Above the Law, reporting on a speech 9th Circuit Court Chief Judge Alex Kozinski gave at Fordham Law, summarized his argument as, “A New Argument in Favor of Cameras in the Courtroom: Bloggers Suck.”

Now, for the record, I’m all in favor of cameras in the courtroom and have long been, particularly once I discovered that TradMed journalists look for different things at hearings than I do. And particularly today, as I’m deciding whether I have time to get to the closing arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, drink some beers with bmaz, and be back here in time to drive to Syracuse for my mom’s 70th, I’d love the option of sitting at home and streaming the trial (though beers with bmaz might still win the day).

But I wanted to look more closely at the argument Kozinski seems to be making (assuming, of course, that the blogger at Above the Law competently replicated it, because there’s always the possibility he’s just being loud and biased).

Kozinski started his talk by going over some of the arguments he has made before [PDF] in support of cameras (e.g., studies show cameras don’t affect the proceedings, quoting his “old boss” Warren Burger — “People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.”).

It wouldn’t be like the O.J. trial, which decidedly set the cameras-in-the-courtroom movement back. Kozinski advocates stationary cameras that would not zoom in, zoom out, or otherwise overly dramatize the courtroom events. Kozinski acknowledged that if you were to choose between a O.J. media circus or reports from informed journalists like Nina Totenberg or Linda Greenhouse, one might be happy to live without cameras.

But that’s not usually the choice one has. Kozinski pointed to the “long, slow decline of the newspaper industry” and the “rise of a much more diffuse style of coverage” as a major reason why cameras should be brought into courtrooms. Increasingly, the public is relying on “pseudo-journalists” (aka bloggers) for their instantaneous legal news.

“On the Internet, the loudest voice gets the most attention,” said Kozinski, who said that tends to lead to a distortion of the coverage of a case. He also raised the risks of relying on unknown bloggers, pointing to the case of “Dr. Flea.”

[snip]

“The days of obscurity for judges and reliable, informed journalists are gone and gone forever,” said Kozinski. “If courts don’t change with the times, change will be forced upon them.”

Kozinski’s arguing, apparently, that we need cameras in the courtroom because trials are no longer covered with the skill that Nina Totenberg and Linda Greenhouse bring to their work. Furthermore, Kozinski seems to be arguing, the public is fooled into following “loud” chroniclers of trials, rather than competent ones. And, it seems, Kozinski believes readers (the blogger here doesn’t specify what kind of reader) risk … something … if they rely on pseudonymous bloggers.

As some of you no doubt recall, a blog named “FireDogLake” actually once covered a trial–the Scooter Libby trial–also covered by Nina Totenberg. FDL’s coverage was undoubtedly biased and at times even delved into heavy snark (since then, in fact, one of the bloggers has developed a bit of a reputation for a potty mouth). Nevertheless, FDL’s liveblog–written under the pseudonyms “emptywheel,” “Swopa,” and “Pachacutec”– became the standard “instantaneous” news from the trial. Two of the TradMed journalists in the courtroom–including one whose beat was the Court–followed the stream, not to mention an unknown number of journalists who chose to stay away from the court house and follow along the thread. The General Counsel for the Washington Post chose to follow FDL’s liveblog, rather than the superb work of Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, because with five reporters testifying in the trial, he needed up-to-the-minute near transcription rather than twice-daily analysis of the events. When it was all said and done, Jay Rosen declared that in most categories of coverage “FDL was tops.” I assume Rosen even considered Nina Totenberg’s coverage of the trial when he said that.

Six months after the trial, at a conference on media coverage of trials, Judge Reggie Walton was asked what it was like having all those loud biased bloggers in his courtroom. Rather than saying they made the trial more unruly–which seemed to be the answer those present at the conference seemed to expect–Walton said that the bloggers were “more thorough” than the TradMed reporters.

Perhaps Judge Kozinski should ask Judge Walton whether bloggers suck?

Or perhaps he should just review the coverage that came out of the trial that raised this whole issue, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, to see whether bloggers suck? FDL’s and Courage Campaign’s coverage of the trial was undoubtedly biased. Many of those live-blogging the trial stand to win a key civil right if the plaintiffs win this trial. But that also meant they knew the trial and the players better than some of the TradMed types covering the trial. And, as happened with the Scooter Libby trial, after cross-checking the FDL, Courage Campaign, and #Prop8 Twitter feeds with their own observation on the trial, a number of TradMed types figured they could stay away and just follow along the liveblogs and Twitter (and get some well-informed analysis along the way).

