Come on LB, how cynical can you get? He's a lawyer after all, sworn fealty to the rule of law: "First do no injustice" etc. Just like a liberal to interpret everything in terms of partisanship, jeez.
I'm really torn as to whether the NYT or the Washington Post has disgraced itself more over the past decade.
yeah, that might be important...on the other hand, it might not. Highlighting that he's Rove's lawyer, though, would certainly make is seem important, and thus bias the reader.
A difficult call, I think. Wasn't Clinton's lawyer from the impeachment just working for McCain? Choice of political employer may be no guarantee of bias.
2: David Frum says that he trust the Washington Post more than the Times. That leads me to think that the Post is worse.
also, is there any reason to doubt Luskin, appart from his employer? I haven't read anything of that nature. But I wouldn't claim to have been zealously following this story. Mostly avoiding, really.
yes, the paper is getting truly bad. It made me angry today too: that article in Fashion & Style (?!) about the hopes of the middle-class that New York will soon have more reasonable prices, now that Wall Street is taking a hit... except that they frame it as the middle-class wanting to be able to afford fancy dinner reservations, frivolous crap, not the middle class wanting to be able to afford, you know, a home. Or groceries. Or not to be shut out economically from Manhattan.
The Luskin thing is bizarre, too.
to the comments above: but was there any reason to choose Luskin, when there are clearly plenty of other lawyers who could be hired for the job by the NY Times who do not have these background ties?
It does look like Luskin is a "Democrat". However, he did have some ethical problems himself when he accepted payments of over a half million dollars in gold bars from one of his clients.
I'll just say, maybe find another attorney to ask. (on preview mmf beat me to the sentiment.)
mmf: maybe yes, maybe no. I don't know.
hm, "conceivably" would really work better than "maybe" in the above (9).
I'm really torn as to whether the NYT or the Washington Post has disgraced itself more over the past decade.
15 years -- remember the Times pushed the Whitewater scandal. Every journalist's dream, they broke a story that eventually got a President impeached!
On Iraq, the WaPo editorial page was a lot worse than the Times, but the Post news coverage was much, much better than the Times.
Michael, you're overthinking this in a screwed-up kind of way. Luskin may be as honest as the driven snow; he may be a committed liberal democrat, he may be engaged in a secret homosexual relationship with Elliot Spitzer, and be consumed by hatred of the Justice Department for harassing his boyfriend, but nonetheless be too honest not to say what he knows to be the truth. The fact that he's worked for Karl Rove doesn't tell us that he's untrustworthy; we can't see into his soul. All of that is completely true.
But.
If you're trying to determine if an organization has done something unethical, reporting the opinion of someone who works for one of the top policy makers as a neutral outside opinion without disclosing the relationship is still way out of line. Maybe there wasn't anyone with relevant expertise who hadn't worked for an administration official, so Luskin was the best option for an opinion. But if that's the case, they had to report the relationship.
Michael, you're overthinking this in a screwed-up kind of way.
*sigh* The renowned erudition of blogosphere discourse. Can we please agree to just discuss the issue at hand, or not, instead of engaging in personal attacks? I have no patience for those, or interest in participating in a discussion in that kind of environment, for pragmantic reasons.
Anyway, I still don't see it as a black and white decision. You're objecting that Luskin isn't really a neutral observer. Certainly his employer probably hates Spitzer. But, as far as is known, the only parties in this affair are the FBI, the legal peoples, and Spitzer. Karl Rove is not included in that. As much as Rove probably hates Spitzer, why is he relevant here? Yes, I do believe that Rove has used the justice department to go after people. And it's worth checking into here. But reporters aren't supposed to engage in speculation. If there's no evidence to suggest that Rove is involved in this affair, then it's not obviously relevant that a commenter *was* one of his lawyers.
I'm also dubious whether this is a standard that can be applied everywhere. What do journalists look for when they need an opinnion? Luskin was a Rhodes Scholar and later specialized in RICO, which the journalist might have mentioned to give him more credibility.
