I have one bit of advice to anyone who loves freedom and their blogs: if want to keep you blog and your rights you had better stop the FEC and especially the United Nations from getting their mitts on them. Because like the Chinese, they will stamp out the first thing the Bureaucracy does not like which won't take long.
Ringing the bell ...

Journalists blogging is no different than anyone else blogging. It's all just opinion. Journalists have as much right as anyone else to express themselves through blogs but they shouldn't expect to be considered to be practising journalism while blogging. They're just blogging. There's nothing that makes a journalist's opinion sacred or more important that anyone else's opinion.

Sounds to me like Steve's a bit concerned about being lumped in with those activist bloggers and wants to be seen as a "real journalist." Fine. But why the worry? Anyone who reads the various blogs knows what they're getting. Sorry Steve, I think you're more worried about what your buddies in DC think of you.

If you don't consider yourself a blogger, but rather a journalist with a blog, fine. But don't play this "I'm not like those wacky left-wingers" game that is the absolute curse of so-called Democratic centrist media types. If you think you're a real journalist, by all means, post an "I'm a real journalist" (or, as you put it, a "serious journalist") heading on your blog. Josh Marshall doesn't seem to need to do that, but feel free. Or, you could just get a job as a "serious journalist" at a traditional media outlet.

Ultimately, your credibility with your readers is based on what you write. I'm not sure what your credibility with your DC media buddies is based on. I'm not sure I really want to know.

I'll stick to my opinion that blogs are an emerging market and technology. And as with all of these, it will mature and find it's path which will be a combination of the old print journalism which is falling behind and a new frontier which has yet to be defined.

Unlike traditional journalism, budgets won't limit bloggers like they are handicapping legacy businesses. Yet bloggers aren't 'professional' and a new set of standards will have to be defined.

These discussions are important, but are just a start in defining a new breed of journalism. We have a long row to hoe in the future.

Steve, I think you should give readers of liberal blogs a bit of credit for being discriminating readers and independent thinkers. Most of us have made a purposeful decision to ignore MSM except for the most basic of information. We turn to blogs, journals and the vast amount of raw data available on the internet to search for some semblance of the 'truth' on issues of importance. I can smell political pitches a mile away now and would be totally uninterested in reading a blog that served the interests of a particular politician. Even if that politician were one that I liked and generally respected, I'd still have to do quite a bit of fact-checking on my own or with the help of the blogger or comments by his/her readers. Actually, I find many reader's comments to be as knowledgeable and thought-provoking as the blog itself. The conference calls are indeed a strange development. I guess I'd try to decide whether the conference calls are valuable enough in an informational sense to participate. If they are, then I would just advise caution against being used as a conduit for intra- or inter-party politicking, and of course, never exchange access for integrity.

The socalled MSM is dead. It committed suicide by drowning itself in the swamp and slurry of partisan propaganda, disinformaton, and slime.

No longer credible, completely absent of any semblence of eithics, standards, objectivity, or fair and balanced reportage, - the MSM is rendered moot, and meaningless.

Why bother looking to the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM for one sided news, with a one sided message, told in onesided narrative, by oneside partisans, and applauded by the numbing sound of one hand clapping - when the blogs offer a wide array information and a thorough vetting of factbasedreality?

The complicit parrots and partisan hacks in the socalled MSM propaganidized themselves and the entire industry into irrelevence and oblivion.

The "Blogsphere" is the only reliable source of news and information.

The people still must search widely, vet thoroughly, corroborate diligently and wiggle through to many wild and diverse threads, but at least here, the facts and some semblence of truth can be unearthed and does find the light of day, - which is no longer possible in the socalled MSM.

The advantage and (in my opinion) great service and stength of the blogs is the wild diversity of positions and the resulting ephysics of self correction.

I respectfully disagree that all Bloggers are merely pundits promoting opinion, and nothing more.

While opinion is often though not always the fuel of the comments, many blogs - Daily Kos, Counterpunch, Wayne Madsen, Cursor, Eshcaton, The Raw Story, The Washington Note, Rigorous Intuition and other primarily left leaning blogs break stories or news early or first, and offer solid, original, ethical, thorough, and corroborated reportage.

All these bloggers are also quick to issue corrections and/or admit mistakes, unlike the complicit parrots in the MSM, or partisan hacks in the wingnutsia blogs, and disinformation covens.

The value of the blogsphere is validated when mistakes or errors are made, and the blogspherians force corrections.

A wild flurry of "googling monkeys" respond to, challenge or counter mistaken, or misleading posts or commentary quicker than a New York minute, and often with extra sauce.

The fringe, posts and opinions and lord knows I walk amongst them are usually marginalized in the larger debate, and the core issues are honed and narrowed as they are subjected to relentless and rigorous vetting, counter vetting, corroboration of facts and information.

The end result after much wailing and gnashing of teeth may not be pretty, but there is often something very like an actual fact or truth that is eventually unearthed for all to see and hold onto, and build upon, - which is completely impossible from the complicit parrots and lockstep partisans in the MSM and blogs of theright many of whom are on the Bush government payroll.

I have never seen a commentarian banned from a leftie blog, no matter how outrageous, scurrilous or offensive the post. Commenters posting on blogs of theright are systemically banned simply for daring to question or challenge the Bush government or the prevailing partyline.

A good example, and I admit to touching upon this very point - is available at Hullabaloo http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/ on the discussion on Chavez by Tristero titled: "It Would Be A Cakewalk. After All, More Soldiers Speak Spanish Than Persian, Right?"

