glenn Greenwald quotes from one of Time' most egregiously pro-war articles. He then quotes Bill Moyers:

The story of how high officials misled the country has been told. But they couldn't have done it on their own. They needed a compliant press to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on. . . .

Greenwald then relates the behavior of Rick Stengel and concludes:

What conclusion does this mountain of evidence permit other than Time not only tolerates, but highly values, outright factual inaccuracies? They seem to cherish not merely falsehoods in general, but falsehoods planted by GOP operatives and designed to promote the government's agenda. They make no effort to correct their most egregious misstatements and often re-affirm them. They hire, reward, and promote the worst, most dishonest purveyors of outright propaganda. When viewed in this broader context, Time's publication of Klein's FISA article, its failure to correct it, and its ongoing promotion of Klein, all make perfect sense. As Eric Alterman put it, Time has "morphed into a kind of glossy sibling to the Wall Street Journal" whose columnists "distort[] the public discourse in a Limbaugh-like direction." By and large, Time -- regardless of the reasons (i.e., whether economic or ideological) -- increasingly appears to be not in the business of reporting news but of promoting a specific political agenda that is as fact-free as it is easily identifiable....[60]

[edit] "Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell"

In his 27 November 2007 column entitled Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell, Greenwald excoriates the mainstream media in general and Time magazine in particular.

All Time can say about this matter is that Republicans say one thing and Democrats claim another. Who is right? Is one side lying? What does the bill actually say, in reality? That's not for Time to say. After all, they're journalists, not partisans. So they just write down what each side says. It's not for them to say what is true, even if one side is lying. In this twisted view, that is called "balance" -- writing down what each side says. As in: "Hey - Bush officials say that there is WMD in Iraq and things are going great with the war (and a few people say otherwise). It's not for us to decide. It's not our fault if what we wrote down is a lie. We just wrote down exactly what they said." At best, they write down what each side says and then go home. That's what they're for. That our typical establishment "journalist" conceives of this petty clerical task as their only role is not news. But it is striking to see the nation's "leading news magazine" so starkly describe how they perceive their role.
...
[Excerpted from] Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner:

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"[61][62]

[edit] "Bad stenographers -- Referring to the role by our establishment press as stenography is truly an insult to the work of professional stenographers."

Although Greenwald's 28 November 2007 article ("Bad stenographers") is quoted extensively below, the reader is STRONGLY encouraged to read the column in its entirety because the said column constitutes a sweeping, scathing, powerful and damning indictment of the mainstream media.

Referring to our establishment press corps as "stenographers" has become somewhat of a cliche, though it still provokes righteous outrage from "journalists."
...
But in light of Time's "correction" to Joe Klein's factually false claims about the House Democrats' FISA bill, how can any rational person object? [F]rom an article entitled "How to be a stenographer":

What Type of Job Duties Do Stenographers Have?
If you are considering a career as a stenographer, one of the most important things that you should consider is what type of job duties stenographers have. They transcribe, or type, material which they are dictated. This can include orders, memos, correspondence, reports and various other types of information.[Greenwald's emphasis]
Compare that to what Time says it does when its "journalists" do their job correctly:
Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.
...
If someone in a court proceeding voices even the most blatantly false accusations, stenographers will faithfully write it down and publish it without comment -- exactly like Time Magazine and most of our press corps, at least when it comes to claims from the government and its GOP operatives.

But there's a fundamental difference: stenographers are far better at their job, since they give equal weight to what all parties say. But Time and friends exist principally to trumpet government claims and minimize and belittle anything to the contrary, and they pretend to "balance" it all only when they're caught mindlessly transcribing these one-sided claims and are forced to write down what the other side says, too. The bulk of our establishment journalists aren't merely stenographers. They're bad stenographers[Greenwald's emphasis].

For that reason, when establishment journalists are called "stenographers," the real insult is to professional stenographers, who are scrupulous about recording what everyone says with equal weight. But our media class gives enormous weight to government sources and, correspondingly, GOP operatives.[63]

Greenwald then quotes New York Times and Washington Post analyses of their respective coverage of Government claims vis-a-vis the lead-up to the Second Gulf War. (Again, the reader is strongly encouraged to read the said column in its entirety.)

Then Greenwald quotes the below from a Bill Moyers documentary.