But the relatively greater quality from the sucky bloggers in these two trials is not, actually, a reflection on the decline of the newspaper industry (though the imperative to forgo live coverage for following our feeds may reflect cost considerations of the declining newspaper industry). Rather, we just came into trials and did something different, something that didn’t fit into the narrowly prescribed genres of the declining newspaper industry. And that different thing–“instantaneous” coverage of a trial, however rough–turned out to have great value to both other journalists and the general public (not to mention the lawyers involved in the trials). Yeah, maybe that entailed “forcing change” on the courts (though both seemed quite happy to have the transparency), but it was all in service of the same goals as Kozinski espouses.

But that’s why blogging should be regarded as a necessary interim step toward cameras in the courtroom, rather than one big reason for their urgent necessity. We already have excellent live coverage of big trials and, if anything, that coverage has served only to focus more attention on the actual arguments in the court room rather than the theatrics that tend to fail when exposed to a wider audience. And, along the way, a big number of citizens learned not only about the judicial process, but also about the arguments made inside that process. As it turned out, that live coverage didn’t bring down the entire judicial system.

The argument should be that bloggers prove that instantaneous coverage of trials won’t hurt the judicial process, not that we have to get cameras because bloggers hurt the process.

Ellen Nakashima has a startling, but I guess unsurprising, article in this morning’s Washington Post on internet giant Google’s new partnership with the NSA:

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The article indicates Google initiated the matter by approaching the NSA after the recent discovery of intrusive attacks by Chinese interests last month, which is interesting in light of the fact Google made a point of publicly stating in 2008 they had never cooperated with the NSA on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Nakashima also notes that NSA is also soliciting involvement of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. You have to wonder exactly what the FBI and DHS are going to lend that NSA cannot if this is truly just technical advice, because neither agency is particularly known for its geeky brilliance with computers. You would have to wonder is this is not a step in the direction of the “cyber protection” program the government has been hinting at initiating for some time now.

More from Nakashima and the Post:

“As a general matter,” NSA spokeswoman Judi Emmel said, “as part of its information-assurance mission, NSA works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associates to ensure the availability of secure tailored solutions for Department of Defense and national security systems customers.”

Despite such precedent, Matthew Aid, an expert on the NSA, said Google’s global reach makes it unique.

“When you rise to the level of Google . . . you’re looking at a company that has taken great pride in its independence,” said Aid, author of “The Secret Sentry,” a history of the NSA. “I’m a little uncomfortable with Google cooperating this closely with the nation’s largest intelligence agency, even if it’s strictly for defensive purposes.”

Mr. Aid isn’t the only one a little uncomfortable with this new spirit of cooperation between the world’s most spooky governmental spy agency and the world’s most ubiquitous information technology and database company. And so the descent down the slippery slope picks up a little more speed.

(Image courtesy of SearchEngineWatch.com, a very nice resource by the way)

In a full throated mea culpa by the New York Times Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, appearing in the Sunday edition, the Times officially describes the critical and material implications that arise when readers are misled by undisclosed interests of sources and authors in their paper of record.

These examples have resulted in five embarrassing editors’ notes in the last two months — two of them last week — each of them saying readers should have been informed of the undisclosed interest. And on Thursday, the standards editor sent Times journalists a memo urging them to be “constantly alert” to the outside interests of expert sources. The cases raised timeless issues for journalists and sources about what readers have a right to know and whose responsibility it is to find it out or disclose it.

That is exactly right. One of the prime examples the Times’ Public Editor bases his proper conclusion on is that of Jonathan Gruber:

Jonathan Gruber, a prominent M.I.T. health economist, wrote an Op-Ed column and was quoted frequently in other Times columns, news articles and blogs on health care reform before it came to light that he had a contract worth nearly $400,000 to analyze health proposals for the Obama administration.

….

Gruber, the health care economist, wrote an Op-Ed column in July supporting an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans. Not long before, he had signed a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to analyze the economic impact of various health care proposals in Congress. He did not tell Op-Ed editors, nor was the contract mentioned on at least 12 other occasions when he was quoted in The Times after he was consulting for the administration. After a blogger reported on Gruber’s government contract on the Daily Kos Web site, Gruber did volunteer it to Steven Greenhouse, a Times reporter interviewing him for an article on the excise tax. Greenhouse said he included the fact in a draft but struck it because the article was too long. Greenhouse said that Gruber’s views on the tax were so well-known that he did not think they would be influenced by a consulting contract. But had he realized how large the contract was, Greenhouse said, “I would have stood up and paid lots more attention.”

While it is nice the Times has admitted its problem with Gruber, and his wantonly serial failure to disclose material facts and appearances of conflict, it is extremely curious and convenient they dodge the most recent, and in many regards most glaring, example of their damage from Gruber’s omissions. Namely, the scurrilous attack on Marcy Wheeler by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, where he petulantly defended his friend and colleague Gruber by tarring Marcy and the entire Firedoglake blog with the statements:

This has led some people, mainly Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake, to question Gruber’s objectivity. ….. What the folks at Firedoglake should ask themselves is this: do you really want to become just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals?

