Scott Gant: We’re All Journalists Now

Attorney Scott Gant takes up two causes in this book.

1. The Supreme Court needs to better spell out the Constitutional role of the press - recognizing that the press has some unique rights, as government watchdogs, above those of individual free speech.
2. The dominant model of journalists needs to be broadened from 'professional who is employed by a print or broadcast organization' to the 'activity of reporting events to the world through any medium' (not exact quotes, I returned the book to the library before I left) - internet is the key focus here.

As a blogger I only began thinking (and blogging) about journalistic privileges when the trials I was blogging about suddenly allowed ‘journalists’ to bring cell phones and laptops into the courtroom, but not other non-attorney attendees. So this book’s topic has a lot of interest for me. I posted a brief snippet when I first checked the book out, and finally got it finished before I left. Waiting to be on jury duty helped me get through it. So let me post this while my brain is partly still in the US and my 'normal' life.

Gant is passionate about the need for special privileges for journalists, mainly for shield laws to protect them from divulging the identity of sources, but also for access to events and documents in their role as watchdogs for the public.

He recognizes, though, that it might be possible to win universal recognition of journalistic privileges he wants, but have it limited to a narrow definition of journalist, which would cut out bloggers and others. So, he is also passionate about reframing the concept of journalist from it describing a profession to describing an activity. This, then would include all people who are reporting with the intent of telling others what is happening. He would get rid of requirements of training and certification as a journalist, of percent of income received as a journalist, of employment by a traditional journalistic medium such as newspapers, tv, radio, magazines.

On the way he walks us through the legal history of press rights, pointing out that the Suprement Court has tended to lump press freedoms into individual free speech rights and thus not accorded the press any special privileges as the press. It is mainly state laws which inconsistently give some rights in some states, but not in others - particularly shield laws. Custom, too, defers privileges to the press - the White House, Congression, and Supreme Court all have special access and facilities for selected journalists.

He also recognizes that there are some counter arguments and tells us why his soutions outweigh them.

His best arguments (from my perspective) are:

1. The government shouldn’t be in the business of licensing the press. This concern is precisely why press rights are mentioned in the First Amendment. The biggest concern is that the government use this right to affect the content of journalism. But he does recognize there are some reasons to distinguish who is a journalist - particularly in situations where there is limited access, such as a courtroom.
2. While the Constitution was written when ‘media’ (a word that didn’t then exist) was, literally, a printing press, and access to a press to print one’s opinion was relatively easy, the world is different now. Most traditional newspapers are now owned by conglomerates, not by families. These conglomerates see their media holdings as a business, not as a watchdog, and that these conglomerates now use the media directly or indirectly as part of their marketing campaigns.
3. Thus, bloggers are more truly reflective of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they put ‘freedom of the press’ into the US Constitution.
   

This is worth reading for those seriously interested in these issues, but be warned, it is repetitious. Most of it can be skimmed because he pushes the same points over and over and you are bound to read them even if you skip around. The legal history had the most hard information and least amount of opinion.

Even though he’s opposed to the notion of the government certifying journalists, he does talk about standards for journalists that relate to the activity of gathering information with the intent to report it. The real thorny question is the shield law question. Who should get the right to withhold information about criminal activity? If everyone can blog, at what point would attorneys advise their clients to start blogging so they got shield law protection? Like all the hokey religions that form so they can get a tax deductible status. (As I wrote that I wonder how many there actually are or whether I'm just repeating an urban legend. I couldn't find anything with a quick google on the topic. Here's one I found that's sort of related.) Gant at one points mentions that a journalist got the information with the intent to publish as one criterion. Though my first day in the courtroom was not with that intent in mind, I had been blogging, and it was a natural outcome of attending the trial.

I basically agree with Gant’s direction and pushing the idea of an activity rather than a profession. There already are, as he points out, lousy journalists who otherwise meet the standard criteria and outstanding bloggers who don’t. But he is also battling, as he recognizes, an uphill battle. I think these may be the first salvos and it will be a long hot battle.

In the meantime, I would push for an even more radical concept shift - that bloggers not worry that much about whether they become ‘mainstream journalists’ but rather push the boundaries of how one gathers and reports important information. Few of us are going to get called before grand juries and while the traditional media get information from the traditional places, we can look in other places instead. Meanwhile, the custom that has afforded journalists non-statutory privileges, the same will happen for good bloggers, and already has as some courtrooms and Congressional hearings with limited space have allocated some of that space to bloggers.

