Astroturf vs Grassroots (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)

Grassroots vs. Astroturf

I talked to John Harris, national political editor of the print Washington Post this morning. It didn't go very well:

Wednesday December 14, 2005. 9:07 PST

Q: Thanks for calling. My name is Brad DeLong. I'm a professor of economics at U.C. Berkeley. You've actually been on my to-call list since last August, when Gene Sperling, the New York Fed's Tim Geithner, and I had a very good long conversation about your very interesting Clinton book while playing hooky from a Fed conference session. You see, Orville Schell and Susan Rasky have been persuading me to co-teach a course at Berkeley's Journalism School next semester--where I get to be the ivory tower intellectual explaining how you should cover the economy, and she gets to be the practical nuts-and-bolts person on how you can cover the economy without getting fired. And I'm trying to put together a syllabus. But the impetus for this call is different: yesterday, I read you telling Jay Rosen http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/ that Dan Froomkin critic Patrick Ruffini http://www.patrickruffini.com/archives/2005/03/dan_froomkin_se.php was a grassroots conservative weblogger. And my jaw dropped because he is eCampaign Director for the Republican National Committee. A matter not of conservative grassroots complaints about liberal bias but rather Bush-can-do-no-wrong paid Republican operatives working the ref. So why did you characterize Ruffini in this way?

A: He wasn't at the time working for the Republicans, he wasn't when he wrote that piece [about Froomkin last March]...

Q: So you knew [Ruffini] had been a Republican operative in 2004, and didn't tell that to Jay Rosen?

A: [Ramble of which I caught only scattered phrases] But assuming you aren't posting this at least immediately... A good relationship between the print Washington Post and WPNI... Happy to answer privately... Really don't want to be quoted on the record... If you want to call me an idiot without my response, that's fine...

A: No I want your response.

A; [stream continues] But I shouldn't respond... I've promised people I won't respond... We need to cool this down... It's a really a very narrow issue: are there people confused about Froomkin's role...

[We go off the record for a while]

[We go back on the record]

Q: Can you give any examples--other than Republican National Committee eCampaign Director Patrick Ruffini http://www.patrickruffini.com/archives/2005/10/same_fight.php--of people who are seriously confused about Dan Froomkin's role at WPNI?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised I won't comment on this.

Q: Did you, when you sent your answers to Jay Rosen yesterday, know that your "grassroots conservative weblogger" Patrickk Ruffini had been a Republican campaign operative in 2004?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised that I won't comment on this.

Q: Did you, when you sent your answers to Jay Rosen yesterday, know that your "grassroots conservative weblogger" Patrick Ruffini was now eCampaign Director for the Republican National Committee?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised that I won't comment on this.

My belief--but since he won't answer the questions, I do not know--is that John Harris knew full well that Patrick Ruffini was a onetime Republican operative when he characterized him as a "conservative weblogger" to Jay Rosen, but was trying to pull a fast one. That John Harris had not done his homework and did not know that Ruffini is going back to work as eCampaign Director for the RNC. And that he doesn't have evidence of serious confusion about the purpose of Dan Froomkin's column--that Harris has just been pounded on by a bunch of Bush-loyalist Republicans working the ref.

I do wonder how Harris found Mr. Ruffini's website. It's not that easy to do. It ranks 498th or so in the TTLB weblog ecosystem directories. I don't see how it is possible to wind up there if one is looking on the web to sound out grassroots conservative opinion.

I remember Lloyd Bentsen once cursing that American journalists had no ability to distinguish between "grassroots" and "astroturf." I think this is a point of data that many of them, at least, know full well the difference: the problem is not one of lack of ability to distinguish.

Comments

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Nice work calling him and putting the questions to him. It's hard for me to understand why he would decline to answer those questions on the record -- apart, that is, from the obvious explanation that there is no good answer. It's more than a little disappointing to see someone who works at a newspaper resorting to obfuscation so readily.

[Cranky Observer]

Very good work on the call. Good journalism, I would call it, although I am only a lowly news consumer in flyover country so I guess my opinion is worth less thank dirt.

Thanks again.

Cranky

[BC]

Poor Mr. Harris. Sooner or later, he's going to have to defend Mr. Froomkin. When he does, he'll lose access to his White House buddies, and he'll have to buy his own cocktail weenies.

I'm sure the White House has some juicy phony intelligence to leak on Iran for the next war. They just won't be leaking it to Mr. Harris, that's for sure.

[Cranky Observer]

OK, so now my question: does the Washington Post really predicate its content on direction from the White House? Is that true of all Administrations, or just the W Bush Administration? Did it so order its coverage during the Clinton Administration?

Cranky

[Barry]

BC, he won't defend Froomkin, precisely because it would p*ss off the White House. I'm sure that he's totally willing to do that, but not while the GOP holds it.

Brad, IIRC, Harris made a comment to the effect that he didn't want the White House to confuse Froomkin's Washhingtonpost.com blog with the newspaper Washington Post (people, please correct me if I'm wrong). To my ears, that's a 'gaffe', under the Kinsley definition of speaking what he believed. This guy isn't innocent, he wasn't merely negligent or mistaken - he was attacking an enemy of the White House.

[RT]

According to Harris, Ruffini "wasn't at the time working for the Republicans, he wasn't when he wrote that piece".

