Netanyahu's Settlement Two-Step
(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
The optimist in me says, let's turn the page and hope for the best. The pessimist in me, weary of the same script year after year, wonders whether the U.S. will ever get the upper hand in an increasingly dysfunctional relationship.
Israel says this is all the prelude to a construction freeze - not including the current batch of apartments, naturally. Now, the Israelis say, it will be up to the Arabs to reciprocate with a demonstration of their own good will. Fat chance. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes, "the number of new housing units will not actually decline compared to previous years. The only difference is that now, that instead of construction permits being given gradually throughout the year, the government intends to issue hundreds of permits within a few days, before the official announcement of the "freeze" is made."
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After Drudge Story, McCain Gives Reporters Green Light
(AP)
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
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McCain Drudge
How do you cover the back-and-forth over a story that hasn't come out?
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
McCain Drudge
How do you cover the back-and-forth over a story that hasn't come out?
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
That was the question political journalists were trying to answer yesterday, thanks to a story on the Drudge Report suggesting that the New York Times was investigating Sen. John McCain for alleged legislative favoritism.
The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance. It did suggest that McCain was lobbying the Times not to publish the story, which allegedly "involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation."
Continue »
"So, Ayman: What Are You Like Behind Closed Doors?"
(AP)
Sky News reports that a new video, perportedly from the terrorist organization, includes an invitation for journalists to interview al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahri.
"If genuine, it represents the first such offer by the terror network to interview one of its leaders since the attacks of September 11, 2001," Sky notes.
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Is FOIA Becoming (A Little) Less Frustrating?
(AP)
It all sounds so simple at first: If you want a document or piece of unreleased but legally available information from the U.S. government, you submit a FOIA request. But government agencies are, unsurprisingly, reticent to cooperate with journalists or other individuals seeking information that could make them look bad, so the response is almost never what you're hoping for.
Instead of a few pages of documents or a neat summary of what you're looking for, you might face long response times, be offered incomplete documentation, or be told that to pay high fees. You might get buried in so much paper that it becomes extremely difficult to find what you first requested. You might never hear back at all.
Which is why it's good news that Congress has passed legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. If the president does not veto the bill, it would mandate that agencies respond to FOIA requests within 20 days – and be punished if they don't – and create a system for tracking requests, among other innovations.
"Currently, delays, staggering legal fees and mountains of red tape undercut FOIA's usefulness for citizens and journalists," David Cuillier of the Society of Professional Journalists in a statement emailed to Public Eye. "This bill is crucial for helping FOIA work better, which in turn, helps democracy work better."
In recent years, agencies' response time to FOIA requests has decreased, and the Bush administration has not exactly shown a propensity towards making information publicly available. In 2001, for example, President Bush signed an executive order allowing presidents to delay the release of many of their records indefinitely.
It is thus something of an open question whether the president will sign the legislation, which reflects a compromise crafted after the White House and Justice Department objected to some of the details, including restoration of a provision that agencies release information unless they determine it will do harm. (After Sept. 11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had instructed agencies to err on the side of not releasing information.) The Associated Press speculates that Mr. Bush might simply ignore the bill, which would have the effect of causing the new rules to go into effect after 10 days.
"This pocket-veto-in-reverse would give Bush some political cover, allowing the FOIA bill to become law without taking the affirmative step of endorsing it," notes the AP.
The Blog Turns Ten
(AP Photo)
It's of Jorn Barger, the first person to use the word "weblog." Barger coined the term, which has been shortened to the now-ubiquitous "blog," ten years ago yesterday. He used it "to describe the list of links on his Robot Wisdom website that 'logged' his internet wanderings," as Wired puts it.
In the picture, Barger, clad in a blue t-shirt, doesn't exactly look like your office IT geek. He's got a long, scraggly beard, and long tufts of hair shoot out from beneath his ratty "Google" cap. Barger looks like he was working the land in remote mountains somewhere until he gave it all up to get his startup off the ground.
And in terms of a representative of the blogging phenomenon – not to mention the whole internet, really – you couldn't ask for much more.
Think about it: Ten years ago, the truly industrious folks who wanted to share opinions or interesting articles might have had a newsletter. Today, thanks to the drastically reduced barriers to entry that the internet has provided, blogs have taken their place – there are 100 million of them at the moment, according to Technorati, and that number is growing.
