The Future of the Washington Post
Washington Post national political editor John Harris launches a creepy assault on Dan Froomkin's Post Online White House Briefing column http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/12/12/BL2005121200655_pf.html.
Harris assures us that he doesn't want to kill Froomkin's column--but hints that there are others, who belong to a group he describes as "we," who do. Harris says that Froomkin is biased--or, rather, he says that Froomkin is "not trying very hard" to avoid "perceptions" of bias. Harris says that the first issue is that there is "confusion" about whether or not Froomkin is one of the Washington Post's three White House reporters--but clearing up this "confusion" is not important enough to Harris for him to mention the name of even one of his White House reporters (they are: Michael Fletcher, Peter Baker, and Jim VandeHei).
Harris hints he doesn't believe Dan Froomkin when Dan says that he would be writing a similar "irreverent and adversarial" column if John Kerry were president (as it happens, I do believe Dan: I've known him since he was five, and he has always specialized in bluntly speaking uncomfortable truths to the most powerful person in the room). And there are further hints that Harris thinks there's something especially wrong about an "adversarial" approach to a Republican than to a Democratic administration(1)--that the fact that some Democratic partisans would be unhappy at what Froomkin would do to a Kerry administration justifies Harris's being unhappy at what Froomkin is doing to the Bush administration.
As I said, creepy:
John Harris: 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. No doubt there are some who enjoy the column for precisely this reason. If I worked outside the paper, I might presume myself that a feature titled "White House Briefing" was written by one of the newspaper's White House reporters.
[Dan Froomkin] is a problem. I perceive a good bit of his commentary on the news as coming through a liberal prism--or at least not trying very hard to avoid such perceptions. Dan, as I understand his position, says that his commentary is not ideologically based, but he acknowledges it is written with a certain irreverence and adversarial purpose. Dan does not address the main question in his comments. He should. If he were a White House reporter for a major news organization, would it be okay for him to write in the fashion he does? If the answer is yes, we have a legitimate disagreement. If the answer is no, there is not really a debate: http://washingtonpost.com should change the name of his column to more accurately present the fact that this is Dan Froomkin's take on the news, not the observations of someone who is assigned by the paper to cover the news.
People in the newsroom want to end this confusion. We do not want to spike his column--or at least I don't. It might be the case that he would be writing similarly about John Kerry if he were president. But I guarantee that many people who posted here would not be Froomkin enthusiasts--or be so indifferent to the concerns I raise--in that case...
Let me say that I never thought and never imagined that White House Briefing was written by one of the print Washington Post's White House reporters. I've thought that the print Washington Post would be doing itself a big favor if it printed greatest hits from the past week's White House Briefing on Sunday. But I've never thought that Dan worked for the print version.
The job that Dan Froomkin created for himself is not a reporter's job. It is something different. When I've talked to Dan about what he is doing, he has pointed to the Defense Department's Early Bird http://ebird.afis.mil/: "A daily concise compilation of current published news articles and commentary concerning the most significant defense and defense-related national security issues. Available by 0515 hrs." The whole idea of the White House Briefing is to extend all of our range by having a smart person--Dan Froomkin, in this case--serve as doorman for the news. He doesn't report. He doesn't have time (OK, he does report a little.) What he does do is blow the whistle and point us to the particular taxicab that is the piece of genuine reporter-produced news that we are likely to find of most interest. In so doing he gives all of us a power and capability that only those like Senators with dedicated staffs had in the past. And he gives it to us for free (for now at least).
For example, consider this morning's White House Briefing http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html: Dan links to:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/12/13/audience_hits_bush_with_tough_questions_on_progress/, a Boston Globe article on Bush's surprising taking of questions after his speech in Philadelphia yesterday.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-4.html the transcript of Bush in Philadelphia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/12/06/BL2005120600822.html his own writing about Bush's not taking questions last week.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=ISO-8859-1&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-44,GGLD:en&q=bush+30,000&tab=wn the headlines made by Bush's answers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121200124.html Peter Baker's print Washington Post article about the Q-and-A session and about Bush's first-time announcement that he thinks 30,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq.