Guys like Harris know better than that. If the WaPo political editor doesn't realize that the guys on the political right don't change their orientation when they change jobs, but remain part of the movement through various changes of hats, then he is paying absolutely no attention to the political scene his people are purportedly covering.

I'm not willing to believe Harris is that oblivious, so I have to believe he's being deliberately obtuse.

[Robert Waldmann]

Awwwsome Brad

Barry that was Downie (executive editor) not Harris.

[kharris]

Promised not to talk about it? Promised whom? Seriously, now, who would want him to promise not to talk? "Hey, boss, I've really covered myself in mud here, and unless you want me to shake like a big muddy dog right here in your office, you need to ask me not to talk about the substance of what I did, so I can promise you I won't."

Or maybe he promised the White House.

[Howard]

Kharris beats me to the very point i wanted to make: on the face of it, i would assume that john harris is fairly high up in the hierarchy of the wapo, so to whom did he make this promise?

speaking as his nominal boss (through my berkshire hathaway holdings), i know he didn't make it to me!

[mel gibson]

You guys have got to draft me for California Governor. I will fix this whole Washington Post morass.

DraftMelGibson.com

[Alopex Lagopus]

Fantastic. I really hope more real intellectuals start participating on daily issues in public.

This almost makes one wonder which paycheck is bigger, WaPo's or RNC's (via MZM/Lincoln/Carlyle/etc?).

[Hedley Lamarr]

One of Josh's readers posed a good question: why is this issue, supposedly of a misleading name, being raised publicly? If it were that simple, they could merely rename and move on. In my note to the ombudly lady I asked whether her role of representing the public to her employer isn't being reversed. Okrent did this when he let Adam Nagourney hide under his skirt following an e-mail assault.

[anonymous]

I'm not fan of Harris, but weren't you putting words in his mouth? In that Rosen piece he doesn't call Ruffini a "grassroots conservative blogger." In fact, he doesn't even refer to him by name. He just says "this conservative blogger."

Unless you have another source, I think you're embelishing here.

[Bob Gaines]

If you haven't read the Jay Rosen interview that Brad refers to, you really should...it's a classic example of revealing inadvertently your REAL concerns (Harris here and Downie in an E&P interview cited here):

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/12/13/frm_qa.html

"John Harris and Jim Brady Get Into It About "White House Briefing." Dan Froomkin Replies.
PressThink interviews two key players in a dispute at the Washington Post over Dan Froomkin's Web column, White House Briefing. National politics editor John Harris, and washingtonpost.com's executive editor Jim Brady explain what's going on. Then Froomkin talks back."

[Ottnott]

May I humbly suggest a solution that will enable the Post's Executive Editor Len Downie (rhymes with "heckuva job" Brownie) and Political Editor John Harris (aka "Whiny-Ass Titty-Baby", per Atrios) to meet the demands of both the Bush administration and those, um, whatchacallits...readers?

Dan Froomkin's washingtonpost.com blog will retain the title "White House Briefing", to satisfy those pesky readers.

For the overlords in the Bush administration, Downie and Harris can hire experienced White House reporter Jeff Gannon to write a blog that will run right above Froomkin's. The title of thw blog will be, of course, "Inside White House Briefs".

I'm also available for high-level negotiations such as international arms treaties, multilateral trade agreements, and two male pre-schoolers in the sand with only one dump truck.

[Max Renn]

Thanks, Brad. This is proof positive to me that Harris is actually a GOP fan. His ardent Clinton bashing and dislike of the executive from 1994-2000 is well-scourced.

One of the greatest ironies is his suggestion that were a Democrat in the WH, Froomkin would either go easier on him/her or have no defenders.

Harris really, really blew it. But like most of these golf-playing, back-slapping, Rotisserie-league baseball-playing 'just reg'lar guys' types, he will dig and dig and dig.

[sm]

Well, we owe these people for revealing how things work in Washington.

[the green lantern]

A sharp contrast can be drawn between the role the media played under Clinton and now under Bush. This deserves deeper study.

Much has been said in some writings about a generational/personality/envy thing between the media and Clinton.

However, by the same token, one would think the media big-wigs would have been repulsed by (or looked down on) Bush, the C student (albeit with patrician heritage), and the strange crew that he brought from Texas backwaters to cosmopolitan Washington.

It is possible that the “anti-elitist” posture of Clinton and his crew was a turn-off for some in the media, but they seemed to fall easily for the pretense of Bush as the “ordinary guy you’d want to have a beer with.”

The content of much of Clinton’s economic policy (especially the stock-market boom in the later years) clearly redounded to the benefit of the media elite.

Equally, the content of economic policy (tax cuts for the rich, low interest rates, etc) during the Bushco years has been exceptionally beneficial to the class interests of the media elite. Perhaps more so than in Clinton’s case.

But, I think there is a more sinister element in the current set of power relationships, marked by the success of Bushco in concentrating power in the executive, aided and abetted by a compliant Congress controlled by the GOP, and their consequent ability to exercise control (by intimidation, access, money) over the media, which plays into the media elite’s normal lust for money, power, and access. This structure of power is far removed from anything that existed during the Clinton years.

In addition, I am struck by the climate of fear and patriotism, successfully promoted by Bushco after 9/11, that has been used effectively to whip the media into line and in support of Bushco policies.

Nevertheless, there is now a new wind in the air over Washington. It remains to be seen how much change this will bring.