The criteria for believability, all the very valid ones in the previous comments in this thread, are similar to those used with any good writer: authenticity, the ring of truth told, a love of-or at least respect-for words, respect for the reader, passion, intellect, and a "voice" tone that maintains over time. I do not know how much weight to give a blog I read for the first time. But after months of reading the best bloggers/journalists/activists I have really gotten to "know" them. They cannot hide themselves from any discerning reader. The ethics, respect, self-correcting and all the other are "givens" with these people.
Great topic and leadership in tackling it.

Steve

Listen Up !

You are stuck in the past and don`t "get it"; quit using old standards to evaluate the new phenomena

Some bloggers will get co-opted (some already have) & others won`t, just like the dreaded main stream media did

Other bloggers will arise to enlarge the sphere of opinion

Ben Franklin would INSTANTLY get blogs; maybe you should try and get inside his head/time so as not to continue to "miss it"

Think People`s Press

You have a lot to contribute to the coming shift in power so don`t make yourself irrelevant by continuing to fail to "get it"

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." - Niccoló Machiavelli (The Prince, 1532)

Steve, I keep rereading your posts on the subject and am left with the sense that I'm completely missing your point. Your reputation and practices aren't going to suffer because partisan bloggers participate in the same conference calls as you or working journalists do. No one is going to confuse you with Kos or Instapundit. For that matter, no one is going to confuse you with Judy Miller or any among the host of other thoroughly compromised reporters working the Washington beat.

Your readers come here to get exactly the perspective and services you provide — even if some, like me, get thoroughly annoyed by what we read from time to time — just as Kos and Atrios readers go to those sites and readers on the right go to Instapundit or, lord help us, Little Green Footballs. Their product is a known quantity, as is yours, as are unfortunately not, lord help us again, those of way too many cocktail circuit reporters.

My blog has a White House writer. He goes to the press briefings and asks legitimate, tough questions on important issues. Our readers know we frame the questions and interpret McClellan's answers, to the extent they're interpretable, through the prism of our particular political philosophies — which are hostile to that of the White House — and McClellan knows when he calls on Eric that he's going to get an unpleasant question (not that he cares, for the most part). If we're not too broke and burned out by the time a Democratic president arrives, we'll be posing legitimate questions to his or her press secretary as well, but there's at least some chance the questions won't seems as unpleasant because in theory, that administration's behavior won't be as unpleasant.

Should our lack of pretensive objectivity disqualify me from sending someone to the White House, or him from going, or either of us from participating in a conference call with members of the House Progressive Caucus with whom we happen to agree and whose agenda and framing we would dearly love to influence and propagate? Why shouldn't we have the same access as institutional journalists, to the extent we can cultivate it, and hear the questions they're posing? By the same token, aren't institutional journalists capable of dealing with whatever spin arises from coordination between politicians and partisan bloggers? and if they aren't capable, what good are they?

If bloggers are taking money or other forms of largesse from campaigns or PACS, they should by all means acknowledge it. Other than that, I simply don't see any cause for concern here. Unlike newspaper readers, who are at the mercy of faceless reporters hidden behind a screen of all too often false objectivity, blog readers are emptori who have a genuine opportunity to caveat.

There is a big post on this subject by Matt Stoller at http://www.mydd.com/

Here's the money quote:

"Our system doesn't work anymore. I believe Steve knows this, and I believe he also knows that we have to find new ways of building consensus, aligning interests, and forcing adherence to a prudent and flexible set of rules and norms. So blogger ethics discussions aren't so much about blogger ethics as they are discussion about what an internet-based society might look like."

I am interested in the Matt's statement about forcing adherence to a prudent and flexible set of rules and norms.

Maybe Steve could give us a glimpse into how this might be achieved.

Here is another take on the question. I notice that reporters generally offer each other professional courtesy in their reporting.
This leads to a lot of secrets being held in common among reporters but not shared with readers. I imagine that if reporter X for Izvestya engages in some of the unethical behavior that Steve is worried about, then reporter Y from Pravda, who is a witness, will keep his knowledge to himself.

Not so with blogs. Every blogger is a potential whistleblower; furthermore, a blogger depends much more on his credibility that a reporter, as I see it. A reporter for Pravda or Izvestya automatically derives credibility from the masthead appearing over his work, but a blogger has to earn readers by coming up with interesting observations or good reporting or good writing.
Now, there are cases of blogs which have accepted money to Pravditute themselves for Rove. I totally agree with a previous commenter who drew the line at the begining of financial interest. Short of bloggers being paid under the table, I don't see that your worries are well-founded.
Bloggers will NOT defer to each other, even if they share the same politics; already it is clear that they will call each other out.

The lack of professional creds can be a benefit, in my opinion; the lack of "guilding" may be offset by the quick and often vicious feedback generated by erroneous posts or poor arguments.
Note, this does not seem to happen on the right, but right wing blogs are notorious for not having comments.

I just want to add something that has been on my mind, related to the last post.
I believe the traditional media could reclaim some of their stake in readership and restore their credibility if they took one simple step: report on each other, and critique the reporting of other papers.
I see a little bit of this happening, but not nearly enough.
I would like to see CNN devote time each day to debunking stories on FOX, if there happen to be egregious errors. Also, holding evidence of a crime, as in the Plame case, and then reporting on that very case, is extremely unethical.
I understand that there would be a problem if reporters could not trust each other, but I see a middle ground: when Tim Russert repeatedly spoke on matters of which he had personal knowledge, I think any reporter who was aware of this state of affairs could have brought it up under a reasonable code of professional ethics.
Just say "Tim Russert is reporting on an affair of which he has personal knowledge which he is keeping from his audience. This is unethical, and it is my duty to report this to you, my audience"

I could see TV news getting VERY edgy if they took my suggestion. I do not want to see CNN and the NYTimes wither away, because they have tremendous reportorial resources. However, it is clear that they must adjust or they will die.

