Who the hell is Julie Bosman?
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And why does anyone care what she thinks?
Lambert asks what is up with the latest craptaculence from Julie Bosman's keyboard, and where have all the decent reporters gone? Good questions; there’s a story beneath the story here, and it encapsulates everything that is wrong with what is fraudulently passed off as contemporary “journalism.” Let’s dig down into the muck a bit, shall we?
Can you answer that first question? Do you know anything at all about Julie Bosman? I thought not.
She has a prominent position as a political reporter with the New York Times, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world and a basic reference source for news outlets across the globe; she is frequently and prominently published there, under a single byline as well as collaboratively, closely following and opining on the presidential primaries while focusing dominantly on the Democrats. She traveled with Edwards, and after him with Clinton; she has been the Times’ inside source reporter, providing the world with a close-up and personal look at the candidates and their campaigns including the piece Lambert cites, backed by the full force and credit of “The Paper Of Record”.
That’s a lot of influence, and you don’t know one damn thing about her.
Julie Bosman is a Badger. No, not literally; she went to the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she actually majored in journalism. She was so successfully badger-like that she clawed her way to the top of the body-pile, becoming editor-in-chief of the student-run Badger Herald newspaper. While in that position she accepted a paid advertisement from arch-reactionary David Horowitz, condemning any examination of the concept of reparations for the descendents of American slavery on the basis that those descendents are actually economic beneficiaries of the suffering of their ancestors.
Surprisingly to Julie, considerable student unrest followed, with calls for Bosman to either issue an apology for publishing the ad or to resign. She refused to do either, claiming freedom of speech; that the ad was a paid statement, rather than a staff or guest analysis or opinion piece, made for her no difference. Nor did she recognize that trading space to advance an onerous agenda for money in a student-run newspaper conferred at a minimum an acceptance on behalf of the student body that the argument advanced was legitimate. In her view, she had the authority to dictate ethical standards for all students and she would not be cowed into submission by condemnation from the students themselves. In recognition of her defiance of decency and common sense, the rigidly reactionary Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship presented her with their "Academic Freedom Award" – which she gladly accepted.
But Julie wasn’t satisfied with small-town Mid-Western journalism, oh no; when she graduated in 2001 she cast her hungry badger eyes eastward, towards bright lights and the big city, where she could trade her journalistic bona fides for fun, fame and profit.
What she landed was a job as a gofer assistant for the inestimable Maureen Dowd. If there was anyone in all of America that an aspiring young journalist would turn to as a mentor for competence, thoroughness and sophistication in the craft, it would certainly be Dowd. But somehow that didn’t work out. After a while, Julie wanted bigger things, and the senior editors cast around for somewhere that she could be useful. What to do with a young eager beaver badger with far-right sympathies, trained by the Queen of Vapid herself in the art of character assassination? How about the Edwards campaign?
Who better, really? The last thing wanted by The Powers That Be is someone who would focus their reports on matters of substance, on Edwards’ policy proposals for honesty in government and the concept that common citizens should be the primary focus and sole beneficiaries of governmental action. Can’t have that being discussed, someone might pay attention and Edwards could get traction. Best to cut him off at the knees, and Bosman’s right-wing framing would provide the perfect approach; plus, with Dowd’s tutelage, young Julie could be counted on to deliver the kind of airy, cutting defamation that would ensure Edwards was trivialized and rendered into a caricature rather than a legitimate candidate.
And Julie delivered what her masters wanted. Go read her if you must, but the extensive body of work that is her Edwards campaign coverage essentially oscillates between feeling sorry for herself over the rigors of the road (with a corporate credit card in her purse) and the incessant demands on her time (imagine, having to pay attention all day long to someone as boring as John Edwards while he talks about the dangers and opportunities facing America, yawn) while finding just the right tone with which to expound on one meaningless triviality after another while falsely implying that they represent issues of importance.
In one memorable sequence, she first complained that she was having trouble keeping up with Edwards’ “breakneck” schedule; the Edwards people were simply not leaving enough slack in the day for her to get her personal needs met. A week later she had decided to abandon trying to keep pace and leapfrogged ahead, freeing up some time to do her nails or whatever and then wait for Edwards to come to her. Horrifically, however, she sometimes actually did have to wait because Edwards was running late due to his “breakneck” schedule; again, she wrote, no matter what she did the Edwards people were once again wasting her time!