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/unintentionally.html Brendan Nyhan's pointing out that Bush said "extenuated" when he meant "exacerbated."
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/12/13bush.html Ken Herman of Cox's focus on Bush's belief that more "regime change" will be needed in the Middle East.
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/12/12/bush/index.html A favorable appraisal of Bush unscripted from the left-wing Salon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/opinion/01thur1.html?ex=1291093200&en=0aea6c0bf19fe7d8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss The New York Times editorial page's worry that Bush has trapped himself in a bubble, and lost touch with reality.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6064.html The Carpetbagger Report's similar praise of Bush for taking questions.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3720360/site/newsweek/?p=edew Newsweek's cover story on Bush the Bubble Boy.
http://www.merlotdemocrats.com/2005/12/13/bush-reckons-there’s-probably-around-30000-dead-iraqis-due-to-war/ Jason Kellett's carping at Bush's body language.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-12-bush-iraq_x.htm Oren Darrell of USA Today's belief that Bush's 30,000 number comes from Iraq Body Count http://www.iraqbodycount.org/.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10439994/ NBC anchor Brian Williams's interview with Bush.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/politics/13detain.html?ex=1292130000&en=222ad815aa657ab1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss David Sanger and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times's piece on McCain and the fight over torture in the Senate.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=27074+13-Dec-2005+RTRS&srch=torture Reuters on how former Deputy Assistant to Bush Robert Blackwill appears to be pro-torture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/politics/13bush.html?ei=5090&en=02b44c2fecc7e5b1&ex=1292130000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1134474438-BLRiXx9RfWNWfQn8l6n9kw Richard Stevenson of the New York Times reiterating that we will rebuild New Orleans.
Plus a host of others: http://www.wonkette.com/politics/brian-williams/brian-williams-a-day-not-in-the-life-of-a-white-house-correspondent-142605.php http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=1397403 http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228 http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/12/12/another_poll_shows_bush_rebounding.html http://www.cookpolitical.com/races/report_pdfs/2005_poll_tl_dec12.pdf http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-12-bush-approval_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2005-12-12-poll.htm, all ending with the Manchester Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1665837,00.html:Five years ago today Al Gore phoned George Bush to formally concede the presidency. Since then the United States has suffered its worst ever terrorist attack, become embroiled in a disastrous foreign war and bungled the response to a natural catastrophe. So what is the Bush legacy after half a decade? Is he a ruthless Machiavellian or a bumbling puppet? A devout idealist or a cynical opportunist? A disaster or a mild disappointment? Here, six top American commentators - from the left and the right - deliver their verdicts.... R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., the founder and editor-in-chief of the American Spectator: "One thing is certain. He will leave the White House with many Americans furious with him, much as Truman did. Most of those who seethed at Truman were Republicans from the Old Order, with a few conservative Democrats along for the wrathful ride. Those who seethe at Bush are from America's present Old Order - to wit, Democrats, who have been steadily losing power nationwide and who now hold power mainly in the media and the universities."
I look at what Dan Froomkin has done today and I find John Harris's complaints incomprehensible. Liberal bias? There is a bias, but it is toward the snarky, not the liberal. The quality of the work? As a doorman directing customers to good daily news taxis, Dan Froomkin is superb: http://washingtonpost.com is extremely lucky to have him. Confusion with the print Washington Post's news operation? John Harris should be so lucky.
I had thought that the print Washington Post valued what Dan was doing: providing a single place where somebody looking for coverage of the Executive Branch could find an overview of what was truly newsworthy about the news, and links so that they can explore and learn further. This is going to be a growth sector--the fact that people who could afford it were eager in the past to have people do for them what Dan does for all of us tells us so. And it provides a place for readers to gain perspective on an issue that John Harris's own reporters simply cannot provide.
For example... the only one of Harris's three I can find this morning is Peter Baker, who writes:
Bush Estimates Iraqi Death Toll in War at 30,000 : By Peter Baker: PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 12 -- President Bush estimated Monday that 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war since U.S.-led forces invaded in March 2003, but he offered no second thoughts about ordering the attack and said the threat of terrorism against the United States has subsided as a result. "Knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again," Bush told a questioner after a speech here. "Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country."
