hi Jane

the HACKS have taken over the world…that is all

Such a bully that Fitz!

after last nights atrocity ,i have had enuf…im going to plant my 5 climbing rose bush plants,im sick of it all

…, who view journalists as adversaries a**holes in the case of Novak.

see ya later all
these are the only Bushes i can tolerate “g”

D’0h

http://gardening.savvy-cafe.co....._roses.jpg

Ah Jane. You really are being optimistic today. I mean, Lil Debbie actually DO her job? Wow.

The next time she does the job of Ombudsman will be the FIRST time she does it.

So let me get this straight. The foxes ran the henhouse for 30 years, more or less at will, and that pesky Fitzgerald guy spoiled their fun? Hairball of irony with orange juice chaser coming up.

Wow

Wow

Didn’t you have him dead to rights in a sidewalk a while back?

That this is being allowed to be published by this traitorous joke of a journalist should be criminal.

Got an interesting snail mail piece today from Minnesota-based minnpost.com. That’s an online gathering of journalists largely fleeing from or booted out of Mpls/St. Paul “news”papers. It being a dang-close to nonprofit endeavor, they’re starting a Watchdog Journalist Fund, the purpose of which is to “reinvigorate journalism’s traditional watchdog role in reporting on public figures, institutions and businesses.” They’re looking for some funding to get this/keep this off the ground. Call me desperate, but I sent them a bit o’money. I think pockets of integrity (and yes, I do count FDL a deep pocket of same) in the grassroots may be the only solution to the journalism crisis.

ABC and the WaPoo just doing what journamalism does nowadays.

Sadly, if you are still around - I planted my second climbing rose bush last week. My first one was/is so spectacular this year I had to have another one. http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/rose-316.html

I had a brush with him on the sidewalk a while back:

“It’s amazing you show your face in public.”

“Fuck you!”

As these things are, I thought of my rejoinder too late to use it: “I bet you don’t talk to Patrick Fitzgerald that way.”

“Journalism crisis”? Whatever do you mean??

If we ignore them, soon they will go away and not be such a bother. The news networks run gameshows and wrestling now. They have personalities only during prime time, and there is more hate programming than anything else. How many people are willing to watch this crap? It causes you serious physical trauma over time.
These ridiculous “pundits” only talk to a million or so people a night. The population ignores them for what they are, actors. When it comes time to vote, the game is over for them. They have guessed wrong.
You can usually make someone begging go away by informing them you have no money. Ask them for their change, they move along right away. You give value to these stooges by mentioning them, and this tends to perpetuate their absurd behavior.
any way, just a thought by something that doesn’t watch them any longer because they are and always have been, irrelevant.

Basic journalistic ethics

The Novak problem in a nutshell.

To put things in perspective, in the past week the Post has had three columns by Michael Gerson, an O’Hanlon, etc. etc. In the past year the number of Kagans and Cheneys on the op-ed page has proliferated.

I’m a regular letter writer, but it doesn’t change editorial policy, though it does get letters published and probably gives junior people at the paper a sense of shame. The Post will get worse, more overtly partisan, the worse Republican fortunes are. It is not about providing a “product” or a “service” of objective, reliable news. The mask of “objectivity” fell away a while ago.

“basic journalistic ethics” applied to Novak is the ultimate oxymoron.

There are many reasons he and his former partner were known as “Errors and No Facts”

This must have been at night when his powers are strongest.
From what I have seen from you, he is lucky.
No batteries in your pockets, eh?

Lol

maybe Novakula needs to be subpoena’d again: this time a real grilling, by, say, Waxman’s committee, with live TV cameras on him, so we can see him sweating and trying to find an excuse to escape leave. Then spring the questions about his part in the Plame WIllson affair ….

Isn’t it amazing that he is not in prison for betraying a national security asset in a time of war?

Shield laws are intended to protect whistleblowers (e.g., Joe Wilson) and not to protect those (e.g., Scooter Libby) who attempt to harm family members of whistleblowers (e.g., Valerie Wilson) nor those journalists (e.g., Judith Miller) who aid and abet such punitive behavior.

During our NPR fundraiser recently in Hawaii, the Chairman of our local NPR shop uttered this truth (quoting from memory): “The barbarians are not just AT the gate, they OWN the gate, and they’re INSIDE the gate!”

I guess he forgot to clear his impromptu remark with the Advisory Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Bob in HI

When is there going to be a organized public movement to counter the corruption and incompetence of the corproate media? It is doing serious damage to our democratic society, and it is dangerous to the electoral process.

Is there any accountability for baldly incompetent, unethical and unprofessional conduct by the corporate media? How can we create a way to provide the accountabiltiy that is missing but is very important to establish before the November election?

