The Decrepit State Of Big Media Journalism

This is inexcusable. Period. Inexcusable and S.O.P.

Matthews’ favorite story concerned Willey’s claim that she was intimidated by an unknown jogger near her home. After Willey told the treasured tale, Matthews asked who this jogger might be:

MATTHEWS: Who do you think this was? Do you recognize him from any pictures you’ve seen? Have you ever seen a picture of a person who looks like this person who accosted you this morning?

Willey had identified a picture, she said, but she didn’t want to say who it was. She repeatedly declined to name any names, saying the event was still under investigation. But Matthews knew who Willey had named. He went ahead and named names for his lady:

MATTHEWS: Who showed you the picture of the person that you think might have been him?

WILLEY: Jackie Judd.

MATTHEWS: From ABC. And did you identify it positively?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: So it’s Cody Shearer.

WILLEY: I can’t tell you.

MATTHEWS: OK, but you identified it positively.


The exchange provides a classic example of Hardball’s oddball logic. Willey identified it positively--so it’s Cody Shearer! The analysts roared, here at DAILY HOWLER World Headquarters, at the latest exhibition of the talker’s strange arts.

We now know that, if there was such a jogger, it surely wasn’t Cody Shearer, brother-in-law of a White House official. Matthews opened his show this past Monday night with an apology for having named Shearer (Matthews spent several nights, after May 11, bravely pretending that Willey had named Shearer). Matthews said that Shearer (and his lawyer) had convinced him that Shearer was nowhere near the alleged crime. Joe Conason, in Salon, filled in the facts about the day in question:

CONASON: I did what Matthews should have done and called Shearer. He told me that on the date cited by Willey, Jan. 8, 1998, he was far from her house in the leafy suburbs of Richmond, Va. He can prove that he stayed at the Hyatt Regency hotel in San Francisco on the night of Jan. 7 and that at 2:53 p.m. on Jan. 8, he withdrew money from a cash machine at the Embarcadero Center in that same city.

And why don’t real journalists make reckless accusations? We’ve learned part of the reason in the past several days. Conason reported that Shearer has received death threats in the wake of the Matthews accusation; and this morning, a warrant has been issued for a Washington man’s arrest. Over the weekend, the man appeared at Shearer’s home, slashed his tires, and threatened guests with a shotgun.

"The man" was Pat Buchanan's brother, Hank.

But Joe Klein, frequent Chris Matthews Show guest, tells me "Rumors only become news when they are confirmed, cross-checked and responded to by the target of the attack."

Link.

And then there's this; CNN gaming a presidential debate:

Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" at last night's debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN," Luisa writes. "I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance."
Now, Luisa is getting "swamped" with critical e-mails.
So what happened?
Writes Luisa:
"CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question. Seconds later this girl comes up to me and says, "you gave our school a bad reputation.' Well, I had to explain to her that every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored. That's what the media does. See, the media chose what they wanted, not what the people or audience really wanted. That's politics; that's reality. So, if you want to read about real issues important to America--and the whole world, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Economist or the New York Times or some other independent source. If you want me to explain to you how the media works, I am more than happy to do so. But do not judge me or my integrity based on that question."
Rivals to Clinton believe that the debate audience had a pro-Clinton tilt. UNLV was responsible for distributing most of the tickets.
In a separate post, Luisa provides the question she wanted to ask:
Yucca Mountain, NV is the proposed site for the country's nuclear waste repository. Despite scientific evidence that it is a vulnerable site, the federal government continues to push for the plan to move forward. The evidence relied on is unsound and the risks involved in transporting high-level radioactive waste across the country are high. What will you [Sen. Clinton] do to ensure that the best site/s is/are chosen for the storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel?
Sam Feist, the executive producer of the debate, said that the student was asked to choose another question because the candidates had already spent about ten minutes discussing Yucca Mountain.
"When her Yucca mountain question was asked, she was given the opportunity to ask another question, and my understanding is that the [diamond v. pearls] questions was her other question," Feist said. "She probably was disappointed, but we spent a lot of time with a bunch of different candidates on Yucca Mountain, and we were at the end of the debate."
Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central has a CNN spoxperson giving a slightly different story...

Link.

And that variant version?

Okay, we've got some more detail for you on the controversy surrounding CNN and the girl who asked Hillary whether she prefers "diamonds or pearls" at the close of last night's debate.

Specifically, a CNN spokesperson confirmed to me that the network chose that question and asked her to ask it.

But in the network's defense the spokesperson also says that the girl wasn't "forced" to ask it. She submitted the question in advance -- it was her question -- and voluntarily agreed to ask it. CNN selected the question and asked her towards the close of the debate if she wanted to ask it. She said yes.

As you may have heard by now, the girl said on her MySpace page that she was forced to ask this question and that she would have preferred to ask one about Yucca Mountain. She said this in response to the storm of criticism and ridicule the question has since received.

And it looks like the girl is right: Though she did submit the question, CNN did select it and ask her to pose it.

Hillary's rivals are accusing CNN of going soft on the frontrunner, and they're pointing to this question, among other things, as proof of this.
Here's how the whole thing unfolded, according to the spokesperson. Questioners were told in advance that they didn't want duplicate questions to be asked on topics that were already covered. The spokesperson argues that Yucca Mountain had already been discussed for some time as the debate wound down last night.

According to the spokesperson, as the debate drew to a close, CNN wanted to ask one last question. A CNN employee (it's unclear who) asked the girl if she wanted to ask the "diamonds and pearls" question. She said yes.

A CNN official is already on record telling Marc Ambinder that she chose the question. But as the above makes clear, CNN's spokesperson is confirming that the network in fact chose it.

So this is both better and worse for the network. On the one hand, it's better because the question was originally submitted by the girl, and it's obvious that the girl was hardly "forced" to ask this; rather, she was offered the opportunity and took it. The network wanted to close on a light question, and they chose this one.

On the other hand, the network is confirming that it did in fact choose a question that quizzed the first credible female Presidential candidate on her taste in jewelry. That's confessing to some pretty questionable taste.

Nothing like professionals taking advantage of youth....

Way to go, CNN and Big Media: no standards, everyone's there to be your victims....