Days after Cronkite Passes with Little Notice from CBS, Rather Gets Discovery

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One of the indignities of Walter Cronkite’s death on Friday was that CBS ignored his passing in favor of their regular crappy Friday night lineup. The many big names whom Cronkite had mentored instead appeared on the cable news shows to give Cronkite a proper tribute. And as reporter after reporter described Cronkite being cut from CBS, I couldn’t help but wish that Dan Rather (who of course was on the cable news paying tribute to Cronkite as well) would get discovery in his suit against CBS.

Today, the Judge in Rather’s suit ordered CBS to give Rather 3,000 documents.

Dan Rather won significant victories Tuesday in his suit against his former network, CBS. He won access to more than 3,000 documents that his lawyer said were expected to reveal evidence that CBS had tried to influence the outcome of a panel that investigated his much-debated “60 Minutes” report about former President George W. Bush’s military record.

Mr. Rather also won an appeal to restore a fraud charge against CBS that had been dismissed. Martin Gold, the lawyer representing the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” called it “a very successful day for us; we got everything.”

Mr. Rather called it a “good day” for his side and — referring to the name for the CBS headquarters — “a bad day for Black Rock.”

Jim Quinn, the lawyer representing CBS, called it “a minor skirmish in a long battle” and predicted that the fraud charge would be dismissed again because “it’s frivolous.”

CBS’ lawyer can scoff all he wants–the big point here was always to get discovery. Among other documents, Rather will get emails between CBS’s panel investigating Rather and the law firm CBS paid to investigate the TANG story, drafts of the investigative panel’s report, and separation agreements of a bunch of CBS employees who were silenced when they left the network.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic that these documents will reveal how CBS caved for the Bush Administration and in so doing sacrificed Rather. But it all does feel like CBS’s bad karma is catching up to it.

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Meet the Press STILL Lets Guests “Control the Message”

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picture-117.pngCathie Martin’s testimony of how she strategized a response to Joe Wilson’s July 6, 2003 op-ed was one of the most visibly discomfiting moments of the Scooter Libby trial for those in the media room. After all, Martin was revealing how easily the DC press allowed itself to be manipulated by those in power. Along with describing which reporters they were dealing which kinds of stories to and how reporters tended to be more compliant when you told them they were getting an exclusive, Martin explained that the White House controlled the message when Cheney went on Meet the Press.

Fitzgerald: Focusing on the language in the black where it says options, can you run down the four options and describe what they refer to in these notes and what you discussed with Mr. Libby?

Martin: Sure.  First note M.T.P., which is Meet The Press, dash VP.  So this was my discussion about possibly putting the Vice President on Meet The Press that Sunday to give a fuller discussion of the whole picture.

Fitzgerald: On the right you have another reference to M.T.P.  Can you describe what that is?

Martin: I think I walked, this is me walking through the pros and cons of putting the Vice President on Meet The Press. And I wrote underneath pros, best.  This is our best format, and he’s our best person on Meet The Press.  Two, we control the message a little bit more.  It was good for our — for us to be able to tell our story. [my emphasis]

TPMM has been wading through the latest document dump of Mark Sanford’s office’s emails released by the Charleston Post and Courier.  And they’ve discovered that David Gregory has continued the Meet the Press approach to letting guests control the message. 

But Gregory’s emails, in particular, make clear just what a get Sanford was seen as, and how far the networks were willing to go in promising a safe landing place for the governor.

Gregory’s first email to Sawyer was sent at 12:24 p.m. on Wednesday June 24 — that is, after Sanford had admitted to The State that he had actually been in Argentina, but before the famed stream-of-consciousness press conference where he admitted to an affair. Gregory wrote:

Hey Joel …

Left you a message. Read more →

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Chuck Todd’s Law

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Aside from MSNBC’s squeamishness about blow jobs (but not about torture or the murder of teenagers or slobbering racism), here’s why, according to Chuck Todd, we cannot have an investigation of the crimes Dick Cheney committed.

