They Fired Froomkin for THIS?!?

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I assume this tripe is the WaPo’s idea of engaging with people who are too hip for Beltway pablum. But Digbydday’s right–this YouTube comes off as pathetic parody.

That said, it deserves condemnation even more for its "journalism" than for its lack of self-consciousness. Here’s the wisdom that Dana Milbank offers on the President.

We have some concerns about the tights, Mr. President. Republicans in Congress are already calling Obama timid for his response to the protests in Iran, and it’s hard to sound like a tough guy when you’re wearing red spandex.

Compare that with this take, from the guy they fired, on the same topic.

President Obama, making his most extensive and personal remarks yet condemning the crushing of dissent by the Iranian regime, also stressed today that it’s not his job to satisfy the 24-hour news cycle, with its rapacious appetite for conflict and ultimatums, but rather to advance the interests of the country on his own clock.

Responding to insistent questioning at today’s press conference from NBC News’s Chuck Todd about why he wouldn’t "spell out the consequences" for the Iranian government, Obama shot back: "We don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out.

"I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I’m not. OK?"

And when CBS News’s Chip Reid recounted criticism from Republicans including former presidential candidate John McCain that Obama had thus far been timid and weak in his comments about Iran, Obama fired back: "You know, I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues. And, you know, I think that all of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail.

"But only I’m the president of the United States. And I’ve got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries."

He added: "I think that in the hothouse of Washington, there may be all kinds of stuff going back and forth in terms of Republican critics versus the administration. That’s not what is relevant to the Iranian people…. They’re trying to figure out how can they make sure justice is served in Iran." [my emphasis]

Both are, essentially, beltway insiders commenting on beltway politicking. One manages to diminish the Iranian crisis into yet another horserace pitting Republicans against the world. And the other refuses that frame entirely Read more →

Politico: “Oh Noes! The Best Reporter on a Subject Got Called on!!!”

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Michael Calderone is way out of line with his article bitching that Nico Pitney got called on at Obama’s press conference today.

In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.

“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”

Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”

[snip]

According to POLITICO’s Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

When I heard, before the presser, that Nico was hoping to pose a question from an Iranian, I knew some beltway idiot would bitch if the HuffPo got a question. I just thought the bitching would come from someone with a more consistent record of being a complete idiot than Calderone.

As to Calderone’s bitching, it’s out of line for several reasons. First, if I knew that Nico was hoping to ask a question from an Iranian, then chances are the people paid to know these things at the White House knew. What better tribute to democracy and free speech could the White House make than to allow this question to be posed to the President?

And, after all, one primary focus of the presser was Iran. There are few who would argue but that Nico’s reporting–his tireless compilation of news coming in from both traditional and citizen media–has been far and away the best minute-to-minute news on the Iranian crisis (to take nothing away from the people offering superb commentary and expertise, which I consider something different). Maybe the Politico’s media reporter has missed it, but Nico’s doing something pretty historic with his reporting on Iran. So even assuming the White House isn’t as up-to-speed as I am, how hard do you think it would have been for them to guess that Nico, who has been living and breathing the Iranian crisis since it started, would ask a question Read more →

Auto Decline Not Bringing Local Media Down–as Much as It Could Have

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Since I elaborated on my auto industry/news industry analogy the other day, I wanted to point to this article describing how the auto industry’s woes haven’t brought down local media as much as it might have. As I’ve been pointing out for some time, auto advertising accounts for a huge chunk of local advertising.

Local traditional media — television, radio and newspapers — are more reliant on automotive advertising than any other medium. In 2008, TV stations got 23 percent of their total advertising from auto, followed by local newspapers at 17 percent and radio stations at 14 percent, according to a Sanford C. Bernstein & Company report released this month.

And the amount of advertising manufacturers, co-op, and individual dealers are buying has declined by numbers that almost match the decline in auto sales.

Local automotive ads come from three sources: Companies like Ford and Toyota take out some ads on local television to promote their new models, in addition to their nationwide ads. Local dealers also pool money, helped out by the corporation, to promote their brand of cars regionally. Then, each dealership takes out television, radio and newspaper ads to list its autos for sale or special discounts.

The ads from automakers — running nationally and locally — fell 19 percent in the first quarter of 2009, compared with a year earlier, according to research firm TNS Media Intelligence. Ads from dealer associations fell 62 percent, while ads from the individual local dealers declined almost 40 percent.

[snip]

Auto advertising in local media declined more than twice as fast as it did in national media in 2008 compared with 2007, according to Bernstein. But it has been so bad already this year that local media managers say they believe they have absorbed much of the pullback in auto advertising.

