zed!

dontcha hate it when they hang up on you?

Joe Klein is an ass.

wow…my first, and presumably last, zed, on a post THIS GOOD, too–nice work, Jane.

Even after Glenn Greenwald meticulously dismantled Joe KLein’s “journalistic ethics” this editor chooses to look the other way.

We should send her a link so she can read for herself what a train wreck this issue has become.

Hello, Jane…

Called and left a voice mail with Precilla

Are we allowed to use words like “ass”? That’s not too uncivil, is it?

I’ll call that freaking editor–and will be polite.

Well, we’ve wondered for a long time what Traditional Media’s editors were for, and now we know: hanging up the phone when bloggers call.

Time for a blogger ethics panel?

it will be REALLY interesting to see what Time does with something like this…what should come of it is a dialog as to how major American reportage has become so corrupted. what I suspect *will* happen is that Klein takes an early retirement.

Klein’s starting to remind me of Rumplestiltskin.

When is he going to stomp so hard on the floor that he splits in two?

been following this with only one eye.

Can you bullet-list the errors, so when we call we don’t have to recite our own ramblin’ thesis?

I’m all over the issue generally, just cannot put this piece by Klein under the analytical scalpel right now.

Thx

hmmm…seems Salon’s server has been firedogged.

She hung up on Jane? Damn, that is worthy of some phone dialing. As a standard poodle owner, I cannot tolerate this.

Should I cancel my subscription to TIME magazine?

OT/OnT Huffington has up (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/huffpolitics/) another piece on Mayor Bloomberg’s possible presidental run with “indep” Lieberman as a possible candidate. Why is this being circulated again. As with Joe Klein this is not about facts on the ground it is about influencing policy. I see this, as with the NYT connecting O’Hanlan with Clinton on the front page recently, as a “threat” to mount a 3rd party drive for the presidency if EITHER the Dems or the Rethugs opt for a candidate who is against continuing the current Mid East policy. In the Dems case they seem to be suggesting that if anyone other than Hillary gets the nod they will think about throwing a wrench in the works. Bloomberg in the mix would probably provide the same margin of difference as Nader did in the earlier election.

Frank33…jeebus, you still have one?! :)

annagranfors @ 17

Frank33…jeebus, you still have one?! :)

My wife likes TIME (and NEWSWEEK).

Richmond @ 16

OT/OnT Huffington has up (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/huffpolitics/) another piece on Mayor Bloomberg’s possible presidental run with “indep” Lieberman as a possible candidate. Why is this being circulated again. As with Joe Klein this is not about facts on the ground it is about influencing policy. I see this, as with the NYT connecting O’Hanlan with Clinton on the front page recently, as a “threat” to mount a 3rd party drive for the presidency if EITHER the Dems or the Rethugs opt for a candidate who is against continuing the current Mid East policy. In the Dems case they seem to be suggesting that if anyone other than Hillary gets the nod they will think about throwing a wrench in the works. Bloomberg in the mix would probably provide the same margin of difference as Nader did in the earlier election.

I think this is right on the money. Very perceptive.

Greenwald’s schtick is increasingly terrifying. His neverending epiphany, which arrives each day and without fail, like the rising of the sun–is that, holy shit, the media propogandizes on behalf of the government. (The government, Glenn, not the GOP.) Finding a gloss on some new police-state tactic in Time magazine, of all places, should not shock a man. It’s like being surprised at a well-reviewed military parade in Pravda.

from http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

let’s keep thanking ted turner for his sellout. give the corporate greed the only real news outlet remaining, sell it so they can effectively kill the brand.
accident? horrible mistake in judgement? fix it.

Novak out with a strong anti Hucklebee column today….accusing him of heresy on tax cuts for the rich issues…The battle between the two major wings of the gooper party may be underway…Bon Appetite!

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said.

Well, her response pretty much answers your question doesn’t it?

Time Magazine is so lame.

Oh well, they actually banned me from their crappy little error-ridden blog. In fact they banned me with extreme prejudice — I’m not even allowed to access their webpage to read it.

get ready for the atriot flood!

What was that again about how the GOP/Media Complex is superior to all bloggers because they have editors and fact-checkers and there are consequences for effing up?

Maybe it’s “Say Goodnight, Time.”

I’ve told Firepups in the previous thread to migrate up here. That editor needs to get a few calls.

BTW, I called and got her voice mail. Left a message. She must be getting lotsa calls and has probably forwarded to voice mail or is screening.

I left a voice mail too.

Biodun @ 29

I’ve told Firepups in the previous thread to migrate up here. That editor needs to get a few calls.

BTW, I called and got her voice mail. Left a message. She must be getting lotsa calls and has probably forwarded to voice mail or is screening.

Or she left the building. ;-)

it’s hard for them to know what to print now that KKKarl is gone and there is no leadership at the gooper hq (who is chairman now?) so the message is confused and the editing sloppy.

That assumes that Time practices journalism.

Jokeline Sux @ 25

Oh well, they actually banned me from their crappy little error-ridden blog. In fact they banned me with extreme prejudice — I’m not even allowed to access their webpage to read it.

Ooooh! Good on you! They must be reading your IP address.

sdf (Stu) @ 23

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said.

Well, her response pretty much answers your question doesn’t it?

Reminds me of the Bush/Cheney administration approach.

I left Priscilla a friendly voice message, on the matter.

Jim White @ 33

That assumes that Time practices journalism.

it doesn’t seem as if they’ve been practicing.

Oh, and just because I want to be the first to say it:

Time for another blogger ethics conference!

(/snark)

I left a message. What an idiot.

I called. I chuckled in the intro about how she was too afraid now to answer calls, and left a polite message letting her know that I saw she had hung up on a popular blogger, and that it would influence whether or not I purchased Time magazine in the future(which I do occassionally purchase), unless they chose to do the right thing and printed the corrction.

Elliott @ 37

Jim White @ 33

That assumes that Time practices journalism.

it doesn’t seem as if they’ve been practicing.

Nope. But they’ve certainly been executing it.

Joe Klein, acclaimed writer and political columnist for Time magazine, spoke the evening of November 27 to a capacity crowd in Hooker Auditorium. Earlier in the day he had visited the journalism class taught by the magazine’s executive editor, Priscilla Painton ‘80. Introducing Klein, Painton described him as “a man who loves politics, politicians, and his country. He has an extraordinarily romantic view of what politics can be in this country. He always believes that the next election can surprise him.”

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offic…..amp;full=1

Lets hope circling the wagons progresses into a circular firing squad.

Admitting that errors were made is a sign of weakness.

Sounds like its Time these folks went back to Journalism School! Or perhaps Ethics School.

Same as it ever was.

After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. These organizations were run by people with well-known right-wing views such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time Magazine and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O’Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).[5]

“He always believes that the next election can surprise him.”

I think his impending unemployment may surprise him too.

egregious @ 35

sdf (Stu) @ 23

Well, her response pretty much answers your question doesn’t it?

Reminds me of the Bush/Cheney administration approach.

Indeed. A mistake only comes into being when it is admitted to having been one. Very postmodern of them.

re: aye’s Mt. Holyoke quote at 42:

ladies and gennulmen, I give you The Village!

Re: lotsa people leaving voice-mail messages. What did I say in my 29? If anyone actually reaches her, I’m curious how the conversation went.

Joe’s romantic view:

Republicans are manly and brave warrior he-men, Democrats are dirty fucking hippies who loathe the military and hate religion and want to give Osama Bin Laden the Nobel Prize.

-GSD

brendan @ 19

Richmond @ 16

OT/OnT Huffington has up (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/huffpolitics/) another piece on Mayor Bloomberg’s possible presidental run with “indep” Lieberman as a possible candidate. Why is this being circulated again. As with Joe Klein this is not about facts on the ground it is about influencing policy. I see this, as with the NYT connecting O’Hanlan with Clinton on the front page recently, as a “threat” to mount a 3rd party drive for the presidency if EITHER the Dems or the Rethugs opt for a candidate who is against continuing the current Mid East policy. In the Dems case they seem to be suggesting that if anyone other than Hillary gets the nod they will think about throwing a wrench in the works. Bloomberg in the mix would probably provide the same margin of difference as Nader did in the earlier election.

I think this is right on the money. Very perceptive.

Thanks Brendon. The Huff piece if by someone named Sam Stein. I don’t recognize the name, but they cite various MSM as supportive of a Bloomberg candidacy among these NY Post and US News.

TheraP @ 45

Sounds like its Time these folks went back to Journalism School! Or perhaps Ethics School.

Painton used to teach journalism. Check out the title of her course.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offic…..amp;full=1

What goes through a news editor’s mind when a story as explosive as Saddam Hussein’s capture breaks just before her publication is going to press? Is it possible to fact-check a photograph? How do you know when a science story is based on a genuine piece of research rather than commercial promotion? MHC students are pondering these questions and many others this semester in a course titled Can You Trust a Journalist? taught by visiting instructor Priscilla Painton ‘80, executive editor of Time magazine.

…c’mon, TIME. stand by yer man. I DARE ya…

The professional apology has come a long way:

Twenty-five years ago, Tylenol poisoning gave J&J a huge headache. What did its management do? They acknolwedged the problem, even though it wasn’t their doing; they recalled everything from the shelves and destroyed it (didn’t send it to Arkansas or China); they made the packaging more secure and relaunched the brand with an apology. It worked. Saved their reputation, saved their brand.

Since then, a new industry of “crisis managers” and “professional apology consultants” has sprouted and, er, changed the format.

They’ve borrowed a leaf from the books of Darth Cheney, Holocaust deniers and unrepentant alcoholics. They begin and end with denial. They pound the table or slam the phone down with, “What problem? No comment!?!”

Like Bush and Valerie, they imply a thorough investigation took place (note the passive voice), when, in fact, either one wasn’t conducted or its conclusions were spiked. As in Bushville, no heads roll (except whistleblowers). Like “spring water” bottlers from the outflow shores of New Jersey, they smack a new label on the same old shit and put it on the shelves.

Time’s problem, Newsweek’s too, is that there’s a lot more competition than in the days when Henry Luce did it and got away with it week after week.

I bought a subscription to Time my junior year of high school in 1972. I let my subscription lapse last year after having had more than enough right wing spin passed off as news. Unfortunately, I can only cancel my subscription once.

well there is certainly one good thing that’s come out of this entire episode;

we can rest assured it’s gonna be a while before joke line or any other major “journalist” publishes a hit piece untill they’ve done at least a little research

either that or they will shut their comments section down

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.

Besides being hysterically funny, that captures the attitude of the MSM not only toward bloggers but their readers in general. Rather than admit fault, they deny and equivocate. They hide behind the dodge that they are professionals, unlike us, but their professionalism is contentless. At the same time they dismiss us, they feel threatened by us. What is really absurd about this is that if they were doing their jobs they would have no reason to feel threatened by us. Of course, there are some who say that dishing out this schlock is precisely what they are being so well paid to do and what they dislike is not so much doing it but being called on it.

Blue Texan’s upstairs… FDL posts are coming fast and furious this morning. My zed radar is off…*g*

well said, Hugh. another illustration of this bizarre social stratification that separates The Village from, well, humanity.

Richmond @ 16

OT/OnT Huffington has up (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/huffpolitics/) another piece on Mayor Bloomberg’s possible presidental run with “indep” Lieberman as a possible candidate. Why is this being circulated again. As with Joe Klein this is not about facts on the ground it is about influencing policy. I see this, as with the NYT connecting O’Hanlan with Clinton on the front page recently, as a “threat” to mount a 3rd party drive for the presidency if EITHER the Dems or the Rethugs opt for a candidate who is against continuing the current Mid East policy. In the Dems case they seem to be suggesting that if anyone other than Hillary gets the nod they will think about throwing a wrench in the works. Bloomberg in the mix would probably provide the same margin of difference as Nader did in the earlier election.

this is what they would like for us to fear. the truth is they don’t know, and of course neither do we.
it’s a big poker game and it’s seven card stud. no more than three cards have been dealt. who’s to say that bloomberg wouldn’t draw more away from republican voters than democratic voters? he probably would draw more republican voters in states where he would be strong, like new york and connecticut, possibly california and florida.

Quality of journalism seems to be the topic of the morning. In that regard, in the past week, several outstanding commentators, Marcy, Christy, Jane, Glenzilla, and Krugman, have done some awsome (almost tag-team) takedowns of Thomas Friedman, Joe Klein, and Mark Halperin. (It has been truly delightful.) Ultimately, these takedowns are going to have an impact on these folks, because their colleagues have access to the Internet, and this sort of thing make great office gossip. And it looks like Priscilla is in a world of hurt.

BTW: Earlier this moring Glenn Greenwald wrote: “I now know who Klein’s editor for this piece was and I will have much more to say about all of this tomorrow.”

Painton’s reportedly due to leave Time by end of the year.

http://gawker.com/news/the-rev…..311565.php

Also, here’s one take on her from a while ago by Somersby (”Priscilla Painton will do and say anything”–second half of page)

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh041505.html

Christy is going to put a hold on the new thread so stay here.

I just caught Priscilla Painton on the phone! I read Jane’s piece to her, and followed up with this question: “How was the Time editing process able to permit a column with so many mistakes to be printed?” She said that she had told Jane that she “would be happy to comment after Time has published their reply in the print edition.” She also said that this is what she told Jane but that Jane didn’t post that because “she’s dishonest.”

