The Hot Blog

Somewhere Matt Drudge is smiling.

"should we just expect every word spoken by candidates and thier surrogates to be taped, transcribed and parsed from now on"

Yes, and you know, it goes both ways - if not for this we wouldn't have had "Macaca" in 2006.

At first, though, I expected you to mention that so-called Charlie Crist sex tape.

Yes, David, all politicians should expect to have their words taped for posterity. After all, they are in the public eye. Therefore, the old saying about thinking before you speak (and it's follow-up: looking before you leap). Don't say stuff if you don't want it thrown back in your face and don't write stuff if you don't want it recorded forever.

Given the shameful behavior of the Clintons over the past 16 years (and far longer; my girlfriend's from Arkansas and there is plenty of dirt beyond what has been uncovered), I feel no sorrow for them. Nor for those who voted for them.

You might find it helpful to read this post from Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor who helped create the Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" project, which Mayhill Fowler is part of. Rosen makes the case for "citizen journalism."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/the-uncharted-from-off-th_b_96575.html



I don't think the solution is for all politicians to be recorded all the time, so they can be caught in "gotcha" moments. But I do think that the definition of journalism has been expanded.

By the way, Rosen's account makes it clear that the "bitter" remarks in San Francisco were not "secretly taped."

Like I said, Pop, not really sure where I stand on this.

That said, the explanation of Fowler being in the room where she taped Obama is disingenuous. Fowler and every other civilian in the room was there because they had given Obama $2300... this was no group of "unaffiliated" professors, housewives, union workers who just "gave to his campaign." They gave the max.

Fowler's perspective on the other people she claims were also be taping or videotaping would seem to have turned out to be wrong... notice that not a single other person has delivered an audio tape, a videotape, or even a single image of the evening. Rosen's account is based exclusively on what Fowler said... and Fowler has had no back-up for that... nor has she stepped up, aside from a couple of phone interviews when the tape transcript first landed.

That said, it was a quasi-public event and yes, things have changed.

Still, it feeds into the Big Brother discomfort of every moment of every life being fair game for public consumption.

Do we really think it would be "citizen journalism" for some hot young woman to make the effort to get Bill Clinton - or even Charlie Sheen - into a sexual situation and run audio tape for the media to then air?

You may think that's hyperbole, but it is a serious question. How different would that be?

And isn't this why the New York Times and Vanity Fair are running so many stories without attribution these days? Aren't we setting ourselves up for public figures to never speak honestly to anyone but their private circle ever again?

Moreover, The Huffington Post - which has become a high-quality go-to source during this election cycle for me... even paying a subscription for it on my Kindle - failed as an editor of this "citizen blogger" by allowing the tape to be published on their site without offering real context until after the tiger they had by the tail started biting.

And now, here we are again with Clinton. It's clear that Fowler didn't identify herself as a journalist or a blogger. A 60something woman greeting the former president by taking his side, harshly, on the Vanity Fair story, and he starts selling.

Don't get me wrong. To me, that IS Bill Clinton on that tape. He's a guy who will rant and rave, even as others stop by to kiss up to him, and claim that he hasn't read the story and that it doesn't bother him "and it shouldn't bother you."

But Fowler clearly plays this game where she goes where the candidates and surrogates are in their element and relaxing in the safety of supporters and then "getting" them. It made me uncomfortable when she did it to Obama and it makes me uncomfortable when she does it to Bill Clinton... and the Obama thing was far worse because it was pulled so far out of context and there was that very odd thing about "I knew this would cause trouble... I sat on it for a while... and I decided that it bothered me, so I published it."

And again, HuffPo is in that very nebulous place, rationalizing this as "citizen journalism" when it's not journalism at all... it's give 100 monkeys 100 tape recorders (and in fowler's case, apparently 10s of thousands of dollars to follow campaigns around the country like a groupie) and one of them will break a news story. It's a lot cheaper than hiring Anthony Pellicano, but is it any more honorable? I ask the question, again, in earnest.

PS Reading back my comment, it finally struck me.

One of the reasons Ms Fowler's behavior so disturbs me is that the actions an actual journalist would take, given the non-breaking-in-real-time nature of the Obama tape, would be to ask the campaign for comment on what was about to break.

