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

To: LindyBill who wrote (11898)	10/12/2003 12:32:30 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793622

Maybe you're right, but here's something else which ccurred to me. The editor claims witnesses were reluctant to come forward, out of fear of not being able to work in the industry in the future. I believe just the opposite is true. If you're the actress who took Arnold down, Rob Reiner and company would be calling you the next day for a job. In a town which routinely cheats on their spouses, floozes around movie set parties for days snorting coke, and holds the Hustler magazine publisher up as some kind of a hero. If this is all they could dig up on Arnold it actually confirms the sound character of the man. Can you just imagine how many women throw themselves at Arnold on movie sets and such. It looks to me like the guy has a strong character, is a decent father, and is true to his wife. That says a lot coming from hollywood these days. More likely the conversation from that editor went something like this in the backroom. "Look, I'm putting my two best people on this, and I expect you to turn over every nook-and-cranny to find something to hook on Arnold. Talk to every housemaid, every actress he ever worked with, follow up on every rumor, and if need be go back to the 1970's and stick some Nazi connection around him, I don't want my state run by some right wing Republican".

To: LindyBill who wrote (11898)	10/12/2003 12:45:13 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793622

Hugh Hewitt weighs in.... October 11, 2003 Posted at 5:55 PM, Pacific hughhewitt.com The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that California's Employment Development Division "sharply revised" its declaration of the total job loss for the state in August, restating the loss of jobs in that month at 7,800 --a fourfold increase over the original figure released. The Times also noted that California lost 16,000 jobs in September, despite an improvement in the national job picture to the plus side by 57,000 jobs. A newpaper might have asked the question whether the state agency sat on both the revised August number and the September total in order to spare the now recall Gray Davis a bad headline in the middle of the campaign. Perhaps the agency didn't, but it is an obvious question, one which the paper missed. Don't miss John Carroll's very weak defense latimes.com of the paper's coverage of the Arnold allegations. Like some of the Times' sources for the Arnold story, the Times' critics are not identified. This spares Carroll from having his responses compared with actual critiques, a deceptive and cowardly approach to the controversy. Carroll also repeatedly describes criticism of his paper with the use of such words as "pornography" and "rant," a tactic the legal system brands simply as "non-responsive." If he was confident that the reader would agree, he ought to have named names and used quotes. He didn't because he would have been buried by the blogosphere. Like Howell. Carroll's critics include Susan Estrich, Mickey Kaus, Andrew Sullivan, Morton Kondracke, Jill Stewart and me --each one a very credentialed and experienced journalist and critic of journalism. Carroll's refusal to confront allegations of unprofessional conduct on the groping story as well as those of systemic bias in the recall coverage in general with specificty as to both charge and author is an admission that the paper's conduct cannot be defended. His focus on a single aspect of the criticism of the paper is also an admission that the other critiques cannot be answered, In short, this is not so much a defense of the paper's conduct to readers as a diversion from the substance of the criticism by underhanded means. Carroll's casting aspersions on the critics is simple projection of a transparent sort. Deep in Carroll's apologia there is also this unpersuasive paragraph: "It was written that the paper failed to follow up on reports that Davis had mistreated women in his office. Fact: Virginia Ellis, a recent Pulitzer Prize finalist, and other Times reporters invetsigated this twice. Their finding both times: The discernible facts didn't support a story." First, I'd like to see where "it was written," so I could compare the specificty of these charges with those the Times chose to publish with the Arnold story. I'd like to know as well if the names cited by Jill Stewart were contacted by Ms. Ellis, and whether the effort Ms. Ellis led matched in scope and personnel the effort launched against Arnold. The Pulitzer nomination matters only in the most remote way --great surgeons commit malpractice, and a nomination for a Pulitzer isn't even a guarantee of great technique when it comes to investigative journalism. The timing of the efforts matters as well. All such details matter, but none are given. I have to conclude that a charge serious enought to rebut is serious enough to rebut with specificity as to origin and detail. Carroll doesn't. Draw your own conclusions. Like the employment data story I began this "rant" with, Carroll's piece doesn't address basic and crucial questions. It is another attempt to salvage a tattered reputation. It will impress Times' cheerleaders (and former employees) like Kevin at LAObserved, but it will not impress those who ended subscriptions, and lines like "the facts in the Times stories have not been seriously challenged" will hardly answer critics, including me, of anonymous sources that prevent any sort of challenging. And it is just silly to remark that the employees answering the phones have arrived at a "consensus" that "our angriest critics haven't actually read the stories," --as though the angriest critics bother to call the paper, or that an employee "consensus" can establish the truth of such a comforting, self-serving and possibly delusional conclusion. Others will pick up the thread on the Carroll piece. But it isn't worthy of a man of his credentials or a paper of the Times' old stature or future ambition. Posted at 7:30 AM, Pacific The New York Times runs a story this morning on the increasing anger towards American troops among some of the Shiite population of Baghdad. The story contains the statement that "f the Shiites turned in large numbers against the American occupation, the effect would be explosive." Well, sure, but what's the point of the article? There are some Shiites who want America out, and apparently many more who want Ameerica to stay and guide the reconstruction. There are radicals and there are moderates. The radicals organize resistance and marches and the moderates don't. The elite media, as with every aspect of the Itaq war, seem to sense that the better sories are with the radicals, and the greater drama with whispered predictions of Vietnam