My Last Boring Plain Dealer-Wide Open Follow-up Post
Being a silver-lining person, I’m focusing on the fact that the demise of the PD-WO experiment has freed up blog time to look at things that regretfully fell by the wayside during October, and even moreso during the past week.
But for now, please indulge one last roundup and thought dump.
For starters, it bears noting that Dave and I were aware by mid-to-late morning Wednesday that Jill would resign. She asked us not to disclose her departure until she posted, so there was no point in posting anything until she did. Jill’s post went up in the late afternoon, and ours (here and here) came within a few hours of that. Interpreting our radio silence during this time as a lack of support for either Jeff or Jill, or as indicating some hope for revival for the project, would be incorrect. Neither Dave or I had any belief, barring divine intervention, that it could go on.
Before I read PD Reader Representative Ted Diadiun’s Sunday column, I believed that salvage efforts might have had potential if the four of us had huddled before Jeff’s post-termination post. I still think we should have convened as a group first (and Jeff in essence agrees with that), but Diadiun made it clear that continuation was out of the question when, after appearing to equate the blogosphere as a whole with “primordial ooze,” he concluded that:
Here’s the reality:
You can’t contribute to a political candidate and then write about his or her campaign, either as an employee or as a paid free-lancer for The Plain Dealer, on paper or online. Period.
Steve LaTourette has got nothing to do with that, now or ever.
This is one of those times when you wish you had done some thinking for other people who should have known better.
Ted, your company should have known that the Wide Open bloggers had made political contributions in the past, and should have asked us if we intended to do so prospectively (and about our activism intentions in general), before Wide Open launched. I know y’all seem to have acquired a reluctance to investigate imams, but you surely haven’t been averse to investigating bloggers in the past. The contributions and advocacy issues came up very early on, and should have been resolved early on. Stupid us — we thought that they had been resolved, or had faded into unimportance.
And I have one other name to add to the inconsistency list: Connie Schultz (aka Mrs. Sherrod Brown). If the PD gave a rip about independence in appearance it would not have allowed her to continue at the paper after Brown declared his Senate candidacy. I think her continued presence as a journalist at the paper after she married Brown while he was still a Cleveland-area congressman was out of bounds. Get married, be compelled to get a different job. It’s not like that never needs to happen — or is that only a standard when the politician involved is a Republican?
Bill Sloat, whose earlier reported contentions that Congressman Steve LaTourette was not pressuring for a Jeff Coryell ouster from PD-WO Mr. Diadiun appears to at least partially refute, made an excellent point that Newspaper Guild dues/contributions from real reporters largely go to Democrats. Two obvious questions: 1) Why are they allowed? 2) How can any dues-paying reporter covering issues like the Supreme Court’s Beck decision and its implementation claim with a straight face to be objective?
Jill has thoughts on the Diadiun column here; Dave follows up here. Jill has even more at her place (just scroll).
Jeff is still breaking through the resigned/fired thing. In a different realm, I’ve been there, done that.
___________________________________________
UPDATE: Meant to say this — Whether or not bloggers associated with a newspaper are paid is really a dumb question, and resolves nothing. A for-profit enterprise should expect to have to pay for professional services that it values. Further, the fact that bloggers aren’t being paid doesn’t “solve” the conflict of interest problem. Just wait until an unpaid blogger in a similar situation is found to have made contributions to a political candidate without disclosing them. It will happen, and you will find that attempting dissociation through non-payment doesn’t fly. In fact, it’s likely to attract the kind of dissembling opportunists the paper thinks it is avoiding exposure to.
UPDATE 2, Nov. 7: The Cleveland Free Times’s coverage of the story points to another potential PD conflict yours truly mentioned in a different discussion in early September (last sentence at link) –
And though it has nothing to do with blogging, it’s worth pointing out that Plain Dealer publisher Terrance Eggar joined the board of the Cleveland Clinic while the paper was running extensive coverage of the Medical Mart proposal, a pet Cleveland Clinic project. Is that less indicative of bias than a $100 campaign contribution from a blogger?