From former Time Editor and CNN CEO Walter Isaacson, with Bill Moyers, April 25, 2007:

"BILL MOYERS: And as the administration organized to strike back at the terrorists, there was little tolerance for critical scrutiny from journalists.
"WALTER ISAACSON: There was a patriotic fervor and the Administration used it so that if you challenged anything you were made to feel that there was something wrong with that[...]. ... And there was even almost a patriotism police which, you know, they'd be up there on the internet sort of picking anything a Christiane Amanpour, or somebody else would say as if it were disloyal....
"BILL MOYERS: We interviewed a former reporter at CNN who had been there through that period. And this reporter said this quote, 'Everybody on staff just sort of knew not to push too hard to do stories critical of the Bush Administration.'
"WALTER ISAACSON: Especially right after 9/11. Especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on. There was a real sense that you don't get that critical of a government that's leading us in war time[...].
"BILL MOYERS: When American forces went after the terrorist bases in Afghanistan, network and cable news reported the civilian casualties. The Patriot Police came knocking.
"WALTER ISAACSON: We'd put it on the air and by nature of a 24-hour TV network, it was replaying over and over again. So, you would get phone calls. You would get advertisers. You would get the Administration.
"BILL MOYERS: You said pressure from advertisers?
"WALTER ISAACSON: Not direct pressure from advertisers, but big people in corporations were calling up and saying, 'You're being anti-American here.'
"BILL MOYERS: So Isaacson sent his staff a memo, leaked to The Washington Post: 'It seems perverse,' he said, 'to focus too much on the casualities or hardship in Afghanistan.'"[64]

In this vein, Greenwald then quotes from Digby:

From Digby, quoting at length the April, 2003 speech of soon-to-be-demoted-then-fired Ashleigh Banfield, MSNBC's war correspondent:

"But very shortly after the invasion of Iraq --- even before Codpiece Day --- Banfield delivered a speech that destroyed her career. She was instantly demoted by MSNBC and fired less than a year later:

'As a journalist I'm often ostracized just for saying these messages, just for going on television and saying, "Here's what the leaders of Hezbullah are telling me and here's what the Lebanese are telling me and here's what the Syrians have said about Hezbullah. Here's what they have to say about the Golan Heights." Like it or lump it, don't shoot the messenger, but invariably the messenger gets shot[...].'
[...]
"She's now a co-anchor on a Court TV show.

The issue of "why" the media behaves this way is complex and completely separate from demonstrating that they do. There are numerous factors. Some of it is ideological. Much of it is the perception of what is economically rewarding (as Banfield suggested, along with Billmon when analyzing Time's descent into right-wing pablum).
...
From Molly Ivins, all the way back in her 1987 book, Who Let the Dogs In?, courtesy of Hume's Ghost:
"We are retreating to a fine old American press cop-out we like to call objectivity. Russell Baker once described it: 'In the classic example, a refugee from Nazi Germany who appears on television saying monstrous things are happening in his homeland must be followed by a Nazi spokesman saying Adolf Hitler is the greatest boon to humanity since pasteurized milk. Real objectivity would require not only hard work by news people to determine which report was accurate, but also a willingness to put up with the abuse certain to follow publication of an objectively formed judgement. To escape the hardwork or the abuse, if one man says Hitler is an ogre, we instantly give you another to say Hitler is a prince. A man says the rockets won't work? We give you another who says they will[...].'

"The American press has always had a tendency to assume that the truth must lie exactly halfway between any two opposing points of view[...]. This tendency has been aggravated in recent years by a noticeable trend to substitute people who speak from a right-wing ideological perspective for those who know something about a given subject[...].

"The odd thing about these television discussions designed to 'get all sides of the issue' is that they do not feature a spectrum of people with different views on reality: Rather, they frequently give us a face-off between those who see reality and those who have missed it entirely. In the name of objectivity, we are getting fantasyland."

Or, as Time puts it: "Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't."
...
Here is The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, from the Bill Moyers documentary (h/t Luminous):

WALTER PINCUS: More and more, in the media, become, I think, common carriers of Administration statements, and critics of the Administration. And we've sort of given up being independent on our own... . We used to do at the Post something called truth squading. President would make a speech. We used to do it with Ronald Reagan the first five or six months because he would make so many factual errors, particularly in his press conference. And after two or three weeks of it, the public at large, would say, 'Why don't you leave the man alone? He's trying to be honest. He makes mistakes. So what?' and we stopped doing it.
BILL MOYERS: You stopped being the truth squad.
WALTER PINCUS: We stopped truth-squading every sort of press conference, or truth squading. And we left it then to the Democrats. In other words, it's up to the Democrats to catch people, not us.[65]

[edit] "Specialized journalism, a partisan press,..."

