Ezra Klein’s “JournoList 400” is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism. Now that collusion has been exposed when one of the weakest links in that cabal, Dave Weigel, was outed. Weigel was, in all likelihood, exposed because – to whoever the rat was who leaked his emails — he wasn’t liberal enough....ADDED: Mediaite thinks it's "unlikely" that any Journolister will spring for the $100,000. I don't really understand her argument. It only takes one person to decide to disclose. I think it's obvious someone with a mix of motives, including a desire for $100,000, is likely to do it. There's a great argument for transparency and freeing information — for the public good. I, personally, believe that argument. And it's impossible for me to believe that in a group that size, with that many people, people who are in competition with each other, that there isn't one person who feels on the outs and isn't interested in protecting anybody. Indeed, human nature being what it is, there are probably a few people who would love to see some of the prominent Journolisters exposed as... whatever the exposure would expose them as.
AND: Then there's the nothing-to-see-here-move-along gambit: Jonathan Chait insists that the conversations were "mundane..... requests for references... instantaneous reactions to events, joshing around, conversations about sports, and the like...." Matthew Yglesias portrays it as talk about sports, links to published articles, and "failed efforts to get an interesting discussion going."
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If I were a liberal on Journolist, $100,000 wouldn't buy my scruples.
I'd hold out for $300,000.
$1,000,000 buys the whole thing - no redactions, no missed dates, no blackouts.
Oh Please!!!!!
Breitbart is a force of nature and I'm glad he's on my side, if I can put it that way. But if I were trying to convince someone to sell all of the archives to me, I wouldn't call the person who leaked part of the archives to someone else a "rat."
I'm sure if Breitbart agreed to pay in cash some low-level, low-paid lefty blogger who just managed to get on the list would jump at this.
Aside from not wanting a paper-trail, I'm sure they don't want the IRS involved, what with taxes being so high right now.
They are going to come out of the woodwork for the dough.
That's what cockroachs do after all.
TRO;
A liberal trying to avoid taxes? What world do you live in? Heh.
Remember, being the second to turn over the list gets you nothing. Sell out your comrades quickly, leftists, before they sell you out first!
Remember, it's noble to be a whistleblower!
Can Breitbart claim a portion of the revenues from all the future successful libel suits where Journolist postings are used to prove actual malice?
Go, Andrew, go!
I wonder how many people are at this very moment printing out hard copies in a race to claim the prize.
Did you know conservatives email each other and political operatives sometimes???? And that there's a LIST??? A SECRET LIST??? ZOMG
Fire everyone, congressional inquiry, impeach, etc. etc.
I only regret that I never developed my cracking skills.
How will he know if he got the "full Journolist archive" and not just a selectively edited (or created?) version?
MM
Let me suggest a difference. The Journolist was a group of "journalists" who apparently shared and coordinated stories. They portrayed themselves as impartial and independent. They weren't.
The list that you link to is owned by the House minority leader's office. It is obviously political. There are no pretenses to the contrary. And, I suspect there is much less peer-to-peer coordination and much more top-down communications.
Other than that, they are close to identical.
Liberals clearly run the media, as evidenced by the revelation that the "Top of the Ticket" blog at the LA Times is written by former Bush WH flacks...
Jornolist: the umpteenth absurd "controversy" drummed up by the right that has little or no significance outside their fevered sewing circles.
It probably won't be one of the journolisters who turns this over, unless the server resided in someone's basment.
There's some system administrator out there who has access to the backups for that server, and 100K for a backup set will look mighty good. Especially since his name won't be anywhere on the list, and he has no loyalty to this or any other political cause.
Althouse quoted in WSJ article by James Taranto.
Interesting...it's kind of a journalistic Prisoner's Dilemma.
They will all watch to see who suddenly buys a Bentley and then rush to see what that guy left out, or added.
...besides, anyone dumb enough to post incriminating or embarrassing material to an e-mail list with **400** people on it is too stupid to be a professional journalist.
MM - interesting link and it is conservatives criticizing the GOP. Quite the opposite of the Journolist.
I hope that the outcome of this will be that DC-based journalists will think twice before entering into intimate relationships with their sources. It's too easy to get your card pulled.
wv: brati
It would take a patriot to step forward, not a rat.
People who are against the disclosure, are people who constantly rip other people behind their back. And you know why? Because they are cowards. Unable to look someone in the eye, and say what they think of them. They do this because those people are always fearful of getting their asses kicked.
This seems short sighted to me and I suspect will come back to bite us in the ass.
Conservatives are not the orthodoxy. Whatever we say or write will be judged to be more outside of the political mainstream than our counterparts on the left.
Do we really want to make it the norm that private conversations and e-mail discussions should from now on be made public? I have been in some private discussions among conservative activists/journalists were people spoke quite freely. I would not want those conversations to now be put out there for public consumption.
I appreciate that people are enjoying this sandbox dust up. But it seems more than a tad bit shortsighted, unprincipled and not well thought out.
Wow, does Tidy smell like a Moby or what?
Not saying he is or nothin'. I haven't been around much lately. But that just pinged the Mobydar.
Althouse quoted in WSJ article by James Taranto.
The more interesting tidbit in that link is the comparison between the obits of Thurmond and Byrd.
...besides, anyone dumb enough to post incriminating or embarrassing material to an e-mail list with **400** people on it is too stupid to be a professional journalist.
I don't think there's anyone who is "too stupid to be a professional journalist." That seems a job requirement. Read any MSM article on a subject you're knowledable about and count the mistakes. It's only reasonable to believe that all of the other articles are equally inaccurate.
