IP: "SMELLS LIKE TEXAS"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> X-Sender: >X-Sender: spaf@128.10.241.20
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 12:21:05 -0500
> To: dave () farber net
> From: Gene Spafford <spaf () cerias purdue edu>
> Cc: Mari L Schupp <schuppm () earthlink net>
>
> I read the article "SMELLS LIKE TEXAS" that you posted about 10 days ago, 
> authored by Greg Palast.   I read some of the enclosed links to other 
> stories, and then a day or two later got one of them via another mailing 
> list.   The article in question was on the "failure of the US News Media" 
> and can be found at 
> <http://www.mediachannel.org/views/whistleblower/palast.shtml>.
>
> Well, we've seen several postings about news media failures, and big-money 
> interests' influence on news reporting, etc.  So I thought I'd get a 
> comment from one of the more thoughtful journalists I know, Dave 
> Wilson.  I sent the article on to him.
>
> He had some good comments about the nature of the media, and how it 
> differs between print and WWW.
>
> Enclosed is his response, forwarded with his permission.
>
> > Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 09:51:15 -0700
> > To: spaf () cerias purdue edu
> > From: Dave Wilson <dave () wilson net>
> > Subject: Re: Comment?
> >
> >
> > Hi pal. I'm actually unpacked, so things are getting better <g>.
> >
> > I think there are indeed a couple of distinctions between the British press
> > and its U.S counterpart that are rather interesting (I've recently spent
> > some time in New Zealand, so I reached some of these conclusions over the
> > past few months). But first, let me offer you an off the cuff critique of a
> > basic allegation contained within the screed you sent me: It's factually
> > incorrect.
> >
> > Let me quote:
> >
> > > I also freely offered up to CBS this information: The office
> > > of the governor of Florida, brother of the Republican
> > > presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of
> > > the names of felons from voter rolls -- real felons, but
> > > with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result,
> > > thousands of these legal voters, almost all Democrats, would
> > > not be allowed to vote.
> > >
> > > One problem: I had not quite completed my own investigation
> > > on this matter. Therefore CBS would have to do some actual
> > > work, reviewing documents and law, and obtaining statements.
> > > The next day I received a call from the producer, who said,
> > > "I'm sorry, but your story didn't hold up." Well, how did
> > > the multibillion-dollar CBS network determine this? Why, "we
> > > called Jeb Bush's office." Oh. And that was it.
> >
> > In fact, Florida is one of nine states that do not allow convicted felons
> > to vote. Oops. I didn't ask Jeb Bush about this; I looked it up. (I'm not
> > just a geek; I'm a geek with a political science degree <g>). So ordering
> > felons off the voting roles is not illegal. The quickest way to get a
> > reporter to lose interest in your story is to get the basic facts wrong.
> >
> > Now, if somebody is a felon from another state and that state has restored
> > his civil rights after time served and that person later moves to Florida,
> > the Sunshine State won't roll over and let said felon vote unless the felon
> > presents documentation to the Florida authorities stating that the right to
> > vote has officially been restored by the other state, or the felon
> > effectively gets the Florida governor or legislature to effectively grant a
> > kind of clemency.
> >
> > While that's not exactly nice, it's also not illegal. In recent months
> > Florida has announced that it's officially changing its policy to
> > automatically reinstate voting rights if you're a felon from a state where
> > such rights are automatically reinstated, so no paperwork or appeal will be
> > needed. But the whole felons don't vote thing has quite a long history in
> > this country and it's one of the few things that will follow you around
> > post-rehabilitation. I interviewed G. Gordon Liddy at his home in 1982 and
> > asked him what bothered him most about his conviction and jail time for the
> > Watergate break-in; he said not being able to vote greatly saddened him. At
> > which point I burst out laughing and asked him if in light of that he now
> > felt any differently about his attempts to disenfranchise millions of
> > Americans. He laughed and showed me his gun collection. Actually, as he was
> > quick to point out, convicted felons can't own guns, so Liddy had to give
> > up his gun collection. He looked very sad as he told me this. Then he
> > grinned and said, "*Mrs.* Liddy, however, has an *extensive* gun collection."