The estimate marked the first time Bush has personally provided an assessment of the Iraqi death toll, a highly sensitive subject that his administration largely avoids discussing... military officers have said they do not count Iraqi dead.... The comments came during a rare audience question-and-answer session.... The first person he called on... asked him how many Iraqis have died in the war. Unlike aides who have been asked that question, Bush gave a direct answer. "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," he said.... Bush moved on to the next question without identifying how he arrived at the figure.... Aides later said it was not a government estimate but a reflection of figures in news media reports. Still, Bush offered it without qualification, in effect accepting it as a reasonable approximation....
A group of British researchers and antiwar activists called Iraq Body Count estimates civilian casualties between 27,383 and 30,892.... Iraqi authorities have said that roughly 800 people die a month.... An epidemiological study published in the British journal the Lancet last year estimated 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months since the invasion based on door-to-door interviews in selected neighborhoods extrapolated across the country, an estimate that other experts and human rights groups considered inflated....
This is, I think, somewhat depressing. Baker wants to be adversarial--in a way that Harris would call "liberal" and "biased," and would not like. Baker is outraged at the way in which the White House has pretended ignorance as a way of avoiding answering questions about the impact of the war on civilian Iraqis. Baker wants to use the fact that Bush has a "30,000 civilian Iraqis dead" number in his head as a knife to pry open this particular oyster.
The problem, however, is that Baker is underbriefed. He knows that the Lancet published an article last year but he doesn't really know what the study said. He doesn't make the point that the Iraqi Body Count estimate that tabulates only reported casualties is--if the individual reports are accurate--to understate total casualties because there are, inevitably, unreported casualties. He doesn't say who the "Iraqi authorities" who report 800 a month are, or why anybody should trust their estimates.
He can't write the story that he wants to write. One reason he can't is that being White House correspondent is, in many ways, a lousy job. You spend an awful lot of time sitting in the press pool with no outside stimulation--on the assassination watch, so to speak. You spend an awful lot of time fencing with White House briefers who are trying to tell you less than nothing. You have little ability to do detailed legwork outside the White House Briefing Room. You have the disabilities of a beat reporter: you must constantly walk the line between telling the story and keeping your sources happy (for if you don't keep your sources happy you have no chance of ever telling the story). Peter Baker is a good reporter stuck in a situation where he can't do nearly as much as he would like.
In this context, Peter--and John Harris--should welcome Dan Froomkin, who at his news-doorman job has the ability to direct traffic to things that will put the stories that Peter Baker and company can write into their proper context. If John Harris is lucky, the fact that Dan Froomkin is very good at the job he has created for himself will rub off on the print operation: print White House reporters will be less bitter if they know there is somebody in the organization backing them up by putting their articles in the broader context. And somebody who works for Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive will tend to think more like Post print reporters and cite them more often.
If I were running the Washington Post, I would want John Harris to say that Dan Froomkin is performing a very valuable function, in some ways analogous to what Time did during World War II as a doorman for the news, but raised to a higher power by being much more timely and interactive. I would want to say that it is very clear that what Dan Froomkin does is not reporting--that a doorman is no use without taxis--but that it is valuable, and we are proud to be associated with it.
But that's not what John Harris seems to think.
UPDATE: Jay Rosen at PressThink http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/. He interviews John Harris:
John Harris: What irked me about Froomkin’s reply to the ombudsman was his pompous suggestion that he is a lonely truth-teller at the Washington Post and the way he held himself up as a high priest and arbiter of good journalism: "The journalists who cover Washington and the White House should be holding the president accountable. When they do, I bear witness to their work. And the answer is for more of them to do so — not for me to be dismissed as highly opinionated and liberal because I do." Many readers responding to his blog—the ones that prompted my response—hailed what Dan does as courageous reporting and denounced other reporters as stenographers. To be blunt: that is total bullshit. First, Dan is not principally a reporter. He is a commentator on what other people report. I took his comment to be by implication a smear on Washington Post reporters...
