This will be a familiar story to anyone who has ever represented a criminal defendant famous enough to make the news.

You client is convicted at trial, or pleads guilty. You work to put together a convincing presentation for sentencing that will humanize your client — help the judge see him (or her) as a human being, as someone whose offense is only one part of a larger life, as someone who has done good things as well as this bad thing. You ask friends and colleagues to write letters in support of your client. If your client is like most people, his life has been a mix of good and bad; some people admire him for some of the things he's done, and he's treated some people decently. Your client's friends and colleagues write letters in support, helping put his actions in the context of his whole life. Because they are human, their memories of your client are emotional and idiosyncratic. In their letters, they tell stories not only of the big things (support for family and friends, charitable work, dedication to the job) but the small, silly things that tend to touch us as people. You file the letters as part of your sentencing brief.

Then the media reads the sentencing brief, picks out one of the small and inconsequential things mentioned by a supporter, and runs it as the sensational headline, suggesting that it is the entire premise of your sentencing position.

Today's example: disgraced former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Jackson, a deeply flawed and troubled man, resigned and pleaded guilty to a federal crime for misuse of campaign funds. It's frankly ridiculous he was reelected, and he clearly doesn't belong in Congress, and by his own admissions he abused his position and broke the law, and must face the consequences.

But now he's facing the federal criminal justice system, and his lawyers are trying to show the judge the whole story of who Jesse Jackson Jr. is. They've presented evidence of his family life, his work in Congress, his mental problems, his whole life. They've submitted letters from people who know and like him talking about dozens of topics.

What topic gets play?

A single colleague — Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) — mentioned that he was an enthusiastic participant at karaoke nights. She did so in passing in the context of praising his life and work. Suddenly, though, that silly detail is the story: the media is framing it as "defense seeks lower sentence for karaoke."

Talking Points Memo: Congresswoman Wants Jackson’s ‘Karaoke Nights’ Considered In Sentencing

Huffington Post: Jesse Jackson Jr., Rep. Marcia Fudge Tells Judge, Is 'Charming' Karaoke Star Who Deserves Break

Chicago Tribune: Ohio lawmaker urges mercy for Jackson Jr., cites karaoke skills

Los Angeles Times: Ohio lawmaker urges mercy for Jackson Jr., cites karaoke skills

Notice that this is not just a matter of media political bias. Nominally "progressive" websites, and papers with a liberal sensibility, reliably go straight for the karaoke headline when talking about a fallen Democratic Congressman. Context doesn't sell; silly bits ripped from context sell.

Insipid sensationalism is an old story. It was old in 1979 when the media lied to the public about "The Twinkie Defense" in Dan White's trial for murdering Milk and Moscone.

Insipid sensationalism is what sells. Insipid sensationalism is why we have, too often, journalists who care more about maintaining relationships with law enforcement than questioning law enforcement. Insipid sensationalism is why we get misleading or incomplete reporting about criminal justice, little attention to horrifying problems in the system, and a surfeit of detached amusement where there should be outrage.

Some day soon one of the journalists who wrote one of the karaoke stories above will try to be taken seriously writing something serious and frowny about criminal justice. Please join me in inviting them cordially to shut the fuck up.

multiple print/radio/visual/digital sources 4/13 malreported ricin postal attack rectify

references perpetrator malidentified malreported rectify

malreporting "Paul Kevin Curtis" remove all references nonperson

replace correctreport "Everett Dutschke" alwaystrue rewrite

goodreport emphasize "martial arts instructor" eliminate malreport nonemphasize "Elvis impersonator"

federal law enforcement goodquote newreport emphasize words "discover" "investigation" "uncover" "reveal" "determine" "analysis" "dogged" "intensive"

doubleplusungood malreport avoid words "blunder" "mistaken" "innocent" "frame" "incorrect" "incompetent" "polyestered over-armed fuckwits" "put the 'special' in 'special agent'" "indifferent thugs"

media subsidiaries/partners emphasize goodquote "exclusive" "determined" "discovered" "revealed" "explain" "report to you"

doubleplusungood malreport avoid words "gullible" "credulous" "vapid" "coke-snorting upjumped typists" "amoral bootlicking sternographers" "jaded badgehumpers"

rectify correctreport "Everett Dutschke" has always been perpetrator "Paul Kevin Curtis" nonperson has never been perpetrator

INSTRUCTIONS END

After a crime like yesterday's Boston bombings, it can be worthwhile to reflect on how we've reacted to similar tragedies.  Consider the case of Richard Jewell.