> >
> > Liddy and I go way back; I became so enraged when he started saying that
> > there was a juror seated on the Watergate criminal trial who couldn't speak
> > English that I filed a petition with the U.S. District Court twenty years
> > ago to get the trial transcript unsealed. When the court did so, I
> > triumphantly called Liddy at home -- yeah, his number is listed -- and
> > invited him to meet me at the National Archives to pick up the transcript
> > with me. We went over the documents during lunch at the National Gallery,
> > where Liddy and his legal team ate during the trial. You can imagine how
> > embarrassed I was when the transcript showed that one of my heroes, Judge
> > John Sirica, was forced to interrogate juror number seven with the attorney
> > for the Cuban burglars acting as an interpreter to establish a breach of
> > the sequester. Even more bizarro, juror number seven happened to be a Cuban
> > immigrant. He got tossed off the jury, but only after the Cuban defendants
> > dropped their not guilty pleas. The whole thing still gives me the willies.
> >
> > Never heard that story? It's only been published in a couple of places.
> > Like the wire services. It's my own little contribution to Watergate lore.
> >
> > My point in mentioning this tale is to underscore the hit and miss nature
> > of the journalism business. Now, the Watergate stuff was old news when I
> > got the transcript, so it's not strange that it didn't make the front page
> > of the Washington Post. So I'm not bitter. Really, I'm not <g>. But even
> > current stuff often falls through the cracks. For instance, I wrote a
> > column March 15  explaining how the hacker community has developed very
> > usable alternatives to DeCSS -- which was always kind of flaky anyway --
> > and I even told people how to find them. I've been practicing my testimony:
> > "That's not a URL, your honor. That's a proper name. My understanding of
> > the First Amendment -- at least as it was explained to me in my
> > Constitutional law classes -- suggests that Congress cannot pass a law
> > restricting the press from writing proper names. Although perhaps I'm
> > mistaken, since I would have thought that would apply to URLs as well."
> > Amazingly, the fact that people no longer use DeCSS to rip DVDs is never
> > mentioned in any article about the current litigation revolving around DeCSS.
> >
> > Them's the breaks. Eventually, somebody important -- that would be somebody
> > besides moi -- will write about these things, and the world will take
> > notice. Greg Palast apparently thinks his colleagues aren't properly
> > following his lead on important stories. He pats himself on the back pretty
> > vigorously for his hard-nosed coverage of corrupt American politics, but
> > I'd suggest he may be taking the easy way out. We colonials don't have to
> > deal with the Official Secrets Act, which means we don't have to worry
> > about winding up in jail for embarrassing the administration. Or did he
> > miss the recent impeachment madness? Little lambs indeed.
> >
> > Palast's rant appears to claim that U.S. media outlets didn't note problems
> > with voter lists prior to the Nov. 2000 election. That's ludicrous.
> > Granted, most of the focus over the past year has been aimed at efforts to
> > prevent fraudulent voting -- ballots from the graveyard, that sort of thing
> > --  but plenty of newspapers noted that such attempts often kept people
> > eligible to vote from voting. Virginia has had a lot of troubles with this,
> > as has Illinois. How did I know that? Why, I read it in the newspaper.
> >
> > The fact is, Florida papers did indeed cover the felon story -- that is,
> > people who were denied the right to vote who were not in fact felons,
> > apparently because many of them shared a name with a felon and were then
> > placed on a felon list -- including the St. Petersburg Times, routinely
> > cited as one of the top ten papers in this country. It is also, as an
> > aside, owned outright by a non-profit, the Poynter Institute, dedicated to
> > the study of journalism. Making the Guardian less than unique in this
> > regard. Mr. Palast never actually mentions how he got wind of the Florida
> > felon story. Perhaps some anonymous tipster called him and read aloud from
> > the Miami Herald.
