The Nation has come up with a fun way to make money when you're a cash-poor lefty mag, which is to just auction off any old crap they can get their hands on. Current auction items include a set of tires (value: $450) and a copy of Fighting Bob LaFollette: The Righteous Reformer (value: $23). Next week, the staff of The Nation will sell their own blood plasma.


Jack Shafer writes a true column about what inspires such epic coverage of Ivy League murders: Love of the Ivy League on one end of the media, and hate for the Ivy League on the other end. Jack, you left out "Genuine concern for the victim by the bloodsucking media bastards."


Apparently some citizens of America are urging Good Morning America to hire energetic money-chaser Suze Orman, as a face that they want to see on their television screens shortly after waking up? I will never understand Americans.


Politics are dividing American bloviation! National Joural asked its panel of "Congressional and Political Insiders" (whatever) to tell them which columnists are the most influential on their own thinking and Thomas fucking Friedman won, for fuck's sake. I assume these are the same "Americans" urging a major network to hire Suze Orman as morning news pep-squad leader? Anyhow the most divisive columnist was Charles Krauthammer, a psycho beloved by Republicans but not much at all by Democrats, who named Bob Guccione as their Most Admired Hero.

Check it out, some food blogger went and ate at the New York Times cafeteria and gave it a respectable two star rating. "It was an ok fried chicken, but honestly I prefer Popeyes because they have better skin," he says. "The pie was everything that you could ask for in a company cafeteria dessert." Something for the Hobo NYT to be proud of.


Slate media curmudgeon Jack Shafer reveals he's way crazy! "Blessed as I am with insomnia, I get up and read the front pages of the major dailies at about 2 a.m. every day." Does he go back to sleep afterwards? Does he stay up for six more hours and then go to work? Does he smoke lots of meth? Uppers, downers, an Elvis-like cycle? Tell us more about this bizarre wee hours news addiction. We like Jack Shafer, good fella!


Grub Street suggests the restaurateurs that should have been on Graydon Carter's annual New Establishment list, if not for the fact that Graydon Carter is himself a jealous restaurateur.


Media success story! Examiner.com has bought NowPublic, a "citizen journalism" site, for around $25 million. That is a lot of scratch, for citizen journalism! The citizen journalists will themselves receive $0.


Need to rent out a $20,000 penthouse in this ridiculously poor real estate market? Rent it out to a magazine! Hearst is renting a badass apartment in Soho for its Esquire "Ultimate Bachelor Pad," because money is no object when it comes to publishing brand extensions, or ultimate bachelors.

This is interesting mostly just for being a candid look into how your news stories get made: McClatchy DC's online managing editor Mark Seibel accidentally forwarded this email chain to a marketing list, woops. It's a convo between Seibel and Jay Price, a reporter at The News & Observer in North Carolina, about how to approach a story about a lawsuit alleging that Blackwater's founder was responsible for murders in Iraq. This is what journalists do! Let's not get all wing-nutty about these things. (We know that some right-wing bloggers are getting wing-nutty about this right now). Jay Price seems like a very balanced man, we must say.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 11:15 AM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> You guys doing anything on the murder alegations?

From: Jay Price
To: Seibel, Mark
Sent: Wed Aug 05 11:30:32 2009
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

dunno, sent the material to joe yesterday but we havent talked. I'm on night cops rotation all this week since we no longer can afford night cops reporters.

I would be careful about how seriously I took this stuff.....The allegations are anonymous and part of a lawsuit that frankly is pretty shaky with some wilder stuff re: child prostitution etc.
Norfolk wrote it because its in their yard, but their story was pretty lukewarm. This is not the same as someone publically saying this stuff happened.
They are prone to threats but its been essentially junior HS boy cheft puffing, no sense they would ever do this or that the talk of christian crusades... they shot a lot in iraq but if there were lots of intentional killings we'd know about it.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> I don't know about that last part. I think there were many intentional killings. Let me know if you guys decide to do something.

