It's official, this has gone past criticism into stalking. Get a grip people, this is getting pathological.

Sooo tempted to hand you back your spies and morals line. Or use the right wing canard, "She has nothing to fear if she has nothing to hide." You guys got caught fabricating. End it by admitting it. The bill is quite clear that the warrants aren't needed, and now Rep. Holt has been equally clear that Klein fabricated the existence of a competing, but quashed, bipartisan bill. Arguing that the bill is long and makes references is only good for requesting a prescription for ADHD medication, not an excuse for adopting the President's 66 page recommendation instead.

Paul Dirks premise of the master narrative that Joe Klein (and others) seem to be following, has me pondering. Charlie Savage and Jay Rosen have waxed extensively on how the media missed the master narrative reporting on the Bush presidency. (A link that summarizes the issue is at my signature.) I know from reading Marc Cooper (member of the faculty at the USC Annenberg School for communication and Associate Director of its Institute for Justice and Journalism) that journalism schools/faculty care about this issue. So, on a professional level, there ought to be a concern for the enduring characterization Paul Dirks has described here. And, as Jay Rosen has written, change the master, come up with a better one, and it changes the coverage. Apart from the sheer laziness of, I'm used to the master that I have and don't want to expend the energy to measure what I report against a new narrative (which is what I imagine Joe Klein says to himself), I'm baffled as to why Time's Executives and Editors don't seem to care. That would make them as inept as Joe Klein. The current master narrative seems intractable, but it shouldn't be. I'm just not sure what it's going to take to change it.

When is your new book coming out, Glenn?

The Village is a surprisingly small world, isn't it? Guess which bristlingly defensive executive editor at Time was out there swinging in defense of the Coulter cover blowjob when that piece came under criticism from the progressive blogosphere?

Hint: the answer can be found here.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/04/19/coulter/

Wouldn't a better solution be for The Poet to have his or her own blog? That would allow the letters to stay on topic, and simultaneously allow The Poet unlimited space in which to indulge his or her muse. The Poet's devoted acolytes would reap the additional benefit of being able to have the undiluted musings "wash over them" and send them to transports of delight without all the on-topic posts getting in the way.

I'm not against The Poet; I just think there are better venues for his or her art than in the letters section of someone else's blog.

I can't hear you. My hands are over my ears. If I hear anything I disagree with my head will explode.

--Anonymous

can you get someone to post the vid on youtube?

Thanks.

Anonymous speech and sourcing is essential to democracy. It should always be legally protected.

If I simply stated in print that I thought Glenn Greenwald was a child molester -- I'd be guilty of libel, wouldn't I?

How do I legally get around that?

Simply attribute that claim to a made-up (as in totally fictional!) "anonymous source".

The problem here is you guys really seems to think there actually are anonymous sources and the Editors have personally spoken to these sources and verified their claims!

Journalists are just making shit up and attributing it to sources that do not exist and never have.

How do I know? I have a highly placed anonymous source working at the Times.

Question: Do the Editors actually speak to these alleged sources to verify that a) they were contacted by the reporter writing the story and b) that the statements being attributed to them are indeed what they said?

Answer: no.

Remember Stephen Glass? This joker made up entire stories! Nothing was true! He invented conferences that never occured and people that didn't exist!

All he had to do was make-up notes, hand them over to an Editor who never verified any of it and sit down to write his fictional stories.

All the defenders of the anonymous sources are assuming, incorrectly, that the statement attributed to these sources are verified as correct by the Editors prior to publication.

They are not.

I agree that we need to hold publications and people legally responsible for misinformation.

If Joe writes something that isn't true -- there should be legal consequences.

Currently journalists can make up whatever they want, tell whatever lies they want to further their political agendas and there are zero consequences.

Well, except for all the dead soliders in Iraq.

THOSE guys paid for all the "facts" lying journalists printed in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Without changing the "anonymous source" system -- what's to stop this eact same scenario from happening again and again?

Great. So the outright falsehoods are communicated to millions of Americans via Time with the added bonus of painting Dems as weak on national security and the truth/correction given by Rush Holt is available to the 15 or 20 hardcore political bloggers that are paying attention and read the Huffington Post.

If I'm a Republican operative, I'm bragging, "Mission Accomplished"

Without changing the "anonymous source" system -- what's to stop this eact same scenario from happening again and again?

Hopefully, Klein gets fired for malcompetence in a very high-profile and embarrassing way, and other reporters start thinking a little harder about their career paths.

Painton snapped: "That assumes that there are errors."

There were no errors. Time did exactly what they meant to do - tell bald-faced lies. The only error was on the part of their readership for considering them journalists instead of paid propagandists.

As for Glenn's question:

Does anyone at Time have any integrity at all?

I'd have to refer to Atrios's Simple Answers to Simple Questions and say "no."