And, if his work for Rove is relevant because it just might possibly present bias, surely his donations to Democrats are relelvant, too? Those are just as legitimate signs of bias.
The bottom line is that trying to figure out someone's bias can be tricky. And if it's not black-and-white, and it's not in this case, then the journalist probably shouldn't burden the reader with all of the background info.
One underdiscussed aspect of the media is the degree to which they use party hacks and political operatives as sources and commentators. Hacks are knowledgeable, but they can't be good journalists unless they quit being hacks, and very few of them do. A lot of media people were essentially working for Karl Rove during his prime.
The problem is not "point of view" -- a liberal or a conservative can be a good journalist. It's loyalty. A party-line political operative cannot be a good journalist.
It's been going on for decades. Novak, Safire, Will, and Buchanan were all hacks before they went to the editorial pages. None of them ever quit.
SInce about 1984, it's primarily been Republicans who made the switch, and when Democrats did (Estrich, Stephanopolous, Matthews, Russert) they ditched their party loyalty.
TV is the worst. Dick Morris is still a source. Ann Coulter was until recently. Roger Stone. If I spent half an hour I bet I could come up with 20 names, including some who were convicted of crimes.
Can we please agree to just discuss the issue at hand, or not, instead of engaging in personal attacks?
No.
But reporters aren't supposed to engage in speculation.
That's bone dumb. Reporters don't write up speculation as fact, but the kind of speculation involved in thinking "This guy is probably not an objective source" is the meat and potatoes of their job.
As a general rule, reporters should be suspicious of known players, and Luskin is a known player. Which side he's on at a given moment is irrelevant; he normally has a side.
And certainly reporters should label the known players when using them as a source. "Burden the readers" -- that's BS.
Luskin's donations, according to the FEC:
$2300 to Obama
$1000 to Ferraro
$500 to Dick Durbin
$1000 to John Barrow
$750 to Susan Collins, called a "republican in name only"
$250 to brad carson
No donations to George Bush or McCain.
Luskin's donations, according to the FEC:
$2300 to Obama
$1000 to Ferraro
$500 to Dick Durbin
$1000 to John Barrow
$750 to Susan Collins, called a "republican in name only"
$250 to brad carson
No donations to George Bush or McCain.
16. John, arguing that reporters must use judgment, and judgment-speculation, is OF COURSE true. It's *trivially* true. I thought it was a built-in assumption. When I said "speculation" I meant of the sort which I was then discussing. Reporters necessarily have to use sources. They don't necessarily have to, and shouldn't, make connections of political shenanigans when there's no direct evidence.
arguing that in general the state of the media is shoddy and to be despised does not constitute an argument that this particular case is an example of shoddiness to be despised.
They should just say that someone's a player. Luskin is one of the brokers and middleman involved in every DC deal, and he's pretty much always an advocate for someone or something. Knowledgeable but untrustworthy.
to save you all some googling, Barrow and Carson from the above listed donations are Democrats.
I agree with the general case that newspapers under-inform their readers about thier sources, and that we would be better off if they were more rigorous about this matter.
I just don't see this as a particularly bad example. Another reason: although I've been paying little attention to this business, the line Luskin is peddling about the feds needing to puruse such money activity, is one I've already read two previous times that I can recall. I'm sure it was discussed over at TPM. He appears to simply be supporting an already well-supported position.
Rove is certainly connected to this. The question is whether this is a politically motivated hit job similar to Don Siegelman and related to the politicization of the justice department and the firing of USAs for not pursuing politically motivated selective prosecutions. Rove's fingerprints are all over those cases- there's testimony that he bragged about planning to bring down Siegleman and emails connecting him to plans to fire the USAs. You don't get a quote about whether the case is reasonable from the defense attorney for someone who may be indicted in possibly related cases.
Clarification of the first sentence- I don't mean that Rove is necessarily involved in the decision to pursue this case, I mean he's connected in the sense that he's involved in cases with very similar questions as far as their propriety, so you should have a quote from the guy defending him in a similar situation.
