Ethics, schmethics

The New York Times is under fire again. Synopsis: Trying to go cheap on a technology and business column, the paper hired a Harvard professor who took a free trip from the 3M company and then wrote about it for her column. This amuses Virginia Postrel, who turned down that same NYT columnist gig:

I am, in fact, ethically ineligible to write about innovation for the NYT.
I occasionally do paid speaking for companies that might conceivably be sources for a column on innovation. (Those speaking engagements generally pay quite a bit better than writing for the Times.) As an old journalism pro, I naturally know enough not to take a speaking gig and then turn it into an article, at least not without getting my editor's OK and disclosing any potential conflict to readers. But that's no longer enough for the Times. Its ethics guidelines now prohibit freelancers from taking honoraria or even travel expenses from anyone who might, in some theoretical future state of the world, be a source.

Read the whole thing. This goes back to my basic beef with the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics. Their standards -- including their hostility to press junkets, free food and other "conflicts of interest" -- always favored the big media outlets, which can afford to pay expenses for travel, meals, etc., that smaller operations can't afford.

Back in the day when big newspapers and magazines were rolling in ad revenue, a staffer for Time or the Washington Post could go where the action was, put the whole thing on his AmEx card and get reimbursed for all expenses. You couldn't do that if you were working for a smaller paper.

The ability to pay correspondents to go trotting off to Rio and Riyadh was a basic element of the prestige of major news organizations, and the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics codified the rules to protect the status quo. A clever racket, and if you let the big boys set the rules, don't be surprised that the rules favor the big boys so decisively that you never get a scoop.

Well, now the big boys' budgets are getting tight, see? And they're discovering that Journalism Ethics was actually a luxury item that they can no longer afford.

Screw 'em. I forfeited all claim to "Journalism Ethics" more than two decades ago, when I was a small-town sportswriter scarfing up all the free chili dogs I could get from the ladies at the Gordon Central High School Band Boosters concession stand. And I recall some good advice from my Old School editors: "Just get the facts right and you're OK."

Or, as I once remarked to Bob Barr, "Ethics, schmethics." We were walking to a seafood restaurant in Orlando called Fish On Fire, and if you think I was going to pay for supper, you're nuts. If I'd been worried about tithing the mint and cumin of "ethics," I wouldn't even have been on that trip. A reporter's job is to get the facts. How I get the facts is my own business, and if the facts are in Orlando, let's not clutter up the story with a lot of "full disclosure" crap about my travel arrangements, OK?

Open mockery of "Journalism Ethics" is not going to win you any friends at the New York Times, but what kind of self-respecting gonzo journalist cares about making friends at the New York Times?

The facts are the facts, and the fact is that the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics have been running a racket for years. Now they're running out of money and having to rely on Harvard professors to do the job, which is a sure sign of desperation.

Meanwhile, it's about time for me to book my flight to Pasadena for the BCS Championship Game -- Roll Tide! -- so please hit the tip jar. While Mrs. Other McCain doesn't worry too much about Journalism Ethics, she is kind of worried about certain neutral objective facts we can't avoid, including the heating bill.

(Via Memeorandum and Professor Glenn Reynolds, who went to law school at Yale, not Harvard, and whose bias against the University of Alabama does not require "full disclosure.")

UPDATE: Just booked my flight for Pasadena, if you're interested.

NY-23: I'm leavin' today . . .

Right to the very heart of it, upstate New York, where Doug Hoffman campaign media coordinator Rob Ryan says:

"We need money and we need it now," he said. Fundraising has been "picking up every day," Ryan said, and the Hoffman campaign is "getting donations from across the country."
However, Hoffman is battling against major party candidates, with the national GOP spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for Scozzafava -- angering conservatives like Michelle Malkin -- while the Democratic Party pours cash into the campaign coffers of its candidate, Bill Owens. . . .
The question that has puzzled conservatives for weeks is how someone as far left as Scozzafava -- who has in the past been supported by ACORN -- managed to get picked by the state GOP in this conservative district. Hoffman has said Republican "party bosses, the lords of the backroom, made this selection."
Online activist Michael Patrick Leahy similarly summarizes the process. "The nomination of Scozzafava was orchestrated by two powerful liberal members of the local Republican Party organization," Leahey wrote at TCOT Report, "and was aided and abetted by several politically inexperienced local county leaders who failed to grasp the tactical significance of shunning the Conservative Party and did not fully understand the details of their nominee's record, or her potential vulnerabilities."
Some observers consider it possible that Scozzafava will finish third in the Nov. 3 vote, which would be a sharp rebuke to the GOP leadership in Washington that twisted arms in a failed effort to get more Republican support for the party's liberal nominee. . . .

That's from my latest article at The American Spectator, so read the whole thing. Ever since March 2008, when I decided to head to Pennsylvania and cover Hillary Clinton's campaign, it's been a pleasure working with the great folks at the Spectator.

What's great about being a freelancer is that, if I've got an idea for a story, I basically assign myself to it. So last March, I called up my editor at the Spectator, told him that Hillary would be appearing within a few hours' drive of my house, he said, "OK," and off I went.

Kind of cool, especially after so many years of being stuck in the office most days as an assistant editor on the national desk at The Washington Times. Going out on the road to cover a story reminds me of my glorious younger days as a small-town sports editor, rolling down the highway en route to a big track meet or basketball tournament.

That's just more fun than sitting around an office all day, and I do better work when I'm having fun. While covering Hillary in West Virginia, I got a chance to meet Chelsea Clinton, who is nice (and quite pretty in person, with lovely eyes). My Spectator reporting on the Libertarian Party convention was praised as the "best national coverage" by Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Kopel.

When I went back to Denver for the Democratic National Convention, I got to hang out with Michelle Malkin, Jim Hoft, Andrew Marcus, Stephen Green, Charlie Martin and Jason "Big Sexy" Mattera. Then I went on the road to cover Sarah Palin -- "Sweetheart of the Heartland" and "Stickin' With the Hockey Mom."

Great fun, but kind of expensive for a freelancer. Despite the growth in online media, it doesn't pay as much as the print variety. The occasional shweeet check for contributions to the print edition of the Spectator -- like my 3,000-word feature about IG-Gate in the September issue -- is helpful. Still, I've got to find other sources of revenue, so I also write for Pajamas Media and Taki's Magazine.

Obviously, this spans a wide ideological spectrum. The Spectator is what's called "Movement Conservative," while PJM leans more toward the neo-conservative side and Taki's . . .

OK, some of my neocon friends recoil in horror and won't even click the links to my Taki's articles. However, their brilliant (though radically Nietzschean) editor, Richard Spencer, really enjoys good writing. They let me do fun things like my Gonzo slam on Culture 11, and despite the guilt-by-association factor -- some of Spencer's hard-core paleo friends are aghast at his linkage to me -- it's an opportunity I appreciate.

It's the fun factor of journalism that keeps me from going completely Johnsonoid in this blogospheric madhouse of fierce partisanship. Even in the grimmest of blog-wars, I try to have fun, because if you're not having fun, why bother?

All this is a long way of saying how much I appreciate reader contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund, which help defray expenses of my occasional road-trips to cover the news. Sean in New Orleans kicks in for gas and says, "God Bless." Mike in El Segundo hit the tip jar for a whole carton of smokes. One of these days, I'm going to get smart and start a "Buy Me a Jaguar XJ" tip jar. But a carton of smokes and a 2004 KIA, that's still pretty cool.

By hitting the tip jar to subsidize my reporting, you're enabling me to provide exclusive coverage at a deep discount rate. Undercut the competition, like Sam Walton, see? Chip in California, Barbara in Kentucky, Nathan in Missouri, Jeff in Walla Walla, Washington -- you're the patrons of a new style of journalism, where the readers are essentially the assignment editors.

By deciding whether to pay for the trip, you decide whether I cover the story. Maybe next spring, you can send me to Daytona Beach for Spring Break. Just sayin' . . .

For now, I'm on the road to upstate New York, where I'll be covering Doug Hoffman -- my travel itinerary and budget needs are here -- and you can expect regular updates here.

'Retract, Please': Letter to the Editor of the Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette

Dear Sir:
Your Oct. 7 editorial, "Palin Book: Already No. 1," contains factual errors which are defamatory and potentially libelous, to wit: "In 2006, Vincent teamed up with white supremacist Robert Stacy McCain to write a shrill book titled Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party . . ."