In Transit in Taipei - Happy Chinese New Year

We parked our van at a friends on the hillside - of course, 6 hours before moving it for two months, the snow plows come down our street to clear the berms. When I said it was lucky I was home and could move it, the guy said, "Yeah, otherwise it would have been towed." That's crazy. They give you no warning they're coming and you can't park in front of your house? But a project for when I get back. Here's the view on our way bck from the hillside.

The woman in front of me waiting to check-in at the Airport had flown up to Anchorage to catch this plane to Taipei and then was going on to Vietnam where her husband was in the hospital very ill. He couldn't even talk. When we got to the counter she was told she couldn't go because she didn't have a visa to Vietnam. She said she was told she could get one at the airport because of the emergency. But since she had no letter or anything, they said no.

I suggested she could go at least to Taipei and then figure out things from there. Though that was iffy since it's Chinese New Years, but they said ok. Inside the terminal, I was able to go on the internet and find out she could get a visa at the airport in Pnom Penh, Cambodia, which neighbors Vietnam. She has a friend there and that's where she's headed now.




The plane had red Chinese paper with black characters posted around the plane for New Years. And it was packed. But I had a good sleep by the window.



This was a 747 - no seat back videos or legroom. Here we are about 90 minutes out of Taipei.



I was able to switch my Taipei-Bangkok-Chiang Mai ticket to a Taipei-Chiang Mai ticket, but only here in Taipei. Here's the little internet oasis. My Macbook is on the ledge outside the room on the right.

It was 48F and raining when we landed.

[A little later: I didn't need to stand by the wifi booth because there's free wifi at the gate too. But there were some free computers available in there. So, Taipei Airport is a free wifi zone.]

And the Academy Award for Best Travel Agent goes to

Lynda McMahon of Navigant. Well, it's been a number of companies, reflecting the path of American businesses buying each other up over the years. It was about 1991 when someone connected me to Lynda to help plan a graduate class that studied Chinese Civil Service Reform in Anchorage, Hong Kong, and Beijing. Lynda has saved my tail and generally made my life easier ever since.

Think of it. A travel agent who is smart, cheeky, laughs at my bad jokes as if they were funny, and knows how get things done. I even got a call from an assistant to the President of Delta once to apologize for how they handled a trip. Lynda had gotten through to someone who got the complaint to the top. She also got me to Bangkok on that trip after Delta change my return from a 16 hour trip from Bangkok-Seoul-Anchorage to about a 36 hour trip through LA, Salt Lake City and an overnight somewhere at my expense.

And the last two weeks she did 50 little things to make my trip easier and faster. So, if you are looking for a fantastic travel agent, I owe her big time for all she's done over the years. Her number is 907 seven eight six three two two six. (If you call her, congratulate her on the Oscar and tell her Steve says thanks, thanks, thanks.)

And so I'm presenting the Oscar for life time achievement as a travel agent to Lynda McMahon.

And I did find the bird book, but not the extra battery. The plane leaves at 2:45am.

Almost Gone

Spent the day making lists of things to do before I go. Getting stuff out for the suitcase. Looking for things I want to take. The Birds of Thailand book is still missing as is my spare battery for my digital camera. But got things straightened out with my students and their thesis advisors and we met for dinner tonight. Prepped for the house sitter and the friends who are car sitting our van so it's out of the way when the snow plows come.

So, as much as I was tempted to write about Kohring's swipe at Sedwick I've resisted. All I can say is this: They started out with a long brief alleging all sorts of improprieties by the FBI in an attempt to quash the evidence collected in the search of his Wasilla office. Things like being under arrest in his office and not allowed to call his attorney or go to the bathroom. All of that was refuted by the prosecution in a brief and later in court. It was full of holes. I can't help but believe the same is true of this latest attempt. I sat through almost six weeks of trials in Sedwick's courtroom last year. This judge was the most patient, respectful, and fair person I've seen in a long time. And it never occurred that Judge Sedwick might be related to this Sedwick who he says was "worst political rival and enemy" until the end of the trial? How many Sedwicks do you know? I certainly would be asking questions if the judge hearing my case had the same name as my worst political rival and enemy. I wouldn't wait until a few days before my sentencing to bring it up.

