An unfortunate update appears at the end of this post. And one last addendum has been added.
I have said many times on this blog; I am not a journalist. I have neither the time nor the resources to do it right, and I have no intention of misleading anyone. That doesn’t mean I don’t strive to tell the truth. I believe in truth and the power of facts over ideology. I happen to believe that most people are decent and want to know the facts, regardless of their ideology, and that they can spot bullshit from a mile away.
I hold real journalism in very high esteem, which seems to be more than I can say about some "journalists". Journalism is not just a job. it's an honorable profession; an essential calling. Good reporting is as important as the vote to the functioning of democracy. The dissemination of good, truthful information is essential to the system.
This is why I have nothing but contempt for Fox News. There is little journalism on Fox; it’s all propaganda designed to keep right wingers glued to their televisions, to make money for their parent corporation. They have no regard for the truth, unless the truth is what their viewers want to hear, and right wingers don't care about truth. If the name of their channel was “Right Wing Opinion Channel”, I would have more respect. But news requires facts, perspective and proper context.
Put simply, my contempt for Fox News has nothing to do with their ideology. It’s all about their lack of journalistic integrity. I have the same contempt for those on the left who claim to be “news” organizations, but whose “journalists” leave their integrity behind, just because their gullible readers don’t care about the truth.
Case in Point: Jason Leopold over at Truthout.
Last night, I saw the following article posted on Twitter.
Lawsuit Takes Aim at CIA's "Covert" Attack on Transparency
I really don’t know what possessed me to click on the link and read the article. Normally I don’t. But I did, and then posted the following Tweets in response.
Too snarky? Probably. Sorry. It was late, and I was tired and not in the best of moods. But I thought the story ridiculous. As you can see if you click on the article link, given the limited information contained therein, it was far too long. If it had simly been three factual paragraphs containing news about the lawsuit, no problem. But not only was it long, it was extremely biased, and ultimately advocated for a specific position. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that Truthout labels its “news” as “reports” and its “opinions” as, well, “opinions.” Now look at the by-line on this piece:
Quite obviously, this is not intended to be an opinion piece. Yet, the entire article is presented in one direction, without regard to the other side of the story at all. There is absolutely no perspective presented in this story; the entire piece is written from the point of view of the plaintiffs, and assumes they're correct in their accusations. They may be. To write from the perspective that they are, at this point in time is not fact.
Still, I didn’t let it get to me. I had actually forgotten I’d even talked about it until this morning, when Jason Leopold himself Tweeted the following:
And then:
And:
All three of the above came before I had even responded. Since our exchange went on for several hours, I won’t bore you with it. But one of his more curious challenges was impossible to ignore. My main complaint with the article was that it lacked any sort of perspective balance. When I mentioned it was biased, he laughed at me:
Okay, so we have two challenges here. He claims I lack reading comprehension skills. And he claims the article's not biased. Both are pretty easy to refiute.
I’ll summarize parts of the article, and you tell me whether or not my reading comprehension seems sound, or if the article is balanced. Here’s paragraph one, which, according to Journalism 101, shoul summarize the contents of the entire article:
Last September, the CIA quietly changed its long-standing policy for how it would process certain records requests by implementing a new fee structure that will essentially discourage the public from trying to get the agency to declassify secret government documents because the costs are too high, open-government advocates have charged.
Leopold says the CIA “quietly” changed its fee structure, despite the fact that the link he supplies leads to a page in the Federal Register, dated September 23, 2011, announcing the new fees. I'm not sure what he expects the CIA to do, but this is the usual practice. Keep that date in mind, by the way. The source of the Federal Register pages is a Wordpress blog, and it helpfully contains highlights of the parts the blogger wants you to read. That should make any lover of journalistic standards wince.
Not only is Leopold’s use of the word “quietly” misleading, but note the word “will”, meaning certitude that charging these fees will somehow preclude anyone from filing an MDR. Also note the placement of “open-government advocates have charged” AFTER the paraphrase, not an actual quote. This is actually a common trick when people want to make a statement look like it came from the writer, when it didn't. It's akin to using endnotes instead of footnotes, as is the tendency of right wingers who write what they refer to as "non-fiction." The paraphrase also comes from (as yet) unnamed “open-government advocates,” not a named source. Keep in mind, this the lead paragraph of what Truthout bills as a “news” story.
