Seymour Hersch Profiled by Observer

Rachel Cooke of the Observer profiled legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersch. Over his long career, Hersch has broken such important stories as the My Lia massacre, Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia and the U.S.'s role in toppling Chile's president Salvador Allende. He's also contributed or followed up on reports on Watergate and Abu Ghraib among many others.

In the piece he condemns the Bush administration's march to war and criticizes the media's timidity in questioning:

"When I see the New York Times now, it's so shocking to me. I joined the Times in 1972, and I came with the mark of Cain on me because I was clearly against the war. But my editor, Abe Rosenthal, he hired me because he liked stories. He used to come to the Washington bureau and almost literally pat me on the head and say: "How is my little Commie today? What do you have for me?"

Richard Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, actually said he's "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."

Coming from that mouth, how could that not be taken as a compliment.

Divide and Conquer: Independent media denied entrance to Norm Coleman events

MnIndy's Paul Schmlzer reports that he and other independent journalists were denied access to a Norm Coleman event Friday while journalists from the MinnPost, Start Tribune and TPT were allowed in (See the video from Chuck Olson of the Uptake).

This mirrors events during the RNC protests were authorities arrested independent and community journalists while releasing credentialed ones.

As many have pointed out, the Constitution enshrines the role of journalism.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

What it doesn't do, is provide a formula for who can be a legitimate journalist. The time it was written was the era of the broadsheet and pamphlet, therefore, anyone with access to a printing press was a journalist. These days, with the internet and all, anyone who publishes, despite the format, is a journalist.

There was an attempt last year to formally recognize journalists only as those who, from journalism, earn "a substantial portion of the person's livelihood or for substantial financial gain." That one, the Free Flow of Information Act, got lost in the Senate, but it could pop up again.

I was at an Associated Press job fair yesterday with about ten local traditional newspapers. There were virtually no jobs available, even in small markets. Just internships. It was a job fair without jobs.

As the business model supporting traditional newspaper journalism cracks and flounders, these behemoths have very little advantage over scrappy outfits like the Minnesota Independent. Hell, the Independent breaks more than its share of stories. The main difference between traditional and Indie right now is one of access, essentially a privileged relationship with authorities that might speak to why so many besieged newspapers are hesitant to piss them off and perhaps lose that last bastion of their strength.

At last month's MN SPJ forum about the treatment of reporters during RNC protests, the panel included one journalist embedded with the police during protests and a cameraman who was arrested. The audience, however, consisted of community journalists who were outraged that the mainstream media was holding a conference about why they didn't get treated better, but neglected to usually ask why citizens were treated that way. Suffice to say, sitting next to the assistant police chief and deputy mayor, neither journalist showed much criticism. After all, what did they have to gain?

You know something's wrong when Norm Coleman threatens to be nice

Norm Coleman's election-year evolution continues, according to the Star Tribune.

On the week after polls show him trailing Franken and reporters hounded him about who buys his suits, he's decided, after meditating during Yom Kippur, that he should stop running negative adverstisements against Franken-- not because it didn't work but because it wasn't right.

Also, he's decided not to comment on his personal relationship with Nasser Kazeminy, who critics allege bought him fancy suits. Instead, he takes a cue from Obama:

"Nobody but me and my wife buy my suits."

He added that "Barack Obama was right. Families should be off-limits."

I think certainly the real question now should be: What exactly is the relationship with Kazeminy that qualifies him as family? This could be a bigger scandal than we thought.