From: Jay Price
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 12:24 PM
To: Seibel, Mark
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

will do. I mean intentional in the sense described in lawsuit, where they are alleged to have gone over on a christian crusade to kill iraqis.
The allegations of killing potential whistleblowers is another red flag on this. victim(s ) are unnamed and it's not as if there are a ton of potential candidates. BW didnt lose but a handful there and most are known issues — fallujah and chopper shoot downs/crashes.
So we have unnamed accusers, no names or circumstances for alleged victims etc. , lawyers who have been really pushing the limits of credibility and Jeremy Scahill who has made a career out of sensationalizing.... worth digging at, but there isn't even a small piece of solid evidence to support this stuff. Eric is Catholic and surely religious but the guys he put in the field were no more interested in religion than anyone else, and prob less so.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> i imagine that's true — that the contractors themselves weren't driven by religion. they were driven by money

From: Jay Price
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 1:18 PM
To: Seibel, Mark
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

Joe's hacking through the two guys' statements to see if there is somewhere further to push it. He and I are both aware of threats to folks inside the company not to talk but his take is this new stuff is not huge ..... will let you know if he starts to pursue.

Crime site looks good, wish we had a vast promotional budget for stuff like that.... it could take off with enough spotlight.

From: Seibel, Mark
Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Subject: FW: Blackwater?
To: Wash Buro Web Marketing

let's be watching for this.

That last "To" address was the mistake!


Terrible terrible media news roundup: CNBC's lost almost 30% of its audience in the past year. Roll Call is canning executives. Some smart people think BusinessWeek will fold. And Newhouse Newspapers "is planning to remove its long-standing 'no-layoffs' pledge." It will be replaced with a "layoffs" pledge.


The WSJ reportedly has a new policy of refusing embargoes on stories, unless they're exclusives, or "unless the story is considered big enough." So this mostly applies to you, publicist with the "EMBARGOED: BunnyCollector.com Issuing Brand New Plush Bunny Figurine In New Color: Orange" press release. You are totally screwed.


Pay attention, Jack Shafer has a very serious statement to make about Dana Milbank's proclivities for japes 'n jibes: "I'm not really a fan of Milbank and Cillizza's brand of humor. But to put a finer point on it, I'm actually not a fan of any kind of humor. The very essence of humor is aggression. The point of most jokes is to inflict psychological suffering and pain-to transgress and make someone the butt." Ha, he said "the butt."

Slate's Jack Shafer points out that a book published in 1995 by Gwenyth L. Jackaway, Media at War: Radio's Challenge to the Newspapers, 1924-1939, offers some fascinating insights into the striking parallels between the print vs. radio war of the 20s and 30s and the print vs. internet war going on today.

Like today's Web, radio harmed newspapers commercially by disrupting the institutional identity they had carved out, Jackaway writes. The upstart media forced journalists and readers to ask, "[W]ho is a journalist? What is news? How should the news be delivered? What are the rules regarding the form and content of an acceptable news message?" Radio also fractured the existing institutional structure that partnered newspapers and wire services to deliver national and regional news. Radio could easily bypass newspapers and funnel news directly from the wire services to audiences. And, last, radio battered the institutional function of newspapers with live broadcasts of everything from sporting events to political conventions, allowing listeners to hear the news as it happened instead of reading about it 24 hours later.

Newspapers had every right to carve out just and enforceable intellectual-property rights for their copy, but their crusade against radio often lapsed into full scale disparagement of the new media. Some print journalists and industry leaders claimed that radio content was inaccurate, skimpy, sensationalist, and trivial and that its practitioners were amateurs. When radio news was accurate, they asserted, it was either a bunch of headlines from a newspaper or a story directly pilfered from one. Does any of this sound familiar?

Shafer goes to note that the print media establishment claimed that their writings were "sacred rhetoric" and that the rogue gallery of thieves and buffoons in radio who were leeching off of them threatened to bring our sacred democracy to its knees. The print folk also did everything in their power to block radio journalist's ability to secure press credentials in order to gain access to the nation's power brokers.

