Welcome for Snow

A welcome for Tony snow as a breath of fresh air

"Giving the press routine access to a key player could potentially indicate a major change in the White House's relations with the press corps. Heck, simply engaging reporters and answering their questions could significantly improve those relations."

Here is a home page for Dan Froomkin.

It turns out he is a proper print journalist after all.

About the al Jazeera memo

I got into this through writing for OhmyNews about the al Jazeera memo, as reported by the London Daily Mirror a record of a conversation about possible action against the offices of the TV station. This is now subject to the Official Secrets Act in the UK. Maybe this should be presented as a feedom of speech issue. As in it is a limitation on free speech to be bombed. If that was proposed. Even if meant as a joke such a discussion would be a concern if it actually happened.

Looking through Google News it turned out that Dan Froomkin was about the only person writing about this in Washington. and he did add a comment that this issue merited a follow up question or two.

an important link

Still searching on 'froomkin fan' I have now found an article explaining how the issues around Dan Froomkin came to the surface. I had seen something about this on Buzzmachine but did not really understand it.

Pressthink features an interview with other people from the Washington Post, proper journalists. OK so Dan is a blogger, that is he no more has a chance to ask questions than I do.

There are print journalists who should be thought of as really representing the Washington Post.

I still find the Froomkin page a good place to find out what is going on.

How this blog started

I realise now that I have not really explained how this started. Recently around the We Media Forum in London i have been tracking back to find out a bit about the people involved. Jeff Jarvis seems a bit central. I don't always agree with him but he shows the links for what he writes so you can go back and make up your own mind. He seems very upset by Bertrand Pecquerie who has written about the shortcomings of the US blogosphere as he sees them. As far as I can make it out, Pecquerie believes in the good faith of professional journalists while the bloggers in the USA are only concerned to destroy the reputation of journalists -

"Take the case of Eason Jordan -- most of the pressure in the blogosphere was placed on Jordan to resign, completely overshadowing the real issue -- whether journalists were being targeted in Iraq. A small number of bloggers were able to turn the attention of the public and the media from major issues to secondary details."

He gives other examples but I feel that he may be looking only for examples that fit his argument. Anyway there is no harm in continuing to find counter examples. He may be right of course about the general trend. As a proper journalist would say, only time will tell.

More fans

A bit of research has shown that there are quite a lot of Froomkin fans.

"God Bless Dan Froomkin..."
says The Oklahoma Hippy

Of course this is because Froomkin has provided some text that can be agreed with. This starts from an address on Veteran's day

"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs," Bush said.

"[M]ore than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he noted.

And, he concluded: "The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

Froomkin comments

"But Bush's argument is deeply flawed. Far from being baseless, the charge that he intentionally misled the public in the run-up to war is built on a growing amount of evidence. And the longer Bush goes without refuting that evidence in detail, the more persuasive it becomes.

And his most prized talking point -- that many Democrats agreed with him at the time -- is problematic. Many of those Democrats did so because they believed the information the president gave them. Now they are coming to the conclusion that they shouldn't have."

This is enough to give some confidence to those of us who have been wondering about such issues for a while.

Cheney evidence

Dan Froomkin seems to be on the case

I still can't follow the details on this one but I have noticed an article at OhmyNews. where I send my own occasional stories about what happens in the UK.

In the UK the press seems to have backed off the idea that Jack Straw was moved out of the Foreign Office for some reason. Stories disappear here sometimes so it is interesting that US reporting seems to hang on in there.

Fishing and the fourth amendment

Having started this blog I am paying more attention to the Froomkin pages. Previously I just looked there when I needed guidance about something that came up.

At the moment it is mostly about George Bush liking to go fishing. There are also links to interpretations about the fourth amendment and Gen. Michael V. Hayden.

"When Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder Newspapers properly characterized it, Hayden insisted, incorrectly, that that requirement for search and seizure was reasonableness, rather than probable cause."

So Froomkin is not a wildly dangerous person if he concentrates on debate within the constitution. So it seems observing from the UK anyway.

Some background and bio

Found this page when looking for a photograph

Now a squidoo lens exists

A page has started at Squidoo. Not much there but more will follow later.

Intro

I have started this after the 'We Media' forum last week and the events around Jack Straw being sacked as UK Foreign Secretary. Who is this 'we'? we all wonder, from various points of view. No intention to get Dan Froomkin into more trouble than he faces already. But he seems a good reference point to link to.

More later. I am also setting up a shwicki so will go back to that now I know the url for this blog.