let's start by noting something c.i. sent me. jude of iddybud has written a very nice post on peter jennings and his illness:
I am very sorry to hear that Peter Jennings has lung cancer. I sensed that he was feeling very ill last Friday as he delivered the evening news and my heart goes out to him and his family. My own mother has been struggling with cancer for the past two years and I know the toll it takes upon the patient and caring supporters around him or her. In the case of serious illness, even as we take mental count of our losses, it is also a time to fully realize all the blessings we have in this life and to appreciate what it means to be fully alive, despite hardships. Times of life transition can be portals to deeper connections with our own inner wisdom and with those we love. My prayers are with Peter and his family.
as readers here know, i've really grown fond of jennings and started watching world news tonight after human & journalist imposter brian williams took over nightly news.
jude sums up exactly what world news tonight viewers (and hopefully others as well) are feeling.
thanks to c.i. who found it and e-mailed it to me knowing that i was frazzled after yesterday's house parties and probably would be after today's.
i got some e-mails about c.i.'s post monday. i agree it was a strong post and needed to be said.
but 1 person named bigbadbrian e-mailed me about the 'undisclosed conflict of interest' in c.i. handing me the scoop on the dlc and on unfiltered.
first off, the bigbadbrian needs to add 'lousyreader' to his name. this was not something we kept hidden. regarding the dlc thing, c.i. passed that off to me and i posted on it and as soon as i did, c.i. mentioned it over at common ills noting that it was passed off to me and why. (c.i. had a friend in the know and didn't want to risk quoting the friend and revealing something, a phrase or word, that would clue any 1 in to the source's identity.) that wasn't a conflict of interest. it was noted here and it was noted at the common ills. (this was covered as well but to repeat, c.i. summarized the friend, i summarized c.i. and we were two steps removed from the source's actual words so the source should have been protected.)
as for unfiltered, bigbradbrianlousyreader doesn't read too well. c.i. was not my only source. i do have a few contacts thanks to my former job (p.r. - which is why i found the way it was handled so appalling - it was a p.r. nightmare on top of being so ugly and no 1 involved seemed to realize that you do not go into silence mode in a nightmare).
c.i. noted it over at the common ills and i noted it here. and again, we both noted that c.i. was not the only source. c.i. was the 1 who broke the news to me. the thursday before the non-announcement was made on friday. that's when i started working old contacts. if you know the common ills, you know c.i. avoids the sensationalism and does 'in fairness' but the other sources didn't do that.
but that was noted here and it was noted at the common ills.
c.i. had an inside source and, as c.i. repeatedly says, 'the common ills is not a breaking news site.'
but bigbadbradlousyreader, if c.i. hadn't disclosed the dlc or unfiltered and i hadn't, guess what?
that's not a conflict of interest. you are allowed to protect your sources.
i think that besides working on reading more closely, you might want to work on definitions.
instead we were upfront it because c.i. wanted it that way. and the thanks is some dope named bigbadbrad wants to say 'undisclosed conflict of interest!'
my other sources on that story spoke to me with the understanding that they would remain confidential (and they will). that's not a conflict of interest.
thanks for playing though. sadly, no parting gifts for you.
c.i. also raised an issue last night about ___ and ____'s failure to address skewed reporting on npr. (yes, i know who ___ is.) i couldn't agree with that post more. if you haven't read it, i suggest you do.
if some 1 is making it their role/job to inform you of what the media is getting wrong, that includes npr. and i agree that when you have a staff and you have people e-mailing you about npr and including links to the npr stories that you can use to listen to the story online, there's no excuse not to be addressing npr on a regular basis.
failing to do so sends the impression that npr is not spinning, that it's solid information.
npr is already painted as 'liberal' by the right wingers. it's not liberal. (i'd love it if it were, but it's not.)
it has millions of listeners and a huge reach. the failure to address spinning or distortions when they are broadcast on npr is a huge 1.
in the post, c.i. included a link to 'when npr fails you, who you gonna call? not the ombudsman.'
i've noted that 1 before here. but i'll note it again.
with mere weeks to go before the election, juan williams angered listeners with his 'analysis' of john kerry's remarks. npr had to address it because listeners were outraged.
so they brought on robert kagan and listed the 'peace' organization he belonged to before he spoke. it was hilarious as kagan pretended to really 'hope' that he was misunderstanding kerry.
marvelous performance.
why performance?
as c.i. tells you in that post, but npr didn't, robert kagan was married to a woman working for dick cheney.
juan williams's 'analysis' of kerry's remarks upset listeners who felt it was lacking. to clarify, they bring on robert kagan.
weeks before the election, they allow kagan to weigh in on kerry.
without telling you that his wife works for dick cheney.