What could a hard-working journalist do, trapped with time on her hands at a venue full of involved, politically aware citizens with an acute interest in the electoral process? Interview them? Well, perhaps; what could it hurt? Finally fed up beyond endurance, Bosman stirred herself enough to speak with one woman who was leaving an event where Edwards was late and got this dramatic quote:
“In Lebanon, N.H., Karen Swanson headed for the exit with a friend after nearly a half-hour. ‘We can’t wait anymore,’ Ms. Swanson said.
Nearly a half-hour? Well now, that is quite a wait. I've stood around longer than that just to get fresh Krispy Kremes, but Bosman found great import in that simple statement; she has a gift for, ah, intuiting. It became the basis for a repeated litany, that Edwards was offending voters and politicians by his tardiness. The “breakneck” schedule construct morphed into implying that he was trying to be too many places at once, and that in turn came to suggest that he was trying to be too many things to different people.
Not true, of course; Edwards was, if anything, consistent to the point of repetitiousness, but what fun would there be to writing about those boring, boring policy issues? Much better to make up claims about how annoying the man was, about how pissed off everybody was getting because of his nasty, awful schedule. Bosman went so far as to claim that politicians were choosing to endorse other candidates because Edwards was too often late for his speaking engagements. If she was offended, surely so was everyone else.
But then the Edwards campaign stuttered and stalled, in no small measure because he couldn’t get his arguments covered by the media; amazing, that. Another feather in the cap of ace protector of free speech and degreed professional journalist Julie. Surely, having taken down the human target to whom she was assigned, she would be brought back to the Home Swarm Office in triumph – but no. Back on the road she went, this time on the trail of Clinton, her next target. Julie was again not pleased with her life, and again it was all the fault of the horrid, horrid candidate.
Which brings us to now, and this little hit piece; a classic of the genre, in which Bosman once more takes a collection of small and large facts and warps them into slander. Her title alleges that Clinton and her supporters have become “subdued” based upon behavior at precisely three meetings with small groups. One, in rural South Dakota, is described as small and quiet. Newsflash, Julie; most of rural South Dakota – actually, most of the whole state of South Dakota – has a population density of less than 5 people per square mile. More than a handful of unrelated people together in rural South Dakota is a large crowd, and relative to Neeew Yorrrk Cit-eeh the people of South Dakota actually are by nature quiet and reserved. That’s quiet and reserved, like mature adults, Julie; not “subdued” like slaves.
Rather than characterize the meeting as civil and calm, and take the opportunity to discuss the regional variations in American character and what that might mean for the fall campaign, Bosman instead compares it to of all things the bizarre incident when Obama was applauded while blowing his nose. She describes the applause as thunderous – it was no more than scattered – and suggests that this shows a difference between the candidates in voter enthusiasm. One might as easily speculate on what it is about Obama that attracts people with a fetishistic enthusiasm for mucous.
She also cites a living room meeting with six people, described as “a group in which reporters outnumbered supporters by at least 3 to 1.” Let’s hope it was no more than that; 20 people in a living room is enough. Julie nailed the important fact, the reporter count, but said nothing about what those six voters had to say. Perhaps all her time was spent counting to 18 without kicking off her shoes. The third event was Clinton stopping by a campaign phone bank above a store in Salem, Oregon; a small room, with – as the photo shows – volunteers still answering the phones. Why, at any of these, would Clinton have to raise her voice; why would any of the attendees have had to shout? Since when is calm, deliberate and thoughtful equivalent to “subdued”? Only in the mind of the Dowd-trained Bosman.
The fact that Clinton picked up $400K at a couple of whirlwind fundraisers got no more than a mention. That this display of substantial continued financial support might indicate not everyone is buying the “Surrender!” imperative is not discussed, nor is there any reflection on what Clinton’s campaign persistence might say about the relative appeal of herself or her policies. It is all nothing more than a source of annoyance to Julie. Why, she alludes, again and again; WWTSBQ?
While Clinton visited with her admirers, Bosman did find time for one of her trademark quickie interviews, this time with a 29-year-old store clerk named Tim who only stuck his nose in to be able to say he’d seen Clinton in the flesh:
“I don’t really get the point of her carrying on. If it’s done, it’s done.”
Insightful, that; one twenty-something to another, exactly the sort of contemptuous, denigrative, vapid verbal barb that would appeal to dear Julie. Just because she didn’t have time to write anything meaningful about Clinton, or the campaign, I’m sure everyone will give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that her little one-on-one with Tim on top of the feed sacks in the back storeroom (according to an anonymous source* in, ahem, a position to know) was worth the effort.
