Last time I'll delve into this particular off-topic topic, but I was directed today to the writings of Steve O'Hearn, the chair of the National Press Club's New Media Committee who maintains a blog at the National Press Club's blogging website. Suffice it to say that I disagree with pretty much everything that Steve has to say -- from his position on Larry Sinclair to his insistence (three days after the Montana and South Dakota primaries and one day after Clinton announced that she would concede) that the Democratic nomination race was "far from over", to his calling Tom Shales, the Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize- winning media critic, a "cretin". And then there's the matter of his preferring AltaVista to Google...
But that's not what I wanted to draw your attention to. Instead, I wanted to see who else had a blog on the National Press Club's website. Not very many people do. There is O'Hearn's blog, and then blogs for several of the NPC's committees, and a blog for the Press Club's softball team. And then there is a blog for...
Jeff Gannon.
Yes, that Jeff Gannon. The fake reporter from a fake news organization who asked fake questions at White House press conferences. And who also happens to be a gay escort.
This man has a blog at the National Press Club's website.
In this context, the National Press Club's decision to host a press conference for Larry Sinclair makes a lot more sense.
6.17.2008
Guess Who's Blogging for the National Press Club?
@ 1:34 AM
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I wish people would stop paying attention to Larry Sinclair. The guy is literally a con artist. (As in he went to jail, several times, for perpetuating fraud). Anyways, he is fighting a battle against the "media conspiracy" to silence his story. I suggest we all prove his case and stop giving him attention.
I'm actually not very interested in Larry Sinclair at all. But I'm pretty interested in the National Press Club's ethics.
Agreed on that. Who in heck runs/owns/funds the National Press Club?
Oh no, not gay people!
I was a member of the NPC when I worked in Washington. It's supported by dues paid by journalists, plus income from rental of rooms (more later) and other fees. They have a facility on the top floor of the National Press Building, located at 14th & F Streets in Washington.
The press building is full of working journalists from smaller organizations. Lots of foreign press, trade press, D.C. bureaus of out-of-town newspapers are located there.
The president is typically a working journalist, usually a bureau chief, who's put the time into NPC functions over the years. They have a highfalutin' ethics code that's inscribed on a brass plaque in the lobby. It's obviously from an earlier time, but I suspect more than a few people had a chuckle over it back then, too.
I read something about the current president having right-wing links, but I'm frankly skeptical of that. I think the reality is likely quite different: The NPC is genuinely pro-freedom of expression, and the more controversial someone is, the more likely they are to dig in their heels.
Also, I seem to recall when I was working there that the NPC was always on the fiscal knife edge, so they probably would like the room rental income too.
I think they're making a mistake to host the event. You can click on the link Nate gave and see my comment about it there. Oh, and you can also see my comment about James D. Guckert, a/k/a Jeff Gannon. Newsaholics will no doubt be interested in the back story that I give in the NPC comment section.
Nate gave several links, so here 's the one I was talking about. Scroll through and you'll see my comments on this, if you're interested.
One more item for Fight The Smears.
Poblano, I started reading your blog for the polling analysis, but I kept reading because you have interesting and thoughtful opinions. This little tidbit about the NPC is both facinating and troubling. Keep up the good work!
Plus, I'm a big fan of poblano peppers.
Oh no, not gay people!
Yes, that's the point of this post. Only a homophobe would have a problem with a prostitute posing as a journalist asking fake questions in the White House press room and then getting a job blogging for the National Press Club.
Hey Nate,
Its always cool to see you get props on other sites. Newsweek is now dropping your name to make themselves sound cool. http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/06/16/the-electoral-map-is-obama-outperforming-kerry-or-is-mccain-outperforming-bush.aspx
Keep up the good work.
Looks like they took them down -- links now dead, at least to my browser.
NEW PPP POLL IN OHIO.
Obama lead by 11 points.
50-39.
The Larry Sinclair post is hilarious. Google's search is biased because all the links portray him as a lunatic, but the first two matches are Sinclair's own blog and youtube page (hint: this suggests he is actually a lunatic). AltaVista is more objective because its first match is a site called Zimbio that appears to be the online leader in prominently displaying unscientific poll results (including "Which anchorbabe is the hottest?"), and whose current front page story is "10 Signs That Kim Kardashian Is Not Marriage Material". Of course, objectively speaking, producing the personal pages of the person you are searching is a better result than some random site, but since it doesn't portray him as a lunatic (only 43% of respondents think he is nuts!) it must be more objective. What a clown.