Please, Mr. Harris: I call bullshit. Remember: I've dealt with Jonathan Weisman. There are Washington Post reporters who are not stenographers--Dana Milbank, Dana Priest, and Walter Pincus come immediately to mind. There are those who would not be stenographers if only they could get some backup from editors. And there are those who are enthusiastic stenographers--cf. Howard Fineman's view of Bob Woodward. Or take your Jim VandeHei, who appears to have decided to be a stenographer for Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_firedoglake_archive.html#113442242607540843.
Since January 2001, there has been a large disjunction between the picture of the Bush White House painted in the pages of the Washington Post and the picture told me on the phone and over coffee by senior and not-so-senior Republican officials. The Washington Post's coverage has been--with substantial and honorable exceptions--strongly subpar. I know this. You know this.
(1) Contrast what Harris wrote about Froomkin with his comments on his own reporting of the Clinton White House:
1997 was in its own way a very sullen, snippy, disagreeable year in the relationship between the White House and the press. Most news organizations -- the Washington Post included -- were devoting lots of resources, lots of coverage, to the campaign fund-raising scandal which grew out of the '96 campaign, and there were a lot of very tantalizing leads in those initial controversies. In the end they didn't seem to lead anyplace all that great.But there were tons of questions raised that certainly, to my mind, merited aggressive coverage...
excellent commentary, prof, so let me only add this: i don't know what harris's job is, but based on his title, and his own pompous self-regard (talk about your bullshit!), it's not impossible that he's one of the editors who consigned the excellent pre-iraq war work of walter pincus and glenn kessler to page A18.
and it's not impossible that he's the unnamed editor who inserted, gratuitously, a reference to a democratic congressman who had committed a crime before being elected into an article where the journalist, quite accurately, was discussing republican congressional corruption.
and it's certainly completely conceivable that he is part of the in-crowd that determines what line of drivel that wapo editorial stance will offer today.
so maybe john harris ought to tell us a little more about what he does all day to earn our respect and advance the credibility of the washington post, because there's nothing on offer in the paper itself to suggest that he's anything but a hack.
Posted by: Howard | December 13, 2005 at 01:46 PM
Thank you so much. Dan Froomkin has always been and is tough and fair. I find the comments by John Harris chilling, as when Public Broadcasting was under attack for a supposed liberal bias. The results of the attacks were truly regrettable. Essentially Froomkin is being publicly reprimanded and told there must be a change or the commentary will be no more. Especially chilling in light of the lack of needed concern about the increasingly slanted reporting and commentary of Bob Woodward.
Posted by: anne | December 13, 2005 at 02:01 PM
John Harris cares about as much about DF's "liberal bias" as a wolf cares about tofu.
His problem is that Froomkin is, simply, showing him up. We see from Froomkin that the WH has basically made the press corps their rhymes with witches - and that hits a nerve very deep in Harris' psyche.
In fact, like observers unknowingly interacting with an unhappy marriage, we may very well be missing a lot of well-disguised knife play since we don't know much of any given backstory. Imagine Harris being shown up in a meeting over getting handled by the WH spinners, and Froomkin shortly thereafter posting a story on the general subject.
We wouldn't get it, but Harris and his collegues certainly wold.
Posted by: a different chris | December 13, 2005 at 02:14 PM
Wolves and tofu, interesting :)
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/04rich.html
December 4, 2005
All the President's Flacks
By FRANK RICH
WHEN "all of the facts come out in this case," Bob Woodward told Terry Gross on NPR in July, "it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great."
Who's laughing now?
Why Mr. Woodward took more than two years to tell his editor that he had his own personal Deep Throat in the Wilson affair is a mystery best tackled by combatants in the Washington Post newsroom. (Been there, done that here at The Times.) Mr. Woodward says he wanted to avoid a subpoena, but he first learned that Joseph Wilson's wife was in the C.I.A. in mid-June 2003, more than six months before Patrick Fitzgerald or subpoenas entered the picture. Never mind. Far more disturbing is Mr. Woodward's utter failure to recognize the import of the story that fell into his lap so long ago.
