Media Nation

Boston Globe columnist Eileen McNamara today charges that political insiderism is responsible for the delay of a bill that would require churches, synagogues and mosques to do the same kind of public financial reporting as non-religious, nonprofit organizations. McNamara writes:

Churches became exempt only in 1954 from the reporting requirements that govern tax-exempt, charitable organizations in the state. The sex abuse scandal illuminated the folly of such secrecy. Critics are being disingenuous when they argue that disclosure would be an infringement on religious freedom. This is not about theology; it is about money.

This follows on the heels of a Globe story by Frank Phillips last week reporting that Protestant groups had succeeded in postponing action on the bill, drafted in order to force more accountability on the part of the Catholic Church.

So is McNamara right? I don’t know. Her argument makes sense. But here’s another perspective: A friend who is an Episcopal priest told me last week that the bill, if it passes, will cost her small, struggling North Shore church $5,000 a year in paperwork and accounting expenses — possibly forcing it to close.

Moreover, she said, the bill wouldn’t even accomplish the goal of requiring the Boston Archdiocese — the real target in all of this — to disclose the finances of each individual Catholic church. The archdiocese simply doesn’t budget that way, keeping everything in a central account. Legislators would like to know more because of the church closings, some of which appear to have been motivated by internal church politics and/or land-value considerations.

Opponents of the bill argue that it would violate the constitutional separation of church and state. I could argue just as logically that exempting churches from the same reporting requirements with which other non-profits must comply amounts to unconstitutional state sponsorship of religion.

Nevertheless, the possibility that a bill aimed at the Catholic Church would almost certainly miss its target and instead harm innocent bystanders suggests that we need to know more about it before the state Legislature votes.

As McNamara notes, this bill has been floating around for quite a while. It’s time for the Globe to stop covering this solely as a Beacon Hill story, and instead to explore what it would mean for churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organizations.

Bob Woodward has had his trip to the woodshed. Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell got it exactly right when she wrote, “He has to operate under the rules that govern the rest of the staff — even if he’s rich and famous.”

Now, enough.

There’s been a lot of talk the past few days about unfair it was that Woodward would almost certainly escape from this mess of his own making, while former New York Times reporter Judith Miller‘s career is in serious doubt. Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi took this on in the Sunday paper.

Here’s the difference. Yes, both Woodward and Miller covered up for administration officials in the Valerie Plame matter because they had promised them anonymity in the course of interviewing them. (When did that become controversial among journalists?) But Woodward is an extraordinary reporter whose interviews around that time did much to advance our understanding of the war in Iraq.

Unlike Woodward’s earlier, pro-White House “Bush at War,” the book that emerged from those interviews, “Plan of Attack,” was full of vital stuff, such as then-CIA director George Tenet’s mind-bending “It’s a slam dunk!” quote and Colin Powell’s heartfelt-if-too-late misgivings about what he had helped enable. If you think “Plan of Attack” was invaluable, then perhaps you should think twice about whether to denounce Woodward’s methods. No, Woodward is not a fearless outsider, like Seymour Hersh. He’s an insider who trades on his connections. But his work still matters.

Miller, on the other hand, got caught up in all this immediately after becoming radioactive for her faulty reporting on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. That’s why there’s so much anger being directed her way; the fact that she spent 85 days in jail in order to protect Lewis “Scooter” Libby has very little to do with that.

There is residual good will toward Woodward, and there should be. There was residual bad will toward Miller, and there should have been. That’s not to condone Woodward’s behavior in keeping crucial information from his editor and in disingenuously attacking special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation on television. But these are two different journalists, and they deserve to be treated differently.

The New York Times and WashingtonPost.com weigh in on the phosphorus story today. The Times article, by Scott Shane, is so oriented toward dismissing it that it’s hard to know what to think. It’s not that Shane is necessarily wrong; it’s that he lacks evidence. The Post’s contribution comes, once again, in William Arkin’s national-security blog.

Shane gets off to a bad start by stating the Italian documentary that unleashed this story “incorrectly” referred to white phosphorus as a chemical weapon. Farther down in the piece, Shane circles around the issue, in effect conceding that the documentary was incorrect only in referring to the substance as an “illegal” chemical weapon. Legal or not, phosphorus is a chemical, and it is used as a weapon. Can we agree on that?

Shane also writes, “The half-hour film was riddled with errors and exaggerations, according to United States officials and independent military experts.” And there is this from Shane’s story:

“It’s discredited the American military without any basis in fact,” said John E. Pike, an expert on weapons who runs GlobalSecurity.org, an independent clearinghouse for military information. He said the “stupidity and incompetence” of official comments had fueled suspicions of a cover-up.

“The story most people around the world have is that the Americans are up to their old tricks — committing atrocities and lying about it,” Mr. Pike said. “And that’s completely incorrect.”

