“Anger, Frustration, Bewilderment”: From Rolling Stone To Salon, Where Are The Parent’s?
This is not a defense. This is, I hope, the beginning of a conversation.
I read Rich Benjamin’s latest piece for Salon where he suggests that Eric Holder is President Obama’s “Inner N-Word,” with the same anger, frustration and bewilderment as many others. In addition to salaciously dropping the N-word, Benjamin didn’t actually take up Obama’s speech or the many statements the president made in a meaningful way. Instead, he focused on the idea that Attorney General Eric Holder is the black man who says the things Obama can’t, Obama’s “repressed Black Id.” He forwarded the idea that Holder was “more black” (and more correctly black) than Obama because Holder always speaks his mind, most recently denouncing, vehemently, “Stand Your Ground” laws.
Worse yet, Benjamin suggested that the more correct or realer mode of blackness comes by way of aggression and anger, perpetuating the pervasive and damaging myth of the angry black man. His piece suggested that nuance is an ineffective strategy when discussing race. He went for the attention-getting gambit. I suspect he dashed off his piece only a short while after Obama spoke (as we often have to; I’ve been there and will be there again and am probably there now. I get it). There was a missed opportunity to more fully address the issue of the complexity of blackness or Obama’s burden of expectations when he addresses race.
As I followed various reactions on Twitter, I wrote my Salon editor, Anna North, because I wanted to know more about the editorial process. Later, I spoke on the phone with Salon’s interim editor-in-chief, David Daley, and we had a frank and lengthy conversation with about diversity and editorial/creative freedom.
But. Is Benjamin’s piece a writing problem or an editorial problem? In looking at the editorial staff of Salon, one thing is clear—there is little ethnic diversity. Let’s not pretend, however, that this is only a Salon problem. Most magazines, online and print, are utterly lacking in editorial diversity and demonstrate little interest in addressing the problem. I don’t need to name names; just pick a magazine.
Salon, like many publications, is stuck in a cultural vacuum where an editor can read Benjamin’s piece and publish it without any indication that there has been some consideration of the consequences, and, more importantly, of the message being sent. I cannot even be sure the editors understand why Benjamin’s piece is problematic though I do know they are absolutely aware there is a problem.
How do the magazines solve their masthead diversity problem? How does anyone solve this problem? The solutions are quite simple but reminders are clearly needed. Diversify the editorial staff, particularly at senior levels. Hire a person of color as an editor at large — but don’t expect them or any contributor of color on the site to be the token person for matters of race. We can and do want to write on a range of subjects. Create consistent contributor diversity that goes well beyond black writers. Create strong and consistently maintained content partnerships with publications that cater, specifically, to diverse populations. Make sure diversity is an ongoing priority among the current editorial staff in quantifiable ways.
Be more intersectional, creating an environment that produces a range of perspectives on race, gender, class, sexuality, and political thought. There can be no genuine intellectual diversity without intersectional thought and action. Fostering diversity requires both big and small efforts. Fostering a truly diverse environment takes time. Often, it also takes money. Either you will walk the walk or you’ll simply talk about how diversity is a good idea.
Would a black editor have prevented Benjamin’s piece from being published without rigorous questions? We cannot possibly know.
Blackness is not monolithic. The reaction to Benjamin’s piece certainly speaks to that. But because blackness is not monolithic, black editorial insight cannot be predicted. It is problematic to suggest that a black editor is all it would take to prevent a piece like Benjamin’s from being published, that a black editor would save the day with his or her cape and magic black editorial pen. We have to think about what we’re actually saying to suggest this. Rich Benjamin needs to check himself, but he may not be the only one who needs to do so.
By: Roxanne Gay, Salon, July 20, 2013
“With Awe And Romance”: Howard Kurtz And Fox News, A True Love Story
Fox News and Howard Kurtz may be a good match not only because the conservative news network has become a stable for journalists who have fallen on hard times, but because the former Daily Beast Washington bureau chief has long been more generous to the network than many of his fellow media critics.
Not surprisingly, Fox has often come in for a drubbing from media watchdogs for its often conservative, narrative-driven news coverage. But Kurtz, while occasionally willing to call foul on Fox, is generally pretty credulous of the cable news channel, defending it during controversies, favorably profiling its personalities, and seemingly overlooking its lapses.
