Well, they called out women. They were always trashing women . But what we're talking about is that they had a little list of good journalists, it was called "Media In Exile." At one point, it had 58 names of journalists you could trust. How many were women?
Six. So roughly ten percent of the list was women. Now this was a list of praise from the left, remember? The list had Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer on it, for goodness sake. But women couldn't qualify?
You could argue that there were really only five women on the list. We're not disputing any of the women's 'journalistic' qualities -- when you've put Jon Stewart on the list, clearly you know nothing about journalism -- but we are noting that one of the women? She had no outlet. She didn't work for a network, for a newspaper, for a radio station or a website. She had no personal website. Her only 'outlet'? Sometimes Bartcop printed her e-mails. Based on those e-mails that went up occasionally at Bartcop, she was a journalist.
Now the 'whores' listed? Most of them had been applauded at one point or another. And that's important. Because what happens for the media is they get liked and then they want to stay liked. That's among their peers. They want to stay on TV. That doesn't lead to a lot of groundbreaking work. If you're telling the hard truths, you're making someone uncomfortable and there's no seat for you around the table as a result.
So the people MWO applauded? Many were going to let them down.
Which is how we arrive today at McClatchy's Jonathan S. Landy.
It was so strange Friday, to listen to a supposedly professional journalist discuss Benghazi on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show (NPR). Diane Rehm started the discussion by noting Wednesdays House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing and declared, apparently amazed, "you sat through all five hours."
Jonathan S. Landay: That and the previous one and everything else that happened. And there was some really emotional uh-uh testimony uh from uh Gregory Hicks who was the number two uh US diplomat on the ground in uh Tripoli when this was all going down and he described in-in blow-by-blow, very emotional details how he responded and the last phone calls he's had with Ambassador Chris Smith before -- I'm sorry, uh, Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was -- he-he and,uh, --
Diane Rehm: The line went dead.
Jonathan S. Landay: Right. The line went dead. But the bottom line is that the American people were told by Republican leaders that this hearing was going to disclose this great conspiracy equivalent to Watergate and, in fact, we heard nothing really new. There were no major new revelations at all to sustain what we've been told is this cover up of malfeasance and mishandling of what went on and uh-uh-uh a cover up that was intended to to-to-to-to cover up the culpability of the President and his top people in the midst of the president's re-election campaign. Again, nothing really new came out of those hearings at all.
Well Goodness Golly Molly, we were at those hearings and we heard a lot more than Jonathan S. Landay. In fact, we heard so much that we were surprised on Friday when Bill Plante declared at the end of his report for the CBS Evening News that, in response to the Republicans releasing the e-mails, Democrats were saying this was all an effort to discredit Hillary Clinton should she run for president in 2016. We were surprised because we'd heard that over and over on Wednesday. In the press and at the hearing. Wasn't that, after all, what Carolyn Maloney embarrassed herself over? And Elijah Cummings? And Eleanor Holmes Norton? And . . .
See we were at the hearing and we paid attention. We covered the hearing with the May 8th "Iraq snapshot" and "Crazies on the Committee (Ava)," while elsewhere in the community, Kat covered it with "If today were a movie . . .," Wally with "Biggest Coward at today's Committee hearing" and Ruth with "An order to stand down." And we'll be roundtabling on that hearing and another hearing with Dona this edition during which we'll be addressing some of the information from the hearing that didn't get reported.
But for now, did you see Ruth's title? Gregory Hicks stated that US military personnel in Tripoli were ready to head to Benghazi. We're not even talking the issue of the US military outside of Libya here. We're talking about the issue of US troops in Tripoli, Libya gearing up to go to the mission in Benghazi under attack. But Hicks testified they were told to stand down. They were ordered not go to Benghazi.
No major new revelations?
Did we mention he was on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show? That's the international hour. On the first hour, the domestic hour, Benghazi was also discussed. The panelists were Politico's Rachel Smolkin, Michael Scherer of Time magazine and NPR's David Welna.
Diane Rehm: Now, something else going on up on the Hill this week. Charges and counter charges during the weeks, House hearings on Benghazi. Rachel.
