There must be some larger, overarching explanation for Time's, and the broader traditional media's propensity to engage in this kind of scurrilous journalism? Following the lead of their corporate masters doesn't seem quite enough. It's really quite inexplicable. Look at MSNBC - Olbermann is their biggest guy, but they just won't add another progressive to their line-up. Look at CNN - it's going down in flames while trying hard to appeal to Fox viewers instead of appealing to the underserved progressives. Look at the Wash. Post - its dishonest editorial page is a farce. What in hell is the media doing???

Mr. Dowd,

I too have noticed trend toward a reluctance to use any connotation of the word "lie" about even blatant lies that are coming out of the federal government these days. One of the few people in the public eye that I can think of willing to acutally use the word "lie" is Jon Stewart. It says something very sad about the Media that the host of the Daily Show is one of the few people will to so openly call liars on their lies.

p.s. I've also noted that Mr. Greenwald is very careful about when he's willing to use the word "lie." I may be forming a pattern out my pre-formed impressions, but I did specifically note his use of the actual word, "lie" in his current article. My impression of his writing is that he will usually simply point out that untrue statements are "false statements." I've always interpreted that as him being careful to not accuse someone of knowingly lying when they could simply be overly trusting/stupid/incompentent/etc., at least without smoking-gun evidence whoever he was referencing was being deliberately deceptive.

Did you just complain about Klein or did you also cancel your subscription?

I did both and have not yet received a response.

It will be interesting to see if long-time subscribers who cancel (not just threaten) specifically because of Klein get a different response.

I got the same canned response from Stengel; at least he admits that Klein made an error. What about Painton? Is she still standing by the acuracy of the story? Klein knew what he was doing when he wrote this - he was picking a fight to make himself feel relevant and serious and to once again distinguish himself from us dirty fucking hippies who think due process and habeus corpus are more important than phony bipartisan unity.

They don't have any way to determine your subscription status. That stuff is outsourced. This is just one or two interns or junior assistants grinding through Stengel's inbox.

As I said yesterday, I wonder how Joe is viewed by the worker bees.

Jane Hamsher has posted the phone number for the editor. I called and left a message. Be polite.

WHS

n/t

You might be interested in this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/opinion/09pubed.html

Joe had to know Glenn would tear him apart. Joe could have called Glenn before writing the lies, right? Did Joe really think he had this right (rhetorical question as I don't think even Joe is quite THAT stupid), or did he pick the short straw and therefore have to take one for the team to get the lie out to 3.5Meg readers? At this point it sure seems that way, especially when the behavior of the Time enablers is taken into account. The reply letter is just a joke. It appears they plan to weather the storm rather than come clean. I suppose that should be expected from right-wing shills, but they really expose themselves as the Faux News Mag they have always been. That can't be good for their ability to spin GOP talking points while pretending to be a news source.

I am the advisor to the student newspaper at a very small college. Every year, we have a hell of a time finding students that are interested in doing real reporting-- arranging interviews, citing sources, investigating, getting dates and times right, etc. Even the few that we do get are rarely interested in cracking the ol' AP Stylebook to use the proper state abbreviations, titles, spelling, plurals, etc.

Oh, we get plenty of kids who want to write opinion pieces, rants, poetry, blather, commentary, conventional wisdom, rumor, and ephemera. They line up down the hallway for that, and make submissions via e-mail at 4:15 a.m. But no one wants to do nuts and bolts reporting. Let's call it, "Joe Klein Syndrome."

Ondelette (I’m sorry. I keep inserting an o where an e should be.),

Now the question is whether journalists are by and large paid to write to the frame. -ondelette

I dunno. This is where it gets interesting to me. If I exchange theory for master narrative, frame, or idealized cognitive model, and slide over to Glasser’s grounded theory, they *would* be paid to write the frame, because the frame should emerge from the phenomena itself. What I understand Charlie Savage to have done was to step back and consider what was emerging from the phenomena, the Bush administration, didn’t fit the frame he was accustomed to working with. Ergo, he needed a different frame/narrative/theory from which to do his reporting. His narrative failed to capture the phenomena; it didn’t fit (Fit: has to do with how closely concepts fit with the incidents they are representing, and this is related to how thoroughly the constant comparison of incidents to concepts was done. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Socialenterprise:theory).

What I understand Paul Dirks (and you) to be suggesting, is the media has allowed Republican operatives to write the frame, and folks like Joe Klein have been shoving Democratic phenomena into the Republican-provided frame ever since. The value folks are finding at Glenn’s, Jane’s, Digby’s, Duncan’s, Kevin’s, Josh’s, etc websites has to do with more accurate reporting, because the theory’s concepts more closely align with the phenomena’s incidents.

The problem for alternative media is the same for a viable third political party; who owns the current infrastructure? Murdoch, for example, has all but gone on the record as saying he doesn’t care if his news outlets run in the black; they’re playthings to him. Where is a progressive equivalent to Murdoch when we need them? I highly doubt we’re going to get satisfactory responses from Klein, Painton, or Stengel, on FISA, or any other issue yet to come. That isn’t to say we don’t keep their feet to the fire, however. (Let ‘em at least think about what the next dog-poop on the shoe might cost them.)

We really need a glossy rag that can be part of that end-aisle display as people approach the check-out lane at the grocery store featuring (the above) as the rising internet media stars [*trumpets*]. There really ought to be a way to sell “you’re missing out.” F.S.M! If people will go out an acquire a Dalmatian on the strength of a Disney movie, or a Border Collie on the strength of Animal Planet (people do like to perceive themselves as smart, hip, and in the know – not matter what the Border Collie might say of them), there ought to be a way to generate demand for The Web’s Hottest Political Reporters.