John Cook at Gawker pointed this out, suggesting that Kurtz may have scooped him in 2004 at the behest of a News Corp. PR agent, and pointing to some other examples:
Kurtz wrote a negative review of Robert Greenwald’s anti-Roger Ailes film Outfoxed. He also wrote a related item, quoting Briganti, accusing the New York Times Magazine of “ambushing” Fox News in a feature about the movie. More recently, Ailes turned to Kurtz for an exclusive interview in June 2011 after two damaging stories in Rolling Stone and New York magazine portrayed him as a paranoid lunatic. A few months after that, Kurtz wrote an influential story claiming that Fox News had become more “moderate” under Ailes’ strategic guidance. Several months after that, a “senior Fox News executive” turned to Kurtz to express “regret” after (the now moderate!) Ailes called the New York Times “lying scum.” Kurtz transmitted the apology, as well as Ailes’ “respect” for Times editor Jill Abramson, but did not note that Ailes had called her “lying scum” in the course of telling a bald-faced lie himself.
But there’s more.
Kurtz took Sean Hannity’s side in his battle with Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison after the Fox host called the congressman an Islamic “radical” comparable to the Ku Klux Klan; he defended the network after the Shirley Sherrod scandal; downplayed News Corp.’s $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association; favorably profiled anchors Bill Hemmer, Shepard Smith, and Megyn Kelly, along with chieftain Roger Ailes; seemed to take the network’s side in its dispute with former host Glenn Beck; and declared that Karl Rove is “generally fair-minded in his commentary.”
In the early days of the Tea Party rallies in 2009, Kurtz equated “whatever role Fox played in pumping them up” with mainstream reporters who were “late in recognizing the significance of the protests.” Journalists at CNN and MSNBC who “also performed badly on April 15th,” he wrote in a Washington Post Q&A with readers by being a few days on their importance. When another reader questioned the bleeding of opinion programming into Fox’s straight news block, Kurtz pointed to the quality work of Major Garrett, a good reporter who later left his job as Fox’s White House correspondent because he said he wanted to “think more.” Garrett’s work is solid, but he’s a single anchor and reading the Q&A, it feels like Kurtz is going a bit out of his way to defend the network. He played the same Major Garrett card in an interview with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn during the height of the White House’ war on Fox News.
This isn’t to say Kurtz hasn’t criticized Fox News. He’s had a number of scrapes with the network, especially his made-for-TV feud with Bill O’Reilly that led to an on-air debate in February. But that fight was about O’Reilly making an isolated error and being too stubborn to correct it, and Kurtz never even came close to addressing Fox’s fundamental flaws as a news organization.
But considering how much there is to criticize about the network, one might expect more from one of the country’s most prominent media critics — who had a media watchdog TV show on a rival network for years. Perhaps, as some smart liberals like Alyssa Rosenberg and Simon Maloy have written, the move could actually be good for Kurtz and Fox. It could hardly get worse.
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, June 22, 2013
“Rewarded With Media Attention”: Code Pink Heckler Was Just Plain Rude And Disrespectful
It says something when the president’s handling of a heckler becomes a story in and of itself, especially when that story is a sideline to a very important and substance-filled speech about the future prosecution of terrorists and the use of unmanned drones. And what it says isn’t good.
President Obama was interrupted several times by a woman (later identified with being with the left-leaning group Code Pink) who badgered him with questions about closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. This is an important question, to be sure, and Obama has yet to follow through on a campaign promise to close it. But yelling at the chief executive – no matter who he is or what you think of him – in the middle of a speech is just rude. The fact that she did it while he was in the middle of addressing that very question is even more irritating. And it exposes what the true motivation was on the part of the protester: to draw attention to herself.
Obama handled it well, acknowledging her presence and her questions (an unnecessary concession to anyone who disrupts for the sake of disrupting) and finally reminding her that free speech means that she needs to listen, as well, while he is talking. The woman undermined her own legitimate cause by making it more about herself and the theater of it all than about the issue itself. And that is a theme that is becoming increasingly pervasive.
Court-watchers are horrified that convicted murderer Jodi Arias was allowed to give interviews while the jury was still deliberating on her (yet undetermined) penalty. That’s an understandable emotion – who wants to hear from someone found guilty of a brutal killing? But when the media (and viewers) turn the criminal justice system into a three-act play, we can’t be shocked if one of the main characters wants to deliver a closing soliloquy.
The hearings on Capitol Hill over a series of controversies – some far more serious than the others – have also become low-grade theater, with the accusations, rhetoric and character assessments dominating the process. The sheer soap opera tone of it all threatens to overshadow the very serious and important role of Congress in overseeing the executive branch. But the setup of the modern system, in which everything is televised, 24/7, promotes the idea of government as theater.