Leave it to critics to judge whether or not Donkey Cons is "shrill" -- I suspect your editorial writer has not bothered to read it -- and ask yourself what authority there is for your assertion that I am a "white supremacist." Were this true, it would certainly come as a surprise to my numerous colleagues and friends, who are quite a panorama of diversity.

In the fourth paragraph of the aforesaid editorial, your writer was at least clever enough to cite two authorities for this defamation:

1. A "former Washington Times reporter," whom we need not name, and whose personal problems -- divorce, unemployment, etc. -- might be considered relevant to his motives for maligning me and for the veracity of his accusations.
2. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which began attacking me in 2000, after I published a feature article based on an interview with Kansas author Laird Wilcox ("Researcher Says 'Watchdogs' Exaggerate Hate Group Threat," 5/9/2000, Page A2, The Washington Times).

The Fifth Amendment of our Constitution means that I am not compelled to deny every false statement made about me. However, my silence cannot be considered proof that such statements are true.

When these accusations were first made, during my employment at The Washington Times, management decided not to respond, as to do so would tend to suggest that the accusers had some credibility. Therefore, I was required to maintain silence, rather than to make any rebuttal. By the time I resigned from the newspaper, in January 2008, to undertake a research trip to Africa, the appropriate time for explaining several falsehoods and misunderstandings had certainly expired.

Over the years, this malicious campaign against my reputation has metastasized spectacularly on the Internet, as individuals and organizations with various political or personal motives have elaborated and repeated them. Some of the original sources for these accusations (e.g., a column by Michelangelo Signorile) contained factual errors, which have been incorporated into the urban-legend mythology, producing a Gordian Knot of non-fact that is not worth the effort it would take to unravel it. Like ancient Alexander, however, I am prepared to swing the sword. Retract, please.

These charges have, as I say, taken on an Internet life of their own. However, never before have they been published in a print newspaper. Whatever malice against the former governor of Alaska inspired your publisher, editors and writers to undertake this false and dishonorable guilt-by-association smear, it was a most foolish blunder. Retract, please.

Having worked as a professional journalist since 1986, I have never forgotten the motto often repeated by those old-school editors who taught me the craft: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

Hoping for warm friendship in the future, I remain sincerely

Your most humble and obedient servant,

Robert Stacy McCain

Co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of DONKEY CONS: Sex, Crime & Corruption in the Democratic Party

UPDATE: "Gee, Stacy, where did you learn this thing about letters-to-the-editor as a literary genre?" Like I say, sometimes you must ask yourself:

WHAT WOULD HUNTER S. THOMPSON DO?

UPDATE II: Former Washington Times intern Monique Stuart:

Now, for the most part, Stacy is staying above the fray. And, I applaud him for that. He shouldn’t have to defend himself against such wild accusations. And, the truth is, he doesn’t have to. . . .

Read the rest. And don't ever get on Monique's bad side.

Back home; writing today

Got home at 4 p.m. yesterday, went to bed about 4:30 p.m., and woke up at 6:30 p.m. because the kids were arguing over . . . well, something. So I sat down and wrote 2,000 words about my Kentucky trip, not even finishing the first part, and went back to bed about midnight.

Woke up at 8 a.m. and my wife was getting ready to leave for Ohio with three of the kids -- the 17-year-old twin boys and 6-year-old Reagan -- which will leave me here with 10-year-old Jefferson and 8-year-old Emerson for the weekend.

Saturday night is homecoming at River Valley High, where son Bob's girlfriend Portia goes to school and this trip back to my wife's hometown is sort of a birthday gift for Bob. He and twin brother Jim turned 17 the day I left for Kentucky, so this Ohio trip will be cool for them.

Now, I've got to sit down and write, write, write. Dan Riehl noticed a while ago my tendency to write long-form stuff on the blog, which is unusual, since blogs are usually a short-form medium. But if all you ever do is short stuff, it becomes a habit and you get rusty at doing longer writing.

The thing that's addictive about blogging is the instant feedback loop. You write, you publish, other bloggers link your post, people comment, you watch the Site Meter for reaction. There is a spontaneity and immediacy to the experience -- the virtual community, etc. -- which is hard to explain to someone who isn't a blogger.

By comparison, long-form writing is rather lonesome. It's just you and the manuscript, with no feeedback. Being both a blogger and a writer, then, allows me to toggle back and forth between the two experiences. I write columns and articles for various publications, while taking occasional breaks to comment on developing news stories.

However, this Kentucky trip is going to take a long time to write. As I wrote (somewhere) the other day, I've got at least 10,000 words worth of notes, etc., and given my usual 400-word-per-hour rate of composition, that's 25 hours of work, of which I've completed five hours. If I want to have the whole thing complete by Sunday -- before my notes "go cold" and my memory of the experience begins to fade -- I'll have to keep at it pretty steady for the next couple of days. Two 10-hour days of writing, you see.

All of this to explain why, as much as I'd love to comment on Dave Letterman's startling confession, I'll have to try to avoid such distractions. Not entirely, of course -- you could, for example, understand why a habitual philanderer would be so hostile to the happily married mother of five, Sarah Palin -- but I've got more important work to do.

Among the important work that must be done is to thank the people who hit the tip jar to pay for the Kentucky trip. (Read my blogging about the Sparkman case and my Kentucky trip.) I've gotten waaaaay behind on my thank-you notes to tip-jar hitters. If I can ever find a good blog intern, I mean to fix that . . .

MURDER IN EAST KENTUCKY UPDATE: 'Neither confirm nor deny'

WESTON, W.Va.
Stopped here on my way back from Kentucky to check on the blog and update the latest on the Sparkman murder investigation. The most important development is that law enforcement officials are coming under increased pressure either to solve the case or to start explaining why they haven't solved it.

There is evidently a killer or killers at large in eastern Kentucky. Given the brutal nature of Bill Sparkman's death, the particularly stubborn official insistence on a "neither confirm nor deny" stance toward key details of the case is beginning to annoy people in Clay and Laurel counties, including public officials.

Because I'm once again using the lobby computer at a hotel -- the new Holiday Inn Express here beside the I-79 exit is very nice -- and because my wife is already angry at my delayed return, there is only time for a brief update, highlighting key points.

• First, I don't know if this has been reported anywhere else, but according to today's edition of the Manchester (Ky.) Enterprise, Kentucky State Police and other investigators re-visited the Hoskins Cemetery last Friday, Sept. 25. According to the Enterprise, investigators thoroughly re-examined the remote Clay County site, about 12 miles east of Manchester, where Sparkman's body was found Sept. 12. And, of course, officials refused to confirm that report. However, if the Enterprise staff doesn't know what goes on in that neck of the woods, nobody does.
• Second, Sparkman's 19-year-old son Josh -- whom Sparkman adopted as an infant -- is furious that police are refusing to rule out suicide as a cause of his father's death. However, the state medical examiner has officially confirmed that Sparkman died of asphyxiation.
• Third, readers interested in this case should be aware that many people in east Kentucky are angry at the Associated Press -- and whoever the AP's source was -- for an article last week which the Kentucky State Police spokesman, Don Trosper, has characterized as "misinformation" that is "damaging to our investigation."

It is strongly suspected that this misinformation came from a U.S. Justice Department source, either in Washington or Louisville. Considering that it is because of the FBI's involvement that other officials are under "marching orders" not to discuss the case, if the AP's bad source was federal . . .

Well, perhaps I don't need to point out the irony: The feds are, on the one hand, big-dogging the investigation and forbidding anyone else from talking about it while, on the other hand, some federal source is feeding wrong information to the AP. At least, that's the very strong suspicion of people familiar with the situation.

Tempus fugits, and I really need to get home -- we're a one-car family, and my wife needs to go buy groceries -- but I want to take a minute to address a recent troll problem here. Some persistently "anonymous" critic has repeatedly attempted to leave comments derogating my reporting abilities. At one point, this critic accused me of being a "cub" reporter.

How many times do I have to repeat myself about this? Just because you don't know what I'm doing, don't assume that I don't know what I'm doing. I've got a file folder full of notes. I've got photos and recorded interviews. I've got the phone numbers of plenty of sources. There are sources I've interviewed whom I have neither named nor quoted, and there are good reasons for everything I've done or haven't done in covering this story.

Because I've sometimes used my personal blog to highlight particular incidents or personalities -- like Kentucky's most amazing journalist, Morgan Bowling -- does not mean that this is The Big Story. What I've tried to do is to give readers some insight into how I do my job and the wonderful people I've met along the way.