[KevinNYC]

This is JohnHarrisgate. Besmirching the reputation of a colleague (and one your company's popular assets) on behalf of political operatives. Harris is not just a referee who is being worked over by political operatives. He joins them in working over a different referee in a different game.

This scandal has nothing to do with Froomkin. It's about the values of the Washington Post newsroom.

Remember the recent example that Josh Marshall found, where the many examples of current Republican corruption had to be balanced by the acts of a Democrat who was no longer in office and whose malfeasance occurred before he was elected. The writer for the piece commented on a Washingpost.com chat that he did not include the Democrat, his editor added that and he didn't read the final piece after editing and in his opinion, his editor was wrong to add it.

What is John Harris's title again? Oh yeah,
Post political editor John Harris.

[global yokel]

I recall visiting Ruffini's old web site back in the days leading up to the '04 Presidential election. His homepage was littered with American flag images. Looked like a used car dealer's lot on the 4th of July.

[KevinNYC]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007193.php

Here's the url.

I could be wrong on this, since the writer was writing for a blog on Washingtonpost.com, so his editor was probably not John Harris. But it's still germane to show the somersaults Post editors are willing to do for Republicans.

[Duckman GR]

Hmmm, where have I heard that comment before????

(snaps finger, smiles, nods knowingly)

Little spinnin scottie gaggles re: "An ongoing investigation and I will not comment on the color of the sky above the White House because of the ongoing investigation."

[satchmo]

Thank you, Brad. Corporate media and its representives embarrass themselves more every day. This is yet another episode that underlines the bankruptcy of contemporary corporate journalism. Pravda-on-the-Potomac and Izvestia-on-the-Hudson.

[bodzin]

Hey prof,

Your visits to the J-school seem to have infected you! Nice to see you getting into the trenches. Isn't it nice to get away from (academic) peer review once in a while? I like the way you wrote this up. I wish more reporters would say exactly when a source demanded to go off the record. You know that there is at least one outlet, Bloomberg, with a strict policy against anonymous sources?

[Septic Tank]

Mr. DeLong, if you were a real journalist, even a real journalist with a real agenda, you would have cleaned up his quotes, removed some of the most damning stuff (the humdrum and repetitive but deeply revealing bargaining, hemming and hawing) and made him look more prepared, articulate and generally put together than he was. This is not real journalism. Which is precisely why it's so good.

[howard]

bodzin, is that truly the case with bloomberg? i hadn't seen that before.

[Charles]

You missed a question, Brad.

You should have asked Harris whether *he* is a Republican operative.

I bet you would have still gotten a "no comment," but it would be worth the try.

[robert waldmann]

Dear Hedley

I agree that "One of Josh's readers posed a good question: why is this issue, supposedly of a misleading name, being raised publicly? If it were that simple, they could merely rename and move on." I have a theory.

I think that the standard practice at the PRint Washington Post is to do what Republicans demand and just move on. The problem here which created the need for a public confrontation is that Downie can not rename a column in www.washingtonpost.com. He needs to publicly argue with Brady to demonstrate that he really can't satisfy the Republicans just as he usually does.

Now I know this might be paranoid, but I ask
1) what is the chance that Republican hacks have never complained about the print Washington Post ?
2) How do you think the problems were quietly resolved without damaging the Post's access to the White House ?
3) Should Leonard Downie Jr resign ?

[bo]

KevinNYC | December 14, 2005 at 11:16 AM

Agreed. Harris is a Scottie McC doppelganger.

[agpc]

So let me get this straight. Mr. Harris starts this whole brouhaha by posting his complaints about Froomkin from the frame of "his posts confuse people." Then, you follow up by asking if he knew the people who seem confused actually work directly for the Republican party, and his answer is "No Comment?"

And journalists wonder why us Democrats are so disgusted with their laziness and inability to challenge this administration.

He is probably on the take. But rather than money, he receives access if he repeats white house talking points.

Honestly, I cannot wait until the Democrats sweep the executive and legislative. Then all these so called journalists will really know the meaning of restricted access.

[radish]

ROFLMAO Brad, thank you. Harris giving you permission to call him an idiot without his response not only reveals his real position but is absolute comedy gold... It's well known that people for whom credibility is a primary concern are constantly inviting others to call them an idiot without their response.

And if you speak with Mr. Harris again (hah!) please do ask how he was introduced to Mr. Ruffini's website. That was the first question that struck me when I read Jay Rosen's interview...

[BHGlitter]

Referring to Patrick Ruffini simply as a "grassroots conservative weblogger" eerily reminds me of how Scooter Libby was just a "former Hill staffer."

True in a narrow reading, but ultimately and effectively misleading and dishonest.

[jinny]

Katherine Graham must be rolling in her grave.

[Ari]

The problem is that when a boss complains openly about an employee, the employee will generally be intimidated. Dan Froomkin will likely and sadly have been intimidated unless he has a comparable position readily available. The word "chilling" was used. This is chilling and was meant to be so.

[the green lantern]

I think Waldmann’s theory is correct. It is the separation of editorial power between the print section of WaPo and the on-line section that made the problem of remaining in the good graces of the WH propaganda machine difficult to manage.

But that points to a larger issue, which is the potential role that emerging “new media” (on-line news reporting, blogs, etc) plays in undermining the authority of the existing dominant centers of media power. That’s what I referred to above as the new wind blowing over Washington.