Thanks to blogs, no matter how remote you might be, you're now easily interconnected. They've given us windows into warzones, shown us the minds of foreign leaders, and offered insights into everything from tort reform to gay square dancing, to mention just a tiny fraction of the total picture.
The Wired article features plenty of quotes about What It All Means, and you can head over there for the full treatment. One could write a book about how much blogs mean – in fact, folks have – but on the 10-year anniversary of the medium, this particular blog, a tiny voice in the cacophany, simply wanted to simply pay its respects. Blogs can be monumental or inconsequential, insular or wide open, enlightening or enraging. They have made the whole spectrum of human thought available, in all its messy glory, in the click of a button. And what's more revolutionary than that?
Huckabee's Defensive Posture
(AP)
After weeks of glowing coverage over his aw-shucksiness, the honeymoon for the Baptist minister is over – as predicted in this space.
And how is he dealing with the rise in critical coverage? Opening up the first page out of the political playbook and attacking the messenger.
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Peddling Influence
(CBS/iStockphoto)
Nowadays it's all about the "Influencers."
And contrary to the 'decider' where you couldn't really pass yourself off as The One, the bonus about 'Influencers' is that you may be one and not even know it.
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No "Daily" Dose?
(CBS)
In my listening to the "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" replay on XM radio yesterday, I heard one of his panelists making that observation. Her argument being basically that 'if Jon Stewart had been around, the Clinton campaign wouldn't have gotten away with the Barack/kindergarten letter story.'
For a moment it sounded silly, like a child saying 'Ooooh, it's a good thing mom didn't see you,' but then I realized that the panelist's observation had the added quality of being … true.
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Campaign 2008? It's Showtime
(ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Getty )
You didn't see it. But don't feel bad – not that you would – but nobody saw it. It was on National Public Radio.
And the reviews have been positive, save for the little "it put me to sleep" factor. But all the plaudits got this writer thinking how you could repackage the debate, draw a crowd and inform a potentially large size of the electorate.
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Elusive "Electability"
(CBS)
There's a lot of terms that the media use to describe presidential candidates, but by far the most elusive – if not downright contrived – term is "electability."
What makes somebody electable? If they're up in the polls today? If they're taller than the opponent? If they're enjoying political momentum? If so, why not just say that?
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Them's Fightin' Words!
(NBC Photo/Sara Jaye Weiss)
Balanced in that it managed to stir up political groups on both sides.
First out of the box on Thursday came the liberal activists, who were none too pleased to see MoveOn.org labeled as "American Insurgents." According to the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters:
During the November 28 CNN special Campaign Killers: Why Do Negative Ads Work?, CNN anchor Campbell Brown said: "General David Petraeus made his reputation taking on insurgents in Iraq. But when he came to Capitol Hill in September, he was confronted by American insurgents, a liberal anti-war group called MoveOn.org."Then came the right, with a conservative-leaning group called Citizen United threatening legal action against CNN for characterizing them as a "fringe militia."
I write to register strenuous objections to your highly unprofessional hit piece last night (Broken Government -- "Campaign Killers," hosted by Campbell Brown ) against David Bossie and Citizens United, and to demand an on-air retraction of part of it, along with corrections made in any future showings. In particular, if a retraction of the defamatory words "fringe militia" is not offered publicly by CNN, and soon, I will advise Mr. Bossie to consider legal action.(Tip of the hat to FishbowlDC.)
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The Media Generation Gap
(AP)
The 'generation' – a slippery unit of time that once was shorthand for the age difference between parents and children – is getting crunched. And if the media isn't causing it, there's no more obvious way to recognize it.
Exhibit A? Last night's showing of "Charlie Brown Christmas."
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Putting the "Me" In Media
(AP / CBS)
Like what Jose Antonio Vargas wrote in the Washington Post the other day:
Fact is, independent of the candidates, voters -- you -- are interacting with the 2008 presidential election at an unprecedented level because of the Internet, YouTubing, Facebooking, Wikipedia-ing, et al. So why not call yourself a journalist and cover the campaign, too? Whether or not we MSMers like it, the loose, undefined, evolving cadre of CJs are here to stay.All this pounds home the thought that Citizen Journalism is as American as apple pie, right?
Well, yes, but there's more to it than that, as evidenced by the fact that Agence France Press has jumped into the movement:
Agence France Presse has announced that it has taken a 30% stake in Scooplive, a French company that runs a citizen journalism platform for films and photos.
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