Can ignorant and incompetent reporters and pundits be allowed to dictate the grounds of debate to the entire US public? Is it appropriate that they be allowed to act in a disrepectful way toward candidates for major office? Will Gibson and Stephanopoulos ever be held publicly accountable for their unprofessional conduct and incomptetence? Their disregard for public service and the public interest?

Will they ever be asked to defend their assertions about fact that they made during the debate? Will they be asked whether they engaged in an interested attempt to manipulate an election? Did they attempt to manipulate public opinion?

I would like to see the following:
-an organized effort to scrap the current system for producing presidential candidate debates and replace it with a public system
-an effort to hold ABC accountable for its incompetent and unprofessional performance, as well as other organizations that have produced travesties
-a public examination of Gibson’s competence to dictate the premises for his questions and to editorialize on and evaluate the candidates’ responses, and then to examine his journalistic ethics.

I don’t know what it would take to get a public effort started. There have been many pompous and fatuous blogger ethics panels and discussion held by the unethical incompetents among the corporate press.

Why not a conferent held by bloggers examining the corporate media performance in producing these debates?

Correction: they will get worse the worse the prospects are of continuing the war by getting Republicans elected.

I disagree strongly with some of the comments. There must be public accountability for the media. There must be an attempt to strip them of their role in producing these debates. The possiblity of another farce like this occuring in the general election is dangerous to our democracy and society.

There needs to be a public examination of the media performance. A public record needs to be made of the jouranlistic malfeasance, and presented to NBC, ABC, etc.

Gibson, Russert, the whole sick crew needs to be confronted with the case against their competence, their professionalism and their ethics. And they should ba publicly asked to respond.

There should be a public effort to scrap this system of debates.

I think that there vare some real journalists utterly disgusted by what’s happening…folks like Rather and Cronkite and Moyers. What they need to do is join together and create a new media….devoid of the “Bread and circuses” approach and dealing with tangible issues. Maybe they could create a new site on the internet.

BTW Since when does a person (individual taxpayer) who makes $250K qualify as “Middle Class”? That would be a couple with a joint income of a half-a-million!

And for Hillary to claim that there are police or educators making that much in Pennsylvania…I bet she could list them on one hand. Maybe the Chancellor of Penn and Penn State…perhaps the head football coach…but I doubt too many others.

$250K!!!! Wouldn’t that mean that every Senator and Congressperson was “Middle Class” (barring outside income from their massive investments)?

Sheeeeeesh! These people (ABC and Clinton) NEED TO GET THEIR HEADS INTO REALITY!

O/T
George Stephanopoulos Responds To Obama, Defends Handling Of Debate

Bascially he is saying that americans only care about Wright, Bitterness and flag lapel pins, not folks going bankrupt or anything
more bullshit here

Why not a conference held by bloggers examining the corporate media performance in producing these debates?

Maybe something along these lines:

National Conference for Media Reform

I did, on Mass Avenue, shortly after I saw Hitchens walking by.

Teddy called it the “hellmouth.”

Boo!!! Finally, the voice of the people, the ones who can’t all be fooled all of the time.

This just in, apparently Bush has just had private meetings with a priest who then said Americans Should Not Be Proud Of Things They Have Done

Amazing! I wonder if Hillary will insist that people leave the church of this “America Hater”? After all, “you pick your Church, not your family”.

I have seen very little reaction by the press. There is a very bad column by Gail Collins that contains nincompooop analysis of the candidates performance last night. I did not see a word about the problems with how the debate was produced. And Collins is one of the more reasonable members of the pundit class.

There must be an organized public response to this, otherwise the integrity of the electoral process is in danger.

Boycotts are not enough. Trusting the members of the press to go tsk tsk, or imagining how the good cops might be scolding the bad cops in private. Venting about it on blogs is no good and not enough.

A public case needs to be made about what is going on and presented to the media for response, and to the public. And sanctions against the media need to be proposed. The one I favor is an effort to scrap the current system and strip the corporate media of the power to debase public political debate. And I think it is important to start doing this now, well before the general election, so that a remedy can be found before November.

Democratic office holders need to speak about the problem when they appear on these media freak shows.

There are a couple of things Rather, Moyers, Cronkite have disturbingly in common: they are old, and they no longer work for the networks.

$250K middle class! I’m the good people of Pennsylvania were glad to hear Charlie Gibson’s given them a raise.

We are classless society, and if you think otherwise you’re a communist.

I think that there vare some real journalists utterly disgusted by what’s happening…folks like Rather and Cronkite and Moyers. What they need to do is join together and create a new media….devoid of the “Bread and circuses” approach and dealing with tangible issues. Maybe they could create a new site on the internet.