I thanked her for her time (but not the magazine) and wished her a happy Tuesday.

Bitch.

…she what? COOL! :)

The next thread is NOT ready. Don’t even look. Or else.

Biodun @ 59

Blue Texan’s upstairs… FDL posts are coming fast and furious this morning. My zed radar is off…*g*

I’m getting 404′d when I try to get to the comments on that post.

I called and left a very polite message stating that I had read all 5 versions of the article and had yet to find ANYTHING in it that was actually correct.

wigwam @ 62

Quality of journalism seems to be the topic of the morning. In that regard, in the past week, several outstanding commentators, Marcy, Christy, Jane, Glenzilla, and Krugman, have done some awsome (almost tag-team) takedowns of Thomas Friedman, Joe Klein, and Mark Halperin. (It has been truly delightful.) Ultimately, these takedowns are going to have an impact on these folks, because their colleagues have access to the Internet, and this sort of thing make great office gossip. And it looks like Priscilla is in a world of hurt.

BTW: Earlier this moring Glenn Greenwald wrote: “I now know who Klein’s editor for this piece was and I will have much more to say about all of this tomorrow.”

and don’t forget Matt Bai …..

Mike @ 69

I called and left a very polite message stating that I had read all 5 versions of the article and had yet to find ANYTHING in it that was actually correct.

The name of the author? Only Klein himself could really be *this* bad.

Hiya Christy:

Thanks for pulling that post. Now my radar’s back…*g*

egregious–naw. the spelling’s different. J-O-K-E L-I-N-E.

Talk About Alternative Party – In an Alternative Universe, Maybe: U.S. Representative and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) said that he was thinking about U.S. Representative Ronald E. “Ron” Paul (R-TX), who is seeking the Republican nomination, as a potential Vice Presidential running mate. The liberal / libertarian fusion ticket would unite two “gadflies” against their parties’ establishment.

DCs Political Report

I’m pretty sure Stengel is the guy who was running around the teevee channels about a year back, crowing about how Joe Klein was “an internet star” because of all the negative attention his idiocy was getting. Good luck with getting through to those jokers.

I am thinking, Joe Klein, Worst Person In The World.

racymind @ 14

hmmm…seems Salon’s server has been firedogged.

She hung up on Jane? Damn, that is worthy of some phone dialing. As a standard poodle owner, I cannot tolerate this.

Just another reason that proves that Time deserves to lose a lot of circulation. Isn’t there an old adage that refers to not insulting the person that buys ink by the barrel? Either Pricilla Painton was oblivious as to what Jane does or, more importantly, what her “circulation” or audience consists of, or Pricilla didn’t feel competent to discuss any errors in the article, but thought it was incumbent on her to defend it. It seems probable to me that Pricilla is so ignorant that she has a hard time distinguishing between fact and opinion. Perhaps that’s why she thought hanging up on someone with her own following in the tens of thousands per day was the smart thing to do.

fahrender @ 70

wigwam @ 62

Quality of journalism seems to be the topic of the morning. In that regard, in the past week, several outstanding commentators, Marcy, Christy, Jane, Glenzilla, and Krugman, have done some awsome (almost tag-team) takedowns of Thomas Friedman, Joe Klein, and Mark Halperin. (It has been truly delightful.) Ultimately, these takedowns are going to have an impact on these folks, because their colleagues have access to the Internet, and this sort of thing make great office gossip. And it looks like Priscilla is in a world of hurt.

BTW: Earlier this moring Glenn Greenwald wrote: “I now know who Klein’s editor for this piece was and I will have much more to say about all of this tomorrow.”

and don’t forget Matt Bai …..

I was actually on video phone with Glenn in the background when I was on the telephone with Painton and she hung up on me.

I wish I could find that animated gif of the little guy typing faster and faster until he starts banging his head on the keyboard. That’s a picture of Glenn right now.

I can’t get into comments upstairs – get error message.

Glenn has a post up just now, saying he overheard the conversation with the Time editor… and he confirms Jane’s version of events!

I love how this is going!

From the Daily Howler link:

“PAINTON: Well, yes, she does. But that doesn’t mean that that isn’t influential. I mean, in the sense that when there’s a big debate, usually it’s her funny, amusing, outrageous quips that people walk around–

O’REILLY: Do you think people, Americans, listen to Ann Coulter? Do you think she has influence in public opinion?

PAINTON: I think so. I think the way she sort of summarizes issues and twists them with humor has a big impact. But I also think people read her books.”

Coulter is funny, amusing, outrageous!

But Jane’s dishonest…?

‘Scuse me while I go pound my head on the desk.

What everybody seems to forget is that TIME is not journalism, and by extension, neither are any of its writers. TIME is a product, designed for people who don’t have or make time to be well-read, who don’t read anything unless it has a narrative to keep their interest, and who want to delude themselves and their conversation partners they are current with the events of the week. As a product, it is successful.

As journalism, it sucks.

If Joe is forced to make a correction the next sound you hear will be the talk radio hosts, “Liberals eat their own!”

now that the MSM is starting to realize that Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald and Digby and Driftglass are paying attention there is a real glimmer of hope.
like never before all us firepups need to send energy and love to those who lead us.

egregious @ 71

That’s wrong also: should be Joke Klein.

please tell me either Jane or Glenn captured audio on this…

FYI: Priscilla Painton also edited TIME’s Ann Coulter cover story.

I interviewed her a few months later, after some (more) nasty stuff about AC had come out.

I asked: “Would you change anything about the piece?”

Her reply: “Not a word.”

Glenn provides email address for managing editor:

richard_stengel@timemagazine.com

Painton never believes there are any errors in Time articles.

Even when she admits errors, she retracts the admissions.

Knowingly permitting the commission of a mistake in the conduct of research, and causing the results of research based on false information to be published as true, and, further, not imposing sanctions of any sort on the perpetrators of such intellectual dishonesty, or remaining silent about it, are all separate unethical acts.

They violate key standards regarding research integrity that academic institutions and academic researchers are supposed to adhere to.

Joe Klein — if he were in any reputable university in the world — would have to account for his intellectual dishonesty, as would the institution that harbors him.

As a journalist, Joe Klein is a first responder to history, and should be held to the same intellectual standards regarding integrity and honesty as his academic counterparts. Why not?

So what makes Joe Klein believe that the power he has to (mis)inform millions of people should be held to any lesser standard of integrity? Isn’t there any ethical standard that’s articulated that he has to adhere to? He’s a professional. Aren’t there any professional norms published anywhere that apply to him. Does he just get to lie and misrepresent without being held accountable?

I’ve been reading widely published accounts excoriating him. They constitute a court of public opinion, a marketplace for ideas, true enough. So let the criticisms flourish, and his defenders too, if any.

But in situations like this, one sort of longs for a “Tribunal in the Sky” that could hear the evidence, listen to the arguments, and then confer a collective judgment about the intellectual integrity of the act that Joe Klein has committed. Some form of formal, professional, well-considered condemnation may be called for.

Of course, in an informal way, that’s sort of what’s happening, maybe. Anybody seen old Joe around town lately?

Good on Jane for holding Time magazine and Joe Klein’s feet to the fire. The fact that someone disrespectfully hung up on a phone call is a victory in itself. It is an admission that the Time people have no defense for Klein’s column.

It takes a self-confident man or woman to admit a mistake. Not admitting mistakes in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is a sign of personal and corporate weakness. Their reputations have already taken a big hit.

Time Magazine Circles The Wagons Around Joe Klein

Donner, Party of one?

annagranfors @ 73

egregious–naw. the spelling’s different. J-O-K-E L-I-N-E.

I used Joe Klein’s web nickname as the joke line in a post I wrote last Sunday.

Jane,

Just left Ms. Paiton a very nice voicemail explaining that I was shocked by the inaccuracies in the Joe Klein article.

I also said that with a readership of about 4 million Time has a duty to print a correction.

Not holding my breath, but at least they are getting an earful.

TheraP @ 80

Glenn has a post up just now, saying he overheard the conversation with the Time editor… and he confirms Jane’s version of events!

I love how this is going!

So now Priscilla Painton has now resorted to lying as well? Do these people have no shame? How can we believe journalists and their stories when they lie outright about little things like these? *g*

Kagro X @ 89

Painton never believes there are any errors in Time articles.

Even when she admits errors, she retracts the admissions.

Aw, that’s an old one. “Once I was wrong: I thought I made a mistake, but it turns out I didn’t.”

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

I guess it should be said that more than likely all of Time’s e-mail addresses follow that template, ie. “joke_line@timemagazine.com”.

just kidding about the addressee’s name, there, though… :)

My impression is that Time, and a lot of the ‘mainstream media’, see their responsibility as to accurately report what important people are saying. Reporting on who is actually telling the objective truth can be sort of interesting, but is not really important because reality ‘is what people make it’ – talking about objective reality is sort of like talking about the ingredients of a good meal instead of enjoying the meal.

A nonsensical interpretation of the role of the press like what I describe in the previous paragraph enables someone like Joe Klein to write, and Priscilla Painton to edit, a column which is blatantly wrong and think that each of them has done their jobs – the column did accurately report what their Republican sources had said (and it even mentioned that Joe Klein had talked to Democratic sources!), therefore, in their view, it is an accurate column. I suspect that they do not really understand what people are upset about. Which, for me at least, explains a lot about why things are so very messed up.

Jane Hamsher @ 78

fahrender @ 70

and don’t forget Matt Bai …..

I was actually on video phone with Glenn in the background when I was on the telephone with Painton and she hung up on me.

I wish I could find that animated gif of the little guy typing faster and faster until he starts banging his head on the keyboard. That’s a picture of Glenn right now.

Jane, the work you, Glenn, Marcy, etc. are doing now is just awesome. God, it’s satisfying to see these bastards get sliced and diced.

From a DKos post, her email is priscilla_painton@timemagazine.com

“I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound—with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.”
Stephen Colbert, just a few feet away from George W. Bush, on Saturday, April 29, 2006, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C.

Klein is not like Broder. He’s not oblivious to criticism, even from mere online commenters. He’ll be a shell when this is through.

Biodun @ 95

TheraP @ 80

Glenn has a post up just now, saying he overheard the conversation with the Time editor… and he confirms Jane’s version of events!

I love how this is going!

So now Priscilla Painton has now resorted to lying as well? Do these people have no shame? How can we believe journalists and their stories when they lie outright about little things like these? *g*

These people are used to running the show! And they call it journalism.

We should call them:

Fiction Writers

Well I called and left a message asking if she knew that Klein was bereft of facts when he wrote about FISA and , in fact, did it make any difference to her as editor and or did she know? I left my phone number and asked her to call me back.

I am not holding my breath.

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

See Jane’s comment @ #79 and TheraP’s @ #80. Jane has a witness.

Klein’s “work” on the FISA piece is utterly shameful. That he is given any platform at all from which to pretend to be someone worthy of opinionating on the topic is mind-boggling.

Good job, you guys. Good going.

In case it wasn’t clear Glenn Greenwald is the witness!

I have been a subscriber of Time since 1968. It has always been somewhat to the right on all issues, which is why I also subscribe to Newsweek, US News, The Economist, and read other international weekly news magazines online. It takes reading all of them-they all have a viewpoint that they push rather hard(and it takes several hours a week) to get to the bottom-and what the plain unvarnished truth is.I have stopped watching the network news programs(except for Countdown)because they spend so little time on actual news-I remember when the networks had only 15 min. programs every night, one got more news then then we get with a 30 min program- Instead I watch the BBC world news on BBC America, it helps to get a viewpoint from outside the insular realm of american “news” programs. It comes as no surprise to me that most americans pay no attion to either news programs or to newspapers, I have found both networks and the millionaire reporters from inside the beltway are very lazy, they seldom bother to check their facts before writing any stories-the public editor of my daily newspaper is well aware of who I am, I seem to be contacting him several times a week to correct stories that have glaring faults. Keep up the good work ,I read this blog(along with many others, like C & L) on a daily basis. Just keep in mind that you, along with all other sources of news, spin stories to fit your world view. I am not saying it is wrong(as long as the facts themselves are correct)but everyone spins, and getting to the bottom line can be very difficult sometimes.When the so called national news organs-like the NYT and the WaPO- leave out half the statement when quoting someone, then they are no longer newspapers, they become just one more propaganda outlet-like fns and the wsj- If not for the internet, our corporately owned MSM would be much worse than it already is.

My, my, some people can get quite cranky when they are criticized for not doing their job correctly. How many of us in our jobs can get away with being bitchy to customers?

Good job calling bullshit per your post a few days ago Jane.

“That assumes there are errors.” Jag-off. Klein himself admitted his original FISA story was bogus although this admission was, as I said the other day, very pussified. “Yeah, I was wrong. But this is really complex stuff and nobody really understands it and the important thing is my overarching point was right, even if the supporting facts are in the toilet.”

Wasn’t there a time when journalists thought it was their jobs to research and learn about the “really complex stuff” and then explain it to the peoples? That was reporting. No more, I guess. At least not enough. Now they want to be spoon-fed Gerber stories. So we get pureed FISA.

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

cleter @ 8

Are we allowed to use words like “ass”? That’s not too uncivil, is it?

speaking for myself, yes

for “ass” you might want to subsitute embarrassment to Time Magazine.

Waving hi to all the Time employees reading this.

From Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

As Jane details here, she called Painton in an attempt to find out information about how these false claims made it into Klein’s article, what Time was planning on doing to correct it and what they intended to do in order to account for what happened. I happened to be conversing with Jane by video when she was finally able to speak by telephone to Painton and thus heard Jane’s end of the discussion.