[Oh, Tim? Tim! TIM! Listen up. That rash is not from the burlap. One word – Penicillin. All’s I’m saying.]
So there you have it. The New.York.Times. deliberately sent a right-wing hack – hell, an Award-Winning right-wing hack – with a graduate degree in MoDo out to tube Edwards’ campaign, and when she finished that she got sicced on Clinton to do the same thing. If Bosman can undermine Obama in the general, she’ll have won the 2008 Destructive Reporter Triple Crown. Sigh. This is what is meant by contemporary “journalism”; it would be sad if it weren’t so disgusting. On the other hand, always instructive to watch a pro do her tricks.
Don’t you feel better, now that you’re informed?
* About the validity of anonymous sources in legitimate journalism.
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Comments
MoDo's gofer....
Somehow, I think that tag is going to stick with Our Julie...
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Thank you Lambert
Homophones. Must have been the menagerie of badgers and beavers prancing through my brain.
Great piece Bringiton, I love it. What a sham and a shame.
I love this job!
i confess, dearest and beloved BIO: i stopped at
"modo." anyone in that set is dead to me, worse than dead- beyond salvation, for your gawd talkers. anyway, yawn, and yeah. "yawn," oh, look, another well paid, no talent, hack of a hack villager is paid more than lambert for work of lower quality and less factuality. this isn't news. it's called "propaganda in a pseudofascist state" and it's what we all live, even if we don't all know it.
but, "yeah!" for an excellent takedown. perhaps some here didn't know this, still cared to think the NYT is something other than the Olde Grey Whore, etc. you are a teacher with this post, i hope and pray (heh) that the lesser and uninformed will come across it, hear/read it, and take heed.
i'm not really holding my breath, tho. what else is the (librul) blogosphere, but one big virtual CV/bio/cheat sheet/prize winning text about the fact that, "hey, the SCLM lies and is full of hacks!" 8+ years later, the smarter among us know this, and have Moved On.
This Election's Richard Berke
It appears that the Democratic candidate bashing torch has been passed to a new generation.
In 2000 the Times sent Richard Berke out to misreport the Al Gore campaign. Berke transferred from doing as much damage as possible to Al Gore to marquee Bush sycophant.
A NYT career path. Berke is now Assistant Managing Editor.
Before that they sent Gerth
to misrepresent Whitewater.
There's a long history here.
As for TNR, which has a similar anonymice story, I don't know how anyone can take a publication seriously that published a false take down of the 1994 Clinton healthcare plan, the Bell Curve bullshit, and beat the drums for the Iraq War.
It's not just that nobody hold politicians accountable. Nobody holds anyone in the Village accountable for anything. These people are never called on their bullshit. They're never fired. They simply move from job to job, still considered people who should be taken seriously. All you need to know about Andy Sullivan is that he still defends the Bell Curve piece. That should make him a joke right there.
Julie
That stable of hacks referred to as journalists need to take early retirement, Dowd, Brooks, Friedman, Collins, Kristol, to name a few. How many "snarks" do they need over there? And is anyone actually covering the news?
She sounds....
icky.
If Santorum's name became associated with an unfortunate sexual by-product, can't 'Bosman' be repurposed for some sort of skin-affecting social disease? Because that's her effect on the body politic, I tell you what.
Hack away
Re the reparations/Horowitz thing: Although Bosman's decision to print Horowitz' paid propaganda in the Badger Herald certainly was cause for righteous indignation, a better approach would have been for somebody to take out their own ad in the paper destroying Horowitz' specious argument. Lots of people believe that crap about succeeding generations of blacks benefiting from their ancestors' suffering (I'm sure you've all heard Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan cited as "proof"); besides, a condemnation from the paper was what Horowitz was fishing for, so that he could give his camp-followers further proof of "censorship" of conservative ideas on campus.
Apart from that, I'm not so sure that Bosman is a right-wing hack so much as she's one of those quasi-libertarian types who'd like to do away with most of the social structure so that naturally talented individuals like herself could rise to the top without hinderance from the peasantry.
...for the rest of us
The kindly Dr. Sardonicus
Horowitz’ statement was offensive, and should have been accompanied by an editorial disclaimer. Take his money, let him have his say, then rip him to little pieces. IMHO an eminently teachable moment, ripe for a discussion about social ills and responsibilities, who owes what to whom and how to make amends. She chose an authoritarian defense of Horowtz’ rights to demonstrate her own power. Petty tyrant.