A terrorist detonated a bomb at Atlanta's Olympic Park, during the 1996 Olympic games. That terrorist was Eric Robert Rudolph, who pled guilty to the crime along with a number of abortion clinic bombings. Mr. Rudolph is presently a guest at the ADMAX hotel in Florence Colorado.

For nine years, Richard Jewell labored under suspicion that he'd been the bomber. In fact, Richard Jewell was a jewel of a man, a private security guard who spotted the bomb, informed the police of its existence, and escorted park visitors off the site until the bomb exploded. Jewell was a hero.

Such an unlikely hero, it occurred to the FBI, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, that he must have planted the bomb. After all, private security guards are losers. Mall cops. And Jewell, for all his common sense and bravery in a crisis, was an odd man. A little weird, a law-enforcement wannabe who'd just happened to be in the right place at the right time, then went on tv talking as though he was an actual cop. And he was fat.

Obviously that weirdo Jewell had planted the bomb so he could take credit for discovering it.

Or so it seemed, for some reason, to the FBI, which leaked Jewell as the primary suspect, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which took the leak, a perfect story after all, and used it to make Jewell's life Hell on Earth.

And to All Of Us, who behaved like beasts toward Jewell, because after all CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the FBI had fingered him as the bomber.

Jewell died 11 years after the bombing, exonerated and a little richer thanks to several settlements against media outlets like CNN, but still a broken man. In its obituary, the New York Times, which had also reported on the allegations against Jewell, eulogized him as the hero of the Atlanta attack.

Which did Richard Jewell no good whatsoever.

Eric Robert Rudolph has never apologized to Jewell. Nor, for that matter, have the people of Georgia who spat on him. All Of Us.

If the FBI, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and All Of Us, could get the Atlanta bombing so tragically wrong in 1996, they, and we, can do it today. In the days to come, it would behoove All Of Us to take what the FBI, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and their ilk, have to say about suspects and motives with a grain of salt.

Lest we find outselves owing someone a Richard Jewell-sized apology.

Perhaps the best apology we, All Of Us, can give to Richard Jewell is to be a little more skeptical of what we're told by the FBI, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and their ilk.

It will do Richard Jewell no good whatsoever, but it will make All Of Us better citizens.

Here's a story I've told before: many years ago, a friend's client was being arrested in a case that had made local newspapers. The DA investigators showed up early one morning at the client's house to arrest him, cuffed him, and put him in their car. Then a reporter and photographer — tipped by someone on the prosecution side — showed up, late. They complained to the DA investigators that they had missed the perp walk — the iconic shot of the defendant being led away in handcuffs. The DA investigators obligingly got the client out of the car, walked him back into his house, and then turned around and walked him back to the car so that the photographer could get his perp-walk shot. The paper in question ran the perp-walk shot, but didn't mention that the cops had staged it. To the journalists involved, a picture of a suspect in handcuffs is news; the willingness of law enforcement to stage that picture is not news.

That too-cozy relationship between the press and law enforcement drives coverage of criminal justice in this country, which contributes to bad things — uncritical support for the "law and order" mindset, exaggeration of the risks of crime, insufficient coverage of misconduct and abuse, and journalism by spectacle. The relationship also encourages law enforcement to view journalists in an autocratic and entitled manner.

This phenomenon explains why I have mixed feelings about Fox News reporter Jana Winter's decision to risk jail to protect the source of a leak about the James Holmes prosecution in Colorado. You can read more about that story at Patterico or A Public Defender.

Jana Winter reported on a leak from someone she called a "law enforcement source," reporting that James Holmes, the apparent perpetrator of the Aurora theater massacre, had mailed a notebook filled with murder plans to a University of Colorado psychiatrist. Holmes' attorneys want to discover the source of the leak, arguing that the government violated a gag order issued by the court. Winter has been facing the stark choice between revealing a confidential source and going to jail for contempt.

It's imperative that we protect press rights vigorously under the First Amendment. Confidential sources are crucial tools in reporting important stories, informing the public, and uncovering misconduct. Many jurisdictions have laws protecting reporters who want to keep their sources confidential. That's a good thing.

But those are not the only values in play.