Now, this may all be true. Pike is a respected military analyst. The problem is that Shane presents no real evidence to disprove the claim that civilians were injured and killed by white phosphorus in the battle for Fallujah last year. The Pentagon has already had to backtrack and admit that phosphorus was used to kill insurgents. Is it really such a stretch to think that civilians were caught in the crossfire?

Arkin’s blog entry is considerably more enlightening than Shane’s article. His target is Lt. Gen. Walter E. “Buck” Buchanan III, who, in Arkin’s view, told the Associated Press “three brainless things” in an interview. Here’s what Arkin says about Buchanan’s remarks concerning the phosphorus reports:

“It is purely used as a marking round, not as a weapon. It marks the target so it becomes very clear,” Lt. Gen. Buchanan told the AP. Sir. In all due respect, have you not been reading the newspapers? The Pentagon and State Department have both acknowledged at this point that the Army used white phosphorous as an anti-personnel weapon during the battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

Was white phosphorus used as an incendiary specifically against civilians? I guess that’s still the $64,000 question. But to utter the boilerplate crap that it is only used as [sic] to create smoke or to mark targets is ignorant and insensitive.

What’s still lacking is any commitment on the part of the American media to investigate whether U.S. forces used chemical weapons (sorry, Mr. Shane) against a Fallujah population that included civilians. The whole world is watching. Just today, South Africa’s Globe & Mail has a story headlined “US used chemical weapons, then lied.” That’s just one example out of many.

Do Bill Keller and Len Downie want to wake up tomorrow only to find that the BBC, Robert Fisk or Al-Jazeera has rooted out the truth about what happened in Fallujah?

Also, Danny Schechter has some phosphorus links today.

I remain determinedly neutral about the Boston Globe’s daily Sidekick tab. All I ask is that it not demonstrably suck resources away from the paper’s news-gathering operations.

With that bit of throat-clearing, let’s take a look at today’s paper. There are a grand total of four ads in the 16-page Sidekick section, and that’s actually a lot worse than it sounds: it turns out that every one of them is a house ad, flogging a Globe-produced sports DVD (a full-page, back-cover ad at that), a book by photographer Bill Brett available from the Globe’s online store, a Globe-sponsored “Family Classics” book club and an upcoming event for the Globe Santa charity.

Meanwhile, on Page B5, in the City & Region section, is a full-page ad touting — yes — Sidekick. “Have some fun with your news,” you are urged. I’m not sure what the purpose of this ad is since, if you bought today’s Globe, you already have Sidekick.

Now, I doubt that Sidekick is costing the Globe all that much. If you got rid of it tomorrow, you’d have to expand the paper a bit to reintegrate the funnies and the TV listings, which wouldn’t be free. But surely the separate production run for Sidekick must cost something — the annual salary of a metro reporter and a copy editor, perhaps?

A project like Sidekick is worthless unless it makes money to support the Globe’s journalism. Ergo, Sidekick is worthless.

Another day of virtual silence from the American mainstream media on the use of white phosphorus by U.S. forces in the battle for Fallujah last year.

If you’re just tuning in, the Pentagon admitted to the BBC earlier this week that it had indeed used the flesh-melting substance, but denied having targeted civilians. The problem is that Fallujah was teeming with civilians, and an Italian television documentary recently reported that many of them were among the victims.

This morning’s Google News search reveals that the foreign press, especially in the U.K., continues to follow the story closely. Alternative news sources are as well.

Among the mainstream media, though, the two most interesting things I found were an editorial in the Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer (“In a guerrilla war … firing a munition like WP [white phosphorus] into a city full of civilians is irresponsible”) and a column by Palm Beach Post ombudsman C.N. Hanif responding to a reader complaint on that paper’s silence.

Hanif quotes Post managing editor Bill Rose, who says his paper does not subscribe to Reuters, the only widely available wire service that carried the story.

A spammer has managed to get past Blogger’s word-verification feature. Click here and you’ll see what I mean. Coincidentally, Blogger recently introduced comment moderation. For now, I’m simply going to wait and see whether this gets out of hand. But moderation is definitely a possibility. It’s too bad.

Whole Foods: Nicer to lobsters than to its employees.

The Christian Science Monitor yesterday published a characteristically clear and concise analysis of reports — confirmed by the Pentagon — that U.S. forces used white phosphorus as a weapon in its battle against insurgents in Fallujah. The issue, of course, is whether the skin-burning substance inadvertently harmed the civilian population as well.

The Monitor’s Mark Sappenfield writes:

[T]he claims made by an Italian television station — that women and children were found with melted skin despite the fact that their clothes were unharmed — are consistent with the action of white phosphorous, scientists say.

