All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Heart Huckabee?: Mike Huckabee, following in the illustrious Bruno Magli footsteps of O.J. Simpson, has become the latest public figure to decry the blasted media's fixation on Paris Hilton and her ilk. “One of the frustrations is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president,” he told the Associated Press. Who will be next to take this brave stance? Hiccup girl? Prince Harry? An ailing whale shark? Stay tuned!

Words Fail Her: You know what's not cool? Murder jokes! Reports CNN: "A Lebanese television anchor's comments and laughter regarding the assassination of Lebanese anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido have caused a furor and resulted in her firing." The unidentified anchor didn't realize the microphone was on when she made the comments, natch. At least she didn't go to the bathroom.

Swords, But No Shields: Unlike Indiana Republican Mike Pence and others, the White House says there is no need for a federal shield law for journalists. "History has demonstrated that the protections already in place, including the department's own rigorous internal review of media subpoena requests, are sufficient," Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand told the House Judiciary Committee, according to the AP. Basic message: Chill out, journalists. Sure, potential whistleblowers may be less likely to share crucial information for fear the government will force you to reveal their identity. But who cares about all that, right? We're all a little whistleblown out anyway. Onto the more important issues!

The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

Here's a shocker for you: The government is disorganized. I kid you not. The Washington Post has obtained a leaked copy of a report from a consulting group hired by the
Department of Homeland Security that sought to "determine whether [DHS] was following federal contracting laws and internal policies." Well, the consultants "could not locate 33 of the 72 contract files it had selected for the review."

And the ones they did find? Those "often lacked basic documentation required under federal rules, such as evidence that the department negotiated the best prices for taxpayers."

The consultants wrote in their report: "The inability to locate files and inconsistent file organization puts the government at risk in ensuring the contractor is fulfilling its contractual obligations and the government is meeting its contract administration responsibilities." Oops.

In what might just be the most damning assessment of the situation possible, one expert who teaches at the University of Baltimore School of Law told the Post: "This strongly suggests that we're buying the wrong stuff, the wrong way, possibly from the wrong contractors, and failing to check before, during or after."

Fortunately, a DHS spokesperson has informed the Post that officials are following the consultants' recommendations on fixing the situation: "We've acted upon each one of their findings. It was an internal look. We are going to bring them in again to make sure we are following up," he said.

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Much of YouTube’s success has burgeoned from circulating videos of a more humorous nature (take the substantial viewership of Connie Chung’s recent rendition of “Thanks For The Memories” during the final installment of her now defunct MSNBC program, for example.) But, as we noted earlier this week, the site is also fast becoming a worthwhile compendium of news reports and video commentaries about the conflict in Israel and Lebanon. The Washington Post's Sara Kehaulani Goo today takes a more detailed look at the site’s success on that front, while raising some of the issues that are often associated with such efforts in citizen journalism. “Although the amateur videos provide an appealingly intimate account of what's happening on the ground,” writes Goo, “it can be difficult to determine authenticity. The videos are often posted under pseudonyms or screen names that do not contain e-mail addresses.”

It’s a question that surrounds much of the information now readily available on the Web -- it’s raw, intense, but is it authentic? Reliable? Of course, outlets like YouTube aren’t – and do not purport to be – news outlets. And the site is up front about noting that it doesn’t monitor video content, “though it prohibits videos that are violent,” writes Goo.

In that sense, video clips like these certainly expand the landscape, but they have their limitations. One veteran journalist noted his concerns about the value of the “new Internet world” in an interview published in today’s USA Today. NPR analyst Daniel Schorr told Peter Johnson that the unfiltered nature of the new media like means fewer stories will be suppressed since “you can always have a blogger who gets the story out.” On the other hand, “what we have here is a medium in which there is no publisher, no editor, no anything. It's just you and a little machine and you can make history. I find that scary. Nobody should get into print or on the air without some kind of editor. I have an institutional belief that nobody can be above having a good editor.”

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Escalating tensions in the Middle East continues to dominate the news coverage and threatens to overshadow this weekend’s G8 summit. Bloggers in the region and worldwide are weighing in as well, and their opinions reflect the intense and seemingly intractable nature of the region’s long-running conflict.

Global Voices gathers the sentiments of bloggers in the region:

Third day after the beginning of the never ending Middle East conflict; Israel/Lebanon war, the Arabic blogsphere speaks.
Ranging between anger, celebration, condemnation and support, on both sides of the conflict, the bloggers views vary depends where they come from. Some sound extreme, others sound objective and reasonable, but all hopes that this ends with persistence peaceful and just solution for all, soon.

The Daily Telegraph in Sydney Australia takes a trip through the blogosphere, noting:

As Israel launches major offensives and goes toe to toe with militants on two fronts the conflict inevitably has spilled into the blogosphere.

Bloggers, some of them posting from the affected areas, have captured the panic, anger and sorrow that the violence has unleashed.

Philadelphia Inquirer’s Frida Ghitas analyzes some Arab blogger sentiments and comes up with some surprising results:

The majority of the Arab blogs and Internet commentary supports Palestinians and remains highly critical of Israel. Still, Arab democrats are increasingly noting that, however much anyone sympathizes with Palestinians, there is little doubt that Arab autocrats, dictators and assorted rulers-for-life have long used the Palestinian cause as a thick cloak to cover up the deficiencies of their rule. The Internet, it seems, is slowly drawing out the threads of that cloak, making it transparent enough to reveal the ugly truth it seeks to conceal.

Slate provides a quick roundup of reaction, and on Technorati, Lebanon, Beirut and Israel are among the most searched topics of the day. With all the talk of whether democracy has a future in the region, there certainly seems to be the seeds of a democratic exchange of views happening online.

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