JournoList
Encyclopedia
JournoList was a private Google Groups
forum for discussing politics and the news media with 400 "left-leaning"
journalists, academics and others. Ezra Klein
created the online forum in February 2007 while blogging at The American Prospect
and shut it down in June 2010. He controlled the forum's membership and limited it to "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics".
Posts within JournoList were intended only be made and read by its members.
Klein defended the forum structure saying that it ensures "that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions".
, "[T]he group as a whole did not jointly participate" in any particular discussion thread. "Almost every discussion was limited to a small percentage of the group that was interested in the topic. Most people ignored most of the topics".
Klein justified excluding conservatives from participation as "not about fostering ideology but preventing a collapse into flame war. The emphasis is on empiricism
, not ideology".
JournoList member, and Time magazine columnist, Joe Klein
said the off-the-record nature of the forum was necessary because “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private”.
. However, the forum did not attract serious attention until March 17, 2009 when an article published on Politico
detailed the nature of the forum and the extent of its membership.
The Politico article set off debate within the Blogosphere
over the ethics of participating in JournoList and raised questions about its overall purpose. The first public excerpt of a discussion within JournoList was posted by Mickey Kaus on his blog on March 26, 2009.
On June 25, 2010, The Daily Caller
published private e-mails from David Weigel
denigrating conservatives, whom he covered for the paper.
That same day, Weigel resigned from the Post, and Klein, who announced in his Washington Post blog that he would shortly terminate the JournoList group. On June 25, JournoList — the listserv that hosted Weigel's disparaging e-mails — was deleted by Klein. Weigel's resignation caused Klein to decide to terminate the discussion group.
On June 29, commentator and Web publisher Andrew Breitbart
offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who could provide him with the "full 'JournoList' archive, source fully protected". Brietbart wrote, "Ezra Klein’s 'JournoList 400' is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism".
. The contributors discussed killing the Wright story, as it was reflecting negatively on Barack Obama
. In a separate discussion, about an ABC News-sponsored debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton, Michael Tomasky
, a writer for The Guardian
, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks – in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people". James Taranto
observed that one JournoList contributor, Spencer Ackerman
of The Washington Independent, stated "If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes
, Karl Rove
, who cares – and call them racists".
Ackerman was also quoted as saying, "find a right winger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously, I mean this rhetorically." In response, Daily Caller commentator Jim Treacher
posted a photo of a building with multiple plate glass-windows destroyed with text over the building reading "Ackerman Wuz Hear"
(a LOLCats reference).
The Daily Caller published a story by Jonathan Strong on July 21 about JournoList members wanting the federal government to shut down Fox News. According to Strong, Jonathan Zasloff, a UCLA law professor, wrote that the government should be able to pull the broadcasting license of the cable channel. But Zasloff later said Strong did not correctly characterize his comment, which was "really more of a question than anything else, and nobody really picked up on it. That turns into my demand to shut down Fox News?" The article also reported that one member of the discussion group, Sarah Spitz, a producer for a public affairs radio program at a National Public Radio affiliate station, wrote that she would laugh if she saw conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
have a heart attack in front of her. "On JournoList," according to the DC article, "where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it [the comment] barely raised an eyebrow". On the day Strong's story was published, Spitz apologized for the comment. The article also quoted Ryan Donmoyer, a reporter for Bloomberg News, comparing members of the Tea Party movement to Nazis. Strong wrote, "In the view of many who’ve posted to the list-serv, conservatives aren’t simply wrong, they are evil".
Jeffrey Toobin
, journalist at The New Yorker
and CNN
, wrote regarding the pick of Sarah Palin
as running mate to John McCain
, "what a joke. . . . I always thought that some part of McCain doesn’t want to be president, and this choice proves my point. Welcome back, Admiral Stockdale
."
Tucker Carlson
, who edited several of Strong's articles about Journolist, wrote in a July 22 article: "Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too. [...] I've been in journalism my entire adult life, and have often defended it against fellow conservatives who claim the news business is fundamentally corrupt. It's harder to make that defense now. It will be easier when honest (and, yes, liberal) journalists denounce what happened on Journolist as wrong".
