Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Anatomy of a Left Wing Smear bumped from Saturday night
A Real-Time Investigation Into the Unethical Conduct of “Progressive”
Journalism in Support of Barack Obama
guest post by Paul Lukasiak
Updated with Jay Rosen Rebuttal Below

“Off the Bus” is a collaborative venture between Jay (PressThink)
Rosen and Ariana (Huffington Post) Huffington that is designed to provide a
means in which “citizen journalists” can report on campaign events
on their own. Its an experiment in “citizen journalism” within a
“blog” format. Last week, OTB got noticed when Mayhew Fowler, an
Obama supporter, published an extended report/meditation on the Pennsylvania
campaign, and included the now famous “bitter/clinging” quote.

The story was controversial, and a few days ago, at his blog PressThink, Rosen
examined the media reaction, and explained how and why the Fowler story came
to be published by OTB, while also defending the character and integrity of
Fowler. Rosen was convincing.

That’s the history. Last night at 6:30 PM, a story by “journalist”
Celeste Fremon was front-paged at HuffPo, and remained their top story nearly
all day Saturday. The story was obviously a hit job….as with the Fowler
story, it was based on an audiotape from a private fundraiser. But unlike the
Fowler piece, this was obviously a hit job.

Reportedly, the story is based on a recording done at “a small closed-door
fundraiser after Super Tuesday “. The story includes this quote from Senator
Clinton:

“Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] — which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,” Clinton said to a meeting of donors. “We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn’t even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.”

It is accompanied by an audiolink. In the audio, there is a click, and then
a short silence, after Clinton says “Slow down,” but as you will
note above, no ellipses were used to denote that this was not one continuous
statement.

The rest of the piece is little more than a rant, but it does include a few
notable nuggets…

Howard Wolfson, communications director for the Clinton campaign, verified the authenticity of the audio, and elaborated on Clinton’s charge that these same party activists were engaged in acts of intimidation against her supporters: “There have been well documented instances of intimidation in the Nevada and the Texas caucuses… In fact, the Nevada caucuses occurred prior to MoveOn’s endorsement of Obama, and when Clinton made her remarks, the Texas caucuses had yet to take place.

…which pretty much makes Hillary Clinton look like a liar.

The piece is full of bias and distortion, such as claiming that Clinton’s
fundraising remarks “contradict Clinton’s previous statements praising
this year’s elevated Democratic turnout in primaries and caucuses,” which
they don’t. It’s a hit piece, a smear job. Something that one would
expect to see at Redstate.org perhaps, but not at the site that aspires to be
the #1 site for progressive news and opinion, the Huffington Post.

Having noticed that the Fremon’s piece included the tag line, “This
story was developed in cooperation with OffTheBus to which reporter Celeste
Fremon is a regular contributor,” and having read Rosen’s explanation
and defense of Fowler’s OTB piece, I left a comment questioning whether
there was a double standard at OTB, once for pieces that could possible hurt
Obama, and another for anti-Clinton hit pieces.

Rosen’s response was swift, and to the point. Off The Bus was in no way
responsible for the content, editing, or presentation of this article, they
had simply passed Fremon, and her tape, on to HuffPo’s news editor:

Paul: This piece was published by the Huffington Post, not OffTheBus. The editorial product–from headline, to the story as written, to the way it was framed and promoted–was in their hands. I saw it when it was released to the Web… we cooperated with Huffington Post in the sense of turning the writer and tape over to their staff, which would mean politics editor Nico Pitney, editor Roy Sekoff and editor in chief Arianna Huffington..

Off the Bus had apparently been offered the piece and been turned down, after
OTB had published Fowler’s piece the previous week. It’s not too much
to speculate that Rosen smelled a rat, and when that rat appeared in public,
he ran away from it as quickly as possible. But the “editors” of
HuffPo obviously don’t enjoy the same ethics as Rosen.