"Jornolist: the umpteenth absurd "controversy" drummed up by the right that has little or no significance outside their fevered sewing circles."
Well then $100,000 ought to bring it forth pretty quickly, if it has not significance, don't you think MM?
If it's of no significance, it can only be because we already pretty much know with a high level of confidence what kinds of crap it will contain.
Drudge is studiously avoiding this bit of news. I wonder what's with that?
"Do we really want to make it the norm that private conversations and e-mail discussions should from now on be made public?"
I run an job-related e-mail list that has 150 people on it from 50 different organizations. I assume that anything I send to this list is subject to ending up on the front page of the local paper. You'd be a fool to believe anything different...
non-trivial technical problems
Tidy,
As an IT professional of 30 years, let me assure you that your e-mails remain private because no one along the data route cares to make them public. If you want your e-mails to remain private, encrypt them.
Never, ever assume that the only people seeing your data are you and the intended recipients. There's many hands involved in keeping modern IT infrastructure working, and almost all of those people have access at some point to your data once it leaves your PC.
The're just too overwhelmed to care what it is most of the time.
Who will fink on his friends for money?
Probably the same person who ratted out Weigel.
Who will want to be known for the rest of his life as the fellow who finked on his friends for money?
Somebody planning to change careers.
I would hope there is at least one Jorno with enough integrity to disclose the archive without even taking money, but my opinion on journalists' integrity and courage is so low that I don't hold my breath for Journo whistleblower.
100k to peek at the Juicebox Kids email. Desperation time.
Just occurred to me: the more innocuous the contents, the faster someone will grab the offer.
I forgot to mention: Breitbart must have no sense of irony, because he swore to keep secret the name of whoever exposes the secret archive to him.
Did you know conservatives email each other and political operatives sometimes???? And that there's a LIST??? A SECRET LIST??? ZOMG
That's TOTALLY different!
But you would be really noble if you leaked the list and renounced the payment.
And maybe Breitbart would still keep the leaker's name secret? Do ya' think?
I'll rely on the summary, when they get released, thanks.
Dead Julius--
Google is (allegedly) the company that doesn't ever delete anything. Assuming that the recipients are the only ones with copies is perhaps unwise.
The belief that there's always a weak link in the chain would seem to apply to Breitbart's operation as well.
And once it's public, Ann can find out if she's got a good faith basis for her defamation claim!!!
"mundane..... requests for references... instantaneous reactions to events, joshing around, conversations about sports, and the like...."
Oh, God. What did they talk about? The New York Giants?
WV: haryi
Next WV: caryi
BTW, the left can stop with the snark, given the shrieking they did over Jeff Gannon.
I don't see what the big deal is. I know Insty quoted this guy saying 400 influential lefties got together regularly to coordinate their stories that they presented as independent in various media outlets.
Well. Duh.
"nothing-to-see-here-move-along"
Well, then, what you and your fellow Rightist bloggers need to do, Althouse, is to start making shit up...
Maybe some mid-rank blogger can write a post based on a fake conversation with a fabricated "liberal source" who will verify that, yes, indeed there was a concerted effort by liberal MSM reporters to portray your blog as anti-Semitic back in March 2009.
Then Instaputz and you both link to that post, and hopefully others will too.
That will either motivate one of the Jornolisters to leak the archives to prove that the claim is bullshit, or else it'll motivate one of them to leak it to prove that the claim is true.
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Journolist?
Garage, et al: All the right wingers meet every night and plan out how we are going to screw the poor, the peoples of color, women and the transgendered. We talk about them one by one. No one ever breaks the code. Ever. We might, of course, if you waterboarded one of us which you wouldn't. Can't bribe us because we're all already rich and don't care if chili goes for $100 a bowl. Only the lefties can be corrupted so cheaply, so easily, in such a public and fun filled way.
As YoungHegelian touches on above, there are far more than 400 people who have access to the prize. This is as out as a gay reality show star.
@blake-
Dude, are you suggesting getting it from a Google employee?
Good luck! Those guys have this thing called "ethics", you know. They won't leak it. Not for $100K, not for $1M.
You need to concentrate your effort on those in non-ethical occupations like journalism and politics.
fls,
I'm not exactly sure where you
Just a minute.
I'm getting a message over my secret decoder ring.
I think it's Limbaugh. Gotta go....
Hey they didn't talk about the New York Giants. They are a bunch of pussies.
They were talking about soccer.
"Those guys (Google) have this thing called "ethics""
Just ask a Chinese dissident.
Breibart you bastard. No fair. This is just like dragging a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park, except we know what we'll find.
Soccer like totally sucks.
DJ--
Eh. I've seen plenty of my peers do far worse for far less. (As I imagine people in any industry for any length of time have.) Google is not composed of wealthy saints.
The statements by Chait and Yglesias ("it was really boring") don't match with the first set of descriptions that were made around the time of the initial leak by Laus.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html
“it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”
"It's not an echo chamber. I have never seen a less echo chamber-like space in my life."
The frequent disputes among members, he said, are “what’s most entertaining on the list.”
“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”
We all knew what these Journolist people were, we just didn't know what price they need, to perform.
Yeah Blake, because the revelation that the White House press office was basically employing an ex gay porn star who worked for a fake paper to ask softball questions during press conferences is EXACTLY the same thing as left of center journalists and policy people having a listserv.
Close enough for government work.
easy on the ex gay stuff MM or you'll have dtl all over your ass. I mean figuratively.
Just occurred to me: the more innocuous the contents, the faster someone will grab the offer.
Yeah, that was my thought, too. Now, apply the logic the other way—if nobody takes the offer, how non-innocuous does that imply the contents are?
