Political operatives on Journolist worked to shape news coverage
Despite its name, membership in the liberal online community Journolist wasn’t limited to journalists. Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans. Some left government to join Journolist. Others took the opposite route. A few contributed to Journolist from their perches in politics. At times, it became difficult to tell who was supposed to be covering policy and who was trying to make it.
Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama.
Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland Security. Anne-Marie Slaughter left to work at the State Department. Former Journolist member Ben Brandzel is now a top staffer at Organizing for America, the political arm of the Obama White House.
Josh Orton, a former spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), became Obama’s deputy director of new media during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he joined Journolist.
Journolist founder Ezra Klein, a staffer at the Washington Post, says he “tried to be very strict” in making sure no active political operatives joined Journolist. “It’s possible I missed someone,” he explained in an email.
In fact, he did. Jeff Hauser wrote scores of posts on Journolist during the time he was managing the New Jersey congressional campaign of Democrat Dennis Shulman. Hauser didn’t do much to hide his affiliation. Indeed, his posts on Journolist were signed, “Campaign Manager, Shulman for Congress,” followed by the campaign’s web address. After the election, Hauser took positions at a 527 group and a political action committee. He never left Journolist.
Jared Bernstein, meanwhile, worked as an unpaid surrogate for Barack Obama during much of the campaign. All the while, he remained a member of Journolist. Even after the campaign ended, and he had joined the Obama administration, Bernstein continued his contact with the group. In May of 2009, Bernstein contacted Ezra Klein to pass a message along to list members.
“Calling all Journos,” Bernstein wrote in a message relayed by Klein. “I thought we got too little love from progressive types re our tax changes targeted at businesses with overseas operations. We’re maybe going for another bite at the apple this Monday,” he wrote. Bernstein invited members of the list to join him on a conference call on the issue a few days later.
Not everyone was sold. A couple of members on the list, including Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation and Bloomberg’s Ryan Donmoyer, panned the administration’s plan to crack down on offshore tax havens as a misleading political stunt.
Dean Baker, at the time a blogger at the American Prospect, agreed the policy was dishonest, but defended it anyway. “Sure, some of the things they are saying are not true (the jobs story first and foremost),” he wrote, “but the industry groups have this town blanketed with lobbyists and own a large portion of Congress outright. … There has to be some counterforce to the industry groups and that is the populist rabble. It might not be pretty, but that’s Washington.”
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ImpressedbyHonesty: I gave CNN the better part of 10 years of faithful viewership right up until after the presidential election. That was when I noticed that it wasn’t reporting the news in a fair and balanced way and that it was purposely ommiting certain information and even entire events. I was shocked to see well respected commentaters treating Sarah Palin like dirt. The point is you have to know how to recognize the truth and when you’re being conned and the only way to do that is to invest time and energy into your research. If you never watch FOX News then your opinion is not credible. Please submit specific examples of why you believe it isn’t offering millions of viewers fair coverage.
riseabove: I gave CNN the better part of 10 years of faithful viewership right up until after the presidential election. That was when I noticed that it wasn’t reporting the news in a fair and balanced way and that it was purposely ommiting certain information and even entire events.
I so do agree with you, riseabove. Sometime I’m not sure if it is on purpose or if they just need to get in a ton of topics. Whichever the case, the reporters that get out onto the street have been cut to almost nothing for corporate profit. We don’t require networks to spend a minimum on news organizations anymore. We need a free and skeptical press to ensure our freedom of democracy. I still consider it public airwaves and the press has a huge responsiblithy This is where I wish we went back to regulation of news before Reagan.
riseabove: “I was shocked to see well respected commentaters treating Sarah Palin like dirt. ”
I did too, except Sarah wasn’t exactly being kind and cordial to her opponents from day 1. But two wrongs don’t make a right.
riseabove: “The point is you have to know how to recognize the truth and when you’re being conned and the only way to do that is to invest time and energy into your research. ”
Couldn’t agree with you more.
riseabove: If you never watch FOX News then your opinion is not credible. Please submit specific examples of why you believe it isn’t offering millions of viewers fair coverage.
I will say that Fox not nearly as caustic and frenetic GOP wavers as they are during elections. But this weekend on Fox and Friends: commentator leads out with “…will the dems that have to condemn Rangel party with him behind the scenes?” What objective newsman would leave the viewer with a tag line like this? Not a political maneuver, eh, Pollyana?