Rachel Smolkin: This is an issue Republicans have been pushing for months. It got new scrutiny during the week. There was a very emotional hearing about this where we heard from a veteran diplomat that he had effectively been silenced, that he tried to voice his concerns. And his view was retaliated against and demoted. We now have a new report out this morning from ABC News' Jonathan Karl that raises additional questions about the editing process on the talking points as. This are, of course, the talking points that Susan Rice discussed that have gotten so much attention. These new documents indicate, from ABC News, that the State Department made some extensive editing. Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman, asked the CIA to delete a paragraph citing warnings of prior attacks, so that sure to give this additional attention as well. It's very fraught with politics, this issue. I mean, you have a, you know, sort of extreme statements coming from some Republicans like Lindsey Graham, saying, this is Watergate all over again. You have the obvious Hillary Clinton angle. She is no longer the secretary of state, so that makes her much easier to attack in some ways because now the clear next question with Hillary Clinton is, will she be the Democratic nominee in 2016? Democrats see this as entirely fraught with politics, and Republicans say, no. This just hasn't received the scrutiny that it needs to.
Diane Rehm: And former Vice President Dick Cheney has said, let's subpoena Hillary Clinton.
David Welna: Well, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee headed by Darrell Issa, which held this hearing on Wednesday, plans to bring in more people, more of the principles to question them. And I don't know if there would be any executive privilege that Hillary Clinton could invoke as a former secretary of state.
Diane Rehm: So is it more politics, or is it really getting at something new regarding Benghazi? Michael.
Michael Scherer: The problem with following the story is there's so many different strands moving at once, and there's so many different questions. For instance, you know, one whole part of that hearing had to do with whether there was something that could've been done to prevent the loss of life if the military and the intelligence services had acted quicker. You had testimony being given in which people who are basically in the region at the time had the impression that the answer is, yes, the Pentagon has been consistent from the beginning, saying, that's just not true. And so you just have a disagreement over the facts of the case there. And then you have this political question of, during an election year, did the White House try and downplay the issue of terrorism to protect themselves? And it's clear -- and I think this is where we have the most movement this morning -- that there was a lot of politics at play. And the most obvious politics at play was interdepartmental politics. I mean, the State Department was trying to make sure it wasn't blamed for this. The CIA was trying to make sure it wasn't blamed for this. And so -- and this is very typical in Washington that something goes wrong and everybody tries to protect their own.
Wow. A serious conversation from three journalists. Landay couldn't offer that, could he? Not even when he was speaking live one hour after the above journalists had taken part in the domestic roundtable.
He was highly uninformed but vastly full of himself.
We haven't sat through all of the Benghazi hearings. For example, the issue was raised in a recent confirmation hearing and we were not at that hearing. We have been at the bulk of the Benghazi hearings, however.
We were, for example, at the April 17th House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing when Secretary of State John Kerry testified. We covered it with the April 17th "Iraq snapshot" and "Secretary Kerry doesn't really support women's rights" and, community wide, Wally covered it with "The budget hearing that avoided the budget," Ruth with "Kerry pressed on Benghazi" and Kat with "I'm sick of Democrats in Congress." We were there.
Thing is we take extensive notes. And we checked our notes. There was a McClatchy reporter present. She wasn't Jonathan Landay. So, no, despite his boast, he hasn't been at "everything else" in terms of Congressional hearings on Benghazi. He could claim, for example, that the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing was on the State Department's proposed budget. It was scheduled on that. That's why we were there, to hear about Iraq which is the State Department's biggest item in the budget, more than any other country. But notice Ruth covered the hearing? We asked Ruth to come. Because she covers Benghazi and we knew Benghazi would come up. There was no way it wouldn't with the majority of the committee feeling they were being stalled on the issue by the State Department.
Guess what?
Iraq? Never got mentioned.
What do we always stress about Benghazi? We stress that the dead are rendered "Chris Stevens and three other Americans." Because The Gilligan's Island theme is the new way to report? ("And the rest, here on Gilligan Isle.) Three more names are too much to type? Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty are the four Americans killed.
We stress that all the time. In our writing, in our talks on war. And thing is, we've never needed prompting for any name. But Mr. I've Been At Everything Landay, the self-proclaimed expert couldn't even get Chris Stevens name right on the first try -- the only name the bulk of the media bothers to mention and 'expert' Landay stumbles.
