CDR: Selective news coverage (was "Killing judges.")

[jim bell]

----- Original Message -----
From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>

> On Sat, Oct 21, 2000 at 03:49:52PM -0700, jim bell wrote:
> > "Did the PI hear of this incident?".   (There were presumably at least
100
> > people in the courthouse or nearby when this incident occurred:  one
might
> > think that it would be very unlikely if ALL of them didn't call the news
> > media.)   Naturally, she had to point out that they were being "good
> > citizens" by NOT reporting"every bomb threat".    I should have asked
her if
>
> I hate to defend my colleagues, but this is reasonable. I don't know
> if bomb threats that turn out to be fake are inherently newsworthy.

I wasn't particularly dinging her for ignoring "some" bomb threats.   I
mentioned this comment to relay what her (the newspaper's) stated position
was.  But "some" pretty quickly turns into "all", and -that- turns into
"let's help
the government cover up embarrassing facts about real bombs."  (In place of
"bombs," insert "any sort of incident that the government would want to call
'terrorism'."

The World Trade Center bomb, as I vaguely recall from some Internet
revelations a few years back, was actually bought and paid-for by
US-Government money, funnelled through an informant.  (Agent provocateur?
Very embarrassingly, he taped his conversations not merely with the other
bombers, but also the government agents!)   I think the public ought to
learn this kind of thing, but they won't if the government has anything to
say about it.   Maybe the reason that bombers (or, terrorists in general)
ratchet up the severity of their attacks is to ensure that the news media
won't be able to ignore them.

> I would probably have made the same decision, given limited
> resources. Unless there was some evidence that this was a pattern of
> threats, etc.

At the time, of course, you wouldn't have known that an inmate had been left
inside the courtroom while everyone else was evacuated.  I emailed the
Post-Intelligencer to find out what I still don't know, after over a year:
What really
happened that day?  And who knew what, and when did they know it?  The PI
assistant editor is unwilling to tell me, nor is she willing to tell me who
she contacted after I sent my inquiry to her.

> > At the time, though not publicly, I speculated that to try to counteract
> > this, a small counter-media organization might be formed, containing as
> > little as a sole individual..  I figured that it would announce itself
as a
> > sounding-board for this kind of thing.  It would receive, anonymously,
any
> > sort of announcement, statement, threat, promise, warning, etc.  It
would
> > combine these anonymous snippets, and deliver them (quite openly, in a
> > recorded and documented fashion) to all the various news media
organizations
> > that might otherwise want to ignore what was being said.    Since this
>
> What you're describing could well be a competing publication. You'd
> presumably have greater legal protection that way in any case.

Yes, the news media legal "terrain" in 2000 is dramatically different than
the 1990 situation.  The blurring of the line between ordinary citizens and
traditional news media  ("the Matt Drudge effect"...uh, sorry, the "Declan
McCullagh effect"  B^) ) has probably made it fairly difficult for the
government to "go after" people who expend effort to expose/embarrass the
government, even if they aren't associated with a traditional news-media
organization.  These days, one of the few things that government can do to
keep the playing field un-level is to deny un-sympathetic  net journalists
access to press conferences, etc.  'course, you know more about this than I
do!

Check out the site,  www.slaphillary.com   .   And read the article that
introduces it, at:
 http://frontpagemag.com/editors_note/en10-17-00.htm

An excerpt from it follows:

------------------begin excerpt-------------
There is nothing unusual about Hillary being booed in New York. It happens
all the time. When Hillary marched in the Saint Patrick's Day parade in
March, she ran a 45-block gauntlet of boos and catcalls. She was also booed
when she marched in the Salute to Israel parade in June.

What was different about last Thursday, though, is that the mass media
actually reported the booing. Usually, they pretend it never happened.

When Eva Peron walked among her subjects, she often planted fake supporters
in the crowds, who would cheer for the cameras. Hillary uses similar
tactics.

My wife and I watched Hillary march in the Columbus Day parade last week, on
Fifth Avenue. There were plenty of booers and catcallers, as usual. But,
wherever Hillary walked, a mob of about 50 operatives ran, in tight
formation, on either side of the street, brandishing "Hillary" signs and
screaming their support for the First Lady.

Thus, the photographers and TV crews - if they angled their shots right -
could always make it seem as if the First Lady were surrounded by adoring
fans.
------------excerpt ends-----------


The appeal of the "slap Hillary" website, I think, comes from the same  gut
level as the usual reaction to my AP system when it's described to people.
I can't imagine having been the first to say it, but long ago (Musta been 20
years ago in "internet years")  I said "you can't appeal a bullet."
(Today, I can't find even a single reference to 'can't appeal a bullet' on
Altavista nor Deja.com.  Haven't checked the CP archives yet.)

No matter how rabid, no Hillary-supporter can possibly "appeal" the website
away, or the inestimable joy of giving our own "Hillarita Peron"  a big one.
"You can't appeal a slap."

Jim Bell











> I can see it now: "CJ and JB's BombNewsWire"
>
> -Declan