But the recent further cutbacks associated with the Chrysler and GM bankruptcy have not hit local media still further, largely because the dealers that got closed really weren’t selling that many cars, and because the ones that are left are increasing their advertising. Plus the dealers that shifted into used sales are re-introducing themselves to consumers.

Obviously, the auto industry is so big that it’s linked with everything. That’s particularly true, however, of the auto industry and media. This is an interesting snapshot of how that’s working out.

Journalists and Auto Workers

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For probably perverse reasons, this was my favorite moment in Obama’s speech to the Radio and TV Correspondants Dinner.

Of course, most of my attention has been focused here back home.  As you know, we’ve been working around the clock to repair our major financial institutions and our auto companies.  But you probably wouldn’t understand the concept of troubled industries, working as you do in the radio and television. 

AUDIENCE:  Oooh!

THE PRESIDENT:  Oh — we don’t joke about that, huh?  (Laughter.)  That’s not funny.  (Laughter.)

The similarity between the failed American auto industry and the failing American newspaper and news entertainment industries is really apt. It’s a comparison I made–without getting booed–at a couple of panels a few weeks ago. But it’s a comparison that the elite in the journalism world are not yet ready to face.

The way I see it, both the auto and journalism industries are facing radical structural changes in their industry. For autos, it’s globalization and the need to compete against newer, partly subsidized transplant auto companies. For the journalism industry, it’s the challenge of digital culture, both the rise of Internet competitors and the ability to copy content with little cost.

And both industries want to pretend that’s all that’s going on in their industry–it’s all the fault of these radical changes, the industries themselves are not to blame for their declining fortunes.

Yet, as everyone outside of a few zip codes in MI taunts, it’s actually the really stupid management decisions that have sunk the auto industry. Those taunts are correct, in large part (though the taunters usually have no clue about the structural reasons for those crappy management decisions, and so have no idea how to fix them).

Whereas Athenae–and those of us who read her religiously–seem to be the only ones who want to talk about the chronic, predictable, greedy, absolutely boneheaded decisions of the news industry’s management.

There’s a lot more to be said about the parallels between the dying US auto industry and the dying news industry, not least the arrogance of refusing to listen to your customers’ expressed desire for a quality product.

But back to the President’s flopped joke.

There’s one big difference between the auto industry and the news industry right now.

Aside from some arrogant CEO’s before Congress–only the successful one of whom still has his job–we’re pretty ready to admit that the auto industry needs to change to stay viable. 

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Fox’s Non-Denial Denial

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Loo Hoo linked to this, and it has me laughing, so I thought I’d share. Fox News says it didn’t "receive the letter" that John Ensign’s cuckold sent to them and they didn’t tip off Ensign to it. But that claim all depends on what your definition of "receive" is:

Tom Lowell, senior producer of "America’s Newsroom," hosted by Kelly and Bill Hemmer, says no one at Fox News ever received a printed letter, but that a booker on the show received an email from Hampton with the letter attached on June 15 — the day before the Senator’s press conference.

"We never received any letter from Mr. Hampton," Lowell told the Huffington Post. "He might have sent it, but we never received it. He did reach out to us about 24 hours before the news conference, and he sent an e-mail to a booker on my staff."

Lowell said that a member of his editorial staff followed up with Hampton that day.

"We followed up with him, but he seemed evasive and not credible, thus we didn’t pursue it," he said. "We certainly weren’t going to rush to air with accusations against a sitting Senator without doing due diligence on the reputability of the claims. [my emphasis]

I guess Fox routinely "follows up" on things they claim they haven’t received, huh?

And when they get around to denying that they tipped off Ensign, they limit their denial to the editorial staff of one particular show. 

Lowell also stated emphatically that no one at Fox News reached out to the Senator to alert him about the story.

"I know there are people asking if we alerted the senator," Lowell said. "Definitely no one on our editorial team called anyone in Senator Ensign’s office prior to our announcement. We just hadn’t gotten to that point of confirming the story yet. Somehow, somebody told the Senator something and I don’t know how that happened. [my emphasis]

So at Fox News, its denials that it tipped off a Republican friend all rely on your definition of "received" and "editorial team," but they do agree that somehow Ensign found out about a letter that–they confirm–got emailed to a Fox employee in plenty of time for Ensign to come clean on his affair. 

You know, I originally thought this story was going to be your garden variety Republican adultery and hush money. But it’s beginning to get interesting. 

The Gray Lady Is A Tramp

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Michael Calderone has an article laying out how much the Obama Administration has cozied up to the NYT.

But for all its new media airs, the new White House team remains in the thrall of perhaps the most emblematic old media institution of all.

