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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWolff: Snowden effect hits 'Guardian'
Major journalistic scoops are judged by their impact on society at large, but they can also impact with unintended effects the news organizations that pursue them.
With the Edward Snowden revelations about NSA spying in 2013, Britain's Guardian newspaper and its U.S. Web presence became a major player in American journalism. But the selection of a new editor Friday at the Guardian Katharine Viner can be read as, in part, a deeply equivocal response on the part of the paper's staff, with its unusual power in the process of selecting a new editor, to the Snowden story. (Disclosure: I have written for the Guardian for many years....)
....The Snowden story was owned by a small circle at the paper: primarily, Rusbridger, who became its most public face; Janine Gibson, the Rusbridger acolyte with a reputation for sharp elbows imported from London to run the New York office; and Glenn Greenwald, the freelancer who had brought the story to the Guardian (and who discontinued his relationship with the paper shortly after the story broke). What's more, the story, which Guardian management believed would be a financial boon, attracted little advertising revenue and instead became a cost center and other parts of the paper had to absorb the hit.
There developed, too, a sense of journalistic queasiness around Snowden, difficult to express at the party-line Guardian. Questioning Snowden's retreat to Russia and his protection by Vladimir Putin was internally verboten. There were Gibson's efforts to carefully monitor staff tweets, making sure Guardian journalists toed the line in support of Snowden and Greenwald. Then there was Rusbridger's interview with Snowden in July, which made Rusbridger seem, to many, like something of a fawning groupie and left a sense of embarrassment among many staffers.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/03/20/new-editor-for-guardian-newspaper/25094233/
I'd heard similar stories, but it's always good to see someone else confirm it...Just one more tick in the column of "things I was right about all along"
randome
(34,845 posts)If nothing else, one should be able to make the assumption that 'The Snowden Affair' is complicated enough to allow for different interpretations.
An NSA leaker who once said leakers should be shot in the balls? That's right up there with "A planet where apes evolved from man?"
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Do we have an Elizabeth Warren Group yet?
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)I have 22 groups in My Subscriptions but that's not one of them.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)As soon as I realize an article is from the Guardian red flags go up. Perhaps my opinion should be different about other writers than was associated with the Snowden. I questioned Snowden's motives from the first time I heard the information. The water was very muddy from the start and the story continues to change. The latest I heard was today and now the story is Snowden wanted to expose the unfair Whistle Blower act in that some groups are not included. This is a long way from he wanted to reveal phone calls information was being collected. People went crazy saying they did not want their phone calls recorded when talking to grannies, etc. It was the phone call records collected. In fact Bush have this information in 2006. By 2008 another law was enacted with procedures for collecting the data and any wire tapping should go through FISA court. Snowden came out in 2013.
MADem
(135,425 posts)But in a small and shocking revolution something like a North London Spring the vote went resoundingly against Gibson and, by inference, the Rusbridger legacy. Viner came in first and Bell second, each in their own way promising a softer, gentler, less doctrinaire Guardian.
In the final weeks, Ian Katz once the heir apparent who, in a dispute with Rusbridger, left in 2013 to head the BBC's Newsnight show (and who, holding an outside job, sat out the election) also reemerged as something of an anti-organization candidate.
The Guardian remains an insular place with much more left unsaid than said. But it's hard not to understand, that a profound backlash had taken place in Guardian culture, and that the Scott Trust, which Rusbridger will now chair and which has final say over the appointment, had no choice but to accept a quiet rejection of Rusbridger and, as well, the ultimate Snowden effect.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/03/20/new-editor-for-guardian-newspaper/25094233/
Wow, what a 'unique' environment...back the wrong person, and it could get uncomfortable.
Cha
(297,220 posts)Yeah, I know the feeling..
Mahalo Blue_Tires
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Cha
(297,220 posts)"Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders."
Russia.. "powerless".. Such a tool
Automatic target on your back for daring not to tow the line.
Cha
(297,220 posts)OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)That would be splendid. I've missed it.
Spazito
(50,338 posts)I used to like the Guardian, followed the scandals re Murdoch's news empire through the Guardian as their coverage on this was excellent but it seemed not long they seemed to go downhill and I stopped going to their website. This explains the change.
Thanks for posting this.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)From this OP we learn that Snowden isn't a perfect human being, Guardian editors aren't perfect human beings, and guardian.com isn't a perfect website.
So what?
The Guardian brought important information to public attention. We're better off for it.
Criticism of Snowden was downplayed or suppressed entirely in the Guardian? Well, guess what, there were one or two other media outlets that bravely filled that gap. (For the humor-impaired, that was double sarcasm: There were way more than two, and there's no bravery involved in pushing the U.S. government's line of attack against a lone individual refugee.)
Oh, and I forgot to add, Glenn Greenwald isn't a perfect human being, either. Therefore anything he writes about any topic whatsoever can and should be disregarded, without the need to determine whether his factual assertions are correct or to assess the strength of his argument. (I admit it, more sarcasm.)
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)putting the safety of our Democracy ahead of the illegal pursuits of a police state.
Nothing says "representative Democracy" like dragnet citizen surveillance.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Bravo!
treestar
(82,383 posts)No, the US is not a police state. Russia is, maybe.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)When a society changes its behavior because its law enforcement system is arbitrary, unjust and corrupt - that is a very good example of a police state.
With only 5% of the worlds population, the U.S. has 25% of the worlds prison population that makes us the worlds largest jailer.
Since 1970, our prison population has risen 700%.
One in 99 adults are living behind bars in the U.S. This marks the highest rate of imprisonment in American history.
One in 31 adults are under some form of correctional control, counting prison, jail, parole and probation populations.
treestar
(82,383 posts)no right to counsel, no right to confront witnesses, no right to appeal a trial court's rulings.
POC can challenge racism - see the Baton v. Kentucky case. Not perfect, but there's no one who can't have a trial. No rules like women's testimony only counts half of a man's, etc.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)As proven by the outrageous number of convictions of non-rich, non-white citizens.
Even the UN has taken notice.
The United Nations on Friday denounced the U.S. for reportedly violating an international treaty against torture, including several instances of police shootings of unarmed black youth. In a 16-page review of the U.S. track record on torture since 2006, the U.N. took aim at what it said were numerous reports of police brutality against minorities as well as distressing conditions in some U.S. prisons, according to Reuters. The document, which does not mention the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, specifically, came in the wake of a grand jurys decision not to indict a Ferguson police officer in the August shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
The U.N. Committee against Torture cited several examples of "excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, in particular against persons belonging to certain racial and ethnic group. The report, the U.N.s first on the U.S. since 2006, condemned the extensive use of Tasers against people resisting arrest, citing two recent cases in Florida and Chicago that turned deadly.
http://www.ibtimes.com/ferguson-shooting-un-torture-committee-condemns-us-excessive-force-law-enforcement-1730614
treestar
(82,383 posts)and you can be other than a rich white male and challenge it.
There are many Supreme Court cases where not only could you challenge it, you sometimes won.
Absurdity. Nothing's perfect but this country is under the rule of law. So many people try to get here to escape worse.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)that millions of poor and minority people are kept in cages because they are too lazy to defend themselves? Or just too poor?
That's the disparity of justice at work.
And don't set the bar based on the worst countries. How do we measure up against the best countries?
Besides that, the number of legal immigrants is in steady decline. Europe/Canada is a much more reasonable destination at this time. Maybe even over last decade.
The US can be an inhospitable place for open minded, well educated people.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Is water still wet?