Garage, et al: All the right wingers meet every night and plan out how we are going to screw the poor, the peoples of color, women and the transgendered.
It doesn't mean that at all. More likely, is both con and liberal wonk lists are probably excruciatingly boring. But I admit to enjoy watching Althouse, Breitbart, and the rest, just jonesing to look at this list. All that's missing is drunk-dialing and hanging up, doing drivebys Ezra Klein's office. Haha.
Yeah Blake, because the revelation that the White House press office was basically employing an ex gay porn star who worked for a fake paper to ask softball questions during press conferences is EXACTLY the same thing as left of center journalists and policy people having a listserv.
You could try being a little less hacky, Monty.
If you don't think it's worse for 400 "independent" journalists to collude on the "narrative" than for the WH to run a gay prostitution ring out of the Oval Office, you need to re-evaluate your standards.
the question will of course reduce to if the members would ever ever ever let a person into the fold who pays $100k for the list.
@ Steven and non-innocuous:
My thoughts exactly. The DNC has deeper pockets than Breitbart.
The motivations for not disclosing are not pure. People are protecting their careers, hoping for favors from powerful and well-placed co-Journolisters.
My bold, obviously. As if it is somehow impure to protect one's livelihood. I think what you're doing here is disgusting.
HDH wrote: "the question will of course reduce to if the members would ever ever ever let a person into the fold who pays $100k for the list."
Tell your attendant that it is bed time. You have had a long day.
Shhh... careful, Montagne.
Your unreasonable panic about this could be doing more damage to the Democrats.
Gannon wasn't a porn star, he was a manwhore.
I must be a dope 'cause I can't see antyhing more in this than a bunch of like-thinking people BS'ing with one another.
Sure, occasionally someone threw out a generally agreed upon narrative on issues that others took hold of. Because of laziness. Or opportunism. Or to fit in.
Liberals screwing conservatives? And conservatives screwing liberals? It was ever thus.
Two things would come of this:
1) All of this talk about collusion would end because it's hypothetical bullshit that will run head on into facts
2) More people will be fired because they said dickish things in a forum they thought was private (even if it was dumb to think that).
There's a difference between delighting in the misery of others and actually causing it.
All the people here jonesing for this -- where the fuck were you when Dick Cheney was running the National Energy Policy Development Group, leting oil executives set policy and then refusing to release any records of the meeting?
Althouse - did you deputize Breitbart?
Yglesias a sports fan?! Unless by sports they mean figure skating, this claim requires suspension of my disbelief.
If it's just a lot of sports talk and the like, you'd think they'd be racing each other to collect that easy 100 grand.
I dunno, if I had the archive, it would already be in Breitbart's hands, and I'd be thinking about how I'd be able to pay all my debts and still have a nice big pile left over.
But I still don't get why it remains a big secret that there are at least two (maybe more)conservative list-servs just like JournoList. Is Breitbart on one of those? Why doesn't InstaPundit ever mention that they exist? Why is Althouse not at all interested in asking questions about them?
But I do think it's likely that they were occasionally talking smack about Althouse on JournoList, and even encouraged each other not to link to her. So I guess she has special reason to be interested in that list-serv.
AJLynch, readingis way harder than making shit up.
Daniel said... There's a difference between delighting in the misery of others and actually causing it.
Of course there is, but maybe in the opposite way you think.
Causing the misery of others (who deserve it) is better than just delighting in it. It is similar to how having wealth by earning it is more enjoyable than having it just fall into your lap.
dbp, your words, even in jest, are absent any redeeming quality. I'm going to take the high ground by hoping that no one ever thinks that you deserve misery, and takes it upon themselves to make it happen.
Release the full Journolist archive!
Release the second chakra!
Release the Kagan!
Ah, it's mid-summer, and the Democratic party is in full bloom.
Liberal interest groups did in fact sue to make the Energy Task Force records made public.
They lost.
What was your point exactly?
I would be surprised if a whole archive even exists. Who keeps all their e-mail? It seems unrealistic to think most subscribers even bothered to read half of it. The interest in this whole thing seems way over the top to me.
Go get a beer.
No Google employee is going to puke the list for $100k. It's most likely that the people with access all have stock options worth big huge chunks.
But more than a few people are sure to have a folder set up in their email client especially for JournoList traffic; and an email filter that copies it there automatically. (Anyone with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes at the office does this to keep the email from the boss separate from the quasi junk that comes in every day.)
Just archive the emails into a folder, zip it up, send it to Andrew Breitbart, and you can pay off your credit cards, buy an SUV, and put a downpayment on that condo in Puerto Rico you've been looking at.
I am not the only person to approve of people getting what they deserve. I believe the technical term for it is justice.
It is also the main plot device in such obscure works as, The Count of Monte Cristo for instance.
Do you know of any conservative blogger and/or journalist coordination system, Althouse? Anything that could be considered similar to Journolist, but for Righties?
Seems like you ought to set your readers straight on that since the perception among Lefties is that such a thing exists and that you might be a member of it. That would be in the spirit of "cruel neutrality", don't you think?
er, SUV = Prius. I forgot, they're liberal.
Who keeps all their e-mail?
LOTS of people do.
"Wow, does Tidy smell like a Moby or what?
I'm going with a clear case of concern trolling.
Liberal interest groups did in fact sue to make the Energy Task Force records made public.
They lost.
What was your point exactly?
My point is that there are countless more important yet secret things that we need to know, but they don't satisfy the blood lust you so proudly and shamelessly put on display.
This whole thread is making me sick. Screw you guys, I'm going home.
