Assholes
A local reporter had an interesting interview with Eric Massa’s chief of staff recently (about the ethics charges etc.). I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds, but if you’re following this story give it a read.
Politico mentions it without properly attributing it (i.e., no link, no mention of the reporter’s name):
Joe Racalto, Massa’s chief of staff, told a Rochester TV station on Thursday that he was interviewed by ethics committee investigators several weeks ago in regards to the sexual harassment allegations against Massa, well before the case became a public scandal or Massa announced his intentions to leave the House.
A friend (not affiliated with a media outlet or with Massa) writes:
They (Politico) are such complete, classless assholes. (Local reporter) Sean Carroll gets an exclusive, and they don’t name him and they don’t link to his post. I suggest a new B-J policy: never link to those fuckers.
There are things I like about Politico, but I think I agree with this.
March 6, 2010 7:06 pm
Posted in: Assholes, Good News For Conservatives
39 Comments
39 Responses
cleek - March 6, 2010 | 7:11 pm · Link
i’ve been wishing y’all would ignore Politico for a long long long time.
mr. whipple - March 6, 2010 | 7:12 pm · Link
In the event that you do link, I never click on them. I can’t give crap like Politico hits.
DougJ - March 6, 2010 | 7:12 pm · Link
@cleek:
I still like Ben Smith’s and Michael Calderone’s blogs. They both are really good in general (Smith says dumb stuff sometimes, I admit).
kommrade reproductive vigor - March 6, 2010 | 7:15 pm · Link
Can’t say I’m overly surprised. Just like I won’t be surprised by Politico’s first plagiarism scandal and its first Jayson Blair moment …
Agreed. Although the pages are too stiff for wiping, they’re great for lining the cat box or wrapping up kitchen compost.
mistermix - March 6, 2010 | 7:16 pm · Link
I think it’s A-OK to mention that the story is in Politico. Just don’t link to it. Take the meat of it, put it in quotes and publish it under fair use—just as they did in this case.
They don’t give a shit if you criticize their stories—they just want pageviews. Don’t give them what they crave.
DougJ - March 6, 2010 | 7:16 pm · Link
@mistermix:
Yes, you’re right.
Robert Waldmann - March 6, 2010 | 7:23 pm · Link
I don’t understand. This post contains a link to politico and your statement that you agree with a proposal to never link to politico. If you agree with that proposal, why didn’t you remove the link and have just the quote of politico with no link?
MikeJ - March 6, 2010 | 7:35 pm · Link
Make Politico small enough to drown in a bathtub.
DougJ - March 6, 2010 | 7:36 pm · Link
@Robert Waldmann:
I realize that.
Starting now!
soonergrunt - March 6, 2010 | 7:37 pm · Link
I JUST FINISHED DOING MY TAXES! Fracking state of Oklahoma wants $3.00! THREE FRACKING DOLLARS! Motherfrackers.
The other thing I did was clean out the garage refrigerator today. There was a few bottles of beer in there. There isn’t now.
soonergrunt +7
Linkmeister - March 6, 2010 | 7:42 pm · Link
@soonergrunt: And that $3 coulda bought another bottle of beer, too!
Tonal Crow - March 6, 2010 | 7:44 pm · Link
@Robert Waldmann: He’s emulating a Republican. Why, I don’t know.
Keith G - March 6, 2010 | 7:51 pm · Link
When Politico was rolling out, Charlie Rose had the staff (Harris, Vandehei, Smith, etc.) on the show “for the hour”.
I found them dangerously smug at that time. They kept saying that they wanted to drive the conversation. I remember thinking, “Why don’t you ass holes just worry about reporting the fucking truth.”
They have continued to live down to my expectations.
Eric - March 6, 2010 | 7:53 pm · Link
That’s because these “links” you refer to are something that terrible evil bloggers do. Your traditional news media would never stoop that low.
Just Some Fuckhead - March 6, 2010 | 8:14 pm · Link
What the fuck does this have to do with Jane Hamsher?
Quaker in a Basement - March 6, 2010 | 8:16 pm · Link
Meh.
The purpose of attribution isn’t for one media outlet to give a buttkiss to another of their own tribe. Attribution gives the public a yardstick to measure the reliability of a report. It also covers the medial outlet’s own reputation by providing an out in case the story turns out to be bogus.
Even if a reporter breaks a story long before anyone else, that reporter doesn’t get to own the facts reported. This sounds like self-obsessed media types whining that they don’t get the appreciation they deserve.
Zandar - March 6, 2010 | 8:20 pm · Link
Hey, they haven’t sued me yet, they’re not all bad.
mistermix - March 6, 2010 | 8:25 pm · Link
@Quaker in a Basement: Politico excerpted a few sentences from a long, detailed, well-reported blog post about the subject. It would be a service to their readers to link to it. They didn’t provide that service because they value pageviews over giving their readers a fuller understanding of the story.
