The Political Chase

Must Read - Joe Klein and Time Mag’s Malpractice

Joe Klein

(Update below)

Joe Klein and Time magazine published an article last week on the pending FISA legislation that has ultimately turned out to be one of the most irresponsible, deceitful, inaccurate, and despicable cases of so-called reporting in generations. This is must reading for anybody, but if you are one of the more than 4 million print subscribers to Time or countless others that read the periodical online, this is indeed must-read information, because readers havebeen grossly lied to.

Klein’s November 21 article, “The Tone-Deaf Democrats”, has so many falsehoods and libelous statements about the Democrats and their proposed bill for FISA revisions, that it should have been titled “How Many Lies and Slander Can I Cram into an 823-word Article.” It is so incredibly bad, Rush Limbaugh would have probably been embarrassed to have his name on the byline.

In fact, Klein and Time’s gross malpractice of journalism is so bad, The Center for Citizen Media, which is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School labeled

Klein’s behavior “Shameful ‘Journalism’,” and [contended] that the “flagrantly inaccurate and misguided Time magazine column by Joe Klein” is “[o]ne of the most amazing episodes in modern American journalism.” They concluded: Klein’s “work in this case may become Exhibit A for what’s wrong with the craft today.”

Although this does not come remotely close to capturing all that is wrong with the article or the institution of Time, much of the controversy begins with this excerpt.

Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.

Often times an author that has gone rogue bears most of the responsibility for a bad article or two, but that is not the case presented here. The institution of Time and Joe Klein are guilty of duplicity.

Glenn Greenwald has skillfully and accurately captured the fraudulent, propaganda that Klein is reporting as well as Time willfully and knowingly publishing material that seems more fitting to a Karl Rove political playbook.

As of now, Glenn has four separate pieces on the matter. If time is an issue, try beginning with his second post, “Time magazine’s FISA fiasco…” and continue. Otherwise, these are the relevant posts in chronological order.

1. Joe Klein: Both factually false and stuck in the 1980s
2. Time magazine’s FISA fiasco shows how Beltway reporters mislead the country
3. Time magazine lavishly rewards journalistic malpractice
4. Joe Klein digs Time’s hole deeper still

Update: Jane Hamsher at FDL has been chasing the Joe Klein, Time issue as relentlessly as Glenn Greenwald has. She has been trying to contact the Time editor responsible for Klein’s column and was finally successful.

I’ve spent all morning on the phone trying to figure out who the editor at Time Magazine was on Joe Klein’s FISA column (the one Klein has now written about five times, fully admitting he never read the original bill). I finally confirmed that the editor was Priscilla Painton, and called her and identified myself. I asked her what the editing process was, and how a piece with so many errors made it into print.

Her response?

“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.

Wrong answer and approach. Way wrong answer. The woman just stirred the pot more.

Jane has more "stuff"here on the Time GOP water-carriers and stenographers, including the names of multiple editors and their phone numbers (including Klein’s direct editor). You can start here.