The technical impediments to high-resolution video blogging will soon be a thing of the past, and when it comes to creating content that can steal the eyeballs away from Fox, ABC, and CNN, etc., Moyers, Cronkite, and Rather could help a lot.

I’ve been catching Rather on HDNET, and it’s refreshing to listen to some intelligent coverage.

We are classless society, and if you think otherwise you’re a communist.

Yeah a “classless” society, in all senses of the word. I always like the Republican response whenever there is the merest suggestion that the wealthy are disproprtionately benefitting from the system through both tax cuts and government contracts.

“Why are you trying to use class-warfare?”

Uhmmm! Because it is already going on…and the wealthy have qwon almost every battle?

I think that Gibson cannot do basic math or understand elementary statistics, or the simplest basics of economic statistics should be subject of public discussion.

What will be next, some one like Gibson asserts that 1 + 1 = 5 in a debate and then be allowed to evaluate the editorialize and debate the candidates in real time as the candidates attempt to correct his mistakes? Would that kind of incomptence be allowed to continue?

Thanks Jane.

I emailed lil Debbie:

Novack writing about shield laws is asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.

“We are classless society”

Agreed. Just look at reality TV fare. Case closed.

email sent

Their inability to reason is sickening, irrationality and an inability to think logically that’s symptomatic of a new Dark Ages.

“People also take into account…how candidates handle controversy,” he said. “That’s what campaigns are about, as well.”

This circular argument is de rigueur: the “controversy” is just some natural phenomenon and there was no agency, such as particular journalists or news organizations, in creating it.

When I asked him whether asking about Obama’s derelict approach to his flag lapel pin risked making it look like right-wing frames were dictating the line of questioning, Stephanopoulos said:

“Sure, there’s a risk.” But he added: “If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama’s opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument. They all go back to that same theme.”

If you can stand wading into the fetid Swamp, Joe Klein makes the same admission: the job of “journalists” in this primary is to stage a dry run of the Republican campaign. Clinton, by the way, is to blame for this, too, as is, to a much lesser degree, Obama — he raised “electability” as an issue first.

It has always been so. Whenever victims decline further victimization, their oppressors accuse them of ingratitude and of starting a war.

While everybody’s in a communicating mood, remember to contact your local ABC ACE* affiliate about the “debate” abomination.

* ACE =arrogant condescending elitist media [Ex. see anything Snuffalufagus has said today in defense of the indefensible.]

Maybe they should be reminded that things like collective bargaining, progressive taxation policies, subsidies, and a host of other measures were invented to preclude actual class warfare, like the Nat Tyler Rebellion, the French Revolution, etc..

A bit O/T but still pertinent:

Unkle Karl has been invited to testify for the House Judiciary Committee.

Justice Department opposition to a shield was fueled by prosecutors such as Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who view journalists as adversaries.

His cilice is wrapped to tight

Does anyone know how many calls and e-mails ABC got last night? I think the last count I saw was over 8000.

I need editing that is “too” not “to”

Here is my missive to Lovey — not that she’ll heed it:

Dear Ms. Howell:

After reading Robert Novak’s op-ed dated 4/17/08, I searched in vain for some notification to readers of Mr. Novak’s personal involvement in the CIA leak investigation — one which began after Mr. Novak recklessly published the name of a covert operative after being asked not to do so by high-ranking CIA officials. As Mr. Novak’s involvement in this years-long saga was well known, perhaps the notification to your readers was thought to be unnecessary for some reason. Perhaps I’m old school, Ms. Howell, but such a substantive conflict of interest on Mr. Novak’s part — one which resulted in his substantial public humiliation, loss of whatever shreds of his reputation as a “journalist” may have been left since he had long since abandoned that pretense to be a conservative rumor launderer, and one which resulted in very public testimony being forced from Mr. Novak about how he was used by Karl Rove to do just that — all of this is relevant to the public weighing of Mr. Novak’s perspective and his level of veracity or lack thereof.

I would hope that the Washington Post would know better than to simply publish such self-serving tripe without a public disclaimer thereto — clearly I was sadly mistaken in hoping for ethical responsibility. Might I at least expect some mention of this lapse in your weekly Ombudsperson column? That would, after all, be the responsible, ethical and honest thing to do under the circumstances, given Mr. Novak’s egregious failure to mention his own bias in the matter.

Contact local ABC affiliates, local paper.
Contact your, and any sympathetic, Congresspeople complaining, and saying that you want the current sytem scrapped because it is dangerous to our democracy.

Actually, boycotts, as of FOX, are a good start.