When journalists accept inside information from the government — from whatever source — they are making value judgments about what is news and what is not. When the journalists in my story ran a perp-walk picture, they made the judgment that a picture of someone in handcuffs is newsworthy and cops staging pictures is not. When Winter ran this story, she made the judgment that a scoop of Holmes' pre-massacre threats was newsworthy, and the willingness of law enforcement to violate a gag order was not. In making that choice, Winter and journalists like her necessarily abandon certain lines of inquiry. What's the purpose of this leak? Is it truly a leak from a rogue insider, or is it orchestrated by the prosecution? How does it help the prosecution's case or hurt the defense? Is it part of a pattern of leaks by this agency in certain types of cases? What laws did it violate? Has anyone with this agency ever been held accountable for leaks? Should they be? Was every part of the leak accurate, and how was that accuracy investigated?

When journalists make that value judgment, their choice is informed by their relationship with law enforcement — a relationship characterized by too much deference, uncritical acceptance, and interdependence. The choice is also informed by the modern media sensibility that favors sensationalism, the fast news cycle, and if-it-bleeds-it-leads thinking. Splashy stories about horrors are favored; complex stories about structural and cultural problems with criminal justice are disfavored.

Journalists will have you believe that when they print leaks from law enforcement they are keeping the public informed and promoting the free flow of information. Perhaps they are. But they are also acting as the tools of the government — whether willingly, indifferently, or ignorantly. The government leaks information — often in violation of law, often in violation of the defendant's constitutional and statutory rights — to control the narrative about the case, and to inflict unofficial punishment on suspects and defendants. This is an abuse of state power. The profession of journalism seems to have decided, collectively, that this abuse of power is not the story, or that it is, that it is outweighed by the benefits the public reaps from the abuse of power. Even though journalists claim that this decision is in service of the search for truth, sometimes it leads to participation in lies. Consider, for example, the scandal that surrounded the BALCO grand jury investigation, in which a defense attorney leaked grand jury transcripts to the media and then accused the government of doing it, seeking to have his client's case dismissed on that basis. In that case the defense, not the government, was the wrongdoer, but the media was an instrument of untruth and obstruction of justice. The journalists in that story valued protecting their sources of leaks above telling the public the truth about grave accusations of misconduct.

I'm not saying that laws shielding journalists are wrong. I'm not saying Jana Winter should go to jail. I'm saying this: maybe we should start asking journalists why they don't investigate leaks rather than accepting them. Maybe we should question the media's value judgments when it decides what misconduct is news, and what misconduct isn't. Maybe we should respond to leaks not with glee at getting inside dirt, but with demands that the government be held accountable for its conduct.

This week, the administrators of Central New Mexico Community College, a public institution in Albuquerque, shut down until further notice the school's student-run award-winning newspaper, the CNM Chronicle. Administrators also attempted to confiscate copies of a run of the paper. The reason? The administration felt that the paper's sex issue was "offensive and not appropriate for the educational mission of CNM." The paper's editor-in-chief reported being ordered into the Dean's office and told the paper was "raunchy."

What went through the minds of the school's "Executive Team" and its Dean of Students, Rudy Garcia? One can only imagine . . . .

THE SCENE: The Office of the Dean at Central New Mexico Community College

THE TIME: Early evening.

THE CAST: RUDY GARCIA, Dean of Students, VERONICA JONES, his executive assistant, and ROGER TRUMAN, his deputy.

THE DEAN ENTERS, AGITATED, BRANDISHING A COPY OF THE CNM CHRONICLE.

DEAN: More press calls. More emails. More inquiries. I tell you, people in this country just aren't used to firm leadership.

VERONICA: Yes, sir.

ROGER: They're certainly unused to leadership of this sort, sir.

DEAN: The security staff has confiscated most of the copies of this filth, I think. [HE SMACKS THE COPY OF THE CHRONICLE AGAINST THE DESK IN DISGUST.] I can't believe they thought they could get away with this.

VERONICA: No, sir.

DEAN: I mean, I keep my distance from such things, but I suspect those are prophylactics on this front cover. And dog chew toys. What do dog chew toys have to do with anything? And why are they so big?

VERONICA: Actually, sir, those are —

[ROGER SHAKES HIS HEAD VIOLENTLY]

VERONICA: –those are for unusually large dogs, sir.

DEAN: Are they! Are they indeed! And why are they on the bed? And why isn't the bed made? In addition to the filth, why is our so-called student newspaper sending a message that slovenliness is acceptable?

