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The Circle Widens
From Steve Clemons at The Washington Note:
TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.
The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.
It's all "thickening."
And the White House still refuses to release the list of names Bolton requested be investigated while he was the Undersecretary of State in charge of terrorism, WMD, and among other things, yellowcake in Niger.
And the White House also refuses to withdraw Bolton's name from nomination. Why? And whose name is on the list that Bolton wanted investigated? Could it have been the name of a certain undercover CIA agent in charge of terrorism, WMD, and, among other things, yellowcake in Niger?
On behalf of a blogger who wishes to remain anonymous, but raised this idea weeks ago--we're just asking a few questions here.
In the meantime, as this story gets more complicated, it becomes increasingly obvious that none of the folks doing cable teevee-journalaminimalisming became journalismismists because the quantum physics classes were full. Not only are they giving new breadth of meaning to the word "ditzy", but they have now begun admitting it. The lead reporter on the story for MSNBC's Connected Coast-to-Coast, just said after quoting the Bloomberg story, and throwing the story back to anchor Ron Reagan, "Gee Ron, this story is sure getting complicated. I just don't know what to make of it."
*hitting head repeatedly against keyboard*
I'm sure I sound like an elitist here, but shouldn't a reporter have a more progessed sense of logic than the plot of a Pauly Shore movie?
Just askin'
Hell,
That's just what i've been saying on last thread;
We know your press is a mess, but we - foreign people- are totally unable to understand it anymore. It's all wrong.
That looks so simple = wrong, but your news never fit the rest of the world.
Is the world wrong, or have your media lost any sense of ethics?
is that a rude word? ETHICS.
Just one problem, YourTV and media rest in the hands of corporate groups.
Money, money, money....
Reporters stopped being professionals right around the 1st invasion of Iraq under Papa Bush. That was when CNN scooped everyone else. Good for them, they took the risk and they had the story. But right after that event, reporting became more like entertainment.
Today the people we see on media are more supermodel than reporter, All flash no substance. They must be told what to say, what to ask, any actual interviews are scripted down to the exclamation points. They are literally puppets with make up.
The Daily show is a satire of actual news braodcasts, and they have higher ratings. Reporters / reporting have become the subject of jokes and ridicule, they are irrelevant to mainstream society. Jon Stewart figured it out early.
Blogs are driving the news cycles, and they should. In a few years over 40 Million people will be podcasting the days news, direct from independant groups. No more mainstream news, no more filtering, no more white house arm twisting, no more Corporate agenda.
Hard news, reported live without commercial interruption from thousands of people hooked into the Mobilenet. Commentary delivered by independant analysts that spend money on research, not hair spray.
If a News story hits home, you will be able to download websites that contain detailed reporting and allow you to interact with the story itself; give contributions, give time, submit research, etc.
It will be a great world, and we can thank idiot reporters like the lead casey posted who stares a major news story in the face and cannot make heads or tails of it.
Chuck in Houston for Toolmaker:
I like what you are saying, but I've always found a contradiction in that model and I haven't been able to resolve it to my satisfaction: under that scenario, who pays the salaries of all the fact-finders and checkers and all the writers and editors and web-designers and layout artists? One great thing about the blog is it allows quick and easy and verifiable access to a large cross-section of articles -- but ultimately most of those articles are generated by the "corporate giants." It also allows us to do quick fact-checks and sense-checks and reality-checks on those analyses using public information on the web. In that sense, the web keeps them honest to a degree, although it can't drive editorial decisions (including what gets page 1 and what gets page 26, and the "frame" used for an ostesibly "information" piece). I see a role for public broadcasting on the web, but that in the end is also subject to political pressures. I think there will always be a place for corporate media. I'm not really sure where the internet is going....
Chuck in Houston
I guess I think the MSM is quite sensitive to the political equation and at the same time the role of big money in politics feeds the MSM. I think if we re-establish political pluralism and somehow reform campaign finance, the MSM will go into an equilibrium. Plus better education couldn't hurt.
Chuck in Houston
Hello Chuck.
Not the Internet, the Mobilenet. It will be a seperate entity so to speak. There are millions of people fed up with what is going on in the world, as witnessed by DCP blogs, they wish to become involved and do their part. This is only one avenue of many about to let that happen.