The only way to get them to change that behavior is to stop linking. It’s the only thing they care about.
margaret - March 6, 2010 | 8:29 pm · Link
There are things I like about Politico
Really? I can’t think of even one thing I like about Politico. I don’t read their material, I don’t give them traffic and if I click on a link without looking where it is taking me and it goes to Politico, I curse at myself for not looking. They have no redeeming qualities.
sean - March 6, 2010 | 8:32 pm · Link
You linked to them in the fucking post.
Mike Kay - March 6, 2010 | 8:33 pm · Link
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild = Jane Hamsher
Jon H - March 6, 2010 | 8:34 pm · Link
I would suggest quoting Politico but crediting “a Washington political news website” and not linking.
margaret - March 6, 2010 | 8:35 pm · Link
You’re griping about paying three dollars in taxes? Let me see if I can work up some sympathy…... Nope. Nothing.
Deschanel - March 6, 2010 | 8:35 pm · Link
Yeah- what do you like about Politico? Sincerely curious.
You seem aware they’re Beltway smear merchants sucking up to Drudge, absolutely degrading the national discourse. What exactly do you like about it, their arts coverage?
Seriously, what’s so likeable?
Yutsano - March 6, 2010 | 8:36 pm · Link
@margaret: I don’t think it’s the amount of the taxes, but the absurd amount they ended up being. I’m the kind of person who would bust a gut over it honestly.
de lurker - March 6, 2010 | 9:25 pm · Link
@Yutsano:
For some reason this brings me out of lurking here for the past couple of months.
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that this is an additional 3 bucks to be paid over what had been withheld from the pay. The total tax was likely a lot more than three dollars.
I’m always flabbergasted that people are happy to get large refunds rather than pay a small amount in April. I under withhold and pay some in April but that means I got the use of the money rather than “them.” My one and only way of beating the system. Also.
Splitting Image - March 6, 2010 | 9:38 pm · Link
I don’t know about Oklahoma, but up here there is a rule that the government won’t issue a refund or a bill if the amount owing in either direction is $2 or less.
That’s why a bill for three dollars would be such a pain.
dr. bloor - March 6, 2010 | 10:13 pm · Link
Fucking duh. Do you ever read the comments here?
Mike Kay - March 6, 2010 | 11:09 pm · Link
apple
asiangrrlMN - March 6, 2010 | 11:31 pm · Link
I never click on the Politico links, either. I just rely on the kindness of strangers to give me the full shorter.
Nutella - March 6, 2010 | 11:39 pm · Link
Did you notice another thing about the local reporter Sean Carroll’s post? He seems to understand the difference between news and gossip:
Poor guy—He’ll never get a job in the national press with that attitude to named sources.
bago - March 7, 2010 | 12:15 am · Link
@Jon H: Hah! /ChrisMatthews.
That would be awesome. “An anonymous Washington Media source said…”
Quaker in a Basement - March 7, 2010 | 12:49 am · Link
@mistermix: I’ll buy the objection that providing the link is a service to readers (or viewers, as the case may be.) But that’s not the objection presented.
CalD - March 7, 2010 | 1:04 am · Link
if you’re reading the Politico you have no one to blame but yourself.
Yutsano - March 7, 2010 | 1:08 am · Link
@CalD: I thought that was the whole point behind the “I Read These Assholes So You Don’t Have To” tag. And to be honest, why the hell isn’t that one up here anyway?
Little Dreamer - March 7, 2010 | 10:18 am · Link
@Yutsano: Good question!
I never read Politico anymore. I realized it was a hack machine soon after they started their news-making. I’ve said as much several times here on this site over the past year or so.
Tweety pissed me off recently, when not five minutes after he talked about how much he liked Obama because he seemed to be so smart, he stated “I love Politico!” and I was wishing I’d had a nerf ball in my hand so I could throw it at the television, HARD!
Tweety is an idiot of the second magnitude (he hasn’t stooped down far enough yet to reach Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann level so far, but just give him time, I’m sure he’ll figure out how to manage it soon!)
Steeplejack - March 7, 2010 | 8:29 pm · Link
@Quaker in a Basement:
No, the reporter doesn’t “own” the facts, but attribution is, at least in part, acknowledgment that the reporter did the (often hard) work to uncover the facts and bring them to public attention.
southpaw - March 8, 2010 | 1:57 am · Link
Links do provide a service to readers, and if something is worth discussing or criticizing, then it’s worthing linking to.
I actually think this post, in its deeds but not its words, takes the right approach. Link to the source who was given poor attribution, link to the politico report that gave offense and criticize it in strong terms. Given the substance of the criticism, a blanket non-linking policy smacks of hypocrisy. Of course, if you stop talking about Politico altogether, that’s a horse of a different color.
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Intro - March 11, 2010 | 3:29 pm · Link
[...] So, hi, I’m mistermix. I’m a friend of DougJ’s IRL, as the kids say. When he pastes a rant “from a friend” into one of his posts, chances are that it came from me. For example, I contributed this subtle encomium to Byron Dorgan, and this gentle suggestion that B-J stop linking to Politico. [...]