Journalism: A question for DUers ......

[H2O Man]

"The text was sprinkled with European metaphors, such as the description of the Kennedy limousine swinging into Dealey Plaza:'Then the leaves began to fall, and soon the traces disappeared'." Inroduction to re-release of Farewell America; William Turner; 2002; page 7 (original quote found on page 324).

"Mr. Fitzgerald also focused on the letter's closing lines. 'Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning,' Mr. Libby wrote. 'They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them." -- My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room; Judith Miller; October 16, 2005.

We should always take note of "clusters." For example, with the Plame scandal, there is a cluster of journalists who we find did not report to their editors. Judith Miller, who at one point was being held up as a model of integrity by sincere journalists, has been exposed as slime. Bob Woodward, who had enjoyed the status of a hero in the Watergate era, violated the public's trust by pretending to be an objective viewer of the grand jury proceedings. And now, Vivica Novak has been humiliated, and is on "leave" from Time.

In each case, these "journalists" failed to report to their editors in the manner that high quality journalism requires. Odd that this cluster would be exposed in the context of the Plame scandal! My question is, if these "journalists" did not report to their editors, who were they reporting to? Who gave them their assignments?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. It would seem to be a system ripe for corruption

If these journalists were allowed to be independent of their editors, they could be the tools, either wittingly or unwittingly, of their sources. If memory serves, even Woodward and Bernstein had to check in with Ben Bradley. Why was a change made, and who made it? I can't believe an editor would give up control over his reporters-was it the publisher?

[H2O Man]

11. Ben Bradley,

Harry Rosenfeld, Howard Simons, Barry Sussman, and Katharine Graham all were involved in the supervision of Woodward & Bernstein.

[Swamp Rat]

2. 'Plausible deniability' for the editors?

That immediately popped into my mind. If that is the case, then all they have to do is fire the reporters and then rinse and repeat. Or, the editors may have been told "so and so can print this story as is - do not interfere," etc.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. LOL

I swear I did not read your post before I posted my response. Great minds and all that.

[mod mom]

3. It will be up to non-traditional media to develop this story, as the MSM

have sold their souls to the devil, putting their almighty dollar over their value of democracy!

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. It sounds like they are trying to create

plausible deniablity for their bosses. It would open up a whole new can of worms if it came out that their editors were in on this scandal, which I'm willing to bet that they were.

[havocmom]

17. Or they let their egos overrule their brains

Perhaps 'unnamed sources' cajole them to 'keep this from your editors... THEY are not the one I talk to. ONLY YOU are close enough to me to hear this...' ::wink wink and pat pat on the hand::

The neocons are adept at playing on the most base flaws in people's characters. They play on racism, religious bigotry, and the granddaddy of all, FEAR. With a target audience of journalists, it seems likely they would be smart enough to play the ego card. They seem to have been running a focus group (of one) when they tested the tactic on Woodward in the early days of the junta.

[leveymg]

6. Implication here that Operation Mockingbird is still going on?

Or, that the upper reaches of major media are riddled with Republican operatives and neocons? Both?

Don't let the eds off the hook. Most of them are selected for their ability to hew to the line set by the suits, the media corporation types who we never hear the names of.

By the way, Bradlee and Woodward were both ONI, and The Washington Post's publisher was married to a ranking CIA officer. Judy and her publisher at The Times shared beach houses and an abiding loyalty to the neocon cause. As for Vivica, I don't know - what do you think?

[SpiralHawk]

7. Something there is that doesn't love a cluster

of corruption
and malfeasance

Stop the Neocon Clusterfuck now !!

[Garbo 2004]

8. Miller and Woodward didn't appear to be under any effective editorial

control. Miller had her own agenda and made nice with the powers that be, specifically the publisher and her big important gov't contacts. And the NYT mgt was happy with that until it blew up in their faces and then they paid her off to go away. Woodward apparently works on his books and occasionally moonlights for the WaPo in his spare time. He's the big dog at the WaPo so it's not like they're going to take him to the woodshed.