I was in the courtroom for the closing arguments. I don't recall anything different about Kohring - that he appeared more agitated because of the presence of this worst enemy whose name is Sedwick. How much research do you have to do to find out that the judge and the former commissioner with the same uncommon name are related? I'm sorry, this just sounds so totally bogus to me.

If Kohring really wants to know who's taking advantage of him, I'd suggest he look closely at his attorney who's lifted over $100,000 from Kohring. How many more billable hours is this new little escapade? At one point Browne required that the prosecution bring every single FBI agent who monitored the tapes to fly to Alaska to verify the tapes. He was quoted as not caring about making the government go to great expense. (The attorneys in the other two cases waived this requirement and let one agent verify all the tapes.) There's a reason that most people who are indicted plea and never go to trial. It seems to me with a different attorney, Kohring might have saved himself the trial and a lot of money.

Anchorage Democratic Caucus - The Video

The previous post has pictures and commentary. This one is the video.




Pictures and video of the Fairbanks caucus.

Pictures of the Matsu caucus.

Jam Packed Anchorage Democratic Caucus

[Video in next post.]

I already had a suspicion that the Anchorage Democratic Caucus would be crowded. We've never really had a caucus before that had any impact. But this time we were on the media hyped Super Tuesday. People who would normally vote on a primary would be out. When I turned off Lake Otis onto Debarr, I began to wonder. I'm not usually on the road at 5pm, but things didn't move.



Five minutes later I was only a little further. Were all these people going to Begich Middle School for the Caucus? Then we had four or five more miles like this. No way. I followed the lead of some other cars and turned left before Costco and then got onto Bragaw and then the Glenn. Here things were whizzing along.



Until just after the 1/2 mile to Muldoon sign. Then we were back to a crawl. But I once on Muldoon it was easy to the Fred Meyer parking lot, and I found a spot and walked over a block to the school. .






It was a clear cold night and the mountains were spectacular, even if my photography isn't. It was 6:10pm. This normally 15 minute ride had taken over an hour. The caucus was supposed to start at 5:30pm. Well, they'd have to wait for everyone to get through the traffic.













This is NOT the school parking lot. These are fire lanes.






Finally got to the building and saw into a packed room.





Here are the people in the hallways.








Looking the other way. It was wall to wall people. There were lots of Obama and Hilary signs, but no signs to tell you what to do or where to go. People at the door were handing out registration forms. But I was already registered. I was supposed to get a blue card and then go to my district room. But this was the line to get a blue card. Someone said I could go to my district room without a blue card and sign in there. Where was my room? No one seemed to know. I wandered up and down the halls going into classrooms and asking what district it was. There was one map that showed the rooms and the districts. But it was only the second floor and mine wasn't on it.





Down at the end of the hall was another map that showed the room numbers, but not the districts. No one there had any idea. So I wandered back on the second floor (the first floor was too crowded to move.)







I made it to the gym where there was yet another mass of people. This is where the lines, if you can call them that, were headed. This is where people were getting blue cards and room assignments. But they were giving up. Someone had a mike and was telling us what room to go for what district. Finally. And we didn't need blue cards. When I got back down to the other side of the building, I wrote the name of my district and the room number on the map, but it was on plastic and my pen wasn't very good.



Once inside the room, packed with about 100 people or more, the loud speaker system started working. Here it was easy. We divided into Obama side, Clinton side, and uncommitted. People had also been allowed to write their names down on a Clinton or Obama sheet of paper and go. Not counting the people who signed up, we were 59 for Obama and 20 for Clinton. The uncommitted split 3 for Obama and 2 for Clinton. A few more stragglers added to the vote count later. It was about 7:40 now.









They were then going to pick delegates to the May Democratic convention in Alaska. I decided to go home. It was about 8pm.
And on the east end of town, a little chillier than when I'd gotten here. That's in Fahrenheit. It would be minus 21 C.

Despite the chaos, no one seemed at all upset. Everyone was excited. It was an event. I saw so many people with registration forms. You had to be a Democrat to participate. So people were either new voters, or switching from undeclared or Republican, or one of the other possible designations. Obama was clearly the source of lots of excitement, but there wasn't any animosity between the Obama and Clinton supporters that I saw.