Given the Democrats had the balls to boycott them, you’d think another tack might be to get them to demand different moderators: a panel of people with academic credentials. Good enough credentials would be enough to guarantee the desirable “liberal bias”, i.e., reality-based questions.

For a debate you don’t need better “journalists” — you need better questions, and to have that, the usual tv news celebrities aren’t even necessary.

One obstacle, of course, is there’s not always loyalty to the Democratic Party as an institution, or “brand” (ahem) and it might be to one candidate’s advantage (ahem) to have, say, George Stephanopoulos asking questions.

Unkle Karl has been invited to testify for the House Judiciary Committee.

Let me check my schedule…. hold on a moment… yes, yes I am more than willing to appear. How does Jan 21st 2009 sound to you

It’s hardly just a “Republican” response.

Yes, I agree a boycott is a good place to start. Or at least notifying sponsors that you think there are serious ethical problems with being associated with such malfeasant performance of an important public service.

However, I think organized public discussion is important to raise public awareness of the problems, and also an organized public effort to hold ABC, NBC, etc., and specific individuals accountable.

They need to be presented with the case against them and asked to respond.

And, an organized effort to scrap the system.
It has been shown to be unreliable in fufilling an important public function required for an honest, informed electorate to receive the objective and unbaised information about the candidates and other public issues required to cast a responsible vote in elections.

It has failed repeatedly and in such a bad way, that it is dangerous to allow it to continue.

Karl will testify just as soon as the Decider gives him his signed pardon permission slip.

A poison pen worthy of Trex. ;-)

Thank you — I was particularly fond of “GOP rumor launderer.” I thought it added a certain level of honest snark to the note. *g*

Comments to ABC: 16,327 and counting.

A conference is needed.
In addition to bloggers and other public interest organizations, need independent experts in journalism and specific topic areas evaluating the problems.
A report, with executive summary, specific questions to speific organizations and individuals, with a request for a public response.
A proposal for change, centerpiece would be scrapping current system.
Petitions.
Relevent products (signature lists, proposals, charges and requests for repsonses) presented to
-all major responsible media organizations,
-relevant professional organizations
-Congress

Also, the public reaction to debate, for example, the two moderators being booed, and the overwhelming negative response to ABC, which has been documented on the internet should be a newsworthy items. If other broadcast and cable media, newspapers and magazines do not cover, they should also be contacted and asked why they do not consider the public reaction newsworthy.

thanks. happy to hear that.

cinnamonape quoting someone else:
“We are classless society, and if you think otherwise you’re a communist.”

Well, golly, I guess I must be a communist. I think that anyone who thinks we are NOT a class stratified society just isn’t paying attention to what’s going on, and is totally clueless. But I’ll defer to David Niewart and Eli(?).

Bob in HI

Brilliant! Good on you.

Heh, heh….beeeautiful!!!

christy at 50–awesome closing paragraph!!!!!!

=====
pups-

here’s the ’debate’ transcript so you can use quotes in your emails if you want. i usually try to in my emails.
most transcripts i ’ve seen today exclude droopy drawers charlie’s opening remarks, this one includes them,i found them interesting, aren’t moderators supposed to keep opinions to themselves? and his remark about the time keeping..dunno.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…..038;page=1

and dakinat provided this ’contact abc’ link–
http://abcnews.go.com/Site/pag…..20Specials

just now checking in at the lake…. wapo!! WTF!!!! novak?? puh leeze…. wapo thinks novak is credible??

Of course, becuz he’s one of “them”. The most amazing thing is that once-upon-a-time (sort of like a real-life fairy tale) the WaPo was the paper after Watergate and Nixon. Their slow slide down to gossip column run by the likes of Fred Hiatt & Co mark a transition to everything being “dumbed down” to the lowest level.

Expect more pearls of whizzdom from Bobby N to be thrown to us swine in days to come. Jeebus.

here in jersey the paper of record is the NYTimes - how the mighty have fallen - i’m a former subscriber to the times - i’m glad i did before they hired the disgusting that smiling kristol dude ;o)

There should be a public effort to scrap this system of debates.

Remember when a political debate meant something from the League of Women Voters? Or a similar good ogvernment group?

A US Administration used the press to commit a crime, a serious crime, and the press argued that they had a right to do so and should be protected.

That is screwed up.

“You give value to these stooges by mentioning them, and this tends to perpetuate their absurd behavior.”

:-) Not just “tends,” publicity gets them viewers, viewers gets them ratings, ratings gets them cash, and we all get more of the same.

“Isn’t it amazing that he is not in prison for betraying a national security asset in a time of war?”

Not while the Republicans, Pelosi, Reid, Costello, et. al. are running things. Nope.

Woot! :-)

Will Hillary reappoint Fitz? Will Obama? maybe we should ask.