ROGER: It's inexplicable, sir.

DEAN: It is! It is! With that sort of example, that's why the students dress the way they do! I apologize to both of you. It's highly inappropriate for this sort of thing even to be discussed in front of you. Especially you, Miss Jones.

VERONICA: Thank you, sir.

DEAN: The proper time for you to discuss such things is the morning of your wedding, with your mother. So I'm terribly sorry you've been exposed to this. And you, Truman.

ROGER: Yes, sir.

DEAN: It's no better for you. A man should not dwell on such things until, like the Bible says, you leave your father and mother and cleave unto your wife. Forgive my rough language, Miss Jones.

VERONICA: Yes, sir.

DEAN: Of course, you've already left your mother and father. But when you leave your roommate — what's his name?

ROGER: Vince, sir.

DEAN: — when you leave to join your lawfully wedded wife and Vince has to find a new roommate, that's the right time to think of such things.

ROGER: So I've heard, sir.

DEAN: Quite right! Quite right you have! But college? College is no place for talk of such relations, let alone for the relations themselves.

ROGER: No, sir.

DEAN: And to treat the subject so disrespectfully, and so wrongly! Why, look at this page where they talk about . . . . "positions." They are mocking the marital act. They're just making up things that don't even exist! They're giving them numbers! It's all just poppycock.

VERONICA: Yes, sir.

DEAN: What I don't understand is why we're getting calls from the so-called press about this. This is a matter of school discipline. This . . . is a matter of good order. Why should good order get so much attention?

ROGER: Well sir . . .

DEAN: Yes?

ROGER: It's just that . . . well, sir, these students are all adults.

DEAN: Adults?

ROGER: Right. This is a community college. Lots of these students are older than four-year college students. Most have jobs. Some of them have families of their own. Maybe the press thinks they are mature enough to handle this sort of discussion. These days, lots of them are even veterans –

DEAN: Mr. Truman, are you under the impression that soldiers are tolerant of ess-ee-ex talk? Let me tell you, military discipline brooks no such indelicacy.

ROGER: As you say, sir. But some people are saying that the paper has . . . has First Amendment rights.

DEAN: Rights! Rights! Rights yield to the interests of the community, as determined by people like me, Mr. Truman. That's the most important thing you need to know about modern higher education. I have risen to this position for a reason, and I determine what is fit for students to read.

ROGER: Yes, sir.

DEAN: We'll have no more discussion of this. The paper is closed. It will stay closed. Now, get me the course catalog. I've heard some very disturbing things about the curriculum in the Biology Department.

ROGER: Right away, sir.

Edited to add:

EPILOGUE: SEVERAL HOURS LATER

[DEAN GARCIA BURSTS INTO THE ROOM]

DEAN: Fine! Let everyone talk about relations! Let everyone talk about dirty stuff all they want! SEE IF I CARE!

[Runs from room weeping]

ROGER: . . .

VERONICA: Let's just pretend today never happened.

ROGER: Yes please.

Seriously? Do I really have to write a sentencing post about meatballs?

Yes. Apparently I do.

Estelle Casimir works at the Cadet Mess Hall at West Point. Her supervisors accused her of stealing a bag of frozen meatballs.

West Point is a federal facility and crimes on the premises are treated as occurring within federal jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney's Office charged Casimir with two misdemeanor counts in federal court. More specifically she was charged with petty larcency and misdemeanor possession of stolen property in violation of New York law under a federal statute that allows incorporation of state law under such circumstances. She has pleaded not guilty. The statutory maximum sentence she faces is two years.

You know where this is going, don't you?

Gawker: "West Point Housekeeper Facing As Much Jail Time As Steubenville Rapists For Stealing a Bag of Frozen Meatballs."

Alternet: "Housekeeper Who Stole a Bag of Frozen Meatballs Facing As Much Jail Time As Steubenville Rapist — Why do we stand by this absurd criminal justice system?"

Please note that this isn't even a case where the writers use the statutory maximum as the lede and explain in the text that the actual sentence will be far less. To the contrary, from Gawker:

Put in perspective, that's the same amount of time Trent Mays was sentenced to serve following his conviction in the Steubenville rape trial.

No. Just . . . no.