  1. "I have a couple of roles as a journalist. Of course, number one is to hold government officials accountable, but also report on what they’re trying to do, what the motivations are behind what they’re trying to do, why they’re doing certain things"
  2. "This issue, whenever you see the words Cheney and intelligence pop up, and when I use the phrase ‘cable catnip’, it is when something becomes, when something becomes, whether the two polarized parts of our political society, are very entrenched in their views on this, and believe the other side is completely irrational on it. And so, that’s, whenever you have an issue like that, that’s what I describe as ‘cable catnip’. Because it becomes something that is easy to put on television, because you can find a left versus right, which is something that cable embraces to a fault"
  3. "If you could also guarantee me, that this wouldn’t become a show trial, and wouldn’t be put, and created so that we had nightly debates about it, [prosecution] is the ideal way to handle this … if you could guarantee me that we could keep this debate off of television"
  4. "We know it’s going to turn into a political trial. I’ll take that back – we don’t know whether it’s going to turn into a political trial. That is the experience of how these things have worked in the past, that end up getting turned into a political trial"

That is, we can’t hold Dick Cheney accountable for his crimes because the media–including Todd himself–is incapable of reporting the story as anything but a partisan story (in spite of the fact that–Glenn points out–there is bipartisan support for a torture prosecution), which guarantees that any investigation would turn into a show trial.

But it’s even stupider than that. Todd says we shouldn’t investigate the past administration becaues if we do the rest of the world might think we’re a banana republic (as if decorum and not rule of law is the example the US wants to set for the rest of the world). For Todd, it’s enough that we punish Administrations through the ballot box–but of course, we didn’t punish Bush in 2004 after he started an illegal war, and by the time 2008 rolled around, Bush was term-limited and Cheney was not on the ballot, so we have not, in fact, punished the criminals at the ballot box.

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Ceci Connolly’s Pay2Play Puff Piece

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The WaPo just doesn’t get it, I guess. Just days after it was revealed that Ceci Connolly was the "Play" in the WaPo’s Pay2Play dinners, she’s out with an article based in significant part on quotes from those invited to the Pay2Play dinner.

There’s Nancy-Ann DeParle, who was invited to the dinner.

Early on, Obama and health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle discussed the parallels with Johnson and creation of the health program that serves 45 million seniors and people with disabilities today. Just as Johnson gave legendary lawmaker Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.) latitude to craft the Medicare bill, Obama has asked Congress to write the health-care revamp legislation. 

[snip]

In private meetings or phone calls with legislators, Obama "has an easy familiarity," said DeParle, who often joins the sessions. "He has a way of getting right to the heart of the matter. He’s pushing and prodding and giving no ground."

When the president leans back in his chair, flashing a broad smile, "he is very persuasive," she said. After he listens to lawmakers’ concerns, he often replies: "There’s no reason to delay."

As a reminder of the blueprint they have settled on, DeParle keeps a Johnson quotation under glass on her desk, just above the keyboard. It reads: "There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption."

There’s Olympia Snowe, who was invited to the dinner.

Obama has lavished attention on moderate GOP senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), who provide the seal of bipartisanship he covets. His message to Snowe, like many others, is that "this is his highest domestic priority, and he wants to get it accomplished and done this year," she said. "I indicated to him it was important to be flexible on the time frame and on trying to draft the substance of legislative policy."

Snowe and Rockefeller praised Obama for his deference to the legislative branch, but both signaled he may soon have to wade into the messier details of the bill.

"At some point, the president’s going to have to play a pivotal role in shaping what happens," Snowe said. "It is crucial."

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Joe Lockhart Wanted to Say Blow Job

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In 2007, I was on a panel with Joe Lockhart and Todd Purdum to talk about political news. We talked a lot about how the press’ insistence on covering the Lewinsky scandal–when the bulk of the country was pretty happy with the President regardless of who had given him a blow job–led to the crisis of legitimacy that let blogs arise. (To say nothing of the press’ coverage heading into the Iraq War.)

Purdum, interestingly enough, maintained that "everyone" knew Clinton was a liar, which is why they covered the Lewinsky scandal so breathlessly. When I asked who "everyone" included, he realized he meant just he and his friends on the bus, that the apparent consensus among those on the bus was never really communicated or proven to the rest of us.