At this point, he hasn’t even mentioned the lawsuit.
Here’s the second paragraph:
The policy, which the CIA started to enforce last December, applies to Mandatory Declassification Reviews (MDR), a procedure under a section of an executive order signed by President Obama (which replaced a similar executive order signed by former President Bush), that allows the public to seek the declassification of specific CIA records and appeal unfavorable rulings to an independent panel.
Still no mention of the lawsuit, even though the headline indicates the article is supposedly about the lawsuit. The first link in the paragraph comes from the same Wordpress blog, “Unredacted,” that provided us with those helpfully highlighted Federal Register pages. Thankfully, the link to the Executive Order goes to the National Archives. Nowhere in the Executive Order does it preclude charging fees for searching for and locating documents. More on that later, too.
Paragraphs three through six:
Truthout filed several MDR's last year to try and gain access to materials in custody of the CIA that were written by a high-value detainee and other classified documents pertaining to the Bush administration's interrogation policies.
"Overnight, without public comment or notice, the [CIA] decreed that declassification reviews would now cost requesters up to $72 per hour, even if no information is found or released," wrote Nate Jones of George Washington University's National Security Archive, a historical research group that files numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and publishes declassified documents.
Previously, the CIA charged the public fees that were on par with general requests for agency records filed under FOIA. Jones, who first spotted the policy changes in the Federal Register, said the new regulations are "are a covert attack on the most effective tool, [MDR], that the public uses to declassify the CIA's secret documents" and undercuts the transparency promises Barack Obama made after he was sworn in as president three years ago.
Paragraph three is gratuitous, and has no journalistic value.
The link in paragraph four is basically the same link as in paragraph two, and is used to “substantiate” a quote from a guy who writes for that blog. Just because some guy with a vested interest SAYS the CIA propagated these rules and fees “Overnight, without public comment or notice...” doesn’t mean the statement is true. It’s a journalist’s job to report facts, and there is no evidence that these rules simply appeared out of thin air. In fact, to a good journalist, that someone made that claim on February 10, 2012, when the rules first appeared in the Federal Register on September 23, 2011 should set off an alarm. How does someone so "expert" miss such a change for 4 1/2 months? Even if they started enforcing them in December, the "expert" missed them for almost three months.
Paragraph five again repeats the same unsubstantiated claim and reiterates another. In fact, a look at the fees shows that most searches for classified material will not cost $72 per hour; the vast majority will cost $20 per hour for searches and $40 per hour for reviews. Besides, who’s actually making these requests? The implication seems to be that Joe Blow’s going to come home from his job at the Tastee Freez, and won’t be able to afford to pay to look for documents to declassify.
Finally, by paragraph six, Leopold starts mentioning the lawsuit. Basically, Leopold repeats the same things he said in the first five paragraphs, and except for the complaint, which can be found here, he mentions no other original sources of fact. None. Zero. Oh, but he does include a petition by people who were so concerned about the CIA’s fee structure as released on September 23, 2011, that they had to start a petition on February 23, 2012.
Keep in mind; this is the “lead investigative journalist” for a website purporting to be “news.” There is absolutely zero perspective of the CIA side of this issue anywhere in the article. The only side addressed in this alleged “news article” is the side of the plaintiffs, who are, naturally, biased. You can’t win a case if you’re not biased.
When I confronted Leopold on this issue, he said the following:
Now, how could anyone who fancies himself to be a “lead investigative journalist” say something so profoundly stupid? First of all, you don’t have to ask questions about the lawsuit to present the CIA’s perspective on the fees, necessarily. You simply have to ask several questions that any “lead investigative journalist” should be able to ask in this sleep. Here are a few suggestions:
- Are the fees out of line with those charged by other government agencies?
I do a lot of Intellectual Property work with law firms, and for a Library of Congress clerk to do a basic search of the copyright records costs about $165 plus an average of $115 for their time. Here is a complete list of fees charged by the Copyright office. The Patent & Trademark office fee schedule is even more breathtaking, with basic searches starting at $120, and most of north of $600.