Fred Barnes
, executive editor of The Weekly Standard
, discussed JournoList saying, ". . . hundreds of journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList, to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism".
, writing in The Washington Post, argued that "perspective is needed here." She stated that comments had "been presented out of context and, besides, were offered as part of an ongoing argument among colleagues who believed they were acting in good faith that theirs was a private conversation." She also referred to JournoList writings as "the private comments of people who, for the most part, have no significant power" and had an expectation not to be 'outed'.
List member Joe Klein wrote at his Time blog, "The views I expressed on Journolist were the views I express here." He identified himself as moderate compared to most leftist members, who subjected his ideas to "onslaughts". He stated that allegations that list members colluded to produce talking points or plan activities with each other are simply false and the group debated with each with members valuing their individuality. He recounted that the only time list members could agree on "joint actions" was "meeting up at some bar".
Foster Kamer of The Village Voice
, who was not a JournoList member, has remarked that, emphasis in original, "off-the-record means off-the-record, and [] an assault on a journalist's right to express him or herself in private is an assault on both the freedom of the fourth estate and free speech in general". Greg Sargent of The Washington Post, a list member, criticized Carlson for not posting JournoList threads in their entirety. He wrote that "publishing them would make it tougher to paint J-Listers as a secretive and omnipotent political cabal, rather than just a bunch of geeks and eggheads venting and arguing about politics".
Ezra Klein recounted Tucker Carlson's effort to become a member of JournoList, which he said he supported, and wrote:
After Klein shut down JournoList, a new group, calling itself "Cabalist" was started by Jonathan Cohn
of The New Republic
, Michelle Goldberg
and Steven Teles, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University
. The group, which had 173 members by late July, was made up mostly of former Journolist members. Its existence managed to stay secret for several weeks, until The Atlantic magazine correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg
revealed its existence in a blog post on July 21. Goldberg reported that one recent discussion concerned whether or not members should ignore the articles on The Daily Caller website. "In other words, members of Journolist 2.0 were debating whether to collectively respond to a Daily Caller story alleging—inaccurately, in their minds—that members of Journolist 1.0 (the same people, of course) made collective decisions about what to write".
Google Groups
Google Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....
forum for discussing politics and the news media with 400 "left-leaning"
journalists, academics and others. Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a liberal American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, columnist for Bloomberg, a columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC...
created the online forum in February 2007 while blogging at The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
and shut it down in June 2010. He controlled the forum's membership and limited it to "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics".
Posts within JournoList were intended only be made and read by its members.
Klein defended the forum structure saying that it ensures "that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions".
Descriptions of the group by its members
According to JournoList member Jonathan ChaitJonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait is a writer for New York magazine. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and a former assistant editor of The American Prospect. He also writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.- Personal life :...
, "[T]he group as a whole did not jointly participate" in any particular discussion thread. "Almost every discussion was limited to a small percentage of the group that was interested in the topic. Most people ignored most of the topics".
Klein justified excluding conservatives from participation as "not about fostering ideology but preventing a collapse into flame war. The emphasis is on empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
, not ideology".
JournoList member, and Time magazine columnist, Joe Klein
Joe Klein
Joe Klein is a longtime Washington, D.C. and New York journalist and columnist, known for his novel Primary Colors, an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim...
said the off-the-record nature of the forum was necessary because “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private”.
Initial controversies
The existence of JournoList was first publicly revealed in a July 27, 2007 blog post by blogger Mickey KausMickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
. However, the forum did not attract serious attention until March 17, 2009 when an article published on Politico
The Politico
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
detailed the nature of the forum and the extent of its membership.
The Politico article set off debate within the Blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
over the ethics of participating in JournoList and raised questions about its overall purpose. The first public excerpt of a discussion within JournoList was posted by Mickey Kaus on his blog on March 26, 2009.
On June 25, 2010, The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller is a news website based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a focus on politics, original reporting and breaking news, founded by journalist and political pundit Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, former adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney...
published private e-mails from David Weigel
David Weigel
David "Dave" Weigel , is an American journalist, currently working for Slate magazine and MSNBC. Weigel began appearing on MSNBC in 2009, accepting a position as a paid contributor in June 2010...
denigrating conservatives, whom he covered for the paper.