Gah, "you shouldn't have a quote from..." I'm banned for having to clarify a clarification.
The Siegelman case probably shouldn't be used as a standard, because it's so far off the chart that it's makes everything else look good. It was very close to a frame-up job, whereas Spitzer, at worst, would be an illegal investigation, an illegal leak, and maybe an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
Michael,
Haven't we sort of gotten past the moral obligation to be "fair" to really really powerful people by not thinking that they have, y'know, biases like everyone else?
Don't you think that LB's point, which is that Luskin's connection with Rove is a fact--which may or may not mean anything, but nonetheless is a fact--is reasonable?
Don't you think that maybe mmf! and Stormcrow are right, and that if you *know* of reasons why someone *might* not give you objective information, it's only sensible to consult someone else?
that if you *know* of reasons why someone *might* not give you objective information, it's only sensible to consult someone else?
If the journalist found credible dissenting views, then there would certainly be responsible to give them air. But I have not yet heard of any dissenting views. So what's the problem? What's being covered up here? As I said above, this seems to be the accepted version of events.
We could be thinking about two different cases. In case A, there's a disputed matter, and a source with ties that, while not directly related to the case, could cause some people to view the source as potentially dishonest. OK, I can see the argument. But I'm not sure this is what we're dealing with. It seems like we have case B, where there's a source who has a disquieting connection, but the source is not commenting on a disputed matter.
Is there a plausible, realistic case to be made that we're really talking about scenario A and not B?
Michael, are you the same Michael that's been commenting here for 5 plus years? If not, please pick a different handle--I'm confused.
So if the NYT ever quotes LB they should provide a list of all the scum she has represented just so the reader will know what sort of person she is? The NYT said he was a defense lawyer which seems sufficient warning he may not be disinterested to me.
And if the NYT is such a bad newspaper how about a list of major papers you think are better?
No need, Shearer. Bad is bad. There are many worse papers in the US, and few or no better ones, but we don't have to renorm and call the Times a good paper.
If LB were a political wheeler and dealer like Luskin, she would not be a good newspaper source. In point of fact, LBs anonymity is precisely because she worked for a dubious organization for a long time, and could not safely express her views under her own name. If I saw a newspaper source saying that "Mr. X of [LB's former firm] says [so and so]", I would expect Mr. X to be identified as the kind of player he is.
Sometimes you're really obtuse, James.
34
"If LB were a political wheeler and dealer like Luskin, she would not be a good newspaper source. ..."
The best sources almost always have (at least potentially) axes to grind. Noting he is a defense lawyer warns the reader he may be negotiating plea deals with these prosecutors now or in the future and be wary of angering them (a more plausible conflict than the Rove business in my opinion).
34
"No need, Shearer. Bad is bad. There are many worse papers in the US, and few or no better ones, but we don't have to renorm and call the Times a good paper."
Fine, but I don't want hear a lot of liberal whining if and when continued bad financial results cause the NYT to be sold to Rupert Murdoch.
Dude, if someone quoted me on the merits of tobacco litigation, they would be absolutely negligent not to note that one of the big tobacco companies had paid my exorbitant salary singlehandedly for a year. That's exactly the point.
But Luskin isn't defending Karl Rove from anything related to Eliot Spitzer. He's defending him on Valerie Plame. Perhaps one can come up with some triple-bank-shot reason why his defending Rove on Valerie Plame makes him an interested party in whether the investigation of Eliot Spitzer was normal process, but that's what it would be: a triple bank shot reason. If this is journalistic malfeasance, it's a best a foot-fault.
Sports metaphors are banned, ben a.
In the spirit of the NCAA, Ben, I was thinking of both "three-second violation" and "hand-checking."
30: Wait, you're saying that Luskin's connection to Rove isn't a problem because no one's asking whether the Spitzer investigation was improperly politically motivated? (A) the Times article makes no sense other than as an answer to that question, which means that someone's asking it, and (B) the question is being asked. Now that you know that whether there was an improper political motivation to the investigation is in fact in dispute, I assume that you therefore agree that quoting a lawyer who worked for Karl Rove, who's been linked with planning other improperly political prosecutions, without noting the connection (note that I'm not saying you can't quote him, just that you shouldn't do it without disclosure) is improper.
