ruth does a wonderful ruth's public radio report each week and she usually calls me saturday morning and reads a bit of it that she's not sure about. 'can you follow that?'
i never have any trouble following her. but the result is that we really tried c.i.'s patience saturday. the report was done and ready to go. c.i. was doing the entry on the new york times and noting that as soon as this was done, ruth's report would go up.
but, as c.i. pointed out to me, for the 3rd saturday in a row . . .
i always have these thoughts and i'm happy to share them. i don't mind sharing them here. but i have had 2 issues with counterspin of late.
i support fair, i listen to counterspin. each time i have brought them up, ruth has offered to include them because she's aware that she loves the show and that other people may have criticisms she doesn't catch.
on saturday, c.i. ended up having a 3 way call with ruth and myself. c.i. said either we do this talk on friday or we make an announcement that ruth goes up later in the day on saturdays.
c.i. was nice about it but i got the point. and i shouldn't have needed a phone call to get it because c.i., jess and dallas are hunting down links and doing tags for ruth's reports and every time something changes it's insert a paragraph and find another link or another tag. more importantly an hour after c.i.'s entry, if ruth's report isn't up, the e-mails start coming in wondering if there's a problem with the site or what?
a few weeks back, counterspin had a writer on who did an article for mother jones. this was my 1st issue (i have 2). throughout the interview we heard 'the new york times' had gotten a story wrong. they'd done more than gotten it wrong, the story was the false 1 right after 9/11 about saddam hussein training terrorists to high jack airplanes.
but here's my issue. who wrote the article? i know who wrote the article. but did listeners?
is there some rule that we name some people but don't name others?
chris hedges wrote the article. chris hedges should have been named.
it was interesting because the report was televised by another outlet and we got to hear other people's names but the reporter who wrote the article for the new york times was never named.
now i enjoy chris hedges' books, i enjoy the reporting on israel that he's done for mother jones.
that a reporter like hedges can be fooled (the 'source' had made up credentials and was using another man's name) underscores how successful the propaganda effort was on reporters.
so i'm listening and wondering 'why won't they say chris hedges?'
then i start to wonder. mainly because a number of ex-co-workers have told me that the reason no 1 wants to explore the church committee in print is because bill moyers worked for lbj and was involved in some anti-press activities. now moyers wasn't tapping any 1's phones. he wasn't breaking in homes. i believe all he did was, at lbj's request, make some calls to friends to find out some things about a few reporters. i don't consider that criminal or unethical. i've done it myself when i was in the p.r. game. quite often, in fact. i wouldn't let any 1 schedule an interview (unless they had no other chance of press) until i vetted the reporters out with trusted friends.
i don't know whether that's true or not about moyers being the reason. i know a lot of friends i used to work with in the p.r. biz are convinced that it is true. but listening to chris hedges' story be discussed but him never be named, i thought 'is this the sort of thing that they're talking about?'
chris hedges wrote the article. name him. discuss him. he may or may not be a good friend of the left. but don't bring on a guest to discuss a story in the new york times (that was as wrong as wrong could be and helped create the climate of cheerleading the war on iraq) and never name the person who wrote the story.
here's another issue. in the article in question, chris hedges wrote that he had 2 sources.
now what's the deal there? he was lied to (and any 1 can be, that's no shame for hedges). so he talked to mother jones about his source. 1 source.
but 2 sources lied to him.
what's the name of the other source?
if he's going to come forward with 1 (and if they lie, they have no right to be protected), he needs to come forward with the other.
because he hasn't, there's a feeling on the part of some people (my phone never stops ringing on the theorizing of this topic) that he didn't have 2 sources. that he only had 1 source. but that it sounded better in print to claim 2.
i don't think chris hedges would do that. i hope he wouldn't. but until he can come forward and name the 2nd source, he'll have to expect that people will wonder.
and he may be willing to come forward. no 1's talked to him about it since the mother jones article that i know of. he hasn't been interviewed about it, he hasn't been on democracy now discussing it.
if we mean what we say when we act outraged about the lies of the times then we're outraged period. c.i. wrote about the mother jones story. c.i. likes chris hedges. c.i. mentioned hedges by name and noted that there were 2 sources mentioned in the article.
i asked c.i. about that (and think i can note it here) when i was holding up ruth's report that week. c.i. said that chris hedges has done some wonderful work (agreed) and continues to do so (agreed) but knowing that hedges wrote the article (mother jones noted it in print) and that hedges' 2001 article had stated 2 sources, it would have been hypocritical not to have mentioned it.