To answer the "Does any of this sound familiar?" question posed by Shafer in the excerpt above, the answer is yes, it most certainly does. Obviously.

Shafer in 2000:

Jack Shafer, Deputy Editor: Browne.

Many of my friends find themselves bound in game theory knots over whether or not to cast their ballots for Ralph Nader. Nader can't possibly win the election, they are told, and therefore their "wasted vote" will have as much of an effect as a mass demo in front of the White House. Plus, it may end up electing Bush and help destroy abortion rights, the environment, and liberoprogressivism.

To the would-be Nader voters, I offer this advice: Be like me and go ahead and vote your mind, even if the cause is lost. I've wasted every one of my presidential ballots on Libertarian candidates since I first became eligible to vote in 1972. In 1972, I wrote in John Hospers. (He got 3,907 votes.) In 1976, I picked Roger McBride. In 1980, Ed Clark. In 1984, David Bergland. In 1988, Ron Paul. In 1992, Andre Marou. In 1996, Harry Browne. Losers—I don't have to add—all.

With Browne running again this year, I'm geared up to waste my vote an eighth time. Why do I persist? For one thing, I agree with the Libertarian Party platform: much smaller government, much lower taxes, an end to income redistribution, repeal of the drug laws, fewer gun laws, a dismantled welfare state, an end to corporate subsidies, First Amendment absolutism, a scaled-back warfare state. (You get the idea.) For another, by voting for the Libertarian, I leave the voting precinct feeling clean. How many Gore and Bush voters will be able to say the same on Nov. 7?

Lastly, even if voting the way I think and the way I write hasn't resulted in the election of a Libertarian president, I indulge myself in the delusion that my perseverance has had some impact on our politics. Don't give me personal credit for stopping the draft; deregulating the airlines, trucking, communications, and financial markets; legalizing gold ownership; advancing free trade; or expanding the penumbra of the First Amendment. But don't deny me my delusions, either. I know the effort hasn't been a waste.

So, Harry Browne in 2000! And in 2004 and 2008 and 2012, if that's what it takes.

Shafer in 2004!

Jack Shafer, Editor at Large: Michael Badnarik

Every since I became eligible to vote in 1972, I've cast my ballot for the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate. In 1972, the candidate was philosophy professor John Hospers, who I wrote in because he wasn't on the Michigan ballot.

A parade of numbskulls and geniuses have run for president on the Libertarian ticket since then: an oil company lawyer, the heir to Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate, a party gadfly, a member of Congress, a member of the Alaska House of Representatives, and a professional gold bug (twice). This year the nomination went to Michael Badnarik, another party activist, who won on the third ballot. I've already cast my absentee ballot in his favor.

And Shafer this year, facing perhaps the most ridiculous joke of a "Libertarian candidate" ever:

Jack Shafer, Editor at Large: Bob Barr

I've cast a ballot for the Libertarian Party candidate for president in every election since I cast my first, which would be my write-in ballot for John Hospers in 1972. A long line of chowderheads have headed the Libertarian ticket since Hospers (don't ask about the veep candidates), but I've continued to punch Libertarian on my ballot because no other candidate or political party comes close to reflecting my political views of limited government, free markets, civil liberties, and noninterventionist foreign policy.

This year the party put up as its candidate a former Republican House member from Georgia, Bob Barr. As Libertarian candidates go, he's a chowderhead's chowderhead.

Raffi Khatchadourian's profile of Barr in this week's New Yorker depicts him—accurately, I think—as no more Libertarian than your standard Newt Gingrich clone. Barr, Khatchadourian reports, is against the legalization of such illicit drugs as crack and heroin. Khatchadourian continues:

[Barr] wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, voted for a constitutional amendment outlawing flag desecration, and even tried to legislate against Wiccan soldiers who wanted to practice their faith while in the service. A churchgoing Methodist, Barr rarely invoked religion when discussing policy with his aides, but he told constituents that "God's hand" was guiding his votes.