But the presumption of a collusive relationship damages all sides. To my blogging acquaintance above, I would not advocate that blogging activists be dis-invited from calls. I just think that there should be different types of calls. Serious journalists who want to compete with the media should develop and establish norms that institutionalize a constructive distance from the politician or party being written about.

Activists who mingle with journalists on these calls need to realize that journalist bloggers have to be very cautious about environments in which total cooperation is presumed.

Steve, previously I thought your concern was a general ethical concern about honesty and truth. But it appears to me now that your main concern here is a self-interested one. Your complaint is that the propagandizing sort of bloggers are ruining it for you and the other journalistic bloggers, by bringing these dubious conference calls into ill repute. Apparently, you want to continue to be invited to participate in these conference calls, because you are now addicted to the access they provide and the insider gossip they allow you to purvey on TWN. But you know that if you rub shoulders too much with the more blatant lackeys who participate in these all-too-obvious political propaganda efforts, it will damage your own reputation. You wish those other bloggers would just go away, so that the journalistic bloggers could make of the calls a proper press conference. Or if they won't go away entirely, at least those other bloggers could have the decency do their own damn conference calls, where they can suck up and pick up the marching orders to their heart's content, and leave the serious calls to people like you.

Let me be blunt Steve - get over yourself! This is nothing you have any control over. It is the government official who decides whether or not to hold a conference call, what to try to accomplish with the call, and whom to invite to participate. If their chief aim is simply to get the message out to the disciples, then they will invite mainly water-carriers to participate in the call. And if some of those water-carriers suddenly get all ethical, develop journalistic scruples, acquire aspirations toward intellectual honesty and objectivity, and refuse to carry the water, then the officials will find other bloggers to take their place.

You seem to feel that the problem is with these rude and impetuous bounders who have decided to butt in where they don't belong, and "mingle" with the serious journalists. But it isn't the activists who decided to mingle with the journalists. It is the politicians who have decided whom to invite to the call. If you want to participate in the conference calls, then you should feel fortunate that the activists and water-carriers are there, because otherwise the calls wouldn't take place at all. It's not as though these politicians are under some pressing social and political imperative to hold press conferences with journalist-bloggers. Do you really think that if the activists stopped participating, the politicians would arrange the calls anyway, thinking all the while "I really must grant a proper press conference to Steve Clemons - no man in my opinion can afford to ignore him." Hardly.

Since I have always liked you, Steve, and admired most of what you do here on TWN in the past, I feel compelled to tell you straight out: you are lately exhibiting some very unattractive and narcissitic traits - the self-absorption of an inveterate social climber - and it is making your writing increasingly tiresome. Your posts are more and more filled with pointless gossip and name-dropping, and seem designed more to advertise your own brilliant career and social connections with the Washington in-crowd than to pass on anything really important.

If you don't mind a little paraody, so many of your posts now include passages like the following:

"My friend Bill Backward is a senior policy analyst over at the Center for Racism and Reactionary Wingnuttery, a prominent Washington think tank. While I disagree deeply with many of his positions, I find Bill to be a thoughtful and open-minded wingnut, a man who is willing to listen to both sides of an argument. He's nothing like the other loons at CRRW.

"I don't mind saying that I challenged him straight out yesterday on CRRW's recent proposal to grind up minority children and turn them into dog food for the wealthy. "I understand the potential savings involved," I said, "but don't you think that there are some significant drawbacks and hidden costs in this proposal?" Bill courageously admitted that his colleagues may indeed "have gone a bit overboard." I was filled with admiration and renewed respect for the man. Bill is really more of a centrist than a true wingnut, a man of the vital middle who leans more toward constructive compromises than doctrinnaire ideological positions.

"Well, I was talking with Bill and Kay Bailey Hutcheson at the recent gala kickoff of the Corporate Cash Pipeline Project in Georgetown. Condoleeza Rice stopped by, in a very smart black and white number, and told us the most amazing story about Grover Norquist. It seems Norquist was caught in the act by Jacques Chirac at a recent White House state dinner in honor of the French president. As Dennis Hastert was leaning to his right to pocket a wad of cash proferred by Rupert Murdoch, Norquist reached out surreptitiously and stabbed the last remaning slice of tournedos au roquefort from Hastert's plate - and he did it with his salad fork. No sooner had Chirac choked out as startled "Mon Dieu!" than Norquist shot him an icy glare and said "mind your own fucking business you greasy Gallic rooster!"

While Norquist is not as bad a fellow as is often portrayed in the press, and has returned several of my phone calls in the past, this behavior is intolerable. Norquist holds a prominent public position, and is thus the bearer of an important public trust. And US relations with France are at a critical and precarious stage. It is simply unacceptable for him to indulge in invidious comparisons between Frenchmen and roosters within earshot of the President of France.

I am hereby announcing an email campaign against Grover Norquist which I am calling "The Email Campaign against Grover Norquist." Write your congressional representatives, the White House, the State Department, the Palais de l'�lys�e, the Cordon Bleu and and the Acad�mie Goncourt to demand action. This insult to our noble French allies must not be allowed to stand."

I just wanted to second Tony Foresta's recommendation upthread of the discussion on Venezuela at Hullabaloo, sparked by a genuine question by 'tristero', Digby's co-blogger. It's a nuanced, informative exchange -- left-leaning, but certainly not the kind of blanket defense of Chavez to mirror the blanket condemnation in much of the media.

I don't want to fall too much into cliché here, but it reflects the general rule that the left blogosphere is much less about provoking outrage and message discipline than the right side.