Hey DU, I don't think this was meant to be a homophobic post. Some of you may not remember the Jeff Gannon story. It was really only incidental that he was a gay escort. It just pointed to the fact that he was able to get into the White House press briefings with apparently no vetting and with fake credentials. He acted as a plant, tossing softball questions to the press secretary.
Wow, that PPP Ohio poll has a split of 55/30/15 D/R/I…Obama only got 75% of the AA vote. Is the Registered Voter split accurate? What's with all these polls and these crazy breakdowns?
Can we get an analysis of the PPP Ohio Poll?
I'm more confused by the age breakdown in the OH poll. Showing McCain up 1 among 18-29 year olds, but then Obama makes up for it by huge wins in the 30-65 year old bracket!!
Hey DU, I don't think this was meant to be a homophobic post.
I think if you read the thread again, you'll discover I was being sarcastic.
It looks like NPC might give a blog to any member who requests one. Also, it's hard to know how many blogs there are. Only 11 are listed there, but the heading is "Updated Blogs", so there may be more that haven't been updated recently.
Still, all of this, including O'Hearn's wingnuttish writings, is making me reevaluate the idea that NPC is a neutral organization.
Compare PPP's March polling (when Democrats registration was heavy and excitement over the primary loomed):
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/PPP_Ohio_Release_031908.pdf
Note the 48/32/20 breakdown there, which is still *very* unrealistic. Even supposing that R's have the worst year they've EVER had in Ohio and that the number there is correct, how was there a 9 point swing from R to D in that timeframe??
I'm calling BS.
Nothing says anything worse about your character than saying you prefer AltaVista over Google... what a douche.
The party breakdown from the last SUSA poll is pretty similar though.
John H: That's exactly why I criticized that one too. The worst year for the GOP that I'm aware of was 2006 where the split was 40/38/22 D/R/I. I don't buy that it's *that* much worse now. I also don't buy the wild 9% swing in favor of the Democrat registration in 2 months.
KCinDC, at the risk of sounding like the p.r. guy for the NPC and/or someone who agrees with their decision to rent space to Larry Sinclair, I've got to tell you that I haven't seen any evidence that the National Press Club is somehow taking sides on this.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The NPC has bills to pay, and they'll rent a room to just about anyone. Trust me, I think it's a mistake for them to do that, but I really don't think the NPC is part of some secret underground slime river.
Now just watch me be wrong, huh? But I'm going to be very surprised if someone can pin anything other than misjudgment on those folks.
anytime someone presents googling as "research" a librarian get's their wings. what a hack, a $200 an hour, hotmilitarystud.com hack.
Party ID is shifting all over the place. Its why Obama is able to be leading when he's only getting 80 percent of Democrats. Democrats were complaining about the party id in polls in 2004, claiming Republicans were oversampled. It turned out the pollsters were right. I suspect the pollsters are right this year as well.
David: I'd say it's unlikely that the following 3 things (all asserted by various polling companies) are simultaneously true:
1) 40.5/29.5 D/R - Rasmussen
2) 55/30 D/R Ohio - PPP
3) 35/30 D/R Minnesota - Survey USA
While each of them *could* be true, I doubt they are. I'd say today's Survey USA Minnesota (showing McCain within 1) probably UNDERsamples Democrats whereas todays PPP Ohio vastly UNDERsamples Republicans.
We'll find out in less than 5 months, but we should really look to 2006 for the baselines. D turnout in '06 was probably much higher because of the mood of the country and because fewer people vote in midterm elections. Because this is a presidential election, you should even out the D/R number just a bit, then swing the D number a few points to account for increased hostility toward R's (and increased turnout).
To summarize, though, a 55/30 breakdown in a state which had its WORST Republican turnout ever 2 years ago with 40/38 is nonsense. There's no way that PPP is right on that one (particularly given, as I said, 2 months ago they had a 48/32 breakdown).
I buy the party shift entirely in Ohio. Alot of Indy's shifting there.
Hey Nate, have you ever addressed the issue of younger voters being underrepresented in polling data because many of them are on cell phones and not land lines. I have an inuition that youth vote for Obama is being portrayed lower than it actually is.
Any comments?