This was an unjustified and unconscionable slash by Mr. Krugman. Both Mr. Krugman and the Times were fully apprised of the complete absence of factual basis for Krugman’s remark; I know, because I wrote a blog post to that effect and personally sent it to Krugman and the Times. I will not reprint the contents of my email forwarding the same to Krugman and the Times, as I indicated in it I would not make it public. Suffice it to say I suggested Mr. Krugman owed Marcy Wheeler a retraction and/or apology. He still does.

But there has been no response from the esteemed Mr. Krugman, and the Times’ Public Editor Hoyt decided to completely, and conveniently, ignore the matter by declining to discuss it. Instead, Mr. Hoyt chose to disingenuously refer as follows:

After a blogger reported on Gruber’s government contract on the Daily Kos Web site….

Actually, there are several terms beyond disingenuous to describe this contemptuous soft sell; but I will leave it there. First off, Mr. Hoyt does not have the decency or professionalism to even name the Daily Kos author he is referring to. Her name is Mcjoan Mr. Hoyt, and she is very good. Secondly, Hoyt willfully refuses to address the individual blogger, Marcy Wheeler, who was responsible (see: here, here, here, here, here, here and here) for fleshing out, over several days, the full extent of Gruber’s disclosure failings and laying the evidentiary foundation for the same. Lastly, of course, Hoyt fails to address the baseless attack his paper, via Paul Krugman, wrongfully made on Marcy Wheeler and Firedoglake.

What Hoyt does make crystal clear though, and provides robust documentation of, is that Jonathan Gruber’s disclosure failings were no “fake scandal”, nor were they in any way analogous to the spurious antics of “right wingers” as Paul Krugman callously alleged. After all, it is right there in the “paper of record”.

I guess avoidance means never having to say you are sorry; but it is a pretty unsavory tact for the New York Times, paper of record and home of “all the news fit to print”. All the news maybe, but certainly not all the truth, honesty and chivalry.

UPDATE: To clarify, and properly so as Marcy points out in a comment, the original reporting of Jonathan Gruber’s contract giving rise to the issue of disclosure came from a blogger by the name of Mote Dai in a comment to Mcjoan’s Daily Kos post on the excise tax Paul Krugman linked to in his article.

I would also like to agree with the sentiment expressed by Professor Foland in his comment:

Krugman has earned the presumption from us that he’s acting in good faith and happens to disagree; and we should honestly try to understand where he’s coming from otherwise we’ll never convince him.

I think that is a more than fair point as to Mr. Krugman’s position on Jonathan Gruber; it is Krugman’s lashing out at Marcy Wheeler, and Firedoglake as an entity, I take issue with. It is in this regard Mr. Krugman painted with an excessively broad, harsh and false brush.

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court entered a stay order halting the live video feed of the groundbreaking Proposition 8 trial to other Federal courthouses as well as the delayed release of video clips from the trial via YouTube. I indicated back then that the history and blinding self interest of the Supreme Court in not allowing the encroachment of video into Federal courts because of the abiding fear it will lead to video in their own hallowed and august courtrooms. God forbid the citizens of the country be able to see what their public servants are doing; and public servants is exactly what Supreme Court Justices, for all their self righteous bluster, are.

Today, in an opinion just released in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, those fears came true.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSBlog summarizes the situation perfectly:

Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked any television broadcast to the general public of the San Francisco federal court challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The stay will remain in effect until the Court rules on a coming appeal challenging the TV order. The Court, chastizing the trial court for attempting “to change its rules at the eleventh hour,” issued an unsigned 17-page opinion. The ruling came out nearly 40 minutes after an earlier temporary order blocking TV had technically expired.

The Court gave the supporters of the Prop 8 ban two options to seek a final order against the television coverage: they could (as they have indicated they would) file a petition for review from the lower courts’ orders), or they could file a petition seeking what is called a “writ of mandamus” — that is, an order from a higher to a lower court to take, or not take, some action. The Court did not indicate whether it would grant review of either approach, although Wednesday’s order was a fairly strong hint that it would.

This spells the end of any hope of video coverage of the Prop 8 trial, whether it be live stream to other Federal courthouses or the delayed release of YouTube segments. It is curious that the Supreme Court is fine with a video feed to other locations in the same courthouse as the trial, but not to other secure Federal courthouses. Again, it must be assumed this is all about insuring that the objecting five pompous justices never have to have their demeanor and conduct seen by the citizens they serve. As I explained in the previous post, the Supreme Court, in Chandler v. Florida, has already admitted it is not about constitutional due process; therefore it is, whether admitted or not, about their vanity and elitism.

