Month: February 2006 Page 1 of 4

The New Republic is fine. That’s not to say it’s perfect; it could be better, it has been worse. But New York Times reporter David Carr’s article on TNR’s latest transition at the top of the masthead, from boy wonder Peter Beinart to boy wonder Franklin Foer, is tonally off. Yes, circulation may have slid 40 percent in recent years. Yes, it may not generate as much attention as it once did. But that’s because the distribution model is all wrong.

TNR is a good magazine tied to a better Web site. But by charging for online content, it has removed itself from the conversation over public policy that its owners and staff members so much want to be a part of. TNR lives for public debate. But if bloggers can’t link to its content, then it might as well not exist.

These days, Slate gets far more attention. Is it better than TNR? It depends on your taste; if it is, it’s not by a lot. But Slate — like TNR, a moderately liberal, smart, delightfully mean-spirited magazine about politics and culture (Michael Bérubé calls Slate a “slightly newer republic”) — is free and, more important, freely linkable.

Last fall, when my subscription to the print edition of TNR expired, I renewed as a digital-only customer. It was cheaper, and I could read the magazine on my schedule rather than our letter-carrier’s. It is a sign of TNR’s fundamental misunderstanding of the new environment that I received letter after letter begging me to return to the hallowed ranks of paid subscribers (I thought I’d never left), as well as a phone call from a telemarketer almost tearfully asking why I hadn’t renewed.

In fact, I’m probably reading TNR as closely as I ever have, and doing it earlier in the week, since I’m no longer waiting (and waiting) for the print edition to arrive. But I don’t mention it or link to it nearly as often as I’d like, because Media Nation’s readers can’t follow along unless they, too, are TNR subscribers.

In a way, Foer has an easy task in making The New Republic relevant again. All he has to do is persuade Marty Peretz and his fellow owners to rejoin the conversation from which they withdrew. The magazine may be “financially stable,” as Carr reports. But it’s heading for oblivion.

Heartening news from ABC on the day of the latest deadline:

A top Iraqi official tells ABC News that he believes Jill Carroll is alive and that he believes she will be released, even though the latest deadline for the kidnapped journalist has passed with no news of her fate.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabur al Zubaidi said he knew who had abducted the 28-year-old freelance journalist.

“We know his name and address, and we are following up on him as well as the Americans,” Zubaidi said. “I think she is still alive.”…

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told ABC News that he also believed Carroll was alive.

Needless to say, this is wonderful news if true. Given the way that Iraqis have responded to Carroll’s plight, there is surely no propaganda value to be gained by killing her. I’ve been hoping that her captors would realize that and dump her — alive and uninjured — along the side of a road somewhere.

Here’s a thought from The Guardian about Ken Livingstone, the democratically elected mayor of London, who has been suspended from office for making an anti-Semitic remark to a reporter: Livingstone, the paper notes, is “a politician with the biggest personal mandate in Europe.”

Not that it would be acceptable to remove even a lowly neighborhood-watch chairman for exercising his right to free speech. But for the shadowy, unelected, three-member Adjudication Panel to suspend someone re-elected by a landslide in 2004 only serves to underscore what a reprehensible assault on free speech this is. At least when the Republicans tried to remove Bill Clinton over his sexual escapades, the effort was led by elected members of Congress.

(By the way, I’m assuming that The Guardian has its facts straight. I can understand how Livingstone might have the largest mandate in Britain. Even Prime Minister Tony Blair represents just one parliamentary district. But I’m thinking about France, where the president — Jacques Chirac — is chosen in a national election. Was Livingstone’s margin in one city really larger than Chirac’s in all of France?)

Coming at the end of a week when British pseudo-historian David Irving was sentenced to 10 years in an Austrian prison for denying that the Holocaust took place, this is a pretty ominous moment for freedom of speech in Europe.

Livingstone, who is expected to challenge his month-long suspension, is quoted as saying:

This decision strikes at the heart of democracy. Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law. Three members of a body that no one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners.

Livingstone got into trouble for an exchange with Oliver Finegold, a reporter for The Evening Standard. The Guardian recounts that exchange thusly:

The incident occurred last February as Mr Livingstone left a party marking the 20 years since former culture secretary Chris Smith became Britain’s first openly gay MP. In a tape-recorded exchange, he asked Mr Finegold whether he had ever been a “German war criminal”.

On being told that the reporter objected to the remark and was Jewish, the mayor said: “Ah, well you might be but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?”

Pretty nasty stuff, of course, and it was only right that Livingstone should have landed in trouble with voters, with the media — that is, with anyone other than unelected hall monitors. Livingstone has also been whacked with 80,000 pounds’ worth of costs — or approximately $140,000.