What's up with Viveca Novak, I don't know. Certainly she knows better. Novak's bio from her publisher:

Viveca Novak is a Washington correspondent for Time, covering legal affairs, terrorism, and civil liberties, among other issues. A recipient of Harvard University's Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting, the Clarion Award for investigative reporting, and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, she is a frequent guest on the national broadcast media, including CNN, NBC, PBS, Fox, and MSNBC. She has a B.A. in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, an M.S. from Columbia University School of Journalism, and an M.S.L. from Yale Law School. http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,0_1000065656,00.html

From reading her article in Time one would have thought her journalistic training was limited to a high school yearbook assignment. Funny how these reporters for national publications go all vague and scatterbrained when it comes down to their own behavior. And they proffer up rationales and excuses less credible than the old "the dog ate my homework" bit.

But Novak wouldn't appear to be a journalist on the Bushies' party list. She's co-author of Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo. It's not a love song to the Administration's gulag at Gitmo. Penguin's write up of the book here: http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_1594200661,00.html

[H2O Man]

9. They also have

clusters of memory loss at the strangest of times. It seems a stretch that both Miller and Novak have such significant forgetful streaks that overlap the the lapse in Libby and Rove's memories.

[Garbo 2004]

12. Miller's been a player for years. Don't know enough about Novak to

say. But if I'd just screwed up the way she claimed she did with Luskin and I had worries about it becoming known to my bosses, the media and the prosecutors, I'd remember when it happened. I wouldn't be able to forget.

It's a bizarre episode. But I still don't see how Luskin thinks it helps Rove, a fellow known for a photographic memory who conveniently forgets and suddenly has a recovered memory when it's clear that his status as a secret source ain't really secret at all.

[H2O Man]

19. Novak's story

does not ring true. She remembers telling Luskin in October of 2003 that she was "trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation." And she is able to describe that she recognized she made a serious error -- one she wished she could take back, and one she decided to not tell her supervisors about -- but she just can't remember when!

And, as you point out, Rove is known for his photographic memory. The discussion with Cooper is important enough that he contacts Hadley to discuss it. But both Hadley and him forget it until Ms. Novak has a chance to tell Luskin that Time is going to drop dime. For, even if Cooper had gone to jail, Time had decided, by the time Novak talked to Luskin, that they would turn over their notes to Fitzgerald if the Supreme Court ruled against them.

[CornField]

10. Seasoned reporters are not often subject to an editor's thumb

It is not unusual for a seasoned reporter to be left alone by an editor, often a person with less out-of-the-newsroom experience than the reporter in question. In the past, editors took a larger role in the development of the news (i.e., acting as proof readers, assigning articles, overseeing the journalists) now they are mostly administrative puppets with little to no real world experience as to working a news beat.

If there still remains such a beast as a working news editor, that person is probably too overwhelmed with their own workload (their own articles to research and write, their own interviews to conduct, training of the yearlings, etc.) to be at all hands on with reporters who have already proven themselves as journalists.

Indeed, once a journalists runs through the ranks and makes to an investigative spot in one of the nation's largest news organizations, the business dictates a certain amount of journalistic freedom to that individual. The belief is that after you've cut your teeth at smaller institutions and better honed your writing skills, you are deserving of a certain amount of trust. The longer you work at that establishment, the more trust you garner (just as with any job).

The system provides two primary benefits: 1) the journalist (not a high-paying position in the best of circumstances) is allowed to move toward stories or arenas which interest him/her most (i.e., education, politics, local government, law, features) and are allowed to drive their own careers and; 2) the editors and newspapers as a whole are given the best of both worlds. They can claim credit when major awards and prizes are won and they can deny accountability when corruption strikes.

[H2O Man]

15. I think that this

is distinct from a self-directed employee. Two things in particular would indicate it is very different: first, in the 10-16-05 article by Miller's co-workers at the NYTs, we find that Miss Run Amok was told by her supervisor "that she could no longer cover Iraq and weapons issues. Even so, Mr. Keller said, 'she kept kind of drifting on her own into the national security realm'." Second, the Plame case involves legal issues that reporters, no matter how self-directing, are not in a position to decide on their own. Woodward and Novak both admit that they decided to withhold information that their editors were entitled to know. This is distinct from a seasoned reporter being trusted to investigate and report on stories of their choosing, to make up for their low-paying jobs. The fact Miller was let go by the NYTs, and Novak is on leave, should not be confused with a Christmas bonus.