38: Speaking as Luskin: "Karl Rove has paid me a great deal of money in the past, and is the sort of person who is likely to need my professional assistance in the future. Keeping him happy is therefore in my economic self interest. Someone is asking me whether a situation indicates misconduct of a sort likely to be traced back to him, or whether it's self-evidently innocent. My oh my, whatever shall I say?"
Let me see if I've got this straight.
The NYT wants to ask someone "is the DOJ engaged in a partisan political prosecution of Spitzer?"
So they go to someone who has been a paid agent of a person credibly accused of requiring the DOJ to engage in partisan political prosecutions.
No, I don't ee the relevant of such a confidential agency relationship. But then, I'm not too bright.
36: Seriously, Shearer, no one here cares what you want or don't want to hear. None of believe that we have the power to drive the Times bankrupt, but if that thought makes you happy, fine.
Baa, Karl Rove is a pretty big time player. Reasonable people know that he has wide and varied interests, including politically motivated prosecutions nationwide. Your "triple bank shot" theory belongs with Shearer's belief that meanies like us are driving the Tome bankrupt.
Shearer, no one here cares what you want or don't want to hear.
Oh, come now, John.
Maybe it's a double bank shot. But it's not a straight line under any construction.
You guys are making me feel bad for the New York Times. They get it coming and going. My guess is that if you were to talk to the reporters, you would find that they have exceptionally nuanced senses of the biases of their sources. Indeed, why not make this an exercise in follow-up? I bet if you were to send a polite email to the reporters, they'd answer it, and explain how they went about looking for independent sources in this article.
42
"38: Speaking as Luskin: "Karl Rove has paid me a great deal of money in the past, and is the sort of person who is likely to need my professional assistance in the future. Keeping him happy is therefore in my economic self interest. Someone is asking me whether a situation indicates misconduct of a sort likely to be traced back to him, or whether it's self-evidently innocent. My oh my, whatever shall I say?"
Luskin could just as well be thinking, gee Spitzer is a rich guy who may be needing a lawyer perhaps I should start auditioning. But this is all pretty hypothetical. Most big time defense lawyers are far more interested in keeping on friendly terms with the prosecutors whom they deal with regularly than sucking up to specific potential future clients.
That said perhaps there was a case for including a longer description (ie who usually contributes to Democrats but represented Rove in the Plame affair) just to forstall this sort of carping.
Most big time defense lawyers are far more interested in keeping on friendly terms with the prosecutors whom they deal with regularly than sucking up to specific potential future clients.
Spend a lot of time on client development, do you Shearer? Lawyers in private practice live off their client relationships. I don't know a thing specifically against Luskin's objectivity, but suggesting that maintaining relations with past clients isn't very important to a defense lawyer is goofy.
LB, I will personally send a $50 check to the Obama for president campaign (or a charity of your choice) if you write a letter to Johnston and Shenon explaining your concerns with Luskin as a source and asking why they selected him.
If I do that, will you send a $50 check to me?
they have exceptionally nuanced senses of the biases of their sources, which they rarely make explicit in their news articles.
Seriously, deciding which expert to call is a meaningful decision for reporters. And yet they almost never deign to let the reader in on that decision.
Over the years I've written a lot of letters objecting to sourcing in newspaper stories. Most of the time it is in reference to anonymous sources, but sometimes it is about the generic identification of people who don't deserve that dignity. I don't usually bother to object to the "clearly just a friend of the reporter's" sources because they are so ubiquitous in "lifestyle" articles.
It's very rare to get an honest explanation of why someone is being quoted. Here's an exception:
Mr. Finesurrey, a sophomore and an Obama supporter at the University of Wisconsin whom I found in the process of researching this column (translation: he's a friend of my daughter).
w-lfs-n, my consequentialist calculator indicates that you are 10% as deserving as Barack Obama or the wretched of the Earth. Thus, you'd only get $5.