Guardian columnist Mark Lawson blames everyone — the “three blokes that nobody has heard of” and Livingstone himself, for refusing to apologize and thus defuse the situation. The entire exchange between Livingstone and Finegold is online here. Livingstone does come across as quite a jerk. If London doesn’t have a provision for a recall election, it ought to get one.

As for The Evening Standard, its editors seem to be exceedingly pleased with themselves, posting the audio of the exchange on the paper’s Web site, This Is London, along with a tease to “[r]ead the FULL story in tonight’s Evening Standard.” The splash headline on the paper itself: “MAYOR KEN SUSPENDED.” And if I’m reading the blurry subhead correctly, it says, “‘He has damaged his own reputation … and that of the Mayor’s office,'” apparently a quote from the “three blokes.”

Yes, Livingstone damaged his reputation. And the “three blokes” damaged the reputation of Britain as a free country where people can speak their minds, no matter how polluted their minds might be.

Reuters reports that gunmen attacked the funeral procession for Al-Arabiya journalist Atwar Bahjat, killing three Iraqi security officers. Reuters also repeats the theory that Bajhat and her fellow journalists Adnan Khairullah and Khalid Mahmoud were kidnapped, then shot. I’m not sure whether that clarifies what actually happened to the three, or if the wire service is simply repeating widely disseminated information that may or may not be true. (Thanks to Media Nation reader Specks.)

Al-Jazeera’s English-language Web site today mentions the funeral attack in its roundup of news from Iraq. I had reported yesterday that Al-Jazeera had nothing on the killings, which prompted this comment to Media Nation:

You said you could not find anything on al-Jazeera about the murders of three journalists near Samarra. Actually, the network’s English-language Web site posted a story Thursday. I know because I read it and sent the link to Romenesko, hoping he might post it. Just wanted you to know that the story was definitely reported by al-Jazeera. I just looked for it again, but it’s no longer there, so I’m assuming they updated their site and removed it.

I have often found the Al-Jazeera English-language site to be frustrating. I’ve never had the sense that it truly reflects what the full extent of what the news service is reporting. My correspondent’s experience suggests that is indeed the case.

What’s going on in Iraq right now is horrifying, and obviously what is happening to journalists is just a small part of that. When the media focus on the fate of their colleagues — Daniel Pearl, Jill Carroll and now the three Arab journalists — we often hear criticism about our misplaced sense of priorities. Point taken. And it obviously doesn’t get much worse than this Al-Jazeera report:

In Basra, where the curfew was not in effect, on Friday armed men kidnapped three children of a Shia legislator. The son and two daughters of Qasim Attiyah al-Jbouri — aged between seven and 11 years — were abducted by armed men near the family home, police said.

But even though violence in Iraq affects everyone there, journalists have a unique and crucial role in such an environment. At best, journalists bear witness and tell the truth to the world at large, making sense out of the incomprehensible. They can’t solve such crises. But they can help people understand. And with understanding comes the glimmer of a possible solution.

At this point it’s not entirely clear what happened to the three journalists who were killed yesterday. This much we know: A well-known reporter for Al-Arabiya named Atwar Bahjat, as well as two colleagues who worked for an Iraqi television service, engineer Adnan Khairullah and cameraman Khalid Mahmoud, were deliberately murdered near Samarra by thugs who shouted, “We want the correspondent!” or “We want the anchorwoman!”, depending on which translation you read. Bahjat, clearly, was singled out for execution.

This Associated Press story, which appears in today’s Boston Globe, claims that initial reports that the three had been kidnapped and then killed were apparently wrong. In fact, the story says, Al-Arabiya now believes “they had been killed on the spot.” Yet other media outlets, including BBC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post, all include the kidnapping claim today.

A report from Arab News goes into considerably more detail on what Al-Arabiya is saying about the murders. But by the admission of Al-Arabiya’s own spokesman, the news service isn’t sure what happened, either:

“According to eyewitnesses and the official account given by the Iraqi security forces, armed individuals ambushed Atwar Bahjat and her colleagues Adnan Khairallah and Khalid Mahmoud while she was interviewing people on the outskirts of Samarra, kidnapped them and then killed them,” Al-Arabiya spokesman Jihad Ballout said by telephone from the satellite channel’s headquarters in Dubai.

“This is the official story but I don’t have anything to confirm or refute this,” he said.

The last live report filed by Atwar was on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Dubai time and the last contact she had with the Dubai office was approximately a half-hour later. Around midnight, the Dubai office was informed about the death of the three journalists. Their bodies were identified and handed over to their families after completing all the necessary procedures.

Nor are the news services entirely clear on who Atwar Bahjat was. Most describe her as being 30 years old, although the BBC says she’s 26. Of far more significance is that she is generally described as being Sunni — an obvious target in the sectarian battles that broke out this week following the attack on the Shiite shrine. But her background appears to have been quite a bit more complicated and interesting than that.