[Clark2008]

18. Not exactly.

The editors have usually worked a news beat - even though it's probably been years since they have - it's generally the PUBLISHER who has no news experience.

But you are very correct about the news editor.

[CornField]

20. In the past that was true

I was one of those editors who had experience as a journalist on a beat. Today, however, editors are being hired as management, not as news personnel. The overall newsroom has made a move away from experienced journalists to college kids directly out of school as paper's watch their own bottom line more closely than their headlines. Only those souls who do not mind working for peanuts are long-timers at local papers. Area dailies normally have 2-3 old-timers on staff, mainly to help guide the yearling reporters. Editors are members of managment, by and large, and do their duty within the community by attending strategic meetings and joining civic clubs. Publishers rarely live in the places they own newspapers. After all, it is phyiscally impossible to live in 100 different places at once. They rely on their upper management to keep the paper in the black and don't normally interfere unless a large advertiser comes under newsroom scrutiny.

I began as a yearling and worked my way up the ladder to managing editor before I left the rat race to start my own business. It became increasingly evident to me that the powers-that-be don't care how many journalism awards a news staff garners, they care only about the bottom line of the paper. Adding insult to injury, if you do manage to build a paper so that it is working in the black, that particular newspaper does not get to keep those funds. They are placed into a general operating fund which is then split between all the papers owned by the publisher. It becomes, then, close to impossible to reward workers and keep the best people on staff. Regional papers often cherry pick the best journalists, designers and ad people from the local papers... national papers cherry pick from the regionals. The employees, when confronted with an extra $200-$300 per week, would be ignorant not to accept the offers.

[Little Star]

13. These reporters seem to have

developed 'selective reporting amnesia'. This disease has been around for a long time but it is now mutating at a rapid speed.

14. CEO of Time-Warner, Richard Parsons, worked in White House

same time as Dick Cheney

It took me 2 seconds to find this tidbit.

Dick Cheney -
When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, Mr. Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.

Richard D. Parsons -
Chairman of the Board and CEO, Time Warner Inc.
Director at Citigroup Inc.
FINANCIAL / MONEY CENTER BANKS
Director since 1996

Chairman, Time Warner Inc. - 2003 to present; General Counsel and Associate Director, Domestic Council, White House - 1975 to 1977; Deputy Counsel to the Vice President, Office of the Vice President of the United States - 1975

[H2O Man]

16. Small world.

Very small, indeed.

[Me.]

21. I'll Give The Small World A Kick n/t

[leveymg]

22. He's one of the faceless suits I was talking about above, the guys who

really set editorial policy -- they can and do hire and fire the senior editors.

Note the timing of his appointment as Chair at Time-Warner. This might explain why Rover thought he could count on TIME reporters to spread the WHIG line about Wilson and Plame.

23. What does someone who

runs financial institutions have to do with newspapers and magazines - simply money. I haven't read Time in a long long time anyway. I hope they feel some repercussions for this this un-professionalism.

[leveymg]

28. The production of news is just a cost center to these guys. Media is a

business, like any other, that is played by a set of rules that is in large part dictated by the prevailing institutional politics of the day. Go along to get along, and don't offend the advertisers and the bankers on the Board of Directors. Guess who's on the Board of Directors of The "liberal" New York Times since mid-2001? William E. Kennard of the Carlyle Group. Yes, that Carlyle Group:

http://www.nytco.com/company-directors-wekennard.html

William E. Kennard

Board of Directors

William E. Kennard was elected to the Board of Directors of The New York Times Company in 2001.

Mr. Kennard joined The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, in May 2001 as a managing director in the global telecommunications and media group. Before joining The Carlyle Group, Mr. Kennard served as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from November 1997 to January 2001.

Mr. Kennard served as the FCC's general counsel from December 1993 to November 1997. Before serving in the government, Mr. Kennard was a partner and a member of the board of directors of the law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand.

Mr. Kennard is also a member of the board of directors of Nextel Communications, Inc. and Dex Media, Inc.

