This is the second part of our "what is media in other countries covering?"

Dallas notes that in Australia our friend Luke (wotisitgood4) notes realites not dealt with while the media was on "Pope-arama:"

* "Mexico is heading for political crisis after its Congress voted to impeach the leading candidate in next year's presidential election in what his supporters said was a naked act of obstruction." LINK apparently there were "several hundred thousand supporters in the capital's central square" what will the democracy-bringers do? did blinky discuss this when he was in mexico recently? who else was in mexico recently? i think the anti-c.rice went? and maybe rumsfeld? is this why the media was told to go wall2wall pope-arama? is this version2.0 of the failed media strategy wrt the venezuela debacle?

* similarly, heres Shakespeare's Sister:"Nothing happens in a vacuum with this administration. DeLay suddenly having lost his protection, finding himself naked, cold, and alone on the front page of the Washington Post, was not inevitable, not in this media climate. This is an orchestrated takedown, and you can bet your boots it’s a red herring for something. We’ve just got to make sure we keep our eyes peeled for exactly what that something is." LINK

* meanwhile, rebecca thinks that the pope-a-palooza is unadulterated p.r. with a splash of zero-cost programming - which is possibly true, but she also says (in passing): "i used to work in public relations. back then we prayed for a day like this week (just a day!). some family man was leaving his wife and kids for his pregnant mistress and a day like any of the past 9 or 10 came along, we'd be screaming, 'we're putting it out now! no(one) will even notice it!'" i'd posit that maybe this was the *purpose* of the ridiculous level of coverage.

And while in Australia, we'll note "Doctors link Vioxx to 300 deaths" from ABC:

A best-selling pain reliever has been linked by doctors to the deaths of about 300 Australians. Arthritis drug Vioxx was withdrawn from the worldwide market last year after being linked in the United States to more than 100,000 heart attacks and strokes.

US lawyers say they have internal memos and documents showing that the drug manufacturer, Merck, knew that Vioxx was dangerous in the mid-1990s.

Merck denies those claims.

Royal Adelaide Hospital Professor Les Cleland has told ABC TV's Four Corners program that about 30 per cent of 1,000 events in Australia may have been linked to the drug before it was banned.

From the International Federation of Journalists, we'll note "Impunity, Justice Denied and Media Killings That Haunt the United States:"

The International Federation of Journalists today called on the United States government to end all speculation over targeted killings of journalists and media staff by providing "credible and convincing" reports on incidents in which 14 media staff have been killed since the invasion of the country in March 2003.

"The United States stands accused of failing to meet its obligations to deliver justice and fair treatment to the victims of violence by its own soldiers," said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White in a letter to President George Bush.

Similar letters calling for the US to carry out exhaustive investigation into these cases have been sent by IFJ affiliates to US officials and many countries.

April 8th marks the second anniversary of the United States attack on Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, which at the time contained scores of reporters and media people reporting on the US invasion. Two journalists were killed and others wounded.

On the same morning, a journalist was killed when the Baghdad offices of the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera was attacked by US fighter planes.

The IFJ says there are another 11 other cases of unexplained killings in which US soldiers were involved that require answers. "

The ordeal of family, friends and colleagues of media victims continues as they wait for justice from the authorities about how and why their loved ones died," said White.

From OpenDemocracy, Gareth notes Dominic Hilton's "Is Britain a banana republic?" Here's an excerpt:

In 2005, thanks to what the London Evening Standard calls "quirks in the electoral system", pollsters predict Blair could win a House of Commons majority of 70-90 seats with only a "wafer thin" 2-3% lead over the Conservatives (with only 53% of voters saying they "intend to vote"). Conservative leader Michael Howard reportedly thinks the "people who matter" make up only 2% of the electorate.

Whatever one's view on the Iraq war, if the British people were the boss, British troops would not be wearing desert boots.

In fact, if the British people were really in charge, it would say so in a British constitution that begins "We the people of the United Kingdom…".

The UK election in May is billed as all about turnout. If voters show in large numbers, it should favour Labour. Conservatives stand accused of deliberately campaigning to keep people away from the polls.

As if!

I went to corruption-ridden Birmingham to hear Michael Howard talk about the decline in popular participation and he insisted he was all for boosting voter turnout. True, when I chatted to him afterwards, he made little effort to seduce me to the polls. There was no "Can I rely on your vote, young man?" Just a blank stare and an expression that read "Why am I wasting my time with this jerk?"

Perhaps he was clocking my name for a postal ballot. Postal voting is no answer not only because it is "wide open to fraud", but because it is a stunt, designed to increase turnout but failing to address the basic relationship between the state and its citizens.

There's a hollow centre in British politics, and it's in danger of being stuffed with forged ballot-papers.

Friday's (domestic) Free Speech Radio News offered this:

Journalists Held in Iraqi Prisons (3:27)

According to the Pentagon, a CBS news freelancer who was shot in the hip by US troops Wednesday is being held in prison as a suspected insurgent. Meanwhile, a journalist with the Arab language satellite al-Arabiya network continues to be held in prison. Aaron Glantz reports from Washington.

[Click on "Friday" to listen to the thirty minute program and hear the story.]

This is echoed at Reporters Without Borders. From "Concern that US forces are holding CBS cameraman who was shot and wounded:"

Reporters Without Borders said today it was very worried that the US forces have detained a CBS cameraman of Iraqi nationality ever since shooting and wounding him during an operation against an insurgent on 5 April.

"We call on the US army to release him very quickly if no evidence is produced to support his alleged collaboration with the insurgency," the press freedom organization said.

The organization said there have already been cases of journalists being detained for no reason by the coalition forces in Iraq.

In May 2004, for example, three journalists with the French TV station Canal + were detained while working in Baghdad. They were held for nearly 30 hours although they had their press cards and their TV station immediately confirmed their identity.

A US army statement said the CBS cameraman was being held because be might pose "an imperative threat to the coalition forces."

CBS said the US military suspect him of links to the rebels because video footage found in his camera shows he was on the scene of several bombings shortly after they took place. This makes the US military think he may have been warned in advance in the insurgents.

CBS yesterday issued a statement of support for their cameraman, who began working for them three months ago after being recommended by one of their fixers. CBS has asked that he not be named for his own protection.

From the UK's Independent, Susan e-mails to note David McNeill's "Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history:"

Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in Beijing with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop distorting history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a new low.

The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its rising star.

[. . .]

The most contentious history text removes all references to the comfort women and suggests that Korea and China invited or benefited from the Japanese occupation. A civics text claims jurisdiction over a clump of rocks called Takeshima (in Korean, Tokdo) that Korea has held since 1945.

