Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? - Bill Keller/NYT

[WillyT]

Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?
Much of the speculation about the future of news focuses on the business model: How will we generate the revenues to pay the people who gather and disseminate the news? But the disruptive power of the Internet raises other profound questions about what journalism is becoming, about its essential character and values. This week’s column is a conversation — a (mostly) civil argument — between two very different views of how journalism fulfills its mission.

Glenn Greenwald broke what is probably the year’s biggest news story, Edward Snowden’s revelations of the vast surveillance apparatus constructed by the National Security Agency. He has also been an outspoken critic of the kind of journalism practiced at places like The New York Times, and an advocate of a more activist, more partisan kind of journalism. Earlier this month he announced he was joining a new journalistic venture, backed by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, who has promised to invest $250 million and to “throw out all the old rules.” I invited Greenwald to join me in an online exchange about what, exactly, that means.
By BILL KELLER -NYT
Published: October 27, 2013

<snip>

Dear Glenn,

We come at journalism from different traditions. I’ve spent a life working at newspapers that put a premium on aggressive but impartial reporting, that expect reporters and editors to keep their opinions to themselves unless they relocate (as I have done) to the pages clearly identified as the home of opinion. You come from a more activist tradition — first as a lawyer, then as a blogger and columnist, and soon as part of a new, independent journalistic venture financed by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Your writing proceeds from a clearly stated point of view.

In a post on Reuters this summer, media critic Jack Shafer celebrated the tradition of partisan journalism — “From Tom Paine to Glenn Greenwald” — and contrasted it with what he called “the corporatist ideal.” He didn’t explain the phrase, but I don’t think he meant it in a nice way. Henry Farrell, who blogs for The Washington Post, wrote more recently that publications like The New York Times and The Guardian “have political relationships with governments, which make them nervous about publishing (and hence validating) certain kinds of information,” and he suggested that your new project with Omidyar would represent a welcome escape from such relationships.

I find much to admire in America’s history of crusading journalists, from the pamphleteers to the muckrakers to the New Journalism of the ’60s to the best of today’s activist bloggers. At their best, their fortitude and passion have stimulated genuine reforms (often, as in the Progressive Era, thanks to the journalists’ “political relationships with governments”). I hope the coverage you led of the National Security Agency’s hyperactive surveillance will lead to some overdue accountability.

But the kind of journalism The Times and other mainstream news organizations practice — at their best — includes an awful lot to be proud of, too, revelations from Watergate to torture and secret prisons to the malfeasance of the financial industry, and including some pre-Snowden revelations about the N.S.A.’s abuse of its authority. Those are highlights that leap to mind, but you’ll find examples in just about every day’s report. Journalists in this tradition have plenty of opinions, but by setting them aside to follow the facts — as a judge in court is supposed to set aside prejudices to follow the law and the evidence — they can often produce results that are more substantial and more credible. The mainstream press has had its failures — episodes of credulousness, false equivalency, sensationalism and inattention — for which we have been deservedly flogged. I expect you’ll say, not flogged enough. So I pass you the lash.

Dear Bill...

<snip>

Much More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

[madamesilverspurs]

1. Let's hope not.

There's news, and there's news used as a vehicle for self-promotion. If GG can learn the first and leave the second behind, then maybe. Otherwise, no.

[WillyT]

5. I Hear Ya... Yet Here's The Problem...

What we have WAY to much of NOW...

Is reporting that goes like this... "The Republicans say that the Moon is made of cheese, the Democrats say that is false. You decide."

And that pretty much... is chicken-shit journalism.

[rhett o rick]

13. I know what you are saying but where can I get real news? You are concerned that GG will slant

his "news" for self promotion. And I agree that's an absolute concern. However, have you looked at the crap that ABC and the other networks are calling news? Serious question, where do you go for "news"?

[Whisp]

41. So true. If he is going to rely on donations for his 'journalism'

the temptation to make the news to excite and incite the donors to give would be just too great. There couldn't be a slow news day for GG then, he'd have to make shit up (which he is practiced in) otherwise no pay check.

[Egnever]

2. LOL

Navel gazing at its finest!

[adirondacker]

3. I predict there will be a lot of crow eating by certain critics. I wonder how many will own

humiliation?

btw he was just interviewed for a segment on NBC nightly news.

[Cleita]

8. Amy Goodman has about the most

comprehensive and perhaps most honest interview with GG on his new venture on today's Democracy Now! The video of the whole show and interview, including a lot about the NSA and Edward Snowden, is on their website.