Here, for instance, is an appreciation from The Times of London:

There were so many reasons not to kill Atwar Bahjat. She was half Sunni, half Shia, a woman, an Iraqi, 30 years old, a native of Samarra and a renowned journalist for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel….

Ms Bahjat, famed for her courageous frontline reporting, had driven towards Samarra with her cameraman, Khaled Mahmud al-Falahi, and soundman, Adnan Khairallah. On the edge of the city they found their way blocked by security checkpoints so Ms Bahjat made two live transmissions from where she was, interviewing citizens of Samarra who condemned the bomb blast. By her third and final report, at 6pm local time, Ms Bahjat appeared strained and tired. “She began calling us just after 6pm,” said Dhia al-Nasseri, a colleague at al-Arabiya’s office in Baghdad yesterday. “She was worried. The place was very dangerous. She needed to get into Samarra but the roads were blocked. It was a long way back and night was falling. She called us and various officials, asking for help.”

Read the entire article. It is riveting.

The Committee to Protect Journalists weighs in on this outrage here, and Reporters Without Borders here.

I could not find anything on Al-Jazeera’s English-language Web site about the three murders, even though Bahjat had been a reporter for the Al-Jazeera before moving to the more pro-Western Al-Arabiya. There are two photos of Bahjat on the Al-Arabiya home page right now, but the text is in Arabic.

What ought to worry all of us is that Iraq may be making its final descent into utter chaos, and that fewer and fewer reporters will be willing (or alive) to tell the story. I don’t mean to exaggerate — there are still plenty of journalists in Iraq. But with each kidnapping, with each murder, there is less incentive for reporters to take risks and get beyond the relative safety of the hotels in which they are holed up.

I’m not sure there has ever been a war like this, at least in modern times. Even in the former Yugoslavia, an intrepid reporter like the Boston Globe’s Elizabeth Neuffer — who died in an accident early in the Iraq war — was able to shuttle among the various murderous factions. After all, under the old rules, even war criminals wanted to get their propaganda out, not kill the messenger. Now that has been turned on its head.

Although I’d prefer an Ipswich Ale.

So — is the Boston Herald’s Ivana Martini (1) an actual person who writes only under that name; (2) a Herald writer who’s adopted that persona when he or she writes about fashion and related topics; or (3) a fake byline slapped on stories written by any number of people?

Send your tips, guesses and inside information to Media Nation at da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu.

The Boston Herald this morning engages in a bit of what Stephen Colbert might call “truthiness.” The upper right is dominated by a large photo of a smiling Archbishop Seán O’Malley giving the thumbs-up sign. The headline: “Cardinal Sean!”

O’Malley has always struck me as a pretty humble, low-key guy. So I was surprised that he would indulge in such a self-congratulatory gesture — especially since I’d already heard a radio report in which he said he saw his elevation as a reflection of the importance of Boston, not himself.

And sure enough — there in tiny type, below the photo, appear three little words: “STAFF FILE PHOTO.” So he didn’t. But the Herald made it look like he did. Except it’s got a disclaimer. Except a lot of people aren’t going to notice it.

Needless to say, the three little words aren’t even remotely visible if you view the front on BostonHerald.com — even if you click on it and blow it up, the disclaimer is too blurry to be readable.

In the great scheme of things, I suppose this is relatively harmless. But truthy though it may be, it’s not quite truthful, and the Herald’s editors shouldn’t have done it.

Harvard student and blogger Andrew Golis broke the story about Larry Summers’ resignation the way Matt Drudge broke the story about Monica Lewinsky. That is, he sort of did, sort of didn’t: He reported that others were about to break the story.

Golis himself has been straightforward about this, writing yesterday afternoon in a post titled “covering the coverage of my coverage of the coverage of the coverage”:

Good lord, all of this coverage is making me tired. I just got off the phone with a Boston Herald reporter who is writing a short story about Cambridge Common breaking the news. I tried to make it clear: all we did was cover the coverage to come.

Here is the Herald story that resulted from Golis’ conversation.

Of all the weird non sequiturs that have sprung up in defense of Dick Cheney, perhaps the weirdest can be summarized thusly: What about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick? The disingenuous Mark Steyn is among many who have taken up this cudgel, writing:

Hmm. Let’s see. On the one hand, the guy leaves the gal at the bottom of the river struggling for breath pressed up against the window in some small air pocket while he pulls himself out of the briny, staggers home, sleeps it off and saunters in to inform the cops the following day that, oh yeah, there was some broad down there. And, on the other hand, the guy calls 911, has the other fellow taken to the hospital, lets the sheriff know promptly but neglects to fax David Gregory’s make-up girl!