"What nonsense is this," said an editorial in the normally mild Korea Herald. Written by a group of neo-nationalist academics, the two texts, with the backing of a right-wing media conglomerate, have sold nearly one million copies since 2001.

This success has dragged the teaching of history sharply to the right: just one new history textbook out of eight mentions the comfort women this year, down from seven in the mid-1990s, and references to other war crimes have been toned down or dropped.

From the BBC, Dominick notes "Taiwan bans Chinese journalists:"

Taiwanese officials have ordered journalists from two of mainland China's largest official media groups to stop working on the island. They claim the reporters are contributing to straining relationships between Taipei and Beijing.

Xinhua news agency and the People's Daily newspaper have ignored Taiwan's objection to an anti-secession law passed by China last month, they say.

The law authorizes the use of force if Taiwan tries to gain independence.

Also from the BBC, Rachel notes "Nepal clash deaths 'rise to 100:'"

Authorities in Nepal now say 100 died in clashes between Maoist rebels and government forces in the remote western district of Rukum on Thursday. The clashes were by far the biggest since King Gyanendra assumed direct power on 1 February, vowing to crack down on the rebels.

The army said it had recovered 97 rebel bodies and that three soldiers died. The rebels have not commented on their dead but say the army's losses were much higher. None of the claims could be independently verified.

The Maoists have been fighting for nearly 10 years to replace the monarchy with a communist republic. About 11,000 people have been killed.

Note: This is part II of the post. See previous entry.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This post originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

We'll start our look at news from other countries (other than the US) with Girl Blogger of Baghdad Burning. Here is an excerpt from her latest post:

Thousands were demonstrating today all over the country.
Many areas in Baghdad were cut off today for security reasons and to accomodate the demonstrators, I suppose. There were some Sunni demonstrations but the large majority of demonstrators were actually Shia and followers of Al Sadr.
They came from all over Baghdad and met up in Firdaws Square- the supposed square of liberation. They were in the thousands.
None of the news channels were actually covering it. Jazeera showed fragments of the protests in the afternoon but everyone else seemed to busy with some other news story.
[. . .]
BBC and EuroNews were busily covering the wedding between Prince Charles and the dreadful Camilla. CNN was showing the Pope's funeral.
No one bothered with the demonstrations in Baghdad, Mosul, Anbar and the south. There were hundreds of thousands of Shia screaming "No to America. No to terrorism. No to occupation. No to the devil. No to Israel."
The numbers were amazing and a little bit frightening too.
Ever since Jalal Talbani was named president, there have been many angry Shia. It's useless explaining that the presidential chair is only symbolic- it doesn't mean anything. "La izayid we la inaqis." As we say in Iraq. "It doesn't increase anything, nor does it decrease anything."
[. . .]
Two years and this is Occupation Day once more. One wonders what has changed in this last year. The same faces of April 2004, but now they have differing positions in April 2005.
The chess pieces were moved around and adjusted and every one is getting tired of the game.

In an article from Haaretz entitled
"PM to tell Bush: Abbas losing control, not fulfilling promises"
and credited to Aluf Been, Nathan Guttman and "Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies" we are told the following:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be emphasizing to U.S. President George W. Bush and other administration officials this week that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' control over the Palestinian Authority's territories is collapsing and the armed organizations are violating their own cease-fire promises, as occurred this weekend in Gaza.
[. . .]
The Sharon trip came after a tense weekend in Israel. In addition to the flare-up in Gaza, thousands of police were sent to Jerusalem to prevent a threatened demonstration by extreme rightists on the Temple Mount. Palestinian demonstrators flooded the site to "protect" it from the Jewish protesters.
And while fewer than 100 demonstrators showed up for a much touted "demonstration by tens of thousands" on Tel Aviv's Ayalon highway, dozens of rightists burned tires Sunday, snarling the already jammed morning rush-hour traffic until police cleared the way.

Also from Haaretz, Rob e-mails to note Aluf Been's
"Analysis: Another chapter of tiresome bickering:"


Sharon's visit was planned as a public relations exercise, as a show of support on the part of President George W. Bush for the prime minister and his disengagement plan. There isn't much personal chemistry between Sharon and Bush, but they need one another. Sharon needs his standing in the Likud bolstered in the wake of his severe run-ins with his party through the obstacle course of getting the pullout approved. The six hours he will spend at the president's ranch and the joint jeep ride among the cows and calves are designed to show that only Sharon can "bring the Americans," who will support him.
For his part, Bush wants to show his critics around the world that he is serious about promoting an Israeli-Palestinian accord, that America knows how to repay someone who is willing to evacuate settlers.


From Germany's Der Spiegel, we'll note Marion Kraske and Jan Puhl's
"Eastern Europe Probes Secret Police Informants 15 Years On:"

The Budapest consulting firm Political Capital markets itself with a bold and entirely self-confident slogan: "We bring the future to your desk." But the documents the firm is currently working on are attracting more attention than any marketing catchphrase. The company is compiling embarrassing files on people who reportedly served as informants to the secret police here before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The files portray many Hungarians in a rather unfavorable light.
Political Capital's first move was to publish a list of 19 names on an Internet site where well-respected members of the former Hungarian secret service are identified. The names are of people who are now top journalists, famous rock musicians, as well as a Who's Who of the Budapest political scene. This includes former prime minister Peter Medgyessy, Hungary's former ambassador to the Vatican, Sandor Keresztes, the current head of the Hungarian central bank and the deputy director of the Hungarian division of Europol.Within only two hours of the names' release, the Web site recorded a surge of more than 100,000 visitors. For many Hungarians, the mechanisms and complexities of the communist informant system are now only gradually coming to light.

Also from Der Spiegel, we'll note Uwe Klussman and Christian Neef's "Revolutions Speed Russia's Disintegration:"

Kyrgyzstan was the latest country in the region whose government was chased out of office. The Georgians needed several months in 2003 to unseat Eduard Shevardnadze, and the Ukrainians took eight weeks last fall to overthrow their government in Kiev. But the former nomad people of Kyrgyzstan broke all previous records: in Bishkek, the revolution was a done deal after two hours, and it was the first such event in a former member of the Soviet Union that is dominated by the Muslim religion.
Of course, East and West had totally different takes on the kind of coup which happened in this republic, which shares its border with China.
While the Americans celebrated Kyrgyzstan's "dawn of a better, democratic future" (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice), a confidante of Putin had a different take. Referring to Kyrgyzstan's traditional role as a hub for drug trafficking and the looting in the capital's streets, he painted a grim picture: This, he said, was a revolution that "tastes like opium and shows the color of the darkest night."
It sounded all-too similar: When the authoritarian Ukrainian regime in Kiev was overthrown by Victor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, Moscow called it an "anti-Russian coup." But the upheaval in Kyrgyzstan wasn't exactly any old uprising of local shepherds. Instead, it was no less than a break with tradition, especially for Putin.
That the reports from Bishkek reached him during his visit to Yerevan must have been symbolic for the Russian leader in a very bitter way: Following Akayev's toppling, a leader known to be loyal to Moscow, Armenia is now the last remaining truly pro-Russian republic in the post-Soviet region.