[adirondacker]

10. I hope they both become the new "mainstream". :)

[LittleBlue]

45. Amy is really good

Nice to see other Amy G fans on here

[deutsey]

50. I was encouraged to hear that Jeremy Scahill is in on this venture n/t

[Blue_Tires]

19. um...My criticisms of Greenwald still stand

And while his comments are compelling and make for good philosophical fodder, they have done nothing to dissuade or refute them...

[quinnox]

4. Very excited to see the new media venture funded by the ebay mega money dude

This proves not all billionaire types are greedy pigs. I read that he is concerned, just like Greenwald is, about press freedoms and the NSA spying and government surveillance.

[Luminous Animal]

6. It's a good exchange. I hope people take the time to read it

[MNBrewer]

7. K&R for G.G.!

Suck it Greenwald haters!

[BluegrassStateBlues]

9. ...

[1000words]

11. Can't be any worse than what we already have

[Blue_Tires]

17. You'd be surprised at how much worse it could potentially get

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2013, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

See: Nigeria, Sri Lanka

[woo me with science]

12. K&R The new venture is EXCELLENT news for America.

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2013, 09:04 PM - Edit history (2)

It's ABSURD to suggest that the Greenwald is "partisan" while the MSM is unbiased. The real "party" in this nation is the Corporate Party, and the MSM as it now exists is shamelessly corporate-biased.

I watched an interview with Greenwald on Democracy Now, talking about the new venture. It aims to create a robust, well-funded journalistic enterprise that takes seriously its job of reporting the facts and reviving the critical role of journalism as a watchdog and check on government abuse of power. It was a good show, with significant attention paid to the revelations of abuse of the NSA for corporate spying rather than the stated purpose of preventing terrorism.

We desperately need a revival of real investigative journalism before the corporatists who have purchased our government *and* our media eat us alive.

[Blue_Tires]

14. A surprisingly good read...

If I were still in the business (and was well enough known), I'd have LOVED to have this "old school establishment versus new media activism" debate over the role journalism plays now and in the future...I have about a dozen other questions I'd have liked to see Keller ask, but there is only so much space, and clearly those two could have been going back and forth for a week or more...

I know a tiger doesn't change it's stripes, but as I've noted before, Greenwald's shit-doesn't-stink, "I'm never wrong" -smugness wears thin after awhile, and when he lays it on heavy it tends to undermine his real, legit criticisms of the mainstream media industry he loathes so much...

And anyone who agrees with Greenwald that we should throw the whole "striving towards objective reporting" -concept out the window will think differently when the RWers dump their money in and conservative "activist journalism" outnumbers the liberal by a 10-1 ratio...

Of course the most dangerous part of activist journalism is the more personally invested a reporter or news outlet might be to a certain story, the more doggedly he'll try to chase dead end leads or move heaven and earth trying to find a mythical conspiracy or "smoking gun" which never existed in the first place (Obama's birth certificate ring any bells?)...Also that person is MUCH less likely to include any uncovered facts detrimental or contradictory to the cause the activist is fighting for....

[okaawhatever]

15. He advocates a more "activist, more partisan journalsim". I think that's the biggest

problem we have right now. If he and his investors want to fundamentally change journalism to make it more activist and partisan, we need to discuss whether he should be granted the Constitutional freedoms associated with the press. The biggest reason for Greenwald's fame is the Snowden release. A story he only broke first because the Washington Post wanted to make certain it didn't contain national security implications. They also didn't agree to Snowden's 72 hour rule.
Greenwald's legal career also shows his true respect for the law and privacy:
He passed secret messages from his white supremacist client while under SAMS restrictions
He unethically taped witnesses he subpoenaed, even directing their testimony. Which the bar assoc. found violated 2 rules

He claimed the individuals who sued his client (well known white supremacist Hale) for a shooting, 2 orthodox jews and a black minister were ,"Further, Greenwald said, "I find that the people behind these lawsuits are truly so odious and repugnant, that creates its own motivation for me."

And this guy is going to get a free pass on anything he writes? With a political agenda? C'mon folks. Time to get real reporters to write real stories, without the profit incentive they have now. Greenwald isn't the solution. In fact, he's a big part of the problem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Snowden went to Greenwald first with the story because he liked Greenwald's work

when Greenwald didn't follow up, unsure if the anonymous person was genuine, he went to Poitras instead. And got her to engage Greenwald, since she knew him. Meanwhile, Poitras brought in the WP reporter because she thought he'd be good dealing with the encryption aspects.