Blog Ethics - Sex Sells and so does Victor Lebow

I always find surprises in the google search topics that get people to my site. Dennis at AlaskaReport (by the way check out their story on Don "Corleone" Young while you're there) recently shared that he has an entertainment section because that's what people want - along with stats showing Heath Ledger, Britney Spears, and other celebs being top hits. So I shouldn't be surprised with all the people googling Bambi Tyree. In the last 40 or so site views six were looking for Bambi from:
Sophia, Bulgaria
Miami, Florida
Las Cruces, NM
Cranberry Twp, PA
Philadelphia, PA
Spokane, WA

Do you think if her parents had named her Martha things would have turned outdifferent?

On the other hand 10% of the last 100 were still looking up Victor Lebow, including someone from Ankara, Turkey. If you got here looking up Victor Lebow, go here. While in LA I looked up Victor Lebow I found a Victoria who lived near my mom. I phoned her and after a number of calls to relatives "I hadn't talked to in 55 years" she said that the Victor Lebow who wrote about American Consumerism is not related to her family. But the Victor Lebow from Wichita, KS whose picture I posted is a relative. So that confirms my suspicion they were two different people.

Also had someone from the US House of Representatives look at yesterday's chart of Blacks in Congress, and finally, someone got here googling:

"Carnival cruises send passenger flowers."

Media Ethics Note: Sometimes people do send me links to stories they'd like me to link, like the Corleone story. If I do link to these stories it's because I think they have something worthwhile. And I'm not above critiquing the stories people pass on to me. This doesn't happen a lot, but I mention it here because I think people should see what happens behind the scenes. Is it unethical for me to link to that story? No. Does the fact that AlaskaReport sometimes links to me a problem? It could be if I posted their stories because I thought it would keep them promoting my stories. This is the beginning of ethics creep. It starts out innocent enough, all with good intentions, but if one isn't careful, one's judgment gets lazy. I'm not a politician and I'm not making policy decisions based on favors others do for me. But readers should know if the newspapers, tv shows, or blogs they read are pushing stories or omitting stories because they might affect their advertising.

I say this because a lot of blogging chatter is about how to pump up site views. Trading links among sites is a popular means. I don't think this matters much for personal blogs among friends. But it does for blogs that edge into journalism. At the very least, there should be disclosure. So, let me disclose that last week when Alaska Report linked to my speculations about why Murkowski left the US Senate to be governor of Alaska, my site views for that day more than doubled. But I linked to the Don Young story above because it adds a few tidbits to what we know.

Obama or Clinton?

The US voters are making history with the Democrats virtually assured that either a man with African heritage or a woman will be their candidate for president. Tomorrow night is the Democratic caucus in Alaska. From what I hear, there will be a large turnout in Anchorage, possibly even stretching the capacity at Begich Middle School for the Anchorage caucus. But which candidate is the best? I've boiled this down for me to three criteria.



General Electability in November

Are Americans less racist or less sexist? Or put another way, are they more willing to vote for a man with African heritage or a woman? Blacks, with 9% of the seats in the House of Representatives reflect their 13% of the US population much better than do women with 16.1% in the House. But in the Senate, where whole states, not gerrymandered districts ,vote there is only one African-American - Barrack Obama - for 1%. But women have 16% of the 100 seats. That still means 84% men in the Senate and House.


[2/5/08: Added the missing decimal point Ropi pointed out in the comments. This post was postponed because I had trouble finding reliable numbers for blacks in Congress. That story is in the previous post. A good webstie for information on women in politics is Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.]

David Broder has an interesting article on districts where women win.

The scholars could find no significant differences in terms of geography or social characteristics between those districts that elected African American men and African American women. Almost without exception, they were heavily Democratic, urban and working class.

But the picture is very different for white women running for Congress. "Female Democratic House members tend to win election in districts that are more liberal, more urban, more diverse, more educated and much wealthier than those won by male Democratic members of the House," they write. "They come from much more compact, 'tonier,' upscale districts than their male counterparts."

The fact that a woman and a man of African heritage are the finalists for the Democratic nomination says a lot about the changing demographics of the United States. I we are in a period of flux - the old rules are starting to dissolve, but I don’t know that the new rules are in place yet either. Will enough voters ignore gender and race to elect and man of African heritage or a woman as president?