Anyway, Eric Alterman hits on a crucial point in his Nation column today: the Clinton scandals arose at a time when public access to basic source material became a reality. Political bloggers in this climate succeed because they are good readers and good writers, rather than good schmoozers. That is all. There are disadvantages to such things, because it takes a degree of reputable schmoozing to get Larry Wilkerson to say the things he said at the NAF forum.

Think of it this way -- isn't this a hell of a lot better than endlessly hitting redial on the few occasions that someone of interest shows up on C-SPAN? Wisdom of crowds, etc?

Dan: oh, that's a bit harsh. But yes, there's an unstated but vital blog rule: dog pictures, good; Lloyd Grove, bad. More weimaraner, less wining and dining.

Dan Kervick,

Exactly!

I want to add to my post above, Steve. Like all the posters here, I appreciate the work you do. If I didn't care, I wouldn't comment. I just think that most avid center/left blog readers are more than a bit suspicious about "serious journalists" these days. It seems that for every Sy Hersh or Murray Waas, there are 10 Bush royal court stenographers like Sue Schmitt or Judy Miller.

Out here in the hinterland, we're not concerned about journalistic careers (although we do want good reporters to do well), or who gets along well with his peers. We mostly just want the truth, and for many blog readers, anything that sounds like another lecture from the traditional-media big guns, who have so let us down in the past, just pisses us off.

For what it's worth, I'd expect your participation in a conference call to be different from that of someone from Kos or MyDD. I think most of your readers would expect the same.

Blogs need truth-in-advertising.

It is fairly easy to determine from content whether a blogger is a "news reporter" or an "op-ed" writer. Real newspapers identify their Op-Eds - bloggers should do the same.

I think the MSM has been dead for a while. But now that there are a lot of voices via the Internet (foreign publications as well as blogs) we can compare and judge. Look at how many people moved to the BBC during the Iraq war, a conclusion I had come to during the Iraq hostage situation. People were no longer comfortable with the propaganda they accepted during the cold war, or rather now knew the difference.

As certain publishers are found reliable over time we'll stay with them, as well as recommend that source to others. Or those sources. This blog is probably one of about 20 I check daily (yes, I do have too much free time).

Out in the hinterland I think one of the most valuable contributions by blogs will be in distilling data into needed information. Some blogs, like this one, will be an original source of information and we'll still need investigative reporters to go dig things out. But with the flood of information there will also be those that sift through all the sources to glean what we want.

As software evolves personalized heuristic software programs will spider thousands of sources analyzing reliability and selecting topics that we're interested in.

But another component will be that coffee shop component where we can come together, grab a cup of jaw, and talk over the issues. Here people with similar interests and biases will look for places where their beliefs are already an accepted norm.

I noticed at littlegreenfootballs facts weren't as important as chatting with people that believed similarly. So we'll probably see a wide spectrum of outlets just as we do today.

People, in the long run, are people. Good, bad, and varied.

Kervick says it all!

Conference calls are usually nothing more than an attempt to control the agenda because most journalists have little objectivity, have a superiority complex, they FEAR great blogs, cannot multitask and have their agenda set for them by their corporate masters.

Conference calls
* usually contain an abysmal low amount of information conveyed per minute
* They often contain at least one moron that inevitably get his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense
* They drift off subject easier than a rear-wheel driven Chicago cab in heavy snow
* They frequently have agendas so vague nobody is really sure what its about
* They require thorough preparation that people rarely do anyway

Just wanted to chime in and say that the discussion on Venezuela at Hullabaloo ( mentioned above ) was the BEST and most informative thread I have read.

And you just don't get that with today's insipid and drone journalism where 'corporate masters' set the agenda.

This may be a US thing. In Britain, for example, journalists and politicians are not buddies, they do not go to the same parties and know each other socially. The relationship is adverserial, not cosy.

Blogs should be more then just reporting news, they do have a slant, and that slant is expected and is why people read a particular blog.

However, blogs can still report news objectively, then comment upon with their slant.

I agree, getting cosy with politicians or being awed by access will invariably cause you to get co-opted and dilute your message. But that happens to mainstream news too.

The whole series of posts are mystifying to me.

UNLESS the real issue was simply re-defined to be 'professional ethics in journalism and truth in content labelling.' Then it makes a lot more sense. But then blogging is just a small, very small, part of the issue.

Professional journalists (in all media channels) have clearly allowed their professional franchise to be debased by their inattention to maintaining a clear definition of appropriate standards and then adhering to them.

If such a clear set of standards were defined, publicly available, and routinely enforced, then it would be of value to both the reporters and the readers of the news. Standards of fact checking, grading of content, clear and additional classification (opinion vs news vs 'analysis' vs speculative vs guess vs rumor vs 'I made this stuff up myself').

Then anything unable to adhere to those standards would be 'something else' - partisan, opinionated, axe to grind, pr BS, publicly available private diary, entertainment, whatever.

Think of a Better Business Bureau charter for journalism. Or what a CPA does for accountants, or the Professional Engineering designation does for someone offering their technical talents.

The closest thing is factcheck.org, but it is entirely reactive (since its agenda is driven by what others print or purport to be true) and subjective since they decide what rises to the level of their attention.

If you consider what modern day guilds have done for some professions (CPA, P.E.) and what the lack of objective industry standards have done for others (teachers, journalists) the value is clear.

Not every accountant needs to be a CPA to hold an accounting position, contribute, and even become a CEO. Not every journalistic 'type' of expression requires the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

But clearly if a gold standard is to be maintained it must be defined and then applied. The practitioners can decide if they want to be 24 carat or 6 carat or anything in between.

The value in the designation becomes the verifiable nature of the performance (CPA/PE) and a recourse for the those misled (BBB) to police the industry.

Everything is just more confusion and an easy target of derision.