So Greenwald broke the story because Snowden wanted him to, because of his track record. It's wrong to claim "A story he only broke first because the Washington Post wanted to make certain it didn't contain national security implications". The character assassination of Greenwald on DU is the most bizarre aspect of this whole story. I can understand why the NSA hates Greenwald, but why do so many DUers?

[okaawhatever]

27. That is not the information I have. Gellman was working with Poitras very early on. She asked for

his help determining whether the information was correct. Also, based on the reputation of each man, if there's a dispute I will believe Gellman. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, had no qualms about hitting hard in the Cheney book and has an excellent reputation. Greenwald has already proven himself dishonest.

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/11/221359323/reporter-had-to-decide-if-snowden-leaks-were-the-real-thing



http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-glenn-greenwald-barton-gellman-92505.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. Gellman was only involved around the beginning of May

Poitras was not Snowden’s first choice as the person to whom he wanted to leak thousands of N.S.A. documents. In fact, a month before contacting her, he reached out to Greenwald, who had written extensively and critically about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the erosion of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. Snowden anonymously sent him an e-mail saying he had documents he wanted to share, and followed that up with a step-by-step guide on how to encrypt communications, which Greenwald ignored. Snowden then sent a link to an encryption video, also to no avail.

“It’s really annoying and complicated, the encryption software,” Greenwald said as we sat on his porch during a tropical drizzle. “He kept harassing me, but at some point he just got frustrated, so he went to Laura.”

Snowden had read Greenwald’s article about Poitras’s troubles at U.S. airports and knew she was making a film about the government’s surveillance programs; he had also seen a short documentary about the N.S.A. that she made for The New York Times Op-Docs. He figured that she would understand the programs he wanted to leak about and would know how to communicate in a secure way.

By late winter, Poitras decided that the stranger with whom she was communicating was credible. There were none of the provocations that she would expect from a government agent — no requests for information about the people she was in touch with, no questions about what she was working on. Snowden told her early on that she would need to work with someone else, and that she should reach out to Greenwald. She was unaware that Snowden had already tried to contact Greenwald, and Greenwald would not realize until he met Snowden in Hong Kong that this was the person who had contacted him more than six months earlier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?pagewanted=5&_r=0

December 2012: According to Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden first emailed him, anonymously. In an interview with Harpers, Greenwald says he initially ignored the emails.

January, 2013: Edward Snowden contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, according to an interview in Salon. Poitras notes her familiarity with encryption methods thanks to her close contact with Wikileaks for a previous film, and her involvement with TOR developer and hacker Jacob Appelbaum (who was investigated for his ties to Wikileaks in 2011).

February-May 2013: Snowden exchanges emails with Greenwald and Poitras, according to the Washington Post, but does not reveal his identity.
...
Early May, 2013: Snowden “indirectly” contacts Barton Gellman (the meaning of “indirectly” is unclear), who begins working on the PRISM story at the Washington Post.

http://joshuafoust.com/a-timeline-of-edward-snowden-associates/

[bvar22]

16. He may not be the future of "news",

.....but the future of our Democracy may well depend on him, WikiLeaks, Snowden, and a few other Whistle Blowers & Journalists with the courage to Look-Behind-the-Screen and tell the truth.

Government Secrecy Run Wild and Democracy can NOT co-exist.

[WillyT]

20. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

[BlueStreak]

55. Exactly. It isn't ideal. But neither is fascism.

[madrchsod]

21. the future of news?

i will believe it when i see it.

[WillyT]

24. Well... Locally... The Sacramento Bee Looks Like A Pamphlet These Days...

Not much to it... advertising looks to be Thurs/Sunday...

Newsweek recently got sold for a dollar...

You tell me.

[Blue_Tires]

30. It won't ever happen, but if you wanted ONE magic bullet

to instantly transform journalism, go back to the days of heavy restrictions on ownership ...

1996 was the beginning of the end, and we didn't even know it at the time...

(It still fascinates me why this NEVER gets brought up by anyone in the millions of pieces bemoaning the state of journalistic decay over the past 10 years...) I've never even seen Greenwald mention it, and he's be-all end-all expert on *everything* that's wrong with the industry today...