From Aljazeera, we'll note "WHO attacked in Angola:"

World Health Organisation teams fighting an outbreak of Marburg virus in Angola have been forced to temporarily suspend work in one area after scared residents stoned their vehicles, officials said.
WHO halted operations in parts of the Uige district in northwestern Angola on Friday following the attacks on Thursday.
Residents apparently feared the medics could be spreading the infection that has already claimed 184 lives, some of them health workers.

Also from Aljazeera, Kara e-mails to note "Oxfam: Rich nations fixing world trade:"

Rich nations are rigging international trade by providing heavy farm subsidies while also pushing for developing countries to lower protective tariffs, according to a report released by the Oxfam aid agency.
In negotiations at the World Trade Organisation, richer states - particularly the US and the EU - are forcing developing countries to open their markets and then dumping their own excess agricultural produce at below cost price, undermining the livelihood of farmers in poorer nations, according to the 68-page report.
"This is an example of rigged rules and double standards at their baldest," said Phil Bloomer on Monday, head of Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. "Their selfish motives couldn't be clearer."
The US and EU have repackaged their farm subsidies so they appear to conform to WTO rules, but they are still able to dump products such as corn, milk, rice and sugar on world markets, the report said.

Note: This is part one. I'm breaking it up into sections because there's trouble posting.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
 
[Note: This post originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

From Rachel Maddow's web site (and it's an announcement, so we're printing it in full to get the word out):

The Rachel Maddow Show launches nationally on the Air America Radio Network Thursday, April 14th, 2005
Every weekday morning 5AM-6AM (Eastern), tune in for a fast-paced, well-informed, provocative take on the headlines, what ought to be in the headlines, the right-wing agenda, sports (or at least Rachel's latest evidence for why the Yankees are the real evil empire), plus a look ahead at the day's developing stories.
Also launching April 14th: Won't be up at 5:am? Go to MaddowOnline.com and stream or download the current edition of The Rachel Maddow Show - and read Rachel's daily newsblog.
Tune in live on Air America Radio affiliates coast-to-coast, on Sirius and XM satellite radio, and worldwide online at airamericaradio.com. The Rachel Maddow Show is the smartest newshour in radio.
Click here for a list of Air America Radio affiliate stations.
Links: MaddowOnline.com
Air America Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio

From a non-private e-mail that Trina fowarded (this e-mail was sent to all who signed up for announcements at Maddow's site):

The Rachel Maddow Show will be a solid information-packed, fast-paced newshour with an ambitious mission: by the time you’ve heard each hour-long show, you’ll have a well-informed, progressive perspective on what mainstream media drones will be talking about that day, plus the most important stories the mainstream media wants you to ignore.
We’ll throw in a peek at the right-wing’s daily talking points, sports headlines (particularly when they help justify my theory that the Yankees are the real evil empire), and a look at the developing stories of the day ahead, so you are fully equipped to do battle at the water cooler.
All that, plus the award-winning satirical newscasts of Air America favorite Kent Jones!
The other big announcement is that MaddowOnline.com, the new website for The Rachel Maddow Show, will also host my daily newsblog, where I’ll expand on the stories from that day’s show, write about the day’s developing news, and give you a heads up on what we’re looking at for the next day’s show.
Plus I’ll gossip shamelessly about Air America and the punditocracy.
As you know, we had originally planned to launch Monday April 11th or Monday April 18th, but we then realized that a mid-week start would give me and the plucky TRMS staff a chance to recover over the weekend after two days of on-air loopyness while we adjust to our new lives of sleep deprivation.
The Executive Producer of The Rachel Maddow Show is Jonathan Larsen, the big cheese at Air America’s "Morning Sedition." Vanessa Peel, Julia Lipkins and Kris LoPresto, all of Air America’s "Unfiltered" round out the very able staff. These four are a dream team for me, and I intend to bribe them mightily and often to keep them happy despite their new hours.
On a personal level, I’m actually looking forward to the destruction of my circadian rhythms, if only because I’ve always wanted one of those little metal “day sleeper” signs for my front door. If you’re not an early-riser, fear not. By launch day you should be able to stream or download the entire current edition of The Rachel Maddow Show at MaddowOnline.com.
And by “download,” yes, technically, that means you can podcast it. Expect a few technical glitches while we get set up, but the plan is for you to be able to listen to The Rachel Maddow Show at any time of day.
If you want to be able to listen on the traditional radio machine, the good news is that most Air America affiliates are looking forward to carrying the new show.
You can help out by contacting your local affiliate (the list is here http://airamericaradio.com/stations.asp) to ask them to please consider carrying it.

I will attempt to remember to provide a heads up to Maddow's show Wednesday but members know how prone I am to forget. So mark your own calenders (and feel free to remind me Wednesday to do a heads up).

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Last weekend on Ring of Fire, there was a segment on the media that members might enjoy because it dealt with the media (and Cokie Roberts gets mentioned, which we always love).
For those not familiar with Ring of Fire, it's a one hour radio program that airs on Air America Saturday and Sunday (the Sunday episode is a rebroadcast from Saturday). It airs from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm eastern standard time. The hosts are Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio. I'll assume everyone knows Bobby Kennedy (which is how he self-bills on air) but if anyone's unfamiliar with attorney Papantonio, you might remember him from the "Pap Attack" on Unfiltered.

Papantonio interviewed Elliot D. Cohen on the state the free press.

Cohen noted that the purpose of the press is "to keep a watchful eyes on governmental abuse."
Papatonio brought up GE and the pollution of Hudson River. Since GE owns NBC and MSNBC, this story is less likely to get play and with the conglomerations buying more and more properties, how will any reporter be able to cover important stories.

Papantonio: How does a reporter do that if he's at the beck and call of Jack Welch?

Cohen: What's happened is, and this is historically significant, that the conduit for delivery of news, the broadcast machinery, the pipes, the cables and so forth, are owned by these giant corporations but they're also calling the shots about what comes through them and the regulation is just not there. . . . The corporate lobbyist have bowed down to the government in order to get what they want in terms of deregulation. . . . Michael Powell disregarded the outcry of the public. There were over 700,000 letters that were sent to the FCC, mostly against deregulation, and he refused to hear it.