The reporter who with Carl Bernstein turned a "third-rate burglary" into a key for unlocking the true character of the Nixon White House still can't quite believe that a Washington leak story unworthy of his attention has somehow become the drip-drip-drip exposing the debacle of Iraq. "I don't know how this is about the buildup to the war, the Valerie Plame Wilson issue," he said on "Larry King Live" on the eve of the Scooter Libby indictment. Everyone else does. Largely because of the revelations prompted by the marathon Fitzgerald investigation, a majority of Americans now believe that the Bush administration deliberately misled the country into war. The case's consequences for journalism have been nearly as traumatic, and not just because of the subpoenas. The Wilson story has ruthlessly exposed the credulousness with which most (though not all) of the press bought and disseminated the White House line that any delay in invading Iraq would bring nuclear Armageddon.
"W.M.D. - I got it totally wrong," Judy Miller said, with no exaggeration, before leaving The Times. The Woodward affair, for all its superficial similarities to the Miller drama, offers an even wider window onto the White House flimflams and the press's role in enabling them. Mr. Woodward knows more about the internal workings of this presidency than any other reporter. He has been granted access to all its top officials, including lengthy interviews with the president himself, to produce two Bush best sellers since 9/11. But he was gamed anyway by the White House, which exploited his special stature to the fullest for its own propagandistic ends....
Posted by: anne | December 13, 2005 at 02:24 PM
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/21/the_fall_of_bob_woodward?mode=PF
November 21, 2005
The Fall of Bob Woodward
By James Carroll - Boston Globe
AT WHAT point does naiveté become something to be ashamed of? The revelation last week that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward abetted the Bush administration's program of lies and character assassination left you feeling as if you, too, have been a coconspirator in the sleaze. Not that you were under any illusion about the turn Woodward's career took when he became a justifying megaphone for ''Washington insiders." Nor is it a surprise to find the dean of investigative journalism acting like every other self-protecting member of the establishment, since journalism itself has become a pillar of the governing power structure. But Woodward represented something more than all of this, and his quite American fall from grace (''The bigger they come") presents a challenge to your conscience....
Posted by: anne | December 13, 2005 at 02:26 PM
I wrote Harris and told him if he cared about "prisms" he'd be talking about Woodward.
Posted by: sm | December 13, 2005 at 02:29 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/business/media/16cnd-broadcast.html?ex=1289710800&en=62dadb030485acc8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
November 15, 2005
Report Says Ex-Chief of Public TV Violated Federal Law
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON - Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting concluded today that its former chairman repeatedly broke federal law and its own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias.
A scathing report by the corporation's inspector general described a dysfunctional organization that violated the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to insulate programming decisions from politics....
Posted by: anne | December 13, 2005 at 02:36 PM
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/21/the_fall_of_bob_woodward?mode=PF
The Fall of Bob Woodward
By James Carroll - Boston Globe
The free press is an absolute value not only because the unfettered flow of information is essential to the republican system, nor only because the fourth estate serves as a check on the power of the other three, but because public expression is necessary for the communal self-awareness that keeps the body politic alive. You routinely turn to the newspaper each morning not only to learn what happened, but to stroke the otherwise intangible bond you share with the neighbors and strangers in whose company you will spend the day. Reading the morning paper is like tagging up, a literal ''touching wood," a dispelling of the darkness of night, all done in the knowledge that everyone else is doing the same thing, which gives you not only a place to start the day from, but a reassurance that you are not alone in your concern for the common good. The news media do for democracy what liturgy does for religion; what poetry does for experience; what gesture does for feeling. With words out of silence, the press tells you who you are.
And why shouldn't you be disturbed by Woodward's fall? As Watergate was about the war in Vietnam, so the Valerie Plame affair is about the war in Iraq. Woodward turns out to have been just another embedded reporter, doing the war-work of the Bush administration while pretending to be independent of it. But, speaking generally, the press has not been independent since the traumas of the autumn of 2001. Newsrooms were themselves targeted by the anthrax killer, and the fear that paralyzed the nation was felt as much by reporters as by anyone.
So also that season's grief. Like frightened and heart-sick scribes looking to Marines to protect them on the battlefield, and therefore unable to write critically about their protectors, the news media, with rare exceptions, simply embraced and passed along Bush's purposes and justifications, no matter how palpably dishonest. Judith Miller was the public captain of this enterprise, but Woodward was her secret co-captain. This time, he was his own Deep Throat....