For the moment, let's leave aside that you are comparing federal adult sentences to state juvenile sentences, which are indeterminate until the juvenile is 21. More than that, though Casimir's statutory maximum sentence is two years, there is effectively zero chance she will be sentenced to anything like that. As I explained before, that's not how federal sentencing works. If Casimir is convicted, a federal judge will take into account the recommendation of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Under the applicable sentencing guideline for larceny, Casimir will have a base offense level of 6. That could go up if the meatballs are valued at more than $5,000, but even given modern military procurement culture, that seems unlikely. So: since she has no apparent criminal record, she'll be sentenced based on an offense level of 6 (if she goes to trial) or 4 (if she pleads guilty):

OOOH COMPLEX FEAR ME, JOURNALISTS

That yields a recommendation of zero to six months in jail, in a zone of the sentencing chart where a sentence of straight probation is permissible. Unless she goes to trial and a judge thinks she has perjured herself flamboyantly, any federal practitioner will tell you that the extremely probable sentence is straight probation.

Is it good when journalists call attention to the criminal justice system? Yes. Is there room to inquire whether federal prosecution of Casimir — even if jurisdictionally permissible — is a sensible use of discretion? Absolutely. Could one construct an argument that the maximum possible sentence she faces is disproportionate if it is treated as the sentence she will face, and them compared to sentences other people have actually gotten for far worse conduct? I guess. It would be a very stupid argument, but sure.

But the "her maximum possible sentence exceeds the sentence rapists get" is sheer journalistic malpractice. It promotes ignorance about the criminal justice system. It blurs and distorts inequities rather than effectively challenging them. It adds absolutely nothing to the understanding of either Casimir's case or the Steubenville case, or criminal justice in general.

Journalists, please. You can do better.

Last week I posed this question: sure, bloggers are biased and sloppy and agenda-driven and more than a little nuts, but compared to what? What is the logical basis for reposing automatic trust in "professional" "mainstream" journalists, and given them the presumption of thoroughness, good faith, or neutrality?

I'd like to thank Jan Caldwell, Public Affairs Director for the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, for helping me make my point.

Recently Ms. Caldwell — who is responsible for the relationship between the Sheriff's office and the press — was on a panel called "Grade the Media." As LAist reported, she explained why she thinks bloggers shouldn't get the same respect — or press credentials — that "professional" journalists do:

You can sit with your Apple laptop and your fuzzy slippers, you can be an 800-pound disabled man that can't get out of bed and be a journalist, because you can blog something. Does that give you the right—because you blog in your fuzzy slippers out of your bedroom and you don't go out and you haven't gotten that degree—should you be called a journalist?

Or should you be like Pauline [unclear] who graduated from journalism school and has been doing this a long time or JW or Dennis? Are you on the same par? In my estimation—and I'd like to hear from Darren and Michael on that—no. Because Pauline and JW and Matt and the others that have been doing this a long time and they know the questions to ask, as will you. But if you're just sitting at home with your laptop blogging and you just want to get under my skin or you're CityBeat—left to Lenin, oh my God—then, yeah. So I drop that out on you all: what do you all think of that?

That is no normal act of public relations. That is the behavior of a public relations professional.

Perhaps even more revealing, though, was this:

To start, spokeswoman Jan Caldwell explained to the room full of journalists why it is so important to be nice to her: "If you are rude, if you are obnoxious, if you are demanding, if you call me a liar, I will probably not talk to you anymore. And there's only one sheriff's department in town, and you can go talk to the deputies all you want but there's one PIO."

Here we have the heart of the matter. "Professional" journalists may, indeed, be brilliant, talented, well-trained, professional, with an abiding appetite for hard-hitting but neutral reporting. Yet professional journalists also depend on relationships. Ms. Caldwell calls that fact out, sending law enforcement's core message to the press: if you want access, play the game.

The game colors mainstream media coverage of criminal justice. Here's my overt bias: I'm a criminal defense attorney, a former prosecutor, and a critic of the criminal justice system. In my view, the press is too often deferential to police and prosecutors. They report the state's claims as fact and the defense's as nitpicking or flimflam. They accept the state's spin on police conduct uncritically. They present criminal justice issues from their favored "if it bleeds it leads" perspective rather than from a critical and questioning perspective, happily covering deliberate spectacle rather than calling it out as spectacle. They accept leaks and tips and favors from law enforcement, even when those tips and leaks and favors violate defendants' rights, and even when the act of giving the tip or leak or favor is itself a story that somebody ought to be investigating. In fact, they cheerfully facilitate obstruction of justice through leaks. They dumb down criminal justice issues to serve their narrative, or because they don't understand them.