Has anyone seen this crazy stuff from SUSA on Minnesota?! Shows Obama up one. Take a look at the age-based crosstabs. Good for a laugh.
The Ohio party ID discrepancy could be partially explained simply by the hotly contested primary. Both Obama and Clinton had significant GOTV and VR efforts there a couple months ago, while the GOP didn't.
On the issue of cell phones, I'm not totally sure who does cell phone polling, but I've been called by Gallup on my phone before for a poll.
I read something about the current president having right-wing links, but I'm frankly skeptical of that. I think the reality is likely quite different: The NPC is genuinely pro-freedom of expression, and the more controversial someone is, the more likely they are to dig in their heels.
That must be why they've had James "Fortunate Son" Hatfield, Noam Chomsky, and Molly Ivins there so frequently over the years. Oh, wait, they haven't.
(Note: Chomsky has indeed spoken at a National Press Club -- the one in Australia.)
New Civitas (R) North Carolina poll out:
McCain 45
Obama 41
http://www.jwpcivitasinstitute.org/media/press-releases/n-c-poll-mccain-leads-obama-45-41
The SUSA poll in Minnesota looks like an outlier. The age data makes no sense at all.
Charles, I'm not saying there's a conspiracy, just that my opinion of NPC has changed after reading that "the race is far from over" post and especially after reading this:
Personally, I have no idea what Larry Sinclair is going to say, and before I got this email from FireDogLake, I couldn’t care less.
But suddenly I’m rather curious that an organization like FireDogLake.com would be taking so much effort and going to so much trouble to collect tens of thousands of signatures and petitions and launching a barrage of phone calls against the National Press Club for the sole purpose of shutting down someone’s right to free speech.
O'Hearn sounds like someone posting on a wingnut blog, not any sort of neutral journalist.
kcindc, when you commented about O'Hearn sounding like a wingnut I went and read his blog. With the proviso that neither you nor I can know what's in the guy's head, I have to say that I don't see any rational basis to peg him as a Republican, let alone a wingnut.
To me, he sounds like your garden-variety skeptical journalist, i.e., an independent contrarian. I don't happen to agree with him about the Sinclair issue, and I've said so both publicly and privately in an e-mail to him.
But there's really no cause to go after O'Hearn personally, whether directly or by insinuation.
In that MN SUSA poll, McCain is winning the liberal-leaning Twin Cities metro area, while Obama is winning the conservative western and southern portions of the state. Doesn't make much sense.
been lurking for a few weeks. love the site. thank you.
A couple other things to say. First, O'Hearn isn't the National Press Club. He's the chairman of their "New Media Committee," which is a volunteer sideline. Here is his biography.
There are no political donations listed in his name. (In the interest of fair play, here are my political donations.)
Second, it doesn't look like, at least at the moment, O'Hearn is primarily a journalist, although he does have a record of intermittently having articles published on what appears to be a freelance basis. That's in his biography.
Third, even if he was a journalist, and even if he was a conservative journalist, as long as he exercised fair judgment (even if flawed) in his capacity at the NPC, there's no requirement, either explicit or implicit, that he somehow must be "neutral" on this or anything else.
People who think that journalists have to be "neutral" betray a serious misunderstanding of the nature of press freedom. Nowhere is there any requirement that the media be "objective." That is not, and never has been, any part of the first amendment.
Altavista is still better than Google for one thing: finding music/sound, and until a month ago, it was better at translating less popular languages.
I say give Altavista kudos for being a trailblazer in its day. And remember that someday we'll be ridiculing people for still using Google.
Gannon? GANNON?
Oh my god, talk about a bad joke. And they LET him blog for them?
What's the intersection of shameless, stupid, and White House gay prostitute scandal?
And they LET him blog for them?
Come on, don't be so foolish. Guckert (a/k/a Gannon) -- who is indeed a clown -- does not blog "for" the National Press Club, at least not that I can see. Rather, the NPC has a website where members can set up blog pages.
Gannon no more blogs "for" the NPC than than a left- or right-wing blogger blogs "for" Google or Go Daddy or whoever else hosts their content.
As a guess? Obama's not playing a simple tune. He's not just looking to win--he's looking to win big, to win broadly (penetrating regions that have been red turf) and to bring with him as many new Democratic senators and representatives as possible.
His win is already likely and he's just started beating on McCain. It's likely to only get better. It might be worth looking at where resources go with those three objectives in mind:
Where can he rack up the score--not just popular vote, but EVs?