At one point I said, sort of in Lockhart’s direction, that they should have just said, "It was a consensual blow job, let’s move on" and that might have ended the issue. [see 49:00 to 51:45]

Marcy Wheeler: So, finally you get to the point where, yes, Clinton did not, was not completely forthcoming about a consensual blow job. The other thing that I think could have happened is that a lot of people said but, fundamentally what happened was a consensual blow job between consenting adults. I think it’s between Bill and Hillary and Monica Lewinsky. And again, that didn’t happen. So those are three things that might have short-circuited the story.

Joe Lockhart: I will say this. I spent two and a half years with great discipline not once using that phrase, and you won’t get it out of me today. I think it, I agree with you, but it’s just, it’s a mental block. You have no idea how many times I wanted to say exactly that from behind the podium. It’s just a goddamn [grimaces face]. I completely agree with that.

I wasn’t really imagining the White House Spokesman saying blow job when I said this–just someone. Some prominent surrogate to go out there to say blow job blow job blow job.

It never happened.

And the DC press corps, I think, is apparently still horrified by the possibility that you can just say it, like that, blow job, and in doing so, expose it for all its tawdry but ultimately minor import. Perhaps just saying it like that would break the spell they were under for two Read more →

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Ceci Connolly Was the “Play” in the WaPo’s Pay2Play Dinner

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Close to the end of OmbudAndy’s long assessment of his paper’s Pay2Play scandal, he includes this tidbit:

Brauchli conferred with Pelton about the salon dinners. At one point they showed up at the newsroom desk of reporter Ceci Connolly, who covers health care, which was to be the discussion topic of the July 21 dinner. Subsequently, she said, "Charles asked me for some contact phone numbers and e-mails, which I provided."

[snip]

On June 17, another Word document was provided by Pelton to The Post’s advertising staff soliciting a $25,000 sponsorship — "Maximum of two sponsors" — for the July dinner. Under "Hosts and Discussion Leaders," it listed Weymouth, Brauchli and "Other Washington Post health care editorial and reporting staff." It said participants could "Interact with core players in an off-the-record format."

A week later, the flier was distributed to the ad sales staff.

At the same time, e-mails were being sent over Weymouth’s name to lawmakers and others inviting them to the July 21 dinner. They said she, Brauchli and "health care reporter Ceci Connolly" were hosting the evening. An accompanying invitation said it would be off the record and noted that it would be underwritten by a single sponsor, Kaiser Permanente. [my emphasis]

Somehow I just knew Ceci Connolly would be involved in this Pay2Play.

That’s because she has spent the last month "reporting" stories that scold progressives for insisting on real reform. There was the article, for example, where she said,

Activists say they are simply pressing for quick delivery of "true health reform," but the intraparty rift runs the risk of alienating centrist Democrats who will be needed to pass a bill. 

And falsely claimed Adam Green could offer no reason for a public option. Problem is–that’s not what she asked him.

Connolly then asked me why progressives were picking a political fight on the public option, as opposed to another issue. I guess the fact that it’s the #1 domestic issue of the day — one that affects millions of American families — wasn’t explanation enough.

I figured she was looking for a quote summarizing the political stakes, so I though for a moment and said, "The public option has become a proxy for the question of whether Democrats will stand on principle and represent their constituents."

I was quite proud of that answer. Read more →

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Shorter the Republican-Funded, Right-Leaning Politico

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Shorter Michael Calderone: "Nico Pitney asked the hardest question at a press conference and Dan Froomkin has been one of the loudest voices calling out Obama for flip-flopping on his campaign promises. Ergo, the HuffPo must be in the tank for Obama."

Liberal bloggers came to a quick verdict on the Huffington Post’s announcement Tuesday that it was hiring Dan Froomkin, the recently fired Washington Post blogger who made a name for himself criticizing former president George W. Bush: Old media’s loss is new media’s gain.

Coming after the recent Beltway debate over coordination between Huffington Post’s senior news editor, Nico Pitney, and the White House over a question about Iran at a recent presidential news conference as well as President Obama’s decision to call on another Huffington Post reporter at his first White House press conference, the choice of Froomkin to oversee reporters as Washington bureau chief seemed to solidify the site’s identity as a progressive voice heavily invested in Obama’s success.

They’ve got some really funny mirrors over at the Politico, because they apparently can’t see themselves very clearly over there.