Michael Powell as the poster boy for activism? Don't laugh. Cohen argued that with his disdain and disregard, Powell has helped fuel a movement that is tired of, as Papantonio noted, cities where "you've got a newspaper saying the same message as radio, radio saying the same message as television" all a result of the move towards allowing cross-ownership.

Papantonio: Disney ABC radio, they've got all the talkers, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity they're going to say any damn thing this administration wants them to say because at the end of the day, it's all about how much money they make. That's why Disney ABC wouldn't even distribute Micheal Moore's documentary Farenheight 9/11.

Cohen: The government actually has to start doing more regulating and it's only going to do that if the people really continue to apply pressure.

On the subject of what media do we, the people, have left, the internet was brought up.

Papantonio: Is it [the internet] free.

Cohen: We're moving from modem dial up internet to the cable kind of internet, the broadband. As we do that the more and more people get on that, the less ISP providers that you have to choose from.

Papantonio: What happens when AOL Time Warner Comcast says "No, no, no, we control this media. We disagree with what you're saying."

Cohen: Unless we stop the progression of deregulation and quid pro quo that we're talking about here, the last bastion of democracy, which is the internet, is going to turn into another part of this media conglomerate . Look at radio, look what's happened with Clear Channel, over 1200 stations. They boast of reaching more than fifty-percent of the population and seventy-percent of the Latino population. This is what they're proud of. What's happening to the indpendent voices of radio? They're being crowded out.

Papantonio then brought up James Wollcott (Vanity Fair contributor and author of The Attack Poodles).

Papantonio: I talked to James Wollcott several week ago, interesting book that he has out called The Attack Poodles. It's just a wonderful book where he talks about some of the same issues you talk about. He says we don't need to be afraid so much of the O'Reillys and the half-wit Hannitys and the people like that. We need to be afraid of the John Stossels, the Cokie Roberts, the Brit Humes, the Tim Russerts. The people who are dressed up in sheeps clothing. And he says that's where the real threat is.

We have a situation where there's company people now, there's not journalists. They're selling their journalistic souls in order to be respected within their corporations. This is what's going on now. . . . We're seeing instead corporate clones and this is destroying the credibility and they put themselves forth under the guise of being careful journalists. They're simply parrots for an organization, they're not honest.

Papantonio: The problem is when we turn on the TV and we think that John Stossel or Cokie Roberts or Brit Hume or Tim Russert are on our side.

Cohen: Or Chris Matthews.

Papantonio: Or Chris Matthews! We need to think twice don't we?


Elliot D. Cohen is the editor of News Incorporated: Corporate Media And It's Threat To Democracy which BuzzFlash is offering as a premium.

If you missed the interview and would like to hear it, you can listen to that episode of Ring of Fire via Air America Place. Go to the archives and download the April 2, 2005 episode.

Cohen is the final guest. (Air America Place airs the show without commercials -- unless it's something environmental or political -- and I believe Cohen's segment starts around minute twenty-six. Without commercials, the episode clocks in at thirty-seven minutes and forty-four seconds.) As always, consider my note taking more of a guide than anything else.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Heads up to an Associated Press article by Michael Kunzelman. The article is entitled "Kerry: Trickery Kept Voters From Polls" and here's an excerpt of the first three paragraphs:

Many voters in last year's presidential election were denied access to the polls through trickery and intimidation, former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told a voters' group Sunday.
"Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated," the Massachusetts senator said at an event sponsored by the state League of Women Voters.
"There is no magic wand. No one person is going to stand up and suddenly say it's going to change tomorrow. You have to do that," he said.

E-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Ruth e-mailed to note a link she saw on BuzzFlash ("NPR Calls Bush's Social Security Strategy 'Effective' What Are They Smoking?")

Ruth: I am hoping that this is a sign that NPR's free pass is being cancelled.

I hate to dash spirits at the start of a week, but BuzzFlash has always been willing to highlight bias on NPR. FAIR is another organization that has not shied away from the truth about NPR.
But I do agree with Ruth that it's great BuzzFlash is calling attention (again) on NPR. We'll touch on this in the next entry (the long promised Ring of Fire thing). Also at BuzzFlash, you'll find a link to Lizz Winstead's contributions to a New York Times article in the Week in Review section. (An article Betty also mentioned.)

We'll note Congressman Bernie Sanders' "ORWELL IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION." Here's an excerpt:

Yesterday, as a member of the Financial Services Committee, Congressman Bernie Sanders heard testimony from Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez and from HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. The hearing primarily focused on the Bush Administration’s proposal to slash federal investments in our nation's towns, cities, and states --which is not surprising from an Administration that is attempting to dismantle almost every federal program for low and moderate income Americans.
What Congressman Sanders did find surprising was the Orwellian nature of the testimony from Secretary Gutierrez and the shameless degree to which the Bush Administration is prepared to turn truth on its head. In his prepared opening remarks, Secretary Gutierrez stated that America is experiencing "tremendous economic prosperity." Really? What America is Secretary Gutierrez living in?
Has the Secretary visited with any of the 21.9% of children in America who are living in poverty? Or did he mix us up with Denmark where virtually 100% of children live poverty-free lives.
Has the Secretary visited with any of the 4 million Americans that have entered the poverty ranks since President Bush was first elected, or is he only attending cocktail parties at country clubs with the rich and famous?

In less than an hour The Laura Flanders Show starts. (Ring of Fire is on right now.) Her guests and topics tonight:


Sunday, April 10
Is April the cruelest month? If you’re a Republican, you might think your party was breaking apart, starting from the top. If you’re on the left, you might wonder why the opposition isn’t making more of this moment. Today we go outside the box to get out of the political boxing ring.
We start with ELLEN WILLIS author of, “Don’t Think: Smile!” and Director of NYU Journalism School’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program. She and Laura talk about the “Bush Women” and how the right’s hijacking the work of the Feminist movement. Then AMIRA HASS, the pioneering Israeli journalist and author of “Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege” and “Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land.” Plus GREG PALAST, investigative journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” and MARK LEVINE, host of “The Inside Scoop,” on WAGE AM-1200, on the latest news. And ELAINE PETROCELLI, owner of San Francisco’s Book Passage bookstore, on what’s flying off the shelf.

And let me throw this in. Last night on The Laura Flanders Show, Flanders read an article from Reuters about the reaction during the Pope's burial when Bully Boy's face was flashed on screen. Flanders reads and speaks German, which is a good thing, because, as she noted, the article hadn't been translated into English and carried in the United States. Here was one sentence she translated:

As the crowd saw the big picture of Bush on the screen, they greeted Bush with jeers and wolf whistles.