Posted by: anne | December 13, 2005 at 02:42 PM
"Stenographer" is an appropriately demeaning descriptor but perhaps more to the point would be "government propagandist", and if you're in that business you can't have someone on the inside shining a light around now can you.
Posted by: Dubblblind | December 13, 2005 at 04:11 PM
Froomkin's response to Howell should be required reading for every journalism student in America. His agenda--transparency, accountability, the people's right to know--is precisely the reason the press is necessary in a democratic society. To look at that as 'bias' (or to cower at someone else's perception that this is 'bias') is simply disgraceful.
Posted by: Tom Hilton | December 13, 2005 at 04:23 PM
How could Dan Froomkin possibly be a reliable commentator if he doesn't sit at the feet of Scott McClennan?
Posted by: Dan Ryan | December 13, 2005 at 04:29 PM
To return to the theme of one of Brad's posts from a few days ago, who on the Washington Post beat is adding value that one can't get elsewhere. Froomkin is absolutely the best at what he does. None of the others do anything one can't get in dozens of other newspapers.
Posted by: Dan Ryan | December 13, 2005 at 04:34 PM
Beyond the bull, I have to say I was also shocked by the quality of Mr. Harris's writing: muddled thoughts, ineptly expressed. This guy's an editor?!
Posted by: BroD | December 13, 2005 at 04:46 PM
> "Since January 2001, there has been a large disjunction between the picture of the Bush White House painted in the pages of the Washington Post and the picture told me on the phone and over coffee by senior and not-so-senior Republican officials."
Contrast with "The Intelligence Briefing model of journalism", proposed by Daniel Conover at
conovermedia.blogspot.com/2005/09/intelligence-briefing-model-of.html
Posted by: Anna Haynes | December 13, 2005 at 05:10 PM
Maybe the WH threatened to cut back on WaPo reporter access if they did not reign in Froomkin?
We know what they did to Helen Thomas and others.
Posted by: bakho | December 13, 2005 at 05:11 PM
"Bush's first-time announcement that he thinks 30,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq. "
Wrong. But typical. That number includes soldier, police and insurgents.
Posted by: aa | December 13, 2005 at 05:32 PM
FDL's Jane Hamsher liked your stuff on Froomkin, which is how I got here. I agree and bookmarked your site.
Posted by: John Casper | December 13, 2005 at 06:10 PM
aa writes:
Wrong. But typical. That number includes soldier, police and insurgents.
in response to:
Bush's first-time announcement that he thinks 30,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq.
---
aa,
I'd be interested to learn where you get your information, since nobody knows for sure where Bush got his number (despite unconfirmed speculation it came from iraqbodycount.org).
Posted by: dcb | December 13, 2005 at 07:20 PM
well, aa, it would appear that you have a problem with john harris then, since in reading the wapo article that froomkin linked to, it very strongly suggests that this is a civilian count. in fact, as dcb notes, no one knows where bush got the number, so no one can say it was right or wrong.
but i'm sure that john harris believes that none of his reporters could possibly be injecting that dread liberal bias into their reporting, and all froomkin did was link to it.
Posted by: Howard | December 13, 2005 at 08:09 PM
As others have noted, we don't know where Bush got his 30,000 casualties number, but his number is between the minimum and maximum numbers counted by the Iraq Body Count Project (www.iraqbodycount.net). The Project's web site describes their criteria:
"This is a human security project to establish an independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military action by the USA and its allies in 2003. In the current occupation phase this database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation...."
Posted by: tedb | December 13, 2005 at 08:24 PM
Very good but I would have rewritten
"There are Washington Post reporters who are not stenographers--Dana Milbank, Dana Priest, and Walter Pincus come immediately to mind."
to
There are Washington Post reporters who are not stenographers. If fact,
there is at least one Washington Post reporter (Walter Pincus) who is neither a stenographer nor named Dana.
OK woulda been twitty but I would have done it. Congratulations for self discipline (also I note you didn't bring up ex rep Ballance when discussing "balance").