When the Supreme Court, in its opinion, says:

We are asked to stay the broadcast of a federal trial. We resolve that question withoiut expession any view on whether such trials shold be broadcast. We instead determine that the broadcast in this case should be stayed because it appears the courts below did not follow the appropriate procedures set forth in federal law before changing their rules to allow such broadcasting. Courts enforce the requirements of procedural regularity on others, and must follow those requirements ourselves.

it sure strikes me that the Court’s basis for finding the Local rule was violated, or inappropriately amended, is strained. At best. Others may differ, but for my money, this has everything to do with the inherent prejudices and fears of the majority Justices.

But we know who dissented, they had the guts to put their names on a written dissent. Justices Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg and Sotomayor. From the well taken dissenting opinion:

The Court today issues an order that will prevent the transmission of proceedings in a nonjury civil case of great public interest to five other federal courthouses located in Seattle, Pasadena, Portland, San Francisco, and Brooklyn. The Court agrees that it can issue this extraordinary legal relief only if (1) there is a fair chance the District Court was wrong about the underlying legal question, (2) that legal question meets this Court’s certiorari standards, (3) refusal of the relief would work “irreparable harm,” (4) the balance of the equities (including, the Court should say, possible harm to the public interest) favors issuance, (5) the party’s right to the relief is “clear and undisputable,” and (6) the “question is of public importance” (or otherwise “peculiarly appropriate” for such action). See ante, at 6–7; Rostker v. Goldberg, 448 U. S., 1306, 1308 (1980) (Brennan, J., in chambers) (stay standard); Cheney v. United States Dist. Court for D. C., 542 U. S. 367, 380 (2004) (noting that mandamus is a “drastic and extraordinary remedy reserved for really extraordinary causes” (internal quotation marks omitted)). This case, in my view, does not satisfy a single one of these standards, let alone all of them. Consequently, I must dissent.

I dissent too; however, I think there are grounds that even the minority Justices are not admitting; i.e. the petulance of their majority colleagues.

Audacity To Hope

Change We Can Believe In

Rule of Law

Accountability

Freedom From Lobbyists and Special Interests

Privacy

Harm From Illegal Surveillance

Constitutional Scholar

Transparency

Predatory Business Practices

Closing Guantanamo

Withdrawing From Iraq and Afghanistan

These are but some of the major buzzwords, issues and concepts Barack Obama based his candidacy and campaign on to convince the American electorate to sweep him in to office. Mr. Obama, however, has gone significantly in the opposite direction on each and every one since taking office. As Frank Rich noted, there is a growing “suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image — a marketing scam…”.

Is there support for this allegation other than anecdotal evidence? Yes, and Micah Sifry has an excellent piece out detailing the basis:

After all, the image of Barack Obama as the candidate of “change”, community organizer, and “hope-monger” (his word), was sold intensively during the campaign. Even after the fact, we were told that his victory represented the empowerment of a bottom-up movement, powered by millions of small donors, grassroots volunteers, local field organizers and the internet.

….

The truth is that Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. And this is the big story of 2009, if you ask me, the meta-story of what did, and didn’t happen, in the first year of Obama’s administration. The people who voted for him weren’t organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests–banks, energy companies, health interests, car-makers, the military-industrial complex–sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting.

….

Should we really surprised that someone with so much early support from Wall Street and wealthy elites overall might not be inclined to throw the money-changers out of the temple?

….

When it came to planning for being in government, it turns out that Plouffe, along with David Axelrod, was a chief advocate for bringing in then Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff. He writes, using a baseball analogy: “Rahm was a five-tool political player: a strategist with deep policy expertise, considerable experience in both the legislative and executive branches, and a demeanor best described as relentless.” (p. 372) Note that nowhere in that vital skill-set is any sense of how to work with the largest volunteer base any presidential campaign has developed in history. Rahm Emanuel came up in politics the old-fashioned way; organizing and empowering ordinary people are the least of his skills.

It is an extremely interesting piece by Sifry, and I recommend a read of the entirety. For those that have not read David Plouffe’s book on the campaign, The Audacity To Win, or one of the other long form reports of the Obama 2008 campaign, Sifry lays open the hollowness of Obama’s “grass roots”. Use em and lose em appears to have been the Obama modus operandi. The American people were desperate for something to latch onto, and Obama and Plouffe gave them a slickly tailored package.

As Digby notes, this line by Sifry really sums it up:

Now, there is a new enthusiasm gap, but it’s no longer in Obama’s favor. That’s because you can’t order volunteers to do anything–you have to motivate them, and Obama’s compromises to almost every powers-that-be are tremendously demotivating.