Good point, though in my view the PD is on solid ground if it has consistently and prominently disclosed the relationship.
good point on Connie Schultz.
I am sorry it didnt work out. But at least we see more stuff here now…
Comment by Ben Keeler — November 6, 2007 @ 11:16 am
This has been an interesting event, which I believe has more to do with, as you term it, the old media, than it does with Jeff or bloggers. Your points are spot-on, as was Bill Sloat’s earlier.
I would hope that many of the Ohio bloggers with leftward leaning inclinations would reassess their past comments concerning this issue, and examine the influence the left has within the media; and examine the media in general. Almost the entire Ohio left leaning blogosphere was quick to point the finger at Steve LaTourette, when we see it now, it had nothing to do with him directly. I readily admit that I thought maybe city politics had taken hold, but if I have learned anything in life, rushing to judgment is a fool’s action. I know there were some that were hoping to turn this into a national media circus getting Kos and Mother Jones involved, but since they fizzled and lost interest only denotes that LaTourette was not a party to the decision.
Also, I would hope the left leaning blogosphere would take note that the right blogosphere was equally upset with the firing at the very same time (we were not Johnny come lately). However, we saw it as an issue aggravated specifically by the PD, rather than Steve LaTourette. If I was to nail down the common sentiment among the right, it had more to do with what was perceived as a restriction of freedom of speech and expression. All knew Jeff’s background and all accepted his positions; so it comes with the territory when you have a group such as Wide Open. But I believe we saw the real issue first with the PD. But maybe that is because we are more sensitive to the blatant leftward slant the media has in this country.
Again I would hope that the left would look at the issue from a different vantage point. There is a lot that can be gained from reflecting upon this issue, and the role the media is suppose to provide as the informal advocate for checks and balances with our republic.
Comment by Brian — November 6, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
[…] Bizzy Blog from this morning […]
Pingback by The "more updates" on Wide Open part of the last post | Writes Like She Talks — November 6, 2007 @ 12:12 pm
Brian - I respect how well and kindly you’ve written your comment here, but I would urge you to read this post from this morning. The PD/LaTourette connection is still under examination and for good reasons.
Comment by Jill — November 6, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
Hi Brian - something happened on the way to that code - let me try again:
I wrote a post HERE (laughing at my capitalizing as emphasis that I got the code in there) that I hope you will read and think about, because I do not think that LaTourette’s involvement can be dismissed, not yet anyway.
Comment by Jill — November 6, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Jill;
While I am no oracle, I think in the end LaTourette’s role will be minimal, indirect, and or only passing. However, more to my point, the left blogosphere needs to reassess the incident at large.
Comment by Brian — November 6, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
Agree with your update. It’s a red herring. And again - Ms. Goldberg can only use the reasoning that they didn’t think something through so many times before she’s either okay with portraying herself and the PD as people who don’t think things through much, OR - they tell us more about what’s really gone on. OR - okay - we continue to accept that they are as clueless as their behavior would indicate.
Or - they just hate us. There’s always that, I suppose.
Comment by Jill — November 6, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
[…] Okay. I just confessed that maybe newspaper journalists just simply hate bloggers, but now I received notice of this incident at George Washington University: George Washington University officials said a Jewish student who complained about swastikas showing up on her door put them there herself. […]
Pingback by A Jewish Tawana Brawley? | Writes Like She Talks — November 6, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
Well, I don’t agree with that, Brian. I respect how you’ve argued for that position, but, again, having been through it, been on the phone calls, seen the emails, knowing the evolution, if anything - the right needs to poke and prod LaTourette more, not less.
But that’s just my opinion based on my firsthand experience in the demise.
Comment by Jill — November 6, 2007 @ 3:31 pm
Shalom Jill,
Of course they hate us. We are threatening the very existence of their jobs.