And this comes from my own perspective as a part of the web community, without an editor. I don't spend a lot of time on the phone with studio spinners getting spun. There is little point, to me, to run the studio line. I know what the studio line is. But when I have a piece of information that I am going to run, if it is potentially explosive, there is a core demand for context.

After years of considering the issue of why Traditional Media treats the web like some irritant, not giving credit where credit is due, I think this is a part of it. We don't behave the same way they have - and have been forced to by the bosses - forever.

Mayhill Fowler has lowered that standard even more... in a way that makes even this inside outsider uncomfortable.

Would it have been so hard for Fowler or the HuffPo to go to Obama and say, "Look... we have this tape... fair and square... how can you rationalize talking like that in public?" or "Look, Bill... you sounded a little insane here... were you just riled up... are we scumbags for running it... please comment."

For me, the failure of journalism, whether Traditional or New, comes from a lack of perspective and insight. It's what I scream about with the NYT at times or Nikki Finke or whomever. It's not that, say, Nikki can't rage about women not getting play in Hollywood. It's the absolute, seemingly willful, disinterest in the facts, much happier just shitting all over the target as though that was insight. It's not insight. It's gossip. And when big papers take an editorial position that isn't well thought out... it's damaging... because it is followed as fact... but it's not.

Why didn't HuffPo follow up? Wouldn't that be the most fundamental idea of what a journalist, citizen or otherwise, would do?

I'm reminded of an SNL Sprockets bit with Kyle MacLachlan as the wacky neighbor from the hit German TV show, "Who Are You To Accuse Me?"

"Do we really think it would be 'citizen journalism' for some hot young woman to make the effort to get Bill Clinton - or even Charlie Sheen - into a sexual situation and run audio tape for the media to then air? You may think that's hyperbole, but it is a serious question. How different would that be?"

Something like that already happened -- 11 years ago.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1997/06/02/1997-06-02_gifford_tape_full_of_frank_s.html

"Still, it feeds into the Big Brother discomfort of every moment of every life being fair game for public consumption."

That's my discomfort with it. If the words are 'newsworthy', to what extent can a person go to get it? What ends justify the means?

And conversely, if every nugget exists in an atmosphere that doesn't concern itself with how it was unearthed or whether there is context, how can we trust anything or maintain any connection above the lowest common denominator?

I do believe that action, not words or rhetoric, defines a person and shows us what they really believe. And even in the Land o' Gotcha, I would be okay with that if that was an even playing field. But what I see is that people argue that when gotcha agrees with what they choose to believe, it's ok... and when it disagrees, it is a rape of their ideals.

Journalists, and those who call themselves journalists, have a responsibilty to be above that fray... so I believe.

And when we/I fail, as we inevitably will, we must take responsibility and own up to being wrong. The power of morality is not that we can all live up to it all the time, but that we honestly believe in the effort to do so and make a sincere effort to live up to what we say we believe.

Dave, there's a lot of fear bound up in your posts. What are you afraid of? The next Rev. Wright/Trinity tape? The next "clinging" release?

Yeah, you're afraid, and you should be.

Eeewwwwww... scary, Kidkosmic!!!

Please note... if this is the weak shit that McCain has on Obama, Obama will win by a lot wider margin than he did with Clinton. Clinton is a much tougher candidate against Obama.

I fear the degradation of my profession and of discourse between adults.

I was a McCain supporter against Bush… but he really looks like the crazy uncle in the attic these days. I am shockingly unafraid of McCain.

And please… be careful of what you wish on Obama, because McCain’s mouth is a lot more likely to take him down via secret recording than Obama’s is. I wouldn’t be remotely surprised the race comes down to an October debate where McCain tries to win a point with Reaganesque snark, doesn’t get the expected reaction, and melts down.

You know what my biggest fear of McCain is? That he actually will find himself again. But right now, he’s so very lost that he will lose by almost as much as Dukakis, aided only by the color of Obama’s skin, which will cost his 5% of the vote, aside from the 15% of people who wouldn’t vote Democrat anyway, but whose racism will be redundant.

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