I wasn't aware that consequentialist calculators operated on desert.
Agree with Witt's 51. These are reporters for the NY freaking Times. The chances of them played in an obvious fashion are low. Or at least, it's unlikely that they are being played unwittingly.
Barack has so much money already; $50 could hardly give him many utils. Whereas I have so little!
It's called decreasing marginal utility. You might have heard of it.
Yes, but by winning the primary Obama creates enormous utility by a) symbolizing all that is best in America and b) making it more likely that John McCain wins the presidency. So dollars to his campaign have a multiplier effect. It's a very complicated calculator.
Dessert. Consequentialists do calculate dessert.
I don't think that this is the worst case, but media people rely too heavily on insiders, spin doctors, brokers, deal-makers, etc. Luskin certainly is part of that group.
I guess I'm not only concerned about his Rove connection, but also about the question "Who is he spinning for, if not Rove (or besides Rove)?"
Part of it is just lazy journalism. If you need information to finish a story, there will always be a spinner there to provide it for you.
It seems, too, that Luskin wasn't being asked about some neutral and checkable fact that he was in a position to know, and he wasn't being asked about any specifics that he was in especially good position to know, but he was being asked for judgments about what should be done.
49: I'm running out to dinner, but that's an excellent idea -- I'll copy you on the email. You've somewhat missed the point of my irritation, though: I'm perfectly willing to believe that Luskin was a reasonable person to quote, or was the best person who called back in time for the story. I want to know what the reasoning was for not disclosing his relationship with Rove.
Or at least, it's unlikely that they are being played unwittingly.
Cold comfort.
One of the raps against the bigtime reporters is that they're too cozy with insiders in general. Probably this particular story is just symptomatic of that.
Going back to the article linked in the original post, the first person quoted seems well identified:
Bradley D. Simon, a veteran Justice Department trial lawyer who was federal prosecutor in Brooklyn throughout the 1990s...
The story to this point basically reads: "Hey, this seems like a lot of government money and time to spend on a case, let's ask a guy who used to work in the system what he thinks." And, in fact, the guy says "it's not unreasonable" to pursue this kind of case but in fact he doesn't think "prostitution has been a high priority" in this arm of government. (What was that fancy word someone was tossing around the other day for rhetorical understatement?)
The next person quoted is Luskin. I wouldn't have remembered who the guy was based on this identification:
Robert D. Luskin, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor....
Continuing under the assumption that the article is asking "Gee, is this prosecution wildly unusual?", let's look at what Luskin does. He defends the initial action, saying that the government "would be negligent not to pursue [reports of suspicious financial activity]," albeit leaving us in the dark about how often this happens. You've got to imagine banks file hundreds of thousands of these things a year, and a fair handful of them have to involve public officials, if for no other reason than that they have more money than most of us and probably more cause to move it around.
Luskin goes on to say that a key question in determining whether the case is unusual or not is, well, whether it goes to court (he actually says "[whether the government] will prosecute Spitzer if it doesn't prosecute others in the same situation."). I'm inclined to blame the reporter and editor here but that "if" is pretty ambiguous. It is clear as mud to me whether they mean AND THE GOVERNMENT USUALLY DOESN'T or whether it's just a lame version of "Well, Clients 1-8 are getting charged tooooooo."
No one else is quoted by name in the article. There are some Greek choruses emerging in the background, and Simon comes back for a rather useful and interesting factual addition, but that's it. This comment is too long already so let me shut up for a second and see what everybody else is saying.
It's not too late to declare me the charity of your choice, LB.
There's no such thing as "too long", Witt.
Witt. Brevity. &c. Do you want her unsouled John?
Dude, md, Emerson only said that because I was pandering to his media biases.
And anyway, isn't it Polonious who says that, in the course of one of his interminable advice-giving speeches? So. All too appropriate, except for the minor details of my not being a 60-something guy with a grown son.