Wonder if Larry Flynt would pay up for a conservative list. I know I'd definitely trust Flynt over Breibart with anonymity too.
Hey I used to belong to Pornolist when I had invested in a video store in the 1980's. I think Larry was a member too!
If this is a case of the hip cool kids forming a clique then that makes Ann the fat ugly girl who nobody wants around. HA-HA-HA!
I think the conservative version of JournoList is unlikely to exist.
First, policy pimps in DC tend to target liberals more than conservatives. Liberals are for big government and carve-outs for different industries, so there's no payoff in co-opting a conservative.
Second, there are vastly more liberals in the media than there are conservatives. Radio talk show hosts are flaming egotists who don't talk to each other much; and it's a rather small club anyway. Beyond them and the little opinion journals, who do you have? Fox News? That's a pretty small field. And everybody knows each other; and they run into each other at CPAC every year. Moreover, the conservative playbook isn't something that's revised with each news cycle. So there's no reason to do a "Conservative JournoList."
But hey, if y'all uncover one, I'm sure George Soros can cough up a few bucks to buy the archive.
I still get emails. The latest rumor is that Lindsey Lohan is going to star in a Linda Lovelace bio-pic.
And she is going to do her own stunts.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
Breitbart rules. That is all.
Well, not all, I guess. I think FLS is right. Every minute that nobody takes the offer is a bit more damaging that the archive must actually be.
I can totally see Breibart running something like Hustler.
Me too. I know he has already pulled off some cunning stunts.
So you know what his magizine would be full of?
Garage, if the world was the way you wanted it to be, the German car in your driveway would be a Trabant.
Dead Julius,
You seem to have a dog in this hunt.
Speaking of dogs... you know how you hit one when you throw a rock at night? If it howls.
"All the people here jonesing for this -- where the fuck were you when Dick Cheney was running the National Energy Policy Development Group, leting oil executives set policy and then refusing to release any records of the meeting?"
"Liberals screwing conservatives? And conservatives screwing liberals? It was ever thus."
It's so cute to watch (panicked) libs conflate politicians with news media. The MSM is always lecturing us about how impartial they are, irrespective of their personal political views. Any then mocking anyone who thinks otherwise.
My lib friends do this all the time. If I mention some rather obvious differences in coverage of a Republican vs that of a Democrat, or biased wording, etc..
I always get something along the lines of "But Republicans do this too!"
My answer, "Of course they do. They're politicians. So are Democrats. But we're talking about the media here."
It's funny how they unthinkingly conflate the media with the Democrats in their responses.
LOL
So you know what his magizine would be full of?
Naked pics of Eva Braun?
So you know what his magizine would be full of?
Women's track team pictures?
So how can Breibart "promise" to keep the source confidential? Is he subpoena proof?
Sounds like a great advertising ploy by Breibart to me.
Who keeps all their e-mail?
I do.
I keep all of my business emails and those pertaining to some organizations of which I am either a board member of officer. They are archived on DVDs by year and category.
My business emails are also kept and reviewed by my immediates office of supervisory jurisdiction and stored in permanent archives. Moral of that story is don't send me an email if you don't want it kept forever.
Professor Ann A, Let us hope you get the Archive. You write the best-seller and you and Meade can travel the world. I hope it happens.
But, let me guess the members here of the JournoList. They would have to be friends of Ezra, as then he would invite. Who are his friends? Matt Y., Andy Sully, someone from NYT, MSNBC (Keith?), etc.
Predict the members. Get the to deny. This would encourage someone to collect the $100K.
I think it is cowardice of Klein and others on the list (strategizing how to fool the public so as to hide the truth of bad democrats) is making me upset. I am committed democrat but I cannot be around losers like Klein, Weigel, and other pseduo-intellectuals.
"Sounds like a great advertising ploy by Breibart to me."
Well, yea.
GM pulls a Godwin!!
7 out of 10 for style!
(Minus several million for applicability.)
If you are a straight male, and you find that you suddenly have a fleeting crush on Andrew Breitbart today, you should know that this does not indicate that you are truly gay, only that you recognize awesome.
Fleeting?
uh oh
"Release the Kagan" never gets old.
"There's many hands involved in keeping modern IT infrastructure working, and almost all of those people have access at some point to your data once it leaves your PC. They're just too overwhelmed to care what it is most of the time."
But since 100 large is on the line ... I'll be restoring that backup to my hard drive and sneaker-netting it over to Andrew for the cash. Thank you very much.
And any IT employee in the Journo-list food chain would be smart to do the same.
$100K is a lot of scratch, people, especially at these newspapers paying these stupid children to report the "news" while simultaneously creating a fucking "actual malice" trail a mile fucking long.
Some publishers had better get their fucking heads out of their asses before this little game gets out of hand.
It's time for the grown-ups to exert some discipline on these kiddies and yank their reigns.
Hey Eva was a hot piece of strudel. Just sayn'
What?
You want journolist's favorite broad?
Scott: I think the conservative version of JournoList is unlikely to exist.
We already proved that more than one conservative list-serv, described as similar to JournoList, exist. InstaPundit isn't interested in letting you know that hey exist. Althouse isn't curious about what's going on on them. Breitbart hasn't offered money for their archives.
Odd that the conservative bloggers who want us to push so hard for the archives of JournoList also don't seem to want us to know anything at all about the conservative list-servs. They're quite happy to have you believing, as you do, that such conservative list-servs are "unlikely to exist".