You didn't hear that on network television and I doubt you heard it in many places on the radio dial. You'll always learn something no one else is discussing when you listen to The Laura Flanders Show.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This post originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Moving through the rest of this morning's New York Times, we'll note the article Rob e-mailed about, "Riot Police Called In to Calm Anti-Japanese Protests in China." From the article, by Joseph Kahn:

Mass demonstrations here against Japan turned unruly late Saturday afternoon, with scattered vandalism and confrontations with the riot police intensifying what began as a fully legal and generally peaceful student-led protest.
Several hundred protesters tried to storm the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Beijing, hurling bottles and rocks into the walled compound before riot police broke up the confrontation, witnesses said.

Krista e-mails to note Seth Mydans' "After the Tsunami: At Home, in Company of Memories:"

Here and there a motorcycle stops, and the man and woman sit for a while and stare at a pile of rubble. They, too, have come home.
Like Mr. Samsuardi and like many other people here in Aceh, they share what seems to be a compulsion, now that everything is lost, to unite themselves with an empty echo of their former lives.
"Sometimes, unconsciously, we just turn and head here to take a look," said Ferry Thang, 43, a civil servant, sitting on his motorbike. His wife, Kakamiaria, walked to the flattened ruin of their home and stood there for a while, saying nothing.
"This was a good neighborhood," Mr. Thang said. "It was very shady because of all the trees, like mango and rambutan. It was a very well-organized neighborhood."

Kara e-mails to note Steven Erlanger's "Israeli Troops Kill 3 Teenagers in Buffer Zone at Gaza Border:"

Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinian teenagers and wounded another in southern Gaza on Saturday, medics and witnesses told news agencies, after a group of five young men approached a buffer zone near the Israeli border. Witnesses said the young men, from the Rafah refugee camp, had been playing soccer.

Lloyd e-mails to draw our attention to the Associated Press article entitled "Chopper Crash Toll Rises:"

The death toll from the fiery crash of a United States helicopter in Afghanistan rose to 18 after searchers found the remains of two more American soldiers in the wreckage, the military said Saturday.
Investigators dispatched from the United States were heading to the site of the Wednesday crash, the deadliest here for Americans since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, to examine whether bad weather was to blame. Officials have said there was no sign of enemy fire.

Francisco e-mails to note James C. McKinley Jr.'s "Mexican Standoff: Staying Power May Shape Election:"

A day after Congress voted to begin a legal process that is likely to force Mayor Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador off the ballot in the election for president next year, the mayor's political enemies were counting on public apathy, while his supporters were hoping that he will become a cause celebre, especially if imprisoned.
[. . .]
The mayor, a former Indian rights activist who eschews displays of wealth, has talked of reining in free-trade policies, renegotiating the national debt and spending more on social programs. He also opposes moves to privatize the state's energy companies.
Mr. Lopez says he has been victimized by an alliance between Mr. Fox's conservative National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the authoritarian machine that ruled the country for seven decades until Mr. Fox's election in 2000.

Eli e-mailed noting Sharon LaFraniere's "To Contain Virus in Angola, Group Wants Hospital Closed:"

An international medical charity battling a hemorrhagic fever that so far has killed 181 Angolans has urged the government to close the regional hospital here, at the center of the outbreak, saying the medical center itself is a source of the deadly infection.
Doctors Without Borders, the global relief organization that runs an isolation ward at the hospital for victims of the deadly fever, Marburg virus, told Angolan officials on Friday that the hospital should be closed if the rapidly spreading epidemic was to be contained.

Brad notes Juliet Macur's front page article "Two Women Bound by Sports, War and Injuries."
And we'll note the two photos by Doug Mills and Peter Thompson and give the Times credit for running them on the front page. (Inside the paper, Suzy Allman also gets a credit for a photo.)
From the article:

The week before, Lieutenant Halfaker was sitting in the back seat of an armored Humvee as it patrolled the quiet, moonlit roads of Baquba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Her vehicle rounded a corner.
Lieutenant Halfaker said she saw a flash and heard Staff Sgt. Norberto Lara scream in the front passenger seat, then slump. A rocket-propelled grenade had pierced the engine and entered the cab, slicing off his right arm and flinging it onto the driver.
The grenade exploded next to Lieutenant Halfaker's right shoulder. "I'm hit!" she yelled. The blast temporarily blinded her right eye and deafened her right ear.
Struggling to breathe, she continued shouting orders: "Keep driving. Don't let Sergeant Lara go to sleep."
She lifted her right hand with her left, then watched it drop in her lap. The grenade had burst through her upper arm, shattered her shoulder blade and broken five ribs that bruised her lung. She recalled herself saying, "I am not going to die."

There will be posts this evening, but I'm planning on crashing and sleeping for some time.
Please check out The Third Estate Sunday Review's latest edition. (Disclosure, I assisted on that edition. And Ava and I did the TV review. This week, What I Like About You is reviewed.)
You'll always find some interesting things each Sunday at The Third Esate Sunday Review and I'd recommend you read the roundtable which features the Third Estate gang (Ava's featured, but she's moderating the roundtable) Jim, Dona, Jess and Ty, Rebecca, Betty and our own Kat of Kat's Korner -- as well as blabber mouth me who really needs to not speak when tired and not skip out on the drafts session (at which point, the roundtable was whitteled down).

Let me thank Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? -- I owe him several e-mails but I don't even have the energy to do one e-mail saying thank you for the hunting down he did for The Third Estate Sunday Review.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This morning's post orignally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Having just finished helping The Third Estate Sunday Review with their edition, an all nighter, I was thinking, I'll go through this morning's New York Times and won't provide links. We're probably all savy enough to locate a story at the Times' web site, right?

But then I see Raymond Bonner, not on the front page and there's just no way I can justify not linking to that story, so let's start with it.

Bonner's article is entitled "Australia Uneasy About U.S. Detainee Case" and it's on the topic that Bonner's been covering for the Times. Readers of this site know that, there have been a lot of comments about the quality of work Bonner's been doing. It's just the journalists at the Times who seem not to have noticed Bonner's work because anytime they're dealing with the topic, there's very little attention paid to his writing.

From Bonner's article:

The Australian government, which has been one of the strongest supporters of the Bush administration's policy on the detention and prosecution of people suspected of being members of Al Qaeda, is growing uneasy with the handling of the case of one its citizens who has languished in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay for more than three years.
In late March, the Australian ambassador to Washington went to the White House and Pentagon to express concerns about the status of David Hicks, 29, who has been at Guantánamo since January 2002, Australian and American officials said.
"We are very frustrated," a senior Australian official said. "The process is taking much longer than people might reasonably have expected."