Some libertarian.

There's more bad Barr news. A Cato Institute blog item, reviewing Barr's House votes from 1995 to 2003, tags him an enemy of free trade. In 2003, Reason magazine called Barr "one of the most conservative members of Congress." In his defense, Barr told Newsweek that was then and this is now. He's grown! Since being voted out of Congress, he's laundered his hard-right résumé with a consultancy at the American Civil Liberties Union. He has stated his regrets for having voting for the Patriot Act.

Who is the real Bob Barr? When he was an unrepentant hard-right Republican, he did have notes of libertarianism to him. But in his libertarian rebranding, he can't quite mask his old, musky self. He's a fraud.

This much I know about Barr's opponents: Barack Obama proved in his acceptance speech at the Denver convention that he's a classic Democrat, a proponent of big government and economic intervention—just like George W. Bush, and we know what sort of misery eight years of those policies have brought. I love the way Obama sings but I hate the lyrics.

I'd like to say I have an equivalent sense of what John McCain stands for, but how can I, seeing as he has no clear idea of what he believes beyond what he shed in his last brain spasm? My friends in Arizona have always laughed about how easily the East Coast press fell for his straight-talk bullshit. You'll see, you'll see, they said. And they were right.

Which brings me back to Barr and the absentee ballot I cast for him this morning (Oct. 23). He gets my vote not because he'd be a good president. He wouldn't. He gets my vote not because he has a chance of becoming a president. He doesn't. And I didn't vote for him because he represents my views. He doesn't. I voted for Barr because he happens to stand adjacent to a set of values I cherish and that I've gotten into the habit of resubscribing to every four years—peace, prosperity, and liberty.

You got a problem with that?

So combative! So provocative! Libertarianism is a pretty "fuck-you" philosophy, but still. Jack, you are our favorite press critic, even though we are not friends. And it seems like both the "serious Libertarians" and the "fun-loving Libertarians" have given up on the Libertarian party this year. We suspect you're just doing this now to be difficult, Jack. Just to bug Jacob Weisberg maybe? Voting for Bob Barr is just not something to admit, in public.

Shafer even promises that if Slate wins a People's Choice award, he'll insult the whole event from the podium. So, er, go vote for him.

There's no evidence that the order came from Conde Nast bigwigs, who are generally relaxed about inter-title criticism; and Gladwell wrote us in an email that he hadn't asked for the post's removal. "No idea what you're talking about I'm afraid," said Gladwell. "Bercovici wrote about me?" But the embattled Lipman, unpopular among her own staff, depends on the goodwill of Newhouse. The most plausible explanation for the deletion: Lipman pre-emptively ordered the removal of the post to save Gladwell, the New Yorker and Conde Nast, from embarrassment. How collegial! Except, by deleting an item which would otherwise have been unremarked, Portfolio's succeeded only in drawing the attention of Slate's eagle-eyed Jack Shafer, and various blogs like this one. And the original post still remains, like a rebuke, in Google's cache of the Portfolio site. Here's the original article and, below, the page as it now appears.

Shafer devotes thousands of words and dozens of Nexis searches to Gladwell's tall tale, which turns out to be quite tall. In the story, Gladwell claimed to have been put on prohibition at the Post, which no one at the paper can remember. William Booth, Gladwell's former colleague at the Post and Billy in the story, denies there ever being a "perverse and often baffling" contest. Many of the articles that Gladwell cites never actually ran in the paper.

Shafer also agrees that it was lame of Gladwell and This American Life to encourage listeners to believe the story was true, so ha, Pareene. Shafer, Malcolm Gladwell and This American Life host Ira Glass, all media people I adore, have thoughts on this pet topic of mine. Now I can relate to what Gladwell said in the Moth story about his first mistake at the paper, which incidentally, was a fib: "All of a sudden there is a little glimmer, and I can begin to see that there is some hope in this profession and this thing that didn't make sense to me is now kind of making sense." [Slate]

Reign of Error [Slate]