Robert Niles of the Online Journalism Review discusses what in his view is the main reason for the financial success of websites covering government and politics:

[I]t's not a desire for partisanship. It's a desire to see someone, anyone, call B.S. on people who are demonstrably full of it. ... Fairness and balance are appropriate goals for journalists. But being fair to sources and providing balance among them should not outweigh the need to be fair to the readers, and to the facts. And balance should not be reduced to giving various points of view equal time or space in a story. It ought to mean that truth gets treated like truth and lies get treated like lies.[66]

[edit] "The NYT's Michael Cooper demonstrates what real reporting is"

Glenn Greenwald juxtaposes the reporting of Michael Cooper (at the New York Times) with that of Perry Bacon (at the Washington Post).

For various reasons, [the mainstream media] simply will not investigate such claims and, when warranted, identify such claims as false. The most they are willing to do is simply write down each side's claims and treat them equally, even when one side is blatantly lying. GOP operatives know that this is how the press functions and thus know that they can easily get away with spewing lies, and can even recruit the media into helpfully spreading them (using the predominant "he-said/she-said" template). That's the same process that led us into Iraq, kept us there for so long, protected endless presidential lawbreaking and enabled all sorts of fact-free smears. ... It's staggering that this most elementary principle of journalism is not merely violated by so many of our establishment journalists, but is explicitly rejected by them. That's the principal reason why our political discourse is so infected with outright falsehoods. The media has largely abdicated their primary responsibility of stating basic facts. One can see how damaging that really is in those all-too-rare instances, such as Cooper's article this morning, when a real reporter fulfills the core function of journalism.[67]

Greenwald points out that even Tom Toles (the Washington Post's political cartoonist) cannot leave uncommented upon "...his own newspaper's corrupt, stenographic coverage...."

[edit] "What's Howard Kurtz's agenda at the Wash. Post?"

Eric Boehlert analyzes and criticizes Howard Kurtz's marked absence of any coverage of the liberal blogosphere in general and a singular lack of coverage of l'affaire Klein in particular.

But consider just two recent media controversies (both initiated by Media Matters) that the usually prolific Kurtz also ignored at the Post.

The first was Fox News talker Bill O'Reilly telling his radio listeners that when visiting a famous soul food restaurant in Harlem that he "couldn't get over the fact" that the black-owned establishment was just like restaurants owned by whites. He also noted approvingly that "black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves."

The second was right-winger Rush Limbaugh characterizing members of the U.S. military who oppose the war in Iraq as "phony soldiers." When the controversy broke, Limbaugh then edited transcripts of his program before posting them online to try to obfuscate the context.

Combined, those two stories garnered nearly 900 mainstream media mentions, according to Nexis. Yet not once did Kurtz, the most high-profile media writer in the country, write about them in The Washington Post. Not once. Kurtz could have also covered the stories through his daily online column, where he links to prominent news and media news stories. But again, according to a search of Nexis, Kurtz never linked to a single story about the O'Reilly or Limbaugh controversies as they raged in real time.

For instance, from September 21 to October 1, Kurtz's column included 136 links. None were in reference to O'Reilly's controversial comments about the Harlem restaurant. Then from September 28 to October 5, Kurtz's column contained 85 links. None were about Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" slam.

For Kurtz and his work at The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com, those stories simply did not exist.

FYI, Greenwald first drew attention to Klein's erroneous assertion in his Time column in a November 21 post at Salon.com. Kurtz finally acknowledged that the media controversy existed on December 6. In between, Kurtz posted nearly 200 links in his online "Media Notes" column. None of the links was about the Klein controversy.

This simply continues Kurtz's distressing habit of blatantly ignoring media stories that emerge from the liberal blogosphere.[68]

[edit] Summary

It can only be speculated as to exactly what Klein was thinking when he was writing up his column[69] but it would seem to be fairly certain that he -- along with his editors -- did not anticipate such a blow-back from the liberal blogosphere. For nearly two weeks the controversy dominated that part of the web and what was what presumably compelled Klein to write four defenses of his column and Time to publish -- and then amend -- a correction.

So while nothing definitive can be written about Klein and his editors while the column was being written and copy-edited, it can be safely speculated that everyone involved in the publication of the column will be more careful and cautious with their facts in the future.

