she expresses her personal feelings about Hillary and its international news!! And, she can now no longer work to influence national policy on genocide. How pathetic! While I usually read Glenn with great enthusiasm I think he's way off on this one. I'd love to publically declare what I think of Hillary but who cares what I think.

This isn't the first time I've seen a sentiment like this one in this comment thread, and I must point out that it is based on a fallacy.

I don't believe that Glenn is talking about the merit or newsworthiness of the "monster" comment at all - he talking strictly about the way that this episode has exposed a highly pernicious dynamic in American reporting: that American journalists consider everything a public figure says presumptively off-the-record, or at least are far too eager to make things off-the-record.

This has nothing to do with the substantive newsworthiness of the information deemed off-the-record, because often this standard of secrecy applies equally to information of critical national importance, not just "monster" comments and so forth.

I am a Barak Obama supportster (new word) who would argue (were I in an argumentative mood) that it should have been published.

Welcome to the Majors, Ms. Power (and worry not; you'll be back).

James Taranto's daily blog is entitled "Best of the Web", which is located at OpinionJournal.com

I apologize for the error, because I want to make sure that more Salon readers quickly and correctly locate it. God knows, Salon readers could benefit from more regular WSJ reading...

Isn't this piece in direct contradiction to what

you wrote earlier this week admonishing reporters for their obsessive focus on the politics of personal destruction instead of focusing on the issues? What does Samantha Power saying Hillary Clinton is a "monster" have to do with the presidential campaign?

You're making the same fallacy as Ziegler, above.

If sources will only talk to you if they perceive you will protect them -- and there are plenty that will do so -- then they're not worth talking to.

-- GlennGreenwald 06:15 AM

And then the fact that "Source A" will not comment becomes a part of the story. Digging for alternate sourcing is the next task; and the reporting of that process can be interesting too.

How does one create a new journalism?

You find out what it takes to get Amy Goodman's news broadcast onto your local PBS station.

Seriously.

Those last two posts were supposed to be Off the Record.

What does Samantha Power saying Hillary Clinton is a "monster" have to do with the presidential campaign?

This post isn't about the presidential campaign, but about journalistic standards. And as I'm sure you know -- being a student at that fine university I desperately wanted to attend but couldn't get into -- standards have no value unless they are applied, as you note, consistently.

Now, are you saying that "a woman who is recognized as one of the world's experts on genocide and international law" should be exempt from that standard, and if so, how do you hold yourslef up as an advocate for judging others' consistency?

Well, not really, but there is a legitimate point- are the "media" equally syncopant in their treatment of the Dems vs Repubs? Would the same "gotcha" standard be applied to a McCain staffer? Based on the continuing disparity between McCain's lobbying ties vs. Obabma's real estate deals, I would have to say not...Let's not even bring up Swiftboat vs. GWB National Guard attendance...

It's ugly and destructive to our democracy when anyone does it, but it NOT "balanced" left to right. If it was, there would be a Right-Wing version of Media Matters (they've got the money!) showing misquoting, taking out of context in a way that penalizes Repubs, etc.

Elephants never forget. They do, however, produce mass quantities of elephant poop.

While watching all the Presidential debates I realized the power of the MSM.

Even when CNN did the "YouTube" debate I still got the feeling the questions were completely scripted and/or hand-picked to play into the MSM's narrative.

Imagine the possibility of where our country might be at this moment had the questions in every debate been spontaneously delivered from audience members, who were completely anonymous American citizens, standing at a mike? And then further imagine that each candidate would have equal time to answer each question with no thrown in bias from the network due to some obscure "polling data" that perceived the "front-runners" before one vote had ever been cast.

For instance, it would have been interesting to see the responses from EVERY candidate to the 9/11 sandbag question that was thrown specifically at Ron Paul by Fox. I can just hear Clinton, Obama, Biden, Dodd, McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani now: "Humina, humina, humina, humina..."

Then imagine a same day national primary with all paper ballots and the ballots being counted at each voting place by the voters themselves....out in the open! No computers! No secrecy! Totally transparent! On camera! Oh the joyous chaos of it all! People yacking, drinking coffee, eating donuts and being citizens! Lots of wonderful, democratic, spontaneous YouTube moments for the whole wide world to see!

And the poor MSM would just have to WAIT until the people counted the damn ballots for the results. Can you imagine that?! The people telling the media as opposed to the media telling the people? Woah.

One can only dream of how different things might be at this moment had the MSM not had absolute control of the process.

I also want to point out that these very same media stars who are chastising Gerri Peev for releasing the "monster" comment are, often in the very same segment, relentlessly flogging the comment as a big issue.

This demonstrates my point about the process vs. substance fallacy perfectly. The American media is far more horrified by the perceived process violation of releasing an "off-the-record" comment than by their own relentlessly sensationalistic "analysis" of what the comment means to the campaign.

In short, they are mortified at the ostensible breach of journalistic rules, but embarrassingly eager to exploit the fruits of that breach.