dagblog - Comments for "A First Look at NewCo’s structure"

"Before the year ends, I

A Guy Called LULU — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 12:19:22 +0000

In reply to A First Look at NewCo’s structure

"Before the year ends, I wanted to capture a few points that stand out for me about what is unquestionably the biggest news story of 2013." Jay Rosen

http://pressthink.org/

Advocacy journalism does not

Anonymous kgb — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 18:12:22 +0000

In reply to For me, this statement does

Advocacy journalism does not mean what you think it means.

Going on someone else's TV show, being asked direct questions and answering honestly that he sees Snowden as a legitimately motivated whistleblower and has personal gratitude for his sacrifice (among a big long list of other whistle-blowers Greenwald also respects) literally has *nothing* to do with the journalism Greenwald has been producing. In this case he's directly responding to what can only be described as lowbrow character smears pointed directly at his own professional ethics with the classic one-off "Others have said you are a complete piece of shit. Why aren't they totally correct?" Ironically, a journalist who has the opportunity to interview a newsmaker with access to as much information as Greenwald currently holds electing to use their platform as conduit to articulate un-sourced character assassination is the dictionary definition of advocacy journalism.

Greenwald has absolutely done a small handful of opinion pieces occasionally weighing in on the political media's most-widly-covered aspect of the disclosures - "Sowden: criminal, narcissist, or traitor? Our panel of NSA-owned shills and partisan fanboys answer this important question." But compared to the barrels of digital ink all other journalists have spewed forth on the disclosures of Edward Snowden, his body of work has a very, very low ratio of articles in the "Character assassination/defense of Snowden-as-personality" genre.

In short, all of the "journalists" who never seem to publish a single story presenting new facts about the behavior of those leveraging the power of our state but somehow manage to offer daily opinions on how Snowden should go to jail, or get the Peace Prize, or be Time "man of the year", or maybe strung up from a big oak tree? All of those folks produce 100% advocacy journalism. Publishing fact-based in-depth expose after fact-based in-depth expose of explicitly documented and previously unknown government behavior is just simple journalism. Feeling one's source to be an honorable human doesn't change the nature of the work.

Snowden selected Greenwald to handle the documents because of Greenwald's long-held uncompromising approach to challenging security-state abuses and speaking out against the administration's war on whistleblowers. This likely happened because Snowden does not appear to be dumb-ass. I think the most shocking thing the saga has exposed - as far as journalistic integrity among various media figures goes - is how few "journalists" out there remain who legitimately value the window whistleblowers provide into the workings of government. There used to be a time when journalism as a profession advocated the protection whistleblowers and loudly celebrated their actions. Not anymore, apparently.

So it's nice to think there will be one outlet that is fully funded and moves outside the long-corrupted legacy institutions to provide a platform for actual journalism. Based on the innovative business structure, I'd say the project is definitely off to a good start.

I was speaking generally

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 16:05:53 +0000

In reply to Good synopsis. From what I've

I was speaking generally about journalism and NewCo's place in it. I don't have any beef against Greenwald, but I consider him more of a commentator than a journalist. That's admittedly a vague distinction, and broadly speaking, all commentators are journalists, but I don't hold commentators to the same standard as reporters. They have more leeway to draw aggressive interpretations.

Right, Woodward & Bernstein

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 07:47:12 +0000

In reply to Maybe "the truth" is

Right, Woodward & Bernstein shouldn't have gotten too close to Deep Throat, and Judie Woodward shouldn't have gotten too close to Curveball and Scooter Libby.

You ignore an industry that regularly takes White House and Pentagon press releases at face value, who thought it more important to be patriotic than to pound hard on lies going into Iraq (Fred Hiatt at WaPo as a high profile one?), the piss poor prospects in Afghanistan, or the ever expanding surveillance state. Better to get a spot at the White House easter egg roll.

Sure, don't become a fanboi of your source, but at the same time, where has Greenwald defended every single thing Snowden has done in every single way, vs. an overarching consistent defense of the value of what Snowden did and the avenue he took?

People seem to want this mushy "oh, maybe Snowden should have followed the rules, it's hard to say" hand-wringing, followed with a "oh, what the government's doing isn't all so bad - only metadata" (even when steadily released tidbits since divulge that it's not just metadata, and it's much worse than even Senators thought).

