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September 13, 2004
Of memos, measles and Mona Lisa
It's been a rough day today. When it's shorter-staff time at work after months of being short-staffed in the first place, all it takes it yet another person out sick to really make you think seriously about pouring shots of whiskey into the 8:00 am coffee. I covered four desks today, and while that means none of them actually gets done, I triaged the work and made sure the critical stuff didn't go nuclear. My own attorneys were sympathetic, the attorneys who I was stepping in to help lost the look of panic in their eyes and while I wasn't happy leaving piles of files for me to face in the morning, they were neatly arranged for tackling tomorrow. Mostly I was giddy at leaving at five and happily arrived home to a warm spouse, a cold drink and an early evening nap. I really did not think I had the energy to write anything tonight. But it looks like the Old Media is still digging in its heels at coming to grips with the CBS memo hoax and the role of the Internet in exposing it. My own fault that I was happily surfing the cable channels and stumbled across Bill O'Reilly. I'm not sure whether it was the smirk (I have nothing against smirks, mind you, I've been known to toss off a few myself) or just the condescending tone of Bill's voice while he was extolling his own virtue (in the imperial third person), but when he went on and on about how we must not draw any conclusion about the CBS memos until experts in the field examine them .... well, at least I didn't break the TV, but the remote is toast.
Mr. O'Reilly, take a clue. I personnally cannot authenticate as real if someone showed me a digital photo of the Mona Lisa and claimed they had stolen it from the Louvre. But I sure as hell could say the picture was a fake if upon cursory examination it looked like this:
Come on, Bill. Do you really need to suspend your judgement until an expert tells you that this is not the real Mona Lisa, but a paint by numbers reproduction?
Despite the sneering of "bloggers in pajamas" or the dismissive condescension by Dan Rather that Internet is nothing but a "professional rumor mill," what the Old Media fails to grasp is that the Internet is filled with millions of ordinary people from a wide range of backgrounds and expertise who, when confronted with a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa are not so cowed by "appeals to authority" that they won't say "Hey, hold on. What are you trying to pull here?"
Now, I'm not an expert in type fonts nor typsetting. As I participated on numerous blog sites, I did relate my own experience as a professional secretary in the 1970's and how my use of both the typical office equipment and the accepted business protocols of the era had caused me to look at these memos and see them as much a "real" product of the era as the paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa was painted in 1506. One of many true experts is Joseph M. Newcomer who decided he, too, had enough of the self-serving equivocation on the memo issue. His explaination is here. As he explains:
I do not even dignify this statement with the traditional weasel-word “alleged”, because it takes approximately 30 seconds for anyone who is knowledgeable in the history of electronic document production to recognize this whole collection is certainly a forgery, and approximately five minutes to prove to anyone technically competent that the documents are a forgery. I was able to replicate two of the documents within a few minutes. At time I a writing this, CBS is stonewalling. They were hoaxed, pure and simple. CBS failed to exercise anything even approximately like due diligence. I am not sure what sort of "expert" they called in to authenticate the document, but anything I say about his qualifications to judge digital typography is likely to be considered libelous (no matter how true they are) and I would not say them in print in a public forum.
This is not a question of either/or. Everyday, we all make decisions based on our experience and training. While an expert can authenticate, it doesn't always take an expert to spot a fraud. As I started this post, I discussed how I had triaged my work. Experience at my job has taught me what is most important, what to prioritize. Just as my years of being a mom has taught me I don't have to be a doctor to know when my children are sick and when they are sick enough to go to the doctor. There was a time not long ago where doctors exibited similar attitudes toward their patients that Dan Rather and much of Old Media does to its audience. "We are the professionals. You do not question our judgement, our conclusions and particularly our methods."
We don't accept such attitudes from our doctors anymore. The medical profession came to accept that patients are partners in the pursuit of health. We come to the table with our doctors with precise descriptions of symptoms and questions. We look to our doctor to listen to us and to show us how s/he arrives at his/her diagnosis. If my child starts running a fever, coughs and then develops an all over rash of small red spots, be assured that the doctor that tells me it's nothing, I'm seeing things, my child is "ok" and I should shutup and "take my word for it, after all I am the doctor" that would be the last time I would visit that person. Indeed, I'd be looking at filing a complaint with the medical board.
It is time for the Old Media to come to the same decision as the medical profession. To embrace the citizen-journalists of the New Media as partners in the pursuit of fact and truth. We are here, we are not going away and continuing in such snobbishness-by-profession is going to isolate and make irrelevant you, not us.
And of course, you'll now get to wear some really cool pajamas.
Posted by Darleen at September 13, 2004 08:47 PM
Comments
Darleen,
While the entire civilized world pauses in anticipation of some expert authenticating these Killian documents, what about some other documents relevant to the Left's argument that Bush failed to meet his responsibilities in the National Guard? I mean the payroll docs.
go here:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/roane040908.htm
Posted by: Brad at September 14, 2004 12:20 PM
Brad
I understand you don't seem to think that a major "news" outlet is deliberately trying to influence the election in an illegal manner, and that is your perogative. However, even after reading the USA article what I see is quibbling over if points were done in a timely manner, with some saying GW shouldn't have been given them because they were done outside the "proper" timeframe and other saying "give it a break, leeway shown to people is not/has not been unusual."
GW has never put his service as the centerpiece of his campaign. Kerry uses his service as a substitute for any meaningful campaign.
Posted by: Darleen at September 14, 2004 12:45 PM
Even if Bush isn't making his military service the centerpiece of his campaign, doesn't his avoidance of the draft in itself bother you, just a little?
Remember what Colin Powell wrote in his 1995 memoir:
"I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well-placed. . . managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."
Posted by: Brad at September 14, 2004 03:01 PM
Avoidance of the draft?
So, you equate members of the National Guard "draft dodgers"?
Brad, you've been reasonable before, don't stop now. Words mean things.
Posted by: Darleen at September 14, 2004 07:12 PM
Yes, Darleen. I meant what I said: in case you haven't been reading much about this, the Texas Air National Guard was informally known as the "champagne unit." Can you guess why? Bush got out of Vietnam through family connections. he is in effect a draft dodger. Read Kristof's column today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15kris.html?hp
Here's an excerpt:
One fall day in 1973, when Mr. Bush was a new student at Harvard Business School, he was wearing a Guard jacket when he ran into one of his professors. The professor, Yoshi Tsurumi, says he asked Mr. Bush how he wangled a spot in the Guard.
"He said his daddy had good friends who got him in despite the long waiting list," recalls Professor Tsurumi, who is now at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. Professor Tsurumi says he next asked Mr. Bush how he could have already finished his National Guard commitment. "He said he'd gotten an early honorable discharge," Professor Tsurumi recalls. "I said, 'How did you manage that?' "
"He said, oh, his daddy had a good friend," Mr. Tsurumi said. "Then we started talking about the Vietnam War. He was all for fighting it."
you might want to check this out too:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_atrios_archive.html#109518094909043711
Posted by: Brad at September 15, 2004 06:18 AM