'i felt bad about pointing it out because he does strong journalism but this wasn't about attacking him,' c.i. said (i made notes by the way so at 1 point this was okay for quoting), 'this was about holding some 1 to the same standards i would any 1 else at the paper. i wrote that he may be willing to name the 2nd source, i hope that's true, but if you go public because a source burned you, you can't pick and choose. 2 burned hedges. 2 need to be named.'
and about the counterspin interview?
'i didn't hear it. from what you're telling me the issue wasn't raised. it may have been a time factor, it may have been something discussed that got edited out because there wasn't much to offer. if it was a case of the interviewer not wanting to raise the issue, i do understand that. i didn't want to. i twice pulled that entry and then called back a 3rd time and said send it to the site. i went back and forth on it because i knew that it could be used to smear. i wasn't trying to smear. but in the end, if i'm going to criticize elisabeth bumiller or any 1 else, i have to note that a) chris hedges got it wrong, b) it was a propaganda effort and c) there were 2 sources mentioned in the article and only 1 has been named. what went up was dictated. no changes were made. but i did call back and say "don't send it." then i called back and said, "send it." i repeated that pattern again. my 3rd call was when i felt this was so silly. if the right wants to smear him, they will. we've noted him at the site before and will again. he's a good writer. good writers make mistakes too. it was a serious mistake due to the climate of that period. it had to be noted. but that was my decision. i have no idea how much time they have on counterspin before they record an interview. if a host felt that the issue might not be helpful, i can understand that. or they might have intended to have hedges on as well and something came up. he did speak to the writer of the mother jones article. if hedges hadn't spoken, there wouldn't be a story. he's not trying to hide it. but it's complicated and i'd be the last to slam counterspin for that interview because, if it did have to do with hedges, i went back and forth myself.'
so that's c.i.'s take. my take is you don't say 'the new york times' repeatedly. you bring up chris hedges, who wrote the story being discussed, you ask the reporter questions about what chris hedges said.
so that was 1 issue.
the issue i had on saturday was joe conason. i like conason. i've got big lies. i read the new york observer just for his column. but the segment he was on was useless to me.
here's the background. a frequent columnist for the new york post's 'page 6' (the gossip columns) is accused of hustling at least 1 person for good press. give me money, the accusation goes, or you won't get good press.
so conason comes on to talk about this story and offers . . . when ted kennedy ran against jimmy carter in 1980's democratic primaries.
excuse me, i worked in p.r. i made a huge sum in that field because i knew my job.
conason didn't know the topic. he knew what he wanted to talk about and that was trot out an old story, oft told, on rupert murdoch.
the columnist of page 6, if the accusation is true, asked for money. that's usually not done. but other things are sought by gossip columnists. i had to talk a client into attending a party 1 time because otherwise he was going to be slammed by a gossip columnist.
that's 1 area they could have covered. that actually had to do with the allegations agains the post columinst. i can tell you many horror stories. i can tell you about a singer i had to get call a gossip columnist's niece. i can tell you about an event that all my clients had to appear at, had to!, or the gossip columnist was going to pull all mentions of my clients.
that happens and it happens all the time. page 6 guy, if the rumors are true, just got a little greedier than many are.
so that's 1 way they could have gone.
here's another way. rupert murdoch, since they wanted to make it about him, has rumored pattern of using his press to go after those whose politics differ with his own. not drew barrymore because she's young and can be dismissed as 'pretty' and her beliefs just add into that. but others, they'll create rumors, they'll trash.
there's a performer, for instance, who doesn't like bully boy. the performer was asked to do a movie. the performer turned down the movie. (it was a bad part and the film bombed when it came out as the performer sensed it would.) that's not how it played in the new york post. in the new york post (and picked up by the wire services), the performer had tested for the role (not just read for it, screen tested!) and then been turned down. the item told you that the career was over and the performer washed up.
nothing in the item was true. but it was a way to go after someone who wasn't a right winger.
that's not an isolated incident. and here's why it matters.
in the entertainment world, the perception is everything. if the gossip columnist is guilty of what he's accused of, he used that power of perception to shake down some 1 for money. that's the story. it's not about what rupert murdoch did with jimmy carter back in 1980. this is not a story of politicians. it is a story of how people suffer by the right wing echo chamber. careers can be destroyed.