> >
> > Why didn't national papers pick up the felon list problem until well after
> > the election? Well, I'd argue that, absent any actual evidence to suggest a
> > deliberate attempt to disenfranchise blacks or Democrats -- and, lets be
> > clear about this, right now there is none, just investigations and lawsuits
> > -- the Florida felon debacle was a local story until months later when we
> > all realized that the presidential election was a statistical dead heat.
> > And then we spent two months counting chad, watching angry mobs brought in
> > and paid for by a certain political party trying to intimidate those in
> > charge of the recount process, and tracking down rumors of whether JB was
> > sleeping with KH. And then another three months trying to count the
> > freaking ballots. The felon story, in short, only got on the national radar
> > screen at the very end of that process, when we all figured out that less
> > than 1,000 votes separated the winner from the loser.
> >
> > But my point, and I do have one, is this: I believe that one of the
> > distinctions between the British press and mainstream U.S. press is that
> > U.S. reporters *hate* being wrong. The Brits don't mind being wrong so
> > much, as long as they occasionally beat their opponents to the scoop. Major
> > U.S. newspapers, however, place a premium on accuracy and precision, which
> > means that, yeah, we're less likely to go forward with a story without two
> > independent sources verifying the facts. I can perhaps illustrate this by
> > pointing out the eighth of a page devoted to corrections in a typical daily
> > American newspaper, which a cynic would suggest carries the following
> > subtext:  "Apart from these few trivial paragraphs, everything else in
> > yesterday's paper was 100 percent accurate."
> >
> > Hah.
> >
> > So, okay, the mainstream U.S. press is more cautious than the Brits. But
> > there are alternative publications on both the left and the right that are
> > more willing to push the boundaries, and, when it turns out they've nailed
> > a story, the big guys will pick it up. The British press is, I would argue,
> > far more gossipy in nature than the mainstream U.S. newspapers. I'd even be
> > prepared to argue that the Web-based press has adopted the British model;
> > lots of news on the Web is dripping with attitude, but light on actual facts.
> >
> > I've read the Guardian. Its pages are stocked with standard, "on the one
> > hand, on the other hand" journalism ("Racial Tension Thought Cause of
> > Riot") that could run on the front page of any U.S. newspaper. We call this
> > stuff balanced and we call the people who write it reporters. It's
> > important. But the Brits are far more fond of what U.S. papers would call
> > news analysis or outright commentary than their U.S. counterparts. I would
> > argue that this is what Mr. Palast does, and recently, it's what I've
> > started doing for a living. It's a very liberating experience, and it's
> > just as important to the electorate as impartial journalism, but I don't
> > confuse it with straight reportage. If I should decide to declare that
> > every word Mr. Gates says is a lie, including "a," "an," and "the," I'm
> > certainly not going to chastise my journalistic brethren as corporate
> > stooges for failing to gather round my bonfire. That's not their job, you
> > see. The way it works is, they gots their job, and I gots mine. Their job
> > is to fairly and accurately portray every facet of every position on the
> > significant arguments of the day. My job is piling up wood. In a purely
> > metaphorical sense, of course.
> >
> > Palast does make one important point, though not directly. Mainstream
> > journalism in this country is dependent on authoritative sources, which
> > can, on occasion, be a completely ineffective way of doing business if
> > you're actually interested in understanding reality. (I once had an editor
> > insist that there must be somebody in charge of the Internet; he was
> > practically reduced to a state of catatonia when he finally accepted the
> > fact that we couldn't get a quote from the chief executive officer running
> > the show). This is why the dotcom story exploded: Everybody involved -- the
> > companies, the bankers, the analysts, the investors, the industry, and the
> > visionaries -- was pimping for everybody else. And journalists quoted them,
> > so everybody involved -- except the journalists, poor saps -- made a pile
> > of money, until, like some giant Ponzi scheme, the whole thing collapsed.