As for Obama and his heckler, how sad that the issue has become not why an adult person would behave so rudely, denying the president the right to speak in the name of the First Amendment, but how the president handled the situation. It’s unfortunately become acceptable – or at least, accepted – for grown people to scream at hosts at town hall meetings, shout over people espousing opposing viewpoints on TV, and even to interrupt the president of the United States while he is delivering a formal speech on a deadly serious topic. Most of us learned at the age of about four that such behavior would be punished, and so stopped doing it. Such behavior is now rewarded with media attention.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, May 24, 2013
“A Massive Media Deflection”: There Is No Scandal in Tracking Down Leaks
In the middle of the other “scandals,” i.e. Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service, that the Obama Administration has to deal with – and which may change the general direction of politics in America at the next general election – there is also the Department of Justice going after the Associated Press in a criminal investigation into leaks of classified information.
The real “news” for us on this last one is that it is no scandal, even though the media are spinning it that way.
Why? Simple: They want to continue getting – from “leakers” inside government – classified information and then publishing it. To them, it’s just another “hot story,” while for the people actually involved in the situation, it may mean risking their lives or the failure of an operation that could jeopardize our national security. In short, it sells us all out.
This is also why, in our Constitutional form of government, there is absolutely no right or protection for anyone to publish national security information – and “anyone” includes the media and press. Not only that, let’s say that a classified document is stolen or taken from an authorized government facility and given to a reporter. In this situation, the government clearly has the right – and even the obligation – to investigate the disappearance of the document and retrieve it by any legal means. This includes getting warrants for telephone records, wiretaps and even carrying out physical searches. And this same logic applies in the digital world.
Is it “legal” for the Justice Department to go after the AP as part of a criminal investigation into the loss or unauthorized disclosure of classified information? Absolutely, and the suggestion of a “scandal” is a massive deflection by the media. Again, the First Amendment simply does not “allow” the publication of national security information – never has, never will.
For some international perspective: We may be the only democracy in the world not to have what is called an “official secrets act,” a law that makes it a crime to publish national security information. This explains why we rarely – if ever – see similar situations arise, for example, in Canada, the United Kingdom or most other European countries. In these countries, their media simply do not – under penalty of criminal law – publish their classified information, much less actively seek it out, as they do here.
Do we need such a law here? Again, it is simply impossible to get an objective discussion of this question because of the emotional “freedom of the press” arguments, which begin from the false premise that there is somehow a constitutional right to publish government secrets. There is no such “right.”
On the other hand, does the government classify way too much information and keep it classified way too long? Yes. However, this problem has been addressed and readdressed over the years by rules that limit the number of “classification authorities,” by periodic reviews of classified information and by limitations on the number of years information can be classified. Of course, because of the immense damage some information could cause if it were released, there have to be exceptions – but this is the very nature of national security related information.
Ultimately, it is the president, as commander in chief, who is responsible for establishing, protecting and eventually releasing this kind of information – not the media.
Accordingly, when I was bi-partisan General Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), I drafted this rather innocuous provision for inclusion in the fiscal 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act:
Whoever, being an officer or employee of the United States, a former or retired officer or employee of the United States, any other person with authorized access to classified information, or any other person formerly with authorized access to classified information, knowingly and willfully discloses, or attempts to disclose, any classified information acquired as a result of such person’s authorized access to classified information to a person (other than an officer or employee of the United States) who is not authorized access to such classified information, knowing that the person is not authorized access to such classified information, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Was there “method to my madness”? Sure, however, it was also surprisingly easy for me to get bipartisan agreement to the language in both Houses of Congress – and also agreement from the White House in a “SAP,” a “Statement of Administration Policy.” And, after all, who could possibly disagree with it? It was “motherhood and apple pie,” as they say in Washington. I held my breath.
Then some media lobbyist must have actually read the legislation and the whole media industry came unglued and went to “general quarters” to defeat actual enactment of the law. So, notwithstanding that the law had already passed both Houses of Congress with bipartisan support, they got to Bill Clinton with an enormous and personal effort: And, Clinton vetoed the law in his final days as president.