The Harris/Downie vs Froomkin confrontation represents a very visible public playing out of this new challenge as well as the clumsiness and incompetence of otherwise respected “heads” of the media in dealing with it.

Right now, the competition for profits and market share is driving the established media to try to integrate their existing operations with various forms of new media. But it is evidently a very uneasy relationship with built-in contradictions that strike at the root of the cosy relationships with power which the traditional media has always had.

[Sperm Donor]

Busted!!!

You busted Harris.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!

These guys really are idiots in that they don't realize that with the power of the Internet, the media-public discourse is no longer a one-way street and that NOW, finally, they can be held accountable for the stuff they do and say.

I love it!! Love it!!! Love it!!!

[Steady Eddie]

In potential answer to the many commenters who raised questions properly following up on Brad's comment about Ruffini, let's go back to the videotape on Jay Rosen's chat with WATB John Harris:

I regularly run across people who think Dan is one of our White House reporters. One of them was a very news-saavy source of mine who actually runs campaigns.

Hmmm. Notice WATB Harris used the present tense, "runs" campaigns. What's Ruffini's current position again? Republican National Committee eCampaign Director Patrick Ruffini.

What was WATB's response to Brad's question about whether or not he knew this when he talked to Rosen? No comment.

So there you have it, folks. Harris is Ruffini's go-to guy at WaPo to get the RNC's spin out there, but Ruffini won't be a source for WATB Harris any more unless Froomkin is silenced. Riiight.

Hand, meet glove.

[travy]

reporters who "won't comment" or answer questions makes my fucking blood boil. who the fuck do they think they are?

[KevinNYC]

If you read Rufini's bio, he was once Chairman of the College Reupublicans (dunno if that was state or local) so he is someone steeped in partisanship and his entire career since College has been a GOP operative.

[Paul Rosenberg]

I think a case can now be made that every single senior editor at the Post should now be fired for journalistic incompetence.

Oh, and wasn't the first rule of something-or-other "we don't negotiate with terrorists?"

[robert waldmann]

To quote the man himself

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

'Give it to him!'

[robert waldmann]

Sorry for double post, but I want to reassure Ari. The latest White House Briefing sure doesn't look chilled. Not only does it end with an not clearly relevant reference to spanking the President but it begins by noting that major paper (incl WAPO) White House pool reporters missed the real story a the White House because they followed Bush on a diversion to Virginia. He's giving it to them showing how following the President around interferes with actual reporting on the actual debate.

Also note Brad's view of Froomkin's character and that Brad has known him since he (Froomkin) was five (Brad was six I think).
The Republicans probably hope to scare Froomkin but it sure looks like they messed with the wrong guy.

[Jacob Davies]

Good work. I wish more journalists would publish their actual transcripts, as bodzin said.

I can't help but think that these newspapers are shooting themselves in the foot with this kind of non-reporting. They seem to have forgotten that they exist in a competitive market, and that the quality of their product matters.

[Ari]

Thank you for explaining, Robert. I see just what you mean, and that pleases me, but I do hope this will work out well for Dan Froomkin. Were it me, however, I would be worried.

[gratuitous]

I can't quite put my finger on the "why" of it, but something about Harris' deliberately misleading identification of Ruffini reminds me of Judith Miller identifying Scooter Libby as a "former Hill staffer" when he was working out of the Vice President's office.

Now why would that be, I wonder? Gee, I hope I haven't succumbed to the increasing cynicism of a jaded age.

[diddy]

"Honestly, I cannot wait until the Democrats sweep the executive and legislative. Then all these so called journalists will really know the meaning of restricted access."

I hope you're not serious. The best thing a Democratic administration could do to purge the bad taste of this dark era is to let the sun shine, take tough questions and answer them, and generally not take policy positions that require them to perform mental gymnastics just to defend them without committing a crime.

[jerry]

A) I assumed he googled for Dan Froomkin Hack and just posted the first blog he found. (And yeah, that google search turns up ruffini as the first choice.) (that is he searched for the data that supported his conclusion.)

B) Thank you for calling him. Oddly, that act of actually picking up a phone makes you the Big Pajama of the Blogosphere.

C) Thank you for teaching a course on econ and journalism. I think that that is a brilliant idea. I hope it is successful and becomes a perennial. (I think if you look back over your comment section, you will find that this was *my suggestion to you quite a while ago*. But that's okay, you may have it and call it your own.)

D) Speaking of Orville Schell, I am waiting for a statement of the Deans of Journalism Schools discussing the current crisis in journalism. Because this matter of access journalism, stenography, sourcing, etc. is a crisis in journalism caused by ignorance, laziness, a desire of all journalists to become power brokers, famous, and rich, and just downright corruption. It is past due for a statement from the Schools that defines and warns the people about this problem.

E) Uh, typepad asked me to enter a number, but presented me with a word! So my head asploded.

[Cranky Observer]

> umm, how does this campaign of harrassing
> Harris differ from "working the ref"?

The people criticizing Harris do not (a) own the media (b) have the power to send anyone to Gitmo (c) make/control billions of dollars of campaign contributions (d) control key cocktail parties that the Kool Kidz Klub in DC must attend.

Cranky

[Anna Haynes]

> "Or maybe he promised the White House."