This "professional" press approach to the criminal justice system serves police and prosecutors very well. They favor reporters who hew to it. Of course they don't want to answer questions from the 800-pound bedridden guy in fuzzy slippers in his mother's basement. But it's not because an 800-pound bedridden guy can't ask pertinent questions. It's because he's frankly more likely to ask tough questions, more likely to depart from the mutually accepted narrative about the system, less likely to be "respectful" in order to protect his access. (Of course, he might also be completely nuts, in a way that "mainstream" journalism screens out to some extent.)

Recently Radley Balko has been doing a "raid of the day" series for the Huffington Post, in which every day he profiles a brutal or incompetent or outrageous police raid, thus calling into question our system's tolerance for lawless police tactics. This is the sort of reporting Radley has been doing for years. You will find very, very few "mainstream" reporters engaging in such relentless criticism and questioning of the criminal justice system. That's not because there aren't many talented reporters. There are. Rather, I submit that it's because too many reporters find the price too high. Too many reporters would rather get that hot tip from a cop about a piece of evidence against a defendant than risk alienating their state sources.

Too many people would rather have the approval of the Jan Caldwells of the system than call the system out.

I'll keep my fuzzy slippers, thank you.

As Patterico celebrates his tenth blogging anniversary, and Scott Greenfield celebrates his sixth, I am moved to think again about how bloggers are regarded by what is called the "mainstream media."

Despite how mainstream bloggers have become, and despite the fact that almost all "mainstream media" outlets have their own bloggers, the prevailing attitude seems unchanged in more than a decade: bloggers, we're told, are unreliable, biased, wild-eyed pajama-clad basement-dwellers.

Apart from the pajamas and basement part, I think this is irrefutably true. Bloggers are biased and unreliable.

Here's the key question: compared to what?

We've been told to think that people who went to journalism school, who write or talk for established media outlets, who are clad in the garb of media-officialdom, represent some sort of neutral-and-reliable baseline, and that bloggers are somewhere below that. But it's fallible humans all the way down, my friends. The notion that someone is trustworthy or honest because they landed a job with an old-school media outlet is, to be blunt, laughable.

Are bloggers wild-eyed? Sure. Some of us are nuts. But check out the sort of people that "mainstream media" hires. This week's example — local news writer Kathleen O'Brein Wilhelm, who as far as I can tell thinks deer can't read because Obama kills babies, and offers deathless lines like this: "Words are fun and worth clearly stating, in English if in America, and with an opinion that is yours because it’s good to have an opinion." Too obscure a media outlet, an exception that proves the rule? Well, you could go with the crazy Suzi Parker of the Washington Post, whose crazitude led her breathlessly to report satire about Sarah Palin as fact.

Are bloggers biased, uninterested in facts that don't support their biases, eager to push stories that promote their narratives, throwing out red meat like chum to sharts? Of course. But again, compared to what? Consider this Platonic ideal of mastubatory senile-dementia-agitating drivel from Fox News pearl-clutching about a university recognizing pagan and Wiccan holidays. Quoth Tucker Carlson on a Fox program "Every Wiccan I've known is either a compulsive Dungeons & Dragons player or is a middle-aged twice divorced older woman living in a rural area who works as a midwife." Gosh, Tucker. That's pretty strong language from someone who puts on a bow tie to seem tougher.

"Mainstream" journalists, like bloggers, can be statist-apologists and amusingly arrogant louts and gullible twerps and con-men on the make and straight-up bigots.

This is not to say you should trust bloggers. You should exercise skepticism about what you read on blogs. You should use your independent judgment about their work product.

But why, exactly, shouldn't we do the same with "mainstream" journalism outlets? By what stretch of the imagination are they reliable just because they have the big name?

Today the Los Angeles Times ran a review of a book by a professor named Grace Lasdun. Lasdun describes her terrifying ordeal of being stalked by a madman. "Imagine," the review bids us, that a stalker "seemed affectionate, then convinced of a deep connection, then became furious and set upon destroying your life." The book — and review — tells the tale of how a stalker became convinced of a relationship with Grace Lasdun, then went on campaign of deranged hate, deluging Ms. Lasdun with dozens of anti-Semitic emails and an internet campaign of untruths, accusations of plagiarism, and vile communications with Lasdun's employers and colleagues. Her life was changed.