I think that is exactly right, and the needle in much of the activist base is moving from “demotivated” to downright demoralized and antagonistic. Yet Obama and his administration, notably Rahm Emanuel, indignantly continue to poke sticks in the eyes of the activist base and boast about it; and it is not from necessity, it is from design and pleasure.

Quite frankly, the seeds of this should have been seen coming. I have never forgotten the shudders I felt when I read two interrelated articles by Matt Stoller and David Dayen discussing how, heading into the 2008 general election, Obama was not just benefitting from, but devouring and commandeering broad swaths of Democratic base activist groups and their power, and actively working to marginalize and cripple those that didn’t assimilate into his Borg.

From Stoller:

This isn’t a criticism; again, Obama made his bet that the country isn’t into ideological combat and wants a politics of unity and hope, and he has won at internally. In terms of the ‘Iron Law of Institutions’, the Obama campaign is masterful. From top to bottom, they have destroyed their opponents within the party, stolen out from under them their base, and persuaded a whole set of individuals from blog readers to people in the pews to ignore intermediaries and believe in Barack as a pure vessel of change.

…

All I’ll add is that it’s time to think through the consequences of a party where there is a new chief with massive amounts of power. I’ve been in the wilderness all my political life, as have most of us. The Clintonistas haven’t, and they know what it’s like to be part of the inside crew. We have a leader, and he’s not a partisan and he can now end fractious intraparty fights with a word and/or a nod. His opinion really matters in a way that even Nancy Pelosi’s just did not. He has control of the party apparatus, the grassroots, the money, and the messaging environment. He is also, and this is fundamental, someone that millions of people believe in as a moral force. When you disagree with Obama, you are saying to these people ‘your favorite band sucks’.

And DDay:

There’s nothing shadowy about this – it’s an extension of what the Obama campaign has been doing since he entered the race. He’s building a new Democratic infrastructure, regimenting it under his brand, and enlisting new technologies and more sophisticated voter contacting techniques to turn it from a normal GOTV effort into a lasting movement. The short-term goal is to increase voter turnout by such a degree that Republicans will wither in November, not just from a swamp of cash but a flood of numbers. The long-term goal is to subvert the traditional structures of the Democratic Party since the early 1990s, subvert the nascent structures that the progressive movement has been building since the late 1990s, and build a parallel structure, under his brand, that will become the new power center in American politics. This is tremendous news.

However, despite his calls that change always occurs from the bottom up, these structures are very much being created and controlled from the top down.

Stoller and DDay, although both seemed to have a nagging question or two, both thought that the gathering “Obama Nation” was a good thing and that once he took office the immense consolidated power and organization would, in fact, as Obama was jawing, be used to end the age old grip of corporate money and influence and propel good new and different policies into action. This pie in the sky was directly defied by passages in their own articles though. Not only was Obama consolidating Democratic power to serve only him from the top down, he was taking out people and groups that didn’t step in to his line.

Stoller:

I have heard from several sources that the Obama campaign is sending out signals to donors, specifically at last weekend’s Democracy Alliance convention, to stop giving to outside groups, including America Votes. The campaign also circulated negative press reports about Women’s Voices Women’s Vote, implying voter suppression.

…

He has bypassed Actblue, and will probably end up building in a Congressional slate feature to further party build while keeping control of the data.

…

The campaign has also, despite thousands of interviews with a huge number of outlets, refused to have Obama interact on progressive blogs.

…

I’m also told, though I can’t confirm, that Obama campaign has also subtly encouraged donors to not fund groups like VoteVets and Progressive Media. These groups fall under the ‘same old Washington politics’ which he wants to avoid, a partisan gunslinging contest he explicitly advocates against.

DDay:

But wresting away ALL the power and consolidating it is I think a misunderstanding of how inside and outside groups can be mutually reinforcing and part of a more vibrant cultural and political movement, and how the culture is moving toward more decentralized, more viral, looser networks to organize. Obama’s movement, based on unity and hope, is working because politics is of the moment, a fad, Paris Hilton. To sustain that, you must institutionalize engagement, civic participation, awareness and action, even in a non-horse race year, as a necessary facet of citizenship. And there’s no reason to shut down reinforcing progressive structures that can keep it fun and interesting and vital.

Shutting down Democratic and progressive structures that do not toe his line is exactly what Obama and his right hand man, Rahm Emanuel, have done since the election. As Stoller and DDay noted, they actually started even before the election and accelerated after it. The deal was sealed when, immediately after the election, Obama chose the iron fist of DLC strongman Rahm Emanuel to lead his administration, immediately dumped Howard Dean and began shuttering Dean’s wildly successful fifty state apparatus.