I'd have let her slide a little if it hadn't been for the SAFS award. Bunch of stiff-necked reactionaries, that crowd. She accepted, her choice, so lie down with dogs etc as far as I'm concerned. That, and the opportunity of a lifetime to cover Edwards and Clinton pissed away with cutesy jibes and petty whinging, a stifling of their messages in service of her own ambition and subservient to a powerful evil. So. “By their acts ye shall know them…”
My country's future she's been fucking around with. My future; my children's futures. My "feel empathy for" queue is full right now. The FLDS are sucking up all the spare goodiness, and I'm trying to set some aside for Obama.
It's not surprising
that the Badger Herald would run a David Horowitz ad - it would be surprising if they turned it away. The BH was founded around 1970 by the Young Americans for Freedom (or some equally loony group of wingers - it was founded basically to oppose opposition to the VietNam War). Ergo, there is no question that Bosman, as former editor of the BH, is a right-wing hack - that would be a requirement for the job.
The official University of Wisconsin newspaper is the Daily Cardinal, and is (was? - haven't seen it in many years) strongly leftist. And in defense of UW, they've turned out a lot better class of reporters over the years - Jeff Greenfield being about the worst (I believe he wrote for the Cardinal), Jim Rowen (George McGovern's son-in-law) was very good writing for the Cardinal, David Marannis at WaPo, and a number of 60 minutes producers (including the one played by Al Pacino in The Insider) were UW grads. And of course the best and most reliable news source in the US - The Onion - was founded at UW too.
Don't pick on Badgers - they're fierce and easily angered.
No decent badgers were harmed in the making of this post
My Mom's a Badger, native-born. Many relatives there; spent many summers in Wisconsin and I have great affection for the land and the people, so no offense intended.
Ms Bosman, however; not so much. Rabid badger; it happens. The Badger Herald is a student paper, school sanctioned and entwined. I'm old-fashioned; I think that all of an academic institution has a responsibility to teach, most of all to teach how to learn. Ideology must be set aside, or that mission fails.
Please do some investigation
It's simple enough to go to Wikipedia and type in "Badger Herald", where the first sentence in the article will tell you that the BH is an independent newspaper produced by a non-profit founded by UW students, but in no way affiliated with the UW or school sanctioned. Entwined - I couldn't say. I never read it unless somebody left one laying on a table in the student union. (And if Wikipedia says so, it must be true).
So it has nothing to do with an academic institution's responsibility to teach how to learn, unless you believe that academic institutions should produce only cookie-cutter liberal creative class types (which is probably a concept that would find favor at some other blogs I used to read).
The fact is that if you believe the BH is "entwined" with the UW as an institution, then the same applies to the The Daily Show, MST3K, the Steve Miller Band and the movie Airplane, since all are independent products involving UW students just like the BH.
I think that's taking guilt by association a little far though. And apparently even the Daily Cardinal is no longer officially associated with the UW, although it used to be. The Badger Herald never was and still isn't.
As for right-wing hackery
Maybe Julie Bosman is, maybe she isn't - the evidence Badger presents is more persuasive than her petty jabs at Edwards and Clinton. As the late Vince Foster reminded us, cutting down people is just something the Village scribes do for sport. A lot of those hacks have no ideology, they're just nihilistic opportunists who have no values that can't be measured in dollars and cents.
...for the rest of us
judy miller lives!! aghhhhhhh
judy miller propagates!
or, more appropriately,
the nytimes propagates judy millers.
NYT propagates Judy Millers
LOL
The “Dunning-Kruger Effect"
From here:
Within a nepotistic industry, of which the media as a whole is an example and the news media a distilled, compressed exemplar, incompetence can suffuse not just a single enterprise but the entire interlocking assemblage.
This is what is happening to the MSM news titans, including the NYT; Julie Bosman is merely a symptom.
Consider this; there are three well-established, tested and proven actions that an organization can take to limit the damage caused by managerial incompetence:
Without getting into nuance here, just take those imperatives in the simplest way possible and ask how many of them you see being applied to MSM news.
That didn't take long to analyze, did it? None of them are employed, anywhere, which tells us one of two things. Either the whole of the MSM is but the tool of a global nefarious plot controlled by some supersecret organization bent on destroying civilization as we know it and ruling over the resulting rubble - which I don't believe - or the Peter Principle has come to apply to the MSM as a whole; they are all of them incompetent, starting at the top.