Jonathan S. Landay: That and the previous one and everything else that happened. And there was some really emotional uh-uh testimony uh from uh Gregory Hicks who was the number two uh US diplomat on the ground in uh Tripoli when this was all going down and he described in-in blow-by-blow, very emotional details how he responded and the last phone calls he's had with Ambassador Chris Smith before -- I'm sorry, uh, Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was -- he-he and,uh, --
Diane Rehm: The line went dead.
We're not here to spoon feed. We'll note "Mark" and leave it for Landay to supply the rest of the name on his name. He was attempting to say that Chris Stevens and the person assigned to protect him because Hicks testified that after the line went dead he was calling both the ambassador's number and the man who was protecting him. Strange that we know that but the 'expert' stumbles.
Jonathan S. Landay: But the bottom line is that the American people were told by Republican leaders that this hearing was going to disclose this great conspiracy equivalent to Watergate and, in fact, we heard nothing really new.
Nothing really new?
We've already disputed that and we reported it on last week. But the more disturbing section is the "Republican leaders" one. First, we doubt he could name four if you put him on a live mike right now and gave him 10 seconds. Second, and more importantly, the news isn't what someone says.
Landay wants to insist that there's nothing to report on Benghazi because what he alleges Republican leaders said going into the hearing wasn't what happened in the hearing.
Do you get how strange that is?
Drop back to Iraq with us. The mainstream press stated repeatedly that one of the reasons they didn't cover opposition to the war or do more investigations was that the Democrats in Congress weren't leading charges against the war.
Landay is a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers which, if you've missed it, has yet to win any major awards for news reporting. Even the IF Stone Medal for Jounalistic Independence that the Neiman Foundation for Journalism awarded John Walcott (DC bureau chief of McClatchy) was for Walcott's work from before McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder. The award was for the pre-Iraq War reporting that he and others at McClatchy (including Jonathan S. Landay) had done for Knight-Ridder.
McClatchy has no glories of its own. In fact, it's rather sad and telling just how the mighty fell. In 2002, Knight-Ridder did some amazing journalism. Knight-Ridder did. In 2006, McClatchy purchases Knight-Ridder. Since then, there's been no great moments. (No wonder circulation's down and there's talk of selling at least one paper.)
How did Knight-Ridder accomplish amazing journalism in 2002?
Did they wait for what Democrats said or for what Republicans said?
No, they did investigative journalism. They didn't treat the public claims as the story. They dug and found stories. That's why their reporting was not "Case Closed: Declare War On Iraq!"
When we attend hearings, we know the scheduled topic. We're not reading press on the hearing the day before. Granted, there's not a great deal of press on most Congressional hearings to begin with but we have better things to do with our time then read about what might happen at a hearing we're about to attend. We're not aware of any psychics in Congress -- of either party -- so we're not really interested in ahead of the hearing 'reporting' about the hearing.
But Landay is. In fact, it's only news to him today if a hearing matches pre-hearing claims made by 'leaders.' That's a funny way to define news.
If Knight-Ridder had defined news that way, they never would have made the impression they did in 2002.
Does Landay grasp that? Does McClatchy?
Does the country get just how far Jonathan S. Landay has fallen?
You can argue McClatchy hasn't fallen at all. It's always been inconsequential as a new source, feeding off of the image it purchased when it swallowed Knight-Ridder.
But as Landay embarrasses himself more and more in public, stammering away so wrong on the facts, he's not just harming his own image, he's also harming McClatchy Newspaper's image.
We're not really fond of the chat and chews to begin with. But if you're going to go on them, you really shouldn't be a reporter. A columnist? Okay. Flaunt your opinions. But a reporter? A reporter should only be on a program to report events or to plug a book. When a reporter thinks, as Landay clearly does, that he's an expert on Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Benghazi and everything else under the sun, he's overestimating himself.
What Landay's done, though, is no different than what many others did before him. The same panelists that Media Whores Online was ridiculing in 2002 and 2003 who were guests on ABC, CBS and NBC's Sunday morning jaw fests? They started out with some promise. They got applauded for some work they did. They were told they were brave and smart. And it fed their egos. They weren't always, for example, the Cokie Roberts of today.
See, that's the real lesson of Jonathan S. Landay: Gasbags are not born, they're self-created.