But we did show they exist in this thread the other day: LINK (scroll towards the end)
For example, conservaive blogger Jeff Dunez confessed in a piece on the site Big Journalism:
"I am a member of two conservative blogger/journalist lists similar to the liberal one that got Wiegel in trouble. Among the members of each list there is a strict understanding of “omerta,” what’s said on the list stays on the list. So there is some compassion for Weigel because someone broke his trust."
And another conservative admitted:
I’m on a bunch of conservative listservs. I won’t violate their off-the-record policies by publishing specific comments here, but I will say upfront that there are things I see daily on most of them that, if the comments ever appeared in public, would result in a lot of egg on face….
Those links and others are in that thread fromthe other day; I don't feel like moving all the links to this thread.
And, did you read this from Ezra Klein today?
What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?
Sadly, I don't run such a list. Never have, either. The rule for Journolist was that no one who worked for the government in any capacity could join or, if they took a job with the government, remain. But it turns out that there is exactly such a list on the right. Dan Riehl, a prominent conservative blogger, revealed its existence today when he quit in a huff because John Boehner's director of new media hurt his feelings.
It was, he said, "a private RNC-related Listserv," and in publishing comments from it, he was "violating the presumed TOS [terms of service] for the private list."
If there is nothing but sports discussions and failed attempts to generate conversation - then there should be no problem cashing the $100,000 check, right?
What a bunch of whiny, paranoid, babies.
Why do you think you have the right to steal someone else's mails, you ethic-free thieves?
"Hey, we stole those climate scientist emails off their servers and that worked pretty good."
And, Althouse, your paranoid post the other day trying to make it all about you was a real hoot.
"Vanity, thy name is Althouse!"
If it does end up in Breitbart's hands, why do I get the feeling it will turn out to be the domestic equivalent of the Venona diaries?
AJ Lynch said...
Althouse - did you deputize Breitbart?
Marshal Althouse of the Internet. Has a ring to it.
How do you look in a cowboy hat, Ann?
garage mahal said...
So you know what his magizine would be full of?
Naked pics of Eva Braun?
Don't laugh. One of the habits she had that Adolf didn't like was her nude sunbathing.
LoafingOaf,
I would definitely be interested in a list like that but not as interested because it's not likely to have been very influential. There just aren't enough conservative journalists for them to steer a narrative.
You see, Scott, InstaPundit is the kind of blogger who will, on the same day, be linking to Breitbart's cash reward to expose the JournoList archives while also throwing links to conservative bloggers he knows very well are coordinating their Republican propaganda on conservative list-servs.
And then, Scott, he'll read a comment like yours where you seem to believe that it's unlikely that conservative list-servs like JounroList exist, and he will smile at how his tactics worked on you.
That Breitbart is what passes for a star among conservatives today reflects very badly on the con's.
The guy is a serial liar. His protege's are convicted criminals and have been shown to fraudulently edit their videos.
Not that conservatives give a tinker's dam about practicing ethics or honesty.
I agree that there is likely a large part of the Journolist that is boring talk. There are probably flame wars. Maybe 10% is really interesting. Less than 1% will be bombshellish.
You see, Scott, InstaPundit is the kind of blogger who will...
Actually I don't think he's that kind of blogger at all.
@LO: There are listservs, and there are listservs.
The insideous nature of JournoList is that, by Ezra Klein's design, it paired policy pimps with journalists. That is a truly nasty combination. Ethical journalists should not get naked with their sources, period. Massively uncool. That's why I agree with Andrew Breitbart. The archive is worth $100k.
As for conservative listservs, of course they exist. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands; as there are politically oriented lists of every type.
But again, I don't think that there is one that pairs conservative journalists with conservative policy wonks, simply because there aren't that many conservative journalists (you couldn't fill a small hotel ballroom with them), and there's no gain for policy pimps to co-opt them.
Who keeps all their e-mail?
I keep a large part of it. Anything work related. If it's just discussion of current events, it may or may not be saved.
My boss has all his emails, ever.
WIth attachments, the size of the email folder gets very large.
AlphaSockPuppet's invective isn't even clever anymore. **yawn**
Chuck B asked:
"Who keeps all their emails"?
This was not traditional email. I was a listserve where members log in and look at the many comments of vaious topics. Typically, a member would ask "Hey did you see Meet The Press on Sunday? and put a subject in the topic line.
Then whoever responded would cary the same topic line in their comment AND THE NAME OF THE RESPONDER OR COMMENTER. So the entire history of comments is maintained by the ISP provider {Google?} who hosted the listserve. Generally only the list serve administrator or moderator [Ezra Klein?] could delete comments.
Alpha,
Nobody is stealing anything. It's being bought. That's the American way.
I think nearly the whole political blogosphere has become little more than a bunch of coordinating, propagandistic little shits on both sides.
Oaf,
We went through this yesterday. So what if the Republicans have a listserve where the House minority leader can distribute the party line. I have no doubt that the Democrats at some level do too. Or, at least both parties had FAX lists that they used for this purpose. Listserves are fairly old technology (I joined my first one some 20 or so years ago), and so am not surprised that the Republicans have discovered this technology.
But there is no indication that this GOP list has hundreds of "journalists" participating, and esp. those that at least pretend to be unbiased. And it is unlikely that you would find a concerted effort to change the subject or suppress news stories by those actually writing the news stories, to a unified political end on any GOP list.
No, what we are seeing here is the Journolist people trying desperately to change the subject to the Republicans do the same thing, except, of course, that they don't. They know that they were caught this time around, and are desperate not to have their work of the last 4 or so years exposed for what it was - highly partisan management of the news for political advantage, all the while pretending to be unbiased journalists just reporting the news.
That's not fair. Andrew Sullivan is a big piece of shit. Fair is fair.