At least the Washington Post – one of the world class publishers in this country, along with the New York Times, of leaked U.S. classified information – showed its “true colors” in this vapid editorial about the legislation:
“We don’t pretend to be neutral on this subject. Newspapers publish leaked material; our reporters solicit leaks. And some of the leaked material we publish is classified. But it is a mistake to imagine that all leaks of classified information are bad.” Editorial, The Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2001
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any newspaper editor deciding whether to declassify presumptively sensitive national security information – they simply have no business doing it, regardless of how “hot” the story is or how well connected their “leaker” source is.
Hopefully, it’s this sad fact of political life in Washington that has the Obama Administration actively going after classified “leakers” – more than any administration has ever done. But far more effective would be some form of an “official secrets act” to better protect our nation.
Stated simply: It should be against the law to publish national security secrets – the First Amendment does not protect such irresponsible “journalism,” no matter how salacious the story might be. And, in this respect, we should be no different than our Canadian or British friends – no one there dares publish their national security secrets and no one here should dare publish ours.
By: Daniel J. Gallington, U. S. News and World Report, May 20, 2013
“Irresponsible Knee-Jerkery”: Very Bad News From ABC, NBC And CBS
Despite completely misreporting on administration emails related to the pretend Benghazi “scandal,” after they were misquoted (and/or fabricated) to him by a reportedly Republican source, ABC News and their White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl still refuse to properly correct and apologize for having lied about“obtaining” those emails.
Had Karl’s error — compounded by his “cover-up” even more than his original “crime” — contained news that falsely appeared good for Democrats instead of for Republicans, he would have been hammered and forever discredited by the right until finally fired by ABC News. But, alas, his completely false report on Benghazi benefited Republicans rather than Democrats, so no biggie, it seems. He gets to keep his career!
ABC’s Karl, however, wasn’t the only top-tier network newsman who blew it big time, further tarnishing the profession over the past week. Not by a long shot.
Here’s how NBC’s Brian Williams opened — opened! — NBC Nightly News last Tuesday, the same day that the Treasury Department’s Inspector General report was released, offering zero evidence of White House involvement in the so-called IRS “scandal”…
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “As a lot of American adults not so fondly remember, the last time the government was found looking into the phone calls of reporters and using the IRS for political purposes, it was the Nixon era, and while times have changed and circumstances are different, that subject came up at the Obama White House today as the administration now scrambles on several fronts.” (NBC Nightly News, May 14, 2013)
Odd. The “last time” we ”not so fondly remember…the government…found looking into the phone calls of reporters and using the IRS for political purposes”, was during the George W. Bush era, not the Nixon era. Did Williams sleep through that decade? Seemingly so. Or, it’s safer to allude to the discredited Nixon than the off-scot-free Dubya. Or, Williams simply felt like lying to his audience. Either way, why has Williams also failed to correct or apologize for his grotesquely absurd, remarkably misleading and demonstrably inaccurate opening? And why has he seemingly faced little or no pressure to do so (unlike Karl) from others in the media?
Finally, the network Sunday news shows this week — what we were able to catch of them, anyway — proved to be the usual misinformative lockstep knee-jerkery that keeps us from even bothering to check in on them much anymore. From ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos (which, astonishingly failed to even mention Karl’s extraordinary journalistic lapse, but managed to end its broadcast nonetheless with the straight-faced voice-over: “ABC News: Accurate. Credible. Unmatched.”) to NBC’s Meet the Press to Fox “News” Sunday, they all pretended that last week’s week of “scandals” was on par with Watergate, Iran-Contra, Teapot Dome and other actual presidential scandals. That must be what they train for.
But the award for irresponsible knee-jerkery under the guise of seasoned journalistic commentary must certainly go to CBS’ Bob Schieffer, who, as seen on his Twitter account, appears quite proud of his breathless “dumb and dumber” finger-wagging on this week’s Face The Nation, despite its lack of tether to reality or verifiable facts…http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147143n
So, ya didn’t even bother to read the IG’s report before describing the IRS scandal as “dumb and dumber”, did ya, Bob? We’ve sent that question to CBS and will update if we receive a response. But based on his commentary, it seems he clearly has not. Else, he could not have described the IRS as trying to “get away with” having “gone after the Tea Party” — not based on the currently existing evidence, anyway. Nor could he have made his completely irresponsible comparison to Watergate in the bargain.
So that’s a major fail, by the very highest echelons of each and every broadcast news outlet in a single week. And yet some dare to criticize us — a mere “blog” after all — for getting the story right, time and time again?! Seriously?!
By: Brad Friedman, The National Memo, May 20, 2013
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