> >
> > I got into a bit of trouble with my former employers at the San Jose
> > Mercury News in 1998 when Yahoo claimed to be profitable and my story -- in
> > contrast to the stories of every other major newspapers out there -- said
> > they weren't really making money. Note that I got in trouble because this
> > was a news story and I led with my own analysis of the numbers, not the
> > analysis touted by the analysts and official experts; those qutoes were in
> > the story, but I didn't make them the lead. I got away with it because in
> > fact the company wasn't making money, and truth, thank goodness, is an
> > absolute defense for us. But people -- good people, mind you, solid
> > journalists who were trying to do what was right -- were very, very unhappy
> > with me; there was some suspicion that I was exhibiting bias. And I suppose
> > I was, after a fashion, since I was continually cursing under my breath the
> > lying sacks of fecal matter that were pumping up phony numbers. But I
> > digress. Now that the bubble has collapsed, everybody's doing stories on
> > those phony pro forma numbers that were used to justify claims of
> > profitability and the insane stock valuations. Everything worked out okay
> > for me, but I think in general saying the emperor has no clothes is not a
> > great career strategy for a reporter, especially when everybody else is
> > running around praising the emperor's fashion sense. Fortunately, everybody
> > loves a good contrarian columnist. Life am good.
> >
> > In closing, I think Mr. Palast's basic claim that it's legal for felons to
> > vote in Florida is false on its face. There's an old saying in American
> > journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. And here's
> > another: Nothing ruins a good story like getting the facts.
> >
> > Warm regards.
> >
> > -dave
> >
> >
> > At 11:25 AM 5/27/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> > > Hi, Dave.  How's things?
> > >
> > > As I was reading this, I thought of you -- you have, in fact, spent
> > > time doing research to uncover stories, although your beat isn't the
> > > national political scene.   So, I was wondering if you have any
> > > comment on this?   (If you have time and interest -- this is so out
> > > of the blue....)
> > >
> > > Hope you're well,
> > > --spaf
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 07:05:08 -0400
> > > > From: Mari L Schupp <schuppm () earthlink net>
> > > > X-Accept-Language: en
> > > > Subject: [BRC-NEWS] The Failure of U.S. Journalism
> > > >
> > > > -------- Original Message --------
> > > > Subject: [BRC-NEWS] The Failure of U.S. Journalism (fwd)
> > > > Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 10:12:03 -0400
> > > > From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim () PANIX COM>
> > > > From: Art McGee <radicalnegro () yahoo com>
> > > >
> > > > http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=33&row=1
> > > > http://www.mediachannel.org/views/whistleblower/palast.shtml
> > > >
> > > > Media Channel
> > > >
> > > > March 1, 2001
> > > >
> > > > [Investigative reporting about voting rights violations in
> > > > the US have been page one news -- in Britain. MediaChannel
> > > > advisor and journalist Gregory Palast, who writes for the
> > > > Observer and reports for the BBC, is fighting mad about the
> > > > disinterest shown by U.S. outlets in stories that are making
> > > > waves worldwide. He pulls no punches and he does name names.]
> > > >
> > > > Silence of the Lambs:
> > > > The Failure of U.S. Journalism
> > > >
> > > > By Greg Palast <gregory.palast () guardian co uk>
> > > >
> > > > Here's how the president of the United States was elected:
> > > > In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida
> > > > Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine
> > > > Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 64,000
> > > > voters from voter lists on the grounds that they were felons
> > > > who were not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out,
> > > > these voters weren't felons, or at least, only a very few
> > > > were. However, the voters on this "scrub list" were,
> > > > notably, African-American (about 54 percent), while most of
> > > > the others wrongly barred from voting were white and
> > > > Hispanic Democrats.
> > > >
> > > > Beginning in November, this extraordinary news ran, as it
> >  >>should, on Page 1 of the country's leading paper.
> > > > Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the
> > > > United States, it ran on page zero -- that is, the story was
> > > > not covered on the news pages. The theft of the presidential
> > > > race in Florida also was given big television network
> > > > coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent: on BBC
> > > > television, London.
> > > >
> > > > Was this some off-the-wall story that the Brits misreported?
