Time and Hillary's "Hostile Netroots"

Markos Moulitsas responds to my Nation article about the Netroots Nation convention, which discussed how Time erroneously reported that Hillary Clinton was booed in a Q&A session last year:

It was clear that some narratives have set and won't be changed no matter what. I already fired off an email to Time asking for corrections to that [Clinton error] and several other glaring errors in that terrible piece. But as we've learned with Joe Klein, Time considers itself and its writers infallible, so there's slim chance of any corrections.

As I explained on Monday -- and last year -- Clinton was not booed in her Q&A session. I have now dug up a 42-minute audio recording of her entire Q&A appearance, which Time editors are welcome to review. (There is also extensive press coverage available from the event, corroborating the fact that Clinton was not booed during the session. She was booed during a much larger presidential candidate debate held on the same day.)

Yet two days since the story was posted, Time has not issued a correction, despite an irrefutable record and requests from a major figure involved in the story. Moulitsas has even been profiled by the magazine, albeit under the headline "Inside the Cult of Kos." Now this may seem like a minor error, but it fits with a recurring tendency to slant coverage of the progressive netroots, even stretching to the point of blatant inaccuracy, while avoiding the most basic corrections required by journalistic standards. And it's bigger than one magazine article.

Back in Texas, the Tuesday edition of the Austin American-Statesman features an editor's note informing readers that the paper "compromised" its standards by running a front-page news article slamming Netroots Nation as a virtual "faint-in" for "marauding liberals" to honor a House Speaker so liberal she could represent China. Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell, (who spoke on a panel with me at the conference), reported on Monday night that the paper removed the article from its website after local and national bloggers flagged the article's odd tone and misleading references.

Time should take the Texas route on this one, too. An editor's note could even make a decent post on their Swampland blog.

Comments (5)

1. It was obvious that some narratives have set and won't be distorted no matter what. I already ablaze off an email to Time asking for corrections to that and several other glaring errors in that terrible piece. ___________________ aaron <a href="http://www.addictionrecovery.net/oregon ">Addiction Recovery Oregon </a>

   Posted by aaron133 at 07/22/2008 @ 05:11am

2. Once upon a Time, there used to be standards in journalism. No longer. Frankly, it is a wasted effort seeking a retraction or correction. They have a meme, a frame, a view that must be promoted, despite all facts to the contrary.

   Let's see how they stack up these days: * Hillary was booed last year in Chicago at her Q&A (Heck, I was there. and she wasn't) * Nancy Pelosi is ultra-liberal (impeachment is off the table, FISA is brought for a vote, Iraq occupation funded?) * Netroots are a bunch of commie, wild-eyed kids with no clue about the real world (Richard C. Clarke, John Dean, Vince Warren, Jameel Jaffer, Dahlia Lithwick, and Jeremy Scahill, - these are wild eyed kids?) * Liberals cheer US deaths in IraqNam * Liberals want to cut and run * Liberals have destroyed America * Liberals control the media (TimeWarner, GE, Clear Channel are LIBERAL?)

   Yet each one of these ideas, repeated like a mantra, are promoted as truth, often by the conservative corporate-owned hacks who wish us to ignore the man behind the curtain.

   Posted by AGNOSTIC at 07/22/2008 @ 07:56am

3. There's an interesting angle to this, Agnostic.

   The "Liberal media" meme may once have had something of a grain of truth to it, say in the late 70's in the wake of Watergate and the reawakening of that investigative spirit of Murrow or Tarbell. But the focus then was still on print for "serious" reporters, so a lot of that "liberal surge" into journalism went into it instead of television.

   But that's exactly what's disappearing now, as papers get bought out and consolidated into the last remaining chains. Only McClatchy remains of the old-style paper chains (thank goodness, since they've been the real reporters these last seven+ years.) Lots of reporters have been eliminated, newsrooms "slimmed down" for corporate efficiency, editorial policy pushing reporters toward the false center of "balance" because it's easier to be a copy machine than actually fact check. It's no wonder that only the corporate hacks remain.

   Of course, the same process has been going on in television too. Most of those who were of the old investigative spirit have now departed the scene (largely to retirement, though sometimes by resignation as with Rather.) The corporate spirit of "balance" (i.e., blandly repeating the propaganda of the moment) is in full sway except for rare pockets that either succeed because they prove immensely popular (Countdown, for instance) or exist on the fringes or in non-corporate environments (Frontline, for instance.)

   I think this is really what the right-wing means when they rant against "Liberal media"; the old muck-raking values of investigative journalism. But they don't hate it because it's actually liberal in a proper political sense. Rather, they hate it because it's progressive in a political sense; it's an approach of those who want to change things, the one thing that the very concept of conservatism rebels against.

   Posted by Stwriley at 07/22/2008 @ 08:42am

4. It's pretty hard to take the charge of "liberal media" serious...

   since it comes from people who are so far to the Right, they're not particularly happy with John McCain being their nominee.

   Sort of like a diabetic telling you that fruit is "bad for you" because it's got sugar in it adn claiming it's "just like candy".

   Posted by Maskdelta at 07/22/2008 @ 09:16am

5. "so liberal she could represent China."

   this makes no sense.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 07/22/2008 @ 09:40am