The call lasted roughly 10 seconds. Jane asked one or two questions in the most polite and professional manner possible — whether Painton was Klein’s Editor and how such errors made their way into the article. As Jane describes, after she asked Painton how such inaccuracies could make it into the Time article, Painton snapped: “That assumes that there are errors.” She then slammed down the phone in Hamsher’s face.

My bold. Is there a video of this? That would be marvelous!

trich @108:

A propos the reputability of other magazines — the Economist’s cover this week is a picture of Bush with the caption “Mr. Palestine”.

Alice–Time Magazine is an embarrassment to Time Magazine. Klein’s simply doing his part.

TeddySanFran @ 111

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

How many C-SPAN mugs does Painton have? Huh? Huh? I rest my case. She has no right to talk about two-mugged Jane that way.

egregious–hee!!!

Why this expenditure of energy on Time? Time has never in its entire existence been a friendly. The original owner was Henry “the American Century” Luce. His wife was oft-quoted Clare Booth Luce (”I am the waitress, coo-coo-ca-choo!”). They deserve Joe Klein. We do not expect more from them. Give it a rest!

Long ago and far away, when I was a high school debater, Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report were used as gold standard sources for facts to use in debates (most topics were about some kind of current issues).

Today, I would think whichever organizations sponsor debate competitions would require double sourcing for almost any newsmagazine and for many of our Big Media newspapers. I certainly hope they accept blog critiques and analyses as valid proofs.

Seriously–they have played government stenographers for so long. And, it’s not just the government they shill for–it is the RNC and other power centers on the right.

These people who work in the propaganda machines don’t know how to see the truth. Their mission is to obscure the truth. After a while truth is not even part of the equation… they proceed directly to their “message”.

annagranfors @ 116

Alice–Time Magazine is an embarrassment to Time Magazine. Klein’s simply doing his part.

Well, there’s that.

Regarding the question about blog civility, I admire the English distinction:

“Ass” is short for jackass, a donkey, the sort of animal that George Washington novelly mated with a horse to give us the mule, which has since never left the District of Columbia.

“Arse” is the back end, the nether region, which is red in baboons and upon which we sit, and which many a politician uses to think. It, too, has never left Washington.

Calling someone an “ass” is crude but civil, like calling them donkey-headed or mulish (mixing animals as well as metaphors). Calling someone an “arse” is modestly offle, like much of what passes for journalism in the traditional media.

Time does, after all, disclose that it’s a “newsmagazine”, which is to “news” like real oak, creme or leatherette are to the genuine articles. In a world where in-boxes are filled with ads for $29 Rolexes, we’re supposed to know that whatever it is they’re selling, it ain’t the real thing. Except, of course, it sells because so many people are marketed into thinking it is.

TeddySanFran @ 111

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

I believe it should be “that angry woman”

the trollage in this thread is…interesting. and best uncommented on. so I won’t any more.

Whenever the “journalism” world screeches in the future about how bad blogging is because there’s no professionalism or a “front line” of editors to ensure the quality of content, this Joe Klein FISA incident will be able to instantly discredit those arguments.

i’ve called three times and not gotten through – not even to voice mail. this is what i get for taking the time to think out what i’m going to say and writing notes to myself.

damn. but, i guess that means there have been more than a few people calling. good work firepups!

Priscilla Painton is a jackass, in the number 2 meaning of this word.

It’s interesting that there have been no swampland posts today.

My guess is there is a good chance that they will seal up this chink in the bubble, and let the swampland blog experiment wind down.

BTW, I’ve seen speculation in various places that TimeWarner may have a conflict in this–that they, as internet providers (TW cable, AOL) might have been among those who provided access to the NSA.

That’s pretty unlikely. The idea of going to the backbone providers is that almost all traffic goes through them eventually. For example, even if you are sending mail from one aol account to another, it may well hit one of the big switching stations at places like 60 Hudson. It would be both inefficient, and less secure (read “easy to keep secret”) to deal with consumer service providers.

This whole story is just getting more and more absurd, and “Time” is just making itself look worse and worse. The central problem with the original column is that Joe Klein never read the FISA bill. To some extent, that’s understandable. Bills are often long and tedious, and the Reps and Senators themselves often don’t read them.

(Sidebar: In an ideal world, both our elected officials and our political reporters would read all the bills. But we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world where George Bush is President.)

Klein got himself into trouble because there is disagreement between the Dems and the Republicans about what the bill really says. In cases like that, you’re pretty much obligated to read the damn bill for yourself. Klein didn’t. Then he admitted that he didn’t. Had he stopped right there and apologized, he’d probably have been okay. But he kept going, and he said that he was too busy and too stupid to read and understand the original bill. Now “Time” is stuck trying to explain why he isn’t also too busy and too stupid to write columns about it.

TheraP @ 107

In case it wasn’t clear Glenn Greenwald is the witness!

then Painton will simply claim she never said “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”, or she will say glen is in league with jane and he is lying with her

Painton is a liar after all, she will find a lie to tell regardless

alank @ 119

Why this expenditure of energy on Time? Time has never in its entire existence been a friendly. The original owner was Henry “the American Century” Luce. His wife was Clare Booth Luce (”I’m am the waitress, coo-coo-ca-choo!”). They deserve Joe Klein. We do not expect more from them. Give it a rest!

Nah. Disagree. I agree with the point Jane (I think) made the other day. We don’t have an attack/slime machine but we need to let media types know that when appropriate, we’ll call bullshit on them. That’s the only reason Klein issued any correction -albeit a pussified one on a blog. I believe it’ll make its way into print if we keep callin’ bullshit on the guy. Look, if the knuckleheaded snot of an editor had said “Mr. Klein corrected himself on the TIME blog” they’d be in a better position but to deny that there were any factual inaccuracies in the original story???? I don’t see how we can give it a rest. At some point we gotta call ‘em on their crap or else it’s gonna get even worse.

teedawg said:

“Knowingly permitting the commission of a mistake in the conduct of research, and causing the results of research based on false information to be published as true, and, further, not imposing sanctions of any sort on the perpetrators of such intellectual dishonesty, or remaining silent about it, are all separate unethical acts.”

…….that sums it up for me: intellectual dishonesty.

TheraP says:

“Fiction Writers”
here i respectfully disagree. i think i know what you intend but
A.S. Byatt is a fiction writer, likewise William Faulkner. these people are just incompetent liars and charlatans.

leave FISA on the floor !

“oh, this whole thing is just so silly. it’s just that BDS blogosphere acting up again. it was an honest mistake. now just stop it.”

Time is worth going after because of pseudo-progressive pundits like Jokeline need to know that our pressure in the netroots can counterbalance the moblike tactics from wingnuttia.
You mess with us and you will be damned by your own words recorded by truthseekers Jane and Glenn.

Thanks beerfart liberal.Great minds think alike?

TeddySanFran @ 111

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

Nah. She arrived with “foul-mouthed fem-blogger”. “That woman” is just icing on the cake.

Since I canceled my subscription after 30 years readership when they hired the loon William Kristol, all I can do is cancel my spouse’s office subscription. I emailed and told them I found Joe Klein “disturbing” since everyone knew what he was blithering about was propaganda. Time was not being read anyway. These people are running themselves out of business by this behavior. The old news rags still do not understand that they do not have a monopoly on information any longer, and no one wants to pay for their garbage. All they are doing is spiting themselves for their own ego.

Jane Hamsher @ 78

I wish I could find that animated gif of the little guy typing faster and faster until he starts banging his head on the keyboard. That’s a picture of Glenn right now.

Funny picture — I can hardly wait.

If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

TeddySanFran @ 111

common dedominator @ 97

Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.”

fwiw

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

You beat me to it..”that woman” is the sign of success

I don’t think anyone should publish a commentary on a piece of legislation which they have not read and researched. That’s professional misconduct and bloviating of the first order.

It underscores how incompetent many of the people who opine in the MSM are. They have the imprimatur but don’t bother to have the facts or the ethics.

Tithonia @ 140

If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

To make sure that everybody else also won’t understand it.

fahrender @ 133

teedawg said:

“Knowingly permitting the commission of a mistake in the conduct of research, and causing the results of research based on false information to be published as true, and, further, not imposing sanctions of any sort on the perpetrators of such, or remaining silent about it, are all separate unethical acts.”

…….that sums it up for me: intellectual dishonesty.

.

It is intellectual dishonesty, time is just trying to sell a product. Terror marketing!

what do you expect from a rag edited by the likes of Evan Thomas who is nothing but a psuedo intellectual, fatuous episcoplian and bush apologist. he sets the tone.

ya know, I’m betting there’s a meeting in a boardroom somewhere in the Time building right now that’s getting pretty heated. there is probably the pathetic fragrance of fear, as well.

Th says:
I bought a subscription to Time my junior year of high school in 1972. I let my subscription lapse last year after having had more than enough right wing spin passed off as news.

I had a subscription to Newsweek in the late seventies. Never had one to Time. I knew even then they were Righties.

I really, really wish that I had not let my Time subscription lapse so I could cancel it now. Unbelievable behavior!

That Time would stand behind this article, and this writer after this fiasco is truly beyond the pale!

jayackroyd @ 129

It’s interesting that there have been no swampland posts today.

My guess is there is a good chance that they will seal up this chink in the bubble, and let the swampland blog experiment wind down.

BTW, I’ve seen speculation in various places that TimeWarner may have a conflict in this–that they, as internet providers (TW cable, AOL) might have been among those who provided access to the NSA.

That’s pretty unlikely. The idea of going to the backbone providers is that almost all traffic goes through them eventually. For example, even if you are sending mail from one aol account to another, it may well hit one of the big switching stations at places like 60 Hudson. It would be both inefficient, and less secure (read “easy to keep secret”) to deal with consumer service providers.

Interesting.

Recalls the time the WaPo shut down over the Deborah Howell debacle. Then blamed it on “uncivil” commenters — who turned out to be Paul Lukasiak and Brad DeLong (after jukeboxgrad reconstructed the archives).

Rules have changes, folks.

Joe Klein revealed his primary colors in 1998…

For a little background, Glenn Greenwald wrote his original post last Wednesday 11/21/07:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html

His chief criticism of Joe Klein’s column concerned this passage:

Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.

(Bold is Glenn’s)

On Sunday 11/25/07, Glenn responded to this correction by Klein:

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.

by citing the actual text of the bill:

‘CLARIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES’

Sec. 105A. (a) Foreign to Foreign Communications-

(1) IN GENERAL – Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.

The point here was that if Klein had actually read the bill instead of depending on the Republican spin on it, it would have been clear that the bill does not give would be terrorists the “same legal protections as Americans” as he claimed. What Klein did and what Greenwald criticized him for is standard Beltway stenography. Klein was too concerned with the spin to be bothered with the facts, facts which were easily available to him.

Much the same could be said of his editor Painton. I think it is important to include the editors in this and name names. I write often about bias at the NYT much of which I attribute to the stewardship of the Times Executive Editor Bill Keller. It is important to remember that reporters and columnists don’t exist in a vacuum, that there are others who facilitate and approve what they do even when what they do is hopelessly flawed and dishonest.

Tithonia @ 140

If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

It takes a strong personality to admit that you’ve been had. Joe Klein just doesn’t have the guts to write a new article admitting that he’s become a tool for the repubs.

annagranfors @ 135

“oh, this whole thing is just so silly. it’s just that BDS blogosphere acting up again. it was an honest mistake. now just stop it.”

It’s all a big mix-up… He’s just worried about his phone bills…

Time Columnist Joe Klein Gets Wiretapping Debate Wrong a Third Time

But Klein can’t grasp this simple point, which may be why he defends himself by saying that bills are hard to read and details are unimportant:

Joe must be stressed about his hedge fund investments…

Carlyle’s Blue Wave Hedge Fund Loses 9.3% Since March Opening

The fund, overseen by former Deutsche Bank AG executives Rick Goldsmith and Ralph Reynolds, fell 9.5 percent in October after beginning the month with $690 million in assets, according to an investor who declined to be named because returns are private. The managers were hurt by bets on structured credit, which can include securities backed by repackaged home loans.

Just a big misundermastanding…

Howie Kurtz is up on Media Backtalk. I wonder what he has to say about this in light of Vargas’s article.

Someone needs to photoshop Time, but it should say Fiction (instead of Time).

I kind of said it earlier, but I really think that the Klein thing now becomes “exhibit A” in the “how American journalism became corrupted” dialog that will hopefully now ensue.

Alternate headlines we’d like to see –

Time Magazine Circles Wagons Around The Jerk Joe Klein.

Time Magazine Circle Jerks In Wagons About Joe Klein.

Off The Wagon Time Magazine Circle Jerks With Joe Klein.

Time Magazine Circle Jerks Joe Klein.

Tithonia @ 140:
If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

egregious says:
To make sure that everybody else also won’t understand it.

To muddy the waters. Isn’t that part of Joke Line’s job?

SanderO @ 142

I don’t think anyone should publish a commentary on a piece of legislation which they have not read and researched. That’s professional misconduct and bloviating of the first order.

It underscores how incompetent many of the people who opine in the MSM are. They have the imprimatur but don’t bother to have the facts or the ethics.