Salaries and costs will be sponsored in part by local contribution, by business interests ( the service provider), but it is not expensive to begin with. There are several stations in my area looking for podcast(ers) now, seeking talent to go nationwide. I live in sillycon valley and this is just one idea being pushed ahead. There are some really good projects about to be launched.
Podcasts do not require graphics or layouts. They are Audio feeds you can download and listen too at any time. These are pretty straightforward deliveries, no sugar coatings.
There will also be Live broadcasting from events, fundrasing, it is direct access to the news and events in our world.
There is always a reaction to every action. The White House pushed people too far, now we push back.
Toolmaker, OK, that explains how to get the technical part down and financed, and the administrative to an extent -- but I still don't see how it could support the investigators and writers and other providers of professional expertise, or would these Mobilenet recruit and hire, for example, journalists? Actually, that would be interesting. In effect they would be media cooperatives in that case. Anyway, sorry I'm off topic and just thinking out loud.
Chuck in Houston
PS: On topic, I find it harder and harder to beleive that all the usual suspects, including Bolton, aren't into this up to their eyeballs.
I was just watching Hardball and I would just like to throw out a general question: can anyone explain to me how classified information could be leaked with out a law, or at least a serious internal procedure, being broken?
Chuck in Houston
Plus, I watched a bit of the CSPAN testimony. It was very interesting. I came away with one new insight: by NOT immediately investigating and by NOT punish anyone and by actively promoting the idea that this is "just politics," the White House and the GOP have and continue to MATERIALLY damage the reputation of our covert assets and their ability to function by undermining a critical human element of trust. I'd hadn't really thought of it that way until I saw one of the guys so testify. Every day the White stonewalls on this is another day of damage. In that sense, congressional oversight is imperative NOW.
Chuck in Houston
Actually, to clarify that trust issue, the point they made is that the sort of folks we need onboard over there are very good at reading tea-leaves and when the impression is not just left but proactively made that it's OK for the center of government to casually out folks for gratuitous reasons, and no one pays a price in the executive branch (accept the folks in the field), well, that truly damages our most important tool in this so-called "War on Terror."
Chuck in Houston
the CSPAN hearing on rove leak is started again right now.
posted really at 2:12PM Hawaii time
chuck, please get into this hearing.
The cia agents will answer all your questions
and in a great and wonderful way.
We are cooking with gas now.
Unfortunatly just saw cnn on this issue
even tho 'more' was revealed, nothing really was published... media still scared???
they cannot argue with these wonderful AMERICANS
whom you will shortly hear testify.
on CSPAN
NOW!
Blogs are driving the news cycles, and they should. In a few years over 40 Million people will be podcasting the days news, direct from independant groups. No more mainstream news, no more filtering, no more white house arm twisting, no more Corporate agenda.
Hard news, reported live without commercial interruption from thousands of people hooked into the Mobilenet. Commentary delivered by independant analysts that spend money on research, not hair spray.
If a News story hits home, you will be able to download websites that contain detailed reporting and allow you to interact with the story itself; give contributions, give time, submit research, etc.
It will be a great world, and we can thank idiot reporters like the lead casey posted who stares a major news story in the face and cannot make heads or tails of it.
Posted by: Toolmaker at July 22, 2005 06:31 PM
do you know, is yahoo, microsoft, unix
working with China to filter their internet?
{anne applebaum today, CSPAN Washington Journal
and Washington Post and http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
To Dick Bell,
I don't know if you remember a conversation we had and I said that I had a hunch that Bolton was involved with outing Plame. You thought it was possible, and now it looks like my hunch might be correct.
Crazy.
Interesting media discussion.
I had heard about phenomenal growth in podcasting & now the new iPods will handle video too.
Look at the explosion in text messaging, self publishing, t-shirt making, button making, bumper sticker making, scrapbooking, emailing, email lists, email groups, blogs, newspapers with blogs, candidates with blogs, streaming alternative audio, streaming foreign audio.
I mean I just had a French email with a translation of a Cuban radio broadcast about Rove.
I think alternative media will be attractive to people. "People media" is supposedly amateur and lacks true peer review by "professionals" but given the lame crop of "professionals" in our media, this is very shallow & meaningless criticism.