But you're otherwise a very fine person, Witt.
These are reporters for the NY freaking Times. The chances of them played in an obvious fashion are low.
Uh huh.
68, 69: Eh, I think this:
the best person who called back in time for the story combined with this: If you need information to finish a story, there will always be a spinner there to provide it for you
is the easiest and simplest explanation.
(combined with the fact that the story has two bylines, and in point of fact I actually think the Simon quotes are pretty good. I mean, really about as much as I could expect from a daily journalist writing a short article.)
Do you want her unsouled John?
Given Emerson's position on matters romantic, he's likelier to want her unsexed.
I'd be more impressed if the article had a quote such as "David Iglesias, former federal prosecuter who alleges he was fired by Bush's DOJ for refusing to cave to White House pressure to pursue weak or insignificant criminal cases against democrats for partisan political motives, and who has recently published a book detailing his accusations, said ..."
I mean, if you're going to get both sides, get both sides. Don't get a government spokesman, and then someone who has been an agent for the involved government officials. Of course, the NYT would probably check to see if they'd spelled the name correctly, which I didn't do.
Today's TPM gives an example of what I'm talking about.
1. Stone is a Republican dirty tricks artist.
2. Stone played some role in the Spitzer sex case. He's a bitter, long-time Spitzer enemy.
3. Stone is frequently cited as a source. (Someone with Lexis/Nexis can verify that for me, and find out how often.)
4. Bonus points if Stone has been cited as a source on the Spitzer case. (Lexis/Nexis again).
Luskin is really a much lesser case, and the Times isn't Fox, but nevertheless. Players shouldn't be sources except when identified as such and used as sources on the people they play for.
the NYT would probably check to see if they'd spelled the name correctly
In a parallel universe in which this would be a good use of my time, I am right now creating a spreadsheet of every correction the NYT has run in the last five years. With an accompanying pie chart to illustrate the amount of time that is spent on clarifying matters of such terrific importance as the capitalization of Xerox and the spelling of Bear Stearns rather than the accuracy of the article.
You know what was awesome? When the NYT reported that the House passed the FISA bill. You know why that was awesome? Because you could turn on c-span at the moment and watch the House debating the bill live. The reporter, who has a Pulitzer, mistook a procedural vote for the final vote.
Even more awesome? They appear to have scrubbed the correction from their online article.
Ah, here's the version with correction.
An earlier version of this article reported the results of a preliminary vote on the bill, not the final vote.
Hey, yo, eb, I keep meaning to get over to your site to recommend this interesting article from Walter Pincus. He's a Lincoln Steffens fan too.
Reporting from a war zone such as Iraq or from a totalitarian country where a reporter's life or safety is at risk are examples of traditionalistic courage. In Washington, it's a far less dramatic form of courage if a journalist stands up to a government official or a politician who he or she has reason to believe is not telling the truth or living up to his or her responsibilities.
[...]I believe a new kind of courage is needed in journalism [...] in this time of government by public relations and news stories based on prepared texts and prepared events or responses. This is the time for reporters and editors, whether from the mainstream media or blogosphere, to pause before responding....
A new element of courage in journalism would be for editors and reporters to decide not to cover the president's statements when he or she--or any public figure--repeats essentially what he or she has said before.
Fine, but I don't want hear a lot of liberal whining if and when continued bad financial results cause the NYT to be sold to Rupert Murdoch.
Not sure I see the logic here - we should support bad journalism on the theory it might lead to good journalism?
But beyond that, from a purely partisan point of view, a Murdoch-led Times would be much better for liberalism. Murdoch is no worse a journalist than Sulzberger, and because Sulzberger tries to peddle himself as a liberal, he helps shift the Overton window to the right. (Hey, if the Times is saying that there are proven WMD, or that Whitewater was criminal, or that Wen Ho Lee was a spy, etc., etc, then it must be true, because there's no way the Times would make something like that up, being as how they're all liberal and stuff. And if Bush were engaged in torture, surely the Times would say so, being as how they're all liberal. The list goes on.)