Aren't we just seeing the tension between the broadcast vs. interactive models of communication? The trend is toward the latter, so controlling the information flow could be in the interest of those in power to keep some constraints on the dialogue. On the cynical side, it would be to pull the situation back to broadcast model alone, which some, consumers and broadcasters alike, have more levels of experience and comfort. On a positive note, this channeling of information could be used to harness and extract useful feedback to the important issues the powers that be need to shape policy.
Because you keep getting invitations, I would say there is some of the latter going on. These are the issues where reaction is desired.
You're right, as a blogger, you need to maintain some objectivity as would a journalist. But as a blogger, your audience expects opinion. They also expect a fully functional interactive style, where the audience has as complete information as available to react and give voice to the topic at hand.

Mike R. (10:37p) is a little meaner than I'd be, but I think he's right: "Ultimately, your credibility with your readers is based on what you write."

As someone who's been in the establishment and now out -- way way out! -- I can detect establishment anxiety in everything Steve writes. That's okay, and it doesn't always get in the way of the meat of what Steve has to say.

If Washington Note's centrism and Steve's apparent worry about status/category/justification bug you, skip to another post or come back tomorrow. If you're looking for confirmation of your personal opinions, there are bunches of lock-step blogs out there, right, left, and center. Steve's a valuable, competent writer, certainly no less valuable than guest bloggers from the Hill at Kos or Jesus General's superb nuggets of news and humor or the less flashy but invaluable regional bloggers with insights into local and ultimately national politics. And KM4 is right on about Digby at Hullabaloo.

As for newspapers and Fox TV and just about every other merchant of infopinion, what you get will seldom exceed the amount of education and discernment and humor you bring -- whether you're bloggers or "emptori." Kudos to Weldon Berger for hitting nail on head. I think the word "emptori" (and "ae") should henceforth be used to describe blog readers and commenters. Maybe "trolls" are "contemptori."

uh, excuse me for mentioning the elephant in the room....

Steve trades in access to a far greater extent that do any of the bloggers who participate in conference calls -- and at least with those calls, we know what is going on.

But with Steve, we get lots of flattery, puff pieces, and snow jobs about "important" people that are acting as his sources and/or showing up at his think tank being presented as if praise is not be traded for access. (the voluminous praise for Larry Wilkerson is one of the more recent examples --- as tons of commenters noted, Wilkerson sat back and did nothing but enjoy his privileged position while the Bush cabal was lying us into a war, and to treat his as some kind of "hero" now that the crap is hitting the fan and people are being held accountable is, well, its just a little bit distasteful. ESPECIALLY if Clemons is going to sit here and lecture bloggers on ethics....)

Sorry steve, but SOMEONE had to say this...

p.lukasiak -- Thanks for the admonition. I do operate in Washington, go to cocktail parties, host meetings. My objective is to redirect U.S. foreign policy and to influence both parties. I am an enormous fan of Wilkerson -- and you and I simply disagree about his value in this debate.

I am not lecturing bloggers. I am raising an issue that we are going to have to address regarding routenized phone calls with groups of bloggers, some of who are journalists and some of whom are activists.

You are attacking me -- and have regularly attacked me on this blog. I accept it and tolerate your views.

But realize that I'm attacking no specific person. I'm highlighting trends that need to be discussed.

You are a smart commenter; you know that the issue of routenized political meetings with dozens of bloggers whom the Member or Senator is attempting to get to serve as his or her noise machine will become an issue. Why not discuss the issues involved here rather than the personal attack?

Best regards,

Steve Clemons

Excellent thread folks !

Thanks to all

Think Benjamin Franklin Steve; we are in an era like young Ben went through so learn from it

Most comments here are dead on & honest; thinking Steve needs to hear

"We the people,,," want the TRUTH & yes, "We the people..." CAN handle the TRUTH

It is just the full of themselves blowhards in business & politics that can`t handle the TRUTH

The planet is in deep doo & all of us need to work on forcing change to the better

Steve remember - young Ben Franklin`s world is here

"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know." - M. King Hubbert

This is slightly OT, but I found a perfect example of what I'm talking about when I recommend trying to take out some of the really worst lower-level Bush appointees. Not your cup of tea, Steve, but I think that showing how much rotten fruit is on the lower branches will be relatively easy and politically useful.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_01_29_atrios_archive.html#113908507496817613

links to a Nytimes article on a 24 year old PR intern who is telling the scientists at NASA what they may or may not write on science.
More of this, please!

OT:

Marky, John Aravosis has a post up about Rummy wanting to attack Iran. Sounds like your nightmare scenario may come to pass....

Steve, I've been on your case. But this continues to be one of my favorite blogs. You are well informed, write intelligently with impressive clarity, are interested in issues that are always compelling. In addition, your Bolton work was outstanding.

Would you consider taking on some additional challenges? For example, you have often said that you would like to "take out Addington." Why don't you try? Speaking for myself, I would love to help.

The weaker Bush is, the better for our country.

Susan,
Just for the record, I have predicted that before the end of the year, conservative pundits will be writing that using nuclear weapons to take out Iran's nuclear program will be the most effective option; that we can't simply rule out the use of nuclear weapons to remove some of the most dangerous people on the planet---after all, imagine how many lives we could have saved if we could have nuked Berlin in 1939; that it is really the most humane solution, with the least cost in lives against a huge deterrent effect.

Five years ago, no one would have imagined that public discourse on the virtues of torture would be routine. The public is being suborned into evil, one laxed moral at a time. Watch the next few months as the Bush administration coaxes the public to accept removing just one more little rule...and then another... and another..

