Image credit: The Franklin Institute
[three updates on Nov. 29]
One of the memes that the established news organizations in America like to perpetuate is that the Internet is just full of people who don't check their stories. If there's one thing I've learned from Joe Klein's pathetic column on the FISA "RESTORE" Act, it's that we do a lot better at that than they do these days, at least when it comes to covering our federal government. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
Glenn Greenwald has written a terrific postscript to this sad chapter in journalism history, and I encourage you to read it all if you have the time. Here, though, he gets to the crux of the problem:
As Media Bloodhound notes, Tom Brokaw sat with Howard Kurtz just this weekend and gave what has become the media's standard stenographer excuse: namely, they failed to scrutinize Bush pre-war claims about Iraq because "the opposition voices were not that many in this town." Thus, they only write down what people say, and if only few people are saying the truth, it's not their job to find it out (that was the same excuse Tim Russert gave to Bill Moyers as to why the media did little other than regurgiatate Bush claims: "It's important that you have an opposition party").
Bad stenographers
Joe Klein's excuse for not finding out the truth was this:
I may have made a mistake in my column this week about the FISA legislation passed by the House, although it’s difficult to tell for sure given the technical nature of the bill’s language and fierce disagreements between even moderate Republicans and Democrats on the Committee about what the bill actually does contain.
FISA Confusion and Correction
To give Klein credit, he did actually confront the issue. What he did not do was research the issue. His excuse was basically "The Republicans said one thing and the Democrats said another and I'm confused". As I and numerous people have mentioned, most of what he was confused about is discussed in plain English in the bill itself and in numerous legal and technical blogs. The only thing required to arrive at an understanding is to sit down for a couple of hours and read the blasted thing. Yet, this Mr. Klein and his bosses at Time refused to do.
What's more, you'd think that after several decades of covering Washington, DC politics Klein would have caught on to the idea that no matter what subject is under discussion, Republicans and Democrats will probably have different opinions about it. What's important is to figure out whose opinions reflect reality, or to be more precise, to actually provide some useful information on the subject that can help us readers figure out what the truth is. That's why we buy their fracking magazine.
Sure, there are plenty of blogs that could best be termed Hot Air, but while most of us out here have opinions about the things we write about, we're accustomed to documenting what we're discussing. Take a look through most of my articles here and you'll see lots of blue type. You can see where I got my ideas from. What's more, there will usually be some links to background information. If a reader thinks I've misinterpreted or overlooked something, there's a comments section to point that out. Most of the blogs on that list in the left hand column work the same way. Follow the links, and you can see the same information they saw, and come to your own conclusions. If we misinterpret, you can correct. Contrary to what some folks seem to think, being reasonable isn't just about being civil - it's about defending your ideas with the evidence and reasoning behind them.
This is an idea that's clearly lost on much of the national news these days. Not only was Time' response little more than an upraised middle finger when they had actually been caught committing shoddy journalism on a matter of vital importance to our country, but they seem to honestly have not understood what their obligations as a journalism institution might be. They're not alone, either. The Washington Post has behaved similarly when called on its incessant shilling for Scooter Libby. It even hired an ombudsman who seems astoundingly uninterested in investigating readers' complaints.
Greenwald quotes this Bill Moyers interview with Walter Pincus to illustrate why this is happening:
WALTER PINCUS: More and more, in the media, become, I think, common carriers of Administration statements, and critics of the Administration. And we've sort of given up being independent on our own. . . .
We used to do at the Post something called truth squading. President would make a speech. We used to do it with Ronald Reagan the first five or six months because he would make so many factual errors, particularly in his press conference.
And after two or three weeks of it, the public at large, would say, "Why don't you leave the man alone? He's trying to be honest. He makes mistakes. So what?" and we stopped doing it.
BILL MOYERS: You stopped being the truth squad.
WALTER PINCUS: We stopped truth-squading every sort of press conference, or truth squading. And we left it then to the Democrats. In other words, it's up to the Democrats to catch people, not us.
BILL MOYERS: So if the democrats challenged a statement from the President, you could quote both sides.
WALTER PINCUS: We then quote both sides. Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: Now, that's called objectivity by many standards isn't it?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, that's objectivity if you think there are only two sides. And if you're not interested in the facts. And the facts are separate from, you know, what one side says about the other.
Transcript: "Buying The War"
In modern Washington journalism-speak, objectivity isn't finding out what the truth is, perhaps in the face of one's own prejudices or preconceptions. It's about balancing quotes so the article doesn't look one-sided. If someone speaks up we'll quote him, they seem to be saying, but don't expect us to find out what's going on. It's intellectual relativism, in other words. There's no such thing as a wrong idea, only ideas that are not expressed loudly or entertainingly enough.
It's hard to imagine a sorrier thing than how political debate has deteriorated in this modern time, when every idea can be explored and debated by virtually anyone who wants to do so. Our press can certainly accept a good deal of the blame for this. When the news and "the press" really meant the same thing, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
BizQuotes: Thomas Jefferson
I wonder what he'd say today? Perhaps he'd say the same thing, or perhaps he'd say he'd rather have the Internet.
UPDATE (Nov. 29): Via Christy at FDL, Pete Hoekstra (R-MI-2) reveals that he was the source of the misinformation that Klein passed on to his readers:
Over the last week, a venomous debate has raged between Time columnist Joe Klein and his far-Left critics about the meaning of Democratic legislation aimed at how foreign targets in foreign countries are treated under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. With respect to the arguments of his critics, Klein rightly pointed out that, “This is all a partisan waste of time, fodder for lawyers and civil liberties extremists.” He also was correct that we should be seeking bipartisan consensus on critical national security issues rather than using them as pawns to further extreme political agendas.
As one of Klein’s sources for the complex technical and legal points that seem to be in contention — and because Klein, his critics, and Democrats in Congress have accused Republicans of trying to “misrepresent” these issues — it is important to correct and clarify the record on three critical points, which also bear heavily on the broader debate currently at hand.
Klein Kerfuffle
As you might imagine, given that he blames this argument on "far left critics", Hoekstra goes on to lie his ass off about why the "Protect America Act" was passed, saying it was done so we could listen in on foreign terrorists. This was never a problem. The original FISA bill quite clearly states:
(a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the
Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a
court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence
information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General
certifies in writing under oath that -
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at -
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications
transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between
or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2),
or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than
the spoken communications of individuals, from property or
premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign
power, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this
title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance
will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United
States person is a party; and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such
surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under
section 1801(h) of this title; and
Text: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
[emphasis mine]
While the procedure might be considered clunky in this modern age, there was a way to listen in on foreign powers or persons who are foreign terrorists. Hoekstra, in short, is a lying turd.
Now see, that wasn't so hard, was it? Just look the thing up and read it. It's what journalists used to do, back when they were really journalists.
UPDATE 2 (Nov. 29): Corrected Rep. Hoekstra's district information.
UPDATE 3 (Nov. 29): Emptywheel, demonstrating the memory for detail that makes most of us feel like Parkinson's victims, provides some insight into Pete Hoekstra:
But here's the thing. Crazy Pete is, well, crazy. He's one of the guys who still believes that Iraq had WMDs. He's the guy who thought it'd be a good idea to put a bunch of Iraqi documents (and Al Qaeda documents dumped in just for fun) online, regardless of the fact that the documents included plans from Iraq's pre-1991 nuke program. He's the guy who hired Fred Fleitz to write propaganda on Iran for the HPSCI.
Joe Klein, Do You Really Think Crazy Pete Is Credible?!?!?!
So, maybe not so much a lying turd as just crazy as an outhouse rat. I knew there had to be a feces metaphor that applied.
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