[goldent]

23. Definitely the line between news, opinion, and entertainment have blurred.

"Straight" news just won't pay the bills.

[Uncle Joe]

25. A most excellent exchange of letters expressing their points of view, having said that

I agree with Greenwald's position.

Thanks for the thread, WillyT.

[WillyT]

26. Love Ya Uncle Joe !!!

[Uncle Joe]

28. Likewise, WillyT.

[Blue_Tires]

31. Hypothetically speaking, would you still agree with the position

If it were, say, Andrew Breitbart being interviewed? Because if alive he easily would have said many of the same things...

[Uncle Joe]

38. Who do you believe damaged ACORN the worst, Brietbart or the "non-subjective" corporate media;

which was all but silent with their "non-subjectivity" allowing Brietbart's propaganda to have the room to itself?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_brietbart

He owned the news aggregation site, Breitbart.com, and five other websites: Breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism, and Big Peace. He played key roles in the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, and the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy.

The pretense of journalistic non-subjectivity is a deceit against the reader, whether I agree with that journalist's opinion or not.

Knowledge is power and knowing from what ideological spectrum that journalist is coming from because he/she is upfront and honest about it awakens the reader to the material's authenticity.

The key points as Greenwald lists in one of his letters and restates in later letters as being

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html?ref=opinion&_r=2&

Worst of all, this model rests on a false conceit. Human beings are not objectivity-driven machines. We all intrinsically perceive and process the world through subjective prisms. What is the value in pretending otherwise?

The relevant distinction is not between journalists who have opinions and those who do not, because the latter category is mythical. The relevant distinction is between journalists who honestly disclose their subjective assumptions and political values and those who dishonestly pretend they have none or conceal them from their readers.

Moreover, all journalism is a form of activism. Every journalistic choice necessarily embraces highly subjective assumptions — cultural, political or nationalistic — and serves the interests of one faction or another. Former Bush D.O.J. lawyer Jack Goldsmith in 2011 praised what he called “the patriotism of the American press,” meaning their allegiance to protecting the interests and policies of the U.S. government. That may (or may not) be a noble thing to do, but it most definitely is not objective: it is quite subjective and classically “activist.”

But ultimately, the only real metric of journalism that should matter is accuracy and reliability. I personally think honestly disclosing rather than hiding one’s subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism. But no journalism — from the most stylistically “objective” to the most brazenly opinionated — has any real value unless it is grounded in facts, evidence, and verifiable data. The claim that overtly opinionated journalists cannot produce good journalism is every bit as invalid as the claim that the contrived form of perspective-free journalism cannot.

[questionseverything]

43. nyt lied even after they knew okeefe was not dressed as a pimp

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7689

Though both the video and statements from ACORN employees were cited as evidence their story was right, Brock would refuse to share evidence for either of the claims. That, even after an independent report from the former Attorney General of Massachusetts --- released in early December, but never mentioned in the Times' recent report (or any report at the paper to my knowledge) --- directly contradicts their reportage....


In short, the Times suggested in an article a week ago Sunday --- and at least seven others prior to it, all published after the release of the former MA Attorney General's report --- that O'Keefe was wearing his infamous pimp outfit inside the offices of ACORN while speaking to employees in his now-infamous hit videos. In actuality, according to the December 7th report by AG Scott Harshbarger, in direct contradiction to the Times reporting, he was not.

As Harshbarger writes:

Although Mr. O'Keefe appeared in all videos dressed as a pimp, in fact, when he appeared at each and every office, he was dressed like a college student - in slacks and a button down shirt.
Instead of acknowledging the Times' error, and the fact that the "paper of record" never seems to have even reported the findings of the Harshbarger report at all, the remarkable email thread with Brock, published in full below, devolves into absurdity. He went on to suggest he didn't actually speak for the Times; that his comments on their behalf in reply to a Letter to the Editor should not be published publicly;

[Blue_Tires]

59. Good...So when or where did Greenwald ever "disclose"

HIS subjective values?

[Uncle Joe]

61. If you really wanted to know all it takes is Google and you could find it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. At its peak ACORN had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S.,[3][4] as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru.[5] ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.[6] It filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on November 2, 2010, effectively closing the organization.[7] Many ACORN members and organizers formed new state-wide organizations.[8]

ACORN's voter registration drives, which it has conducted since the 1980s, have been frequently mischaracterized by supporters of Republican candidates as "voter fraud". ACORN received significant negative publicity in the wake of the 2009 production and publication of videos, which were later found to be partially falsified and selectively edited, by two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. The activists used hidden camera recordings to portray low-level ACORN employees as engaging in criminal activity, apparently advising them on how to hide prostitution activities and avoid taxes.[9] A nationwide controversy ensued, immediately resulting in a loss of funding from government and private donors,[10][11][12] including legislative amendments to spending bills in the United States House and Senate prohibiting government funding of the group.