Brad, if you call back, will he take your call? Could you ask some questions narrowing down to what sort of entity this promise was made?

sounds like we're getting somewhere...

as for knowingly characterizing Ruffini as a "conservative blogger" rather than "former Republican operative" - sounds like a dishonest implicature
( see Language Log at
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001468.html
)
...and is strangely reminsicent of the Miller/Libby negotiations...

[Steady Eddie]

Jerry--

re your (A), I wish it was that relatively "innocent" (i.e., it would be a relief if it was only mindless laziness of justifying preconceived conclusions).

Look at the Harris quote I gave from Jay Rosen's interview:

"I regularly run across people who think Dan is one of our White House reporters. One of them was a very news-saavy source of mine who actually runs campaigns."

While this was separate from his "conservative blogger" quote, it's pretty clear he's talking about the same person. This was no randomly-chosen blogger. Note how Harris was quick to know about and be ready to disavow the relevance of Ruffini's prior work for BushCheney04 -- saying that "he wasn't working for the Republicans when he wrote that piece" (that's awfully intimate knowledge about a randomly-chosen "conservative blogger") -- but then plead "no comment" when Brad asked if Harris knew that Ruffini was back with the RNC.

Like I wrote -- hand, meet glove.

Given the contrast that many bloggers have documented between Harris' attitude to the Clinton Administration and his attitude towards BushCo, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Messrs. Harris and Ruffini were buddies from way back, and that Harris' Republican inclinations were not always so indirectly presented.

[the green lantern]

The real gem in today’s White House Briefing comes at the very end when Froomkin writes (tongue in cheek, I suppose), commenting on a NYT theater critic’s review:

“But it's no rave review: ‘The satire is obvious and muddled. (Why does Bush literally gun down the press if it is also in his pocket?)’ .“

Touche! This is a well chosen quote from the review. Froomkin is evidently not about to lie down and let them roll over him.

[Christopher Fotos]

You wonder how Harris found Ruffini? Ruffini is very well known in political blogging circles, especially in DC.

[Are you trolling? If you are looking for a Republican operative, it is easy to find Ruffini at the top of the list. If you are looking for a conservative weblogger, Ruffini is *way* down on the list and rather hard to find.]

[radish]

Steady Eddie, just wanna give you kudos for having very astutely located the "purloined letter." Thank you.

[ana]

AM, if you think this is "harassing", then you must live a really sheltered life. Let's not forget that Mr. Harris is in the profession of those who camp out on people's lawn and shove microphones into bereaved widows' faces. And Harris's vaunted reporters spent way too much time trying to figure out,um, the ins and outs of a president's genitalia.

I don't think calling him and respectfully asking a few questions about his job and his pronouncements counts as harassment-- after all, journalists do that every day.

"Working the ref" would happen if Harris now called Brad's boss and complained that Brad was harassing him. :)

[Chris Brown]

Mr. DeLong,

Nice job of exposing more whoring at the WP. I don't think the WP represents what Jefferson had in mind when he extolled the importance of a free press in protecting our nation.

[Nan]

It is telling that John Harris and the Washington Post are not bothered by a White House stenographer working there as "Assistant Managing Editor" but they are bothered by blogger who makes critical comments about Bush.

Woodward is treated as a Washington Post "star reporter" despite the fact that he has been a stenographer for the Powers That Be for years. Fromkin is slapped for "liberal bias" for critical but accurate comments about Bush.

What does that tell you? You can be biased at the WP as long as you have the "right bias". Woodward clearly has the right bias. He is not a threat to the Power That Be.

[Nan]

Chris Brown,

"I don't think the WP represents what Jefferson had in mind when he extolled the importance of a free press in protecting our nation.'"

Jefferson would be horrified at today's Corporate Media.

The "free and fair" press he talked about cannot exist in a corporate media culture. It exists on the Internet by bloggers like Brad DeLong. That is about it.

BTW, Washington Post has business interests closely tied to the Bush regime. Their subsidiary receives generous govt contracts from the Bush regime. So they have every reason not to piss off the hand that feeds them.

[Horatio]

Is "blogger" now shorthand for "incalculable grassroots authority?"

It's almost as if when Harris says that Ruffini is a "blogger," he expects all suspicion about any potential affiliations just to dissolve into nothing.

[radish]

BTW Christopher, you're not helping, honest. Your best bet here is to go all meek and quiet.

I don't see anybody disputing that Ruffini is a "known" political (which is to say rabidly partisan) operative. Harris' embarassment does not stem from Ruffini being an obscure, unknown college Republican. It stems from the fact that he's a college Republican at all.

Not only is Harris' (presumed) complainer in no wise representative of WaPo readers in general, but he is an explicitly partisan source whose (apparent) role in this complaint is being concealed in order to preserve the (pitifully shallow) illusion that the initial complaint was something other than a partisan dirty trick. Precisely the sort of anti-American chicanery that turns mild-mannered academics and Marine drill sergeants alike into rabid Bush-haters.

I swear I almost feel sorry for you guys...

[robert waldmann]

Is the editor concerned about mixing news and opinion the same John F. Harris quoted here

http://tinyurl.com/azhr5

John Harris, The Washington Post: “[T]he 21-Minute Address He Delivered At The Capitol Yesterday Was Startling In Its Reach.” (John F. Harris, Op-Ed, “An Ambitious President Advances His Idealism,” The Washington Post, 1/21/05)

* Harris: “His Pledges To Promote Liberty And Aid The Oppressed, Along With Predictions Of The United States Leading The World To The Ultimate Triumph Of Democracy Over Tyranny In Every Land, Were Issued With Some Of The Most Expansive And Lyrical Language Bush Has Summoned.” (John F. Harris, Op-Ed, “An Ambitious President Advances His Idealism,” The Washington Post, 1/21/05)

If so I can understand why he thinks Dan Froomkin is too opinionated to cover the White House.

