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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (8812)	9/21/2003 7:04:17 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793744

I read someplace that the Army is starving and stealing food. They won't let any visitor off the leash. So it is impossible to know what is going on except for info from people who escape. I don't know of any country that has been able to keep the lid on like NK.

To: John Carragher who wrote (8812)	9/21/2003 7:13:38 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793744

I post the Bee-Blog here, and this really got to me. I read the "Omsbudman" story, and it was a cave. Weintraub is a columnist, for Christ's sake! ------------------------------------------------------------ Free the Bee-Blogger! Plus: Recall vote on Oct. 7. Ink it! By Mickey Kaus Updated Friday, September 19, 2003, at 1:30 PM PT Free Weintraub! An item posted by estimable Sacramento Bee blogger Daniel Weintraub annoyed the state legislature's Latino caucus, which "protested in a letter to Bee Publisher Janis Besler Heaphy," according to this Bee ombudsman report. The upshot? The Bee courageously stood up for its employee, noting that he hadn't gotten any facts wrong and was simply giving his opinions? ... No. That's not what happened. The Bee apparently caved, according to the ombudsman: The Bee has instituted some reforms. Weintraub's blog now goes to the editorial page editor or his deputy before it's posted on sacbee.com. So now readers of Weintraub's blog are not getting his unfiltered, up-to-the-moment thoughts. They're getting the thoughts that are approved by an editor--an editor who is now well aware of how sensitive the Bee is to complaints from powerful constituencies. ... Or some powerful constituencies, at least. A kf emailer writes: "If Arnold had complained, do you suppose the Bee would have strapped an editor on DW's back?" ..P.S.: Even if the Bee's move is just for show--to placate the Latino caucus with a procedural reform--and even if the editors involved have privately assured Weintraub they won't change a thing, it will have an inevitable degrading effect on Weintraub's blog. The whole point of blogging is that you get someone's take right now, when it can make a difference. What if Weintraub has a good idea at 7:30 P.M. and the editors have gone home? By the time they come back in the next day to "review" his idea, history may have moved on--the idea will be stale, even if it might have actually made a difference if it had been posted in time. ... But I actually doubt the editorial approval process will be completely benign. Read the ombudsman's pompous report ("no newspaper should publish an analysis without an editor's review") and you can see an edge-dulling, anti-controversialist mindset at work that is inimical to sound and well-established blogging practices. ... As long as nobody's libeled, why not publish analyses without an editor's review? If an editor (or a reader, or another blogger) comes back with a good objection, Weintraub can get another item out of it! ... If Weintraub's too much of an anti-liberal blogger, add a liberal blogger! Don't supress them both under a smothering blanket of bureaucratic timidity! slate.msn.com