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February 05, 2007
Danny Glover Could Learn Something From A Blogger Ethics Panel
The National Journal's Danny Glover has one of the most inventive excuses for avoiding actual reporting work that I've ever seen:
One other footnote: Marcotte's behavior the past couple of days reminded me of something I discovered at Pandagon late last year when researching my New York Times article on bloggers who had gone to work for campaigns. One of those bloggers, Jesse Taylor, got his start at Pandagon before joining the campaign of now-Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat.
I reported Taylor's move when it happened in October 2005 and linked to his announcement at Pandagon. When I clicked back to Taylor's post in November 2006, it was gone and there was no sign of it in Pandagon's archives. I had to search the Wayback Machine to find Taylor's post again.
Did Marcotte, who claimed ownership of Pandagon upon Taylor's departure, scrub the site of his disclosure, and if so, why? Those questions came to my mind last fall but didn't seem worth asking then. They were just a curiousity.
Now that Marcotte has shown a penchant for deleting Pandagon content that causes her grief, maybe the questions are worth asking -- though I gather that my "whiff of accusatory tone" would just land any query I sent to her in the electronic trash.
Got that? Glover thinks Amanda won't answer him, so he won't even ask. Pretty nifty. Had he asked her -- or, say, another former Pandagon writer, like me -- he'd have been told that Pandagon has endured various server and archive problems over the years, which have led to a fair amount of irrevocable archive deletion. This would have been easy enough to check even without calling Amanda: Just surf forward a day from the absent post and see if its successors are also missing. Or just look at the archives for that month: Everything after October 8th, 2005, is missing. So is everything, incidentally, from my years on the site: A much-missed casualty of server crashes and then a Wordpress overwrite.
So to recap: Glover is insinuating that Amanda deleted the final post of Pandagon's founder in order to, well, it's not really clear, but to do something nefarious. Then Glover decided he wouldn't actually ask her because he didn't expect a response. To make matters worse, he also refrained from looking into the archives to see if there was any pattern or alternative explanation. And he gets paid a salary by an established media outlet to report and intelligently analyze the political blogging scene. As I said: Pretty nifty. Slackers everywhere salute you, Mr. Glover. Your misinformed readership and your bosses, however, may prove somewhat less enthusiastic.
Update: Glover apologizes.
February 5, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Maybe it's that Amanda is a man-hater who wanted to rewrite Pandagon's history to silently imply that Pandagon had always been her domain, and to hide the origins of the blog in male writers?
Or maybe it's that Amanda hid Jesse's departure post to hide the fact that Jesse was among the elect to be poached by professional politicians like Strickland whereas she was not (until recently), since she was bitter about Jesse's success as she was left running Pandagon?
I'd come up with more motives for Amanda, but I'm tired. I'm sure some other commentators can also come up with reasons Amanda might have deleted the Jesse's-leaving post. All are invited to speculate on her motives (except, of course, for Amanda herself).
Posted by: Julian Elson | Feb 5, 2007 2:48:19 AM
But, but ... she swears! And talks about ... girl things! Ew!
Crikey.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | Feb 5, 2007 2:53:05 AM
its certainly not his job to find answers to these questions... that would be participating. He is simply here to raise important questions, Zen-style, which improves society...somehow.
Posted by: Sandals | Feb 5, 2007 5:33:19 AM
And he gets paid a salary by an established media outlet to report and intelligently analyze the political blogging scene. As I said: Pretty nifty. Slackers everywhere salute you, Mr. Glover. Your misinformed readership and your bosses, however, may prove somewhat less enthusiastic.
I'd say that you're pretty much mistaken both about what Mr. Glover is paid to do and the likely reaction of his masters.
Posted by: NBarnes | Feb 5, 2007 6:10:01 AM
I agree that it isn't fair for Glover to insinuate without asking Amanda. However, the context for his argument that she wouldn't respond is worth pointing out. He quotes this from Amanda:
"[I]f I see the words 'Duke' or 'lacrosse' in an e-mail that has the whiff of accusatory tone, I'm deleting it and simply not going to reply to it," she wrote at Pandagon. "I have never, ever stated that I think that anyone should go to jail without a proper trial. Those comments will also be deleted from this thread."
She does seem to be saying she won't answer accusatory questions on this topic. That may or may not actually be true. And I don't know if she actually deleted the offending posts. Probably she needs to figure out a better way of dealing with this kind of thing.
I don't think hiring Amanda means Edwards has to endorse Amanda's past opinions. It does seem to mean that she'll have to be more careful than she has been when just speaking independently.
Posted by: Sanpete | Feb 5, 2007 6:40:25 AM
Dude. In no way is this meant to support Mr. Glover's charges, but you lost all your writings in a migration? Are you kidding? You didn't back it up and copy it to another machine beforehand?
Posted by: chiggins | Feb 5, 2007 6:52:55 AM
I think the sort of general emasculation desires is the motivation he assumes I have.
For what it's worth, of course, the losses of the archives is one of my biggest "regrets", in the sense that it bugs the tar out of me, but I'm not entirely sure it was unavoidable.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Feb 5, 2007 8:05:43 AM
Dude. In no way is this meant to support Mr. Glover's charges, but you lost all your writings in a migration? Are you kidding? You didn't back it up and copy it to another machine beforehand?
Moveable Type downloads the archives in this screwed up way that makes them fairly impossible to actually get. Believe me, we tried. A lot. Every time we tried to back up the archives, it would slow down to a creak and then die.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Feb 5, 2007 8:07:51 AM
I think that it's impossible to underestimate the print media's fear and hatred of the new internet media. A lot of them spend ten or more non-fun years before they get to a cushy position, and they have a feeling of entitlement once they've made the cut. And then they see their position disintegrating. (They're also being asked to learn new skills).