And note this:


Underlying the recent activity, and the concerns of the Australians in the Hicks case, is the case of another Australian detainee, Mamdouh Habib, who trained with Al Qaeda, was picked up in Pakistan a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, and was whisked away by the C.I.A. to Egypt, where he says he was tortured before being taken to Guantanamo Bay.
After promising for more than three years that it would charge Mr. Habib, the Bush administration told the Australians in January that it would not prosecute him because the C.I.A. did not want the evidence about Mr. Habib being taken to Egypt, and his allegations of torture, raised in court, Australian officials said. Mr. Habib was returned to Australia, and is now a free man, though closely monitored by Australia's domestic intelligence agency.

I could quote this entire article (were it not for Fair Use) but I hope you get the point that this is news. And it's buried inside the paper (maybe Times' writers who overlook Bonner's work only read headlines on the front page?) on A14.

If you get the print edition, you could easily miss this article. For that matter, if you go to the Times web site, you could easily miss it because it's not a big headline. But it should be. And hopefully you can make sure that people you speak to are aware of it. This is real news.

"Cardinals Hint At the Profile Of a New Pope" may be on the front page, but "hint" or not, it's not really news. It's speculation. And it will be of interest to some. (Though I think the death pageant has lost its luster at last.) But it's not front page news. (The next Pope, according to NPR, will be announced the Monday after next. Check my math, but that's eight days from now. Hopefully, we're not expected to suffer through public relations releases passing themselves off as news for the entire time, as Rebecca's noted, but who knows?)

"Charles and Camilla, Married at Last, and With Hardly a Hitch" graces the front page, as opposed to the social register. I'm holding my tongue out of respect for our UK community members (some of whom we'll wish I'd let it rip -- Camilla and Charles aren't that popular with out members). But Bonner's story isn't. Bonner's story is on A14. Maybe had one of the the detainees posed for photos wearing a floppy hat like Camilla or a dress whose bottom appeared a slight tribute to Wilma Flinstone, Bonner could have graced the front page.

But regardless of where the New York Timid places Bonner's story today, it is news. They can bury it, but it's still news. Who knows, maybe they'll pull Bonner from his beat if the Bully Boy makes the same sort of noises the Reagan administration did in the eighties?

There are other news stories in the paper (this Sunday's edition isn't as poor and news deprived as recent Sundays) and hopefully, my chocolate fix will kick in and give me the needed fuel to push on through for another entry. But we're just highlighting Bonner's article in this entry because that's how important it is.

E-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This post from this morning originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Miss America and the Pope (buried) on the front page. The Times seems unaware of it's faltering reputation. (Maybe "indifferent to" is the more appropriate term?) And inside the paper, Charlie LeDuff continues to do the folks proud and justify the monies spent on j-school so by continuing his coverage of the most pressing issue of our times: the Michael Jackson case.
Do current j-school students debate whether to aspire to become the next Jane Mayer or Charlie LeDuff? Do they finally decide, "I think I'll go with LeDuff because it's so damn important and does such a public service." If so, pray for us all, pray for us all.

On the front page, note Sharon La Franiere and Denise Grady's "Fear and Violence Accompany a Deadly Virus Across Angola:"

The death toll in Angola from an epidemic caused by an Ebola-like virus rose to 174 Friday as aid workers in one northern provincial town reported that terrified people had attacked them and that a number of health workers had fled out of fear of catching the disease.
International health officials said the epidemic, already the largest outbreak of Marburg virus ever recorded, showed no signs of abating. Seven of Angola's 18 provinces have now reported suspected cases and several neighboring countries have announced health alerts.

Inside the paper, you'll find Adam Nagourney's "G.O.P. Consultant's Marriage Is a Gay One:"

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.
Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

In Pennsylvania, a sixteen-year-old girl is being held, Nina Bernstein reports in "Teachers and Classmates Express Outrage at Arrest of Girl, 16, as a Terrorist Threat:"

According to a government document provided to The New York Times by a federal official earlier this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has asserted that both girls are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." No evidence was cited, and federal officials will not comment on the case.
[. . .]
"I just can't fathom this," said her art teacher, Kimberly Lane, who has repeatedly called the youth detention center but like Ms. Carr was not allowed to speak to the girl, who has no lawyer. Among the unanswered questions they raised was why, if she was really a suspect, no F.B.I. agent had shown up to search her school locker or question her classmates, who sent her letters of support.

And David D. Kirkpatrick reports that as the heat on Tom DeLay turns up, even the Bully Boy seeks shelter in "After DeLay Remarks, Bush Says He Supports 'Independent Judiciary.'"

Tom DeLay. More and more, it's as though he's living Stevie Wonder's "Skeletons:"

Oh things are gettin' real crucial
Up the old wazoo
Yet you cry, why am I the victim?
When the culprit is y-o-u
What did your mama tell you about lies
She said it wasn't polite to tell a white one
What did your daddy tell you about lies
He said one white one turns into a black one
So, it's getting ready to blow
It's getting ready to show
Somebody shot off at the mouth and
We're getting ready to know . . .

("Skeletons," words & music by Stevie Wonder, can be found on the Stevie Wonder album Characters.)

The e-mail for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Let's talk New York Times.

First off, I'll note that Betty has another post up at her blog Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man.
I won't quote from it because when dealing with humor, it's very easy to spoil a joke. So visit it and read the latest PARODY of Thomas Friedman.

Now let's note Rebecca who addressed the issue of news and p.r. today at her blog Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude. [Disclosure, as Rebecca notes, I passed an article on to her Thursday. I do that quite often to many people, and many do the same for me. Since Thursdays is supposed to be independent media focus, I felt she'd be able to get to the issue of what the Times didn't tell you faster than I would. Blogger put us both behind schedule.]
From Rebecca's entry "lost in pope-arama, the new york times chooses public relations over journalism:"

and while the pope-arama went on, you missed out on some serious stories.
'but becky,' you say, 'the new york times was caught up in the pope-arama like every 1 else.'
that doesn't wash.
they ran 2 stories on torture czar alberto gonzales. on tuesday he was questioned by the senate. on wednesday eric lichtblau turned in his article on that. but he didn't tell you about brandon mayfield. he took dictation but seemed to put his pen down when he came across some thing that was actually news, that actually mattered.
as if it wasn't bad enough that lichtblau ignored it on wednesday, he returned to the same topic on thursday to explain to us that 'hey alberto's pretty groovy.'
that piece of printed drool made wednesday's story look better but even it could turn wednesday's story into news.
how does the new york times miss this story? how does eric lichtblau? he was assigned to cover gonzales's appearence before the senate.
[. . .]
the 'all the news that's fit to print' new york times could have had a story, a real story. they didn't bother. unless they want to change the slogan to 'all the p.r. that's fit to spin,' they need to take a hard look at their actions this week. there is news and there is p.r. and they might be able to argue with me of how news worthy a news story was, but i was trained in public relations and i know p.r. when i see it. that's basically what we got, p.r., in this week's new york times.
and they still haven't told readers that the government has lied repeatedly. that the government did use a sneak & peak aspect of the patriot act to search brandon mayfield's home.and that they lied when they repeatedly stated that they hadn't done that.
they did do it. and gonzales admitted it or bragged about it tuesday on the senate floor. why didn't the new york times cover that?

