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Reverse Logrolling In Our Time

Glenn Greenwald:

Over the years, Wired has repeatedly -- and always approvingly -- cited to, quoted from, and otherwise used my work. [. . .] But now that I've written critically about Wired, I'm suddenly converted into a dishonest, ethics-free, unreliable hack. That's par for the course. That's why so few people in this profession are willing to criticize other media outlets. Journalists react as poorly as anyone to public criticism; it doesn't make you popular to do it; it can terminate career opportunities and relationships; it's certain your credibility will be publicly impugned. But journalists need scrutiny and accountability as much as anyone -- especially when, as here, they are shaping public perceptions about a vital story while withholding important information -- and I'd vastly prefer to be the one to provide it even if it means that the targets of the criticism don't like it and lash out.

(Emphasis supplied.) A year ago, I wrote a post titled Logrolling In Our Time, riffing off the old Spy Magazine feature:

Glenn swims in the ocean where he must be paid for his writing so of course he can't be perfect on this - but more so than any other paid writer I know, Glenn writes what he thinks without concern for logrolling. For that alone, he is to be treasured.

And here he is again, engaged in "reverse logrolling." It's easy for me to criticize anyone and everyone in politics or Media -- I don't need them for my livelihood. It's harder for folks in those professions, like Greenwald, to do it. Glenn, a friend of mine, does indispensable work precisely because of his readiness to hold people to account, regardless of the potential consequences to his career (he is no longer a practicing attorney.) We need more like him.

Speaking for me only

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    Wow (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 05:41:55 PM EST
    Glenn Greenwald may not be a practicing attorney these days but he still knows how to break the facts down to what is meaningful and telling and he has an acute understanding of various social and legal boundaries.

    Wired is losing critical mindshare (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Babel 17 on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 07:09:42 PM EST
    Over at slashdot, a very geeky place, the key points that Greenwald raises have not gone unnoticed.

    Imo Wired is going to have to make at least one more response.

    Either Lamo's narrative is backed up by the chat logs or it isn't. Wired is going to feel a lot of pressure to address this.

    Amen. (none / 0) (#1)
    by oldpro on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 04:10:27 PM EST


    Sounds like a great (none / 0) (#3)
    by jbindc on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 05:59:25 PM EST
    That'a actually (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 07:27:53 PM EST
    one of the stupidest things I have ever read. And coming from that writer, who is consistently dumb, that is saying something.

    The argument seems to be journalists do not care if what they write is true or not.

    Good one there JB.

    Sheesh.

    Parent

    this part (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by The Addams Family on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 07:52:17 PM EST
    Yes. Yes it does. (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 09:55:35 AM EST
    The Internet has not produced more Reporters.

    It has produced more Commentators.

    And we routinely confuse the two.

    Parent

    When I got to this: (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by Anne on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 08:11:35 PM EST
    Reporters generally don't consider it their business to fact-check claims made by sources in other publications. They look for ways to advance a story, or move on to other topics if there doesn't seem to be any "news" to be had. They also generally do weigh the harm that will come of too much disclosure against the value of the information to be disclosed. And they judiciously husband their scarcest resource: time.

    I realized what's wrong with journalism these days: people like Hounshell who not only write that kind of nonsense, but believe it...

    Parent

    And if you (none / 0) (#12)
    by jbindc on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 08:06:01 AM EST
    actually believe that are still journalists around, then I have a bridge in Arizona to sell you.

    No one reports "news" without a slant - not the networks, not magazines, and definitely not bloggers.  If you're looking for actual objective new reporting, then you need a time machine to go back to the days of Edward R. Murrow.

    How many times does anyone here go read conservative blogs?  I bet you don't, because a) you wouldn't like what they wrote, and b) even if something they wrote were true, you wouldn't believe it because of the source.  Same goes for conservatives - they wouldn't read a lefty blog and agree with much of anything, even if it was as true as the day is long.

    Journalism is dead - it has been for a long time.  I'm only shocked that you are all shocked by it.

    Parent

    No one is shocked by it (none / 0) (#14)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 08:33:20 AM EST
    We are happy to see that some one who makes a living at it is wllling to critiize one of their own.

    What part of that do you not understand?

    Parent

    I apoogize for that last line (none / 0) (#15)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 08:54:22 AM EST
    MY disdain is not directed at you.I do have great disdain for that writer though. To me he epitomizes, not just in this piece, but in almost every thing he writes about every subject, the vacuous CW that is destroying this country.