It also attests to a Republican mindset internalized by these writers: laws are technicalities, or for suckers. Real power has its own prerogatives.

jayackroyd @ 129

BTW, I’ve seen speculation in various places that TimeWarner may have a conflict in this–that they, as internet providers (TW cable, AOL) might have been among those who provided access to the NSA.

That’s pretty unlikely. The idea of going to the backbone providers is that almost all traffic goes through them eventually. For example, even if you are sending mail from one aol account to another, it may well hit one of the big switching stations at places like 60 Hudson. It would be both inefficient, and less secure (read “easy to keep secret”) to deal with consumer service providers.

I dunno AOL has a lot of proprietary closed network crap.

egregious @ 143

Tithonia @ 140

If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

To make sure that everybody else also won’t understand it.

And to ensure the GOP talking points about FISA enter 4 million readers’ brains unchallenged.

The part of this that disturbs me the most is the “I have neither the time nor the legal background…” quote.

To me, that is a twofold display of laziness. Firstly, that he doesn’t even bother to read the legislation, and secondly, he doesn’t even bother to go to the legal department of Time magazine or at least their “legal analyst” (Don’t tell me they don’t have one)and have someone explain it to him.

Absolutely mind-boggling.

beerfart liberal @ 132

alank @ 119

Why this expenditure of energy on Time? Time has never in its entire existence been a friendly. The original owner was Henry “the American Century” Luce. His wife was Clare Booth Luce (”I’m am the waitress, coo-coo-ca-choo!”). They deserve Joe Klein. We do not expect more from them. Give it a rest!

Nah. Disagree. I agree with the point Jane (I think) made the other day. We don’t have an attack/slime machine but we need to let media types know that when appropriate, we’ll call bullshit on them. That’s the only reason Klein issued any correction -albeit a pussified one on a blog. I believe it’ll make its way into print if we keep callin’ bullshit on the guy. Look, if the knuckleheaded snot of an editor had said “Mr. Klein corrected himself on the TIME blog” they’d be in a better position but to deny that there were any factual inaccuracies in the original story???? I don’t see how we can give it a rest. At some point we gotta call ‘em on their crap or else it’s gonna get even worse.

Okay, but why not email Klein directly about the matter, using the same professional persona, and perhaps adopting the Socratic method, if necessary?

At any rate, you don’t go to the editor and point blank say: when are you going to fix the errors you made? That’s like asking, when did you stop beating your wife. Of course, this type of question will not be received well, no matter what the issue might be.

If you’re aim is to correct and not harangue you need to follow a more circumspect approach to your criticisms.

TheraP @ 155

Someone needs to photoshop Time, but it should say Fiction (instead of Time).

Story Time!

alank–that’s right. above all, decorum. shape up, you dirty effing hippies.

Great work Jane.

But what I do not understand is why the Democractic party is taking this lying down. It was Pelosi and the Democrats who were viciously and falsely smeared after all by Joe Klein.

Why isn’t Pelosi and the top Democrats calling up Time magazine and demanding an apology and retraction?

Editors assign stories to reporters, then they edit those stories and a fact-checker checks them. Columnists write on topics of their own choosing and then an editor edits that column and then a fact-checker combs that column.

Apparently, the vetting process didn’t happen in the case of Joe Klein’s column on FISA.

Remember that guy Skube who wrote the LA Times piece in August maybe? And he was totally wrong about Josh Marshall? Remember how Jay Rosen and everybody else took him down?

This situation reminds me of that one. Where the bloggers are doing better work than the paid print reporters.

I think it’s worth taking a look back at that similar situation.

Makes you wonder…..

tw3k @ 164

TheraP @ 155

Someone needs to photoshop Time, but it should say Fiction (instead of Time).

Story Time!

Now that is perfect!

There’s another statement by Klein in his original piece that Glenn highlighted and that should not be forgotten when pursuing him for explanation. He said that telecoms could act illegally “on direct order from the President.” As Glenn rightly, said, in what country does Klein think he lives?”
The issue with this statement is, like the issue of scope that is on center stage now in this matter, an issue of factual accuracy. But it is also an issue of a larger kind of accuracy or inaccuracy, an issue about the fundamentals of the law, and a story in the history of freedom in this country. As a national columnist Klein is a public citizen at a high level of prestige. Does he really think that the law requires or should require the obedience of citizens to direct orders, lawful or not, from the head of state? His position on this is ugly and dangerous. I hope that Jane and Glenn will try to call him to account on this.

Pete–unfortunately, that may be the biggest example of answering one’s own question unintentionally that I’ve ever seen.

I think Pelosi’s lunching with someone from Time today. maybe she’ll bring it up then… :)

Jane Hamsher @ 149

jayackroyd @ 129

It’s interesting that there have been no swampland posts today.

My guess is there is a good chance that they will seal up this chink in the bubble, and let the swampland blog experiment wind down.

BTW, I’ve seen speculation in various places that TimeWarner may have a conflict in this–that they, as internet providers (TW cable, AOL) might have been among those who provided access to the NSA.

That’s pretty unlikely. The idea of going to the backbone providers is that almost all traffic goes through them eventually. For example, even if you are sending mail from one aol account to another, it may well hit one of the big switching stations at places like 60 Hudson. It would be both inefficient, and less secure (read “easy to keep secret”) to deal with consumer service providers.

Interesting.

Recalls the time the WaPo shut down over the Deborah Howell debacle. Then blamed it on “uncivil” commenters — who turned out to be Paul Lukasiak and Brad DeLong (after jukeboxgrad reconstructed the archives).

Rules have changes, folks.

FWIW, I have tried twice today to register to leave comments on the Swampland post and have been unable to log in. Definitely running scared…

annagranfors @ 165

alank–that’s right. above all, decorum. shape up, you dirty effing hippies.

I wasn’t talking about decorum. I was talking about good criticism.

Thunderbird @ 162

The part of this that disturbs me the most is the “I have neither the time nor the legal background…” quote.

To me, that is a twofold display of laziness. Firstly, that he doesn’t even bother to read the legislation, and secondly, he doesn’t even bother to go to the legal department of Time magazine or at least their “legal analyst” (Don’t tell me they don’t have one)and have someone explain it to him.

Absolutely mind-boggling.

Part of this is that Joke is TIME’s liberal columnist. Liberals are lazy and ignorant, so Joke has to be as well. He’s like an un-housebroken pet, which is about all TIME can expect from a liberal.

Jane Hamsher @ 149

jayackroyd @ 129

It’s interesting that there have been no swampland posts today.

My guess is there is a good chance that they will seal up this chink in the bubble, and let the swampland blog experiment wind down.

BTW, I’ve seen speculation in various places that TimeWarner may have a conflict in this–that they, as internet providers (TW cable, AOL) might have been among those who provided access to the NSA.

That’s pretty unlikely. The idea of going to the backbone providers is that almost all traffic goes through them eventually. For example, even if you are sending mail from one aol account to another, it may well hit one of the big switching stations at places like 60 Hudson. It would be both inefficient, and less secure (read “easy to keep secret”) to deal with consumer service providers.

Interesting.

Recalls the time the WaPo shut down over the Deborah Howell debacle. Then blamed it on “uncivil” commenters — who turned out to be Paul Lukasiak and Brad DeLong (after jukeboxgrad reconstructed the archives).

Rules have changes, folks.

Amazing what a little sunlight can do . . .

FYI for the Firepups: Here’s an email response I received on Sunday from Klein himself, after I sent an email to him and Carney asking who the editor was & when we’d they’d issue a correction or retraction:

Your acccount of my reporting is dead wrong. My sources came from both parties. We are still trying to determine whether a print correction is neceesary. If so, I’ll happy to provide one.

Sent from my GoodLink synchronized handheld (www.good.com)

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.”

Exactly the same “how dare you peasants question me” attitude I experienced in the corporate world.

And therein lies the explanation – the GOP/corporate/media complex does not do accountability.

Corporate PR organs will do traditional journalism when pigs fly.

On a related note, I expect a Reichstag Fire moment related to this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..-2002Jun26

to come after DFH bloggers.

TheraP @ 103

Biodun @ 95

So now Priscilla Painton has now resorted to lying as well? Do these people have no shame? How can we believe journalists and their stories when they lie outright about little things like these? *g*

These people are used to running the show! And they call it journalism.

We should call them:

Fiction Writers

As a fiction and nonfiction writer, may I say, we don’t want him in either category.

Go, WGA; Go Edwards.
Demand better. Be better

annagranfors @ 165

alank–that’s right. above all, decorum. shape up, you dirty effing hippies.

No, no: first, give it a rest. Then be decorum-y.

Holy buckets this thread is flyin’.

Great work, Jane.

Accountability rules.

Good note from Glenn Greenwald this morning, supporting Jane’s takeaway from the Painton discussion. The money quote for me was this:

The real story here is that Joe Klein’s GOP source(s) blatantly lied to him about what this bill does in order to scare Americans into supporting George Bush’s demands for greater [domestic] eavesdropping powers.

Acknowledging that as the story, alas, would make it legitimate – necessary, IMHO – for Klein to “out” his lying sources, investigate their motivation and the consequences for us if their lives were to be believed. Klein, after all, owes no obligation of confidentiality to a liar, any more than Judy Miller owed it to a White House aide who used her to commit a felony.

TeddySanFran @ 179

annagranfors @ 165

alank–that’s right. above all, decorum. shape up, you dirty effing hippies.

No, no: first, give it a rest. Then be decorum-y.

that’s right, folks. let’s all just take a deep breath and calm down. and, after all, the holidays are coming up. let’s take it up in January, huh?

Pete @ 166

Great work Jane.

But what I do not understand is why the Democractic party is taking this lying down. It was Pelosi and the Democrats who were viciously and falsely smeared after all by Joe Klein.

Why isn’t Pelosi and the top Democrats calling up Time magazine and demanding an apology and retraction?

Because they rely on their Vast Left Wing noise machine (Jane, Glenn, Atrios and The People Formerly Known As The Audience) to do the work that might get their hands dirty.

Also, there are Bush Dogs who need funds raised, and that’s Nancy’s job nowadays, apparently.

Time was never mistaken for a liberal publication, as alluded to above in my comment suggesting you give it a rest. People here have a deficit in history.

Probably just an amusing coincidence, but there is a post up now.

By Joe.

On a different topic.

Ana must be home sick.

Thunderbird @ 162

The part of this that disturbs me the most is the “I have neither the time nor the legal background…” quote.

To me, that is a twofold display of laziness. Firstly, that he doesn’t even bother to read the legislation, and secondly, he doesn’t even bother to go to the legal department of Time magazine or at least their “legal analyst” (Don’t tell me they don’t have one)and have someone explain it to him.

Absolutely mind-boggling.

I think that part of the point of Joe saying that he doesn’t have the time to research the facts is that he’s assuming that his opinion matters more than mere facts. Sorta like “Let them eat cake”, but with more flopsweat.

Everyone in MSM, and government, has been corrupt for so long, they forgot what the original job was supposed to be, so they could successfully cover up their corruption!

Second generation lazy. They think they’re earning the big bucks because they’re entitled.

I feel some responsiblity as a citizen for this. Not been doing my job of watching closely for quite a few years. Mea culpa. I guess I thought I could let it coast along after Nixon got kicked out.

Frank Probst @ 137

TeddySanFran @ 111

When you’ve reached “that woman” status, you’ve really arrived.

Nah. She arrived with “foul-mouthed fem-blogger”. “That woman” is just icing on the cake.

I’m kind of partial to the “rabid venomous Hamshers of the left” moment — a group to which Jane may or may not belong. *g*

alank–Time’s political bent is not the issue, here. the TRUTH is. the end.

Joke Lyin’

alank @ 162

beerfart liberal @ 132

Nah. Disagree. I agree with the point Jane (I think) made the other day. We don’t have an attack/slime machine but we need to let media types know that when appropriate, we’ll call bullshit on them. That’s the only reason Klein issued any correction -albeit a pussified one on a blog. I believe it’ll make its way into print if we keep callin’ bullshit on the guy. Look, if the knuckleheaded snot of an editor had said “Mr. Klein corrected himself on the TIME blog” they’d be in a better position but to deny that there were any factual inaccuracies in the original story???? I don’t see how we can give it a rest. At some point we gotta call ‘em on their crap or else it’s gonna get even worse.

Okay, but why not email Klein directly about the matter, using the same professional persona, and perhaps adopting the Socratic method, if necessary?

At any rate, you don’t go to the editor and point blank say: when are you going to fix the errors you made? That’s like asking, when did you stop beating your wife. Of course, this type of question will not be received well, no matter what the issue might be.

If you’re aim is to correct and not harangue you need to follow a more circumspect approach to your criticisms.

The problem with asking someone when they will stop beating their wife is that the question assumes something with no established factual foundation, right? Assumes facts not in evidence or something like that. Here, i think it was perfectly proper for Jane to ask such a pointed question because Klein had already admitted his story was wrong, factually. How did that get printed? Fair question, in my view. The other question is this as I see it: Klein has admitted he was wrong on TIME.com. Is TIME going to say so in print and offically on-line?

From Glenn:

[Klein] further acknowledged that he “reported as fact a provision of the bill that seems to be disputable” and that he — and thus presumably Painton — “didn’t do sufficient vetting of the facts.”

Painton apparently disagrees with Klein when she said: “That assumes there were errors.”

(Same link as my 114.)

Ahgoo @ 2

dontcha hate it when they hang up on you?

Not if you hang up on them first. I dumped Time after the Coulter cover, and have been gleefully sending back their “Renew your Subscription to TIME!” offers in shreds in the return envelope ever since.

