{"id":2391,"date":"2009-11-08T18:14:05","date_gmt":"2009-11-08T18:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=2391"},"modified":"2009-11-09T16:40:48","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T16:40:48","slug":"glenn-greenwald-dishonest-blogger-patterico-critisizm-is-lacking-something-honesty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=2391","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Greenwald &#8211; Dishonest Blogger??? Patterico &#8211; Criticism Is Lacking Something&#8230; Perspective. UPDATE X 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Glenn%20Greenwald%20-%20Dishonest%20Blogger%3F%3F%3F%20Patterico%20-%20Criticism%20Is%20Lacking%20Something...%20Perspective.%20UPDATE%20X%203\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>On the one hand, from what I&#8217;ve read on his blog, though I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever used him as a source for anything, Greenwald <em>seems<\/em> knowledgeable enough on the stuff that I&#8217;ve read. On the other hand, Patterico says he <a href=\"http:\/\/patterico.com\/2009\/11\/07\/glenn-greenwald-smears-allahpundit-and-me-with-ellipses\/\">uses cheap party trick<\/a> to make conservative bloggers seem disreputable, cherry picking, as it were. P says Greenwald&#8217;s hidden point was to show that conservative blogger Allahpundit was being irresponsible when covering the Fort Hood shootings. Here is Patterico&#8217;s assertion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Greenwald\u2019s implication is clear: right-wing blogger Patterico shouldn\u2019t have recommended Allahpundit\u2019s coverage \u2014 and right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds shouldn\u2019t have linked Patterico\u2019s recommendation of Allahpundit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Was Greenwald really trying to smear conservative bloggers?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I went to Greenwald&#8217;s site to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/news\/opinion\/glenn_greenwald\/2009\/11\/06\/reporting\/index.html\">the original post<\/a>, and of course, it turns Greenwald wasn&#8217;t cherry picking at all, and even states in the original piece that his intent is not to criticize Allahpundit, but to show the contradictions that the\u00a0 major media was reporting as the incident unfolded. G chose to follow A because A was one of the blogs that was doing &#8220;live&#8221; \/ &#8220;realtime &#8221; coverage. A was simply the one-stop conduit by which G got access to the MSM reports. Here is what Greenwald originally wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Upon reading that, I went to <em>Hot Air<\/em> to read what [Allahpundit] had written, and it&#8217;s actually quite revealing &#8212; <strong>not in terms of what it reveals about <em>Hot Air<\/em><\/strong> (<strong>that topic wouldn&#8217;t warrant a post<\/strong>) but, rather, <strong>what it reveals about major media coverage of these sorts of events<\/strong>.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong><em>Allahpundit&#8217;s post consists of a very thorough, contemporaneous, and &#8212; at times &#8212; appropriately skeptical chronicling of what major media outlets were reporting about the Fort Hood attack<\/em><\/strong><\/span>, combined with his passing along of much unverified gossip and chatter from Twitter, most of which turned out to be false.\u00a0 It&#8217;s worth <strong>focusing on what the major media did last night<\/strong>, <strong>and<\/strong> <strong>one can use the <em>Hot Air<\/em> compilation to examine that.<\/strong> . . . Here are excerpts from Allahpundit&#8217;s compilation, <strong>virtually all of which &#8212; except where indicated &#8212; came from large news outlets:<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Greenwald is simply commenting on the inaccurate nature of &#8220;real time&#8221; reporting by the MSM, NOT Allahpundit. Isn&#8217;t that a conservative based criticism? After all, it was Fox News&#8217;s Shep Smith who pierced the veil on the inaccurate reporting of the Katrina Super Dome dreck. Allahpundit was simply the conduit used to get the MSM info. Here is more of Greenwald&#8217;s original write-up:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It&#8217;s worth focusing on <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">what the major media did last night<\/span>, and one can use the <em>Hot Air<\/em> compilation to examine that.\u00a0 I understand that in the early stages of significant and complex news stories, <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">it&#8217;s to be expected that journalists will have incomplete and even inaccurate information<\/span>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s unreasonable to expect them to avoid errors entirely.\u00a0 The inherently confusing nature of a mass shooting like this, combined with the need to rely on second-hand or otherwise unreliable sources\u00a0(including, sometimes, official ones), will mean that <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">even conscientious reporters end up with inaccurate information in cases like this<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0That&#8217;s all understandable and inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>But shouldn&#8217;t there be some standards governing what gets reported and what is held back?