There was only one reason to do that, and it was not to germinate a new grass roots policy force; it was to consolidate power and kill off any other voices and/or authority within the party. As Micah Sifry demonstrated, consolidation and exclusion were always a part of the Obama plan. Almost more disconcerting than Obama’s singular cornering of all the power and movement is his refusal to use it to propel new policies. Not even on healthcare did Obama even attempt to truly energize and mobilize the vaunted Obama network, preferring instead to leave it up to the lobbyists, in the bag Congressmen like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and corporate interests.

This is exactly what has made the progressive campaign and voice of Jane Hamsher, Cenk Uygur, Firedoglake and other awakening progressive movements so critical. It is crystal clear the Obama Presidency is less than it was advertised to be; the only route to correction is through power and action; assertion of independent power is the only thing they will respect and acknowledge. The change will not come through old school Washington politicians beholden to corrupt financial institutions, the insurance lobby and corporate interests. Politicians like Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel.

One of the points I always make when I talk about the failures of traditional media journalism is that they are captive to their sources–and to certain kinds of sources, at that.

Athenae has a typically righteous post about just this topic today, with regards to the Fort Hood tragedy yesterday. And as it happens, it is fund-drive week over at First Draft.

So go over and read the post, part of which appears below. And while you’re there, leave some scratch if you can.

The only part of this Fort Hood business I feel remotely qualified to begin to talk about is the coverage, of which it is impossible to judge the accuracy right now. But on TV people are calling up anyone they can think of, to say anything that pops into their heads, without vetting, without background checking, without any of the vaunted gatekeeping traditional media like to deride bloggers for lacking.

My first daily paper job out of college was in a small city getting ripped apart by gang violence. I’d never covered cops before, and the police reporter was this terrifying news god who knew everything and had sources that made Deep Throat look like Ari Fleischer. I was scared to death I’d get called out to some scene where nobody would talk to me, and I’d end up screwing something up.

So one night I’m confessing this to the copy editor working my meeting story into something recognizable as English, and he tells me something I’ve never forgotten in 12 years. “If you can’t get anyone to talk to just look around and write down everything you see. Everything that’s happening, write it down. That’s the story too.” I’ve gotten a very few great journalism lessons in my life and that was one of them, that this is the job: Write down what you see.

It’s not a lot. It’s not anything I’d ever put above anyone who can swing a hammer. I don’t have a lot of useful skills but I felt for a long time and still feel that we know each other because we are told about each other and that if all you can do is bear witness then you do that. Write down what you see. And tell as many people, as many many people, as you possibly can. It’s a simple job. It’s an impossibly simple job.

But you have to shut the fuck up and get out of your own way to do it, and that’s where most of us slip up at least once. We make it all about us, or about who we know, or what we really think, and not about the experiences of the people involved.

[snip]

The first day, the first hours: Cut out all the analysis, all the nonsense, and just tell us what you see. What you can prove. What you know is real. That’s what we need. That’s the best thing that can be done in this scenario. That’s the only useful thing. That’s what people need the most.

On September 30, several days after news of the WaPo’s new Twitter policy came out, Howie Kurtz tweeted one of his last meta-tweets on the policy, calling for "discretion."

WP has no plans to monitor tweets as far as I know, so there’s no czar in charge. Grownups should just exercise a bit of discretion…

Three tweets later, Howie set off on an obsession the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1998.

Extortion aside, got to be embarrassing for Letterman to admit to sexual affairs with more than one member of his staff.

Three minutes later, Howie revealed that if a story is about infidelity, it must be about Bill Clinton.

How long before TV recycles Letterman’s jokes about Clinton and every other politician who’s had an affair? At least he went to the cops.

But don’t put it beyond Howie to meta-tweet about Letterman.

Weird: I tweeted, Anderson Cooper’s person saw it, seconds later I’m phoning in to CNN on the Letterman affair(s). Talk about Twitter power

Howie reflected an entire minute, then tweeted,

Good thing Obama went on Letterman before this came out. Would have been awwwk-ward.

Howie boasts that his new obsession is more important than the Olympics (or, though he seems blissfully unaware of it, burgeoning negotiations with Iran).

What Olympics? Just did GMA on the Letterman case. It was the lead story. Sex, lies, extortion: Nuthin’ but viewers.

The day the NYT publishes a blockbuster story showing that John Ensign was pushing legislation to keep his cuckold quiet, Howie still thinks Letterman’s scandal is more scandalous.

Prosecutors say CBS producer Joe Halderman cashed the $2-M check in the Letterman extortion plot. That doesn’t look good.

Later that day, Howie’s still apparently unaware that a Senator faces a far more serious sex scandal than Letterman. 

Just finished Letterman stories. Anything else going on in the world? How’d that Olympics thing turn out?

Howie, yucks it up!