    Parent
    Who's shocked? I've known for a (none / 0) (#17)
    by Anne on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 09:28:03 AM EST
    long time that there is little in the way of real journalism anymore.  And, Hounshell's assessment of what journalists concern themselves with only reveals him to be someone who doesn't deserve to have anyone hold up his writing as worthy of credibility.  Why would anyone read him now that he's declared that he doesn't have time to check the facts?

    What does surprise me is that even with the blinking-neon admission that facts are irrelevant to Hounshell, you still threw the link up as some sort of indictment of Greenwald.

    Seriously, Hounshell isn't qualified to carry Glenn Greenwald's laptop.

    Parent

    Actually (none / 0) (#11)
    by jbindc on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 08:00:09 AM EST
    I think this was one of the most important points, missed of course, by many:

    What was curious about Greenwald's post was that he didn't challenge any specific facts in Wired's reporting; he just pointed to what he saw as inconsistencies in the story, as well as Lamo's account, and condemned the ex-hacker's actions as "despicable." He didn't suggest outright that Manning had not actually confessed to Lamo. He didn't try to argue that Manning hadn't broken the law. He didn't say the log excerpts were fabricated. He did, however, complain that Lamo had told him about conversations with Manning that were not in the chat-log excerpts published by Wired, and called on the magazine to release them. Poulsen said he wouldn't be doing so, telling Greenwald: "The remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren't clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information that I'm not throwing up without vetting first."

    I like Glenn's writing, but I think he's not seeing the forest for the trees on this.


    Parent

    That's even stupider imo (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 08:32:01 AM EST
    Greenwald wasnot mounting a defense of Manning in his post, he was critiquing Wired.

    What is curious is that you think this is a good point.

    Parent

    Here's a third party take from BoingBoing: (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by Harry Saxon on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 09:12:46 AM EST
    • There has been wide speculation that the United States will attempt to prosecute Julian Assange by claiming he somehow coerced or convinced Bradley Manning to give him the classified US documents Wikileaks has been publishing. At the very least, the US may try to prove that Manning received some kind of special treatment from Wikileaks/Assange.

    • Adrian Lamo has made statements to various news agencies in which he suggests that Manning told him Assange set up some kind of private or "special" FTP servers for his use. Obviously, a private server could be considered special treatment.

    • Assange has publicly denied this on numerous occasions, claiming Wikileaks received the cables through their normal submission system, and that he never heard the name "Bradley Manning" until it was published in the press.

    • Lamo claims that when he turned in Manning to the government, all of Lamo's hardware and data were seized by the feds, leaving him without a copy of the chat logs between himself and Manning.

    • Before that happened, apparently, he gave the complete logs to Wired News (wired.com). Since we understand that they have only published 25% of those chat logs so far, logic follows that they (and possibly the Washington Post) are the only ones (other than the feds) with access to the full logs. Wired News know what is actually in them and perhaps more importantly, what isn't. They have so far refused to publish or comment on the content of the other 75% of the Manning/Lamo chat logs.

    • This has become an issue, (most vocally noted by Salon's Glenn Greenwald) because of Lamo's interaction with the press. He's made claims (like the one about the private server) that are impossible for reporting journalists to fact-check without having access to the chat logs.

    • The assumption has been that the unpublished portion of the chat logs are relevant to these issues.

    • After all the huffing and puffing, the situation boils down to one question, which was posted at heykevinpoulsen.com: "The central issue is simply Wired refusing to confirm or deny what Adrian Lamo claims is in the unreleased chat logs."

    Earlier this evening I posted that link on twitter and Kevin Poulsen responded to me saying they'd already answered that question. I asked him to clarify and after a bit of discussion, he made the statement screenshotted above. At about the same time, Evan Hansen, Editor in Chief of Wired.com responded to Glenn Greenwald with this:

    evan.jpg

    You see what they just did there? Kevin and Evan both independently verified that in the unpublished portions of the chat logs between Adrian Lamo and Bradly Manning there is no further reference to private FTP servers, and no further discussion about the relationship between Manning and Assange.

    That's kind of a big deal, because the published portions of the logs do not support or back up the statements Adrian Lamo seems to have been making. And that would mean that his claims are based solely on opinion, not based on evidence in the chat logs.

    IANAL, but this would not appear to be good news for anyone attempting or threatening to prosecute Julian Assange and/or Wikileaks.

    What could have been a smoking gun now looks more like an empty water pistol.

    Click Me

    Parent

    I guess you and I are going to (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by Anne on Thu Dec 30, 2010 at 09:46:06 AM EST
    have to differ on what is important and what isn't, because that excerpted portion - and much of the rest - of the Hounshell article misses Glenn's point completely.