About Addington: who works for him, and who works two levels under him? Remember, Yoo was a low-level flunkie 5 years ago, and he was an essential architect of the torture policy.
I suspect you will find many more young people in these positions now, because older, saner people will not assist in the dismantling of the Republic. I will spare you my Godwinesque opinion of all the young and faithful followers of Bush, qualified only by enthusiasm and loyalty.

Cheers

Susan...Josh Marshall and I are launching Bolton Watch tonight....this will be interesting. But your point on Addington is on target. I (and we) do plan to make Mr. Addington significantly less obscure -- and true to the model I'm promoting -- most of the dirt on him will come from deep inside Republican sources. We really have to dismantle the Cheney wing of the foreign policy machine.

Best to you,

Steve

You are a smart commenter; you know that the issue of routenized political meetings with dozens of bloggers whom the Member or Senator is attempting to get to serve as his or her noise machine will become an issue. Why not discuss the issues involved here rather than the personal attack?

because its "routinized political meetings" with bloggers and politicians is not an issue -- at least not a discreet issue as you would like it to be.

Access is the coin of the realm in which you live, steve. Bloggers have now entered your realm, and are doing the exact same thing that every journalist, pundit, lobbyist and think tank maven has been doing since forever --- sucking up to important sources in order to achieve and maintain "access".

We (the great unwashed, the rabble, the "outsiders") get what you do, and appreciate it. We know you are an "insider", and we know that as an insider you have to operate in certain ways in order to provide us with insight and information.

Please just don't insult us by questioning the ethics of "outsiders" who are now doing exactly what you've been doing all this time for your own access....

p.lukasiak, well said !

I look foward to the start of Bolton Watch..just go easy on pictures of the moustache, please!

Steve, your orginal article was completely tainted because you wrote:

Last night, I heard a disturbing rumor that I have not confirmed (I should add that none of the calls I was on required what I am about to report) that there has been one organizer of liberal blogger conference calls who imposed a "publish or perish" rule requiring all participants in a call to write about that call, and favorably. This person apparently required bloggers on the call to report and write about the meeting with some respective Member of Congress or not be invited back in the future.

How can a man who considers himself-I guess a journalist make this claim the central point to his argument which is completely based on hearsay that paints a damning picture of all politician's and bloggers. Why would you steep so low as to include that in your argument? Did you issue an apology for using this classless act?

P.Lukasiak -- I completely disagree with you. And I'm sorry that you characterize outsiders as rabble. I don't at all. You continue to evade my primary point. If a politician in the White House uses a NY Times reporter as an "agent", that is wrong...their may be deal-making between them, but essentially the reporter must follow rules over time that tell the real story, not just the story the White House wants told.

If Senator Bill Frist adopts a couple of insider bloggers who have huge followings and act as opinion journalists -- and he colludes with them actively and consciously over time -- this is wrong.

I'm an opinionated blog activist as well, and I believe that blogs have a great role to play in defining a new kind of activist/advocacy journalism. But when politicians begin to look as if they own and operate some blogs -- which I'm not saying is the case but the trend seems to be moving that direction -- then I think we have something to worry about.

If you aren't worried, then no big deal -- but I do worry about it, not because of some self-serving problem I have with the industry, but because I believe that think tanks, media in new and old forms, and other players in politics have a responsibility to be engaged in constant turmoil and oversight about what is happening politically...even with political friends.

Some share my views; many don't. None of my writing was meant as an insult to outsiders -- and I don't like how you have twisted my intent and thinking to be an assault on those you term, "rabble".

I have seen a lot of angst in the last weeks about bloggers who resented various biases that the MSM carry -- and they have been working hard to punish the MSM. But if bloggers themselves, in regular calls with some of the major heavyweights in American politics, can't develop habits and practices that define their role vis-a-vis the politician, then there will be trouble ahead.

Look, I like the debates with you generally -- but this note from you was more mean-spirited than most, and I wanted to alert you to that in a friendly way. I do appreciate you challenging my thinking -- but I despise your personal attacks.

The volume of exchange, posts, and counter-posts about this subject attests to the importance of the issue in some minds. That makes it legitimate enough for me to engage in.

If you don't like this debate -- or just want to flip it into venemous attacks against me personally -- then skip this one because I will continue to work on this matter with other bloggers, both activists and writers -- as well as so-called insider and "outsiders", whom I greatly respect and read.

Thanks,

Steve Clemons

Steve:

The Beltway blogroll pointed out something I overlooked in your last piece on this:

"Last night, I heard a disturbing rumor that I have not confirmed ... that there has been one organizer of liberal blogger conference calls who imposed a "publish or perish" rule requiring all participants in a call to write about that call, and favorably. This person apparently required bloggers on the call to report and write about the meeting with some respective member of Congress or not be invited back in the future."

NEVER EVER has that happened to me and I am EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL of it. I think it was a mistake on your part to publish that serious charge without more evidence than an "unconfirmed rumor."

Mike - I did not make the reference you note the 'central' part of my argument. That was a validating point of concern -- and in the process -- I said it was something that had come up in discussion and that I had not then validated this...I issued it as a "minor" point in the story. Why do you distort?

Next, I have since confirmed this case with three bloggers and now know the person who did this. I know it occurred on at least one call -- and I do not know if the practice occurred again, or many times. I indicated in what I wrote that NONE of the calls I had been on had this as a standard.

So, let's keep things in context.

To tell you the truth, because there are so many who want to know identities of players in this game -- and then hang them -- versus discussing the bigger issues, I wish I had not made the reference at all...but I did and it is out there.

What I did not have at the time was corroboration. Now I have -- from three independent sources. So, let's leave it at that. I imagine that my writing this will keep the practice from ever occurring anywhere again.