"Why do you think you have the right to steal someone else's mails, you ethic-free thieves?"
They're not your emails, you moron.
These emails belong to the companies on whose servers they exist. And in my IT department, they belongs to me, bitch.
They're not yours. They're not private.
And if you weren't such a fucking douchebag tool, you'd be able to figure it out.
We're not playing checkers you fucking pussy. We're playing for keeps.
Stop your fucking whining. There's no crying in politics you fucking little girl.
@AJ Lynch: Good point. A person can login to their Google Groups account and look at the messages online. But they also have the option to have the group messages sent to them.
In your opinion, out of, say, 400 people in the list, what's your best SWAG about how many chose to have their messages sent to them; and of those, how many had the messages filtered to a folder in their email client? I'm guessing it might be around 1% (4 or so people). But I've never done that kind of admin before so your insights would be valuable.
I'd love to see if there was any discussion about, oh, I don't know, how Obama's personal history is practically non-existent and it better stay that way.
Or why Palin's personal history, OTOH, warranted dozens of snoops and lawyers descending on Wasilla, AK like a pack of locusts because of the "public's right to know".
Even if Breitbart never gets his archives, his waving around $100k is getting people talking. :)
Hey maybe they can feature some hot photos of our new justice Kagan!
I have to object to the tin ear to etymology.
Journal has the same root as diurnal, daily.
Journol would be from some urinary tract drug.
Rh you freak me out man.
Hell most journalists would sell out another journalist for a few free drinks and lunch.
I think it's the norm on a Google or Yahoo group to have the messages emailed to you. At least it is on all the ones I'm on.
"The guy is a serial liar. His protege's are convicted criminals and have been shown to fraudulently edit their videos."
I take it you studied under Goebbels, and that's why you endlessly repeat the same lies over and over?
Scott:
I have belonged to a few and never used that option [of emailing every comment to my own email].
I suspect it would be minimal because why junk your email with every comment from the listserve. Plus even if you had the emails sent to your private email, your responses to the listserve are part of the archive.
So I can't give you a % estimate.
Email from Conservolist:
From: MrGOPPolicy@gop.com
To: conservolist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Week's Spin
Hello, my journalist friends!
I've attached a DOC file with what I think are the important points this week. I hope they can be of use to both of you.
I would be surprised if a whole archive even exists. Who keeps all their e-mail?
I keep everything from my mailing lists. GMail makes it easy, and easy to search.
I had a disk drive crash a few years ago, so there'd be a gap, but I otherwise have all my e-mail since 1991.
Its the "instantaneous reactions to events" that will prove amusing and revealing.
Hahaha, Trooper. Spooner rules.
So Freeman:
If you get that email from the list serve and you respond to the listserve group, that response is archived within the listersve server I assume?
Iowahawk, the funniest guy on the intertubes, claims to have the archive -- he posts a portion here:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/06/ill-take-a-cashiers-check-mr-breitbart.html
Btw people who save emails for years are cuckoo [unless you have a regulatory requirement like DBQ].
Stage whisper: Plus I don't have the guts to call DBQ cuckoo
I see the leftists in this thread largely taking the same tack: conservatives could have a similar group. The difference, left unsaid, naturally, is that there are virtually no conservatives working at news entities that hold themselves out as neutral and objective. If some people at National Review and Commentary, etc. have a group, who cares? Those entities are outwardly conservative and outwardly trying to shape the news.
The difference here is that something is being done privately to shape the news and then present it as objective.
All of that said, there's no way this archive is worth $100,000. Maybe $2500. I'd say $5000 tops.
well, here's my question. how many people even bothered to keep an archive. i mean it is gone, now, right? so maybe out of 400, 5 kept it?
Well, i guess it will either appear or it won't. i would love to read it myself. could be worse than that east anglia data dump.
Why doesn't Althouse send her entire email archive up on a post, to show she is serious? Isn't that the Insta-House creed - do as you preach? [Al Gore has a big house].
Im putting up $50. Presumably Meade would be the only one with access, and INTEGRITY! to do it. But still. Maybe he needs the fifty bucks!
Garage -- Has Althouse set up a private group that has tried to shape what is presented as objective news?
Whether she does or not, you are certainly free to ask her to put up such an archive. Why does it bother you so that she is asking someone else to put up this archive? Why can you ask, but she can't?
Garage:
Get a clue and try to grasp the concept of a listserve. It ain't the same as an email account.
Reading the Journolist archive will be like reading the Ingredients and Nutritional Info. panels on a box of breakfast cereal.
Instead of learning that I'm getting 20% of my daily Niacin in a bowl of Crispix, I'll learn how much of my daily Bolshevism I'm getting in 15 minutes of CNN.
Matthew Yglesias portrays it as talk about sports, links to published articles, and "failed efforts to get an interesting discussion going."
Well, sweet! Matt can pick up a cool hundred grand without even losing sleep over it!
We already proved that more than one conservative list-serv, described as similar to JournoList, exist
Very subtle wording. Yes, indeed, the following two things have been proven:
(1): Conservative listservs exist.
(2): These listservs have been described -- e.g., by you, garage, and other lefties -- as "similar to JournoList".
But of course you're trying to imply that they are provably similar to JournoList. That, of course, is nonsense.
It is with a serious sense of irony that I remind Althousians that the soap opera, "As the World Turns" ended their 54 year run without ONCE having grandpop "Pot" calling little kitten "Kettle" black.
All were in agreement that the red had taken over their spreadsheet.
Why doesn't Althouse send her entire email archive up on a post, to show she is serious?
Please explain the demented reasoning by which sharing her email with the world would "show she is serious" about wanting to see the contents of JournoList.