I mean, could the situation be worse?! Could we have less successful "conventional" media than we do right now?! I absolutely agree with Toolmaker that it all went downhill during Gulf War I with CNN coverage. That's when I stopped watching tv and never returned - after being offended by "video game" type simulations of actual bombings - with voiceovers that sounded like it was all good fun! It sounded to sterile and antiseptic and amoral, with "precision bombings." Iraq had the clumsy "Scuds" and we had these hundred thousand dollar bombs that could supposedly go down a specific chimney. We didn't realize that a decade and a half later, our military would still "carpet bomb" and miss almost all of the targets & let not only the bad guys get away, but open things up for more to enter the country who weren't there before!
These media have blood on their hands through their amorality and ineptitude.
We need to take things into our own hands because:
1. The best newspaper has old news to anyone who's spent some time "roving" on the internet.
2. You can spend a week watching cable news 24/7 and still have no idea what's going on. 1/2 hour on the right radio or internet places & you can be caught up. This is no exaggeration because I experimented with it.
3. Podcasting hasn't even been fully exploited yet. (& Jon Stewart was on NPR Fresh Air tonight - his DVDs of "election coverage" aka "comedy" are selling out of the box).
4. Many of us who have been blogging for awhile have been approached by politicians, wanting hints on how to have their own blog!
5. It's on a several-times-weekly basis that it's possible to spot columns which summarize what various news sources are saying about an issue and said columns will usually end with a run-down on what the bloggers are saying! More and more, what "trendy" in the blogosphere influences what is featured, right along with what advertising is sold on tv. Just as high fashion designers copy the people on the street because they are more creative and original, lazy journalists lacking in bravery are copying us and our ideas and style!
I can read the Guardian at 10 PM & know what those in London are waking up to "tomorrow." Even the Guardian "borrowed" Markos Matsoukis during the election cycle, & Tony Blair hired internet Exley from MoveOn for his internet savvy. The Guardian blog was the place to get the earliest info during the recent London bombings & this is just one example.
In our newspaper, it's the LTEs and feedback sections where people email in that get all the attention. The internet and email has also revolutionized poll-taking, and I've never seen an election where there was such an obsession with polls. Then there is the whole idea of fund-raising. Politicians are still crawling all over each other trying to capitalize on the still "minority" of people who frequent the internet.
Lobbying - how many of us open our email & hear from NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and more - & that's just on one issue - the new Supreme Court nominee. Same thing happens on the right. How many different organizations have asked us to sign petitions about the Downing Street Memo, about making Rove accountable, about impeaching Bush, about saving Social Security? & how many of these are tied to action on the ground? Things are supposed to be "going faster" lately - we've been talking some about McLuhan. Remember the days of flyers, phone callers & door-to-door? I mean that still happens, but local cells like ours are now going on line and it's lightning fast.
Tomorrow will be the Downing Street event and I can take notes and get them out to several blogs who really want our Seattle version.
I can talk to Senator McDermott and I will know what books he's been reading, just from having been on his internet list. (I know from doing this that he's a big Guardian reader).
I went on to the internet with a vengeance on 9/11/01. I should have been more involved at the time of the 2000 election, but just hadn't progressed to that stage yet. On 9/11, I realized that we were not getting the full story about what was going on in the world and that we would not, without making a supreme effort. I've read The Guardian every day since - many other sources too, but I do trust that non-Murdoch paper that O'Reilly likes so much to rag on, as well as the BBC, which Fox insulted so terribly that the BBC called them "beneath contempt".
I can get a completely different slant in a foreign language and either laboriously read it or get a "babel fish" robotic type of translation. If I know anything about the topic in English, it's worth the time.
We will find a way to get around the corporate media whoring. It's like hackers. Systems change to shut them out & they find a way. Different motive, same momentum.
Crazy.
Posted by: oncall at July 22, 2005 10:01 PM
Oncall,
Crazy has always been defined by those who do not want, nor desire, to give up their way of life due to the perverse and diabolical lies of their leaders...
Being astute is never anything to be ashamed of...but bravo!!!!
You connected the dots.
Got No. 2 Pencil?