All Blog Posts from Public Eye

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The Drudge story did not get into the details of what might be in the Times' as-yet-unpublished report, leaving political reporters scratching their heads over its potential significance.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."

The CBSNews.com political unit, of which I am a part, would have simply monitored the story if it had begun and ended with Drudge. But McCain decided to publicly comment on the report, denying that the allegations and saying he had "never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group." His campaign communications director suggested the story was part of a "smear campaign." Washington lawyer Bob Bennett, who said McCain had hired him to address the allegations, called the situation an "outrage."

And suddenly a story that might have passed more-or-less unnoticed in mainstream media – at least until the Times report came out – became a legitimate subject.

Numerous news outlets, including the Washington Post and USA Today, covered McCain's comments, and I wrote a post about it for one of our political blogs, Horserace.

It's difficult to know why McCain decided to address the Drudge piece, when he easily could have declined to comment and taken little heat for doing so. (The Times wasn't talking.) His advisors initially would not discuss it, according to the Post, "fearing that would open the door for news organizations to write about what his advisers regard as a non-story."

If McCain has become convinced that the Times story is going to come out eventually, he may have been trying to get out in front of it. Or he may simply have become frustrated over a story that he feels is bogus. The report comes at a difficult time for McCain – just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, with his campaign showing the kind of momentum that has pundits speculating that he could be the last Republican standing. Like Mike Huckabee before him (addressing the Wayne DuMond case), he complained about the timing of the negative report, surfacing as it did just as his campaign appeared to be on the upswing.

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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."

The CBSNews.com political unit, of which I am a part, would have simply monitored the story if it had begun and ended with Drudge. But McCain decided to publicly comment on the report, denying that the allegations and saying he had "never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group." His campaign communications director suggested the story was part of a "smear campaign." Washington lawyer Bob Bennett, who said McCain had hired him to address the allegations, called the situation an "outrage."

And suddenly a story that might have passed more-or-less unnoticed in mainstream media – at least until the Times report came out – became a legitimate subject.

Numerous news outlets, including the Washington Post and USA Today, covered McCain's comments, and I wrote a post about it for one of our political blogs, Horserace.

It's difficult to know why McCain decided to address the Drudge piece, when he easily could have declined to comment and taken little heat for doing so. (The Times wasn't talking.) His advisors initially would not discuss it, according to the Post, "fearing that would open the door for news organizations to write about what his advisers regard as a non-story."

If McCain has become convinced that the Times story is going to come out eventually, he may have been trying to get out in front of it. Or he may simply have become frustrated over a story that he feels is bogus. The report comes at a difficult time for McCain – just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, with his campaign showing the kind of momentum that has pundits speculating that he could be the last Republican standing. Like Mike Huckabee before him (addressing the Wayne DuMond case), he complained about the timing of the negative report, surfacing as it did just as his campaign appeared to be on the upswing.

Read full post…

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."

The CBSNews.com political unit, of which I am a part, would have simply monitored the story if it had begun and ended with Drudge. But McCain decided to publicly comment on the report, denying that the allegations and saying he had "never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group." His campaign communications director suggested the story was part of a "smear campaign." Washington lawyer Bob Bennett, who said McCain had hired him to address the allegations, called the situation an "outrage."

And suddenly a story that might have passed more-or-less unnoticed in mainstream media – at least until the Times report came out – became a legitimate subject.

Numerous news outlets, including the Washington Post and USA Today, covered McCain's comments, and I wrote a post about it for one of our political blogs, Horserace.

It's difficult to know why McCain decided to address the Drudge piece, when he easily could have declined to comment and taken little heat for doing so. (The Times wasn't talking.) His advisors initially would not discuss it, according to the Post, "fearing that would open the door for news organizations to write about what his advisers regard as a non-story."

If McCain has become convinced that the Times story is going to come out eventually, he may have been trying to get out in front of it. Or he may simply have become frustrated over a story that he feels is bogus. The report comes at a difficult time for McCain – just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, with his campaign showing the kind of momentum that has pundits speculating that he could be the last Republican standing. Like Mike Huckabee before him (addressing the Wayne DuMond case), he complained about the timing of the negative report, surfacing as it did just as his campaign appeared to be on the upswing.

Read full post…

Um, so: Anyone want to interview al Qaeda?

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.

Zawahri may be trying to cast himself not as a terrorist but a legitimate thinker and organizational head, one who should be treated with respect – a tall order, to say the least. The interview offer seems to be part of al Qaeda's public relations strategy: The organization's videos have gotten increasingly professional, and this week one was released showing "Zawahri in a classic, well-lit TV interview situation."

Interested parties are asked to send written questions to the web forums where al Qaeda's video production division, Al-Sahab, posts messages. (Al-Sahab means "The Clouds" in Arabic.)

Last year, Al-Sahab Media released a video called "An Invitation to Islam: An Al-Sahab Produced Video Featuring Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Azzam the American AKA Adam Gadahn."

According to a report posted at this discussion forum, "The majority of the video, nearly forty-five minute, features Azzam the American explaining the perceived benefits of Islam over Judaism, Christianity, and other religions, and criticizing Western leaders for their alleged presentation of Islam as barbaric and Muslims as bogeymen."