I pursued this further, because unlike Rosen, I prefer to catch rats rather
than run away from them. So I went to Fremon’s website, and demanded some
answers: Here is the relevant Q&A:

1) Did you attend the fundraiser that you wrote about? No. If I had, I would have reported it that way. This is a news story and it was treated as such. When you find evidence of a candidate who says something of relevance in private that is significantly different from their public face, that’s news. Because of the fact that I’m a very public Obama supporter, I worked to removed all spin possible from the story. However I did cue readers, as one does as a responsible journalist, as to why the story was of relevance by putting it in context. Specifically, I put Clinton’s complaint about the activists flooding the caucuses into the context of her public praise for big voter turnout. 2) Did you make that recording? If not, who did? Someone who attended the event made the recording. 3) Was the audio edited? If so, why? The source was very concerned that nothing on the recording should reveal the exact location of fundraiser or should in anyway give away who he/she was. I listened to the material contained between the two recordings and it was mostly references to different people who were present at the fundraiser where the Senator called them by name as she chatted. It was nothing that would have given the remarks greater context. Frankly, had it been up to me, I’d have bracketed the remarks with a longer recording, but the source who brought me the recording was very jumpy. So we had what we had. Nevertheless, I listened to the whole thing myself, and was able to positively determine that there was nothing that could lead to an accusation–if one heard the whole thing—of my having taken the clips out of context. The fact that you’ve heard exactly zip from the Clinton camp about this being taken unfairly out of context , or spun in some way that is incorrect, should tell you something. 4)What precise question did you ask Howard Wolfson? I read him the material and played him the recording and told him as much about the context of the event as I could without burning the source. And then I asked him multiple questions about what Clinton had said. There was nothing GOTCHA about my approach. In fact, I feel quite sure that if you talked to Mr. Wolfson he himself would tell you our interaction was very professional, even cordial, on both our sides. We talked multiple times then he emailed me his statement, after which time I called him back and chatted again and told him that the most part of the reaction to the piece was going to be in response to what the Senator said about MoveOn and the activists and that I thought he might want to expand his statement to address that. We had a short chat about it, none of which is included in the piece as it was not on the record, and he decided to leave his original statement be. (Although we talked several times on the phone he asked if I minded that he give me something in writing. Were I in his position, I would do the same as it eliminates as many opportunities for misunderstanding as is possible.) In the course of the calls, I asked him multiple questions and told him also the concerns that MoveOn was already expressing. Again, I think if you spoke to Wolfson he’d tell you he was treated very fairly and professionally. He has a reputation as an SOB. With me he was a total pro. And he was treated as such. And, as I mentioned below, several Clinton staffers contact the Huff Post editors to say that they thought the issue was treated very fairly, which is what I attempted to do. Whether or not you think I succeeded, is for you to decide. 5) The audio is (according to you) from a fundraiser that occurred after Super Tuesday, in which Clinton mentions the “intimidating” nature of Move-on.org supporters at the caucuses. On Super Tuesday, there were caucuses in ALASKA, COLORADO, IDAHO, KANSAS, MINNESOTA, and NORTH DAKOTA. Did you ask Wolfson if the campaign had received reports of intimidation at those caucuses from Clinton supporters? No. I asked him what evidence they had of intimidation at the caucuses, period. I didn’t specify which causes or who did the intimidating, but it was implicit in my question that I meant the Obama supporters of which Senator Clinton spoke.

Upon reading this (with Rosen’s permission), I posted it on PressThink,
then left my own observations, which appear below.