Posted by: Robert Waldmann | December 14, 2005 at 01:26 AM
Seems like a journalist can be adversarial AND biased at the same time. Froomkin is both, and the title of his column is misleading. Quoting trevino as to Froomkin's "content" (http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/4/3/125751/6168):
"That the man who posts clips of others' journalism with his own editorializing appended on the internet is plainly before the world a partisan blogger, while the man who does precisely the same in the Washington Post declares himself a nonpartisan "skeptic" -- and in that role a journalist to boot -- is remarkable indeed."
Perhaps you can explain why you are opposed to a little truth-in-packaging.
Posted by: Charles Bird | December 14, 2005 at 07:16 AM
Charles, evidently you didn't read the prof's posting in the first place, which answers Trevino's comment.
and your question makes no sense.
Posted by: Howard | December 14, 2005 at 08:32 AM
One mistake above: Peter Baker's an idiot. One of the Post's worst reporters. That he's still on a beat is a slamming indictment of Harris.
Also, Harris is a good guy, and probably a bit of a liberal. What this story shows is how the Post has gotten the Stockholm syndrome. After being trapped they sympathize with their captors.
And second, they are still covering their own butts from falling for this administration's line, hook, line and sinker. They bought the garbage on Iraq, they bought the compassionate conservative.
Now their touchy. Sad really.
Posted by: Samuel Knight | December 14, 2005 at 12:06 PM
Howard, Brad wrote that the bias in Froomkin's writings are "toward the snarky, not the liberal." His liberalism is patently obvious and well documented. Froomkin himself is not intellectually honest (or to be charitable, intellectually aware) when he says "I don't express opinion in my column." (cite: http://www.washingtonian.com/inwashington/buzz/froomkin.html). Perhaps Brad misunderstands the fact that the WA Post editors don'ts want Froomkin removed, but to have his packaging truthfully labeled.
Posted by: Charles Bird | December 14, 2005 at 12:34 PM
Charles Bird, nonsense, absolute nonsense.
Posted by: Ari | December 14, 2005 at 12:41 PM
The future of the WASHINGTON POST as BIRDCAGE LINNING but NOT MY CAGE SQUARK SQUAWK
Posted by: BIRDZILLA | December 14, 2005 at 06:25 PM
I agree with Brad DeLong that the Harris quotes are creepy. Harris certainly looks like a political commissar trying to frame the issue as one of labeling to pretend that he's not getting his marching orders from the RNC.
I have no idea where Samuel Knight gets the idea that Harris is "a bit of a liberal." When The Corner can't get more worked up over a man than calling him a "Clinton coddler," (corner.nationalreview.com/05_05_29_corner-archive.asp#064955)you can figure that Harris is more like a mainstream Republican. The quotes from Somerby's Daily Howler are consistent with that. Or that Harris has no ideology and just bends to the breezes. Absent any supporting evidence, Samuel Knight's comments deserve to be ignored.
I think there is a story to be written about the ties of The Post to the Republican Party and, separately, to agencies of government. I suspect that Harris accidentally revealed way more than he wanted to. A poster to the WaPo BBs stated the following, which I haven't verified, but intend to:
* Peter Baker is ex-Moonie Times
* Jim VandeHei has a personal connection at one remove to Tom DeLay
* Howard Kurtz has a personal connection to a Republican operative
* John Harris blithely accepted Woodward's role as court stenographer (as Kurtz put it) and has yet to face up to The Post's failures in Iraq reporting.
These constitute fairly strong ties not to mainstream Republicanism but to the radical right machine that is running the party. The influence on Washington of the Unification "Church," as they call themselves, is particularly disturbing to anyone who watches the right.
I think I will blog about that.
Posted by: Charles (not Charles Bird) | December 14, 2005 at 07:59 PM
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Posted by: John Holmes | April 15, 2006 at 03:26 PM
"Stenographer" is an appropriately demeaning descriptor but perhaps more to the point would be "government propagandist", and if you're in that business you can't have someone on the inside shining a light around now can you.
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Posted by: Alex. | May 17, 2006 at 05:42 PM