In an offensive that involved targeting insurgents who were hidden in a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the allegations — if true — do not prove or disprove military malfeasance.

But they do raise the issue of the military’s judgment. Because fires can burn out of control during a battle, the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1980 banned the use of incendiary devices, like white phosphorous, in heavily populated areas. America, however, did not sign the agreement.

Is this not a story? Incredibly, if you search Google News this morning for “phosphorus Iraq,” you will get a long list of stories — and nearly every one of them is from the foreign press.

Will the New York Times and/or the Washington Post come through in their Sunday editions? Stay tuned.

Unaccustomed as I am to defending Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald, I nevertheless find this too funny — and sad — to pass up.

If you go to Michael Graham’s Web site right now, you will find this:

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2005

THE $1,000 THROW-DOWN IS ON! Today on 96.9 FM TALK, I made this challenge to Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald, who claimed in print today that I’ve said “All Muslims are terrorists:”

If Mr. Fitzgerald can find any record in print, broadcast or anywhere else, that I have ever said “All Muslims are terrorists,” I will donate $1,000 to the charity of his choice. Any charity, up to and including the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The challenge has been issued, and I hope Mr. Fitzgerald’s sense of journalistic ethics inspires him to take it up. I will gladly make this donation if he can find anywhere I have made the statement he attributed to me…but he won’t. Because I’ve never said it, and I never would.

There is a slight problem here: Fitzgerald never quoted Graham as saying that. Rather, in a Wednesday column headlined “No room for ethnic hatred on Hub talk radio dial” (sub. req.), Fitzgerald wrote that Graham’s new employer, WTKK Radio, probably …

… thought Michael Graham would be worth a shot in Boston, given his track record, knowing he’s capable of muddying our cultural waters a little bit more by trashing all Muslims.

When he tried that at his last job in Washington, D.C., repeatedly denigrating Islam as “a terrorist organization,” his bosses wisely pulled him off the air and told him to scram, which is how he wound up here, where the industry’s standards have sunk so low that some signals seem to come from the gutter.

Yes, there are Muslim savages, such as the terrorists who beheaded blindfolded captives on live TV while proclaiming, “All praise to Allah!” But does that mean every practicing Muslim has bloody hands, too, as Graham implied?…

According to Graham, it’s simple: There is no line. Rather than zeroing in on elements of a group, you just hate the whole group. It’s easier that way, and, besides, it’s good for ratings.

All Muslims are terrorists? Please.

You will note that nowhere does Fitzgerald directly quote Graham as saying, “All Muslims are terrorists.” (And if you’re wondering whether the print edition of Fitzgerald’s column is different, I checked: It isn’t.)

What Fitzgerald is doing, of course, is recounting the events that got Graham fired from his last radio job, at WMAL Radio in Washington. Here is a passage from the Washington Post account of that fiasco (via Mark Jurkowitz):

According to WMAL, Graham said “Islam is a terrorist organization” 23 times on his July 25 program. On the same show, he also said repeatedly that “moderate Muslims are those who only want to kill Jews” and that “the problem is not extremism. The problem is Islam.”

Read that passage again. Does Joe Fitzgerald accurately summarize the views Graham expressed on that occasion? Absolutely. I’d say Fitzgerald ought to collect on that $1,000 reward right now.

The Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald keeps the heat on new WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) talk-show host Michael Graham this morning, reporting that he lost an on-air job in 1999 for some sick Columbine humor.

The Globe’s Clea Simon interviews Graham, who says his first priority will be to bring back Boston’s Veterans Day parade. “I don’t care if I have to go out myself and hire bums and hookers and give them flags,” Graham tells Simon. Michael, my man: We don’t care, either.

During the past couple of days I’ve spent several minutes that felt like hours listening to Graham. My snap judgment — subject to change, of course — is that he may be among the most unlistenable hosts it’s ever been my displeasure to hear. I didn’t like Jay Severin, whom Graham replaced; yet Graham comes up considerably short of Severin. To wit:

• Severin is reasonably intelligent. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is — no one is as smart is Severin thinks he is — but he’s no dummy, either. I don’t know whether Graham is a dolt or not, but he definitely plays one on the radio.
• Severin’s got great pipes. He’s easy to listen to, especially if you pay no attention to what he’s actually saying. Graham’s normal on-air speaking voice is a high-pitched, loud, on-rushing yelp.
• As much of a right-winger as Severin can often be, he does hold a few counter-intuitive views. Among other things, he opposes the war in Iraq, and supports an immediate pullout given that no weapons of mass destruction were found there. Graham is so pro-war that it’s unconscionable he hasn’t signed up for a stint in the Marines.

Is it too soon to tell? Sure. But screamers don’t have a good record of success in the Boston market. Howie Carr must be thrilled.