Considering that it has now been 20 days since Sparkman's body was discovered, there is the distinct possibility that this investigation won't produce The Big Story for a long time, if ever. (Remember that Morgan Bowling's father was gunned down 16 years ago, a crime that is still a cold case in the files of the Kentucky State Police.)

Which is to say I didn't feel any real competitive pressure in recent days, so I've done the blog updates as I have, rather than trying to "chase" other media. Yet because of the depth of my work during my first reporting trip to East Kentucky, I'll be ready when The Big Story breaks. Also, I've talked to other journalists -- as a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with one long-time associate whom I won't name -- who might like to come along on my next trip to Clay County.

So, to our anonymous troll, I would like to explain that you don't know what tips I've checked out, or how I've checked them out. Those reports that a journalist rocked the house Wednesday during karaoke at a pub in Richmond, Ky.? That the man who sang a Hank Thompson classic made inquiries which led him to the vicinity of Main and Limestone streets in Lexington, Ky., in the wee hours this morning?

Sorry. I can neither confirm nor deny.

PS.: Yes, I know the headline says "murder," and the police say they haven't ruled out other causes. But reasonable people can conclude that when a man is found dead, blindfolded, gagged and bound with duct tape -- naked except for his socks -- suicide and accident are nearly as far-fetched as "natural causes." Somebody killed Bill Sparkman, and excuse me for not pretending we don't know that. This is my personal blog, so please feel free to convene the Blogger Ethics Committee and expel me from the club.

Laurel County, Ky.: It's kind of hard to cover a homicide investigation . . .

. . . when the police aren't saying anything. On the one hand, I perfectly understand the concerns of law enforcement, who are conducting an important criminal investigation, and don't want to compromise the case.

Let's face it: Criminals can read newspapers, too. Although police haven't officially ruled out an accidental cause of death, this would be the most bizarre case of self-asphyxiation in history. So if somebody killed Sparkman, the killer is still out there somewhere.

For all I know, the killer is right here in the Laurel County Public Library, where I'm using this computer. That little old lady over there . . . well, she doesn't look suspicious, but you can never tell, here in Lower Glennbeckistan, where there are thousands upon thousands of Republicans.

The cops have to do their job, and reporters have to do our jobs, and I'm trying to be as responsible as possible about this story. I just had a brief meeting -- little more than a handshake, really -- with Joseph Deal, managing editor of the local London (Ky.) Sentinel-Echo., whose Monday article about the Sparkman case should be must-reading for anyone interested in this story.

Deal's article Monday was an attempt to clear up "misinformation" -- that's Kentucky State Police spokesman Don Trosper's word -- created by the Sept. 24 article that made this case a national sensation. The Sept. 24. story was clearly flawed, in more ways than one, but the problem is that law enforcement is saying so little about the investigation that nobody can tell exactly what is true or false.

Ergo, we don't even know what we don't know. This is when it's helpful to have a reporter on the scene who's also a "top Hayekian public intellectual," given F.A. Hayek's theories about the diffuse nature of information and the importance of unknown data.

BTW, this public library -- build in 2003 -- is large, beautiful and ultra-modern. However, the reason there are no links in this article is that they've blocked the "open new windows" function on there PC terminals, effectively rendering their computers useless for a blogger. Sigh.

There are other people and places I need to see here in Laurel County, which was where Sparkman lived. Ever since I arrived here, I've been struck by the fact that Sparkman's body was found more than 30 miles east of his home. Although he was employed part-time as a Census worker in Clay County, one of the things we don't know is whether he was actually working the day he disappeared.

By the way, Sparkman apparently disappeared Sept. 9, missed an appointment Sept. 10, and his body was found in the Hoskins Cemetery on Sept. 12. So that's a four-day time span that the police will have to examine very closely.

Will have more later. Ciao.

Me, Moe Lane and Malkin vs. the MSM: The Media Elite's Strange Priorities and Misallocation of Scarce Resources

"I don’t actually want to see newspapers go away, seeing as they’ve got structural advantages on news gathering that I envy. Like actual budgets: when someone like Robert Stacy McCain decides that he’s going to go down to Kentucky and cover the Bill Sparkman murder, he has to shake the tip jar, write a few posts highlighting the issue, and hope that somebody comes through for his expenses. The equivalent NYT editor simply calls up the relevant department and has somebody set it up. The ability to follow stories that easily is a powerful ability; would that the NYT was willing to take advantage of it.
-- Moe Lane of Red State

My good friend Moe (we're like this, Moe and me) was addressing Michelle Malkin's criticism of the New York Times, criticism that might be applied more generally to all the elite media.

Speaking of which, if the NYT desires a token conservative presence on its op-ed page, why hire another "meritocrat" pundit like Ross Douthat, who can't be bothered to pick up a phone, much less get in his car and go talk to sources in person?

The NYT would have done much better to (a) spend that money on actual reporting, and (b) fill the designated "conservative" spot on its op-ed page with rotating freelance submissions from actual conservatives. You know: People like Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn, Mary Katharine Ham, Rush Limbaugh . . .

Yet the same criticism about misallocation of resources might be extended far beyond the Times building on West 43 Street, to encompass much of the blogosphere and even the conservative movement. My good friend J.P. Friere, formerly of The American Spectator and now with the Washington Examiner, likes to say that conservatives don't need more Bill Buckleys, we need more Bob Novaks, and he's right. (Although Hannah Giles in a thong is a lot easier on the eyes than Novak ever was.)

Nowadays, every 22-year-old with a laptop and a Wordpress account wants to play the pundit, give us The Big Picture, and lecture us with their own ill-informed answers to that eternal question, "Whither Conservatism?"

Here's your answer: Shut up, kid, I've got T-shirts older than you.

Today, down in rural Virginia, Al Regnery's throwing a big barbecue. All the big shots will be there and I'm invited. I'll be running late, and I'm worried about what economists call the opportunity costs of attending the annual shindig, rather than staying here to work, work, work.

There's only one of me and I'm a freelancer. I don't have an AmEx card for travel expenses like the big shots at the networks do. It takes a couple of business days for PayPal transactions to be processed, and until that tip-jar cash clears the bank, I'll be pushing it to the limit just to get to Clay County, Kentucky, by Monday, and only hope I can avoid my checks don't start bouncing before those payments clear.

Meanwhile, I've promised the American Spectator a column that's already half-written and has to be turned in before I try to get some sleep, then depart before dawn in my 2004 KIA, so I can try to file something -- at least a brief report -- with a Kentucky dateline by noon Monday. Never mind that we're a one-car household and my wife's steamed because she'll have to improvise her own transportation for a few days. (A rental car might cost $60 a day, nudge, nudge.)

Considering all my disadvantages, then, perhaps you understand my resentment of the media elite's overprivileged journalistic inertia. When I think of the elite, with their Harvard educations and their fat salaries, sitting around pontificating about the Big Picture . . . well, I'm not ashamed to rattle the tip jar, because I think I'm not the only one who's sick and tired of the MSM's better-than-thou attitude.

When I started blogging full-time in March 2008, it was only a time-waster between freelance gigs. Also, I had at least one prospect for a staff position at a publication I won't name. But then those guys started jerking me around, asking me to contribute some freelance work for them, just as a kind of tryout.

Screw that. As if I couldn't hustle up freelance opportunities without trying out for a job like some unknown grass-green rookie. I'd rather freelance for the Spectator and Pajamas Media -- people who treat me with some respect and appreciate my efforts.

So, as always when faced with such a problem, I asked myself: What Would Hunter S. Thompson Do?

Double down. Bet on myself. Spend out my 401(k) to pay the bills until I could turn this crazy gonzo thing into a revenue stream sufficient to establish my financial independence. And then, next time they're looking to hire an award-winning journalist with more than two decades of newspaper experience who also does HTML and digital photography, knows his way around the blogosphere and Web 2.0, has mad skilz with Final Cut Pro and PhotoShop, my answer will be a question:

"What's it worth to you, buddy? If you want me, do you want me with or without that blog where I can say anything that crosses my mind? Do you want me to give up that wild fun and all those loyal tip-jar hitters, or do you want me to bring them along with me? I can go either way here, but I've got to know if you're serious about wanting me, because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You're not going to push me around like some kid fresh out of J-school. Been there, done that, ain't going back for more. But I'm a reasonable man, and am willing to entertain any reasonable offers. So give me a number here, and I'll tell you whether it's too low. I write for money."