Here is yesterday’s Swampland comment thread. Klein generally reads the comments. He’s got to be humiliated.

http://www.time-blog.com/swamp…..l#comments

alank @ 183

Time was never mistaken for a liberal publication, as alluded to above in my comment suggesting you give it a rest. People here have a deficit in history.

Time may never have been a liberal publication, but even in the worst days of the Luce slanting, they still tended to get their facts correct. Which is the overall point of all of this.

“Muffy” Painton went to Mt. Holyoke (class of ‘80). Where did you go to school, darling? Mt. Holyoke alums NEVER make mistakes, darling.

I read the Mt. Holyoke News article about Muffy Painton’s “journalism” course (aye, No. 53 above, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offic…..de=4790594 ).

Check this out, I nearly peed myself laughing (Time’s “monumental fact checking organization” hee hee hee, stop it, you’re killing me! “literally every word is reviewed before an article goes to press,”, no, I mean it, you’re killing me here, heee, heee heee):

From “Mt. Holyoke News”:

“Painton has invited a number of experienced journalists to visit the class throughout the semester. On October 2, two Time colleagues, chief of reporters Jane Bachman Wulf ‘76 and deputy chief reporter Ratu Kamlani, who supervise the magazine’s monumental fact-checking operation, shared their insights on accuracy and truthfulness in reporting. They showed the students examples of fact-checked drafts, explaining that literally every word is reviewed before an article goes to press. “Remember, there’s always somebody out there who knows a lot more about the subject than you do,” Painton interjected. “Don’t get distracted by the ‘wow factor.’ Nerd-proof yourself.”

jayackroyd @ 185

Probably just an amusing coincidence, but there is a post up now.

By Joe.

On a different topic.

Ana must be home sick.

Or drunk.
Or hungover.

The silver lining in this is, I suppose, that in the 1950’s-60’s, Henry Luce’s cohort would have easily gotten away with this with applause and bonuses. That’s what frightens the Paintons and Kleins and Bobo Brookses. Unlike Trent Lotta Lobbyist Money Lott, they haven’t a readily available alternative gig to run away to.

rumor has it that the aforementioned Blue Texan post has returned, earlier zeds intact.

“Let them eat cake”

Or should it be “Let them read fake”

Blue Texan’s back upstairs…

TeddySanFran @ 196

jayackroyd @ 185

Probably just an amusing coincidence, but there is a post up now.

By Joe.

On a different topic.

Ana must be home sick.

Or drunk.
Or hungover.

or holding session as swampland’s rump

Blue Texan thread upstairs. No really. It’s back for real.

“Permit me to repeat myself: I spoke with Painton and she basically called Jane a liar. Quote: “That’s what I told that woman, but she’s dishonest.””

What’s “That’s” refer to- WHAT did she say she told Jane?

Dean at work @ 158

Tithonia @ 140:
If Joe Klein doesn’t understand it, why is he writing about it?

egregious says:
To make sure that everybody else also won’t understand it.

To muddy the waters. Isn’t that part of Joke Line’s job?

Exactly.

If a major pundit for Time magazine says its too complicated for him to understand, then Time’s readers come away with the message that it’s too complicated for them. The underlying narrative then becomes “let the government take care of us-they understand how everything works.”

A literate, well informed public is crucial for a democracy to function. Where the MSM is failing in its mission to keep us well-informed, Jane, Christy, Glenn, Digby, Josh, and a whole host of others are doing the job that the “news” used to.

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.

Her number is 212-522-2022.

Jane, you are one feisty animal. I love that about you.

Pete @ 199

“Let them eat cake”

Or should it be “Let them read fake”

lol

Anybody got a fax number for that office? It would be good to flood them with faxes containing Klein’s paragraphs and the relevant sections of the bill as highlighted by Greenwald.

And, of course, a stream of obscene vituperation scrawled with a left-hand-held Sharpie (gotta uphold those DFH credentials somehow).

beerfart liberal @ 190

alank @ 162

Okay, but why not email Klein directly about the matter, using the same professional persona, and perhaps adopting the Socratic method, if necessary?

At any rate, you don’t go to the editor and point blank say: when are you going to fix the errors you made? That’s like asking, when did you stop beating your wife. Of course, this type of question will not be received well, no matter what the issue might be.

If you’re aim is to correct and not harangue you need to follow a more circumspect approach to your criticisms.

The problem with asking someone when they will stop beating their wife is that the question assumes something with no established factual foundation, right? Assumes facts not in evidence or something like that. Here, i think it was perfectly proper for Jane to ask such a pointed question because Klein had already admitted his story was wrong, factually. How did that get printed? Fair question, in my view. The other question is this as I see it: Klein has admitted he was wrong on TIME.com. Is TIME going to say so in print and offically on-line?

But his editor is called and asked the question point-blank. It’s a fair question, when prefaced with the criticism which raises that question. The caller did not take the time to do that, as far as I can tell from her account.

A note to TSF: I’m leaving aside the futility of the exercise for the sake of discussion.

Kurtz is stalling BIG TIME and only answering easy questions but there must not be many of them.

alank @ 163

beerfart liberal @ 132

Nah. Disagree. I agree with the point Jane (I think) made the other day. We don’t have an attack/slime machine but we need to let media types know that when appropriate, we’ll call bullshit on them. That’s the only reason Klein issued any correction -albeit a pussified one on a blog. I believe it’ll make its way into print if we keep callin’ bullshit on the guy. Look, if the knuckleheaded snot of an editor had said “Mr. Klein corrected himself on the TIME blog” they’d be in a better position but to deny that there were any factual inaccuracies in the original story???? I don’t see how we can give it a rest. At some point we gotta call ‘em on their crap or else it’s gonna get even worse.

Okay, but why not email Klein directly about the matter, using the same professional persona, and perhaps adopting the Socratic method, if necessary?

At any rate, you don’t go to the editor and point blank say: when are you going to fix the errors you made? That’s like asking, when did you stop beating your wife. Of course, this type of question will not be received well, no matter what the issue might be.

If you’re aim is to correct and not harangue you need to follow a more circumspect approach to your criticisms.

Alan: we are little mosquitoes and dogs biting the ankles of Goliath. do you really think that the socratic method will change the hearts and minds of arrogant people who don’t even care if you exist? the gloves are off. it’s “no more Mr. Nice Guy” with these impersonators. they are feeling some pain these days, and rightfully so. it will continue to be this way. you, and they need to get used to it.

TheraP @ 168

Remember that guy Skube who wrote the LA Times piece in August maybe? And he was totally wrong about Josh Marshall? Remember how Jay Rosen and everybody else took him down?

This situation reminds me of that one. Where the bloggers are doing better work than the paid print reporters.

I think it’s worth taking a look back at that similar situation.

Makes you wonder…..

Right. I think that was Jane’s point the other day when she originally said we gotta call bullshit on the guy on this one. They’ve got people in the MSM or with access to the MSM who will jump all over any mistake or inaccuarcy (and sometimes even make up mistakes/inaccuracies). We really don’t have anybody to do it for us so we gotta at least try to do it ourselves. With decorum, of course. Seriously, I disgreed with alank earlier but i think he/she is absolutely right about decorum. You can call bullshit in a way that does not alienate the listener/reader and gets them to think about what you’ve said.

This may come as a shock, but us dirty effing hippies read everything, not just things that we know in advance confirm our point of view. That’s how we make up our minds, don’t ya know.

It’s called informing yourself. TIME and NEWSWEEK were things I used to read, but when they don’t just have a point of view, but lie about facts, well, that’s where I put the magazines down.

annagranfors @ 11

it will be REALLY interesting to see what Time does with something like this…what should come of it is a dialog as to how major American reportage has become so corrupted. what I suspect *will* happen is that Klein takes an early retirement.

-hearty laugh-
Surely you jest! The Joke Line and editorial staff will be hanging up on callers for years to come. There is no accounatability with these cretins. As Atrios said, why do they go through the motions? Why don’t they just make shit up?

Hey Alank — I’m with you, and congrats for having the guts to say so.

imo, one thing some folks increasingly DO share in common with MSM-types is a kind of “We’re always great, you always suck” type attitude.

“Joke is leaving to spend more TIME with his family”

Looks like Painton’s fax number is (212) 522-8949.

But in all communications w/ journalists (even the bad ones), I would counsel being as polite and aboveboard as possible, since the message they’ll be going out with is that the “unhinged foul-mouthed lying hippies are out to get ‘em.” The more you appear professional, calm and (above all) knowledgeable, the less chance they can discount your ideas/thoughts & class you in w/ riff-raff who spew garbage & bile.

alank @ 209

A note to TSF: I’m leaving aside the futility of the exercise for the sake of discussion.

Comments that include the pejorative, “People here have a deficit in…” are unlikely to endear the commenter to, um, people here.

trollage, trollage, lovely, lovely trollage….la la la…

alank @ 209

beerfart liberal @ 190

The problem with asking someone when they will stop beating their wife is that the question assumes something with no established factual foundation, right? Assumes facts not in evidence or something like that. Here, i think it was perfectly proper for Jane to ask such a pointed question because Klein had already admitted his story was wrong, factually. How did that get printed? Fair question, in my view. The other question is this as I see it: Klein has admitted he was wrong on TIME.com. Is TIME going to say so in print and offically on-line?

But his editor is called and asked the question point-blank. It’s a fair question, when prefaced with the criticism which raises that question. The caller did not take the time to do that, as far as I can tell from her account.

A note to TSF: I’m leaving aside the futility of the exercise for the sake of discussion.

OK. I understand. I think we gotta agree to disagree about the futility thing.

finally got through and left my msg in the voice mail with everyone else’s…

Make sure you guys vote for this post on Digg.com so thousands more will learn about it. It’s already been dugg 23 times.

I’m puzzled about whether or not Glenn Greenwald heard both ends of the conversation or not. (I do not doubt for a millisecond Jane’s account of events, let me say right now.) Glenn writes (salon.com):

>>> I happened to be conversing with Jane by video when she was finally able to speak by telephone to Painton and thus heard Jane’s end of the discussion.

>>>… As Jane describes, after she asked Painton how such inaccuracies could make it into the Time article, Painton snapped: “That assumes that there are errors.” She then slammed down the phone in Hamsher’s face.

Did Glenn hear that or not? Was the conversation on speakerphone? Guess I’m puzzled by the phrase “As Jane describes”: does that mean (a) Jane describes what happened like this or (b) I confirm that Jane’s version of events agrees with my version?

I ask this because if we find ourselves a way up this ladder, we should be sure that all the rungs are in place.

Alank isn’t a f******g troll, he is a regular commenter. Get your facts straight, please.

Alank and Knee jerk, you really are brave to speak what you believe up on this here blog. I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.

Time Equation in canonical form: Joe Klein = Paid Immunity Shill Selling Alibis Not Truth.

nakj: methinks thou dost protest a weetul bit stwongwee ……

dakine01 @ 194

alank @ 183

Time was never mistaken for a liberal publication, as alluded to above in my comment suggesting you give it a rest. People here have a deficit in history.

Time may never have been a liberal publication, but even in the worst days of the Luce slanting, they still tended to get their facts correct. Which is the overall point of all of this.

Who’s next on the list? National Review?

Yes, if they F up.

a magazine that, regardless of its political bent, claims to have been reporting news (defined here as “fact”) and is, instead, demonstrably propagandizing, is always something that needs to be illuminated. at the root of everything, remember, is Creation Of Reality.

Painton was a visiting lecturer in the English department at Mount Holyoke College in the Fall of 2006.

If she won’t talk to Jane or Glenn, I wonder if former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake (a Mount Holyoke professor) might be persuaded to give her a call and ask her to explain the failure to correct Klein’s and Time’s libel that Pelosi and other House Democrats are backing a bill that “would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls to be approved by the FISA court.”

awesome Jane! I am going to make the call right now!!!!

Didn’t Joe Klein once write for New York Magazine? As the newsweeklies dumb down and re-orient themselves more in the direction of infotainment you’re bound to find columnists like this being brought onboard.

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

oh, you must be kidding.

TheraP @ 155

Someone needs to photoshop Time, but it should say Fiction (instead of Time).

Time-Out.

heliograph @ 196

“Muffy” Painton went to Mt. Holyoke (class of ‘80).

Oh, crap. This chick was a classmate of mine. The name isn’t familiar, but the attitude certainly is.

Mt. Holyoke’s not a bad place, but it has always been a little sequestered from reality.

Off to the phone. There are moments (although not many) when the Alumnae Association can be useful…

Pete @ 166

Great work Jane.

But what I do not understand is why the Democractic party is taking this lying down. It was Pelosi and the Democrats who were viciously and falsely smeared after all by Joe Klein.

Why isn’t Pelosi and the top Democrats calling up Time magazine and demanding an apology and retraction?

well, i’m only guessing here…. but maybe it’s because – unlike rep. stark’s accurate criticism of president bush, or moveon’s petraeus/betray us? ad – being called “beyond stupid” on a national security matter by joe klein in time magazine is just not a something important enough to comment on.

They’re Time Magazine! They create their own reality!

Tough break.

Priscilla Painton is leaving at the end of this year.

HuffPo

Glenn Greenwald has another post up. He is blistering Time’s raggedy arse. Glen is such an amazing, logical, clear-eyed truth teller.