That's like saying that any man serious about wanting to see Megan Fox in her birthday suit should post naked photos of himself to the Internet. It might make sense on your planet but it doesn't bear much resemblance to Earth logic.
"All were in agreement that the red had taken over their spreadsheet."
OBTW, "Red on Spreadsheet" is not to be mistaken for any other "red".
Sorry, but I had to say that given the unfolding news of soviet spies.
"Why doesn't Althouse send her entire email archive up on a post, to show she is serious?"
Because she doesn't have to you fucking dolt.
What don't you get about this, Garage?
Do you think it's a game of Even Steven?
It's not.
There are 400 journalists who are conspiring to shape what gets said in the nation's newspapers.
And then there's Ann.
Now, I know you can't see the difference because you're a fucking douchebag tool and we have access to your archive of oneliners here and so we don't expect you to be able to figure out why 400 elite newsmakers all working in tandem with Barack Obama represents a New American Reich.
So why don't you just retire to bed, kiddie while the adults discuss how we're going to bitch-slap your Sophomore Class President.
Speaking of soviet spies...
Not sure about you, but personally? I am heartened that Breitbart has easier access to $100,000 than those spies begging the Russians for a down payment on a house in the suburbs.
"instantaneous reactions to events,"
I for one would like to see these. Someone's first reaction to something is usually the truthier one.
Please explain the demented reasoning by which sharing her email with the world would "show she is serious" about wanting to see the contents of JournoList.
Because she is asking other people to show their archives. Al Gore has a big house and all....This is a great chance to show everyone that she isn't like one of those weasely hypocritical liberals that don't practice what they preach.
instantaneous reactions to events
As in, we 400 journalists who work for ostensibly objective organizations should not report about the event, or we should make sure to report these facts and not those facts. Or one of the journalists is libeling someone, instantaneously.
Garage -- Please put your archive up of all your emails to any list-serv you may be a party to.
Please keep in mind the critical difference between list-serv and private email. You aren't that bright, I know. But try.
Get a clue and try to grasp the concept of a listserve. It ain't the same as an email account.
Well she gets links by conservative journalists, she writes for the NY Times. She is a frequent guest on Wisconsin radio. Blogginheads. How do we know she isn't colluding with all of them? It's not pure to withhold this information. Maybe she was trashing some liberal, thereby hurting their career.
Garage -- Please put your archive up of all your emails to any list-serv you may be a party to.
I'm not on any listervs. I don't even comment on other blogs, very rarely. But feel free to google!
Fascinating that the useful idiots can't make up their minds between, "It doesn't exist, you're all paranoid", "Well, you've got one, too" (very Clintonian), and, "Liberals don't sell out their sainted principles".
Getting a little choppy out there in De Nile.
Perhaps Garage can put up his list-serv e-mails he sent to Pat Buchanan's AntiSemite-olist.
That would be fun to read.
@J Scott-
I for one would like to see these. Someone's first reaction to something is usually the truthier one.
Speaking of first reactions: This is not thee J Scott, is it? If it is, how nice to see you here! Hope you comment often!
"Who keeps all their emails"?
I have every email sent to me since 1993.
Some are easier to get to than others, since some are in mail archives burned to CD or DVD. But I do have them.
And, if I was on JournoList, I would be $100K richer right now. Or, maybe I am about to be.
Garage -- So what you are asking, then, is for Althouse to put up an archive of any private list-serv that she may be on that is exactly like Journolist.
Provided that Althouse belongs to no such list-serv, she would not have to provide such an archive because she would not be able to because it does not exist.
Right? Great, then. Run along.
Is there any motivation for David Weigel NOT to be the anonymous source for Breitbart???
"We already proved that more than one conservative list-serv"
Who is this "we" and how did you coordinate your response.
I kid. I kid, because I love.
But your claims are ridiculous at face value, as any independent or centrist can attest. Simply put, there are not 400 conservative journalists employed in the US, so having a list comparable to the one with 400 of the most influential liberal journalists would be impossible.
Not that the list of centrists is much bigger.
"Very subtle wording."
Subtle like David Hasselhoff.
"Is there any motivation for David Weigel NOT to be the anonymous source for Breitbart???"
The people he dearly wants to love him know he is not a man of means, so if he had bling they'd know.
And then they would not like him.
The Frum Forum references this from past Journolist member Scott Winship.
why do I think Breitbart already has the Journolist and is publicizing the $100k offer to raise interest and make the lefties look like disloyal sellouts once he publishes it?
Garage -- So what you are asking, then, is for Althouse to put up an archive of any private list-serv that she may be on that is exactly like Journolist.
Oh so now a listserv is private? I thought we established no emails were "private" anyway.
From what I understand, the 400 number is an estimate of the total number of list subscribers. Journalists comprise only part of that. The rest are policy pimps working for institutions that attempt to influence policy -- think tanks, unions, other leftish special interests.
It would be interesting to know the journalist-to-pimp ratio.
Garage -- Can anyone join the list-serv? If not, it's private. Furthermore, if it's not private, then let's see the archive. After all, it's not private.
Again, you find yourself checkmated here by your own poor arguing skills.
And Monty brings up what I was thinking of... only to different results.
"Yeah Blake, because the revelation that the White House press office was basically employing an ex gay porn star who worked for a fake paper to ask softball questions during press conferences is EXACTLY the same thing as left of center journalists and policy people having a listserv."
The shock and horror over Gannon (and the need to damn someone forever for past sexual indiscretions) always amazed me.