> > > > A lawyer for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called it the
> > > > first hard evidence of a systematic attempt to
> > > > disenfranchise black voters; the commission held dramatic
> > > > hearings on the evidence. While the story was absent from
> > > > America's news pages (except, I grant, a story in the
> > > > Orlando Sentinel and another on C-Span), columnists for The
> > > > New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post cited the
> > > > story after seeing a U.S. version on the Internet magazine
> >  >>Salon.com. As the reporter on the story for Britain's
> > > > Guardian newspaper (and its Sunday edition, The Observer)
> > > > and for BBC television, I was interviewed on several
> > > > American radio programs, generally "alternative" stations on
> > > > the left side of the dial.
> > > >
> > > > Interviewers invariably asked the same two questions, "Why
> > > > was this story uncovered by a British reporter?" And, "Why
> > > > was it published in and broadcast from Europe?"
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to know the answer myself. That way I could
> > > > understand why I had to move my family to Europe in order to
> > > > print and broadcast this and other crucial stories about the
> > > > American body politic in mainstream media. The bigger
> > > > question is not about the putative brilliance of the British
> > > > press.
> > > >
> > > > I'd rather ask how a hundred thousand U.S. journos failed to
> > > > get the vote theft story and print it (and preferably before
> > > > the election).
> > > >
> > > > Think about "investigative" reporting. The best
> > > > investigative stories are expensive to produce, risky and
> > > > upset the wisdom of the established order. Do
> > > > profit-conscious enterprises, whether media companies or
> > > > widget firms, seek extra costs, extra risk and the
> > > > opportunity to be attacked? Not in any business text I've
> > > > ever read. I can't help but note that the Guardian and
> > > > Observer is the world's only leading newspaper owned by a
> > > > not-for-profit corporation, as is BBC television.
> > > >
> > > > But if profit-lust is the ultimate problem blocking
> > > > significant investigative reportage, the more immediate
> > > > cause of comatose coverage of the election and other issues
> > > > is what is laughably called America's "journalistic
> > > > culture."
> > > >
> > > > If the Rupert Murdochs of the globe are shepherds of the new
> > > > world order, they owe their success to breeding a flock of
> > > > docile sheep, the editors and reporters snoozy and content
> > > > with munching on, digesting, then reprinting a diet of press
> > > > releases and canned stories provided by officials and
> > > > corporation public relations operations.
> > > >
> > > > Take this story of the list of Florida's faux felons that
> > > > cost Al Gore the election. Shortly after the UK and Salon
> > > > stories hit the worldwide web, I was contacted by a CBS
> > > > network news producer ready to run their own version of the
> > > > story. The CBS hotshot was happy to pump me for information:
> > > > names, phone numbers, all the items one needs for a quickie
> > > > TV story.
> > > >
> > > > I also freely offered up to CBS this information: The office
> > > > of the governor of Florida, brother of the Republican
> > > > presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of
> > > > the names of felons from voter rolls -- real felons, but
> > > > with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result,
> > > > thousands of these legal voters, almost all Democrats, would
> > > > not be allowed to vote.
> > > >
> > > > One problem: I had not quite completed my own investigation
> > > > on this matter. Therefore CBS would have to do some actual
> > > > work, reviewing documents and law, and obtaining statements.
> > > > The next day I received a call from the producer, who said,
> > > > "I'm sorry, but your story didn't hold up." Well, how did
> > > > the multibillion-dollar CBS network determine this? Why, "we
> > > > called Jeb Bush's office." Oh. And that was it.
> >  >>
> > > > I wasn't surprised by this type of "investigation." It is,
> > > > in fact, standard operating procedure for the little lambs
> > > > of American journalism. One good, slick explanation from a
> > > > politician or corporate chieftain and it's case closed,
> > > > investigation over. The story ran anyway: on BBC-TV. Let's
> > > > understand the pressures on the CBS producer that led her to
> > > > kill the story on the basis of a denial by the target of the
> > > > allegations. (Though let's not confuse understanding with
> > > > forgiveness.)
> > > >
> > > > First, the story is difficult to tell in the usual 90
> > > > seconds allotted for national reports. The BBC gave me a
> > > > 14-minute slot to explain it.
> > > >
> > > > Second, the story required massive and quick review of
> > > > documents, hundreds of phone calls and interviews, hardly a
> > > > winner in the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of U.S.