Following the publication of the videos and withdrawal of funding, four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO released in 2009 and 2010 cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in criminal activities and that the organization had managed its federal funding appropriately, and calling the videos deceptively and selectively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. Despite this, by March 2010, 15 of ACORN's 30 state chapters had already closed[10] and the group announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding.[13]

(snip)

On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[96][97][98][99] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and "many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister",[100] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[101][102] On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[9] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[9][88] On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[103][104]

Now's here's how the "non-subjective" corporate media covered Brietbarts' subjective propaganda.

http://www.salon.com/2010/07/21/acorn_10/

Recalling Breitbart from his days as eager lackey to Matt Drudge, I warned from the beginning that nothing he produced would resemble journalism. More than once since then, I’ve mentioned the accumulating evidence of deception by O’Keefe and Breitbart in creating and then publicizing the ACORN tale. It was a “scandal” that became a national story only after wildly biased coverage on Fox News Channel, followed by sloppy, scared reporting in mainstream outlets, notably the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the national TV networks (some of whom flagellated themselves for failing to publicize this canard sooner!).

Investigations by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, among others, have served to exonerate ACORN of the most outrageous charges of criminality (while still criticizing ACORN employees and leadership). More important, from the perspective of journalistic ethics, those investigations revealed that the videotapes released and promoted by Breitbart’s website were selectively and deceptively edited to serve as propaganda, not news.

Here's subjective Greenwald's take.

http://www.salon.com/2009/09/17/acorn_hysteria/

Earlier this week, I wrote about how the Fox-News/Glenn-Beck/Rush-Limbaugh leadership trains its protesting followers to focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government (and, not coincidentally, Fox News). It’s hard to imagine a more perfectly illustrative example of all of that than the hysterical furor over ACORN.

ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million in federal funds over the last 15 years — an average of $3.5 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the last year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by Halliburton subsidiary KBR. All of those corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists and bottomless donor activities that ensure they dominate our legislative and regulatory processes, and to be extra certain, the revolving door between industry and government is more prolific than ever, with key corporate officials constantly ending up occupying the government positions with the most influence over those industries.


Exactly as one would expect, the prime beneficiaries of all of that pillaging continue to grow. The banks that almost brought the world economy to collapse but then received massive public largesse because they were “too big to fail” are now bigger than ever; as The Washington Post delicately put it: ”The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance.” Everything involving the government turns out well for these “behemoths” because they own and control the U.S. Government. Just this week, The Post detailed how the government and Wall St. are now so intertwined that banking executives are spending vast resources to increase their presence in Washington:

(snip)

But look at who the lead supporters are: Rush Limbaugh, the Murdoch-owned Fox News, Glenn Beck, the right-wing blogosphere and talk radio generally, business groups led by Dick Armey. Does anyone actually believe that what motivates them is concern over the excessive, corrupting influence of Wall Street and large corporations in government? Please. They are pure GOP partisans who are exploiting citizen anger to undermine Democratic politicians in order to return the GOP to political power. It’s nothing more noble or profound than that. In fact, many of the movement leaders are among the most vocal advocates for unfettered corporate power. From the expansions of the Surveillance State and endless imperial power to strident opposition to lobbyist reforms, they support the very policies that most empower those corrupting groups and further the government-corporate merger. If they’re so concerned about excessive government power, debt and corporate influence and corruption, where were they during the Bush era? Cheering it all on. They didn’t discover their “small-government principles” until Barack Obama was inaugurated and it became a means for undermining his administration and recovering from Republican political ruin.

There is much more on the link, if you care to read it.

The point is subjective Greenwald defends unfair attacks against ACORN against subjective Brietbart, Beck, Limbaugh and Fox "News" while the non-subjective corporate media of which Keller is a proud member of follows swallows subjective Brietbart, Beck, Limbaugh and Fox "News" hook, line and sinker.

The corporate media's pretense of being non-subjective is nothing but a deceit against their readers.