In short, people are already whinging at the possibility that Greenwald might be captured by his position, but we've got a completely dysfunctional press corps (Wolf Blitzer? my God, the best we can do?) captured by money and the rules of the game and the path to success. Sure, read other news sources besides just Greenwald. But does anyone making these comments realize as just 1 data point that MEK, until recently listed as a terrorist organization until they bought a dozen high profile shills like Howard Dean, Fran Townsend, Wesley Clark, Ed Rendell, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, Michael Mukasey, Andrew Card, Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, Sen. Torricelli, Michael Hayden, John Bolton, Louis Freeh, journalists Carl Bernstein and Clarence Page, is part of the big drive/propaganda war/Senate vote buying to get us into war with Iran? That these are the "grownups" invited on to Sunday talk shows to be "unbiased" as they demand and fret that Greenwald should be?

Quoting a State Department official, CSM detailed how the scheme works:

"'Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.' . . . The contracts can range up to $100,000 and include several appearances."

This is just 1 example of the important issues Greenwald has covered over the years. Somehow I think people should be more worried about the established mainstream journalists with the crappy track record.

Good synopsis. From what I've

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 07:18:11 +0000

In reply to Every journalist starts from

Good synopsis. From what I've seen, Greenwald has been pretty consistent with interpreting the facts - even if he has a vehement style, sometimes repetitive (is being repetitive over defending the Constitution a sin?).

I'm still waiting for someone to show me where Greenwald is seriously flawed, has made big mistakes he doesn't acknowledge. I think someone pulled out a column from 8 years ago once, and then someone had problems with how he looked at Citizens United. So far, all I get is griping that he's too ferocious - we need a Chris Matthews who can sway with the wind, sound angry but agree with everyone in the end (after a bit of character assassination along the way)

Every journalist starts from

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 05:01:00 +0000

In reply to That is why I emphasized the

Every journalist starts from facts, even the bad ones. It's the interpretations of the facts that get hairy. How hard do you squeeze your facts to make them fit your story? Every journalist does it to an extent, even the good ones, but the hacks do it indiscriminately. On Fox News, for example, they aggressively interpret the facts so as to facilitate their right-wing narratives.

So where will NewCo fall on this spectrum? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

This may be a somewhat

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 01:12:02 +0000

In reply to Maybe "the truth" is

This may be a somewhat special case. Not unique, I'm sure, but unusual, at least and one that rightfully creates a connection between journalist and source.

I can believe Snowden went to Greenwald because he trusted him to get the word out in a responsible way. Greenwald seems to have a great deal of faith in Snowden now but he did not take Snowden on faith in the beginning just because he claimed something to have information that Greenwald would be happy to report and he does not have to take Snowden on faith now, he has the documents. So it is not a matter of defending something that cannot be proven. He does not have to take Snowden's word on something and then pass it along and then build up Snowden to give veracity to the claim so as to save his own reputation.

That is why I emphasized the

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:48:04 +0000

In reply to It depends on the degree of

That is why I emphasized the word "journalism" as shortcut for getting the facts right. If he says that Snowden did A and B and C and that that makes him a hero, then I think the first obligation is that he be honest and correct about whether Snowden did, in fact, do A, B, and C. If he does that I will think he earned the right to throw in some opinion. I am glad if he expounds, for instance, on the risks it took to do ABC and connects ABC to other things and suggests the problems or dangers or illegalities or other ramifications of those things happening.

But all those opinions need

Anonymous PS — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:07:10 +0000

In reply to It depends on the degree of

But all those opinions need to have multiple tethers to facts that can be compared among people of varying views.

They can't just have opinions; they need to be able to show that their opinions are based on a strong array of compelling facts.

Maybe "the truth" is

Anonymous PS — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:04:37 +0000

In reply to A First Look at NewCo’s structure

Maybe "the truth" is impossible to know.

Too many truths; too many points of view; too little information about all the players and events in almost all complex situations.

But I'd like journalists to be advocates for the truth to the degree that that's possible.

Though most people like to have their opinions validated--even if they're not necessarily true--I do think many people have a grudging admiration for an honest, non-petty, non-gotcha approach to getting at the truth.

If PO and GG can do that, then great.

I agree with AA, however, that the article she posts doesn't show GG in the best light in this regard. Journalists shouldn't get too close in the sense of "committed to" their subjects, whether they be Snowden or Obama. Their task is different, and it's kind of lonely.