These are reporters for the NY freaking Times. The chances of them played in an obvious fashion are low.
Holy shit ! The Times isn't just the newspaper of Judith Miller. It's the newspaper of Jayson Blair ! Of Whitewater and Ken Starr ! Of equal treatment for evolution and creationism ! Of Wen Ho Lee ! Are you fucking kidding me?
Shearer was looking for a paper better than the Times, but if you're looking at journalistic standards, such newspapers are a dime a dozen. Go to any medium-sized city and you'll find one.
Tell me some other newspaper that has a record of malfeasance similar to that of the Times. Holy shit -they're the ones who accused that Hatfill guy with anthrax terrorism, apparently as a result of manipulation by law enforcement.
Granted, the Times has a lot of resources that makes its reach superior to a lot of other media, but lordy lord, the Times absolutely specializes in being played. It's their whole schtick. If you've got a sensational bullshit story that you want publicized, you dial up the Times. Jessica Lynch, for chrissakes !
81: For national political coverage, the NYT & The Post were absolutely thoroughly pwned by Knight-Ridder (and still are somewhat by McClatchy since they bought K-R). Two that stick in my mind are the runup to Iraq, where K-R kept their sanity, and the Swift Boats. The Post has the reporters (like Pincus) but mute them in times of imperial importance.
74: Holy fucking shit, Roger Stone!
And he certainly is someone who knows his way around the high-flying sex circuit, and was specifically involved in working with NY Republicans to attack Spitzer last year. Ben Smith at Politico has what look to be new details.
The woman who told of Spitzer's dalliances was a high priced Call Girl herself, 48DD-24-36 and non-political. Infact she said "Eliot Spitzer the Governor of New Jersey" until [Stone] asked her whether she meant the Steamroller or Corzine.
Of course no one who matters is really asking about political motivations in this prosecution.
Thanks for that link, Witt. I'll probably have something to say about it at my place.
74, 83: If Stone actually gave them a tip, that makes me feel better about the whole thing. Spitzer patronizing prostitutes at the same time he's prosecuting sex rings is seriously fucked up. He deserved to go down for that. And if his enemies tipped off the FBI that's a lot better than the FBI arbitrarily deciding they wanted to take him down and investigating him until they could find something that would stick.
Seligman should still have his conviction overturned on appeal and the prosecutors should be punished in some serious way.
My judgment on this has harshened overnight. In part it was because I finally figured out what Robert D. Luskin, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor reminded me of: Judith Miller agreeing to refer to Scooter Libby as a "former congressional aide" in article on the Plame stuff. Behind the scenes, Luskin may be whatever he may be, but he is a public person because of his work for Rove on Plame (and to a lesser degree his prior difficulties with ethics in his manner of accepting payment from an organized crime figure). The reporters weren't "gulled", for whatever reason they chose to use his quote (probably not sinister, maybe convenience or whatever), and then consciously masked his identity in the article. May well be all smoke and no fire, but there is validity in the "appearance of impropriety" for an organization like a newspaper that relies on public trust.
I am surprised that I can find nothing in the Times on the Stone angle, they certainly were all over Stone's "psycho" call to Spitzer's father last year and Stone has been a long-time operative in state-level NY politics.
81
"Shearer was looking for a paper better than the Times, but if you're looking at journalistic standards, such newspapers are a dime a dozen. Go to any medium-sized city and you'll find one."
I doubt that. Here is a list of the 100 largest circulation US newspapers. Which are better than the NYT?
87: Seriously? Again, leaving aside the NYT's reach and resources, and considering that I'm not familiar with most of the newspapers on the list, Investors' Business Daily is the only one that jumps out as being conspicuously worse than the NYT. I'm certainly prepared to believe there are others - my point isn't that the NYT is the worst in the country, just that in ethics and professionalism, it isn't one of the elite papers at all - certainly worse than the big national newspapers like USA Today, the WSJ, and the Washington Post, but also worse than most mid-sized dailies that I'm familiar with. It's not some kind of weird accident that most of the smartest reporting pre-Iraq came from Knight Ridder.