Please take note Priscilla Painton: this is what hot-off-the-press, factually correct, hard-hitting reporting is all about.
Joe Klein: you can find a new and worthwhile model to emulate in Glenn Greenwald. it would raise your status considerably from where it is at the moment.

“Priscilla Painton is leaving at the end of this year.”

hmmm, talk about beating a dead….
oh never mind.

not a knee jerker @ 242

“Priscilla Painton is leaving at the end of this year.”

hmmm, talk about beating a dead….
oh never mind.

You’ve made more than one comment insinuating that we are making too big a deal of it. Noted.

it ain’t about Painton, to get rhymey. it’s about demanding, at long last, FACTUAL TRUTH.

not a knee jerker @ 234

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald have a pretty good sense of how to use the resources at our disposal. we trust their judgement.

not a knee jerker @ 233

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

Klein seems to be in a Lieberman situation. His last figleaf of “journalistic integrity” stripped away, he is exposed as a “Robert Novak” class hack. Lazy, myopic and writing on instinct has gotten him in a world of hurt.
He doesn’t like being held accountable, and he resents “little people” challenging his edicts.
Bad news Joe, you write trash, it gets served to you for breakfast. Your not hip anymore, even by DLC standards. You’re just another MSM speakerphone for the people whose boots you lick.

“editors are very busy people”…and we don’t want to have to make them put down their silver spoons to talk to the likes of us.

dirty! effing! hippies! rah rah rah! :)

Oh no, we shouldn’t criticize the editors. They can just go ahead and print lies that result in our privacy rights being stripped away under FISA.

That seems a good balance, yes?

Coulter is funny, amusing, outrageous!

But Jane’s dishonest…?

‘Scuse me while I go pound my head on the desk.

Here in EPU land – now I’m thinking that calling to lambast anyone this dim would be kinda like tripping a kid just before the finish line – at the Special Olympics…

alank @ 244

not a knee jerker @ 233

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

So the editors should get a pass for allowing the columnist to write drivel because they might be “busy people?” Are “busy people” anything like “Very Serious People?” Because that’s what it sounds like; we shouldn’t be bothering “Busy, Very Serious People” as they go about their day mis-informing us.

“That’s assuming we’re not intentionally blowing smoke up America’s ass.”

[click]

War On War Off @ 46

Same as it ever was.

After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. These organizations were run by people with well-known right-wing views such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time Magazine and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O’Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).[5]

This flap reminds me of what Naomi Wolf wrote about in her book. This is another little brick to pile on all the other bricks that would stifle freedom. The slide into fascism continues riding on the backs of enablers like klein. All of you can write what you want about how this is so obviously wrong, but it doesn’t matter, he made his point with those who fail to think, even a retraction would not mitigate his article.
And that is why we should call, that is why we should continue to fight, that’s our job if we want to preserve our democracy. allen dulles had newspapers under his influence, but that pales in comparison to the resources this administration has. This is not a drill, this is not a joke, the prospect of losing our democracy has never been this close to reality.
So, you can parse words, get insulted by someones commentary but at the end of the day, we better be ready for the fight of our lives.

alank @ 246

not a knee jerker @ 233

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

when editors don’t do their jobs they should expect to be nagged. when they do their jobs so ineptly and disengenuously as Painton has done they should expect a rain of unsavory invective.

dakine01 @ 251

alank @ 244

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

So the editors should get a pass for allowing the columnist to write drivel because they might be “busy people?” Are “busy people” anything like “Very Serious People?” Because that’s what it sounds like; we shouldn’t be bothering “Busy, Very Serious People” as they go about their day mis-informing us.

Ooo, Scooter Libby was also a Busy, Very Serious Person. [See testimony from Feb 13.] Guess the jury didn’t buy it.

“I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful.”

yes, especially considering that one of the stated FDL priorities these days is getting people to know the truth about FISA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..la-painton

Rush Holt.

Now it would be nice to have some love flowing from those phone lines.

202-225-5801

not a knee jerker @ 255

“I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful.”

yes, especially considering that one of the stated FDL priorities these days is getting people to know the truth about FISA.

…um, sorry? have you been following this? I think…I don’t know, but I *think* that there may be something like what you’re looking for over at…um, what’s his name?…Glenn Greenwald’s place….

sombrerofallout @ 13

been following this with only one eye.

Can you bullet-list the errors, so when we call we don’t have to recite our own ramblin’ thesis?

I’m all over the issue generally, just cannot put this piece by Klein under the analytical scalpel right now.

Thx

Happens to me when life intrudes into my politicking and blogging – damnit to hell.

How to start your own blog. Then you can write about anything you want!

jayackroyd @ 257

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..la-painton

Rush Holt.

Now it would be nice to have some love flowing from those phone lines.

202-225-5801

my stars and garters….. good luck, lady. may you be very creative and successful in your new endeavor.

egregious @ 259

How to start your own blog. The two of you can write about anything you want!

ooh, that’s true…I’ll bet a weary world’s just waiting for polite, non-accusatory, bipartisan commentary on this. gentlemen, start your engines!

my point is that getting people worked up into a phone-calling frenzy because someone hung up on Jane Hamsher is likely to divert attention AWAY from the — less sensational, but perhaps slightly more important, ya think? — FACTS about that, um, FISA-thingie.

I think the Bloggers mentioned here have done a really great job of righting MSN bullshit. Just a couple of years ago Klein’s misrepresentation of the facts would have gone unanswered. I think this battle is over and the good guys won. Its just too bad that the really big MSN asshats like Tim Russert and Chris Matthews continue to get away with sloppy, lazy nonsense day after day.
Maybe if someone publishes their home address’ we can go over there tonight and toilet paper their maple trees or something.

[Mod: Please do not advocate publishing someone’s home address, in protection of the privacy rights we are talking about in this very thread. Any comments that show home addresses will be deleted. Thanks.]

watertiger @ 44

Admitting that errors were made is a sign of weakness.

Who is she anyway – a cousin of Dubya?

egregious @ 260

How to start your own blog. Then you can write about anything you want!

Oh, no — some people are more skilled at telling others what to blog about. Sort of a sub-specialty blogotype.

I have a history deficit in the area of the Alsop brothers. I thought one of them, Joseph, wrote a column for Time, but it might’ve been for Newsweak. He was working for the CIA, based on the Church Intelligence Committee findings as reported by Carl Bernstein. Perhaps others can remember.

Kneejerk @234:

No.

Jane, Ms. Painton’s (what an apt name) mailbox is full. Do you have another extension?!!

Alsop question. They don’t make um like they used to.

Alsop

alank @ 245

not a knee jerker @ 233

“I assume you believe that we are free to speak to TIME about their work.”

certainly, but I believe (correct me if I’m wrong)that Alank meant to suggest perhaps there are better uses for the awesome collective force of this blog?

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

pardon me but – busy doing what?

maybe i don’t understand what editors are supposed to do, but i thought that assuring the accuracy of the reporting was one of those things?

TeddySanFran @ 266

egregious @ 260

How to start your own blog. Then you can write about anything you want!

Oh, no — some people are more skilled at telling others what to blog about. Sort of a sub-specialty blogotype.

I came in late to this.
I hope some of you don’t want a strictly closed circle here.
Time was when debate was encouraged.
Just my opinion, but I don’t think the two commenters had any malace in their sharing.
I’m not trying to tell anyone what to blog about, but I hope that rational minds and hearts prevail and that this can continue to be a place that is welcoming.

alank @245:

Indeed, they’d likely be too busy to a read a a blog “presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance”.

I think getting to splutter on the phone, or better yet, blush in person, is pretty effective in getting the point across.

Sorry if I was rude to alank and kneejerker. I apologise. I always use good acceptable language when contacting media about what I feel are important things, like printing the truth (this is not about Jane being hung up on, it’s about FISA facts being distorted).

I think the Bloggers mentioned here have done a really great job of righting MSN bullshit. Just a couple of years ago Klein’s misrepresentation of the facts would have gone unanswered. I think this battle is over and the good guys won. Its just too bad that the really big MSN asshats like Tim Russert and Chris Matthews continue to get away with sloppy, lazy nonsense day after day.
Maybe if someone publishes their home address’ we can go over there tonight and toilet paper their maple trees or something.

[Mod: Please do not advocate publishing someone’s home address, in protection of the privacy rights we are talking about in this very thread. Any comments that show home addresses will be deleted. Thanks.]

Mod: Yea, like I was serious. Try to figure out what I was getting at. No hints.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com…..oems/16290

jayackroyd @ 256

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..la-painton

Rush Holt.

Now it would be nice to have some love flowing from those phone lines.

202-225-5801

done!

this time i was even asked for my address (i’ve called his office several times before – and always to say “thank you” for the awesome work he has been doing on fisa legislation).

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said.

I have this image of some Soviet editorial bureaucrat saying the same thing, circa 1979. After all, everybody knows the Party is incapable of error.

Thank you for the kind advice to start my own blog — which, translated from the Snark, means that my kind, i.e., non-knee jerkers, are not welcome on this one. No surprise there.

Seriously, people, a constant attitude of righteous condemnation — with no pause, ever, for any self-examination…..inevitably leads to a situation like the Who had in mind when they sang “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

selise @ 270

alank @ 245

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

pardon me but – busy doing what?

maybe i don’t understand what editors are supposed to do, but i thought that assuring the accuracy of the reporting was one of those things?

Editing and managing the flow of work.

Accuracy is key component of editing, to be sure, but in an opinion column, style would be more important.

It’s Joe Klein’s problem how his columns turn out. If one wishes to be confrontational, they might best take it up with him, rather than the editor.

who said you’re not welcome here? I, personally, am glad to have the opportunity to examine other viewpoints. so to speak.

I think what egregious was saying was that if one feels strongly about a viewpoint, one has a marvellous opportunity to start one’s own blog to get that view out there.

oh, and the title of that song you quoted? I think it was “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

ot a knee jerker says
November 27th, 2007 at 10:56 am

Thank you for the kind advice to start my own blog — which, translated from the Snark, means that my kind, i.e., non-knee jerkers, are not welcome on this one. No surprise there.

Seriously, people, a constant attitude of righteous condemnation — with no pause, ever, for any self-examination…..inevitably leads to a situation like the Who had in mind when they sang “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Truer words never said. Reminds me of the time that I said that I thought Ned Lamont staff had run a crappy campaign. Got my butt flamed good.

not a knee jerker @ 256

“I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful.”

yes, especially considering that one of the stated FDL priorities these days is getting people to know the truth about FISA.

fahrender @ 254

alank @ 246

I would agree that a blog presenting criticism of Klein’s nonfeasance or negligence would be more useful. Inviting people to nag an editor would be less so. Editors are very busy people, for one thing.

when editors don’t do their jobs they should expect to be nagged. when they do their jobs so ineptly and disengenuously as Painton has done they should expect a rain of unsavory invective.

In the case at hand, the editor’s job is to fire Joe Klein. His journalistic offense vastly exceeds anything that Stephen Glass or Dan Rather did. Per Andrew Keen: “[Professional journalists] follow a set of standards, a code of ethics. Objectivity rules.” So it’s now time to return Klein to amateur status.

Okay, but why not email Klein directly about the matter, using the same professional persona, and perhaps adopting the Socratic method, if necessary?

At any rate, you don’t go to the editor and point blank say: when are you going to fix the errors you made? That’s like asking, when did you stop beating your wife. Of course, this type of question will not be received well, no matter what the issue might be.

If you’re aim is to correct and not harangue you need to follow a more circumspect approach to your criticisms.

I have both e-mailed Joe Klein and posted on his blog, asking for a factual correction. Whatever he may opine from the fact are one thing. He is not entitled to present his opinion of fact, as actual fact.

What we may disagree on, however, is what the next logical step might be. Where is one then to go, when Mr Klein refuses to correct factual errors. The editor who is responsible for his column. At this point, it seems clear to me that Mr. Paintor is aware of Mr. Klein’s column and the factual errors, and if she is not, why not? Mr. klein has posted no less than five times on a subject he does not and will not understand.

At one point does an editor then become responsible for a columnist posting factually incorrect information?

If Ms. Paintor is angry, it seems to me her anger is sorely misdirected. She is angry with the people who point out the errors, and not the fellow responsible for continuing to make them. Id’ also like to point out that if she is angry, shouldn’t she be directing her anger solely at the fellow who is making her look like a careless and slipshod editor, and thereby sullying the name and reputation of the publication for which they both work?

I don’t think you make a fair representation of Jane’s conversation with Ms. Paintor, when one thing that cannot be in dispute, by Mr. Klein’s own passive-voiced non-admission admission of error, is that his facts were incorrect. I think a more suitable analogy might be, “The court has established the fact of Mr. Klein’s guilt. When are you going to provide a remedy for the harm that has been caused?”

Again, the role of the opinion columnist is not in disputing facts, but in opining about what the facts of a matter may portend.

These folks are all entitled to their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own set of facts.

demi @ 272

TeddySanFran @ 266

Oh, no — some people are more skilled at telling others what to blog about. Sort of a sub-specialty blogotype.

I came in late to this.
I hope some of you don’t want a strictly closed circle here.
Time was when debate was encouraged.
Just my opinion, but I don’t think the two commenters had any malace in their sharing.
I’m not trying to tell anyone what to blog about, but I hope that rational minds and hearts prevail and that this can continue to be a place that is welcoming.