Committee Memberships: Nominating & Governance (Chairman) and Finance


Board Members
http://www.nytco.com/company-directors.html

Director
John F. Akers - Mr. Akers also serves on the boards of W.R. Grace & Co., Hallmark Cards, Inc., PepsiCo, Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., ex-IBM
Director
Brenda C. Barnes - Sarah Lee, Staples, ex-PepsiCo, ex-Coca Cola N.A.
Director
Raul E. Cesan - Commercial Worldwide LLC (investment banking), ex Schering-Plough Corporation (pharma)
Director
Lynn G. Dolnick
Director
Michael Golden
Vice Chairman, The New York Times Company
Publisher, International Herald Tribune
William E. Kennard
Director
James M. Kilts
Director
David E. Liddle
Director
Ellen R. Marram
Director
Thomas Middelhoff
Director
Janet L. Robinson
President and Chief Executive Officer
Henry B. Schacht
Director
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Chairman, The New York Times Company
Publisher, The New York Times
Cathy J. Sulzberger
Director
Doreen A. Toben
Director

[KoKo]

24. It seems to be a "collapse of American Journalism" by our best known

"Newspapers of Record." A Journalistic Food Fight...where every day we see NYT's/WaPo and Time,Inc. etc...joining in on a "FOOD FIGHT."

H20 Man....I look at it as a huge Newspaper Implosion...where the fight will be over the "Young Turks/New Turks" on the Internet along with the "oldies" who got thrown out long ago because their reporting was too "radical" for the M$M and that this "ALLIANCE" could be very good if our "reticent" Dems could EVER take advantage of this "Food Fight" and bring "Honesty and Truth in Reporting" back to American Journalism.

Ain't gonna' happen as long as these reporters have all their family members in DC on the DOLE...for payouts...but there's always hope that there are some "Young Turks" without "Family Ties" who will carry us forward. :shrug: I have to hope...that there is ALWAYS SOME HOPE out there....no matter how bad it gets.

[Octafish]

25. Half of them don't know "Who" is. They probably think they're CIA.

After Dallas, LBJ, McCone and Hoover let on that the Soviets were suspected in the killing of President Kennedy. They asked the more inquisitive members of the press -- the ones who weren't following the lone-nut trail -- to lay off. Their reasoning was that the nation could be plunged into a nuclear holocaust World War III thing if the public started to demand vengeance. They also used this canard with Chief Justice Warren and other civic leaders who wondered just WTF Hoover et al were feeding them. In today's spook-driven world, we have evidence of much the same kind of thing at work: Onions and Russian dolls and riddles wrapped inside of morons. Who's in charge? Well, certain global e-leets have done quite well since 1963.

Speaking of cluster pucks: Bulldog Jeff Gannon was hired to do some kind of work in the White House press corpse, pitching the softball when given the sign. Plus he worked the late shift in service of his, um, pretzledent. Ride 'em, cowboy.

BTW: Here's an online version of "Farewell America."

http://www.jfk-online.com/farewell00.html

Hint: It's just the right thing to download at work,
where you can use the corporation's copier.

It's also a good thing to download onto your computer in order to make name searches, etc.

[H2O Man]

26. It is a valuable read.

I highly recommend it, and that you for the link.

[im10ashus]

27. Who are they reporting to?

I am just going to pose that the the American people, and anyone who bothers to read their words, should be on the receiving end of that loyalty. That's just my opinion.

If I had to guess, I would venture to say they were reporting to whomever they felt most "loyal" at that time.

Miller? I for one have the suspicion she was loyal to Rove and Libby. That just seems too apparent to not be true. She has also been quite loyal to Chalabi, as he was providing her with "information" we know to be false. Here's an article I have kept bookmarked for some time:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html

Woodward? I am becoming more convinced that his loyalty was to Bush. It's just my instinct speaking on that point. He did happen to writing a book at the time and was a big enough whore to let that be his excuse. He didn't want to miss his deadline, or something like that, heaven forbid.

Novak? Luskin seems to be the one to whom she is proving loyal. Her contrition only seems to be contrived simply because she was caught.