[edit] See Also

  • The actual bill (the Restore Act) passed by the U.S. House
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h3773_eh.xml
  • The unabridged text of A.B. Landon's speech.
http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/banfieldtext42403.html

[edit] Footnotes and Citations

  1. ^ He wrote the book Primary Colors ("[O]ne of the best books of fiction about politics in recent memory, incidentally...."[1]--Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media on Klein's book).
  2. ^ This is the same gentleman who openly speculated -- without any evidence -- that al Qaeda had penetrated the U.S. national security apparatus and was responsible for information being leaked to the press.[2]
  3. ^ Hoekstra -- N.R.O.[3] 29 November 2007
  4. ^ Greenwald[4] -- 2007 November 29
  5. ^ Hoekstra -- N.R.O. 29 November 2007
  6. ^ Gillmor[5] -- 2007 November 26
  7. ^ Klein(blog)[6] -- 21 November 2007
  8. ^ Greenwald[[7]]
  9. ^ Greenwald[8] -- 27 November 2007
  10. ^ Gillmor[9] -- 2007 November 30
  11. ^ Klein (blog) [10] -- 2007, 26 November
  12. ^ Holt[11] -- 27 November 2007
  13. ^ Klein(blog)[12] -- 24 November 2007
  14. ^ Klein (blog)[13] -- 21 November 2007
  15. ^ Gillmor[14] -- 2007 November 30
  16. ^ Hamsher[15] -- 2007 November 21
  17. ^ Greenwald[16] -- 25 November 2007
  18. ^ Klein (blog)[17] -- November 26, 2007
  19. ^ Greenwald[18] -- 26 November 2007
  20. ^ "Zota"[19] -- 2007 November 26
  21. ^ "sy"[20] -- 2007 November 26
  22. ^ Cook[21] -- 2007 December 4
  23. ^ Klein (blog)[22] -- 2007 November 24
  24. ^ Cook[23] -- 2007 December 4
  25. ^ Klein (blog)[24] -- 2007 November 24
  26. ^ Greenwald[25] -- 2007 November 25
  27. ^ Greenwald[26] -- 26 November 2007
  28. ^ Horton[27] -- 2007 November 28
  29. ^ Cook[28] -- 2007 December 4
  30. ^ Klein (column)[29] -- 2007 November 21
  31. ^ Greenwald[30] -- 21 November 2007
  32. ^ Singel[31] -- 2007 November 21
  33. ^ Singel[32] -- 21 November 2007
  34. ^ Singel[33] -- 2007 November 26
  35. ^ Cook[34] -- 2007 December 4
  36. ^ Cook[35] -- 2007 December 4
  37. ^ Greenwald[36] -- 25 November 2007
  38. ^ Greenwald[37] 4 December 2007 -- "Kurtz's coverage was so well hidden that Greenwald...originally missed it, 'even though I was actively looking for it.'"
    --Eric Boehlert discussing Howard Kurtz vis-a-vis Greenwald and quoting the latter in his column.[38]
  39. ^ Gillmor[39] -- 2007 November 30
  40. ^ Singel[40] -- 2007 November 29
  41. ^ Horton[41] -- 2007 November 28
  42. ^ Greenwald[42] -- 2007 November 28
  43. ^ Greenwald[43] -- 2007 November 28
  44. ^ Singel[44] -- 2007 November 27
  45. ^ Singel[45] -- 2007 November 27
  46. ^ Singel[46] -- 2007 November 26
  47. ^ Atrios[47] -- 2007 November 25
  48. ^ Greenwald[48] -- 21 November 2007
  49. ^ Singel[49] -- 27 November 2007 Singel also refers to the said paragraph as "this oil spill".
  50. ^ Klein(column)[50] -- 21 November 2007
  51. ^ Singel[51] -- 21 November 2007
  52. ^ Greenwald[52] -- 21 November 2007
  53. ^ Klein(blog)[53] -- 21 November 2007
  54. ^ Klein(blog)[54] -- 24 November 2007
  55. ^ Greenwald[55] -- 25 November 2007
  56. ^ The Restore Act passed by the house[56].
  57. ^ Klein(blog)[57] -- 26 November 2007
  58. ^ Greenwald[58] -- 26 November 2007
  59. ^ Hamsher[59] -- 27 November 2007
  60. ^ Greenwald[60] -- 25 November 2007
  61. ^ Colbert monologue transcribed by Daily Kos Diarist Frederick.
  62. ^ Greenwald[61] -- 27 November 2007
  63. ^ Greenwald[62] -- 28 November 2007
  64. ^ Greenwald[63] -- 28 November 2007
  65. ^ Greenwald[64] -- 28 November 2007
  66. ^ Niles[65] -- 30 November 2007
  67. ^ Greenwald[66] -- 30 November 2007
  68. ^ Boehlert[67] -- 11 December 2007
  69. ^ Although Scott Horton may be onto something when he writes about the deadline pressures that a writer faces; but in the final analysis such speculation is just that -- speculation.

[edit] References