So, no apology Mike -- firm resolution about what I wrote and why, but with an admission that that line was so distracting that if doing again, i would not have referenced it. It was a minor point -- and if you are as smart as I think you are, you knew that before you posted the comment you did.

I hope now that you might debate the larger issues. I have gotten a lot of insights from other bloggers who challenged me and wrote to me -- one of whose comments I posted.

Why don't you try and reach that sort of bar?

best,

Steve Clemons

Armando -- see my comment to Mike above. I also made clear that in the 18 or so calls I have been in on, I also had not had that rule come my way by any gatekeeper. This vignette came from some bloggers I recently met -- but I had not had time to confirm what they said, so I clearly stated that it was unconfirmed. In my mind, this note was minor -- but it became distracting to the larger issues I was raising -- and I wish I had not included it.

That said, I have since found three bloggers, independently, who confirmed this case. I don't know if it was just one call in which this was said -- or more -- and it may have been "carelessness" or "overzealousness" on the part of the call organizer. I don't know. I do know the person's identity now -- and I have confirmations.

It clearly is NOT a major part of these blogger calls as I had not run into it before -- but added it because it was a feature of a call involving a group of bloggers. Again, I wish I hadn't.

The one thing that this probably insures is that no one will probably try such a stunt in the future.

best regards,

Steve Clemons

Steve:

On your last comment, if you have confirmed it and feel confident it is true, I think you should post who did it.

That is an outrageous thing to have occurred and the person who did it should be publically excoriated.

In a word, it is unacceptable, at least to me. I would refuse to participate in such a call under any circumstances.

On the subject of the post, I wrote a comment in the last thread on this and really have nothing to add to it.

I am a partisan Dem blogger, not a journalist.

If I writer about the call, I will tell the truth, from my Dem perspective.

I think that is exactly what you did on the Reid call and the answer discussed and I fully support your right to do so.

You were true to your principles and view of your role.

I actually did not write about the call or this issue for that matter. To me, it is a fairly clear cut issue.

I understand others disagree.

Steve,
I still think you are missing the point that blogs police themselves quickly and in a different manner than older media.
The "self-correcting blogosphere" might not quite exist, but people do recognize phonies and guys who are just parroting spin. It's correct for you to mention what has happened on some conference calls; doing this on your blog may lead to a quick change in behavior.
I guess what I think you are missing is that the speed of reaction changes the balance in favor of the blog readers by orders of magnitudes.
If you imagine Judy Miller or Jeff Gannon blogging their news instead of reporting, their credibility would have been in shred within weeks. You are quite right to suspect underhanded arrangements between bloggers and politicians, but no such arrangement will be worthwhile if it ends up being exposed quickly. Ethics, as opposed to morals, deal with practical elements of behavior. I really think that the dangers of scmoozing and graft are much more severe in the older media, possibly for the reason I give here.
Also, I am interested to know if professional reporters cover for each other (as in the Plame case) for reasons of professional ethics, out of habit, or for legal reasons.
I gave a specific example: Why couldn't some reporter on CBS, say, tell the public that Tim Russert was commenting on the Plame affair while not disclosing that he was a player in it?
At the very least, the reporter could say "There are 5 major reporters who are involved in the PLame case, but who do not mention this when they report on it".

I appreciate your view, Armando, that I should expose this person -- but I'm not going to. I'm not convinced that this person was anything more than overzealous or attempting to tip the balance when it came to the perceived impact of these calls for a Member.

I have no interest in harming a young person over this. The point was not central to my post and i wish I had not included it. I had a talk with some bloggers today from the Townhouse crowd who felt that there are lots of efforts out there to try and discredit liberal bloggers, and thus I understand the sensitivity. I'm in no way trying to do that. I'm trying to talk about the importance of thinking through, to some degree, healthy norms about these calls.

Again, this whole line was triggered when someone wrote about me -- and my role -- after reporting on Harry Reid's conference call. That blog post by another liberal blogger who tilted more activist in this case than I did made me think through how careful we need to be about defining roles and expectations if we are going to be "regularly" engaging with major politicians in such calls.

The individual who engaged in this gatekeeper, publish or perish, role is a good person by all other accounts -- so I hear. But that said, the case has been confirmed....and I'm going to leave it there.

I assume that this practice is not prevalent as neither you, nor I, have ever experieced it. And I assume that in part because of this discussion and vigilancy from smart, more seasoned bloggers, this will never occur again.

best regards,

Steve Clemons

Fair enough Steve.

I thought this was authorized by the organization or official themselves.

That is what I meant.

Your discretion makes sense to me as you explain it.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify the situation.

What i think is missing from the discussion is the fact that these "conference calls" are acknowledged up front to be "promotional" in nature.

AFAIK, these are not "open to the public" calls, but "access by invitation" -- like a cocktail party without the booze and air kisses. And because the venue is like a townhouse, and only allows for a limited number of party-goers, the invitation list is gonna be pretty exclusive.

.....and that exclusivity is really what is at issue here. The person steve talked about, who "who imposed a 'publish or perish' rule requiring all participants in a call to write about that call" wasn't being overzealous -- they were just being too honest and obvious. They were doing what bloggers have a "bad habit" of doing -- relating the raw, unvarnished truth.

And that "raw, unvanished truth" is that you won't get invited to the next "cocktail party" unless you do what is expected of you. In the Beltway, you aren't allowed to say such things --- you just cut the person off the invitation list for the next party, and invite someone else.

And if the person who is cut complains, well, you drop a hint like "I thought you were a tad disrespectful to my guest of honor at my last party...." and if he wants to be invited to the next party, he apologizes -- and writes something nice about the guest of honor in his blog after the "party".

Of course, there are always some guests that will be invited to the party regardless of who the "guest of honor" is.... those "prestigeous" guests that make it possible to drop more than one name when "name-dropping". They have their own cache.....but for the average "B or C list" blogger, there are certain expectations.....

