Palin and WMAL: The free press goes random

The mainstream media have once again given consumers a funhouse mirror view of things through the media lens.

An interview with Sarah Palin was broadcast last week on Chris Plante's morning talk show on WMAL in Washington, D.C.

Then the media went to work.

ABC News' Steven Portnoy reports: In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

(ABC News blog)

Just one problem. This report is not accurate. Steven Portnoy's story provides his readers with gratuitously creative paraphrasing. Portnoy follows up the paraphrasing in his second paragraph with the Palin quotation from which he derived the paraphrase, with the construction making it appear that Palin was amplifying her comments.

That isn't what happened. Using a download of the radio show from the WMAL Web site, I've produced a transcript of the relevant exchange:

CP:

Well, Barack Obama was endorsed quite openly by a spokesman for Hamas and now it’s and and he there’s been sort of tacit endorsement from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and there’s been an outright endorsement from Hugo Chavez. I assume William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn will be voting for him. I, I, I uh, assume that Rashid Khalidi will be voting for him. The guy’s got quite the rogue’s gallery of supporters, does he not? And now we have, now we have Al Qaeda itself, al Qaeda central and Abu al-Libi uh, uh calling for the humiliation of the Republicans, um, that is, that’s pretty extraordinary, pretty outrageous. Isn’t that, I mean, isn’t that another endorsement in the Obama column?

SP:

Well, look it, as the time for choosing is coming closer and closer I think Americans are, are realizing, our voters are realizing that they’ve got to decide which man in this race has proven that he can protect us from al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and the prospect of, say, a nuclear armed Iran and the other grave threats in the world that we’re facing. The only man who fits that description is John McCain.

CP

And when, uh, you’ve been , I know, talking about--since I brought up Rashid Khalidi--um, about the Los Angeles Times sitting on this videotape of Barack Obama singing the praises of Rashid Khalidi, who was of course a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization at a time when they were defined by our State Department as a terrorist organization. Uh, any movement from the LA Times on that? Do you think, I mean, is that a matter of the public, public’s right to know, or, or is the LA Times, you know, sitting on it for legitimate reasons?

SP

Well, we never heard any even quasi-legitimate reason until just, um, I think it was yesterday where they came up with the reason that, Ah they’re protecting a confidential source, but before that, of course, there was no reason given at all but, um, yeah, that’s also very disturbing and I guess some politicians would love to have that luxurious position of having, uh, some in mainstream media protecting their interests like that, and can you imagine if it were John McCain who had been seen at, um, a, a party toasting somebody, perhaps, who was such a controversial figure. It, you know, major media would be all over this and, and forced him to go to the videotape. But, it--very disturbing there, but even more disturbing is that, um, Oba-, Obama’s not ready to lead—his, his own running mate in the primaries, were--he was reminding us, through the primaries, that Barack Obama is not ready to be the president. And then, of course, uh, Biden’s comment recently when he kind of got off script and was finally candid and stumbled upon the truth, saying that, uh, Barack Obama will be tested, our, our nation would be inviting an international crisis by July of 2009 if Barack Obama were to be elected. Now, contrast that with John McCain. He is, he’s been tested. He knows how to win the war, he understands that the greatest threat against our country is, and that is radical violent Islamic terrorists. That’s why he pushed so hard with the surge strategy that is proving to work in Iraq. John McCain knows how to win the war.

CP

And of course Rashid Khalidi is not the only radical that, uh, Barack Obama’s associated himself with over the years, and you also have been kind of out there on the pointy end of the spear talking about William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, uh, to a lesser extent, perhaps, but William Ayers and once again the role of the news media in this campaign when it comes to Barack Obama’s relationships, uh, over the years with Rashid Khalidi and William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and Father Pflager and all of these other people, is, um, is the news media doing its job? Are you getting a fair shake, the Republicans getting a fair shake this year?