That same day, Weigel resigned from the Post, and Klein, who announced in his Washington Post blog that he would shortly terminate the JournoList group. On June 25, JournoList — the listserv that hosted Weigel's disparaging e-mails — was deleted by Klein. Weigel's resignation caused Klein to decide to terminate the discussion group.
On June 29, commentator and Web publisher Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...
offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who could provide him with the "full 'JournoList' archive, source fully protected". Brietbart wrote, "Ezra Klein’s 'JournoList 400' is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism".
Statements by JournoList members and responses
On July 20, 2010, The Daily Caller (DC) published the dialog of the JournoList concerning Jeremiah WrightJeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr. is Pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ , a megachurch in Chicago exceeding 6,000 members...
. The contributors discussed killing the Wright story, as it was reflecting negatively on Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. In a separate discussion, about an ABC News-sponsored debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton, Michael Tomasky
Michael Tomasky
Michael Tomasky is a liberal American columnist, journalist and author. He is the editor in chief of Democracy, a special correspondent for Newsweek / The Daily Beast, a contributing editor for The American Prospect, and a contributor to The New York Review of Books.-Biography:Tomasky was born...
, a writer for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks – in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people". James Taranto
James Taranto
James Taranto is an American columnist for The Wall Street Journal, editor of its online editorial page OpinionJournal.com and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is best known for his daily online column Best of the Web Today...
observed that one JournoList contributor, Spencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman is an American national security reporter and blogger. He began his career at The New Republic and currently writes for Wired magazine's national security blog, ....
of The Washington Independent, stated "If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes
Fred Barnes (journalist)
Frederic W. Barnes is an American political commentator. He is the executive editor of the news publication The Weekly Standard and regularly appears on the Fox News Channel program Special Report with Bret Baier...
, Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
, who cares – and call them racists".
Ackerman was also quoted as saying, "find a right winger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously, I mean this rhetorically." In response, Daily Caller commentator Jim Treacher
Jim Treacher
Jim Treacher is the nom de plume of American political pundit Sean Medlock. He is the in-house blogger for Tucker Carlson's news website, The Daily Caller. Treacher's weblog hosted by the Caller is entitled The DC Trawler...
posted a photo of a building with multiple plate glass-windows destroyed with text over the building reading "Ackerman Wuz Hear"
Kilroy was here
Kilroy was here is an American popular culture expression, often seen in graffiti. Its origins are debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle—a bald-headed man with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with the fingers of each hand clutching the wall—is widely known among U.S...
(a LOLCats reference).
The Daily Caller published a story by Jonathan Strong on July 21 about JournoList members wanting the federal government to shut down Fox News. According to Strong, Jonathan Zasloff, a UCLA law professor, wrote that the government should be able to pull the broadcasting license of the cable channel. But Zasloff later said Strong did not correctly characterize his comment, which was "really more of a question than anything else, and nobody really picked up on it. That turns into my demand to shut down Fox News?" The article also reported that one member of the discussion group, Sarah Spitz, a producer for a public affairs radio program at a National Public Radio affiliate station, wrote that she would laugh if she saw conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
have a heart attack in front of her. "On JournoList," according to the DC article, "where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it [the comment] barely raised an eyebrow". On the day Strong's story was published, Spitz apologized for the comment. The article also quoted Ryan Donmoyer, a reporter for Bloomberg News, comparing members of the Tea Party movement to Nazis. Strong wrote, "In the view of many who’ve posted to the list-serv, conservatives aren’t simply wrong, they are evil".
Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, and legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker.-Early life and education:...
, journalist at The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, wrote regarding the pick of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
as running mate to John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
, "what a joke. . . . I always thought that some part of McCain doesn’t want to be president, and this choice proves my point. Welcome back, Admiral Stockdale
James Stockdale
Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy.Stockdale led aerial attacks from the carrier during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident...
."
Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is an American political news correspondent and conservative commentator for the Fox News Channel...
, who edited several of Strong's articles about Journolist, wrote in a July 22 article: "Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too. [...] I've been in journalism my entire adult life, and have often defended it against fellow conservatives who claim the news business is fundamentally corrupt. It's harder to make that defense now. It will be easier when honest (and, yes, liberal) journalists denounce what happened on Journolist as wrong".
Fred Barnes
Fred Barnes (journalist)
Frederic W. Barnes is an American political commentator. He is the executive editor of the news publication The Weekly Standard and regularly appears on the Fox News Channel program Special Report with Bret Baier...
, executive editor of The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
, discussed JournoList saying, ". . . hundreds of journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList, to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism".
Defense of JournoList members
Kathleen ParkerKathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker is an American syndicated columnist. Her columns are syndicated nationally by The Washington Post. Parker is a consulting faculty member at the Buckley School of Public Speaking, and is a regular guest on television shows like The O'Reilly Factor and The Chris Matthews Show....
, writing in The Washington Post, argued that "perspective is needed here." She stated that comments had "been presented out of context and, besides, were offered as part of an ongoing argument among colleagues who believed they were acting in good faith that theirs was a private conversation." She also referred to JournoList writings as "the private comments of people who, for the most part, have no significant power" and had an expectation not to be 'outed'.
List member Joe Klein wrote at his Time blog, "The views I expressed on Journolist were the views I express here." He identified himself as moderate compared to most leftist members, who subjected his ideas to "onslaughts". He stated that allegations that list members colluded to produce talking points or plan activities with each other are simply false and the group debated with each with members valuing their individuality. He recounted that the only time list members could agree on "joint actions" was "meeting up at some bar".
Foster Kamer of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, who was not a JournoList member, has remarked that, emphasis in original, "off-the-record means off-the-record, and [] an assault on a journalist's right to express him or herself in private is an assault on both the freedom of the fourth estate and free speech in general". Greg Sargent of The Washington Post, a list member, criticized Carlson for not posting JournoList threads in their entirety. He wrote that "publishing them would make it tougher to paint J-Listers as a secretive and omnipotent political cabal, rather than just a bunch of geeks and eggheads venting and arguing about politics".
Ezra Klein recounted Tucker Carlson's effort to become a member of JournoList, which he said he supported, and wrote:
"I want to be very clear about what I was suggesting: Adding someone to the list meant giving them access to the entirety of the archives. That didn't bother me very much. Sure, you could comb through tens of thousands of e-mails and pull intemperate moments and inartful wording out of context to embarrass people, but so long as you weren't there with an eye towards malice, you'd recognize it for what it was: A wonkish, fun, political yelling match. If it had been an international media conspiracy, I'd have never considered opening it up.
The idea was voted down. People worried about opening the archives to individuals who could help their careers by ripping e-mails out of context, misrepresenting the nature of the ongoing conversation, and bringing the world an exclusive look into The Great Journolist Conspiracy, as opposed to the daily life of Journolist, which even Carlson describes as 'actually pretty banal'".
After Klein shut down JournoList, a new group, calling itself "Cabalist" was started by Jonathan Cohn
Jonathan Cohn
Jonathan Cohn is an American author and journalist who writes mainly on United States public policy and political issues. Formerly the executive editor of The American Prospect, Cohn is currently a senior editor at The New Republic magazine and a senior fellow at Demos.-Works:Cohn's writings have...
of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Michelle Goldberg
Michelle Goldberg
Michelle Goldberg is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the author of the books Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. She is formerly a contributing writer at Salon.com...
and Steven Teles, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
. The group, which had 173 members by late July, was made up mostly of former Journolist members. Its existence managed to stay secret for several weeks, until The Atlantic magazine correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
revealed its existence in a blog post on July 21. Goldberg reported that one recent discussion concerned whether or not members should ignore the articles on The Daily Caller website. "In other words, members of Journolist 2.0 were debating whether to collectively respond to a Daily Caller story alleging—inaccurately, in their minds—that members of Journolist 1.0 (the same people, of course) made collective decisions about what to write".