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And things are looking pretty weird right about now. My wife's worried sick about the bills. She's also worried sick about me getting into trouble in Kentucky, but I told her it's nothing. If they'd didn't kill me in Kampala, they won't kill me in Clay County.

BTW, I just got off the phone with Track-a-'Crat, who seems to be coming down with Appalachian Swine Flu. He's got all the symptoms, so he'll probably be too sick to go to his day-job Monday. He'll have to be rushed to see a specialist, and I told him I know just the man to see: The world-renowned Dr. Raoul Duke of Louisville, Ky.

Rent a convertive, Track-a-'Crat, and leave the rest to me. Sometimes, the cure for Appalachian Swine Flu is worse than the disease . . .

Just keep hitting that tip jar, you ungrateful bastards. Baby, it's about to be showtime!

'You'd be surprised what some of these morons write on the Internet'

Actually, I'm not surprised at all, but I'm grateful the guy who answered the phone was willing to talk when he got a call from me past 10 p.m. on a Saturday. My brief report for The American Spectator:

"Yes, we are concerned about what people are saying on the blogs," a Kentucky law enforcement official said Saturday night, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The murder of Bill Sparkman in Clay County, Ky., has caused bloggers to engage in widespread speculation about the motive for the killing. Sparkman was employed part-time conducting a Census Bureau survey. . . .
The Kentucky State Police are coordinating the investigation of Sparkman's death. Trooper First Class Don Trosfer, based in the agency's London, Ky., Post 11 is the official spokesman for the investigation, but was unavailable for comment late Saturday.
Another law-enforcement source, not authorized to speak about the case, said state and local officials are working closely with the FBI on the investigation. Internet gossip is a source of concern, he said.
"You'd be surprised what some of these morons write on the Internet . . . that they wouldn't say to somebody's face," the official said in a brief telephone interview. . . .

Read the whole story. Two phone calls and a little research was all it took to get that story. Oh, by the way: Bill Sparkman worked for a decade as a reporter in his native Florida. He deserves some decent journalism, and not baseless rumor-mongering.

UPDATE 1:50 a.m.: Well, folks, it looks like I'm going to be Kentucky-bound to cover this story in person -- another one of those double-dog-dare-ya adventures in shoe-leather reporting.

Thanks to TB in North Carolina, BD in Maryland, AL in Rhode Island, a big thanks to JS in Virginia, and a huge thanks to Nathan in Missouri, the Shoe Leather Reporting Fund quickly collected enough to get me to Kentucky and back.

Additional contributions are welcome, to enable me to extend this trip. Just got off the phone with the lady at the desk of a hotel near I-75, about 20 miles from Manchester, Ky. A single room is about $95 per night, tax included. If you figure 2 packs of smokes/day at $5 each, five cups coffee/day at $2 each, continental breakfast comes with the room, so two meals/day at $5 each -- the basic daily expenses come to $125. Of course, I've got regular bills to pay, but I'll worry about that later.

Just think about Andrew Sullivan sitting there in Pathum, Thailand -- I'm not kidding -- lecturing Michelle Malkin (!) on conservatism:

By the way, there is nothing conservative about Southern populism.

OK, Sully, enjoy your Thai holiday, while I get my 2004 KIA ready for a 500-mile road trip to Clay County, Kentucky (Monday's forecast for Manchester, Ky.: High 70F, low 47F, cloudy, 20% chance of rain) and let me show you how it's done. You just go on back to speculating about Sarah Palin's uterus and leave Kentucky to me.

C'mon, dear brothers, can I get an "amen"?

CORRECTION: I don't think Sully's actually in Thailand. His "View From Your Window" feature seems to be about readers e-mailing him photos of the view from thir windows, rather than his own global photographic travelogue.

My mistake and I'm happy to correct it. Harvard-educated, obstretric-obsessive, AIDS-infected, dope-smoking British immigrants don't have a monopoly on jumping to incorrect conclusions, you know.

BTW, some people have a crazy hunch this Kentucky thing might involve teenagers and the horrorcore rap scene. Maybe they're wrong about that, too . . .

Hanged Census worker possible suicide; AP's anonymous source wrong?

When this news was first reported, I warned:

Drug dealers and 'shiners are notoriously hostile toward anyone snooping around, and Sparkman may well have stumbled onto some sort of criminal situation. . . .
Let's wait to see what law enforcement discovers before jumping to any kind of politicized Let's-Blame-Glenn-Beck speculation.

And now, via Hot Air, comes this interesting bit of news:

Trosper said the initial AP story on the death contains “flaws and errors.” That means it’s possible that the AP’s claim, based on an anonymous source, that he had the word “fed” scrawled on his chest could be false. Asked if that were the case, Trosper declined to comment.

In other words, don't believe everything you read. There are a couple of old newsroom sayings that apply here:

• The story too good to check. That is to say, a story which is so awesomely perfect in its illustration of some idea, you don't double-check to make sure the basic facts are right. If you're familiar with the Stephen Glass saga at The New Republic, you know how Glass cleverly fabricated stories about thuggish Republicans, selfish dot-com entrepreneurs, etc., which perfectly fit the preconceived biases of his liberal editors. Beware of this kind of "just so" story.
• If your mother says she loves you, check it out. Skepticism and attention to detail are vital to good news reporting. Spending 10 years as a news editor at The Washington Times, I often had to check to make sure that if a reporter wrote about Rep. Joe Jones (D-Texas), that Jones was actually a Democrat, actually from Texas, and actually was named Joe Jones and not James Jones or John James. Reporters sometimes get in a hurry and get things wrong, and if you forget to fact-check the small stuff, you're taking big risks, because sometimes the most significant clue that a story is essentially wrong is the presence of a few bogus "facts."

When the "fed" note was reported in the headline of the AP story, based on an anonymous source, the Associated Press was investing a lot of credibility in that one nameless source.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post -- who has done solid reporting on IG-Gate, by the way -- clarifies the misimpressions created by the AP story:

State and federal law enforcement officials on Thursday dismissed the suggestion from a news service report that the man, William Sparkman, 51, may have been targeted because he worked for the federal government, calling that speculative. . . .
"I think to give this impression that he was strung up because he was a federal employee is giving a bad impression to the nation," said David Beyer, spokesman for the FBI field office in Louisville, which is working with state officials on the investigation.

True story: Early one Saturday morning in 1996, it was my turn in the rotation of staffers at the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune to travel down to Atlanta and cover the scene at the Olympics. Turned on the TV and saw that a bomb had gone off in Centennial Park the night before. Soon, anonymous "officials" were quoted pointing the finger of blame at security guard Richard Jewell -- and they were wrong.

Jewell, it turned out, was something of a hero who actually helped victims at the bombing scene. The perpetrator was domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph. And yet, based on anonymous "officials," the national media spent the next several days depicting Jewell as the presumptive bomber. An injustice inflicted on an innocent man by a too-credulous media.

If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

More at Memeorandum.

'I felt like taking a shower afterwards'

That's Howard Kurtz, discussing the Vanity Fair interview with Levi "Ricky Hollywood" Johnston, a slimy disgrace to the profession of journalism. Kurtz gets credit from Craig Henry at Lead & Gold.

Zorn: The Nadir of American Journalism

Weasel Zippers says, "Vomit Alert." Excuse me even for quoting this execrable emetic which the editors of the Chicago Tribune actually had the bad taste to publish:

If we'd had insatiable 24/7 cable news networks in July 1969, the accident on Chappaquiddick Island in which a passenger in a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy drowned would likely have dominated the national consciousness for months. . . .
Was it just as well that we didn't -- couldn't -- have a media feeding frenzy over Chappaquiddick in 1969? Would the nation have been better off if Kennedy had been shamed into private life? . . .
Or, as I believe, is the nation -- particularly our disabled and disadvantaged residents -- better off for the 40 years of service he was able to render after that terrible night?

And Mary Jo Kopechne still could not be reached for comment.

One hesitates to say that American journalism can't get any worse. We said that after Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair and yet, as if determined to prove us wrong, these elitist nincompoops who've hijacked the news business keep coming up with new crimes against their own profession.

Ed Driscoll has some thoughts, and links some honest commentary by Mark Steyn and a brutally factual American Spectator account of Chappaquiddick by Daniel Flynn.