1) First off, as should be obvious, what Fremon has represented as a continuous, anti-Move-On rant is actually two small snippets from two separate answers that were edited together to make it read/sound like one continuous rant. I think its pretty obvious that Fremon knew exactly what she was doing here — normal journalistic practice (I believe) would be to use ellipses when quoting in text form from two entirely separate responses. (actually, normal journalistic practice would not, I believe, allow anything like this to be done at all.) Here’ the quote: “Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] — which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,” Clinton said to a meeting of donors. “We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party What you actually hear is the word “so” after “slow down,” so there is really no question that this was deliberate. 2) Unlike with the Obama quotes, there is no context. One doesn’t know if she praised Move-On.org for its overall activism, etc, etc, because Fremon only wants us to hear what she wants to hear. 3) Fremon’s excuse for editing these tapes does not hold water. Somehow, she expects us to believe that it is absolutely essential to hide the time and place where this occurred to prevent retaliation from the Clinton camp — yet anyone else who was there will probably remember the exchange if they hear the tapes, and if the Clinton camp cam find out who did this merely by knowing the time and place, it should be simple enough to email people who attended private fundraisers to find out when this occurred. One has to conclude that Fremon is being deliberately dishonest for some reason — one suspects that its because the full tape is not nearly as “damning” as her highly selective excerpts. Regardless, the ‘had to edit THIS way to protect the identity of my source’ rationale is pure BS. 3) Fremon spoke to Wolfson after the Texas caucuses. She did not disclose where or when this tape had been made. Fremon then asks Wolfson if he had “evidence they had of intimidation at the caucuses” and he responds with Texas and Nevada. Fremon then goes on to write that Nevada happened before the Move-On.org endorsement, and Texas occurred after Clinton made her remarks, thus making Wolfson look like a liar and an idiot. But if you are asked about evidence of intimidation in the wake of the Texas caucuses, and you don’t know that what the questioner is asking about is the basis for Clinton’s post Super Tuesday statement (because you haven’t been told when or where the tape was made), your answer is going to be focused on those cases where the campaign did collect “evidence” — what can be used in a court, or before a credentials committee. And while there have been numerous reports of improprieties at various state caucuses, only in Nevada and Texas has there been any suggestion of lawsuits/credentials challenges that would require the gathering of “evidence.” In Nevada, Obama threatened to challenge caucus delegates because people who showed up after 11:30 were not allowed in — or at least they were going to challenge, until (apparently) someone hit them over the head with a clue stick by showing them page 53 of the Caucus Rule book. So this is one case where the Clinton campaign would have wanted their own “evidence” if Obama had filed a challenge to the Nevada delegation. And while I assume that I don’t have to remind anyone about Texas, I will point out that evidence of intimidation and various other infractions was presented to the credentials committees of the County/State Senate District conventions held on March 29. So, when you are asked about “evidence”, the natural response is going to be about “evidence”. If you ask about reports of intimidation in Super Tuesday caucus states, you’d get a whole different answer. In my book, this is such an egregious, and deliberate ethical lapse that it defies description. The whole thing is obviously a hit piece — and this woman’s “I worked to remove all spin” makes Judith Miller’s denials look credible by comparison. I’m really happy that Jay was able to get out in front of this, and I hope he calls the powers that be at HuffPo and insists that the Fremon piece be removed from the OTB website, because I don’t think its a good idea for OTB to find itself associated with this kind of tripe.

Celeste Fremon claims to be a professional journalist. As a professional journalist,
she is affiliated with USC’s Annenberg School of Communication –
in other words, this “journalist” is affiliated with an academic
institution that is supposed to impart journalistic ethics upon its students,
and whose affiliates, one assumes, display the highest level of ethics and intellectual
honesty possible.

Clearly, Celeste Fremon should be considered an embarrassment to the Annenberg
School, and subjected to an inquiry regarding her posting of this kind of pure
tripe not just in public, but on a website that is part of USC Annenberg’s
“Institute for Justice and Journalism” called: Witness LA: Street
News, Views, and Stories of Justice and Injustice. Fremon is not merely committing
journalistic malpractice at HuffPo, she is also doing so at a sight controlled
by USC’s “Journalism” School.

I doubt that much can be done about HuffingtonPost and what I believe is an
atrocious lack of ethics – clearly, the progressive movement that we thought
was based on simple human decency, standards of conduct, and ethical reporting
does not exist except for in a few islands of sanity.

But I do believe that the Annenberg School should, and will, take the proper
steps to fully investigate Fremon’s complete lack of journalistic integrity
and ethics, and her use of University resources to display her lack of professionalism.
So please join me in contacting the following people…

Ernest J Wilson III, Dean, Annenberg School: ernestw@usc.edu

Steven Montiel, Director, Instiitute for Journalism and Justice:
smontiel@usc.edu

Robert Niles, Editor, USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review:
rniles@usc.edu