Here is a list of FOIA fees. As you can see, they’re actually comparable to the CIA's MDR fees. The one difference is that fees for FOIA requests can be waived, albeit rarely. Might the CIA introduce a waiver program like the FOIA program has? Of course. That would make sense. But Leopold doesn’t even broach the prospect. He simply repeats claims that the fees are outrageous and will prevent “the public” from filing MDRs. If they can’t file MDRs, they sure as hell can’t handle the cost of the patent process, should they come up with a great idea. Right?
By the way, ALL of the above agencies require payment in full up front before they will do anything for you. ALL OF THEM.
- What is the reason the CIA imposed the fees?
I don’t know the answer. Neither do you. And neither does Leopold, because he apparently only asked for comment on the litigation, and not about the fees themselves. There is no way he called the CIA and asked someone there about the process for determining fees and was told, “we can’t discuss pending litigation.”
- Is the CIA possibly being inundated with ridiculous MDRs from conspiracy nuts?
No one knows the answer to this question, because the “lead investigative reporter” for Truthout never asked it. Or if he did, he didn’t report the answer. Of course, during our Twitter discussion, he sent the following:
It’s not possible? Did he ask the CIA about dedicated staffing? What about their budget? How many MDRs do they get per week, and how long does it take to process them? All questions he could have asked the CIA, and received answers to, but didn’t bother. He didn’t even report the answers and make fun of them. Not that I would approve of such a thing, but at least some actual facts might leak out of the piece if he had.
This is NOT investigative journalism. Most of the article doesn't even qualify as news. The lawsuit is a story, but oddly, he doesn't even quote the lawsuit, at least directly. Basically, he found a bunch of crap online that he agreed with, and hashed it into a story. Anyone can do that; it doesn't require a "journalism" pedigree. I'm tired of this "sumsay" form of journalistic sophistry, too. Reports of others' blogs and biased crap posing as "news" can’t be allowed to stand, folks.
If we accept journalistic standards that are no better than the Fox News/Free Republic crowd, we’re going to continue losing the electorate. If a swing voter just happens upon the Truthout website, sees an article by Jason Leopold that purports to be “news” but is in fact a biased pile of garbage, it does more damage to the cause than you can possibly imagine, because many will assume that the rest of progressives are also loose with the truth. I spend too much of my time having to cut progressive crap lately; it's cutting into time that would be better spent exposing the right wing liars.
Facts have a liberal bias. At the very least, our “journalists” should be counted upon to tell the whole truth; shouldn’t they?
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As I said, I have an update to post. It's an unfortunate one.
Apparently, Mr. Leopold has decided the Andrew Breitbart route is the best one for his career.
I have been posting about politics online for about 17 years now. I spent a long time on Usenet, arguing with and beating up anonymous right wingers, intellectually. In that time, I developed quite a stable of unstable stalkers. One in particular is an anonymous coward who calls himself "Steve Canyon." He has followed me around for years, reposting out-of-context and totally fabricated quotes. If you do a Google search on my name, and go deep enough, you will find all kinds of quotes that I supposedly made. Some are stupid, and some really aren't, but they're considered so by right wingers.
Well, apparently, Jason Leopold and one of his "buddies" were so upset by this article that they took it upon themselves to write an article slamming me. Here is the article, supposedly written by someone named "Matt Casey".
“Milt Shook Is A Documented Moron”
It's located at Jason Leopold's blog, "The Public Record." The blog boasts of featuring "Intrepid NEW Journalism" and purports to be "Serving the Public Interest." I'm not sure what "Public Interest" is served by trashing me, personally, with a piece that largely reads like a Middle School student's diary, but apparently Jason thought it needed to be done. Here's the first paragraph. I urge you to read this in your best Pee Wee Herman. I also urge you to explain to the class how this is "journalism" of any kind:
These links demonstrate that Milt Shook has been an idiot–and, as TPR editor-at-large and co-founder Jason Leopold noted on Twitter Tuesday during an exchange with Shook–has lacked reading comprehension skills for quite some time. He attempts to speak as an expert on a wide-range of subjects, many of which he clearly knows nothing about as demonstrated by the idiotic screed on his blog about a report Leopold wrote about a lawsuit that Milt Shook complained was too long and “biased.” Milt Shook spends most of his time attacking journalists, like Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olbermann, and the rest of his time defending the Obama administration from the tiniest of criticisms. That Milt Shook runs a blog called PleaseCutTheCrap while disseminating so much, well, crap, is the epitome of irony. He mainly uses his blog to showcase his idiocy. The evidence of Milt Shook’s dumbfuckery speaks for itself. The headlines to these posts (which you should click on) about Milt Shook says all you need to know about this fraud.