This is a factor independent of ideology. Established left-liberal media, however they deal with it, are more or less equally susceptible.
There's another factor, too. For whatever reason, conservative lowlifes like Malkin and Coulter are good for frequent TV appearances, whereas most of the sharp liberal internet people aren't, but when the time comes to slag on "The Internet", liberals are treated as though they are all Malkins and Coulters.
And when a liberal does get promoted to the major media, it's an expert in ass-fucking specialist who isn't very liberal. Go figure.
Posted by: John Emerson | Feb 5, 2007 8:56:54 AM
For whatever reason, the IT market has little effective demand stability and security. At every level from the PC on up enormous data losses are possible. I propose the idea of a reliable "Toyota computer" to every tech guy I ever run into, and they all laugh at me.
Posted by: John Emerson | Feb 5, 2007 9:01:01 AM
So I guess all this shit about Amanda means that they are done Jamil Hussein. Oh crap - I said a naughty word. There goes all my credibility.
Posted by: mrstrailerco | Feb 5, 2007 9:03:58 AM
Sanpete,
Amanda didn't say that she would delete all emails with a "whiff of accusatory tone," as you point out. She wrote that she was going to delete emails about a particular subject.
To infer that Amanda is likely to then delete any email about any subject that she doesn't like is unsupported by her statements and her past practice. Glover's accusations are unfounded.
Posted by: Stephen | Feb 5, 2007 9:11:31 AM
Ezra,
You were right to criticize me for my footnote about the Jesse Taylor post. For what it's worth, I've posted a mea culpa update to my entry here.
My apologies to you, Amanda, for not taking the time to ask about the missing post.
Danny
Posted by: Danny Glover | Feb 5, 2007 9:17:53 AM
fair enough...
Posted by: Sandals | Feb 5, 2007 9:21:00 AM
For whatever reason, the IT market has little effective demand stability and security. At every level from the PC on up enormous data losses are possible. I propose the idea of a reliable "Toyota computer" to every tech guy I ever run into, and they all laugh at me.
All part and parcel of there being essentially no standards in the IT/software world at all. But keep tilting at that windmill, by all means, and I will too.
Posted by: Hellfire and Damnation | Feb 5, 2007 9:21:03 AM
Simple fact is that Amanda wrote an incredibly careless stupid racist inaccurate and convict-with-no-evidence post and then when called on it she deleted it and left a smarmy its-all-your-fault post in its place. If Malkin or anyone on the right did that you would be all over their ass, their credibility shot for all time, blah blah blah. Hell Andrew Sullivan still gets called out about that sin.
Now this is no excuse for the excrable Glover who is wrong on his points here BUT Amanda does in fact have a history of doing just what Glover accuses her of and suggests that she might respond as she has in the past. Doesn't make him right but Amanda has given him some real cover. Ah! the blogosphere where Words Have Consequences...
Posted by: jaimie t | Feb 5, 2007 9:22:29 AM
Amamda how are you liking your new spot with John Edwards?
I like the MSM vs online theory? They are really starting to understand that press as we knew it for the past is no longer the driving force and the main source for the public to get the news.
Posted by: dk2 | Feb 5, 2007 9:23:49 AM
This is my favorite part: "Marcotte's attempts to airbrush her past are fast becoming a black-eye for Edwards." Says who? Says Glover, and if enough wingnutterbutters keep saying it then maybe, just maybe, his scandal-dream will come true.
Amanda is now under word-choice scrutiny, so please allow me to call him a fucking asshole.
Posted by: davidmizner | Feb 5, 2007 9:24:31 AM
Quickly, someone get me some gasoline to fuel my next "apology" with...
Posted by: ice weasel | Feb 5, 2007 9:27:29 AM
And now in his supposted mea cupla Glover refers to "the brewing Marcotte controversy." There should be a rule: a "controversy" isn't a controversy if only Michelle Malkin and her friends are talking about it.
I have to confess: I don't really know what the National Jounal is. It's where Murray Waas writes, correct? And they do rankings of Congresspeople. Isn't it supposed to be a down-the-middle, just the facts kind of outfit? If so, what's this scandal-dream doing there?
Posted by: davidmizner | Feb 5, 2007 9:31:57 AM
jaimie t,
huh? Amanda wrote a post and deleted it. Maybe she shouldn't have, but it doesn't show a "history" of anything.
What's it like to not have an opinion until someone hands a fully formed point of view to you?
Posted by: Stephen | Feb 5, 2007 9:36:32 AM
It said post a comment, so I am posting one.
Impeach w, exile w and his band of mandarins.
Posted by: vox clamantis in red state | Feb 5, 2007 9:36:48 AM
What do you have against oranges?
Posted by: Stephen | Feb 5, 2007 9:43:05 AM
Thank you Stephen and since you seem to think (I may be wrong here) "... history of..." must mean multiple occurrences may I retract (without deletion) that and substitute "... has in fact done just what Glover accuses her of"?
How's that work for you?
It does not alter Amanda's herstory of trying to rewrite her history now does it?
My point is not that hers was a capital crime, merely a misdemeanor. But if Malkin had done the same thing then the villagers would be out with pitchforks and torches.
Posted by: jaimie t | Feb 5, 2007 10:00:54 AM
Wingnuts need little stickers on their monitors that say, "Remember Occam's Razor."
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger | Feb 5, 2007 10:11:33 AM
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