On the matter of, say, abuse of confidential sources, which newspaper on that list do you think is worse than the New York Times? On the matter of printing stories with reckless disregard to their factuality, which newspaper on that list do you think is worse than the Times?
Judith Miller and Jayson Blair weren't aberrations; they were an expression of the Times's professional philosophy.
Lord knows I read the Times religiously, but that's because the scope of the newspaper is unmatched.
I've answered your question, but you haven't even offered an argument. When it comes to professional standards, who on that list do you think of as being worse than the NYT, and why?
88
"Judith Miller and Jayson Blair weren't aberrations; they were an expression of the Times's professional philosophy."
How was Jayson Blair an expression of the Times's professional philosophy? He made up stories and was fired after being caught. Reporters for other publications have been caught making up stories also. For example Jack Kelley in USA Today and Janet Cooke in the Washington Post.
People pay more attention to the NYT when it fouls up because it is considered the standard but that doesn't mean it is actually more careless than other newspapers.
How was Jayson Blair an expression of the Times's professional philosophy? He made up stories and was fired after being caught.
He made up stories, then was caught, then continued to make up stories, then was caught some more. This was well understood within the newspaper. When word got out outside the newspaper, he was fired. Jayson Blair was an unambiguous expression of the Times' professional philosophy, which is: There are many, many things more important than the truth. It's a huge institutional problem, and there's no evidence they've solved it, though there is modest evidence that they've recognized it.
Jack Kelley and Janet Cooke got caught and fired. Jayson Blair did not get fired when he was caught. Judith Miller got caught and, like Blair, was permitted to continue publishing bullshit.
And again, there are many more examples.
As far as professional standards go, the NY Times is a very, very bad newspaper - not merely compared to what standards ought to be, but compared to what standards actually are. I'll ask again: What newspaper in your mind stands out as being worse than the Times.
You seem to think that's an unfair question, but I'll remind you that it's your question, asked originally in 33. I've answered it. Will you?
If you're going to go through the entire history of professional journalism - even digging up Janet Cooke after all these years - it's still tough to match the level of malfeasance of the NY Times in, say, the last 15 years.
Back on this long dead thread to:
1) Link to this good summary from dday at Hullabaloo on some of the new developments.
2) State even more strongly that the Times is going to come out looking like total fucking dogshit on their coverage so far. Not just this little Luskin thing, but the whole tenor of their coverage which has been "Shock", "Will he go?","Oh how the mighty have fallen". "What about his wife?", "What about the prostitute", "What about prostitution in general" and "Move along, nothing to see here" in regard to how it all came about.
3) And just to highlight the vapidity of using a bare Luskin quote with a misleading bio: (not that Dershowitz should not come with his own bit of context)
but the story of how he was caught does not ring entirely true to many experienced former prosecutors and current criminal lawyers," Dershowitz wrote.
obviously i've started a very bad habit of starting arguments in threads and then not getting back to them till the next day or so. Sorry about that.
You know, this place used to be slow enough that one could do that. Twas a more innocent time.
31. Yes, that's me, dear old Chopper. Maybe I really should append something to my nom de mineshaft.
90
"He made up stories, then was caught, then continued to make up stories, then was caught some more. This was well understood within the newspaper. When word got out outside the newspaper, he was fired"
I was aware of claims that Jayson Blair was known to be an incompetent drug addict who was not fired (and indeed was only hired in the first place) because he was black. I was unaware of claims that he had previously been caught making up stories. In any case he still seems to me to be a special case.
"You seem to think that's an unfair question, but I'll remind you that it's your question, asked originally in 33. I've answered it. Will you?"
There was a time in the past when I regularly read the NYT and the WSJ. I consistently found the NYT to be more reliable. I don't regularly read the New York Post (number 11 on the list I linked) but it certainly has a worse reputation than the NYT. I have occasionally read USA Today and it seemed to me it had little substantive content.