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Froomkin Hired by HuffPo

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So the WaPo wanted to silence Dan Froomkin. And instead, their stupid decision has led to Dan Froomkin getting hired by an outlet with greater online circulation than them.

From Glenn Greenwald:

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.  Froomkin will oversee a staff of four reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post’s Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page.  I learned last night of the hiring and spoke to both Arianna Huffington and Froomkin this morning.

[snip]

Huffington says that it is Froomkin’s views on the media that, for her, is his primary appeal.  The key to vibrant, successful journalism, she said, is "getting away from the notion that truth is found by splitting the difference between the two sides, that there is always truth to both sides."  Huffington argues that establishment journalism is failing due to "the idea that good journalism is about presenting both side without a voice — without any passion."  The outlets that continue to adhere to that "obsolete" model "are paying a price."  Froomkin — who has written extensively about how passion-free, "both-sides-are-right" journalism is the primary affliction of the profession — echoes that view:  "The key challenge is to present an alternative to the ‘splitting the difference’ culture that has infested traditional media."  

I guess Arianna has none of the fears of criticism that the WaPo has–and knows how to bring in the page views.

Congrats to both the HuffPo and to Froomkin. 

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WaPo Finally Begins to Admit Pay2Play Details

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The WaPo is finally beginning to reveal the true details of the pay to play dinner Katharine Weymouth was throwing. Surprise surprise, the dinner was pretty far down the road of selling access to their pay to play event.

But while Post executives immediately disowned the flier’s characterization, senior managers had already approved major details of the first dinner. They had agreed, for example, that the dinner would include the participation of Brauchli and at least one Post reporter, that the event would be off the record, that it would feature a wide-ranging guest list of people involved in reforming health care, and that it would have sponsorship.

Some members of the newsroom raised objections about attending an event at Weymouth’s house. No change in plans was made.

The only unresolved question was whether the first event would have multiple sponsors or a single one. Brauchli and Weymouth have said they preferred multiple sponsors, to dilute the influence of any particular sponsor. Yet when Weymouth’s office sent out e-mail invitations to the event early last week, only one sponsor, Kaiser Permanente, was listed. (Kaiser officials have said they had not decided whether to participate.)

The WaPo is doing two self-investigations to figure out how this happened. But don’t worry. Even after they discover that the dinner was planned long before current scapegoat Charles Pelton got hired, and therefore someone like Weymouth is the responsible party, they’re just looking forward.

The review, along with a parallel inquiry by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and Senior Editor Milton Coleman, are aimed at avoiding another episode that could damage the paper’s reputation.

"We think we know what happened, but we want to know if there were any details we missed or if there was something we overlooked," Weymouth said in an interview. "If any of our business practices aren’t clear, we’ll amend them."

This all feels so DC.

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Weymouth STILL Doesn’t Renounce Pay2Play

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Katharine Weymouth has a letter to readers apologizing for the Pay2Play dinner she had scheduled for her home. But it is a muddled mess. She apologizes repeatedly–which seems to me an admission of wrong-doing.

I want to apologize for a planned new venture that went off track and for any cause we may have given you to doubt our independence and integrity.

[snip]

As publisher it is my job to ensure that we adhere to standards that are consistent with our integrity as a news organization. Last week, I let you, and the organization, down.

[snip]

We all make mistakes and hope to be forgiven for them. I apologize to our readers for the mistakes I made in this case. 

But while she admits the fliers for the Pay2Play dinner suggested the WaPo was selling access, she still stops short of explaining what she really intended.

A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem. Our mistake was to suggest that we would hold and participate in an off-the-record dinner with journalists and power brokers paid for by a sponsor. We will not organize such events. 

In fact, the only thing she seems to renounce in this letter is the off-the-record status promised by the fliers. She assures readers that if journalists attend such Pay2Play soirees, they’ll be able to publish what goes on.

If our reporters were to participate, there would be no limits on what they could ask. They would have full access to participants and be able to use any information or ideas to further their knowledge and understanding of any issues under discussion.

[snip]

Further, any conferences or similar events The Post sponsors will be on the record. 

And while she does say she won’t allow sponsors to pay for access to the WaPo’s writers–she says no such thing about brokering events between lobbyists and politicians.

From the outset, we laid down firm parameters to ensure that these events would be consistent with The Post’s values. Read more →

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