But this review asks something that is too rarely asked. What responsibility does Lasdun bear for a deranged stalker pursuing her, imagining a relationship that she did not want? Did she lead him on? Did she give the wrong signals? Does her language in describing the stalking suggest an unbecoming entitlement? "This lack of perspective," as reviewer Carolyn Kellogg calls it, calls into question the entire way Grace Lasdun describes her stalking. Kellogg explains how Lasdun's description of the stalker suggests a preoccupation with appearance and a lack of awareness of power differentials that might have contributed to the stalking — "Lasdun reveals actions that may have contributed to her problems without seeing the connections. She likes their flirtatious emails but at one point realizes they have become too much and suggests breaking off contact."

Reviewer Carolyn Kellogg also shows an admirable sense of empathy for the stalker, asking us to question "could Lasdun have managed his growing affections differently"?

Continue Reading »

As I've argued before, local newspapers can display disappointing levels of competence and professionalism. Or, as the cynic in me suggests, perhaps they're simply displaying a disappointing inability to conceal lack of competence and professionalism, like their larger cousins usually can.

Nevertheless I can still be surprised, on occasion, by the complete meltdown of a local paper.

This is such an occasion.

Continue Reading »

Aurora, Colorado: As families and friends of the victims of today's tragic shootings gather to mourn for the departed, a storm of suspicion is gathering over the institution some say is at the heart of the nation's recent epidemic of mass homicides, the American medical school.

In the early hours of confusion surrounding the attacks at a screening of "The Dark Night Rises" at an Aurora movie theater, some media outlets and politicians erroneously tied the shootings to the Tea Party movement, the Democratic Party, violent videogames, and enemies of Judeo-Christianity. But as details on the shooter emerge, a clearer picture is coming into focus. The sole suspect in the shootings, James Holmes, was a recent drop-out from the University of Colorado medical school.

Experts caution that it is too early to say that the suspect's medical education led him down a path ending in mass murder, but many are reminded of Dr. Nidal Hassan, who is presently awaiting trial for his role in the Fort Hood shootings of November 2009, and who, like James Holmes, attended medical school.

"I don't want to speculate on whether attending medical school inspired the Batman killer's rampage," said Professor Lewis Deery of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in an interview on MSNBC, "but the similarities are eerie. Here you have one graduate of a medical school opening fire, with no apparent motive, on innocent people on an Army base, and here you have another man who attended medical school opening fire, with no apparent motive, on innocent people at a midnight movie. Am I saying that these men were trained to kill when they attended medical school? No, but that possibility can't be discounted based on the limited information we have at this time."

In a roundtable discussion on the Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, Ariel Spain of the Columbia School of Journalism's Tragedy Studies Department echoed Professor Deery's caution concerning the Dark Knight shooter's medical background. "It would be irresponsible, and reckless, to claim that James Holmes was programmed to become an unthinking assassin at the Colorado medical school simply because of the countless cases in which medical school graduates have gone on murder sprees, but many are asking themselves, right now, about the similarities between the Aurora shootings and the case of Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, who murdered his entire family in the 1970s. In both cases, I'll note, the murderer attended a highly regarded medical school.

Following a moment of silence for the fallen in the United States House of Representatives, House majority leader Eric Cantor promised a grieving nation that its Congress would conduct a full investigation into the causes of the Aurora shootings. "It's far too early to say whether the nefarious crimes of the infamous assassin James Eagan Holmes were the work of insidious medical professors, transforming our nation's best and brightest into psychopathic killing machines. But," Cantor informed the House, "the American people have a right to know."

Across the capital, Attorney General Eric Holder convened a news conference on the killings, promising federal aid to Colorado authorities in conducting full, fair, and impartial investigation into the tragedy. "I cannot comment on specifics of the case at this time, and  it would be imprudent for me to speculate on who may be responsible for these horrific crimes at the outset of an investigation, but let me assure the grieving people of Aurora that the Department of Justice will hold all those who aided and abetted this tragedy responsible, from the lowest professor to the Dean of the medical college himself."