[ken melvin]

The WP's not been the same since Miss Katharine started palling around with Ronnie and Nancy.

[Christopher Ball]

I'm lost. The issue is here is that Harris referred to Ruffini as a conservative blogger in his discussion with Jay Rosen rather than calling him a GOP hack? You're kidding? If Ruffini posted the anti-Fromkin piece on his blog and it gained attention that way, then that is the relevant issue.

If a national paper was reporting on this blog, which sentence would be more accurate:

"A former Clinton Treasury appointee accused a Washingnton post editor of deception today."

OR

"A liberal blogger accused a Washingnton post editor of deception today."

Harris complained that a washingtonpost.com column was misleadingly marked "White House Briefing" when it was not a straight reporting piece.

In the Rosen piece, the words "grassroots" don't appear anywhere so I'm unclear where that quote comes from. Part of reporting is getting the basic facts straight.

[liberal]

am wrote, "umm, how does this campaign of harrassing Harris differ from 'working the ref'?"

It doesn't. But if the "other side" works the ref---to great effect, mind you---there's nothing wrong with our side doing so.

[anne]

The National Political Editor of the Washington Post is openly trying to intimidate a writer for the Post and in doing so seemingly to ingratiate himself with the Administration. The intimidation would be the same if Bob Herbert were openly attacked by a New York Times editor for compassionately writing about the tragedy of war, which of course could not happen. Hopefully the intimidation will not work, but I am startled that such an attempt would be made by an editor at the Washington Post.

[Colin Rust]

Bodzin/Howard,

Alas, Bloomberg does use anonymous sources. Here is a recent and egregious (does a Republican operative really need anonymity to tell us that Bush will support tax simplification and fairness?):

Learning from the battle over Social Security, the president may use the next year to generate public and congressional support for changing the tax code by stressing simplification and fairness, said a Republican who worked on the tax overhaul plans and spoke on the condition of anonymity. [source http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ news?pid=10000103&sid=awZ8H8tBjAAU&refer=us]

In fairness to Bloomberg (and Bodzin), I do have the impression that Bloomberg uses anonymous sources less than many outfits.

[Christopher Ball]

Robert Waldman should read the actually Washington Post articles by Harris, rather than clips from tinyurl.com. The article was an A1 analysis of the speech, not an Op-Ed. Harris writes on:

"If taken at face value, Bush's words would imply nearly limitless obligations to confront all manner of autocrats around the planet, even in cases in which anti-democratic governments in the Middle East and elsewhere support U.S. interests. He made scant acknowledgment of the trade-offs he has regularly made, such as supporting repressive regimes in Asia as payback for their support in Afghanistan."

Real Bush-friendly stuff. He also interviewed Sandy Berger for the article. Clearly, he's trying to make Bush look good.
We should also tut-tut him for failing to refer to Berger as a former advisor to the Kerry campaign, or I guess a he's a "Democratic operative."

If taking journalists to task for not reporting the news _exactly_ as you want them to is the new liberal technique to advance our agendas, we might as well give up now.

[liberal]

agpc wrote, "Honestly, I cannot wait until the Democrats sweep the executive and legislative. Then all these so called journalists will really know the meaning of restricted access."

Would that it were so.

First, the Dems are way to wimpy to do that.

Second, the press doesn't treat Dems and Rethugs the same way. If the Dems tried to do that, the press would come down on them like a heap of bricks.

[ajsmith]

Good Horatio...

Don't feel sorry for these guys, even almost. If you get close, just keep in mind that even as their infrastructure is in mid-implosion, they seem to remain committed to doing as much damage as possible on their way down (and, hopefully out).

It's difficult, I know, for good people to stand by and watch even evildoers suffer. I've found though that a good stiff drink returns me to cheer, and I can reach again for the popcorn to enjoy the show.

Great job Brad. This site continues to inform and inspire.

[liberal]

Christopher Ball wrote, "If taking journalists to task for not reporting the news _exactly_ as you want them to is the new liberal technique to advance our agendas, we might as well give up now."

I don't know about that particular article, but someone in the comment section over at Froomkin claimed that Harris's work in the 2000 election was biased, and it was because the Republicans handed him more press releases or something.

For Daily Howler posts containing the words
Harris Bush Gore,
click on my homepage.

[Ron Brynaert]

As many commenters have noted, Harris didn't use the word "grassroots." Is there an Ombudsman that we can contact regarding a correction added to the post?

Otherwise...good work.

[Howard]

to address the "grassroots" issue, there are 3 types of bloggers: those in the pay of corporate entities; those working for political entities; and everyone else. Referencing those everyone else as "grassroots" seems to me to be perfectly legitimate, and assuming that if someone doesn't specifically say a "corporate" or "political operative" blog, then it's a fair assumption by the reader that said blogger is a "grassroots" pamphleteer.

Christopher, the answer to your question is neither. The best way would have been "A former Clinton treasury official writing on his blog accused...."

So Harris could readily have said "a blogger who served as the webmaster for Bush-Cheney '04...." he chose not to. the prof (and me, and many more) wonder why....