    Glenn's point is that the chat logs that Wired has not released could possibly clear up the questions and inconsistencies, shed more light on the entire situation, and allow people to judge for themselves what they want to believe about the entire situation.

    From the excerpt you quoted:

    What was curious about Greenwald's post was that he didn't challenge any specific facts in Wired's reporting; he just pointed to what he saw as inconsistencies in the story, as well as Lamo's account, and condemned the ex-hacker's actions as "despicable."

    How do you know what is a fact and what isn't when there are inconsistencies in the story?  How can you challenge a fact when there are things presented as facts that are inconsistent - which one is the fact, and which one is not?  

    He didn't suggest outright that Manning had not actually confessed to Lamo. He didn't try to argue that Manning hadn't broken the law. He didn't say the log excerpts were fabricated. He did, however, complain that Lamo had told him about conversations with Manning that were not in the chat-log excerpts published by Wired, and called on the magazine to release them.

    Like Hounshell, I think you are assuming that Glenn's not making wholesale accusations and declarations of guilt or innocence is actually supportive of what Wired has put out there, when in fact, what it means is that Glenn doesn't think he has enough of the information that Wired appears to have in order to reach those kinds of conclusions.  I don't know about you, but I would call that a highly responsible and ethical way to approach the whole thing.  We don't see it often, because most "reporting" these days is shaped to fit the story someone or some organization wants to sell.

     

    Poulsen said he wouldn't be doing so, telling Greenwald: "The remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren't clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information that I'm not throwing up without vetting first."

    Says Poulsen, still, after six months or more in which those issues could have been resolved in furtherance of the truth, rather than obstruction of it.

    Glenn, on the other hand, had this to say, in part:

    The bottom line from Hansen and Poulsen is that they still refuse to release any further chat excerpts or, more inexcusably, to comment at all on -- to verify or deny -- Lamo's public statements about what Manning said to him that do not appear in those excerpts.  They thus continue to conceal from the public 75% of the Manning-Lamo chats.  They refuse to say whether Lamo's numerous serious accusations about what Manning told him are actually found anywhere in the chat logs.  Nor will they provide the evidence to resolve the glaring inconsistencies in Lamo's many public tales about the critical issues:  how he came to speak to Manning, what Lamo did to induce these disclosures, and what Manning said about his relationship to WikiLeaks and his own actions.  Every insult Wired spouts about me could be 100% true and none of it changes the core fact:  Wired is hiding the key evidence about what took place here, thus allowing Lamo to spout all sorts of serious claims without any check and thus drive much of the reporting about WikiLeaks.

    [snip]

    For anyone who wants to defend Wired here, I'd really like to know:  what possible excuse is there for their refusal to do this?  Even if you trust Poulsen -- despite his very close and long relationship to Lamo -- to conceal some parts of the chats on privacy grounds, what justification is there for Wired's refusal to state that either (a) Lamo's claims about what Manning told him are supported by the chat logs (and then publish those portions), or (b) Lamo's claims are not found in the chat logs, thus proving that Lamo is either lying or has an unreliable recollection?  While Adrian Lamo runs around spouting all sorts of serious accusations about what Manning supposedly told him that are not found in Wired's excerpts -- claims which end up in the world's largest news outlets -- and while he issues one contradictory claim after the next about these events, how can anyone claiming to be a journalist not inform the public about whether those stories are true?  For Wired defenders: what justifies that obfuscatory behavior, that refusal to say whether Lamo's claims are true or false based on the chat logs?

    Poulsen and Wired published Lamo's claims.  Do they not have any responsibility to back them up, other than to say, essentially, "because we said so?"

    Again, I find it difficult to believe that you have actually read the considerable posts Glenn has written on this issue, because you continue to miss the most important parts of the whole thing; you just keep flinging up quotes that support the conclusions you've reached, and there's absolutely no analysis or critical thinking going on in what you're posting beyond "Julian Assange is a selfish and self-interested criminal low-life looking to profit from stolen information."  


    Parent

    Sounds like a great (none / 0) (#4)
    by opit on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 06:57:02 PM EST
    He always has been 'a great'. There aren't that many people I follow on Twitter - but Glenn is one.
    He reminds me of Craig Murray - another straight shooter.

    He makes me think I should twitter (none / 0) (#6)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 07:24:26 PM EST
    At least twitter Glenn.  I don't twitter right now cuz I don't want a bunch of twits blowing up my phone with stoopid stuff.

    Parent
    BTD, if you have the time (none / 0) (#9)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Dec 29, 2010 at 07:59:38 PM EST
    and the inclination, would you consider putting up a post with your opinion of Chris Bowers' front page at Orange piece titled 'Answering progressive fears about filibuster reform'?