Leno tweaks Dave: "If you came here to have sex with a talk show host, you’ve got the wrong studio." Hi-yo!

If the WaPo’s editors were unaware of Howie’s dangerous new obsession, they became aware of it on the 3rd, two days after the obsession first began.

My column on the fallout from Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks http://tinyurl.com/ye6dg2c

And by "obsession," I do mean "obsession."

My column on the David Letterman fiasco and whether his "creepy" behavior will hurt him with his audience. http://bit.ly/1r9sDP

Howie was offended when I said "blowjob" (wishing I had used a euphemism), but he’s okay with talking about "doing interns."

A debate over whether it’s OK for Letterman to do interns. Lisa Bloom, Amy Argetsinger, Ben Mankiewicz and me. http://tinyurl.com/yb8mbde

Howie responds to his critics who question whether or not he has noticed the exploding Ensign scandal.

Letterman not a public official. But amazed that one of my panelists said it’s OK for the boss to do an intern. Didn’t we have that debate?

At this point, you’d be right to question whether society really wants Howie to be the one to judge whether it’s okay to "do an intern" or not.

After a two tweet break from Letterman’s affair, Howie’s back, offering more of his "judgment."

Should Letterman go on Imus and make light of the whole mess? Nah, I didn’t think so.

Yet another response to those asking whether a Senator bribing his staffer is newsworthy.

Edwards, Sanford, Ensign are all big stories, and should be. The Letterman saga doesn’t change that.

And for future reference, the WaPo’s esteemed media "critic" apparently believes 14 tweets, a Sunday show, and one column amount to a "saga." Howie is apparently too focused on Letterman at this point to note that the latter-day Vikings are back in form to avenge the smear on Viking sagas inherent in Howie’s word choice.

Silly Dan Abrams! The WaPo’s CNN’s esteemed media critic wouldn’t say anything like "blow job" or "do an intern" on teevee!!

No. @danielabrams, my panelists didn’t talk about Letterman "doing" the intern. But here on Twitter I call it like it is. 

I’m wondering if Howie was thinking about Clinton again when he selected the verbiage for this particular tweet? Or is he just a little hot and bothered at thinking about little else besides Letterman’s affairs for six (!!!) days straight?

Letterman to offer a full-throated apology tonight. Maybe there were conversations at home.

Howie, now dreaming of shoes.

Just did GMA, Early Show. Said Letterman’s abject apology helped but he has to hope no other shoes drop

This far into Howie’s obsession, it’s unclear whose monologue he’s talking about here.

Wonder how Dave’s wife feels becoming part of monologue about how chilly it is in the house.

In Howie’s most recent installment (as of 2:15 ET, but things change quickly), he is apparently very interested that Letterman has 42% favorability. He’s apparently not at all interested in polls showing Ensign had 31% favorability back in July, before the much more alarming ethical and legal issues became public.

Rasmussen poll: 29% less likely to watch Letterman because of scandal. He has 42-46 fav/unfav. Good thing he’s not running for reelection 

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, all the proof you need that WaPo’s new twitter policy has restored its damaged credibility and answered any questions about the biases and judgment of WaPo’s reporters. 

As one esteemed media critic once said, all you have to do is "exercise a bit of discretion."

Jay Rosen first pointed me to the news that Chuck Schumer is aiming to declare all us DFH bloggers non-journalists before the law.

For citizen journalists, the federal shield law front was looking good for a while.  Although the House of Representatives version of the bill, passed in April, only offered a shield to professional bloggers, the Senate version didn’t differentiate between the pros and the amateurs.  So there was hope that amateur journalists might actually, eventually, get its protection.

No longer though.

Sadly, the Senate Judiciary Committee has followed the path of the House and opted to specify that only a "salaried employee . . . or independent contractor" will be able to invoke the shield, reports the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog.  The amendment, offered by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York, limits the definition of a journalist to one who:

(iii) obtains the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, an entity—

(I) that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means; and

(II) that—

(aa) publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical;

(bb) operates a radio or television broadcast station, network, cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier;

(cc) operates a programming service; or

(dd) operates a news agency or wire service . . . 

This language is in fact more restrictive than its House counterpart, which only limits the shield to those who gather or disseminate news "for a substantial portion of [their] livelihood or for substantial financial gain."  The Judiciary Committee’s "salaried employee . . . or independent contractor" language on its own would be sufficient to deprive most non-traditional journalists of protection.  But the requirement that the hosting entity both disseminate information by electronic means and operate a publishing, broadcasting, or news service of some kind ices it.

So to be a journalist in Chuck Schumer’s eyes, you have to both have a boss (at this point, you generous readers and Jane would count as my boss, but Jane doesn’t have a boss, for example) and that boss’ company must disseminate news on some other medium, in addition to the Toobz. Even free-lance writers or people like IF Stone (in the period when he ran his own newsletter) would be excluded from this definition of journalist.

