July 6, 2009--Sarah Palin, the Hockey Rink, & the Blogosphere
On the days after Sarah Palin announced that she would resign the Alaska governorship, the New York Times published a series of bland articles about her announcement and wondered out loud if this signaled the end of her political ambitions or if it was a strategic move to free her from having to remain stuck up there governing six jet hours away from political rallies, money-making opportunities, and 2012 presidential machinations in the Lower 48.
Meanwhile, in the less-carefully-edited blogosphere there was lots of speculation about what else might be going on. For example, are federal investigators closing in on the Palins and about to issue a series of indictments for embezzlement?
There are blogs and there are blogs. Of course. From a hard news perspective, almost all are worthless. But then there are newspapers and newspapers. Those that have thus far survived are struggling with declining readership and the concomitant loss of advertising pages; but, as my grandmother used to say, also looking at them from a journalistic perspective, almost all are most useful for wrapping fish.
Have you looked at the New York Post lately? One of America’s most successful papers. It is essentially a sports and scandal sheet, most famous for its infamous Page Six, where it seems much of the celebrity news they “report” is more fiction than fact. It is no coincidence that it is owned and published by Rupert Murdoch, the same Australian who is responsible for Fox News. I suspect my grandmother would have changed fishmongers if hers wrapped fish with it.
But then there are some blogs and individual bloggers who are credible and more and more generating responsible news. In fact, all the remaining real newspapers keep an eye on these blogs and get some of there own stories from them. Sometimes even citing them as sources, while at other times pretending that they dug out the stories themselves.
An early case in point—among the most potent political stories of the second half of the 20th century, President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewsinsky, was not broken by either the Washington Post or the New York Times, but by Matt Drudge on his infamous Report. At first ignored by the newspapers of record, one famous for first reporting about Watergate and the other about the Pentagon Papers, it took them some time to pick up on the Drudge story.
An even earlier example of, in effect, a pre-Internet blog that was self-published on paper and distributed to subscribers, was the eponymous I. F. Stone Weekly. Izzy Stone, who began as a conventional journalist working for the New York Post, when it was still a newspaper, and the Nation magazine, among others, after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, with his wife, from his basement, started his muckraking Weekly, which at one point had 70,000 subscribers. He probed his sources and pored over little-noticed official documents, each week turning out his mini-paper. Some of it was pure editorializing but then again he was the only journalist to challenge President Lyndon Johnson’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident during the early stages of the Vietnam War. Stone turned out to be more accurate and truthful than LBJ; and, as they say, the rest is history.
Currently, reliable blogs are versions of on-line newspapers. The Huffington Post and Politico come to mind. Not only are they edited (a rarity among the hundreds of thousands of blogs), but also they are more and more being referred to as the sources of legitimate breaking news. And they are giving traditional papers a run for their money, literally including dollars as they are becoming preferred sites for advertisers, but at times they are the only sources of news. During the aftermath of the recent election in Iran, as the Ayatollahs either detained or expelled reporters, bloggers on the ground there managed to get stories and photos out to the rest of the world. These “citizen journalists,” as they are now being called, tended to send their reports to bloggers and even directly to the mainstream media. CNN set up an Iran Desk where it filtered these amateur submissions and attempted to edit them before putting them on the air, to their journalistic credit indicating that they could not vouch for them in the same way than as if the stories were gathered by their own reporters. Imagine any Murdoch editors doing anything equivalent.
Meanwhile, up in Sarah Palin’s Alaska, what is really going on? Thus far you wouldn’t know from the traditional media. They continue to speculate about her potential political motives—some even comparing her to Richard Nixon who, after losing to John Kennedy and in his comeback bid for the California governorship, bitterly announced to the press that they wouldn’t have him “to kick around anymore,” and for awhile nursed his wounds before emerging again and capturing the presidency in 1968. Republican strategist Mary Matlin went so far yesterday as calling Palin’s Nixon-like move politically “brilliant.” The first time, I suspect, that anyone ever referred to anything Palin ever did as brilliant.
But credible bloggers in Alaska are suggesting that political maneuvering may not be Sarah Palin’s motive. They are wondering if maybe the real reason she resigned is not to demonstrate that she is “not a quitter” . . . by quitting, but to make as much money as possible from her book deal and speaking engagements before she and “first dude” Todd are indicted for embezzlement.
See the attached Brad Blog link for the full story. It cites various sources that have been investigating the links between the construction of the $14 million Wasilla Sport Complex built while Palin was Mayor and the almost concurrent construction of the 3,500 square-foot Palin home. Both apparently had the same architect, contractor, and source of building supplies. Both have “the same windows, same wood, [and] same products. And all involved are significant Palin political supporters and suppliers of not only windows and doors but also funds for her campaigns.
Recall that Sarah Palin was not only cited by a bipartisan Alaskan commission for “abuse of power” in the Troopergate incident but also had to reimburse the state for inappropriate use of taxpayer funds when flying her children around while on official business and for charging per diem for the use of her private home while living in the governor’s mansion.