> > > > journalism. The BBC gave me two weeks to develop the story.
> > > >
> > > > Third, the revelations in the story required a reporter to
> >  >>stand up and say the big name politicians, their lawyers and
> > > > their PR people were freaking liars. It would be much
> > > > easier, and a heck of a lot cheaper, to wait for the U.S.
> > > > Civil Rights Commission to do the work, then cover the
> > > > Commission's canned report and press conference. Wait!
> > > > You've watched "Murphy Brown," so you think reporters hanker
> > > > every day to uncover the big scandal. Bullshit. Remember,
> > > > "All the President's Men" was so unusual they had to make a
> > > > movie out of it.
> > > >
> > > > Fourth, investigative reports require taking a chance.
> > > > Fraudsters and vote-riggers don't reveal all their evidence.
> > > > And they lie. Make the allegation and you are open to
> > > > attack, or unknown information that may prove you wrong. No
> > > > one ever lost their job writing canned statements from a
> > > > press conference.
> > > >
> > > > Fifth -- and this is no small matter -- no one ever got sued
> > > > for not running an investigative story. Let me give you an
> > > > example close to home. The companion report to my
> > > > investigation of the theft of the election in Florida was a
> > > > story about Bush family finances. I wrote in the Guardian
> > > > and Observer of London about the gold-mining company for
> > > > which the first President George Bush worked after he left
> > > > the White House. Oh, you didn't know that George H. W. Bush
> > > > worked for a gold-mining company after he lost to Bill
> > > > Clinton in 1992? Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that
> > > > this company has a long history of suing every paper that
> > > > breathes a word it does not like -- in fact, it has now sued
> > > > my papers. I've gotten awards and thousands of letters for
> > > > these stories, but, honey, that don't pay the legal bills.
> > > >
> > > > Finally, there's another little matter working against U.S.
> > > > reporters running after the hard stories, papers printing
> > > > them or TV broadcasting the good stuff. I'll explain by way
> > > > of my phone call with a great reporter, Mike Isikoff of
> > > > Newsweek. Just before the elections, Isikoff handed me some
> > > > exceptionally important information about President Clinton,
> > > > material suggesting corruption in office -- the real stuff,
> > > > not the interns-under-the-desk stuff. I said, "Mike, why the
> > > > hell don't you run it yourself?" and he said, "Because no
> > > > one gives a shit!" Isikoff was expressing his exasperation
> > > > with the news chiefs who kill or bury these stories on page
> > > > 200 on the belief that the public really doesn't want to
> > > > hear all this bad and very un-sexy news. These lambchop
> > > > editors believe the public just doesn't care.
> > > >
> > > > But they're wrong. When I ran my first story in the London
> > > > Observer about the theft of the Florida vote, Americans by
> > > > the thousands flooded our Internet site. They set a record
> > > > for hits before the information-hungry hordes blew down our
> > > > giant server computers. When BBC ran the story, viewership
> > > > of the webcast of Newsnight grew by 10,000 percent as a
> > > > result of Americans demanding to see what they were denied
> > > > on their own tubes. Obviously, some Americans care.
> > > >
> > > > And it's for them that I say, This is Greg Palast reporting
> > > > from exile.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > >
> > > > Award-winning investigative reporter Gregory Palast's
> >  >>column, "Inside Corporate America" is published every other
> > > > week in The Observer, London (Guardian Media Group). To
> > > > reprint, to comment, or to read other Palast reports, go to
> > > > www.GregoryPalast.com.
> > > >
> > > > Copyright (c) 2001 Gregory Palast. All Rights Reserved.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this
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> > > > and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official
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> > > > have been added to the BRC-PRESS list automatically.]
> > > >
> > > > [Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other
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> >  >>
> > > > Unless stated otherwise, do *not* publish or post the entire
> > > > text of any articles on web sites or in print, without getting
> > > > *explicit* permission from the article author or copyright holder.
> > > > Check the fair use provisions of the copyright law in your country
> > > > for details on what you can and can't do.



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