SP

I don’t think they’re doing their job when they suggest that calling a candidate out on their record, their plans for this country, and, and their associations is “mean spirited” or negative campaigning. If they convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then, I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of, uh, First Amendment rights, and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media. Look at Joe the plumber! Good ole Joe the plumber in Toledo, Ohio. He just asked a simple straightforward question and the media started investigating and attacking him. So, uh, you know, there is some fear there, and in those terms, no they’re not doing their job in that kind of context.

(Chris Plante radio program, WMAL AM 630)

In the context of the Los Angeles Times choosing not to release the Khalidi party videotape, and her observation that she has been ripped in the press for personal attacks on Barack Obama, Palin stated that she feared for the future of First Amendment Rights and, in effect, a chilling effect on free speech enabled by a mainstream media that attacks unapproved voices.

Yes, Palin expressed her point with some failing in artfulness. But not to the point where ABC News blogger can mangle the paraphrase as he did without getting called on it. That, fortunately, is the antidote for the failings of the mainstream media, at least until the voters Palin talked about get led by the nose to elect candidates who might reinstate policies such as the free-speech-inhibiting "Fairness Doctrine."

Palin wasn't saying that press criticism of her words constituted an attack on her right to free speech. She expressed concern that voters willing to believe that a candidate's associations should be off-limits because the press says so might help effect a radical change in the free speech landscape. And that concern has its basis in reality.

If they convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then, I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of, uh, First Amendment rights, and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.

In the terms used by the courts in ruling on free speech issues, the press has sometimes acted to "chill" free speech, as in the case of "Joe the plumber," not coincidentally the example subsequently used by Palin to illustrate her point.

Steven Portnoy's distorted paraphrase helped stimulate a new anti-Palin meme.

Glenn Greenwald jumped on the pile early:

Somehow, in Sarah Palin's brain, it's a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama.

Greenwald's profile at Slate indicates a history as "a constitutional law and civil rights litigator." With all due respect, it is hard to believe that one can possess competence in the law while making such logical leaps with the language Palin used. And Greenwald can't even use the excuse that he relied on Portnoy's paraphrase. From his third update:

Jonathan Schwarz has the audio of Palin, issuing her constitutional warning, here. It's actually more painful to hear it than read it, because you can hear her thinking about the analysis she's making as it leaves her mouth, and she clearly believes she's actually making an important and profound point about First Amendment rights.

Greenwald's claim that he "can hear her thinking" serves as effective notice that he is guided by his bias for purposes of his analysis. A real analysis would have used Palin's words to try to make the case that she believed her statement constituted something like what Greenwald detects in her words. He even goes so far as to detect her opinion of the intent of the Framers:

According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers.

With that, Greenwald succeeds in outdoing even Portnoy's twisted paraphrasing.

Though Portnoy's and Greenwald's opinions might as well be opiate-induced, a collection of such can eventually give rise to a story purporting to be news:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Republican U.S. vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin says media coverage of her attacks on Democrat Barack Obama could threaten free speech.

Palin told Washington radio station WMAL Friday she is concerned that her First Amendment rights could be endangered by what she called "attacks by the mainstream media" in response to her political attacks on the Democratic presidential nominee.

(UPI)

Abracadabra. Whacking the story with the mainstream media magic wand transforms it into an objective news story. It isn't hard to see how the transformation took place. The UPI writer/editor apparently thought that Portnoy's blog was objective news reporting in the first place:

The Alaska governor said her criticism of Obama's associations with such figures as 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should not be considered negative attacks, ABC News reported Friday.

We can probably expect other news sources to pick up on the story now that it has been transformed into objective reporting via repetition and careless reading.


I've said it before: The news reporting this election cycle staggers belief in terms of its ideological slant and lax standards. One outrageously horrible example of reporting is followed on its heels by the next. It's too late to stick a finger in the dike to stanch the flow. One does not stop a tsunami with even the best-placed digit.

It is over for the mainstream media in terms of its experiment with "objective" journalism.