Where can he win in regions that would help him argue that his mandate is uniquely broad based AND which will help the party develop new (future) strong points and possibilities?
Where can his team's efforts not only help him, but also help bring in a strongly Democratic Congress with many members who "owe" Obama support... and even some ground work for expanding the majority in 2010?
Looked at that way, does it make more sense?
I would guess that Guckert qualifies as an active member of the NPC.
He sure as hell doesn't fit my working definition of "journalist," but then neither do most of the FakeNews babes either. We don't license journalists in this country, and the growth of the Internet is transforming the meaning of the word, journalist.
I say all this by way of attempting my best guess at how Guckert is eligible to have the NPC host his blog. Whether or not the NPC ought to host blogs to begin with is an open question, given that there are so many hosting opportunities out there to begin with.
But, with respect to Guckert, if (as I suspect) he's an NPC member, and if the NPC hosts the blogs of its members, then there's no reason to think that NPC hosting should be closed to Guckert. Given the longstanding similarities between prostitutes and journalists, there's a certain elegance to it anyway. ;-)
And nor, if my guessing is on track, is there any cause to portray the NPC's granting hosting space to Guckert's blog as any kind of endorsement of what he pukes out there.
Love your graph entitled "Obama Electoral Votes." No label on the X-axis (I assume its something about the vote count); no label or even scale on the Y-axis; and no label indicating what the colors signify.
"Calling Dr. Tufte...."
Charles,
Whether or not he shows indication of bias in the past has no bearing on the inanity of that post.
Claiming that petitioning the National Press Club is somehow restricting free speach is silly and counterproductive to real arguments about supression of speech. A lack of one platform to
spew lies doesn't equal a supression.
Also the hilarious take on "I used alta vista to find less skewed results" is not that different from "Ohh fuck I'm in over my head an can't back up my argument, so I'll use a weaker search engine that shows the first 4 results as spam adds, BRILLIANT."
@3:26: Obama Electoral Votes IS the x-axis label. The title is at the top, where it usually is: Electoral Vote Distribution. And if you don't know what happens at 270 EVs to turn the color from red to blue, you don't have much reason to be at fivethirtyeight.com
Maybe I ought to go into the p.r. business, because I'm going to defend the guy (Steve O'Hearn) again.
My point isn't that I agree with him or the NPC. In fact, I've argued against their application of "free expression" to this situation. As far as I'm concerned, Sinclair ought to be told to hold his "press conference" in a hotel room, a bar, or out on the sidewalk. I don't think the NPC is not furthering freedom of expression by renting a room to Larry Sinclair.
With that out of the way, what O'Hearn has written about the Clinton campaign, Tom Shales, or the merits of various broswers is beside the point. To even mention those things is just petty, and personal attacks on O'Hearn are uncivil. I find Larry Sinclair uncivil, and I'm not inclined to believe that two wrongs make a right.
People can make their points, and do it with verve, without being petty and uncivil. They can also have a sense of humor, which when it comes to this particular set of circumstances I think is useful.
Now that the NPC has decided not to back down, I might make a heretical suggestion, which is that genuine reporting on Larry Sinclair ought to be encouraged. Some journalistic outfit that practices that dying profession ought to attend his press conference and question the joker carefully.
The resulting article should be titled, "The Art of the Smear." Included in the article should be some reporting on his biggest Internet promoter, a website called "BigHeadDC," which is controlled by -- get this -- someone who was fired by a gossip magazine for misconduct.
You couldn't make this shit up, but someone sure is trying. Now that it's out there, it's probably time to nail these people with the facts. If 2004 taught anything, it's that you can't go windsurfing when people are trying to destroy you.
A correction. I should have written in the second paragraph, "I don't think the NPC is furthering freedom of expression by renting a room to Larry Sinclair." The extra not reversed my intended meaning.
I'd typically be inclined to register at Daily Kos and make my points there, but I find them to be a "hive mind." The liberal blogger equivalent of a corporate meeting, whose collective I.Q. drops by a point or so with each new participant.
The media world has changed a lot, and will keep doing so. We are moving backwards in time, toward the partisan press that existed before the Civil War created a demand for objective reports from the battlefield.
There will be far-reaching implications from all of this. For one thing, it's making politics a lot more dynamic. There is a lot more parry-and-thrust than old farts like me (I'm in my 50s) are used to.