The latter is, I am certain, the case. Neither the NYT nor WaPo nor CBS nor ABC nor any of the major news gathering and analysis organizations of 50 years ago would tolerate the incompetence that is now not just the standard operating condition but apparently a precondition for hire.
Incompetent people have risen to the top, and they are hiring even more incompetent people below them. The whole edifice is beginning to crumble, and will one day soon collapse. This is a good thing. New constructs, like the internet, will emerge to replace the old ways and we will all be better for it.
Julie Bosman and other infestations like her are agents of change, just as surely as are individuals of integrity slaving away at a "C" level blog trying to tell the truth in a way that can be understood and propagated. Someday soon, the structures that allowed MoDo and Brooks and Kristol and all the others to rise to prominence will fail; the collapse will be from both their own internal rot and from outside pressure.
It will be dangerous and messy and spectacular. And it will be a very good thing when it happens.
[As this descends below the fold, thanks much to all for the comments; complementary as well as challenging. All greatly appreciated.]
C. Northcote Parkinson...
... calls this injelitance.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Why News Divisions Are Like Soap Operas (No, Really)
I started putting my soap opera post together and believe it or not the reasons for the decline of that once great media institution are, I believe, also relevant to the decline of journalism. There are so many outlets today with 24-hour cable news channels, local stations, newspapers, weblogs - there simply isn't enough of a talent pool to staff it. Add to that issue, the industry has also suffered through significant financial losses. Newspaper ad revenue and subscriptions are down. Television, which used to subsidize the news, can't do that anymore, in part, because increased competition for its non-news programs has decreased their profitability and, in part, because they can't earn enough to subsidize 24/7 cable news channels.
So you have less talent to go around and less money to pay for it. The result is that the truly competent and talented people are outnumbered. And the experienced people are often thrown out for some young kid who will work for half the older person's salary. It's Another World all over again, first you cut the veterans because you can't afford their salaries, then audience levels fall because nobody wants to watch bad actors, then you have to cut more talented people, until finally all that's left are the few, the inexperienced, the talentless. That's when cancellation comes.
Hopefully, you're right BIO, and the entire thing will collapse on itself and be born anew as something better.
Fine, let’s just pick at this nit, shall we badger?
No clue what exactly your issue is here, badgerperson, since the point of the post is that the New York Times has become infested by political operatives masquerading as journalists, serving the political purposes of political powers hiding behind the skirts of the First Amendment. The exact legal construct of the incorporation charter for the Badger Herald, a newspaper which I mentioned simply in an offering of evidence that Julie Bosman has a clear and open history of affiliation with - if not deep affection for - a reactionary bias, a history that the NYT was surely aware of before hiring her and before assigning her to the Edwards and Clinton campaigns, is of trivial consequence if it matters at all.
But since you persist in bringing it up, it must, however obscurely, matter to you. In future, if you’re going to natter on about tangentially related minutia, please explain within your critique why in the hell anyone else would care about what you so clearly see as a major flaw in need of full correction. That would be a big help to
the rest of usme, slow aswe areI am.But first, a brief word about Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia, all the time. Nothing to apologize for, it is an amazing compendium of reference material that is often a more convenient starting point than a bare search engine. But note the words starting point. To make a sound analysis, one must – emphasis must - turn to original source material whenever possible rather than depend on an uncontrollably mutable and inherently selective compilation. Wiki is fine as a place to send people for lists, or for beginners to start a topic exploration; it is not suitable as a reference on its own.
Let’s instead turn to the Badger Herald itself, and see how the paper describes its own status, orientation and purpose:
So that’s clear; the Badger Herald is a fully independent “campus newspaper” that receives no funding from the university. Why that distinction is important to you, I cannot imagine; but since it is I herewith freely acknowledge that it is so.
That being said, there is no denying that the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication sanctions, supports and encourages student involvement with the Badger Herald. This official web page contains multiple listings referring students to the paper for work experience; if the University found the Herald wholly distasteful it would not be so overt in maintaining a relationship, one that the Dean of the School in 2005 wished were closer still.
But wait; there’s more:
The Badger Herald, while financially independent and thus outside the legal control and policy oversight of the University, is nevertheless a “campus newspaper” “powered entirely by students” that strives to reflect and address the “interests and tastes” that are “unique to students on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus” including through its “editorial stances.”
