i want to start out by noting the third estate sunday review's "Editorial: You say you're doing a Blog Report." as readers here know, there was no thursday post as a result of blogger. but you didn't hear about that from the blog reporters at cjr daily or slate. this editorial asks how you can call yourself a blog reporter and miss one of the biggest stories of last week?
for those of you who e-mailed about posts yesterday, as most of you know, on saturdays, betty, c.i. and i help out the gang at the third estate sunday review in any way we can.
and while we're talking about blog betty, who is just wonderful and amazingly funny, let's note that she has a new post up today. the premise of the column is that thomas friedman opens the paper to learn that the op-ed schedule has been changed and his column no longer runs on sunday but on friday instead. (i belive he has a column running on wednesdays.)
so high tail it on over to blog betty and read 'My husband Thomas Friedman says "The world is going to hell in an Enstrom's Gift Basket."' trust me, you will laugh.
i'll also steer you over to c.i. at the common ills for a number of things.
1st, note "Raymond Bonner's "Australia Uneasy about U.S. Detainee Case" is buried in this morning's New York Times (seek it out)" from today.
i'll quote from it (including the shout out to me!):
"Cardinals Hint At the Profile Of a New Pope" may be on the front page, but "hint" or not, it's not really news. It's speculation. And it will be of interest to some. (Though I think the death pageant has lost its luster at last.) But it's not front page news. (The next Pope, according to NPR, will be announced the Monday after next. Check my math, but that's eight days from now. Hopefully, we're not expected to suffer through public relations releases passing themselves off as news for the entire time, as Rebecca's noted, but who knows?)
"Charles and Camilla, Married at Last, and With Hardly a Hitch" graces the front page, as opposed to the social register. I'm holding my tongue out of respect for our UK community members (some of whom we'll wish I'd let it rip -- Camilla and Charles aren't that popular with out members). But Bonner's story isn't. Bonner's story is on A14. Maybe had one of the the detainees posed for photos wearing a floppy hat like Camilla or a dress whose bottom appeared a slight tribute to Wilma Flinstone, Bonner could have graced the front page.
But regardless of where the New York Timid places Bonner's story today, it is news. They can bury it, but it's still news. Who knows, maybe they'll pull Bonner from his beat if the Bully Boy makes the same sort of noises the Reagan administration did in the eighties?
2nd, note "Let's talk New York Times . . ." building on a number of things (including my entry here friday), c.i. notes:
Ron (Why Are We Back In Iraq?) e-mailed me a story from Editor & Publisher. (Thank you, Ron.)
Joe Strupp's "Fired 'NYT' Foreign Correspondent Angrily DeniesCharges" doesn't paint a picture of a responsible press.
Here's another part:
But I do know that having embarrassed themselves with the Green Zone reporting repeatedly (which is getting as bad as Judith Miller's pre-invasion reporting), the last thing the Times needs is another scandal. But they have it now by firing someone they allege gossipped.
Having pushed the "values debate" (Adam Nagourney) over and over until January rolled around when suddenly they (Adam Nagourney) scratched their heads and seemed to wonder how that false narrative got started (one Frank Rich said at the time was false), maybe they shouldn't fire someone they allege squealed on extra-marital going ons in the Green Zone?
Hey, the Times pushed that "values" nonsense like crazy. They pushed the "red" state/"blue" state narrative like crazy. (Whether they realized it or not, it was in their own interests to do so.
The Times is centerists and the centerists Dems were trying to use that nonsense -- and continue to try to use it -- to push the party to the right.) Having done their part (and then some) to force the "values" debate, if Sachs squealed (if, we're giving her the benefit of the doubt) on affairs (I have no idea if the charges are true) then wouldn't that be her "value" responsibility? Didn't we have a preacher, not all that long ago, get away with squealing on a woman who was having an affair? She spoke to the clergy member in privacy but he felt his duty to the bounds of marriage was to great to remain silent. (Or that's what he said anyway.)
So by the same token, having pushed the "values" narrative, maybe the Times is in no position to fire anyone they think might have passed on extra-marital rumors or news?
But they did that. And now they look silly. And this will be talked about and talked about. (Hey, anything to take the focus of Judith Miller, I guess.) If the rumors were false, then Burns & Filkins should be able to straighten their own personal lives out without anyone being fired.
If they were true, the Times operates under some "what happens in the Green Zone, stays in the Green Zone" policy that's unwritten but long in play at the Grey Lady.Sachs was fired for allegedy outing alleged private behaviors of Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns.
Anyone else raising an eye brow?Anyone else thinking, "But Daniel Okrent outed a private citizen, named him, gave his city and state, over his objection. Over a private e-mail to a reporter for the Times. It wasn't meant for publication, though Okrent quoted from this private correspondence without permission which is legally questionable since he identified the author, and he put the paper of record in a strange position to say the least.
According to Randy Cohen, Okrent was "censured" over that. The paper never saw fit to inform the readers of that. But, if Cohen was correct, he wasn't fired over it. Guess that tells you whom the Times values and whom it doesn't.
Okrent's stepping down (at the pre-arranged end of his tenure) and some of his peers rush up to toss a halo on him and speak of all the great things he did as the public editor, as the readers' advocate. They ignore that he outed a reader, that he behaved in a manner that not only appeared petty but also appeared to place himself and the paper on questionable legal grounds.
Now we learn that Sachs is fired for allegedly outing two alleged cheaters.
If Filkins and Burns are humiliated (or their spouses), blame the Times and not Sachs. If she were guilty (if), the Times botched it (as usual) and thereby allowed the news to travel far beyond anything that whomever wrote the letters and e-mails did.
The New York Times just can't seem to get its act together these days. There are a lot of people putting things into print about the paper. There's the rumor that Judith Miller forced Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.'s hand. (E-mails to this site state his hand wasn't forced. He was backing Miller from day one. Due to the long nature of his and Miller's relationship, I'm inclined to believe those e-mails.)
In the past year, we've seen a lot of journalists make news. Jane Mayer and Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, for instance. But they made news on the basis of their reporting. More and more, the Times is making news not for anything in the paper but for what's going on behind the scenes. That ought to worry the paper because image is what has always kept it afloat.
that was from late friday. i love it when c.i. rips into the new york timid!
the third thing from the common ills that i'll note is 'Mike Papantonio: "The problem is when we turn on the TV and we think John Stossel or Cokie Roberts or Brit Hume or Tim Russert are on our side."' this is about a hard hitting segment on ring of fire and it's worth reading.
lastly, bronwyn e-mails that she thought that the attention c.i. and i both gave to the patriot act was a bit much and 'just didn't get it.' but then, bronwyn writes, she read the editorial in this morning's new york times and now gets the point. bronwyn, glad to have you on board. my guess on why you didn't get it, you wrote 'none of the other blogs are writing about it.' well that's interesting and i guess it's not an issue to them. i'd love it if you'd written that some blogger wrote about it and convinced you. or that you were listening to the laura flanders show right now, like i am, and were informed there. but sometimes even the new york times gets it right. (i haven't read the editorial. i have finished the style section and plan to look at the magazine next.) so if the times wrote a strong editorial, more power to them. but if you're visiting 'practically every site' (i find that hard to believe but maybe you live in front of your computer) and you weren't hearing about the patriot act at other sites, you might want to ask yourself what you did hear about? you mention that i didn't 'cover the pope really until friday.'
bronwyn, did the world need more chatter about the pope?