I think there'll be more Larry Sinclairs in general, at least for a while. At some point, the call will arise for more order, but that's going to be a while. For the time being, you can expect wild rides.
Which means that everyone's got to be dynamic yet maybe also not quite so panicky about this sort of stuff. Obama and his forces have to be out there countering it (as opposed to off in Hood River Canal, OR windsurfing, goddamnit).
And, when you've got a pile of horseshit this deep, being spread by an ex-con and former mental patient, with the help of a defrocked gossip columnist, maybe one way to handle it is to actually hold up the turd for everyone to see and say, "Hey, everyone! Get a load of this! How desperate are these Republican freaks, anyhow?!"
Maybe that's not the way to go. The Obama campaign has been pretty damn good so far, and I think they'll know how to play it.
Wow, what a freak show that was. My favorite part is the disbarred lawyer who told everyone that he wears a kilt because he's too well-hung for pants.
And it's not really a press conference unless the host is arrested on a Delaware warrant on the way out.
I think we all might have worried too much about this. Ha ha ha ha!
The Plot Gets Thicker?
After I got finished laughing at the well-hung lawyer in the kilt, I did some more clicking around, and found out that Larry Sinclair is not the one who paid for the room where the press conference was held.
It was paid for by "Veritas Federal Media," which appears to be the same as "Veritas Media Group." It has some interesting political ties to the far right wing.
Its owner is a far right-wing consultant who appears on Fox, CNN, and CNBC, and owns at least one radio station.
It seems as if someone other than just an oddball ex-con and his weirdo lawyer might have had an interest in spreading this junk. Will wonders never cease.
It seems Steve O'Hearn has deleted all of his blog posts between May and June 7th. The link to "Do we really have a winner yet" just gives you a 404 page.
Fortunately, Google's cache saved the article before Steve deleted his own blog post because of how stupid it was.
-----
Do we really have a winner yet?
June 6th, 2008 · No Comments
Several months ago, the mainstream media started declaring Illinois Senator Barak Obama the likely winner of the Democrat primaries. Yesterday, most national newspapers declared this victory official, and have already begun the debate about his running mate selection.
Yet this declaration, even now, is premature. Check out the current status of the ongoing popular vote, currently on display at the website RealClearPolitics.com.
With such a narrow spread, can either candidate really be declared victorious?
Is Obama in the lead? Yes, but without a clear majority. The votes have yet to be fully cast, let alone fully counted. So with less than one-tenths of one-percent of a lead, and fewer than a simple majority, who in their right minds could possibly declare him the clear winner yet?
Well, for one - the same people who put out condescending ”articles” like this one from the Washington Post - see below:
Condescending pictures and articles like this against Clinton have been commonplace
Aside from the fact that Clinton denied this June 3 report later on that same day, check out the photograph the Post elected to run with this - showing Clinton with a pathetic half-crying, half-begging facial expression, clearly an odd moment and not truly reflective of what was happening at the time.
Many elements of the so-called “mainstream” media have run photos like this of Clinton throughout the primary process. These same articles, pundits, etc., have been relentless for months in their demands that Clinton bow out, with headlines stating that she’s “refused” to “admit defeat”, even when she was leading in the popular vote count.
Furthermore, whenever Clinton asked legitimate questions about Obama - such as what exactly does he intend to “change”, or what has he ever done in his brief year in the Senate that qualifies him for any sort of executive responsibility - no mainstream media organization took those questions seriously, and instead declared Clinton “mean-spirited”, and continued to report that she was “refusing” to exit the race.
Last I checked, a news report was supposed to be about something that has actually happened, not something that hasn’t happened. A truly non-partison work of journalism would have instead ignored the non-story of a candidate who has not done something, and instead reported some actual news of events that have happened, such as the vote count in the neck-and-neck back-and-forth race between these two candidates.
But to discuss actual facts would’ve conflicted with the pre-determined agenda of Obama’s hoped-for victory. So instead of reporting actual news events, many elements of the “mainstream” media have disguised opinion as news articles, and served as the pawn of power-brokers who declared Obama the Democratic nominee long before the American voter ever had a chance to weigh in.
The next question is this: does that same power base also want Obama to win the general election? Or will they turn on him during the general and begin promoting McCain?
Time will tell. Contrary to what some self-appointed “experts” would have you believe, the race is far from over.
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