Senior Obama officials during the transition posed for Times Sunday Magazine portraits and then opened the doors again with top-level access for another major magazine piece this month on health care. Midlevel officials cooperate for Times profiles detailing their key behind-the-scenes roles.

Even routine news stories buried deep inside the A-section of the Times often quote high-level sources speaking both on and off the record.

One part of Obama’s Times fixation is strategy. For all the proliferation of news outlets, Obama aides believe the paper still has an outsize ability to shape perceptions among political elites and other journalists.

To a degree, Calderone has a point. The Obama Administration is happy to pitch big stories to the NYT. And even more disturbingly, the NYT is willing to defer to the Administration on difficult stories. 

Mark my words. Within short order, we will learn that the NYT is showing the deference for Obama as they showed in October 2004, when they delayed the warrantless wiretap story. 

But Jeebus! Calderone is nuts if he believes that the Bush Administration wasn’t, similarly, in bed with the Gray Lady!

In addition to the delay of the warrantless wiretap story–which might well have made the difference in getting Bush re-elected, who can forget Judy Miller?!?!?!?  

With Judy Miller, the Bush White House had a full time mouthpiece at the NYT, with weekly laundered leaks of highly classified (and often, false) information attributed to Senior Administration Officials. And that mouthpiece went on to knowingly shield Scooter Libby–and with him, Dick Cheney–from criminal liability for leaking Valerie Plame’s identity. 

And it’s not like the NYT has given up its habit of sleeping with high-powered types, of both parties.  It was less than a month ago, after all, that the NYT allowed dead-enders to have their way with her front page to claim that 1 in 7 of those released from Gitmo were "recidivists"–just in time to scare the Senate out of funding the closure of Gitmo. Read more →

AP’s Definition of “Unbiased Source of News:” Don’t Criticize the Clients

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Oh boy, I can’t wait until First Draft’s Athenae gets ahold of this.

An AP reporter apparently wrote, on FaceBook, what a lot of bloggers have been saying about big media managers who ruin their companies: that the management ought to be held responsible. But then, one of his FaceBook friends higher up the AP food chain ratted him out, and he got formally reprimanded for the comment. And now the AP suggests that the reporter got reprimanded because his comment might "damage AP’s reputation as an unbiased source of news."

Richard Richtmyer, a Philadelphia-based newsman, set off Tuesday’s tempest with a seemingly harmless comment posted to his Facebook profile late last month criticizing the executive management of newspaper publisher McClatchy, whose stock plummeted following a 2006 acquisition of San Jose-based Knight Ridder.

“It seems like the ones who orchestrated the whole mess should be losing their jobs or getting pushed into smaller quarters,” Richtmyer wrote on May 28. “But they aren’t.”

McClatchy, like countless other newspaper publishers, happens to be a member of the AP’s newsgathering cooperative. Had the comment been uttered in real life, it likely would have dissipated into the rank air of a Philly journo bar. But Richtmyer had some 51 AP colleagues as Facebook friends, some of them higher up in the AP food chain. One turned out to be a “mole” — Richtmyer’s description — and the reporter was given a firm talking-to by AP management, who put a reprimand letter in his employment file.

Paul Colford, a spokesman for New York-based AP, declined in an e-mail to address Richtmyer’s case. But he said that “guidance offered to AP staff is that participation on Twitter and Facebook must conform with AP’s News Values and Principles.” That ethics policy says writers “must be mindful that opinions they express may damage the AP’s reputation as an unbiased source of news. They must refrain from declaring their views on contentious public issues in any public forum.”

Aside from the absurdity that Ron Fournier is still employed at AP, yet management is going after this guy, consider what this says about AP’s understanding of "unbiased."

AP’s management worries that it would be seen as "bias" to suggest that another corporation’s management, having made a crappy business decision, should be held accountable. AP thinks it would be biased to suggest that capitalism is supposed to work the way it’s supposed to work, for managers to be held Read more →

Dan Froomkin: Anachronistic Voices

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I disagree with Atrios’ take on this great Dan Froomkin piece. Here’s Dan:

But we’re hiding much of our newsrooms’ value behind a terribly anachronistic format: voiceless, incremental news stories that neither get much traffic nor make our sites compelling destinations. While the dispassionate, what-happened-yesterday, inverted-pyramid daily news story still has some marginal utility, it’s mostly a throwback at this point — a relic of a daily product delivered on paper to a geographically limited community. (For instance, it’s the daily delivery cycle of our print product that led us to focus on yesterday’s news. And it’s the focus on maximizing newspaper circulation that drove us to create the notion of “objectivity” — thereby removing opinion and voice from news stories — for fear of alienating any segment of potential subscribers.)