Steyn does this, by the way, in the context of quoting Washington Post columnist David Ignatius with evident approval, calling Ignatius a “wise old bird.” So I am shocked — shocked! — to report that Steyn has misconstrued Ignatius, who does not seem to be at all happy with Cheney’s actions at the Armstrong Ranch, seeing his “long delay” in reporting the accident as evidence of the “arrogance of power.”

With that in mind, some questions and answers, please.

1. Was Chappaquiddick more serious than Cheney’s shooting his friend Harry Whittington? Of course. Mary Jo Kopechne died, in all likelihood because of Kennedy’s negligence. Whittington could have died, and Cheney has already confessed to having acted negligently. But, yes, Chappaquiddick was quite a bit more serious.

2. Does invoking Chappaquiddick somehow mean that Cheney did not shoot Whittington? To read Steyn, as well as some of the comments to Media Nation that I’ve read, you’d think so. But I have it on very good authority that the first incident, which took place nearly 37 years ago, does not negate the second. Cheney did indeed shoot his friend. Front-on. In the face and chest.

3. Did Kennedy suffer any consequences? Kennedy was charged with a criminal offense in Chappaquiddick, pleading guilty to leaving the scene and receiving a two-month suspended sentence. Too light? Perhaps. But his was a first-time offense, and car accidents — even those involving death and alcohol — were simply not taken as seriously in 1969 as they are today. (Cheney himself can attest to the blasé attitude about drunk driving in the 1960s.)

Moreover, Kennedy’s political career was permanently curtailed. Before Chappaquiddick, he was considered a near-certain future president. Afterwards, he became something of a national joke outside Massachusetts, at least among everyone except committed liberals.

4. Will Cheney suffer any consequences? None so far.

The irony of European editors’ publishing the Muhammad cartoons in the name of free speech is that, in much of Europe, there is no free speech. Today we learn that British historian David Irving has been sentenced by an Austrian court to 10 years in prison for his blatherings denying that the Holocaust ever took place. Irving is, of course, demented, evil or both. But in the United States, at least, he would have a right to speak his mind. And we would have a right to ignore him.

Perhaps we can now look forward to serialized versions of Irving’s magnum opus, “Hitler’s War,” being run in the same French and German newspapers whose editors eagerly trumpeted their solidarity with the Danes by running offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Or perhaps not. It’s one thing to demonstrate your courage by insulting your Muslim readers. It’s quite another to risk imprisonment. I mean, you could end up with David Irving as your cellmate. That wouldn’t do at all.

As it turns out, you can download a free copy of “Hitler’s War” from this British Web site. Then again, the Brits’ attitude toward freedom of expression has always been closer to that of the United States than to their continental cousins’. Putting it best is Deborah Lipstadt, a U.S. historian whom Irving unsuccessfully sued for libel in Britain several years ago after she called him a Holocaust denier. “I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don’t believe in winning battles via censorship…. The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth,” she told BBC News.

There are, admittedly, two ideas here. One is that speech glorifying the Nazis or minimizing the Holocaust is grotesquely more offensive than cartoons of Muhammad that, at least to Western eyes, seem fairly innocuous. The other is that censorship is censorship. But though it’s tempting to call these competing ideas, they’re really not. The more offensive the speech, the more protection it needs. And, obviously, ideas don’t get any more offensive than Irving’s.

Roger Cohen, writing (sub. req.) in the International Herald Tribune, neatly defines the hypocrisy:

It is precisely such supposed double standards that irk [Arab League secretary general Amr] Moussa. Irving, a historian with a screw loose who never hurt a fly, questioned the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz — the very gas chambers that drove surviving Jews from Europe to the Middle East — and was sentenced to prison by an Austrian court.

Yet Flemming Rose, the culture editor of a Danish newspaper, chooses to impugn the foundations of a global faith, Islam, through the publication of cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad — an act seen as sacrilegious by Muslims — and Europe moves to defend him in the name of freedom of speech as dozens are killed from Pakistan to Libya.

The Independent today has a terrific backgrounder on Irving. Here’s a particularly shocking statement of his, uttered in 1988: “I don’t think there was any overall Reich policy to kill the Jews. If there was … there would not be so many millions of survivors. Believe me, I am glad for every survivor.”

Nat Hentoff once said that the urge to censor is stronger than the human sex drive. Hentoff, by the way, favors publishing the Muhammad cartoons. (And yes, I realize that by linking to Hentoff’s column, I am showing you one of those images. I don’t favor publishing the cartoons, but neither do I favor making a fetish of it.)

But you can be sure that Hentoff opposes sending David Irving to prison, too. So should we all.