[robert waldmann]

www.tinyurl.com is not a site. The tiny url condensed the following
http://www.gop.com/Blog/BlogPost.aspx?BlogPostID=814
which Christopher Ball might have noticed had he clicked the link.

The assertion that the piece was an op ed was made by www.gop.com. I just quoted them.
www.gop.com did not provide a clickable link. Now I understand that it is irresponsible to assume that www.gop.com can get a citation of an article right, but I admit that I did so.

More to the point the fact that the article is on A1 means that it is on a page normally reserved for news. Someone so determined to separate news and opinion that he finds it intollerable to have the words "White House" in the title of an opinion column might be expceted to oppose the category of "news analysis" which, of course, just means opinion on the news pages.

The paragraph you quote is the second from the first, typically used in a polemic to present a straw man. Harris proceeds to criticize literalists who imagine that Bush was refusing to consider effective means to achieve his noble goals.

consider "John Lewis Gaddis, a Yale University historian who has written influential critiques of Bush's first-term policies abroad, predicted the address would echo for years. "It's very much in the tradition of great speeches of the past," he said, adding that the speech says: "This is where we want to be some distance from now. We understand we can't get there tomorrow. But it's important to have that destination described.""

A fair quote ? Maybe. Very nice for Bush ? Definitely. The sort of thing Froomkin does in his column - exactly. Cleverly done in January (as is the quote of Berger).

[CapitalistImperialistPig]

Bravo Brad.

[ajsmith]

umm,

has anyone else here had an issue with others' postings happening under their names/email addresses?

I posted a comment above which begins "Good Horatio..." but there is a comment somewhat below that which begins "Christopher Ball wrote, "If taking journalists..." with my name, attached to my email address, that I definitely did not post.

I'm guessing it's a site error.

Anyone???

[dilbert dogbert]

If I could ask Harris a question it would be: Do you swallow or do you spit?

[Stone Free]

Funny that Harris can't give you ANY examples of "confused readers," beyond Ruffini. From Harris' Monday WaPo blog entry:

"The first issue is whether many readers believe Dan's column is written by one of the Washington Post's three White House reporters. It seems to me--*based on many, many examples*--beyond any doubt that a large share of readers do believe that." [emphasis added]

Apparently gathered from many, many, double-super-secret conversations.

[ajsmith]

uhh, wow. my bad. name's at the bottom, not the top of each post. I've been online for, oh, say, a dozen years. d'oh. (-:

[Ari]

Christopher Ball is pretending to be what he is certainly not:

'If taking journalists to task for not reporting the news _exactly_ as you want them to is the new liberal technique to advance our agendas, we might as well give up now."

Nonsense!

[Ari]

Christopher Ball as usual is distorting the argument:

"If taken at face value, Bush's words would imply nearly limitless obligations to confront all manner of autocrats around the planet, even in cases in which anti-democratic governments in the Middle East and elsewhere support U.S. interests. He made scant acknowledgment of the trade-offs he has regularly made, such as supporting repressive regimes in Asia as payback for their support in Afghanistan."

This is a straw man argument by Harris that will be used to support the President in paragraphs following.

[BroD]

"Promised not to talk about it? Promised whom?"

My guess is that higher-ups at WaPo took him behind the woodshed and told him to chill.

[BroD]

P.S., Prof, I have to say that's not your best piece of writing.

[Tom - Daai Tou Laam]

A technorati search on ruffini has a link in the blogroll at gop.com as #1 and the excerpt from #2 mentions his role as a campaign operative for the RNC.

Then there are a bunch of links that lead back to this story.

So I'd say this isn't necessarily as much about "working the refs" as it is about the lack of spine by the refs and an ingratiating willingness to be worked by one side only.

If this were FIFA, any ref that shows themselves willing to be worked by one side like this would be out of a job yesterday.

[tech98]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Washington journalists these days act more akin to spies than to disseminators of reporting to the public, with their "open secrets", channelling WMD lies, secret conversations about outing CIA agents, gross overuse and abuse of confidential sourcing for political smears, deceptive portrayal of a "grassroots blogger", the list goes on.

The New York Fishwrap and Washington Pest are as corrupt as the assministration that co-opted them.

[bakho]

One reporter that has impressed me with coverage of economic issues is the KR guy, Kevin Hall. Maybe he could give your students some tips? Maybe covering economic issues well without getting fired depends on your employer?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/kevin_g_hall/

Businessweek isn't bad for popular economics reporting.

[Kathryn Cramer]

Amusing all around, but Google doesn't play by the blog ecosystem rules, so I wouldn't put much stock in that.

[Philip A. Combs]

So, you're suprised that the corporate scum running the WaPo are willing to enforce their "big lie" fascist version of the news?

I am not.

Neither do I ever read the WaPo's website.

I am not alone; their circulation is down 3% this year.

[Christopher Ball]

DeLong, Waldmann and Ari are barking up the wrong tree on this issue, and in a way that is likely to alienate reporters, not embolden them to challenge the conventional wisdom.

I take Ari and Waldmann to say: when Harris analyzes Bush's statement as being literally contradictory, he sets up a straw man. When he quotes someone who fails to criticize Bush, he's showing his true colors. This is madness -- he doesn't say what he means except when he does?

