Why I don't give a damn about the AP:

[hedgehog]

The purpose of the search of phone records is to locate the leaker, not prosecute the reporters.

There is no law stating the AP must be informed when the phone records are searched, only a Justice Department courtesy policy.

Leakers sometimes are honest whistle blowers; more often they are people with an agenda.

There has been a long pattern of Woodward/Berstein wannabees allowing themselves to be used by leakers to get one side of a story out.

But the main reason I don't give a damn about the AP is that the AP and most media today are utterly incompetent journalists. Consider the other scandal de jour: the IRS investigation of Tea Party organizations. Political groups were applying for tax exemptions declaring themselves to be social welfare organizations. The IRS properly noted that certain names seemed to indicate that these were political groups, and investigated a bit more closely to determine if they actually qualified for 501(c)(4) status. The real scandal was that these groups were trying to bend the law. Any competent journalist should be able to convey this simple story:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/05/irs_tea_party_scrutiny_do_conservative_501_c_4_groups_do_social_welfare.html

Indeed, some get at a deeper scandal:

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/13/odonnell-the-real-irs-scandal-happened-in-1959/

My Dad is a real news junkie, always has been. He watches a lot of MSNBC and reads the Nation. Still, I can't tell you how many times I read a story here on DU that he had no notion of.

What we have are a bunch of people running around pretending to be journalists when in reality they are mere mouthpieces for anonymous people with agendas. They are failing in their duty to give the American people an accurate picture of what is happening today to our country.

And that's why I don't give a damn about the AP!


Here are some more stunning examples of stories the media is missing/ignoring:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857272

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857291

[Little Star]

1. I'm with you. I posted a link about this earlier so that others could understand the...

real situation but no one seems interested. Maddow & Richard Engel did a great job of explaining this AP crap.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857122

[hedgehog]

4. Add to it that the AP knows the leak is being investigated -

the complaint is that the AP isn't being spoon fed details of the investigation!

[Cha]

13. thanks for the link, Little Star.. I posted the Vid in

your thread.

[Little Star]

18. TY

[Cha]

15. Just watched it! Very good, thank you!

[Whisp]

2. K&R

If not for the media being in cahoots with the Koch's and the likes of them, many of our problems wouldn't exist.
No sympathy at all from me - not a teeny drop.

[KG]

3. news organizations have been supine as the security state has grown over the last few decades

[cali]

5. this is just pathetic and so wrong

shortsighted and well, none too swift.

That you actually think this is just fine and dandy because the media largely sucks, is hardly a reason to endorse this.

Ugh.

[snot]

6. +1.

I don't know anyone who's more disappointed in the corporate media than I am. But this Administration's actions undermining what's left of the "watchdog of democracy" seem to make things worse.

I hope that all who are unhappy with the media's performance lately have been working and will continue to work toward the restoration of restrictions on the consolidation of media ownership, etc.

For anyone interested in these issues, FreePress.net, MediaChannel.org, and DemandProgress.org provide excellent information and opportunities for action.

[ProSense]

7. I care

about media hypocrisy: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857091

[closeupready]

9. I care about media hypocrisy, and I care about what happened, BUT

I don't care about what happened to the AP any more than I care about it happening to ProSense, or closeupready, or any random person chosen with a roll of the dice.

Now, having said that, if it had happened to Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or, organizationally, the ACLU or OWS, I would THEN be particularly outraged.

But does the AP get singled out because they perform a valuable function in our democracy? In my opinion, they no longer do that - they do what they do to MAKE BIG $$$. That's fine, it's a free country, but then you're no longer journalists - certainly not journalists worthy of respect or admiration.

[bemildred]

8. Tools get used.

If this motivates AP to stop being a goverment mouthpiece quite so much, it could be a good thing.

[Orsino]

10. AP's whoredom is irrelevant.

I am all for media communicating with leakers--but fake outrage when the leakers phone records are pulled? Not at all.

[BainsBane]

12. It wasn't just the leaker

That's the problem. It was full-scale pulling of all phone records from reporters phone lines.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

25. It is not fake by any means.

And it is not that that DOJ wanted the records. That is always expected.

But the way they did it is what angers AP and all other agencies.

There has been, especially after Watergate, regulations and protocols when it came to getting this information. But The DOJ jumped to a grand jury to get a wide ranging subpoena.

The biggest part of the outrage is what this really was. The DOJ had decided to use the media as a way to intimidate whistleblowers. This can not, must not fly.

We need Congress to hurry and pass the "Press Shield Law" bill. If the DOJ has decided to throw away there protocol, then lest make it law.

[freshwest]

11. This is the circus without the bread. No stories in the public interest allowed.

[HiPointDem]

14. yes, and when the precedent is used against journalists you think are doing a good job, what will

you say then?

[Cha]

16. the White House wants the Leaker who exposed

a double agent in al qaeda.

good explanation from Rachael

thanks hedgehog for the links!