Still,, even the antidote of such good journalism cannot quell the Zorn-induced nausea. I'm depressed by this evidence that there must not be one Old School journalist left in Chicago. An arrogant intellectual punk like Zorn? Mike Royko would have punched him out.

UPDATE: Not worthy of a Royko punch-out, but this paragraph by CNN's Elliott McLaughlin has a glaringly bad word choice:

In his national address, Kennedy said he was driving Kopechne to a ferry landing because she was tired. He denied "widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" and also refuted reports that he was "driving under the influence of liquor."

Kennedy "refuted" nothing. I understand McLaughlin's reluctance to use "denied" twice in the same sentence, but "refuted" means to disprove.

Multiple witnesses confirmed that Ted Kennedy had been drinking heavily all day that Saturday. Supplies for the regatta party -- attended by six married men and six single women, incidentally -- included three half-gallons of vodka, four fifths of scotch, two bottles of rum and two cases of beer. And then there is the rather telling circumstantial evidence that Ted drove off the freaking bridge.

On that night, Kennedy was drunk as a skunk, high as a kite, three sheets to the wind. He was hammered, wasted, soused, tanked, blotto, sloshed. He was, in a word, intoxicated.

I'd go so far as to say he was driving while intoxicated, except that rolling an Oldsmobile off a bridge is not really what most folks down home would call "driving."

Nothing he said in his subsequent speech "refuted" the fact that Teddy was drunk, nor will it ever.

'Melancholy'? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Doug Ross catches this incredibly stupid Twitter message from Matt Cooper:

It feels a bit like 9/11 on Martha's Vineyard. End-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy.

Good God! I remember when Matt Cooper used to be a journalist! Now he's doing some kind of pathetic Twitter haiku? Like a dreamy dimwitted schoolgirl?

Henceforth, if anyone asks me why the news business is going to hell in a handbasket, my answer will be two words: Testosterone deficiency.

(Hat-tip: The Blogprof.)

UPDATE (By Smitty): PJTV has an 11 minute talking head clip talking about politicizing TK, the HuffPo's atrocious blog on Mary Jo's approval, and Camelsnot.

Bleg: can anyone geo-locate the Ayn Rand Institute guy's accent? Sounds vaguely Germanic by way of New England or something. Pennsylvania Deutsch?

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! "Journalist," "reporter," to-may-to, to-mah-to. At heart, I'm still the same class clown I was in third grade. As I said Friday, I consider it a duty to laugh Teddy into hell. So . . . How to Remember Ted Kennedy (If You Must):

Edward M. Kennedy became a laughingstock the old-fashioned way: He earned it. . . .
If there were any justice in this world, Teddy would have been drummed out of the Senate as a disgrace as soon as the facts were known about what happened at Chappaquiddick on July 19, 1969. If there were any justice in the world, Ted Kennedy would have gone to prison for vehicular manslaughter. Instead, because he was born with the right last name, he was allowed to cop a plea to a misdemeanor charge of "leaving the scene of an accident." . . .

With a guest appearance by the inimitable "Shecky" McCain:

He’s a man after Ted Kennedy’s own heart. The main difference between Shecky and Teddy is this: Shecky doesn't like to share waitresses with Chris Dodd, so he always orders the open-faced sandwich! . . .
Shecky’s never met a tasteless Ted Kennedy joke he wouldn’t steal in a New York heartbeat. Fat jokes! Drunk jokes! Any joke that makes Ted Kennedy look like the lying, lecherous liberal he was, you can bet Shecky’s going to steal it. . . .
Democrats are trying to use Teddy’s bloated corpse to pass health-care reform — man, what a joke that is! Yet we must pay tribute to his real legacy, the way that womanizing old alcoholic would want to be remembered. . . . We’re not laughing with Teddy. We’re laughing at Teddy.

Read the whole thing. And remember to tip your waitresses. Try the veal. I'll be here all week.

Unspeakably wretched

Yesterday, I slammed as spectacularly boring -- to say nothing of its sheer wrongheadedness -- a 5,000-word "Path to Republican Revival" article by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner published in the September issue of Commentary.

A fellow journalist sent me an e-mail praising the nail-on-the-head accuracy of my slam on Gerson, a writer who has dullness down to a science. In reply to my friend I wrote:

Did you *try* to read that mess? To whom could it possibly be interesting? JPod screwed the pooch in agreeing to publish it.
Of course, I despise the whole "How to Fix the GOP/Revive Conservatism/Save the World" genre of big-picture political writing, where the writer pompously prescribes his own 12-point plan. Has any such endeavor ever actually resulted in anything useful? It's basically just an excuse for policy wonks to market themselves to potential clients, and is a disservice to readers of whatever publication issues it.
And, naturally, the same themes in suspiciously similar language will crop up next fall in a book with a prominent Republican's name and photo on the cover, and somewhere in the acknowledgements Gerson and Wehner will be mentioned for their "generous assistance."
This phony racket becomes so predictable after a while you get sick of it.
-- RSM

The revolving door in Washington, which gives employment to fraudulent "journalists" like ex-Dem operatives George Stephanopoulos and Chris Matthews, probably doesn't mind a GOP hack like Gerson pretending to be a journalist. But even this system of dubious ethics is subverted when, while masquerading as a WaPo columnist, Gerson so transparently pitches himself as a Republican "strategist," which is what this Commentary article with Wehner really was, a pitch. It's enough to make you throw up a little in your mouth.

Most journalists who write about politics will sooner or later be asked to engage more directly in the political process. It happens, but that's not what I'm complaining about, per se. Jim Pinkerton worked for the 2008 Huckabee campaign and, so far as I can see, emerged from the experience unscathed.

However, there are times when the informed reader can detect in the "journalism" of ex-administration officials the whiff of career marketing, and it rankles.

When Jeanne Kirkpatrick wrote "Dictatorships & Double Standards" for Commentary she did not do so in order to seek the U.N. ambassadorship from Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Kirkpatrick was a Democrat and couldn't possibly have imagined such an outcome.

Thirty years later, however, we've seen how political professionals have learned to game the system, and whenever you see a magazine publish something as awful as this -- really, can anyone reasonably claim that "The Path to Republican Revival" has any merit as journalism? as literature? -- you should trust your instinctive Whiskey Tango Foxtrot reaction.

What bothers me most is that these two former helmsmen from Team Bush, who helped steer the S.S. Republican into the iceberg, now propose to offer sailing lessons to others. These miserable failures had their chance and blew it. They should slink away in shame, rather than being permitted to insult the readers of Commentary with 5,000 tedious words of wrongheaded political/policy analysis.

But, dear God, what wretched writing! I've just attempted, for about the third or fourth time, to read this damned thing -- I printed it out for that purpose -- and keep bursting out in hysterical laughter at the combination of obviousness and leaden phrasing:

Obama’s overreach has created a measure of opportunity for Republicans. The question is whether that opportunity will be grasped. Can Republicans overcome their manifest problems and succeed in preparing themselves for a restoration of public trust, and can they do so not only by appealing to new groups but also by offering compelling answers to pressing public needs?
Herewith, a brief primer. . . .

"Herewith, a brief primer"? Were I the magazine editor to whom a freelancer made the mistake of submitting a piece containing that sentence, I'd be fighting the urge to hunt down that miserable son of bitch and strangle him with my bare hands. In a case like this, a good editor would respond with a curt rejection notice:

You thieving scoundrel:
We pay writers by the word. I've consulted our lawyers, who agree that your effort to get me to pay you for the sentence, "Herewith, a brief primer," constitutes attempted petty larceny by the laws of this state and may also be prosecuted as a federal felony under the mail fraud statutes.
I'm cutting you a break this time, but if you ever again try to swindle me with a cheap scam like this, you'll be buying yourself a one-way ticket to Leavenworth.
Please find another career for which you are suited, as journalism is clearly beyond your abilities.
Sincerely,
The Editor

There may be a shortage of good writers in America, but the editor who agrees to pay for a sentence like "Herewith, a brief primer" is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

ROBERT NOVAK, R.I.P.

A great reporter has died.

UPDATE 12:11: Chicago Sun-Times:

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, one of the nation’s most influential journalists, who relished his “Prince of Darkness” public persona, died at home here early Tuesday morning after a battle with brain cancer. . . .

UPDATE 12:23: On Fox News, Major Garrett -- a former newspaper man himself -- just talked aobut Novak's excellence at "shoe leather" reporting: The time-consuming business of seeking out face-to-face interviews with sources.