If you read Harris' comments on the links DeLong provided, he makes the standard journalist's case to avoid blurring opinion or authorial criticism with reportage. Harris' beef was with how washingtonpost.com displayed Froomkin's work. That hardly makes him a GOP patsy. Froomkin is more a media critic than an opinion columnist, but most papers clearly mark reviews of films, plays or other entertainment as reviews, in which the critic will present his opinions and judgments, to distinguish them from reportage. The wp.com site does not do this for Froomkin. You can link to Froomkin through News>Politics or through Opinion>Columns & Blogs. It is exactly this blurring that Harris (and I) dislike. The result of this blurring can be seen on Fox News, MNBC, and CNN shows where opinion becomes the prime content to the deficit of reporting.

What would someone in Harris' position do after reading most of the posts here?

[Hopefully, he would not try to pull the wool over Jay Rosen's and Jay Rosen's readers' eyes by pretending that the criticisms of Dan Froomkin made by the eCampaign Director of the Republican National Committee are those of a more general audience.]

[David Chisholm]

I looked up the name 'Patrick Ruffini' on Dogpile and got a full page of websites, either by him.
David Chisholm

[Steve Kelso]

Great work. Over at LGFWatch (we observe racist Charles Johnson and the "Pajamas Media" crowd) we have coined "astroblogging" to refer to GOP black media ops blogging.

Pajamas Media, seems to fit that description: 3.5 million (or 7?) in funny money for a non-existent ad platform. Nice way to shovel cash to the right wing blogs.

Check out lgfwatch.com for more.

[E. J.]

Did you notice how Harris's no-comments were right out of Scotty McC.'s "I won't comment on an on-going criminal investigation" meme.

Mr. Harris may continue at the WaPo, but he, not Froomkin, needs the disclaimer next to his writing: that he is "an official, professional stenographer for the White House press corps, whose views in no way reflect the views of the management of the Washington Post, its shareholders or 61% of the American People."

That, I believe, should make everyone happy.

[ZelphSmith]

Joel Achenbach of the WaPo attempts to defend the indefensible:

http://tinyurl.com/a6xo5

[san mateo]

Delong did an excellent job of unmasking another stenographer posing as a journalist. It's incredible how Harris, a newspaper editor, will not answer questions! Yet another aspect of the Orwellian world we live in today.

[Driscoll Flowers]

The right is only doing what their savior, their deliverer has trained his movement to do.

quoting AU.
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5684&abbr=cs_

Frederick Clarkson, a journalist who has studied Moon and other far-right movements, notes that Moon specializes in the creation of "Astroturf organizations" groups that appear to have grassroots power but that in reality speak mostly for Moon. Moon has used these groups to curry favor with Republicans for more than 30 years, Clarkson said, and is revving them up again to help the new Bush administration.

"Whenever the conservatives identify an issue as important to their agenda, Moon creates an Astroturf organization to create the appearance of grassroots support for these initiatives," Clarkson said.
___________

read about the right's deliverer here:
http://www.cellwhitman.blogspot.com/

[Ari]

John Harris, National Political Editor of the print Washington Post, had the intent of intimidating Dan Froomkin. Hopefully, this intent will not prove successful.

[David Wyles]

Great blog, Brad!

I just fired this missive off to Mr. Harris, WaPo political editor and Republican water carrier.

Remember, You're a "Munchkin", not a Froomkin

Down, Johnny, down...It seems that you've been caught on your knees doing a "full Monica" on Karl Rove's tumescent talking points.

Aren't you supposed to be an "objective" journalist? Why are you doing Kenny Guy Mehlmann's job for him?

I worry, will your White House masters ever allow you your freedom from ventriloquism and allow you to bark on your own?

However, the question will undoubtedly remain -- Can you suck and bark at the same time?

Good luck on learning new tricks.

[MTC]

If I could ask Mr. Harris two questions, I think they would be:

1) What does/did your father do for a living?
and
2) Does/did your mother work full time?

Often the answers to those two questions provide the explanation as to why specific individuals seek to abnegate themselves before regressive powers and/or serve as their attack dogs.

[liberal]

Christopher Ball wrote, "Harris' beef was with how washingtonpost.com displayed Froomkin's work. That hardly makes him a GOP patsy."

Huh? It depends on motive. Just because he _claims_ it's his beef doesn't mean it's his beef.

[Cyberian]

Bravo, Brad!

This is not over.

[Christopher Ball]

Someone deletes the last part of my prior post and adds:

[Hopefully, he would not try to pull the wool over Jay Rosen's and Jay Rosen's readers' eyes by pretending that the criticisms of Dan Froomkin made by the eCampaign Director of the Republican National Committee are those of a more general audience.]

In March 2005, Ruffini was a blogger. He was not hired by the RNC as "eCampaign Director" -- whatever that is -- until Oct. 2005. He had been with the RNC up to June 2003, and then webmaster for the 2004 Bush campaign, which was shutdown by March 2005. See http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5841

Pull the wool over Jay Rosen? Rosen is no fool; surely he knew who Ruffini was, and didn't think it was all that important to discuss it.

[kharris]

We don't know what Rosen knew. We don't know what Rosen thought.

Now, to move off-topic, there is some motion on the torture front today. The House has supported a ban on torture. The White House has agreed with McCain on torture (apparently just as the only alternative would have been to veto a bill outlawing torture). The Senate is seeking more information on secret prisons.

Not a bad day of work, for Washington.