Absolutely. I disagreed with alank (and I guess indirectly with not a knee jerker since she backed him up) but it’s no big deal. I mean he/she expresses a legitimate viewpoint. I just disagree. Jiminy Cricket, if we can’t disagree with each other we can’t have a discussion. No reason to tgake anything personally or lose sleep. And I agree with the point about a need for decorum, although alank and I might define decorum differently.

WRT rudeness in discussions, I wish the government hadn’t kicked one entire wing of thought into a corner, so we wouldn’t feel the need to punch out way out.

pardon, “our way out”

C Morris @ 283

I have both e-mailed Joe Klein and posted on his blog, asking for a factual correction. Whatever he may opine from the fact are one thing. He is not entitled to present his opinion of fact, as actual fact.

What we may disagree on, however, is what the next logical step might be. Where is one then to go, when Mr Klein refuses to correct factual errors. The editor who is responsible for his column. At this point, it seems clear to me that Mr. Paintor is aware of Mr. Klein’s column and the factual errors, and if she is not, why not? Mr. klein has posted no less than five times on a subject he does not and will not understand.

At one point does an editor then become responsible for a columnist posting factually incorrect information?

If Ms. Paintor is angry, it seems to me her anger is sorely misdirected. She is angry with the people who point out the errors, and not the fellow responsible for continuing to make them. Id’ also like to point out that if she is angry, shouldn’t she be directing her anger solely at the fellow who is making her look like a careless and slipshod editor, and thereby sullying the name and reputation of the publication for which they both work?

I don’t think you make a fair representation of Jane’s conversation with Ms. Paintor, when one thing that cannot be in dispute, by Mr. Klein’s own passive-voiced non-admission admission of error, is that his facts were incorrect. I think a more suitable analogy might be, “The court has established the fact of Mr. Klein’s guilt. When are you going to provide a remedy for the harm that has been caused?”

Again, the role of the opinion columnist is not in disputing facts, but in opining about what the facts of a matter may portend.

These folks are all entitled to their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own set of facts.

I’m sure its a daily occurrence for editors especially of high profile mass publications to be contacted about one issue or another from the readership regarding their publications. In matters of opinion they can only advise that you write a letter to the editor. In matters of fact, they could publish a correction. Klein is of the former ilk. In re his columns, you would be advised to write a letter to the editor. Better still, post it on a well-known blog.

It’s funny that the comments to Mr Klein’s last blast appear to be running about 100 to 1 against him and Time. Could that explain why, when I registered to be allowed to comment, that after several hours I still haven’t received the e-mailed confirmation that actually allows me to pile on?

What a joke…I canceled Time after the Ann Coulter article. Who knew they were actually this bad?

Don’t forget to Digg this story! It’s easy and it’s free. The Digg link is just under the post title… have at it!

heliograph @ 196

“Muffy” Painton went to Mt. Holyoke (class of ‘80). Where did you go to school, darling? Mt. Holyoke alums NEVER make mistakes, darling.

I love FDL, but as a MHC graduate, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t generalize about the kind of alums the college produces… because you’d be wrong, and then you’d need to make a correction :-)
Sincerely,
A Progressive Liberal MHC class of ‘78 grad

Frank33 @ 15

Should I cancel my subscription to TIME magazine?

No, if you cancel your subscription every time you see an article or two you disagree with, you will end up reading nothing. You have to take the bad along with the good. Overall, I think Time is a pretty decent publication in spite of the occasional article by Klein or Kristol.

Marty Lederman has a great short post up about attempts to revise the FISA statute during GHW Bush’s regime. The DOJ lawyer involved with briefing Specter’s committee found it impossible to discuss what the statute does allow, because only those privy to its secrets could know that.

Neither ordinary Congress Critters nor the average Americans the statute’s methodology were to protect, were to know how it works. And that was too little authority for what Cheney/Bush are now doing. As EW suggested yesterday, part of it is Internet trawling, but I suspect that’s only part of it.

But that doesn’t excuse Klein from prattling on about Dangerous Democrats because it fits a GOP meme that doesn’t require him to use his brain or his shoe leather.

LAWTON: The FISA statute, as you know, is crafted in such a way that by definition a number of items fall outside its mandate.

SENATOR SPECTOR: Would you enumerate those, please?

LAWTON: I can’t in open session, Senator.

SPECTOR: Excuse me?

LAWTON: I can’t in open session.

SPECTOR: But the statute is public.

LAWTON: The statute is public. But . . . in the definitions if the statute, certain things are included and those are public. What those definitions leave out –

SPECTOR: Is not public? Can’t [I] figure it out from what is in the definitional section?

LAWTON: Not without a considerable body of knowledge, no.

re: ihatespam–

one last time, just because I wound up staying here so long…

this really can’t be reduced to “oh, well…usually they’re pretty okay, so let’s just let it slide”. this was PROPAGANDA, brought to us by what’s commonly thought of as one of the US’s preeminent news outlets.

in other words, stuff like this doesn’t sneak through by accident.

cancel the effing subscription.

Dear Joe Klein (and TIME):

I care about my liberty. In fact, I care about your liberty too. So I have actually read:

1. The “Protect America Act”
2. The “RESTORE Act”
3. The Rush Holt/John Tierney House Intelligence Committee FISA Bill [by far the best (the most Constitutional) of the lot, FYI, yet still deliberately blocked by the Democratic House leadership in favor of their RESTORE product]
4. The abomination that is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s FISA Amendments Act which was written in secret by Jay Rockefeller and Kit Bond in consultation with the White House [and then I monitored the changes the Senate Judiciary Committee made to it in its four-hour mark-up meeting (which I watched in its entirety when C-SPAN aired it)]

Thus, I can definitively tell you that your specious claim – that “terrorists” will be given the “legal protections” of Americans if the Democrats get their way on FISA – is true only to the extent that those vaunted Constitutional “legal protections” for our privacy rights will be ceasing to exist (and will thereby line right up with the lack of “legal protections” for the non-existent privacy rights that foreign terrorists hold under our Constitution) should Harry Reid’s plan to bring the Senate Intelligence Committee’s unamended bill to the floor for a simple majority vote of approval succeed.

But be that as it may, there is no doubt whatsoever that each and every one of these FISA bills specifically and clearly excepts from FISA and the FISA Court “the surveillance of foreign-terrorist targets’ calls” even and including when those calls are intercepted on U.S. soil.

I think it’s more than obvious by now that the FISA bills are all about data-mining, link analysis, and the end of individual, particularized, probable cause warrants to spy on Americans in America, as our Fourth Amendment (that’s the Constitution) mandates – because our Founders loved liberty too. I can make that statement about link analysis, not only because I’ve read the bills, but because I’ve also read the House Judiciary Committee’s comprehensive public report (released 10/12/2007) on their RESTORE Act (which – from beginning to end – is the Democratic leadership’s bill that, though it excludes immunity for corporate lawbreaking, nevertheless ends our rights under the Fourth Amendment as Bush has commanded), here:

http://www.rules.house.gov/110…..iciary.pdf

That House report specifically references two media accounts of unConstitutional spying on Americans in America by their government that the RESTORE Act’s language would permit. For details, see Page 16 and Footnote 27. Footnote 27 lists the two media accounts, so to help you out (or your nominal editors, if you can’t be bothered) in case you’d like to contact two of your colleagues to try to get up to speed on their informed reporting about this topic of unwarranted domestic security surveillance, here’s that footnote in its entirety:

See e.g., Leslie Cauley, NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls, USA TODAY, May 11, 2006 (telephone companies cooperating with NSA pattern analysis without FISA warrants); and Eric Lichtblau, F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets, N.Y. TIMES, September 9, 2007 (FBI sought ‘‘community of interest data’’ through National Security Letters).

i’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

congrats jane and glenn for tenaciously targeting the flagrantly corrupt messengers of our gangsters-in-office

how ‘bot a top 100 list of the most egregious violators of the ethics of journalism?

Expose Media Fabricators

Oscar Zoalaster @ 99

My impression is that Time, and a lot of the ‘mainstream media’, see their responsibility as to accurately report what important people are saying.

Let’s stop beating around the bush with these guys. We’re well beyond “MSM” or even “corporate media” at this point. They’re the freaking Heathers. The Heathers Media. Okay, you need to be at least 30 to get the movie reference, but it fits: a clique of vicious, rumor-mongering debutantes whose only loyalty is to the clique; whose only duty is to do the bidding of the clique’s perceived Alpha; who show contempt for those outside the clique, etc. etc.

Well, Time magazine isn’t for blockheads.”

–Peter, “The Zoo Story” by Edward Albee

If you were running one of Time’s competitor magazines, wouldn’t you consider making this a prominent story to damage the credibility of Time and perhaps increase your own? So what’s up? Are these rags owned by the same conglomerate?

C’mon people. Of course Painton is going to protect Joe.

Once again, Klein thinks he’s been punked by real liberals such as Greenwald and so he runs to his Republican “friends” – you know, the ones who lied to him in the first place – to get his facts straight.

Stop picking on the retarded kid.

I always withhold the stream of scrawled vituperation, no matter how often I may threaten to send it. Thanks for the fax no…I’ll be sending one off shortly.

IncandenzaH @ 217

Looks like Painton’s fax number is (212) 522-8949.

But in all communications w/ journalists (even the bad ones), I would counsel being as polite and aboveboard as possible, since the message they’ll be going out with is that the “unhinged foul-mouthed lying hippies are out to get ‘em.” The more you appear professional, calm and (above all) knowledgeable, the less chance they can discount your ideas/thoughts & class you in w/ riff-raff who spew garbage & bile.

Jokeline Sux:

Oh well, they actually banned me from their crappy little error-ridden blog. In fact they banned me with extreme prejudice — I’m not even allowed to access their webpage to read it.

I suggest you either get to their website via an anonymizer or install Tor on your computer and get to their site that way. It will be somewhat slower going because that is the nature of anonimizing tools BUT they will not be able to block you (particularly if you use Tor…only because I haven’t tried it with an online anonymizer).

You could keep getting in and really dinking with them. Drive them bats. An alternative to installing anything would be to buy a stealth surfer USB stick from the Hushmail.com site. It has the requisite anonymizing gear on the USB key and doesn’t require any installation at all.

alank says:
In matters of opinion they can only advise that you write a letter to the editor. In matters of fact, they could publish a correction. Klein is of the former ilk. In re his columns, you would be advised to write a letter to the editor. Better still, post it on a well-known blog.

You miss my point completely. as an opinion writer, Klein’s job is to opine on a given set of facts. Here, his facts are wrong, he knows they are wrong, continues to opine on facts he knows are wrong, and then makes claims that it doesn’t matter.

You state that his editor’s job would be to manage work flow. Would that include the quality of that work at any point? Is it your contention that as his editor, she has no control and/no responsibility for the facts he asserts, not even to verify with him that he checked his facts. I her assumption is that hefact checks, and then he does not, is this not a “management” responsibility, if only to kick the problem upstairs.

Further, you assert points which contradict one another:

Editing and managing the flow of work.

Accuracy is key component of editing, to be sure, but in an opinion column, style would be more important.

Accuracy is a component of editing, but not in Joe Klein’s case, because he writes opinion. Got it. But opinion columns are to flow from a set of facts. Klein’s facts are repeatedly incorrect. This is repeatedlypointed out to Klein, to no avail. No one suggests that the editor’s job is correct Joe’s opinion or style. It’s to have Joe correct his facts.

What would be wrong with her saying to Jane, “The quality or veracity of Joe’s work isn’t within my baileywick. The person you want to speak to is Ms. XYZ.” She doesn’t do that. Instead, she tells Jane that Jane assumes that the facts are correct. The very act of answering Jane’s question admits some level of responsibility in the matter. And she does this not only to Jane, but to others callers who ask the same question.

While you may attempt to relieve Ms. Paintor of her responsibility in the matter, clearly, Ms. Paintor seeks to do no such thing for herself. Which makes me wonder why you continue to do so?

In trying to help people understand how the real world works, you sound more condescending to the bloggers here, than even Ms. Paintor in her rudeness to Jane does. It is with a disappointing tone of ,”Let me tell you kiddies how the real world works. So just shut up and let the grown ups do their work” that you address folks’ rightful scorn of not just Mr. Klein, but the whole process of modern opinion journalism and to some extent, journalism at large.

If going along with the usual writing letters to the editor or writing directly to journalists actually worked as a process for righting of journalistic wrongs, do you think people would be as irritated, as they clearly are, with the both the product and the process itself?

Correction: This sentence should have read:

The person you want to speak to is Ms. XYZ.” She doesn’t do that. Instead, she tells Jane that Jane assumes that the facts are incorrect.

Stuff you won’t read in Time, or any other MSM outlet:

Correlation event…
Enron economy…
Systemic financial collapse…
Credulous media stenography…

What you don’t know won’t help you…

Just sayin’.

“These folks are all entitled to their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own set of facts.”

that’s exactly the issue

alank @ 183

Time was never mistaken for a liberal publication, as alluded to above in my comment suggesting you give it a rest. People here have a deficit in history.

dakine01 @ 195

alank @ 183

Time was never mistaken for a liberal publication, as alluded to above in my comment suggesting you give it a rest. People here have a deficit in history.

Time may never have been a liberal publication, but even in the worst days of the Luce slanting, they still tended to get their facts correct. Which is the overall point of all of this.