His memoir, The Prince of Darkness, is full of stories about how he did this, meeting quietly at restaurants and bars with people, famous and obscure, who might be able to give him a scoop. People who've never worked as D.C. reporter would be amazed how often it is through casual social acquaintances -- someone you met at a party -- that a reporter gets a scoop.

"Better journalism through whiskey" is an ancient art that Novak once practiced nearly to his own destruction, until he took alarm at his health and swore the stuff off.

UPDATE 12:30: Tim Carney, who worked as an assistant to Novak for years, talks about the great man and his methods:

Bob Novak was, above all, a reporter.
Watching him work was a delightful education in reporting.
In 2004, I was chatting with Novak at a conservative dinner at the Willard Intercontinental in downtown D.C. when Ralph Reed approached. Novak greeted Reed, introduced me, and began trading pleasantries, but within one minute the conversation had somehow become an on-background interview -- I noticed this, but I’m not sure Reed did, because of the subtlety with which Novak deflected any questions back at Reed and steered the conversation away from himself.
It was a remarkable trait to find in a professional pundit so successful and so opinionated: Novak might have been the best listener I’ve ever known. . . .

What Novak was doing with Reed -- using a social encounter to pry out some useful bit of news -- is really the key to understanding why he was so good. The dramatic stuff of "All the President's Men" has given people a mistaken notion of what investigative reporting is really all about. It's actually more mundane than that -- but in some ways, more exciting. To reel in a source like a fish on the line is delicate business.

UPDATE 12:45 p.m.: Also at Human Events, Ken Tomlinson talks about Novak and the "Sonnenfeldt Doctrine," an example of how Novak's reporting impacted Cold War policy. Novak was originally a liberal Republican (that was before liberal Republicans learned to pretend they were conservative) but he always hated Commies.

But hating Commies is not an opinion. To say that communism is evil is to state a neutral, objective fact.

UPDATE 1:10 p.m.: When Novak's brain cancer was reported in July 2008, I wrote:

Early on in his career, Novak's saturnine appearance earned him the "Prince of Darkness" sobriquet. His longtime column partner, Rowland Evans, was a patrician WASP known and loved by Washington insiders, and so it was generally suspected (not altogether unfairly) that Novak was the troublemaker whose inside scoops caused so much embarrassment for the Establishment.

And in that post, I quoted Michelle Malkin's own tribute to Novak:

Novak has had a huge influence on my career. During a college conservative journalists’ confab, he urged us to seek metro newspaper jobs, pay our dues, and try to stay out of Washington for as long as possible. I took the advice to heart and left D.C. after a year as an intern at NBC to take my first newspaper job at the L.A. Daily News and then the Seattle Times.

Very good advice. The problem with a reporter coming to D.C. as a 22-year-old, I think, is that they come to take it for granted and don't appreciate what an honor it is to cover the Major Leagues, so to speak. When your earliest front-page scoops are about city councils and county zoning boards, you develop a better sensibility about the job.

Novak actually started out covering high-school sports as a teenage stringer for his hometown paper. After college and the Army, he eventually hired on with the Associated Press in their Omaha bureau, then transferred to their Indianapolis bureau before finally coming to D.C. at age 26. In Prince of Darkness, he writes:

I was the only AP newsman in Washington less than thirty years old, and there were precious few under 40.

That is to say, to be assigned to Washington was then, as it still should be, a plum job -- a privileged and an honor earned -- and I think that the kid who shows up in D.C. as a 22-year-old fresh out of college doesn't understand that.

More blog reaction at Mememorandum.

The Palins Are Getting Divorced,As Are Mrs. Other McCain and I

(BUMPED; SEE UPDATES BELOW.) Also, it's entirely possible that George W. and Laura Bush -- perhaps even George H.W. and Barbara Bush -- are heading for "Splitsville," if we accept such "proof" as we find in the latest edition of Star magazine:

"Sarah and Todd are fighting all the time," Mercede Johnston — sister of Levi Johnston, ex-boyfriend of Sarah's eldest daughter, Bristol — tells Star in an exclusive interview. "When they do, Todd often ends up sleeping on the couch at their home in Wasilla. Bristol used to tell Levi that her parents would argue and bicker over the littlest things, like who was supposed to take out the trash or wash the dishes."
Levi, the father of Bristol's 7-month-old son, Tripp, recently told RadarOnline.com that Sarah and Todd have had marital trouble "from day one," and that he believed their escalating problems were the reason behind her mysterious decision to resign as governor of Alaska last month with more than a year left in her term.
His sister Mercede predicts: "If they ended their marriage within the next year, I wouldn't be surprised at all. It really seems to me their marriage is just a sham for the cameras now!"

Ri-iiiight. The trashy sister of that scumsucking vermin Levi Johnston (a/k/a "Ricky Hollywood" ) is such an expert on marriage, y'know.

Feel free to ask Mrs. Other McCain how recently -- and if memory serves, it was week before last -- she gave me the kind of spousal ultimatum that involves an offer to help me pack my bags. We've made it past the 20-year mark, and I'm determined to hold true to my vow of "till death do us part," even if sometimes Mrs. Other McCain also helpfully offers to assist me with the "death" part.

Hang in there, Todd and Sarah: I put my journalistic credibility on the line for you. Like I said this morning:

I don't care if Todd Palin hikes the Appalachian Trail to Argentina or Sarah Palin flies to Vegas and spends Labor Day weekend with the Chippendales dancers. As long as the Palins don't get a divorce, the continuation of their marriage proves that Jesse Griffin is a liar, Dennis Zaki is a floppy-shoed clown, and I'm solid gold, baby.

Think of the children! (And me, of course.) Also, everybody needs to hit the tip jar today, just to remind my wife what a solid-gold guy she married.

UPDATE 3 p.m.: Jesse Griffin denies having anything to do with the Star story:

It looks like Mercede has been talking to them again. And just to put the potential rumor to rest Mercede is NOT one of my sources.

He thus denies an accusation no one ever made. But "Gryphen" already told us who his sources are:

The operator of the Immoral Minority blog admits that he is in regular contact with one Rex Butler and Tank Jones. Rex Butler is the high-priced attorney who is handling legal issues for the Johnston family.

The Rex Butler/Tank Jones angle, of course, leads straight to "Ricky Hollywood," and it looks like the whole grubby Johnston clan is feeding at the same trough of slime:

Butler magically appeared in court to defend Sherry Johnston on her drug-dealing related arrest -- she originally was so broke she had to get a public defender.

Which, of course, leads directly to the Florida headquarters of . . . the Star:

How does Sherry Johnston afford an attorney like Rex Butler? How do the Johnstons get the money to zoom around the United States giving interviews? How do they pay their rent/mortgage or even the payments on Levi Johnston's truck . . .
Airplane tickets from Anchorage to Los Angeles and New York run a minimum of around $700 per person, and that doesn't include hotel stays and other transportation. Trips from Anchorage to Florida, where Mercede Johnston claimed (on Larry King's show) to have traveled in March, are running around $1200 round trip.
They have claimed on television that they are not receiving compensation for their appearances. So what gives? Levi has no job, his mother has no job, his sister has no job, so who is paying for this "Smear Palin" tour? If you recall the Larry King interview with the Johnstons, you will remember that Mercede Johnston mentioned that she had recently returned from Florida. Why Florida? Well, Florida is where Star Magazine has its headquarters. Hold on a second, Mercede gave an interview to Star Magazine!

You see? It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this out: The Star is paying its sources, just like the Enquirer pays its sources, which creates a sort of commodity market for anti-Palin dirt in Alaska. As I said:

Meanwhile, here is Jesse Griffin, one of the left-wing Alaska blogospheric myrmidons who've spent the past 11 months trashing Palin online for the amusement of PDS-affected "progressives" worldwide. Now that Palin's resigned as governor and the spotlight has shifted, the blog-o-bucks are harder to get for the Alaskasphere, and everybody -- ex-staffers, "Ricky Hollywood," Griffin, his blog buddies -- is trying to cash in before the sell-by date expires on this dirt-dishing bonanza.

So what you're seeing here, as any Hayekian would surmise, is a final frenzy of activity before the closing bell on the Anchorage Slimeball Exchange.