We are to the dead-tree and other rococo media as emerging auto industry workers in Asia are to the Big Three.
Our readership is increasing, theirs is decreasing and they can’t figure out how the feck to make money off of us.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Comment by Jeff Hess — November 6, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
[…] 1545 My Last Boring Plain Dealer-Wide Open Follow-up Post 1536 A Jewish Tawana Brawley? digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=5392″; digg_skin = ‘compact’; […]
Pingback by MY COMMENTS… — November 6, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
You’re a cause celebre.
The story of the Plain Dealer’s destruction of Wide Open is sad and infuriating. I dealt with it on my group blog.
As a card-carrying MSM member myself, I find it difficult to believe so many of my peers remain in denial. We do not control the flow of information any longer. If we don’t give the most accurate information, readers will just go elsewhere. Myopic, frightened Plain Dealer editors desperate to hold onto their jobs can’t summon the honesty to tell their readers the truth.
Comment by Bradley J. Fikes — November 6, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
Jill;
I am not one bit surprised that you would go down fighting to protect the old media, than admit LaTourette was a minor figure. But they came after you, liberals, not us. You are on the same team politically, but the leftist political class has no use for you. You are disdained by them, just as we on the right disdain you.
But I am not sure if you’ll ever get it. Real freedom while being despised is better than limited freedom when you have to cow-tow to the political class even when you are on the same team.
Comment by Brian — November 6, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
#12, thanks for the link and coverage.
When RAB said:
Jill, Dave, and Tom should investigate this matter and consider quitting the Plain Dealer.
Jill, Dave and Tom (me) are the the other three W-O bloggers. Your sentence after the RAB quote seems to indicate that you think we are PD editors (yikes).
Comment by TBlumer — November 6, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
Tom, sorry!
I’ve corrected the posting to make clear you were the bloggers, and not the PD editors.
Best of luck.
Comment by Bradley J. Fikes — November 6, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
ARgh - Brian - I know you hate when I say I don’t get it because you think I am feigning, but I do not understanding what you are saying:
“I am not one bit surprised that you would go down fighting to protect the old media, than admit LaTourette was a minor figure. But they came after you, liberals, not us. You are on the same team politically, but the leftist political class has no use for you. You are disdained by them, just as we on the right disdain you.
But I am not sure if you’ll ever get it. Real freedom while being despised is better than limited freedom when you have to cow-tow to the political class even when you are on the same team.”
What are you talking about? You keep trying to pigeonhole me - I don’t fit in any of these holes or labels or monikers or anything. Even someone who has commented on WO and here I think - AuditorGary I believe - has said that I was “unique” in my voice - don’t know if he meant that in a good or a bad way.
Please - Brian - who is kowtowing (not a “c” by the way) to the political class? What on earth are you talking about?
LaT was not a minor figure, Brian - and I dare you to ask Tom and Dave the same question - they were on all the calls and in all the emails I was in on - it started with him, end of story.
Why are YOU trying to get around that?
Comment by Jill — November 7, 2007 @ 9:27 am
It seems to me, as an outside observer but also a reporter, that the Plain Dealer bears most of the blame.
Politicians and other interest groups will frequently threaten or bully a media outlet to get their way. They are attempting to advance their own self-interest. It’s up to the media outlet to refuse to be intimidated and to make a decision based on facts and ethics.
Early in my career, a former congressman tried something much the same with me when I reported on a scandal of his. My coverage was entirely factual and not motivated by any personal dislike of the congressman. His chief of staff was nice to my face, but complained behind my back to the editor and publisher.
The editor, much to his credit, told me about this attempt to muzzle me. The publisher backed the editor. I went on reporting as usual. This is how newspapers should behave when unfairly pressured. They should put principle before expediency. The Plain Dealer failed the test.
Comment by Bradley J. Fikes — November 7, 2007 @ 1:39 pm