I don’t agree that Time was ever noted for “getting its facts correct.” In fact during the 1940s, 50s and 60s Time used to be famous for having an inaccuracy in almost every other sentence. When Time editor Whittaker Chambers was postumously awarded the medal of freedom a colleague wrote a letter to the NYTimes:

Whittaker Chambers: Odd Choice for the Medal of Freedom
Wellfleet, Mass., Feb. 28, 1984
To the Editor:

Many of my former colleagues at Time Inc. will share my feeling of consternation at the news that the Medal of Freedom is to be awarded to Whittaker Chambers posthumously. . . . .

Reporting from China [during World War II], Theodore H. White saw his criticisms of Chiang Kai-shek’s autocratic regime replaced [by Chambers, then foreign editor of Time] with encomiums of Chiang as a defender of democratic principles.

When researchers in Time’s New York office protested the inaccuracy of the foreign news stories, Chambers habitually replied, “Truth doesn’t matter.” The facts had to be altered to fit his anti-Communist crusade.

Eventually, the correspondents’ protests resulted in an investigation, and Chambers was made an Editor of Special Projects, a position he held until 1948, when he named Alger Hiss as a Communist.

Whatever views one may hold about the Hiss case, there is no doubt that Whittaker Chambers perjured himself during a grand jury investigation and changed his testimony repeatedly. During the first trial, when Lloyd Paul Stryker said to him, “Lying comes easy to you,” Chambers replied, “I believe so.”

With all due respect to the dead, is this man, who has left behind him so many doubts about his own role, an appropriate recipient of the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award?

Dorothy Sterling

The writer, a Time Inc. employee from 1936 to 1949, was assistant bureau chief in Life’s news bureau from 1944 to 1949.

(Chambers wrote an explanatory letter to his children [that now can be read on the web] giving his reason for breaking with the Communist party as his new-found belief in “intelligent design”!)

You guys just don’t get it. Joe Klein has dinner with famous people. OK?! Don’t you realize that? He gets paid millions of dollars to recite beltway conventional wisdom and have dinner with famous people. He does not get paid to know what the hell he is talking about, nor does he have the time or inclination. He is not some disgusting blogger, even though he has a blog. He writes for freakin’ Time magazine. And, he has dinner with famous people.

What you fail to realize is that Joe Klein is a writer for Time magazine who has dinner with famous people very, very often. And really famous people, too.

It’s just so frustrating dealing with you disgusting bloggers who have nothing to add to the public discourse, because you just don’t get how the system works.

I called Prissy’s number and got her voice mail. I said I was sorry that she couldn’t answer the phone so as to be able to hang up on me, but that maybe I would try again later.

wow. Well, two words jump to mind:

JOURNALISTIC SUICIDE.

We, my ENTIRE family, is now DONE with Time Mag. and LEARY of Time Warner in general.

too bad, and another one bites the dust!
siri@legitgov.org

From Richard Stengel’s email response to me:

“TIME Columnist Joe Klein made a reporting error, which he swiftly addressed in his blog postings on TIME.com. In addition, TIME will run a correction in his column in this week’s issue of the magazine.”

What do you guys think? Are they jumping ship on Klein or blowing me off?

The right wing’s lies in the media are not errors or mistakes. ever. They are deliberate attempts to manipulate the publics perception of reality. They are fully aware that only a fraction will ever see a correction or a retraction if one is even offered – which is why it is such an effective tool for them.

another liberal @ 308

You guys just don’t get it. Joe Klein has dinner with famous people. OK?! Don’t you realize that? He gets paid millions of dollars to recite beltway conventional wisdom and have dinner with famous people. He does not get paid to know what the hell he is talking about, nor does he have the time or inclination. He is not some disgusting blogger, even though he has a blog. He writes for freakin’ Time magazine. And, he has dinner with famous people.

What you fail to realize is that Joe Klein is a writer for Time magazine who has dinner with famous people very, very often. And really famous people, too.

It’s just so frustrating dealing with you disgusting bloggers who have nothing to add to the public discourse, because you just don’t get how the system works.

Believe when I say we know all too well how the system works-you would have to be an idiot to not know and to surmise that we don’t is an error, and leaves me to think that the comment was written with no thought whatsoever, other than mindless BS.

My, what a lot of commenter names I’ve never seen before. Some of them are so concerned with the feelings of Klein and Painton, too.
[/snark]

More concerned with Klein’s and Painton’s feelings about being called out for errors than with the (multiple and repeated) errors themselves. Not to mention being ticked that people here aren’t agreeing with their comments. Sorry, most of us don’t need the cool kids in DC to tell us what we should be thinking.

P J Evans says
November 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
(plus)1

Maddy @ 2:31.

Please tell me you’re merely attempting to emulate anotherliberal’s ironic humor as opposed to missing it altogether.

CMorris,

jour comment should be C&P’d by everyone who needs a ready response to all that “Why can’t you just be civil” bullsheet, regarding Klein.

Also Gracias to twolf1 and annagranfors for their responses, joo have helped me to straighten some theengs out een my own leetle furry cabeza.

I would suggest to Alank that he write a nice, polite, letter to the Editoress and Sr. Klein,employing the Socratic method in dealing weeth egregious errors in Opinion pieces, and let us know what kind of response he recieves, or eef he chooses, he can email me gatobloggerro “at” yahoo “dot” com, because I would really like to see what kind of response, eef any, he gets.

so.

I should add, with regard to the link I provided @ 295, that the House Intelligence Committee actually wrote a better report than the House Judiciary Committee did, to accompany RESTORE, because the Democratic majority of the Intelligence Committee made the effort to carefully respond to misleading and false assertions about RESTORE that were printed in the “Minority Views” section of their report at the direction of nine Republican members. The specific rebuttals to the Minority claims begin at the end of Page 18 of the House Intelligence Committee report. TIME might perhaps read those Intelligence Committee explanations, which help to repudiate some of the disinformation coming from Klein’s special Republican sources, here:

http://www.rules.house.gov/110….._intel.pdf

Finally, with regard to Rep. Rush Holt’s valiant effort today over at HuffingtonPost, on behalf of the Democratic leadership, to defend RESTORE from Klein’s TIME attacks, I just want to provide a reminder of what Rush Holt said on the House floor the first time the RESTORE bill was being debated (on 10/17/2007), to provide a little perspective about his recent decision to endorse and promote the RESTORE bill (since slightly-revised and passed) about which he was speaking when he said:

I would like to point to the one thing that [the RESTORE Act] needs most, that it lacks, which is ironclad language that maintains the fourth amendment’s individual warrant requirement when Americans’ property or communications are searched and seized by the government.

The RESTORE Act would allow the government to collect the communications of innocent Americans.

[snip]

Yes, I voted “yes” in committee to bring this to the floor, with the assurances that we would work to get it better. I regret to say that I’ve seen no effort to resolve this point. It could be fixed easily to the safety of Americans, because Americans will be safer when agencies have to demonstrate to a court that they know what they are doing. We get better intelligence, just as we get better law enforcement, when you do it by the rules.

In fact, my own leadership I believe would deny me time to speak on this issue to try to strengthen this bill, but for the sake of the security of Americans, I implore the leadership to make these improvements. – Rep. Rush Holt on the House floor, 10/17/07.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.go…..sition=all

The slight revisions made to RESTORE since this heartfelt statement was made, as I read them, do not come close to the vital improvements (required to honor and enforce Constitutional safeguards) that Rush Holt “implored” his Democratic leadership to make to RESTORE before they pushed the bill through the House (with his assistance) two weeks ago. And yet, RESTORE is still a significant improvement over the Senate Intelligence Committee’s stunningly liberty-hostile product, which was so undemocratically concocted at the behest of that committee’s Democratic chairman.

Fox Business’s so-called ‘online shopper’ unmasked

In honor of Cyber Monday, Fox Business did a segment yesterday on online shopping. A Fox reporter went to ESPN Zone in Washington, DC and interviewed Peter Perweiler, who was identified only as an “online shopper.” Perweiler told Fox Business that he is planning to shop on Cyber Monday and is looking at “big-ticket items this year.”

It’s no surprise that Perweiler was boosting online shopping. As Silicon Alley Insider uncovered, Perweiler is actually the marketing manager at the National Retail Federation. The NRF has blamed Fox Business’s sloppy reporting for the incident.

laurie9 @ 291

heliograph @ 196

“Muffy” Painton went to Mt. Holyoke (class of ‘80). Where did you go to school, darling? Mt. Holyoke alums NEVER make mistakes, darling.

I love FDL, but as a MHC graduate, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t generalize about the kind of alums the college produces… because you’d be wrong, and then you’d need to make a correction :-)
Sincerely,
A Progressive Liberal MHC class of ‘78 grad

I do sincerely apologize to all MHC grads who aren’t arrogant, elitist clowns who can’t own up to a mistake or stand in the way of a “rock star” columnist’s smear of Democrats. Ms. Painton’s flaws and mistakes are her own, I didn’t mean to generalize. I have known MHC alumnae and they were fine, principled people not suffering whatever terrible moral and ethical condition now afflicts Ms. Painton. So no blame to MHC for the sins of one of its alumnae, and no intent to smear any other alums or the institution by association. I was just having a little fun with her absurd posing as an oh-so-serious journamalism professor at MHC.

My only defense is that I was giddy and oxygen-starved from laughing so hard at Ms. Painton’s characterization of Time’s massive, meticulous fact-checking organization that would never, ever allow a single error of fact to slip through the ethical net. God that was funny.

I faxed the following (note the absence of obscene vituperation):

TO: PRISCILLA PAINTON

Dear Ms. Painton — Surely one of the responsibilities of an editor is to exercise some degree of oversight on the material that crosses one’s desk, no matter how celebrated the author.

Thus, the actual text of the FISA bill:

Section 2 of the RESTORE Act — the very first section after the “Definitions” section:

‘CLARIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES’

Sec. 105A. (a) Foreign to Foreign Communications-

(1) IN GENERAL – Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.

And Joe Klein’s words on the matter:

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.

and

I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right.

What part of “a court order is not required” is “technical language?” In extenuation, I have heard it suggested that Mr. Klein writes as a columnist, not as a journalist. To parse the difference, if he writes as a journalist, he’s simply wrong, and was presumably misled by his sources. In this case, he is merely incompetent, and should be, at the very least, given a leave of absence. If he writes as a columnist, he is either lazy, mendacious or both. In this case he is an affront to the journalistic profession and an active obstacle to the Jeffersonian ideal of a “well-informed citizenry,” and, needless to say, does not deserve to retain his prestigious and more-than-adequately remunerated position. In either case, the image of TIME Magazine has been irrevocably sullied.

An apology and retraction are due to your readers.

Sincerely,

(signature)

Jane Hamsher @ 78

I wish I could find that animated gif of the little guy typing faster and faster until he starts banging his head on the keyboard. That’s a picture of Glenn right now.

Is this the one?

Joe Klein tends to have this effect on folks who prefer a bit of critical thinking along with their regurgitated pablum.

ralphbon @ 316

Maddy @ 2:31.

Please tell me you’re merely attempting to emulate anotherliberal’s ironic humor as opposed to missing it altogether.

I took it at face value, The irony flew over my head so fast I didn’t catch the drift. But I am already pissed off when I wake up to still here george, and irony is not on my list of things to be particularly aware of. Feel better now ralphbon?

aye @ 42

Joe Klein, acclaimed writer and political columnist for Time magazine, spoke the evening of November 27 to a capacity crowd in Hooker Auditorium. Earlier in the day he had visited the journalism class taught by the magazine’s executive editor, Priscilla Painton ‘80. Introducing Klein, Painton described him as “a man who loves politics, politicians, and his country. He has an extraordinarily romantic view of what politics can be in this country. He always believes that the next election can surprise him.”

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offic…..amp;full=1

aye @ 42

Joe Klein, acclaimed writer and political columnist for Time magazine, spoke the evening of November 27 to a capacity crowd in Hooker Auditorium. Earlier in the day he had visited the journalism class taught by the magazine’s executive editor, Priscilla Painton ‘80. Introducing Klein, Painton described him as “a man who loves politics, politicians, and his country. He has an extraordinarily romantic view of what politics can be in this country. He always believes that the next election can surprise him.”

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offic…..amp;full=1

Ack! My alma mater! What the hell were they thinking?! And I wish I’d known about this sooner – I would have happily driven down to South Hadley for the talk (in the hopes that he would take questions, of course).

Ben Brackley @ 231

Painton was a visiting lecturer in the English department at Mount Holyoke College in the Fall of 2006.

If she won’t talk to Jane or Glenn, I wonder if former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake (a Mount Holyoke professor) might be persuaded to give her a call and ask her to explain the failure to correct Klein’s and Time’s libel that Pelosi and other House Democrats are backing a bill that “would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls to be approved by the FISA court.”

Or how about Chris Pyle, another MHC professor, who was instrumental in writing the original FISA law?

Jane, have I mentioned lately that you are my favorite blogger?

egregious @ 113

Waving hi to all the Time employees reading this.

Priceless!

every time you see an article or two you disagree with

No no no! Not “disagree”. It’s time to cancel a subscription when the publication prints lies and partisan spin.

Disagreement, great, sure, I’ll keep reading. Dishonesty and a complete lack of integrity? Cancel, please.

People who lie to you are not worth your time and are actively dangerous. Avoid them. Likewise corporations that lie to you– don’t give them your money. And publications that lie to you? There’s simply no reason to read them– there are always publications with integrity regardless of whether or not you agree with them.

Let her hear it

[RBG Note; sorry, but we don’t do that on this blog.]