UPDATE 3:45 p.m.: Oh, it keeps getting better and better, as Griffin updates to assist with the process of elimination that increasingly seems to point the finger at Butler and/or Jones:

Also I did not talk to either Mercede OR Levi before I made my post, and I called some of the other media outlets working this story and asked them if the Johnston family was one of their sources and they said no. So when the Palin-bots come after this family I am here to tell you it just another example of attacking the messenger instead of addressing the validity of the information.

Meanwhile, we learn that last October, Rex Butler was smearing Palin as a racist:

"Blacks don't have the levels of access to the governor and state commissioners as with past administrations," said attorney Rex Butler, an Alaska resident since 1983. "It seems the posture of (Palin's) administration with Blacks is: Don't need them—don’t worry about them."

I'm betting that Butler's financial status is not entirely opaque. Interesting things might turn up in that regard. "Means, motive, opportunity," as they say, and I wonder if the Alaska bar association might be interested in the question of whether Butler's been playing the role of a libel broker in the Anchorage Slimeball Exchange, in which Jesse Griffin seems to have been such an active participant. Keep updating, Jesse!

Expect further updates . . .

MoDo Covers the Jesse Griffin Scandal

"Gryphen" gets an extension on his 15 minutes of fame courtesy of the New York Times columnist:

Palin is still obsessed with the blogosphere, which recently lit up with a rumor -- started by a fellow mavericky Alaskan, who also no longer has his job -- that she and Todd were Splitsville.

Excuse me, Ms. Dowd, but is Palin "obsessed with the blogosphere" or is it the other way around? And don't you share that obsession? Furthermore, ma'am -- speaking of "Gryphen" a/k/a former Anchorage kindergarten teaching assistant Jesse Ray Griffin -- is it the usual practice of the New York Times to ignore, in its news pages, events which are significant enough to merit commentary from its Pulitzer-winning columnists?

This is from my Thursday account of Griffin's resignation from Trailside Elementary School:

"Sarah is finished with Todd and has decided to end their marriage," Griffin wrote at "Immoral Minority" Saturday morning, saying that "one of [his] best sources" had told him the Palins were divorcing. Griffin's story was immediately promoted by Dennis Zaki's "Alaska Report" site, which claimed that "multiple sources" had confirmed the report.
Jeanne Devon, an Anchorage Democratic activist who had previously blogged anonymously, also promoted Griffin's "exclusive" at the Huffington Post. As a result of this promotion, by Saturday afternoon Zaki's headline, "Todd and Sarah Palin to divorce," was the lead item at the popular Memeorandum political news site, even though it had already been officially denied by Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton.
Griffin wrote on his blog Wednesday, "I stand by every single word" of the original report, which accused Sarah Palin of attempting "to hide a broken relationship" with husband Todd.

You see, Ms. Dowd, how this "exclusive" got boosted up the online food chain so that, within a few hours of an unverified blind-source rumor being posted by "Gryphen" on his Immoral Minority site, it was the hottest story on the Internet. And it was his claim to have an "exclusive" -- as if his sources were more reliable than mine -- that drew my interest.

Given your Pulitzer-winning reputation for thoroughness, Ms. Dowd, I'm sure you'll be interested in reporting the whole story about what "Gryphen" wrote on his blog:

"I think that this trend toward real people having real sex is definitely the way to go. . . . when you see a video of an amateur couple having sex you can tell that they are simply doing it for the sheer excitement of sharing their passion with a bunch of middle aged pervs who are going to wank off to their sexual exploits."
-- "Gryphen," 6/3/07

"If sex is not naughty then it is almost not worth doing. I love kids, but in my opinion they are just a side effect of a healthy sex life."
-- "Gryphen," 6/14/07

"And your penis will respond more readily if you take it out and put it through its paces more often. Duh! So the next time your girlfriend/wife/mother bust you for watching porn on your computer, simply tell her that you are exercising and you would appreciate some privacy."
-- "Gryphen," 7/7/08

Yesterday the no-longer-pseudonym-protected Griffin was back to "just asking questions" mode:

My question is. who pays for this? Who sent money to the websites that attacked me to spend so much time trying to cut and paste bit and pieces of four year old posts together in an effort to "prove" I am a bad guy?

It would be embarrassing to admit that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy hasn't been hitting the tip-jar with enough frequency lately to keep up with my expenses. So if it suits Griffin's pathological imagination to suppose that Big Pharma or Halliburton are footing the bill, why spoil the illusion?

I'm sitting here in my silk pajamas, smoking Cohibas and sipping Dom Perignon, all of it paid for by GOP fat-cat donors who don't mind my slagging John McCain, dissing Charlie Crist and voting for Bob Barr. Meanwhile, Dan Riehl has spent his VRWC loot to rent a beach house in Ocean City and hire the second runner-up in the 2007 Miss Ukraine pageant to attend to his domestic needs. ("No, Katerina, I said very clearly I wanted my sandwich with mustard, mayonnaise and pickles . . .")

What might arouse the curiosity of a Pulitzer-winning columnist like Ms. Dowd is this question: Why can't Griffin, who claims to have sources who give him the "exclusive" lowdown on the state of Todd and Sarah Palin's love life, get his sources to tell him who's paying Dan and I?

Frankly, despite denials of a Palin divorce, I can't even get my sources to share the intimate details of the couple's romantic activities. (7:04 p.m. Thursday: "Todd gives Sarah a playful squeeze." 8:17 p.m. Thursday: "Sarah sneaks up behind Todd while he's watching ESPN and nonchalantly begins rubbing his shoulders." ) So if I, who am supposedly on the Palin payroll, can't get that kind of dish, why is it that Jesse Ray Griffin's sources are so reliable, so ubiquitous, so omniscient?

Check the timeline of the "Gryphen" investigation, Ms. Dowd, and see if you can resist the Pulitzer-worthy conclusion that Jesse Ray Griffin is a lying sack of crap with less journalistic credibility than Jayson Blair.

Oh, BTW, Ms. Dowd, we've met, although I'm not sure we were properly introduced. When you arrived at CPAC 2007 to cover Dick Cheney's speech, it was I who volunteered to escort you to the media sign-in table. After the speech, my young friend Ian Schwartz asked me to get you to pose for a photo with him.

Since we're already acquaintances, Ms. Dowd -- shhhh! my wife might get jealous -- perhaps I can speak to the funders of the VRWC and ask them to cut you in on this action. Just send Dan Riehl an e-mail and ask for the Griffin dossier, then catch the next flight to Anchorage. Remember to bill it to "Arlkay Overay."

I'll phone the Pulitzer Committee and tell them to keep an eye out for your next big scoop.

(Note to regular readers: "Arlkay Overay" is a notorious cheapskate, so please hit the tip jar.)

UPDATE: Dan Riehl links, and remarks:

Nice try, Jesse. But you don't get to ring the bell to end the fight in this one. There are no referees's arms for you to flee into, no corner to crawl up in and hide. But you'll likely find that out for yourself this week. I'm not done with you . . .

Ruh-roh. And Dan quotes Griffin's latest expedition into Trig Trutherism:

Sarah Palin has used this heartrending diminutive prop with such careless abandon, that even people who once supported her are embarrassed at her apparent disregard for the well being of this baby.
Leaving behind all of the questions about Trig's parentage, the question we must now ask ourselves is how well is he currently being cared for?
I believe that many people have very powerful concerns for this child.We see him trotted out when Sarah wants to make a political point, or create the warm motherly image for the cameras, but who cares for him while there are no cameras to record the event? (Emphasis added.)

And -- who knew? -- Jesse's a huge MoDo fan!

The fact that she wrote about my situation in her column absolutely makes my day.

Stay tuned to RIEHL WORLD VIEW. Meanwhile, the VRWC just sent me a new minion to supervise.

UPDATE II: Now linked at Memeorandum.

Libertarian Skinny-Dipping in Daytona: Hayekian Facts vs. 'Journalism Ethics'

To the commenter who accused me of committing a "travesty of journalistic ethics":

• Your comment was rejected. If you want to run me down, do it on your own blog. Flame wars are good for traffic, but you do not have permission to use my bandwidth to malign me.
• Ethics, shmethics. Truth may not be a journalist's only duty, but it's massively more important than whatever's second most important. If I accurately report the facts, I've done my job -- and just getting the facts right is hard enough.

I learned this as a sports writer. Simple question: If I'm covering a high-school baseball game, does accepting free food from the booster moms at the concession stand constitute a breach of "journalistic ethics"?

