A reader fisks me:
With every word you wrote here, I questioned more and more whether this was the same person I read religiously day after day. Your defense of Jon Karl is complete and utter nonsense.
When he and I were at TNR together, I saw nothing in him but good sense, good humor, and ambition.
Well, then his journalistic integrity is beyond reproach!
And the alleged sins of Karl are extremely petty – and designed to pile on after his regurgitation of Republican summaries of emails that were, shall we say, slanted a little.
Far from petty. Karl represented that he had seen the actual emails and was quoting from them firsthand. Your dismissal of his actions as “regurgitation of Republican summaries of emails” ignores the fact that they weren’t represented to readers as “summaries”, nor was it revealed that the source was a Republican. And they weren’t “slanted”; they were fabrications. Fabrications presented as fact. And Karl printed these lies and presented them as true, throwing the entirety of his journalistic integrity behind their authenticity.
But Jon apologized for being a little suckered.
Umm, nope. He didn’t apologize. Have you actually read what you linked to as an apology? Even worse, he doubled down on the fact that his story “still entirely stands.”
Yes, he’s not a left-liberal which means he may choose stories or emphases that liberals wouldn’t. But isn’t that a good thing? And isn’t it even better that a single MSM news source can include reporters of varying opinions and hold them all to the same standard?
Sorry, I was unaware journalism involved ANY sort of bias. The word “reporters” and “opinions” should never be in the same sentence. Were Karl offering his opinion, he should have said so. But instead he presented as fact complete fabrications. I don’t care about “varying opinions”; I care about being told the truth. And Karl did not tell the truth. Simple as that.
My post was a response to the notion that Karl was a “right-wing mole”. I thought that way over the top. Jon’s report was clearly flawed, but it did include the following phrase: “summaries of White House and State Department e-mails”. I also notice in the televised report, that the images are not of actual emails but obviously summaries of emails. Jon should have made that much clearer, and not directly quoted from summaries as if they were direct quotes. My guess is that he was too excited about a scoop to make that clear and hyped the story excessively. He and his editors deserve some heat. But I don’t think he’s a right-wing mole. Josh Marsall fisks Karl’s statement. Another reader:
Karl still chooses to treat the Republican agent as a source and not a provocateur. Why does he protect and not expose the person who played him for a fool? That guy/gal is clearly not a true source, as per journalistic term, and doesn’t deserve anonymity. Maybe it’s because Karl is a co-conspirator. It’s either/or.
When you and he were together at TNR, that was >20 years ago. Is he frozen in amber? Are you saying it’s not possible for people to change? Sometimes people devolve under the pressure of ambition, money, fame, etc.
Indeed they do, although I have bumped into Jon many times since and regard him as a straight-up dude who made a serious error but should not be tarred as some sort of “right-wing mole” at ABCNews. Another:
I’m sure I’m not the first and definitely won’t be the last, but it does seem that you tend toward a double standard when it comes to people you personally know. Jon Karl did not retract his story, the foundation of which was pretty much wiped out when the emails he built his story on turned out to be selectively edited by someone in the GOP. But, according to you, this is ok, because he’s a good guy and all that and sins should be forgiven ASAP. The same argument has recently been made by you when it came to Niall Ferguson’s comments about Keynes’s personal life, and also, if my memory is correct, about Michael Kelly in your series of reflections 10 years after the start of the Iraq War. In the past you’ve been prone to giving Hitch a pass when he was wrong or just downright douchey.
I’m not saying that they are bad people. What I am suggesting is that you should be more willing to call out friends when they are objectively wrong than telling your readers just how nice they are. You can let us know about their inherent goodness after you tell them they were wrong, or as in Karl’s case, still wrong. Not trying to sound like a prick, just felt obliged to let you know what a long-time reader (at least 10 years now) has noticed lately.
I take the point. I’m human. I try hard not to let that get in the way of honest blogging – and I have lost many friends over the years. After my takedown of Niall’s Romney essay, for example, he temporarily ended our friendship. I did not subsequently excuse what he said about Keynes, calling it “stupid, offensive, and absurd.” I cannot count the number of neocon or Republican friends I have burned this past decade. But when it comes to someone I respect who is killed reporting in Iraq or dying of cancer, I plead guilty to some partiality. Another long-time reader:
I’m sure I’m not the only one reminding you of what you wrote about Dan Rather:
Rather and Heyward must resign. The original error was bad enough; the refusal to acknowledge it is inexplicable. And who is the source? There is no need for a reporter to keep confidential the identity of a source who provided false and fake information. That’s the next ten-ton shoe to drop on Dan’s head. It’s over, boyo. Leave now.
Why is it different for Jon Karl? Have you changed your mind on the situation? Why?
If I were to defend myself on that one, it would be that Karl did not get completely fabricated data, but skewed data that he should have followed up on more closely. It’s also true, as Kessler notes, that the State Department was implicitly among all the agencies Ben Rhodes tried to reconcile. But I don’t think this story by Karl was politically motivated. And my short post was defending him from an over-the-top attack on his integrity. I was a little too forgiving and glib in retrospect. Which is what you readers are there for. Thanks.
The Dish 