[hedgehog]

19. Thanks go to Scuba!

[Cha]

20. Yeah, Scuba, too.. I

left them on his threads.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

17. You do relise that "Leaks" are a major tool for the Press.

If "whistleblowers" feel like they can't go to the Press because they can be found out, much of the things people need to know will not be known.

Biggest example in history is Watergate.

Yes, the government need to find things that hurt national security, but don't blind the people to do it.

[hedgehog]

21. My objection is that the press obsession with leaks has reduced it

to constant manipulation to produce this or that "scandal". Let the press start covering the stories that are lying out in the open, and I'd have more respect!

[Lady Freedom Returns]

22. The do, or I should say, try to.

But sadly Scandal sells and Journalists get pushed for them by the Owners. That is due to the sales Department showing numbers for those type of stories to the Owners. The numbers mean money, money is what the Owners/CEO's/Stock Holders like.

Want better stories? Help the journalist by not sharing/linking scandal stories, don't watch specials about scandals, and Don't go into detail about them on social media!

Why?
1) When you link to them, people go there people go, they get counted, the ads are seen. A good day for the sales people.

2) One word, "Ratings". Thanks to new tech., they can get that number. Even if you are not a registered "Neilsen" family. Yeah new smart cable!

3) Many of the Sales Dept. either have people or hire firms to see what is being talked about and (here comes that link thing again) to see if you are helping people come to the site and see the ads. The more talking about it, good or bad, and seeing the link, the happier the Sales Dept. will push for scandal!

Post about those stories that "are lying around". Link to those stories. Talk about those stories.

[hedgehog]

24. Good advice!

[DirkGently]

23. So, just screw the press, generally?

There is a law stating that we don't harass and intimidate the press. You've probably heard of it.

There's no indication the AP leaker had "an agenda." The story was simply that we had captured a terrorist underwear bomb.

The AP is not "a bunch of people running around pretending to be journalists." Whether or not they get it right all the time is beside the point. If anyone are journalists, the AP are.

The press is not one thing. The tired notion that journalism is worthless and never to be trusted is a rightwing invention, forged for the express purpose of discrediting factual information that too often contradicts the worldview they'd like to put forward.

Way to hop on the Fox News bandwagon, folks.

And things sure as hell aren't going to get any better if we get behind government attacks on the press where it's reported something the government did not want known. Things the government does not want known tend to be the things we need to know most.

This whole schtick smacks of the general attitude on the right that everything we've worked for -- civil rights, labor rights, environmentalism, government transparency, etc., somehow came to be all on its own, and now we don't need the mechanisms that got us there anymore. Who needs reporters or labor unions or pollution regs -- everything will surely just sail along fine on its own, right?

How did we get rid of Nixon? Through the efforts of partisan noisemakers? How did we find out about Iran / Contra?

How do we find out ANYTHING that goes wrong in government, that needs to be addressed?

And what's the alternative, by the way, if "journalism" can be safely fed to the dogs? Press releases and partisan PR? What's left, when the reporters are all cowed or in prison?

This is a specious argument. If you want information, you need to support the press. AP did nothing wrong here. It reported a fact, to which the government itself added other information, that after a deductive process, could have endangered a source.

That doesn't warrant spying on their entire news gathering mechanism, for months, with no hearing, no negotiation, no warning.

If you want to ensure that the press continues to be often untrustworthy or compromised by sources with agendas, getting behind secret government spying is a great way to go about it. You can be sure the AP won't be bringing you any information government sources don't want released for a good long time to come.

Won't that be peachy when the next Republican sits in the White House?

[dkf]

27. +10000

How does the OP think his sources get anything worth knowing?

This freezes whistleblowers who speak to whoever he/she is following.

It's really an action against all news media.

[Anansi1171]

26. +1000

[Rex]

28. The AP is getting the karma it built up under the GWB years.

nt.

[bluedigger]

29. Any source with a legitimate story will always get it out.

Drug dealers have largely managed to evade surveillance for decades now. Pay phones, "burner" cell phones, etc... Only an idiot of a whistleblower calls from his own office, home, or cell phone. If you want to play in the Grand Game, play to win.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. Tell you what

From now on we should ask government if it's ok if we cover an inconvenient story.

[randome]

32. No one is stopping you nor anyone else from doing that.

The fact that the AP is squawking this hard means they are not cowed. Instead, they are embarrassed.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Agnosticsherbet]

31. If your name was Mohammed, putting a bug up your but to listen for terrorist farts...

simply because of your name would be an unpardonable violation of your rights.

Even a declawed, defanged, cowed, lapdog press has rights. The name doesn't matter. When it is necessary to investigate them, it should be done with tweezers instead of a lasso. The investigation was too broad, and since they did not catch the leaker anyway, it was poorly done.

If Bush did this to MSNBC we would have been up in arms. The name of the News organization and whether they are worth a bucket of warm shit should be irrelevant.

Rather than dump AP because they are a lousy news organization we need to insist that the rights of news organizations be respected.