Then Fox News asks: “Are companies trying to take away your freedom to eat junk food?” Fox news explains a company will now only serve healthy food to in its employee cafeteria. From this headline you conjure visions of an armed guard stopping employees exiting for outside lunchbreaks. So what. Employers can offer to sell food in their commisaries however they see fit and its their right, no? The market will decide by folks ankling the company or taking 2 hr lunch breaks– it’ll fix itself Heaven forbid, employees could brown bag or step out to the neighboring McDonalds if they so choose. So where did this wild-eyed question come from if you are a journalist? It’s meant to stir up the paranoid fringe(or get ratings), whether it was true or not.
Saw Huckabees’ show. Innovative, creative, somewhat heartfelt. But he couldn’t resist carrying on the Fixed News meme. Huckabee leads with a statement that his guest Lynn Tilton says the govt makes it ‘impossible’ to make any money. (though I like when he did a ‘Breitbart’ on Obama and took half of Obamas sentence, and went on a sermon about Obama almost being a socialist, without taking into account the second part of Obamas sentence which put it all into context. Just like the first day of Sherrod, which only Beck and O’Reilly(by virtue of broadcasting later in the day by the time the Breitbart edit farce came in view) talked like logical folk. At least for a day. But during the Huckabee interview of this billionaire that looks like an over-the-hill stripper, whom used to be a 24yr old single mother, she never once made any mention of saying that ‘the govt makes it impossible to make money. Not once. But that was his big intro to her interview. It sounds great for the tea party crowd at least, and they take it and run with it then bash Obama over the head with it. Mission accomplished.
It was a pity, too, because this Lynn Tilton was the salt of free the earth in this country and is what truly makes our capitalist society great. She is a true hero, and is not afraid of sharing the positive messages about passion and creativity.
The Huckabee thing was the typical Fixed News way of doing things that I refer to. Take large or small stabs at the political opposition whether its right or not. Small stabs are effective too, especially behind the expert color of being a journalist– as long as they are numerous and continue over and over in perpetuity. Mission accomplished.
Many on the left feel that Fox News is not ‘free press’ and it operates more like a corporate or political arm than a news network. These few things I’ve mentioned contribute to this feeling.
I would give you more, and I enjoyed watching Fixed news more than I had expected. But I don’t want to write a phone book sized post.
I pegged it after each debate, especially the last one. And I said so in my columns.
This warrants an investigation because basically, this group helped throw the election (with lots of help from ACORN, imo).
These people were nothing more than shills. It’s fine to advocate for a candidate or a party, but you should be honest about it.
And you’ve never sat down and analyzed Fixed News? Talk about naive. Yeah that Acorn, all of those American voters they registered for the other side– such a crime.
If I were as much a stranger to honesty that you are, I’d be impressed by it, too.
Your opinion on Acorn is shaped by Breitbart edited video and the repubs running with it. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. Just like the Sherrod edited video. Like that.
Ok, I’ll call you on your lies. Post five things that were said/shown/printed on Fox News yesterday that were not true.
Everyday on here you post stuff about how “fixed news” ( how stupid is that name?) is nothing but lies and distortions. Well, here’s your chance. List the lies. Prove your accusations. Go ahead. We’ve got all night.
I did post an answer to your question, but somehow it didn’t get past the listservers that be.
Let them fall as fast and as hard as their Messiah
Yes yes, keep screaming tea bagger, racist, hateful, angry, mob, rabble rabble.
If you scream it enough it may stick.
CONSPIRED TO………………DON’T GIVE THEM ANY “legal” STANDING BY SAYING, “SHAPE NEWS COVERAGE” The criminals are in command of the politically correct agenda!
Recently discovered, never before seen evidence that liberal columnists colluded to manipulate and influence the media. No, not Journolist. The New York Times. http://rancornews.com/journolist.html
Thanks for the link. I bookmarked the page and will check back periodically for the upcoming articles.
BLATANT CONSPIRACY GOES UNINVESTIGATED!!!! THE REAL THREAT TO AMERICA ARE THE ONES WHO TAKE A DAY OFF FROM THEIR JOBS TO PROTEST, THEY ARE KNOWN AS “Teabaggers”!!!!!
Weeks since the journOlist conspiracy has been discovered and revealed, there are still no official investigations into it. This, alone, is troubling.