Now, I’m on the record as a skeptic that this new law is going to work out the way the media thinks. I fear that the national security exemption will mean the law will protect people like Judy Miller mobilizing smears or the Rent-a-Generals spreading propaganda, but not protect Dana Priest or James Risen and their sources.

Still, this move pisses me off because it’s a transparent bid to grant a powerful industry special privileges.

It’s tough to figure which of Schumer’s powerful constituents he’s doing this for. Is it the dying media outlets located in NYC? Is he pushing this stinker for the Administration or DOJ as a way to undercut the power of the blogs? Or is he just listening to the big media lobby in DC?

If you feel like calling to ask, his number is (202) 224-3027.

Howard Kurtz’ plaintive Tweet was the first hint that the authorities were cracking down:

Under new WP guidelines on tweeting, I will now hold forth only on the weather and dessert recipes.

Then came OmbudAndy’s post on the new guidelines–which laid out some, but not all, of the new rules.

The new guidelines address the “perception problem” noted by Narisetti. A key section reads:

“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

Another section reads: “What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account. It is possible to use privacy controls online to limit access to sensitive information. But such controls are only a deterrent, not an absolute insulator. Reality is simple: If you don’t want something to be found online, don’t put it there.”

It continues: “Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything – including photographs or video – that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”

Read his whole post for some background on the kind of "perception problems" driving the guidelines.

Finally, PaidContent posted all the guidelines (which cover only personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, not professional ones–those guidelines will come later). More interesting than the "perception problem" guidelines OmbudAndy highlighted are the corporatist ones.

When using social networking tools for reporting or for our personal lives, we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists. 

[snip]

Personal pages online are no place for the discussion of internal newsroom issues such as sourcing, reporting of stories, decisions to publish or not to publish, personnel matters and untoward personal or professional matters involving our colleagues. The same is true for opinions or information regarding any business activities of The Washington Post Company. Such pages and sites also should not be used to criticize competitors or those who take issue with our journalism or our journalists.

And, perhaps most amazing of all, where a newspaper implies that freedom of speech is a "privilege," not a right.

All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens. 

Or rather, freedom of speech exercised by a corporate media entity is inviolate. Freedom of speech as exercised by a citizen is a mere privilege. 

Now, frankly, the WaPo is no different than any number of corporations cracking down on the speech of their employees. Norv Turner feels the need to fine Antonio Cromartie for telling the world the San Diego Super Chargers keep bombing in the post season because the team feeds their players "nasty food" and, apparently, Katharine Weymouth feels that if one of her editors utters the following wisdom publicly…

We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not, but we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.

… It will reflect badly on the "brand" of her newspaper.

Though I guess if the WaPo were to be associated with that kind of everyday common sense, it would dramatically alter people’s perception of the rag.

Now, like I said, this makes WaPo employees just like the majority of citizens out there whose freedom of speech gets subjugated to their employers brand. The NFL must retain the appearance of fairness and the WaPo must aspire (however unsuccessfully) to the appearance of fairness. 

But it’s funny how much this is about appearance. Only electronic social networks matter to the WaPo, not brick and mortar social networks. Walter Pincus can boast that his chumminess with George Tenet helps his reporting,

Pincus professes to be unbothered — criticism from the left and right just “washes right off,” he says. Nor is he impressed by another charge thrown at him — that his reporting is the result of being too cozy with important people in Washington. Pincus, who is 76 and first started at the Post 43 years ago, is unapologetic about moving in the upper levels of the Washington establishment, serving on boards and socializing with high government officials like Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and former CIA director George Tenet, many of them people he has known for years. 

Weymouth herself can try to replicate the salons of her grandmother … for a fee. And of all of these meatspace relationships have a tangible impact on the WaPo’s reporting. All of these network ties very concretely contribute to WaPo’s fatal–yet unacknowledged–bias, that of the Village. 

Rather than admit and try to manage that bias, though, the WaPo would rather just curtail the free speech of its reporters.

If you haven’t read this righteous post…

 Last week I went to a cookout on the beach here with some old friends (Sausages and seafood, but no cocktail weenies!) Every year they do a cookout, and then a birthday party, and for years I’ve known that one of their guests was Joe Klein. I never mixed it up with him because, after all, well…the opportunity never presented itself and while I’m pretty aggressive in print no one really goes up to someone and picks a quarrel with them, do they?

Or maybe they do. Yes, I guess they do.

Then go read the whole thing. It’s required reading for understanding how Joke Line came to call IF Stone’s grand-daughter (the author of the post) "pathetic."

Just before he called Glenn Greenwald a "thoroughly dishonorable person."