The Internet doesn’t work on a daily schedule. But even more importantly, it abhors the absence of voice. There’s a reason why opinion writing tends to dominate the most-read lists on our “news” sites. Indeed, what we’ve seen is that Internet communities tend to form around voices — informed, passionate, authoritative voices in particular. (No one wants to read a bored blogger, I always say.)

Atrios sez:

At this point I’m not sure how much stylistic tweaks matter relative to the structural/technology change and the recession, but it’s nice seeing someone acknowledge that much of what journalists perceive as the standards of their profession, the "objectivity," was a business choice. Journalists are still wedded to this model even if it doesn’t make financial sense anymore in part because they see it as The Way Things Should Be Done rather than something which was done to maximize circulation.

As someone who has done quite a bit of work on how newspapers responded to earlier structural and technological changes, I’d say voice and genre are a critical element of finding a new successful model–they amount to far more than just a stylistic "tweak." That’s true, first of all, because each new technological form has a literacy tied to it, and you can’t speak in a language addressed to one medium’s literacy in another medium and expect to be successful. Things like links, conversational style, and shorthand are all part of the literacy of the net, but newspapers thus far haven’t really tried to speak that language.

Also, people read stuff that sounds like the language they speak. And nobody speaks AP style, not even the Read more →

WaPo’s Partisan Press Release Service

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The front page of the WaPo website features what amounts to a press release from John Boehner, attempting to continue blaming Nancy Pelosi because Dick Cheney tortured.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "ought to either present the evidence or apologize’" in the wake of her comments that CIA officials misled her about the use of controversial interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects.

"Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime," Boehner said yesterday on CNN’s "State of the Union." "And if the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted."

He added: "And if that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world."

The story doesn’t report that two out of three of the other members of Congress who were "briefed" in September 2002 (including the hyper-anal Bob Graham) back Pelosi’s claim. Here’s Graham:

The CIA when I asked them, what were the dates these briefings took place, gave me four dates. And I went back to my spiral notebooks and a daily schedule that I keep and found, and the CIA concurred, that in three of those four dates, there was no briefing held. That raises some questions about the bookkeeping of the CIA. Under the rules of clandestine information, I was prohibited from keeping notes of what was actually said during that briefing other than a brief summation that it had to do with the interrogation of detainees.

And here’s Goss, speaking of the torture techniques prospectively (and therefore revealing that he was not briefed they had already been used, which is precisely what Pelosi has claimed):

the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed

And for good measure, here’s Jello Jay, pointing out that the CIA also got its briefing schedule wrong with him, as they did with Graham.

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Rockefeller to Politico: Read the Damn SSCI Narrative Already!!!

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Jello Jay has finally resorted to explaining things to journalists reeeaaalllly slowly, so they can understand that this passage from the SSCI narrative, produced during Jello Jay’s tenure as Senate Intelligence Chair …

After the change in leadership of the Committee in January of 2003, CIA records indicate that the new Chairman of the Committee was briefed on the CIA’s program in early 2003. Although the new Vice-Chairman did not attend that briefing, it was attended by both the staff director and minority staff director of the Committee. [my emphasis]

… means that the new Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2003, a guy named Jay Rockefeller, maintains he did not attend the briefing that the CIA claims he attended. Spelled out all simple-like so reporters can understand it, Jello Jay’s stance reads like this:

We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document. We can tell you that in the particular entry stating that Senator Rockefeller was briefed on February 4th of 2003 with an asterisk also noting him as later individually briefed — that is not correct, or at least is not being reported correctly by people reading the document. The Democratic staff director attended a briefing on Feb. 4, but Senator Rockefeller was not present and was not later briefed individually by anyone in the intelligence community. He was first personally briefed by the intelligence community on Sept 4th, 2003. [my emphasis]

And these passages from the SSCI narrative…

In May 2004, the CIA’s Inspector General issued a classified special review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, a copy of which was provided to the Committee Chairman and Vice Chairman and staff directors in June of 2004. The classified August 1, 2002, OLC opinion was included as an attachment to the Inspector General’s review. That review included information about the CIA’s use of waterboarding on the three detainees.

[snip]

In July 2004, the CIA briefed the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Committee on the facts and conclusions of the Inspector General special review.

… suggest that Jello Jay first learned the full extent of what we were doing with waterboarding in 2004, when he received the IG report that revealed (among other things) that the CIA wasn’t doing what the OLC memos said it was doing.

Senator Rockefeller has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program’s legality and effectiveness. Read more →