Of course you NEVER, EVER, tell the unvarnished truth about what is going on..... that access comes at a price, and if you don't pay that price, you lose that access...unless, of course, you are as much of a celebrity as the "guest of honor".....

This whole discussion is pointless. Discussions of blogger ethics given the dire straits of our Republic is like a husband and wife arguing about what color to paint the house while it is burning down.

Unless the megalomaniacs are stopped -- and I mean Bush and the NeoCons -- they will define blogger ethics not you. Which means a controlled internet, tight censorship, jail time for dissidents... just imagine the internet under Stalin.

So unless all of us work to oust the Neos pretty damn fast blogger ethics will be the least of our worries. And, if anyone thinks they can fight them fair and ethically and win they are deluded. We best get them before they can change the rules and put blogs out of business. If Steve is talking about it they are doing more than talk.

Bloggers: think Thomas Paine. We hang together or we hang separately.

Pardon my bluntness. The time for niceties is rapidly passing.

Pardon my bluntness. The time for niceties is rapidly passing.

Posted by ronny

The time for niceties ended when these bastards dumped the WTC and handed us the false Al Qaeda boogie man. You don't play nice with people that are willing to murder 3000 Americans to pursue an agenda. Bush and Cheney deserve to be in a federal prison awaiting the ultimate punishment. The very essence of what we are as a nation will be judged by the severity with which we judge and punish these traitors that have so betrayed us. If we fail to remove, try, and punish these people, than we have ceased to be what we claim to be, a nation of laws. And you are right. At the current rate of events, the blogosphere will be very short lived, they WILL shut it down. Information is power, and the LAST thing these bastards want US to have is power. Can you imagine how we would percieve events of the last five years if all we had to go on was the propaganda of the MSM??

Unfortunately, it appears that the "moderate democrats" and "liberal hawks" have not learned the lesson of 2002. There is already a look of qualified support from these two groups for a Bush-led military strike on Iran.
Only Josh Marshall seems to have changed his mind. It is scary that only a very smart person like Josh is able to reevaluate in light of the 2002 experience. I'm afraid that people like Kevin Drum and possibly Laura Rozen---whom I admire greatly and who almost always returns my emails, by the way, thanking me for my insights, and offering cogent and interesting responses---will support Bush when it comes to attacking Iran.

On the 'publish or perish' thing: the most important part of getting some clarification was to establish that for the majority of calls, there wasn't an implied quid pro quo that the participants might have missed. Once you head into second-guessing territory, that sours the relationship even before any wider issues emerge.

I understand Paul Lukasiak's concerns: his work, in 2004 and today, reflects the kind of 'Blogosphere Research Service' that simply goes to the source material and drinks deeply. And what's needed is the establishment of relationships that allow his work -- or, more recently, Glenn Greenwald's on the NSA affair -- to be amplified and then heard and translated into political action.

Perhaps it's time to semi-formalise the concept of a Blogosphere Research Service, so that politicians and their staff understand that by citing particular bloggers on the CIA leak, or the NSA case, or a host of issues, they're not simply going to 'some people on the internet', but to those who have the community's respect on these subjects, and whose work has been borne out.

As for Iran: yes, we're seeing Kevin Drum and others adopting the Charlie Brown pose as they prepare to run and kick the football. I'm sorry, but the idea that 'if the Dems press harder, the result will be better this time' is crazy. Under this administration, an administration that has screwed up every major policy initiative since 2001, 'trust but verify' is no longer operative.

What is problematic about your blog is that it is neither journalism or activism. For a journalistic approach you have too many open endings and a lack of acknowledgement: who are your sources, who said what, when and where? For an activist blog, your blog shows a lack of vision. Where should the US be heading after the neo-conservative primacy over US foreign policy? Should the US accept a Gaullist view of multipolar power blocks or should the US maintain control over many of the world's natural recources?

Isn't ironic that the US is enforcing democracy on one region (the Middle East) while being sponsored by a region (China) which shows no sign of becoming a democracy? Do you have ideas on these issues? (To me, this is the huge elephant in the room. The US is being sponsored by a tyranny to fight a war which it can't win.)

To conclude, a bit more vision would enlighten more of your out-of-the-Belthway readers on your ideas on US foreign politics, a bit more journalistic vigour would encourage more out-of-the-Belthway readers to visit your blog.

The last thing I need's a stenographer for the Republican Party. I want reporters to show morals. When does it appear moral for the Republican party to inadequately increase social programs in the face of inflation and greater number of people requiring help from the government since the past year?

This reminds me of a man who speeded up his car to avoid a speeding car behind him, but alas he fell victim to the crash anyway.

The officer asked him what happened. The injured driver (Republican) said I did not cut my speed but I increased it. Yes well the officer said, you did not increase your speed enough to avoid the crash.

Join the revolution for progressive legislation.

http://www.boycott-republicans.com

Get your "Mean, abusive people vote Republican" bumper sticker at Bumperactive.com

I'm not sure that the US (or anyone else for that matter) can "enforce democracy on one region. After all, how do you force people to go and vote? Would we (and many others) like to see a democratic China? Sure, why not? It would certainly be a good thing for the Chinese people.

"US maintain control over many of the world's natural recources"

Other than by buying them, I'm not sure hoe the US can maintain control over the world's economic resources. While we surely use too much of the world's oil, we're buying it, not stealing it.

Steve, I'm still not understanding the problem here. Who are the injured parties, what's the injury and why does it matter? How does your complaint differ from the now-traditional lament of the gatekeepers? I'm not trying to be snarky, or at least no more so than usual: I just don't get it.