Why didn't the Times make that a front page story? "Despite Claiming Otherwise, A Sneak & Peak Was Used On Mayfield." That's a story. But we got p.r. about how Gonzales bravely spoke to the Senate. The day after that story ran, we got how Brand New Me Alberto was building a following. At what point do we get the truth?

Or is the Times too busy cozing up, yet again, for access, that the truth no longer matters?

Even when it's spoken on the Senate floor?

Like their trading access for basic journalism to get ahold of the report from Columbia University last week, are they making promises behind the scenes that will question their credibility?

And what exactly is going on behind the scenes?

Ron (Why Are We Back In Iraq?) e-mailed me a story from Editor & Publisher. (Thank you, Ron.)

Joe Strupp's "Fired 'NYT' Foreign Correspondent Angrily Denies
Charges" doesn't paint a picture of a responsible press.

From Strupp's article:

New York Times foreign correspondent Susan Sachs, who lost her job for allegedly sending anonymous e-mails to the wives of Times reporters in Baghdad commenting on their sexual behavior, contends she is innocent and will fight the charges against her.
"I am completely absolutely innocent of the accusations made by The Times," Sachs said in an e-mail to E&P late Friday. "To underline that fact, I have taken a polygraph test administered by a competent and independent expert, during which I repeated that I am innocent of these accusations, and I passed the polygraph test with flying colors."

Anyone want to try to explain that?

Who's telling the truth? Who knows?

Will give Sachs the benefit of the doubt. (She's not been convicted of anything, just lost her job.)
But what if Sachs did send e-mails out? (She denies it and we're not calling her a liar.)

The Editor & Publisher article references The New York Daily News. There you'll find Lloyd Groves' "Times' Iraq bureau grief."

From Groves' article:

The Gray Lady's management has just fired Sachs, a widely respected and experienced journalist who has tangled bitterly with Burns and Filkins, over allegations that she sent anonymous letters and an E-mail to their wives alleging bad behavior with women in the war zone.
Sachs - who didn't respond to a message left for her in France yesterday - has stoutly denied the charges, and the Newspaper Guild is defending her in arbitration proceedings against The Times.
[. . .]
According to my sources, Filkins' wife, novelist Ana Menendez, and Burns' wife, Jane Scott-Long, received the mystery missives in the past few months, purporting to rat out their husbands' alleged infidelities.
I hear that The Times conducted an investigation and linked postmarks on the envelopes to Sachs' purported whereabouts on the dates the letters were apparently sent - and also claimed to have linked an E-mail to Sachs.

Let's say for a moment that Sach's was guilty of what the Times alleges (for speculation sake).
What does that have to do with her job? Let's say she was doing that, that she was the worst office gossip in the world. So what?

If bad reporting can't get you fired (Judith Miller), apparently the only thing that can is alleged loose lips (about staff members of the Times).

What could cause this kind of reaction (very over the top reaction)? I'd be inclined to guess that whomever passed on the news wasn't off the mark. If that's the case, Sach's firing makes perfect sense from a paper that's long believed in the "male perogative." If whomever wrote the letters and e-mails was correct, maybe we've found yet another reason why Times reporters are so reluctant to leave the Green Zone -- and we suspected it was just the danger!

You'll learn that Filkins was packing a piece. He probably sees himself as a big bad ass. Of course, his whimpering interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air destroyed that image, but hey, he can dream.

And about Filkins. The Peabody awards have been announced. That's the spotlight story now in terms of journalism awards. So let's talk about his Polk.

He won it for an article ("In Faulluja, Young Marines Saw the Savagery of an Urban War") that appeared in the Sunday paper, many, many days after it the event took place. (The destruction of Falluja.) Absent from his "award winning" piece was any perspective. It was a "I'm embedded with the troops!" and he came off as peaking behind the shoulders. He can win any award someone's foolish enough to give to him. That still doesn't make it reporting.

[Note "an article." That takes you to the official George Polk Award page. There you will find, that contrary to what was implied by the Associated Press, Filkins won for one article, not for a series of articles. Those winning for more than one article have all the articles they won for listed. Filkins, on the official George Polk Award page is only listed for the Nov. 21st article.
Reporting requires that he write what happened. And what happened wasn't just one-sided.
Filkins didn't fill you in on how men and older boys were not allowed to leave Falluja. He wasn't too concerned about those killed and the possibilities that some were not resistors or insurgents.
Males were not allowed to leave the city as Filkins & co. moved in.

It was glorification of violence, it was a video game, a feature story, but it wasn't hard news.
And it was six days old by the time it made the front page of the November 21st Sunday edition of the New York Times.

"Miller!" the marines called from below. "Miller!"With that, the marines' near mystical commandment against leaving a comrade behind seized the group. One after another, the young marines dashed into the minaret, into darkness and into gunfire, and wound their way up the stairs.
After four attempts, Corporal Miller's lifeless body emerged from the tower, his comrades choking and covered with dust. With more insurgents closing in, the marines ran through volleys of machine-gun fire back to their base.
"I was trying to be careful, but I was trying to get him out, you know what I'm saying?" Lance Cpl. Michael Gogin, 19, said afterward.

Next on Inside Edition!

Filkins might get the uber patriot of the year award, but at some point, his article will be looked at closely and people will wonder where in the overwrought, non-objective piece was there anything worth praising as "hard news."

Or breaking news -- not only did it take six days for it to appear in print, it took three days for it to be written. What was the reason for the delay? Did it need approval from someone or did Filkins just need to get his whatever up to write such purple prose?

I don't know.

And I have no idea what's going on re: Filkins (or Burns) in the Green Zone.

But I do know that having embarrassed themselves with the Green Zone reporting repeatedly (which is getting as bad as Judith Miller's pre-invasion reporting), the last thing the Times needs is another scandal. But they have it now by firing someone they allege gossipped.