Part of me also wants to be profoundly uninterested in what the Journolisters did and said on their off-time. By *MY* way of thinking it really doesn't matter who they are as a person or what they say when they are drunk and among friends.
But the outrage over Gannon wasn't just (or even mostly) about what he'd done for money, it was about the fact that he was just a *guy*. He was a little guy who wrote for a little paper and asked little questions.
The profound insult some people took at that is the *only* reason I think that the journolist archive should be exposed.
Because the Emperor has no clothes.
And it would be a profoundly good thing for our society if we stopped pretending that he does.
Garage -- Can anyone join the list-serv? If not, it's private. Furthermore, if it's not private, then let's see the archive. After all, it's not private.
Nothing is private, and I'm not on any listservs. Anyways, weren't arguing the other night listservs aren't private? Jesus.
What about Rightblogs?
Is Althouse a member of Rightblogs?
If so, will she support making the archive of that listserv public?
And, most importantly:
Has Rightblogs just been deleted???
If anyone on Rightblogs had any integrity, they would forward the entire archive.
Desperately searching for an equivalence, are we? :)
why do I think Breitbart already has the Journolist and is publicizing the $100k offer to raise interest and make the lefties look like disloyal sellouts once he publishes it?
That's funny, because it ties in with an article a read a few weeks back on Pakistan. The Jihadis are busy beheading each other in a fruitless effort to root out US spies. Their leaders are getting picked off pretty regularly in US drone strikes.
The part that makes it funny is most of the targeting data is reportedly coming from US signals intelligence and not agents.
Garage, Althouse already has her list public along with all the archives.
It's right here.
Dead Julius - Althouse has nothing to hide. FAIL
I love the leftish types' "nanny-nanny-poo-poo" arguments. "It bounces off me and sticks on YOU!"
Do y'all have any idea how silly and lame you sound? :)
Tell you what, lefties. For a hundred grand I'll give you the complete archives of every single listserv list I'm a member of.
Synova
What list? This blog?
Simply put, there are not 400 conservative journalists employed in the US, so having a list comparable to the one with 400 of the most influential liberal journalists would be impossible.
I suspect there are a lot more than 400 conservative journalists in America, from people working at Fox News to the Wall Street Journal to TV stations and newspapers in small towns. And the Journolist group, by its own descriptions, included bloggers and op-ed writers like Paul Krugman. It wasn't just composed of beat reporters. One could put together a listserv of 400 conservative journalists, bloggers and op-ed writers from around the country, if one wanted to do so, and as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, such listservs do exist. (See LoafingOaf @6:21pm.) Something tells me the purpose of such conservative listservs isn't just to trade recipes.
Breitbart is hated/made fun of/trivialized regularly, and voraciously. And in exact proportion to his effectiveness.
Agree with Freeman: he rules. Anyone who has ever heard him guest host on Dennis Miller, or seen him on Red Eye, knows he is also a good guy, and very funny. He is a little more tightly wound than he used to be--but he has since become a big target for the left, who (rightly) perceive him to be their most dangerous opponent.
Go Andrew. You're fighting the good fight.
Lefties tried to tell us the ACORN was no big, and now it's Journolist. Methinks thou dost... etc.
Rightblogs, the conservative listserv that seems to just have mysteriously disappeared, appears to be run by Rob Neppell, who is here on Twitter.
Somebody want to ask him whether he did indeed just delete his listserv, and whether his doing so had anything to do with the Journolist controversy?
This is not an attack; this is just info!!! I have no dog in this race!
I notice that Dead Julius is now using BOLD to try to make his point.
Thank God you can't use the blink tags on here.
The desperation is palpable. Makes me want to really see what was on it.
And, yes. I would love to see any archive of similar on the conservative side. Please, both sides, all sides, get the stuff out there on the other side. I want to see it all.
Somebody want to ask him whether he did indeed just delete his listserv, and whether his doing so had anything to do with the Journolist controversy?
Seems AWFULLY suspicious if you ask me. Free the list!
@somefeller: Nice try. But the dynamic of politics on the right of center, and of those of us of a libertarian stripe, is completely different from the left.
People on the right don't have to constantly check with their peers about what to think.
Again (and again and again): Ezra Klein created JournoList specifically to enable leftish policy pimps to co-opt leftish journalists. This is what made it ugly. It was not some run-of-the-mill political listserv, of which there are a zillion.
No one, that I know of anyway, is asking for all of the emails of the Journolist members. The request is simply for an archive of Journolist specifically.
"I suspect there are a lot more than 400 conservative journalists in America"
I'll bet you are wrong, unless you count everyone who works for a newspaper as a journalist.
I don't consider that to be the case, and I will further bet that most people who work in newrooms could not have gotten a sniff at being part of JournoList.
But let's start there. Why do we not start with a list of the 400 or so people on the list and see if we can find 'comps' for them.
If we get the names (and I bet we the people do, eventually) let's play a game where we can try to name 'comps' for them. For every Keith Olbermann, an Ann Coulter, and so forth down the line.
Who knows. Perhaps we will run through the entire list of 400 liberal journalists and have many conservative equivalents to spare.
My guess is- we do not get beyond 40 on the list.
I am perfectly willing to trade any conservative list-serv for the Jourolist list-serv. Complete archive.
What's your point, Garage? Do you have one?
But the dynamic of politics on the right of center, and of those of us of a libertarian stripe, is completely different from the left. People on the right don't have to constantly check with their peers about what to think.
Yadda yadda. In other words, we're not like those guys.
People on all sides of the political spectrum have their little email lists, listservs and discussion trees (most of which are pretty tedious), and stories or memes get pushed through them. That's the way things work with online media, which in turn influences the mainstream media.
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