Here's what Zawahiri reportedly has to say:

“And as our brother Azzam the American talks to you, he talks to you as one concerned about the fate which awaits his people, and as a perceptive person who wants to lead his people our of darkness into the light. So listen to him, because what he is talking to you about is serious and significant. He is talking to you about the fate which awaits every human, an extremely grave issue in which there is no joking, procrastination or backtracking.”

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As any journalist can tell you, dealing with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can be enough to make you wish you’d gone into a different line of work.

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.

There's a picture over at Wired that you really have to see.

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?

If you're interested in sharpening your media criticism skills, you could do worse than running for president.

Consider Barack Obama. On Friday, in an interview with the New York Times, Obama neatly summed up the prevailing press narrative about his campaign.

“A month ago, I was an idiot,” he said, according to a story published Sunday. “This month, I’m a genius.”

The implication is that the chattering classes have reversed their opinion about Obama even though the candidate himself hasn't much changed. And while his statement may be something of an exaggeration, there's clearly some truth in it. Has Obama really become a better candidate after spending much of the campaign as a bumbler? Or does the press corps now see him that way simply because he has moved up in the polls?

The Times suggests that the press corps' change of heart is justified:

The campaign of Mr. Obama, which slogged uncertainly through a period in the late summer and fall, alarming contributors who feared that he might have missed his moment, is now brimming with confidence as he delivers a closing argument to Iowa voters. His speeches are noticeably crisper, his poise is more consistent and many supporters say they no longer must rely upon a leap of faith to envision him winning the nomination.

Perhaps – although Mr. Obama himself might beg to differ. When it comes to something as messy and difficult to measure as the performance of a presidential candidate, it's difficult to determine to what degree the media follow reality, and to what degree they creates their own. Many of the same commentators crowing about Obama's ascent are the same ones who told us Hillary Clinton was the "inevitable" democratic nominee. Now it seems she was only inevitable until she wasn't.

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As regular PE readers may have noticed, Matthew Felling has been carrying the load here lately, in the time he has available between Krusty the Clown imitations. That’s because I’ve been preparing for something new: Starting today, I’m officially becoming a political reporter for the new CBSNews.com politics section, which will be relaunching in its shiny new form soon. And that means, after two years, I’m saying goodbye to Public Eye.

Public Eye remains a unique and important experiment in the media world, and two years in, we continue to experience new successes – and face new challenges. I'm happy to say that I'm leaving the site to Mr. Felling, who came on board in May and immediately began generating sharp, entertaining, and insightful work. I'm thrilled to be leaving PE in such capable hands, and can't wait to see where he takes it from here.

First and foremost, I want to thank our readers, especially those who engaged with the site. You make PE better than it ever could be in a vacuum. I want to extend my thanks to all those who have been supportive of our mission, even though it hasn't always been popular to do so, including Mike Sims, Dick Meyer, Betsy Morgan, and Larry Kramer. I also want to tip my hat to those many CBS News folks, whether correspondents, executives, cameramen, or producers, who understand the mission of Public Eye and have engaged with us. Chief among this group is Linda Mason, senior vice president for standards and special projects, who helped us understand CBS News policy and responded to our questions with notable candor.

And then, of course, there is Vaughn Ververs, my predecessor as Public Eye editor, who just happens to be my new editor over in politics. I first met Vaughn when we were set up as adversarial talking heads on MSNBC, and as those who sit around me in the newsroom can attest, the argument hasn't stopped since. But this site could never have been what it is without Vaughn, who steered the ship in the early going and taught me countless lessons along the way. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather be working with as I cover the '08 campaign.

PE may be entering its third year, but we've only been able to tell a small portion of the fascinating stories out there in the media world. Even as I immerse myself in the world of politics, I remain committed to keeping my eye on those stories, and PE will be my primary resource for doing so. It's been a great run so far, and I wouldn't be surprised if the best is yet to come.

In this week's installment of "From The Vault," we bring you Mike Wallace's 1970 report on the intersection of television and politics. It opens with a series of campaign ads from that era. "For better or worse," says Wallace, "television has changed the nature of the political process in the United States." Click on the video box to watch.

So, uh: Does anyone else have debate fatigue?

We sure have had a lot of these things so far. And they're early. For a little context, consider this: Bill Clinton didn't even formally enter the race for President until October of 1991; Republican Fred Thompson, expected to be a serious contender for the nomination next year, still isn't in.

And yet we seem to have a new debate just about every week, if not more frequently – this week has brought us two, with the Logo debate about gay and lesbian issues and the AFL-CIO debate on MSNBC, both featuring Democrats. Master of understatement Newt Gingrich, complaining that the campaign season is now much too long, recently said the debates have become “almost unendurable” -- "a cross between ‘The Bachelor,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘Who’s Smarter than a Fifth-Grader.’”

Is there a better way to do this? The ratings for the debates have been relatively high this time around, but the key word there is "relatively" – even the much-hyped YouTube debate, certainly the most publicized debate thus far, only attracted 2,622,000 viewers, and Tuesday's debate attracted less than a million. There are legitimate concerns emerging that we may be getting too an overkill point: As Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, told the Times: “Most of us worry that doing all this so early on will wear out the electorate."

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