Historians of past calamities reiterated the Attorney General's warning against pre-judging the case. On C-Span's Books in Review, Dr. Thomas Waltham of the American University's Department of European History warned against a "witch hunt" in connection with the Aurora case. "Time and again, we historians see cases in which the people are led, by politicians, the media, and religious leaders into demonizing some despised minority for the actions of one. That only compounds the tragedy. It would be reckless to tie the Batman shootings into some historical framework of past atrocities by medical school graduates, such as the infamous "Doctor's Plot" in the Soviet Union, where prosecutors showed that a sinister cabal of people who, just like Nidal Hassan and the Batman killer, attended medical school had committed an unspeakably vile series of murders aimed at destabilizing and overthrowing the government."

Representatives of the American Association of Medical Colleges, which represents medical schools including the Colorado institution where James Eagan Holmes was allegedly trained, were contacted for comment, but did not return telephone calls before this story went to press.

I know that this will come as a surprise to you, but I am occasionally sarcastic.

Moreover, I am very broadly and obviously sarcastic. This contrasts with my co-blogger Patrick, who is capable of subtlety and keeping a straight face. This occasionally freaks out readers, which is a good thing.

At least, it's a good thing when it happens to them. It's not a good thing when I don't know whether to take something as sincere or sarcastic. That's just unsettling and mean. I'm supposed to be the snarky one.

That's exactly why I am so discombobulated by LZ Granderson's CNN article. I want to believe it is satirical. I want that desperately — to believe that it's tongue in cheek from the very title: "Don't be nosy about Fast and Furious."

But to go much beyond the criticism of these men runs the risk of learning that this great nation of ours is heavily involved in doing some things that are not so great.

It would be nice to see this as a wry comment on American willingness to overlook lawbreaking by the government when it is committed (at least nominally) in service of goals of which we approve.

But the straight-faced reading is too similar to what I have come to expect from the media to be certain of my hoped-for satirical reading. Right now scandals over both Fast and Furious and the government response to it are being spun in many places as a cynical partisan obsession. I have not the shadow of the doubt that many of the loudest critics of the government have partisan motives. But if we dismiss criticism of government misbehavior because of partisan motivations, we'll never entertain significant criticism of the government. We'll always have partisanship. We can't let it be an excuse to abandon our obligations as citizens to monitor and criticize the government.

So: I live in hope that Gunderson is not actually calling for willful all-for-the-best ignorance. But I can't be sure. Can you?

I wish I knew the lawyer who turned these headlines:

RACY PHOTO FOUND IN LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK

RACY YEARBOOK PHOTO BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION, OTHER PARENTS SAY

$100 HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK TAINTED WITH 'PORN' PHOTO, PARENTS SAY

DISTRICT SAYS STUDENT BARING GENITALS IN YEARBOOK WAS 'ACCIDENTAL' OR 'ILLUSION'

SCHOOL SYSTEM ISSUES SECOND RESPONSE TO YEARBOOK PHOTO CONTROVERSY

into the most abject and humiliating retraction I've ever read. I'd shake his hand. I'd buy him a beer.

Perhaps the ex-reporter at Charlotte, North Carolina's WSOC who is responsible for the stories and retraction could use a beer too.

We write a lot about abusive defamation suits, so it's worth remembering that They Also Serve who file these claims.

Yes, yesterday's post about how Senator Lieberman was introducing a bill to undermine Section 230 was an April Fool's joke cunningly crafted by Eric Turkewitz. It was the third Turkewitz jape in which we have participated.

For the record, though I was supposed to be poised to delete "hey this is a joke" comments until midnight on the 1st, I was feeling too lousy to pay attention and Nyquilled myself into oblivion; yet only one person called "prank." Maybe the rest of you were playing along. A rough review of comments at the various places where this popped up led to similar results. This might be about how credible the prank was, how skillfully Turkewitz planned it (the sleeper blog was genius), or about how we think now.

As usual, though the surface message was part of the joke — Senator Lieberman really is a scary cheerleader for government censorship — there's also the meta-joke, which is about how we receive and evaluate and trust information in the modern age, and about how news propagates. Conduct yourselves accordingly, as they say.

Here's the most important thing you need to know about blogger and "investigative journalist" Crystal Cox: when she got angry at First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza, she didn't just register the domains marcrandazza.com and fuckmarcrandazza.com and marcrandazzasucks.com in order to attack him. She registered jenniferrandazza.com and nataliarandazza.com — the names of Randazza's wife and three-year-old daughter.

That's Crystal Cox in a nutshell — an appropriate receptacle.

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