\u00a0\u00a0Particularly in a case like this &#8212; which, for obvious reasons, has the potential to be quite inflammatory on a number of levels &#8212; <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">having the <strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">MAJOR MEDIA<\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">(my emphasis)<\/span> &#8220;report&#8221;\u00a0completely false assertions as fact can be quite harmful<\/span>. \u00a0It&#8217;s often the case that perceptions and judgments about stories like this solidify in the first few hours after one hears about it.\u00a0 The impact of subsequent corrections and clarifications pale in comparison to the impressions that are first formed.\u00a0 Despite that, one false and contradictory claim after the next was disseminated last night by the <strong>ESTABLISHED MEDIA<\/strong> with regard to the core facts of the attack.\u00a0 Here are excerpts from Allahpundit&#8217;s compilation, <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">virtually all of which &#8212; except where indicated &#8212; came from large news outlets:<\/span>&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The color highlighting is my addition. Greenwald seems to be going out of his way to stress that his criticism is aimed expressly at the MSM, not the bloggers who are passing it on.<\/p>\n<p>Winner&#8230; Greenwald.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE<\/strong>: Welcome fellow Instapundit&#8230;. And Sullivan readers. There are boobs a couple of posts below! Have to go pull my starter now (that would be the one on my car, pervs).<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE # 2<\/strong>: This is pretty cool. I find myself in the middle of a full fledged blargument with Patterico. He seems to think I\u00a0 miss the whole subtext of Greenwald&#8217;s post, that Allahpundit and Patterico and Glenn Reynolds shouldn&#8217;t be trusted.\u00a0 All because of greenwalds use of ellipses in the post. If that&#8217;s the case, then is Greenwald also insulting New York Times writer Robert Mackey? Greenwald writes the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Isn&#8217;t it clear that anyone following all of that as it unfolded would have been more misinformed than informed?<\/p>\n<p><em>The New York Times<\/em>&#8216; Robert Mackey did an <a href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2009\/11\/05\/reports-of-mass-shooting-at-fort-hood\/?hp\" target=\"_blank\">equally comprehensive job<\/a> of live-blogging the media reports, and his contemporaneous compilation reflects many of these same glaring errors in the coverage:\u00a0\u00a0&#8220;CNN reports that two military sources say that the second gunman at Fort Hood is &#8216;cornered&#8217; . . . Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison told Fox 4 News in Texas that one shooter was in custody and &#8216;another is still at large&#8217; . . . CNN\u2019s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr reports that 12 people have been killed and up to 30 wounded. One of the dead is said to have been one of the gunmen. . . . Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, just revealed that earlier reports that the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Hasan, had been killed were incorrect. Major Hasan was wounded but remains alive.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Notice that Greenwald writes that Mackey does an &#8220;equally comprehensive job&#8221; of covering the media reports&#8230;. and uses more than a few ellipses.\u00a0 Here is how G closes his orignal post:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;m obviously ambivalent about the issues of media responsibility raised by all of this.\u00a0 It&#8217;s difficult to know exactly how the competing interests should be balanced &#8212; between disclosing what one has heard in an evolving news story and ensuring some minimal level of reliability and accuracy.\u00a0 But whatever else is true, news outlets &#8212; driven by competitive pressures in the age of instant &#8220;reporting&#8221; &#8212; don&#8217;t really seem to recognize the need for this balance at all. \u00a0They&#8217;re willing to pass on anything they hear without regard to reliability &#8212; to the point where I\u00a0automatically and studiously ignore the first day or so of news coverage on these events because, given how these things are &#8220;reported,&#8221; it&#8217;s simply impossible to know what is true and what isn&#8217;t.\u00a0 In fact, following initial media coverage on these stories is more likely to leave one misled and confused than informed. \u00a0Conversely, the best way to stay informed is to ignore it all &#8212; or at least treat it all with extreme skepticism &#8212; for at least a day.<\/p>\n<p>The problem, though, is that huge numbers of people aren&#8217;t ignoring it.\u00a0 They&#8217;re paying close attention &#8212; and they&#8217;re paying the closest attention, and forming their long-term views, in the initial stages of the reporting.\u00a0 Many people will lose their interest once the drama dissolves &#8212; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">i.e.<\/span>, once the actual facts emerge.\u00a0 Put another way, a large segment of conventional wisdom solidifies based on misleading and patently false claims coming from major media outlets.\u00a0 I\u00a0don&#8217;t know exactly how to define what the balance should be, but particularly for politically explosive stories like this one, it seems clear that media outlets ought to exercise far more restraint and fact-checking rigor than they do.