[WillyT]

62. Uncle Joe... I'd Just Like To Say... You're The Best !!!

[Luminous Animal]

63. That is an excellent post.

[Rex]

29. The future is unknown...

[KG]

49. rock n roll is straight from hell!

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Ok, this is fully.

Yup, reporters are trained to in theory keep opinions to themselves. (And trust me, at times it is hard)... but, major media has not done that for decades, and increasingly it is more commentary and less reporting.

It is both sides that are activist, just in a different way.

Yup, that's about it Willie.

[SidDithers]

35. If he is, we're fucked...nt

Sid

[Luminous Animal]

47. Greenwald will destroy the world!

So which horseman is he? Conquest, War, Famine, or Death?

[SidDithers]

48. I don't think Bozo was one of the Four Horsemen...nt

Sid

[Shampoyeto]

51. You always have so little to say

Can you explain the reasoningg behind your one-liners?

[SidDithers]

54. Two weeks in and you've got me all figured out...

Lemme guess. Long-time lurker?



Sid

[Shampoyeto]

58. Two weeks typing one-liners is way too much

Don't you think?
Did you explain the reasoning behind your one-line arguments previous to that?

[dionysus]

60. repeat customer? vaht?

[questionseverything]

36. from the article

But to the broader point: even if one were to assume for the sake of argument that WikiLeaks’ more aggressive transparency may occasionally result in excess disclosures (a proposition I reject), the more government-friendly posture of The N.Y.T. and similar outlets often produces quite harmful journalism of its own. It wasn’t WikiLeaks that laundered false official claims about Saddam’s W.M.D.’s and alliance with Al Qaeda on its front page under the guise of “news” to help start a heinous war. It isn’t WikiLeaks that routinely gives anonymity to U.S. officials to allow them to spread leader-glorifying mythologies or quite toxic smears of government critics without any accountability.

It isn’t WikiLeaks that prints incredibly incendiary accusations about American whistle-blowers without a shred of evidence. And it wasn’t WikiLeaks that allowed the American people to re-elect George Bush while knowing, but concealing, that he was eavesdropping on them in exactly the way the criminal law prohibited.
/////////////////////

nyt also helped defund acorn by running all that pimp story crap and refusing to print retraction

[WillyT]

37. THANK YOU !!!

[UTUSN]

39. No: DRUDGE covered that niche. n/t

[randome]

40. Hope not.

Unless fighting tax charges and liens relating to his failed porn business is the wave of the future.

The guy a is litigious nitwit.

http://gawker.com/glenn-greenwald-takes-his-turn-in-the-spotlight-593163038
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[BluegrassStateBlues]

42. Buried on page 6.

We welcome and want anyone devoted to true adversarial journalism regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum, and have already been speaking with conservative journalists like that: real conservatives.

[RainDog]

44. good exchange

the kind of communication that's useful for the profession.

[Chan790]

46. No.

He wont. He's too much of a megalomaniacal narcissist; he's going to face the Faustian bargain of all people like GG in media: "Is is it worse to be boring or a liar?"

They always decide that boring is worse and so they become more and more detached from the truth until they have the kind of credibility Glenn Beck enjoys. Why it happens is simple: Very little of current affairs particularly where it concerns foreign affairs and civil liberties is Snowdens and Assanges, war crimes and Wikileaks; most of it is sausage-making and the dry-bread of nebbishy analysis of diplomatic craft and constitutional law. It's 6-player blindfold Chinese checkers, not chess and certainly nothing interesting to watch or read. So to keep eyeballs, you chase every crackpot theory and scheme and mysterious stranger who claims to have scandal at hand and you punch them up to be more interesting still. If it bleeds, it leads until you're living by the one-line media criticism of The Man who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". One day you wake up and all your dreams, aspirations and integrity is the dull smouldering ash of four-color-print newsstand tabloids screaming about "bat boy!" and Taitian "Obama conspiracies."

To put it another way, he won't be because he lacks the integrity to be boring.

[tridim]

52. The future of RW Libertarian "news", at best.

"Ron Paul TV" can syndicate it!!!11

[Hutzpa]

53. They need a solid gate-keeper

in all sense of the word, if they can find that then they are almost complete, they also
need to look at the failure of wikileaks and others, then look at the success of sites
like Huffpost etc.

[MineralMan]

56. I certainly hope not.

But times are changing, I guess, so it may well be.

[lordsummerisle]

57. $200 million seems like a lot

what do you get for that...?