Stand on Key Issues

I don’t think they are too far off on the issues, though Obama focuses on the fact that he never supported going into Iraq and Clinton did. But it isn't simply the issues we face now, but the issues that the President will face once in office - the 9/11's and Hurricane Katrina's that weren't anticipated. Which candidate has the imagination to find better ways to do things?

Ability to get things done

No matter how great their policies are, without the competence to get them through Congress, they have nothing.

Hillary Clinton surely has learned a lot of lessons in the eight years Bill was President. As a former first lady and second term Senator she knows a lot of people both in the US and overseas. Of all these people, how much does she owe them and how much do they owe her? More particularly, which people does she owe? The Clintons also have a high negative rating among a sizable minority of people. This could cause the kind of constant sniping Bill Clinton faced during his eith years. These are people who will always be trouble. On the other hand, Bush has much higher negatives and has managed to get his way a lot of the time.

Barrack Obama has less experience and presumably fewer connections, and fewer people he owes. He is inspirational, but you also need administrative mechanics to make things happen. His campaign shows that he is able to attract competent people to help. Obama is able to articulate people's hopes for a better way. That can be powerful for a while, but then some tangible things need to be achieved.

Either of the two will have to attract competent teams to develop good policies and to get them passed by Congress. It seems to me that Clinton’s strength and weakness here are her connections to the existing power structure. Obama’s strength and weakness are that he has fewer of the ties and can take us in a new direction.

May the best...candidate... win.

How Many Black Congress Members?

[This info was updated Dec. 21 2012 - How Many Black Members In 113th Congress?] 

[Dec. 2, 2008 Update: Here's an update to the chart and this post.]

The quick answer appears to be 40 voting members and 2 non-voting members in the House of Representatives and 1 US Senator (Obama.). But I'm not completely sure.

You'd think this would be easy to find on the web. Someone should have a quck number. David D. Kirkpatrick wrote in December 2005

The number of blacks in Congress has grown to 43 from just 13 at the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969. But although the 2006 election elevated some caucus members to prominence, it did not add to the group's numbers. Its 43 members still make up less than 10 percent of the House and 1 percent of the Senate. By comparison, blacks make up about 13 percent of the population.

Encarta and Wikipedia both have tables of all the Black congress members ever. You have to go through the lists and separate out those whose dates of service (for Wikipedia) end in -present or (for Encarta) - . EthnicMajority has 42, but two are non-voting and one is dead.

But the two lists don't match. Wikipedia has five more people than Encarta. The Congressional Black Caucus website lists 43 people in the Black Caucus, but that includes Senator Obama (the only black Senator), two non-voting members (DC and Virgin Islands), and one deceased whose seat apparently won't be filled until the November 2008 election.

Going through the three lists (Encarta, Wikipedia, Black Caucus) I've come up with a total of 40 black voting members members of Congress. (DC and the Virgin Islands each have one non-voting black member. ) It's quite possible I missed one or added one. I'm not sure quite what it means that this number is not readily available. Below is the chart I came up with.

[August 20, 2008 - Stephanie Tubbs Jones suffered an aneurism and passed away today]

Mauer's Thorough Piece On Allen Rumors

I'm leaving for Thailand Friday and I've got to let go of some of this compulsive blogging, but I did mention the Hopfinger/Coyne article in the Press the other day. It was first. But Rich Mauer's piece in today's ADN is a much more solid and informative report. Mauer did find a Fed who could say that they had asked the APD to drop the investigation.

[US Attorney Frank] Russo acknowledged "there were allegations along the lines of his (Allen's) involvement with Bambi Tyree," but said he asked Vandegriff to suspend the Allen investigation for purely practical reasons: The Boehm case was complex, with dozens of witnesses, and Boehm himself had a high-powered, three-attorney defense team that fought at every opportunity. Nearly 1,000 documents were filed, and that was in a case that never went to trial.

"We said, 'Hey, why don't we put this aside until later. We have enough to focus on,' " Russo said. That was his only concern, he said.

I realize that people's sexual behavior is an ever surprising revelation and that we should never dismiss things as impossible (how long did people not believe stories about priests?), but if I had to bet, I'd put my money on the story that says Allen was Tyree's friend and he felt obligated to watch over Tyree's kids after Tyree died. That's consistent with with the man I saw testify in the Kott and Kohring trials.

I could be wrong here, but I think this story line isn't going anywhere. But the article is important in that it fills in a lot of gaps that people were filling in with all sorts of speculation.