Having pushed the "values debate" (Adam Nagourney) over and over until January rolled around when suddenly they (Adam Nagourney) scratched their heads and seemed to wonder how that false narrative got started (one Frank Rich said at the time was false), maybe they shouldn't fire someone they allege squealed on extra-marital going ons in the Green Zone?

Hey, the Times pushed that "values" nonsense like crazy. They pushed the "red" state/"blue" state narrative like crazy. (Whether they realized it or not, it was in their own interests to do so.
The Times is centerists and the centerists Dems were trying to use that nonsense -- and continue to try to use it -- to push the party to the right.) Having done their part (and then some) to force the "values" debate, if Sachs squealed (if, we're giving her the benefit of the doubt) on affairs (I have no idea if the charges are true) then wouldn't that be her "value" responsibility? Didn't we have a preacher, not all that long ago, get away with squealing on a woman who was having an affair? She spoke to the clergy member in privacy but he felt his duty to the bounds of marriage was to great to remain silent. (Or that's what he said anyway.)
So by the same token, having pushed the "values" narrative, maybe the Times is in no position to fire anyone they think might have passed on extra-marital rumors or news?

But they did that. And now they look silly. And this will be talked about and talked about. (Hey, anything to take the focus of Judith Miller, I guess.) If the rumors were false, then Burns & Filkins should be able to straighten their own personal lives out without anyone being fired.
If they were true, the Times operates under some "what happens in the Green Zone, stays in the Green Zone" policy that's unwritten but long in play at the Grey Lady.

Sachs was fired for allegedy outing alleged private behaviors of Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns. Anyone else raising an eye brow?

Anyone else thinking, "But Daniel Okrent outed a private citizen, named him, gave his city and state, over his objection. Over a private e-mail to a reporter for the Times. It wasn't meant for publication, though Okrent quoted from this private correspondence without permission which is legally questionable since he identified the author, and he put the paper of record in a strange position to say the least.

According to Randy Cohen, Okrent was "censured" over that. The paper never saw fit to inform the readers of that. But, if Cohen was correct, he wasn't fired over it. Guess that tells you whom the Times values and whom it doesn't.

Okrent's stepping down (at the pre-arranged end of his tenure) and some of his peers rush up to toss a halo on him and speak of all the great things he did as the public editor, as the readers' advocate. They ignore that he outed a reader, that he behaved in a manner that not only appeared petty but also appeared to place himself and the paper on questionable legal grounds.
Now we learn that Sachs is fired for allegedly outing two alleged cheaters.

If Filkins and Burns are humiliated (or their spouses), blame the Times and not Sachs. If she were guilty (if), the Times botched it (as usual) and thereby allowed the news to travel far beyond anything that whomever wrote the letters and e-mails did.

The New York Times just can't seem to get its act together these days. There are a lot of people putting things into print about the paper. There's the rumor that Judith Miller forced Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.'s hand. (E-mails to this site state his hand wasn't forced. He was backing Miller from day one. Due to the long nature of his and Miller's relationship, I'm inclined to believe those e-mails.)

In the past year, we've seen a lot of journalists make news. Jane Mayer and Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, for instance. But they made news on the basis of their reporting. More and more, the Times is making news not for anything in the paper but for what's going on behind the scenes. That ought to worry the paper because image is what has always kept it afloat.

People should be talking about the front page (and if the Times would lay off the p.r. and break more stories, maybe that would happen). They shouldn't be discussing who may or may not be
living it up like a heavy metal rock star.

In another period, the Times could probably shrug off the increasingly embarrassing behind the scenes revelations. They could do it today if they were breaking any news. (As opposed to their breathless "scoops" on reports due to be released hours after the paper hits the doorsteps.)

I've praised John F. Burns' reporting here many times. Even knowing that it would mean e-mails coming in questioning that. (Which is fine. And anyone can be quoted on that. My opinion's aren't always correct. I'm wrong many times over.) But Burns has gotten sloppy. Filkins never had a high point to fall from.

My opinion, the Times has two high periods for regular readers. The first is the initial two weeks of tsunami coverage when reporters such as Amy Waldman and Ian Fisher filled in for the regulars (who were on holiday) and actually wrote honest to God news stories. The second high would be Jodi Wilgoren who has gone from the worst, my opinion, journalist at the paper to a serious journalist worth reading.

That's really it. You could include Scott Shane's Saturday reporting where he grabs the mop to clean up the earlier reporting by others. No offense to Shane, but it's hard to get really excited since he's writing to correct earlier reporting. We could get excited over Douglas Jehl's inside the paper reporting (such as the Nazi stories) or but that would mean we'd have to overlook the front page "scoops" bearing his name. When he does have an honest to God scoop, he's forced to sit it out. Why is the New York Timid refusing to let him break news even when he has a scoop? (As opposed to a "scoop.") The same comments could be made of Eric Schmitt's reporting. Or for Raymond Bonner who gets printed occassionally but no one at the paper seems to read his articles since his revelations vanish into a memory hole. And let's not forget that while they were rushing to sing the praises of Bernie Kerik, practically every other paper was breaking news. Or that from the start, they couldn't accurately report the Giuliana Sgrena story.

The Timid's given America so little to talk about, that of course they'll focus on this personal, behind the scenes, story. Starved for real news (and conditioned by the paper to get excited over the tawdry -- no one forced them to treat the Michael Jackson case as an earth shattering story in need of five days a week reporting), why wouldn't readers enjoy the titilation factor of this tale full of alleged sex, alleged backstabbing, and a firing?

No one forced the paper of record to play tabloid. No one forced them to send out the Elite Fluff Patrol to the front page repeatedly. They've made these decisions. They've also allowed a hell of a lot of attitude to creep into the hard news. (And sports metaphors. Every story is ripe for sports metaphors in the Times these days.) I'm not referring to Bumiller's floating op-ed "White House Letter." I'm speaking of supposed news stories that try to strut with all sorts of lingo and attitude.

No one loves the master narrative like the Times. Well here's a master narrative for you: the paper has embarrassed itself in print repeatedly, perhaps that's the result of embarrassments going on behind the scenes? And if some people want to start peering into the early childhoods of Sachs and Burns and Filkins to find some "life altering & shaping event" -- well, hey, the paper's encouraged that for some time with their own articles (and book reviews).

Bill Keller should realize how the paper's image is in increasing danger and he should start advocating for hard news on the front page. And for real scoops, not "scoops." Unless that happens, people will be more focused on what goes on behind the scenes then what makes the front page. (My opinion, as always, I could be wrong.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[This post originally appeared at The Common Ills this -- Saturday -- morning.]