(Note: the "dumbfuckery" link goes to a Google search for "Milt Shook" moron. So you know this journalistic enterprise was undertaken with a nod to the lowest standards possible.)
Here's the problem with the above.
Most of the links -- yes, I said MOST OF THEM! -- don't lead to anything at all. Yes, that's right. The fine journalist who wrote this piece of tripe simply cut and pasted links he liked, without even checking them first. The few that work lead to someone, usually this Steve Canyon fellow, CALLING me a moron and quoting me, with links directly below the quote. Only, those links don't work, either. I urge everyone to check them all. What you will find is a bunch of quotes from anonymous right wing nutjobs calling me a moron. and responding to things I supposedly said.
Note that most of the quotes are repeated over and over, most of them come from "Steve Canyon," who is a far right wing obsessive, and it's because he's collected them as a macro he attaches to posts pretty regularly. In fact, if the author has bothered to READ the alleged quotes, he would find that it's the same 10-12 repeated over and over. And if he had bothered to click on the links at the bottom of each quote, he would find that all but a few don't even work. They're dead links. On one of the few quotes that does check out, I'm called a moron because I say the government is charged with protectng your Constiutional rights, even against private parties. That's stupid? To someone who writes for what purports to be a progressive journalistic blog? Really?
Sacre bleu! How horrible! Imagine right wingers taking something a liberal says and twisting it into something else. That never happens, does it?
By the way, I challenge you to read the people who're calling me a "moron." I am HONORED to be called a moron by such right wing pond scum.
Now, forgive me, but a rational journalist, looking to make a name for himself would have taken my honest critique of his work at Truthout and made an honest attempt to explain himself, or worked hard to get better at it.
Instead HIS BLOG (Here's the domain record. The address is a PO Box, so it's ok) posts an even worse case of journalistic garbage. You know, it's the old "You're a biger poopyhead" defense.
Here's the challenge for anyone who reads the "Moron" piece. Go find an actual direct substantiated quote by me that is actually moronic. For that matter, find a valid criticism of me in any of the links that do work. Go ahead; I dare you.
After all, if a JOURNALISTIC ENTERPRISE is going to claim I'm a "documented moron," they'd better come up with an IQ test proving such a thing or, failing that, to at least be able to document a large number of "moronic" statements?
One would think someone who's trying to rehab a rather spotty "journalistic" record as Leopold's is would be more careful.
Seriously; cleck the hell out of all those links and tell me what you find.
In the meantime, those of you who think Leopold should be considered a qualified journalist of some note, please explain why, considering he allows posts like this drivel on his blog. I'm not a journalist, and you would never find such a thing on mine.
I think an apology is in order, and I don't just mean to me.
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And here's one last update, just to close this. I don't do pissing contests, but I felt I needed to clarify something:
The following is a comment posted at the site of the Public Record garbage linked above. Here it is:
I'm not going to rehash what I wrote above, but I didn't just SAY his Truthout piece was a biased piece of journalistic garbage. I showed what I meant. And I wouldn't promote the piece about me as "an exception." Go talk to your lawyers; that doesn't help your case, should it come to that.
I will repeat one thing; I made an offhand comment about the lousy Truthout article on Twitter. It was Leopold himself who encouraged me to explain why I thought it was crap. Nowhere in that article did I attack Leopold's reputation or question any other piece. Compare that to the absolutely childish, substance-free hitpiece place on his website.
But here's something else interesting. For a guy who has nothing to do with this blog... well... see for yourself. Feel free to click on that bad boy to get the full effect.
Oops.
If Jason Leopold has nothing to do with his own website, apparently, someone failed to tell him. And as owner of the domain name, evading responsibility won't be that easy.