that, bigbadbradlousyreader, is a conflict of interest.
and it's a damn shame that if you didn't read the common ills (or buzzflash who linked to the story) you didn't hear about it. you still haven't heard about it.
why is that?
why is npr given such a fucking pass?
juan williams distorted john kerry's remarks and pissed off listeners. npr 'corrects' that by bringing on robert kagan who distorts it as well (in a wonderful acting bit of pauses and i-hope-i'm-wrongs). and this clarification, this correction is being done by someone married to victoria nuland who works for dick cheney.
and no listener was told that. (nor any reader of the npr ombudsman's online column -- ombudsman took a pass as well.)
you want to tell me that back in october john kerry supporters had no right to be told what npr had just done?
where were the big brave truth tellers then?
that's story has still only been told at the common ills.
(and you've got links in c.i.'s post to the new york press, christian science monitor and alternet on the marriage and nuland's employment so this wasn't a marriage the press had never covered.)
this was a huge of conflict of interest. a man married to a woman who works for dick cheney, who's running for vice-president, who therefore works for the administration is allowed to go on npr and weigh in on the opponent. that's bad.
not telling listeners about it is beyond bad.
and why the net wasn't alive with this story then or since is a question you might be better off putting to those who knew about it. and ____ knew about it. the ombudsman at npr knew about it. both chose to ignore it.
as for why the blog world never dealt with the story, i'll assume they missed it. but nothing's stopping them from writing about it now.
it's an important story and it goes to problems with the press. you'd think people would be interested in it. you'd think bloggers would want their readers to know all about it. third estate sunday review has noted it. i've noted it.
i don't know why others don't.
i do know that npr gets away with this sort of shit because they are not called on it.
there seem to be two sets of standards: (1) npr and (2) the rest of the media.
if you're going to take a pass on npr then maybe you should note that on your site?
and all the people talking about how it was a 'nicer' election in 2004 than in 2000 might want to grow up a little and realize that there are millions of stories like the robert kagan 1 that they didn't catch and they didn't pay attention to.
that's why i read the common ills and am a member of the common ills community. if you're the mainstream media, you're not above criticism. just because the right thinks npr is 'liberal' doesn't grant them a pass. because the right wing has put that perception out there, it's all the more important to hold them accountable.
i think if you run the two posts together, you've got a very distrubing portrait of some problems with the blog world. and i think we need to be looking at that.
i also think that bloggers on the left who quote and praise the 'bull moose' need to be held accountable for that. but i'll go into that another time.
wally is my hero. he stood up tuesday in his class and gave a speech on the patriot act. my question for other readers is what are you doing?
sherry's calling her Congress people. lola's e-mailing. a number of you are talking about the issue in your circle and getting the word out.
pope this, pope that. tom delay, tom delay, john corny out of texas, john corny out of texas.
who's telling you about the patriot act right now?
that's an important issue and 1 that effects you if you live in the united states. it may not be sexy. it may not allow for funnies. but it does matter. and we can't count on the mainstream media to get the word out.
democracy now is covering it. thank god for democracy now. today you got to hear senator dick durbin's remarks on the patriot act on democracy now. did you catch those on good morning america? did you get to hear him on nightly news?
here's an excerpt from democracy now's report today on senator richard durbin's remarks
in the senate yesterday:
The point I would like to make is this: If the goal here was, as you say, to enhance federal government sharing intelligence, we could have stayed away from the PATRIOT Act altogether and really focused on the agencies working with one another and sharing information so that the Phoenix memo wouldn't be buried in the depths of the FBI, and so that the CIA and all of the other agencies would communicate. So, before we go to challenge in any respect the Bill of Rights, I think we had a lot of homework to do when it came to the management of information at the federal government. Maybe this new intelligence reform will move us in a more positive direction.
The second thing I’d like you to address, if you would consider, is the Section 215. Section 215, which has caused great pain for people in many communities, such as the American Library Association, not historically a politically active group, has become very active, because they believe the PATRIOT Act went too far. They believe, for example, if an FBI field office believed that an unidentified terrorist checked out a book entitled, "How to Build a Dirty Bomb," from the Chicago Public Library, that Section 215 gives the government the authority to search the library records of hundreds of ordinary citizens in an attempt to identify the terrorist, catching in this net and sweeping in innocent people who have checked out books in the library never knowing that they were to be swept up in the potential of finding a terrorist. Similarly, if an FBI field office came up with information that the wife of a suspected terrorist had an abortion, and therefore, they would go out, they would set out through Section 215 to search the records of a hospital or clinic for all the women who had received an abortion whether or not they might have been associated with any terrorist activities. Section 215 allows all of that information to be gathered in secret through the FISA court and many innocent people to have their privacy compromised in the process.