In its own terms then, the paper is an instrument that exists solely for the purpose of addressing the students of UW-Madison, and in an all-inclusive way; there is no distinction made on the basis of political beliefs or a narrowing of intent to address only those with a radical reactionary bent. In fact, the paper deliberately casts off its historical iconoclast status in favor of embracing the whole of campus life:
Or so they would wish to be seen. But let us not be cynical; if they view themselves as mainstream, then they also have the responsibility from an editorial standpoint to reflect, as they claim, at least nominally the mainstream “interests and tastes” of UW-Madison students. Can’t have it both ways.
How did the students of UW-Madison react to the Horowitz ad?
How rude. Crowds of yelling students, confronting the editors. Those same students whose interests and tastes the paper clams to represent and reflect. Perhaps on this issue, not so much. Clearly, though, the editors including Ms. Bosman were not ignorant of the fact that a substantial delegation of students felt so offended that they took time to show up in person and express their displeasure. That alone should have been taken as an invitation to further dialog, to an open and forthright examination of the various viewpoints.
Hold on though; perhaps, as Dr Sardonicus suggested, instead of yelling the students themselves should have taken their lunch or rent money and pooled it to pay for an ad of their own.
Oh, wait; they did. A group called the Multicultural Student Coalition, composed again of the very students whose unique interests and tastes the Badger Herald claims to reflect, wrote an ad and submitted it with payment in full, expressing just exactly what they thought. And what was the response from Editor-in-chief Julie Bosman?
Yes, that would have been consistent with the First Amendment, if protection of the First Amendment was something Julie Bosman cared about as much as she did advancing the political agenda of a reactionary racist – and taking money to do it. Clearly, freedom of speech and of the press is not really one of Julie Bosman’s true concerns.
But what of my argument, that any educational institution has certain minimal responsibilities with regard to teaching? Is the financially independent Herald an educational enterprise? What do they say on the subject?
Apparently they are an educational institution, assuming we’re all willing to take the editors and publishers of the Badger Herald at their own words. Freedom of speech is as important a right as there is; that’s why it was listed first by the Founders. What happened with the Horowitz ad was not about freedom of speech, nor was it useful as a training device for independence and balance in journalism. It was rather a naked display of power and authority in the advancement of a biased agenda. By any scholastic measure of teaching, this was a failure of responsibility.
I stand fully by what I have written. Julie Bosman, at least in her professional persona, is a right-wing hack and a tool, symptomatic of the greater rot that is contemporary MSM journalism including at the New York Times, and that her actions at the University of Wisconsin – Madison student-run and University of Wisconsin – Madison student-oriented Badger Herald were symptomatic of and clearly foretold her penchant for authoritarian trivialization and disdain of those with whom she disagrees and of whom she disapproves.
To be clear; none of this is to denigrate the fine institution that is the University of Wisconsin, including Madison and all of the campuses. Nor is it a slam at the state of Wisconsin or the fine people who live there. I am addressing Julie Bosman and her ilk, and the institutions that have hired and nurtured her for their own nefarious purposes. Where her trail of slime has been tracked is simply historical fact.
Finally, let me say this. The format here is a blog; it is not amenable to novel-length dissertations covering every aspect of every detail, and in any event I am already too wordy for many. In the course of addressing a larger point I may sometimes oversimplify the tangential or the trivial; I never was one to color strictly between the lines. When I do stray from the truth, I expect to be called on it; if I am obtuse in my own defense, I expect to be castigated. But I really don’t want to have to spend this amount of time this far down a thread debating such a tiny nit, especially when what I wrote was factually the truth.
Badger, if freedom of speech, particularly freedom of speech on a college campus, is something that you feel passionately about and want to explore in fine detail then write a post about it. Take this specific event as your starting point if you like; what are the rights and responsibilities of an independently owned yet student run and oriented newspaper? You’ll find that many people here have clear and precise opinions on the general subject, along with a deep and abiding interest in the broader view as well as the minutia. I in particular have a strong personal UC Berkeley FSM historical perspective which does, I freely admit, continue to color my views on the subject but may be of some interest. I look forward to reading what you have to say in your own voice, rather than as a reflection of mine.
BDBlue, look forward to your post
Not a daytime soap fan, but whatever; anything can be a teachable subject.
Never fear about the long-term correction. Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is so warmly reassuring. May not happen in my lifetime but I will go to my grave secure in the knowledge that the last issue of the NYT ever sold will be used as fishwrap, and no one will have read it.