\u00a0 As it is, it&#8217;s an orgy of rumor-mongering, speculation and falsehoods that play a very significant role in shaping public perceptions and enabling all sorts of ill-intentioned exploitation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m a student of mass media; it&#8217;s a large component of my B.A. in Telecommunications. I absolutely agree with the premise of the first paragraph, and I actually did ignore the first day or two of coverage of this story for the very reason G states. This isn&#8217;t a criticism of the media conduit, such as Patterico, Allah, and Insta-P, so much as a criticism of the dearth of information available, and the lack of proper fact checking and analysis that can only come a few days after a major event takes place. I, like Allahpundit, am very careful to load a post with caveats if the info for a story I&#8217;m writing about has not been verified. More than likely, I won&#8217;t even write about the story at all until a few days have passed. We all saw how the\u00a0 public, bloggers, and the news media got burned during the immediate Katrina aftermath, and, even after 9\/11. Michael Moore took full advantage of the misinformation and, even after much of it had been refuted, still made a movie and a boat load of money off it, and Rosie O&#8217;Donnell made an ass of herself. Maybe I&#8217;m blind to the slights against Allahpundit and Patterico and Insta-P because I&#8217;m not a regular reader of Greenwald and not a card carrying liberal, nor am I a Rush Limbaugh Dittohead; I&#8217;m one of those misguided independent libertarian voters who don&#8217;t flock with either group. But\u00a0 I call &#8217;em as I see &#8217;em. And in this case, there seems to be mountains being made out of molehills, there&#8217;s much ado about very little.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE # 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 Here is even more text from Greenwald&#8217;s original post:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <strong>The fate of the shooter<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the shooters is dead. . . One is dead, two more are in custody. Has there ever been a case of &#8220;battle stress&#8221; that involved a conspiracy by multiple people? . . . So poor and fragmented have the early media reports about this been that only now, after 9 p.m. ET, do we learn that \u2026 <strong><em>Hasan\u2019s still alive. He\u2019s in stable condition<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <strong>The weapons used<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>M-16s involved: . . . From the local Fox affiliate, how it all went down. <em><strong>Evidently McClatchy\u2019s report of M-16s was wrong:<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <strong>The shooter&#8217;s background<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to Brian Ross at ABC, Hasan was a convert to Islam. . . . Contra Brian Ross, the AP says it\u2019s unclear what Hasan\u2019s religion was or whether he was a convert. . . . <em><strong>Apparently, one of Hasan\u2019s cousins just told Shep that he\u2019s always been Muslim, not a recent convert. . . .<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>I\u2019m hearing on Twitter that Fox interviewed one of his neighbors within the last half-hour or so and that the neighbor claims Hasan was handing out Korans just this morning. Does anyone have video? . . . . &#8220;Brenda Price of KUSJ reported to Greta at 10:33: &#8216;also, the latest I am hearing, this morning, apparently according to his neighbors, he was walking around kind of giving out his possessions, giving away his furniture, handing out the Koran\u2026'&#8221; . . .: Evidently CNN is airing surveillance footage from a convenience store camera taken this just morning showing Hasan in a traditional Muslim cap and robe. . . <em><strong>&#8220;A former neighbor of Hasan\u2019s in Silver Spring, Md. told Fox News he lived there for two years with his brother and had the word \u2018Allah\u2019 on the door.&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <strong>Miscellaneous claims<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Good lord \u2014 there\u2019s a report from BNO News on Twitter that new shooting is being heard on the base. . . . For what it\u2019s worth, an eyewitness report of Arabic being shouted during the attack: . . .Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats. . . . <em><strong>The $64,000 questions: What was he doing at Fort Hood among the population if he thought suicide bombers were heroes?<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is Glenn showing how the info went from scatter-shot, to more accurate? Yes. Does that show that Allah-P is whittling down the info down from conflicting and innuendo to accurate???? Check. Does it show that Allah-P is actually asking pertinent questions, some that the MSM took three days to ask??? Yep. Greenwald, yes, the evil lib Greenwald demonstrates that Allah-P is being a better journalist than the &#8220;journalists&#8221;. Probably lest a bad taste in his mouth. Your nit-picking in this light comes off as petty and thin skinned.<\/p>\n<p>Sorry Patterico, but your criticism just doesn&#8217;t hold up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Glenn%20Greenwald%20-%20Dishonest%20Blogger%3F%3F%3F%20Patterico%20-%20Criticism%20Is%20Lacking%20Something...%20Perspective.%20UPDATE%20X%203\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>On the one hand, from what I&#8217;ve read on his blog, though I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever used him as a source for anything, Greenwald seems knowledgeable enough on the stuff that I&#8217;ve read. On the other hand, Patterico says he uses cheap party trick to make conservative bloggers seem disreputable, cherry picking, as it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,21,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}