This in itself of course does not suggest that she will be cited for embezzlement, but it does suggest someone who is comfortable playing fast and loose with the very people’s money she now wants to save by resigning.
So stay tuned. In you still get your news from newspapers maybe soon you will read all about it.
Meanwhile, in the less-carefully-edited blogosphere there was lots of speculation about what else might be going on. For example, are federal investigators closing in on the Palins and about to issue a series of indictments for embezzlement?
There are blogs and there are blogs. Of course. From a hard news perspective, almost all are worthless. But then there are newspapers and newspapers. Those that have thus far survived are struggling with declining readership and the concomitant loss of advertising pages; but, as my grandmother used to say, also looking at them from a journalistic perspective, almost all are most useful for wrapping fish.
Have you looked at the New York Post lately? One of America’s most successful papers. It is essentially a sports and scandal sheet, most famous for its infamous Page Six, where it seems much of the celebrity news they “report” is more fiction than fact. It is no coincidence that it is owned and published by Rupert Murdoch, the same Australian who is responsible for Fox News. I suspect my grandmother would have changed fishmongers if hers wrapped fish with it.
But then there are some blogs and individual bloggers who are credible and more and more generating responsible news. In fact, all the remaining real newspapers keep an eye on these blogs and get some of there own stories from them. Sometimes even citing them as sources, while at other times pretending that they dug out the stories themselves.
An early case in point—among the most potent political stories of the second half of the 20th century, President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewsinsky, was not broken by either the Washington Post or the New York Times, but by Matt Drudge on his infamous Report. At first ignored by the newspapers of record, one famous for first reporting about Watergate and the other about the Pentagon Papers, it took them some time to pick up on the Drudge story.
An even earlier example of, in effect, a pre-Internet blog that was self-published on paper and distributed to subscribers, was the eponymous I. F. Stone Weekly. Izzy Stone, who began as a conventional journalist working for the New York Post, when it was still a newspaper, and the Nation magazine, among others, after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, with his wife, from his basement, started his muckraking Weekly, which at one point had 70,000 subscribers. He probed his sources and pored over little-noticed official documents, each week turning out his mini-paper. Some of it was pure editorializing but then again he was the only journalist to challenge President Lyndon Johnson’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident during the early stages of the Vietnam War. Stone turned out to be more accurate and truthful than LBJ; and, as they say, the rest is history.
Currently, reliable blogs are versions of on-line newspapers. The Huffington Post and Politico come to mind. Not only are they edited (a rarity among the hundreds of thousands of blogs), but also they are more and more being referred to as the sources of legitimate breaking news. And they are giving traditional papers a run for their money, literally including dollars as they are becoming preferred sites for advertisers, but at times they are the only sources of news. During the aftermath of the recent election in Iran, as the Ayatollahs either detained or expelled reporters, bloggers on the ground there managed to get stories and photos out to the rest of the world. These “citizen journalists,” as they are now being called, tended to send their reports to bloggers and even directly to the mainstream media. CNN set up an Iran Desk where it filtered these amateur submissions and attempted to edit them before putting them on the air, to their journalistic credit indicating that they could not vouch for them in the same way than as if the stories were gathered by their own reporters. Imagine any Murdoch editors doing anything equivalent.
Meanwhile, up in Sarah Palin’s Alaska, what is really going on? Thus far you wouldn’t know from the traditional media. They continue to speculate about her potential political motives—some even comparing her to Richard Nixon who, after losing to John Kennedy and in his comeback bid for the California governorship, bitterly announced to the press that they wouldn’t have him “to kick around anymore,” and for awhile nursed his wounds before emerging again and capturing the presidency in 1968. Republican strategist Mary Matlin went so far yesterday as calling Palin’s Nixon-like move politically “brilliant.” The first time, I suspect, that anyone ever referred to anything Palin ever did as brilliant.
But credible bloggers in Alaska are suggesting that political maneuvering may not be Sarah Palin’s motive. They are wondering if maybe the real reason she resigned is not to demonstrate that she is “not a quitter” . . . by quitting, but to make as much money as possible from her book deal and speaking engagements before she and “first dude” Todd are indicted for embezzlement.
See the attached Brad Blog link for the full story. It cites various sources that have been investigating the links between the construction of the $14 million Wasilla Sport Complex built while Palin was Mayor and the almost concurrent construction of the 3,500 square-foot Palin home. Both apparently had the same architect, contractor, and source of building supplies. Both have “the same windows, same wood, [and] same products. And all involved are significant Palin political supporters and suppliers of not only windows and doors but also funds for her campaigns.
Recall that Sarah Palin was not only cited by a bipartisan Alaskan commission for “abuse of power” in the Troopergate incident but also had to reimburse the state for inappropriate use of taxpayer funds when flying her children around while on official business and for charging per diem for the use of her private home while living in the governor’s mansion.
This in itself of course does not suggest that she will be cited for embezzlement, but it does suggest someone who is comfortable playing fast and loose with the very people’s money she now wants to save by resigning.
So stay tuned. In you still get your news from newspapers maybe soon you will read all about it.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
7:00 AM
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