listening, i got the impression that a celebrity and a gossip column was not important enough for counterspin to address. as some 1 who came from p.r., i found that a little insulting, but whatever. however, if you don't want to address it, don't address it. no 1's forcing you too. but don't take a very real story and try to 'upgrade' it to the point that it's no longer the issue. and that's what i felt happened.
again, i like fair. i like counterspin. i'm signed up for fair's action alerts at my site's e-mail (sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com) but i do have those 2 issues and i'm not going to pretend that they didn't happen.
ruth was willing to write about either 1. that's ruth's space and c.i. wouldn't have altered anything (except compliments of c.i., c.i. will fight to get her okay to pull those). c.i.'s problem (and i do have permission to note it was a problem) was that ruth's report was ready and then it wasn't. and that this has happened repeatedly on saturdays after ruth and i talk. it is a pain for c.i. because members are wanting to read it and because it adds works on a saturday when c.i.'s time is already limited. (there's the posting in the morning at the common ills, then by evening, it's work on the third estate sunday review and in between try to squeeze some time for activism and life.)
so what ruth and i have decided is that if i have a problem with something i hear (on counterspin or any other show) i'll note it here. she'll note that i have a different take in her next report.
but i'm the 1 who has been delaying the reports because i've been calling and saying, 'well, did you hear that because it really bothered me.' then ruth will call c.i. and say 'hold the report' (after c.i.'s noted 'ruth goes up right after this.) then ruth and i will discuss it and she'll begin trying to write something to include it in her report and sometimes that can go on for many hours.
i also had a question about last week's show, not an issue. what was janine jackson's remark about the katie couric attention indicating the level of discourse? i couldn't tell what point she was trying to make. if the point was that the coverage was shallow, it was. if the point was that it didn't matter, i disagree. the issue was sexism. (and ava and c.i. noted the sexism in their wonderful essay.) if janine jackson was saying that couric being a '1st' didn't matter in terms of news, i do have a problem with that. not an issue, a problem.
as i remember it, during the confirmation of either alito or roberts, janine jackson interviewed a man who said too much attention was paid to reproductive rights. well a man would say that, wouldn't HE?
if the couric item was meant to downgrade women's issues and accomplishments, i have a real problem with that. peter jennings died and counterspin could note that. in fact a number of people could note that. they weren't interested in covering the death of john j. johnson - who actually had impact on the civil rights movement. they were interested in covering the white MALE anchor.
when laura flanders was at fair, they had very strong coverage of women and women's issues. when you're bringing on a man to say the abortion gets too much attention in a confirmation hearing, it may be time for you to do a self-check.
i'm glad katie couric's broken through the barrier. i've given up on corporate news but i hope she does well ratings wise. i realize that if she doesn't, it will be 'a woman can't do it!'
there's a lot of pressure on her now. she may not have the 'radical ass' that some think peter jennings possessed. (not people who worked with him, but apparently he was good about making some people believe that he really listened to their concerns.) but it does matter.
i'm not 1 who will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. a condi v. hillary matchup, in fact, might find me not voting for that office. but katie couric is not condi or hillary.
i'll note something from the draft ava circulated of her and c.i.'s 1st version of the story. bob didn't come from a morning show that aired five days a week. he came from a sunday chat & chew. where his mistakes (and worse) had been well documented. (including by fair.) i'm not remembering any action alerts on today.
i liked peter jennings as a host and even wrote of my shock when he announced his cancer. but listening to all the fawning coverage really soured me on him. especially when another death, john l. johnson's, wasn't noted. (democracy now noted it.) it's real funny that every anchor (MALE) can get noted. dan rather gets fired and it's fret and worry. peter jennings dies and suddenly he was 2nd only to alexander cockburn as an angry voice on the left.
that's how it played it out.
it's funny whom they claim and whom they don't. for instance, which anchor was the one who knew of the chicago demonstrations in 1968 - before they happened? i'm not saying they should have lined up behind him. i am saying that what some 1 did in the 60s really doesn't matter in terms of today if that's where you have to go to find 'radical ass.'
(or maybe that's not known outside of p.r. circles? having joe conason on to discuss jimmy carter probably wouldn't result in that being noted.)
so that's my beef, screed, what have you.