If so, then I kissed ethics good-bye in 1986. But I always got the final score right and you could probably count on one hand the times I committed the true "travesty" in small-town journalism: Misspelling a kid's name. (Hey, when a kid's mom calls you up to cuss you out, you remember a thing like that.)

Get the facts right, and how many free hot dogs you eat is your own business. Nobody cares about your opinion of the Calhoun High starting backfield -- if this year is like most years, they're a tad on the slow side -- but you've got to accurately report the total rushing yardage. (Which, if this year is like most years, won't be much.)

Because most journalists are Democrats, the political journalist who is not a Democrat tends to be viewed with disdain by the rest of the profession. I'm fine with that. But my political opinions -- "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Bob Barr!" -- are not a license for other people to give me lectures on "ethics."

You Can Quote Me On That

"Ethics, schmethics," as I told Bob Barr while we walked to the Fish On Fire seafood restaurant from the crappy fleabag hotel ("International Conference Center," my foot) where the Libertarian Party held its March 2007 national conference of state party chairs.

Certainly, I was no less ethical than Dave Weigel, my co-panelist in the "How to Deal With Media" discussion, which was the purpose (or pretext, if you prefer) of our expense-paid junket to Orlando.

Our publications (Dave was then at Reason magazine) got exclusive coverage without having to pay for our travel, which is a pretty cool deal. Of course, under such an arrangement, you're not going to do a rip-the-lid-off exposé -- "Fear and Loathing in Orlando: A Savage and Decadent Saga of Libertarian Depravity" -- but neither are you required to do a total puff piece.

In a universe of facts, not every fact can be reported, and what happens in Orlando stays in Orlando. That's what I tried to explain to Bob Barr, afterI excused myself from dinner with the LP brain trust, went back to my hotel and returned with a stack of towels.

"You were serious?" said the former member of the House Judiciary Committee.

"Serious as a heart attack, Bob," I answered, reiterating the plan I'd been discussing with the LP brain trust. "Look, it's almost 10 o'clock now and it's about an hour drive to Daytona Beach. We could stop by a fireworks store along the way, head to the beach, go skinny-dipping in the ocean, shoot off about $200 worth of fireworks -- have some real fun!"

Did I mention that it was March? Spring break in Daytona, skinny-dipping in the Atlantic with the first member of Congress to bring charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" against Bill Clinton -- and that was before Lewinsky -- man, what a story!

However, as I promised Bob, the Daytona expedition would remain strictly off-the-record. If the first three rules of journalism are "Accuracy, accuracy and accuracy," then the fourth rule is: A good reporter never burns his sources.

So I can't tell you whether or not the Libertarian Party brain trust took me up on that Daytona road-trip suggestion. (Don't worry, Mrs. Barr. Bob was accompanied by a professional journalist the entire time. And I've got family values.)

However, I remind you of an important corollary to the Fourth Rule of Journalism: A good source never burns a reporter. When I call Bob Barr on his personal cell phone, he takes the call. IYKWIMAITYD.

Hayekian Journalism

This is the kind of keen journalistic insight necessary to advance from being a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a 6,000-circulation weekly to become a top Hayekian public intellectual.

In a universe of facts, not every fact is sufficiently important to merit inclusion in a 700-word news story. Political news consumers in March 2007 were interested in the Libertarian Party's prospects for . . . well, anything, really. When the Libertarians have nerds like George Phillies, stoners like Steve Kubby and fanatical purists like Mary Ruwart seeking the presidential nomination, and when the party's 2008 convention requires six ballots to decide Barr is the better candidate, you can't be blamed for wondering if they're really serious about politics.

However remote the chance that the LP could influence the outcome of the 2008 election, serious political news consumers were interested in that stuff. Certainly, those readers had no interest in the trivial matter of whether, shortly after 11:30 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, March 17, 2007, Bob Barr and the Libertarian brain trust were cavorting nude with a half-dozen Purdue University coeds in the Atlantic surf of Daytona Beach.

That's the kind of sleazy, sensational tabloid stuff that no serious political journalist would be interested in reporting. For less than $10,000.

Neither Confirm Nor Deny, Bob

Hey, I write for money -- that's what it means to be a professional, as opposed to an amateur clown like Dennis "Bozo" Zaki, who actually lied about being a CNN stringer. In the Hayekian universe of facts, a reporter must exercise judgment about which facts are important enough to include in a news story, but I wouldn't knowingly publish a lie for any sum you could name.

Speculation about the sex lives of Republicans seems to be a full-time career for some people, but until there's actual proof -- a court document, an arrest report, a flight to Argentina -- such gossip is no more newsworthy than baseless innuendo about whether Barr and the LP brain trust took me up on that Daytona road-trip plan.

If some "source" ever tells you over beers that, shortly before dawn on Sunday, March 18, 2007, Bob Barr was passed out nude in the back seat of a rented Chevy SUV, while the other members of the LP brain trust were so hopelessly hammered that they'd taken the desperate measure of agreeing to let me drive back to Orlando -- well, in a circumstance like that, you'd be obligated to let Bob have a chance to give you an official denial before you'd even dream of reporting such potentially defamatory gossip.

("No comment," Bob. Neither confirm nor deny. This will be the most priceless "no comment" in the history of political journalism. And a good source never burns a reporter.)

Likewise with Todd and Sarah Palin. As far as I'm concerned, their love life is not news. But it gets mighty cold in Wasilla sometimes, and there's a Phantom Fireworks Superstore a block south of Silver Beach Avenue in Daytona, so if the Palins ever want to get some advice from a savvy media professional . . .

Well, should anybody feel the urge to hit the tip jar, don't fight the feeling. I'm a professional. I write for money. Photography? That's just a hobby. IYKWIMAITYD.

Dr. Barbara Oakley revisited: does this tinfoil hat make my head look fat?

by Smitty

Stacy, as an actual journalist, responded to Dr. Barbara Oakley's survey of journalistic motives here. As neither a journalist nor a psychologist, and an amateur student of history at best, allow me to opine on some of the drivers that have tipped journalism in the Democrat, or Progressive, direction.

Dr. Oakley's article begins in Soviet Russia, and is justifiably critical of academia:

Most journalists take a number of psychology, sociology, political science, and humanities courses during their early years in college. Unfortunately, these courses have long served as ideological training programs—ignoring biological sources of self-serving, corrupt, and criminal behavior for a number of reasons, including lack of scientific training; postmodern, antiscience bias; and well-intentioned, facts-be-damned desire to have their students view the world from an egalitarian perspective. Instead, these disciplines ram home the idea that troubled behavior can be fixed through expensive socialist programs that, coincidentally, provide employment opportunities for graduates of the social sciences.

For those interested in connecting the dots, you can read about the Cold War interactions of the Soviets and the US, on a political level in Blacklisted by History. Hint: it was a full-on ideological war, which those sycophants of the Soviets did everything they could to disguise. While she mentions the cretin, she appears unfamiliar with Roger Simon's expose on Walter Duranty.

Eric S. Raymond makes the discussion of Soviet ideological war waged against the US quite explicit in Gramscian Damage:

Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use "extremist" as a negative epithet. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.

We don't expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the "root causes" of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists' very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.

Further on:

In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:

• There is no truth, only competing agendas.
• All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
• There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
• The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
• Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
• The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
• For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
• When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

Ask Lt. Gen. Pacepa about the related effort to discredit the POTUS. The point is that the Cold War was, indeed, a war. If that point eludes you, refer to ESR: "Americans have never really understood ideological warfare".

Thus, in addition to the growing native affinity for Progressive thought, as explored by Goldberg, there was significant external effort to destabilize the country, possibly roping in current members of Congress.

Of course academia was a target of all this, and the decay produced results explored by Alan Bloom, and wonderfully rendered as a talk at Heritage by Evan Sayet.

Coming full circle to Dr. Oakley's piece, I think she bears witness to some horrible intellectual damage that has been done to the country's academic system. However, addressing the scope and historical roots of the problem with any degree of honesty would trigger a hemorrhage. It just will not happen. A community is just a little lest honest than the worst cretin within. It's tempting to call the current crop of journalists a bunch of Sophists, except that the ancient Sophists probably knew more and thought more effectively.

However, let's not go wasting our hate on these weenies. A proper capitalistic answer, like PJTV to the networks, is to locate and support conservative universities. Learn facts. Understand reasoned arguments. Make liberal heads 'splode. Let's finish on the hyper-cynical note of Don Henley on Dirty Laundry: