John Bracken blogs: "Did Ford beat professional reporters to the story, or is he, as an amateur, able to push stories that those who subscribe to professional ethics cannot?"
What professional ethics? To whom do journalists have ethical obligations? Journalists have so many competing ethical obligations (to their readers, bosses, peers, subjects, sources) that any notion of an ethical code for journalists is virtually meaningless.
The very term "journalist" is a delusion. It was invented to make reporters feel better about themselves, to believe that they were a profession like doctors. A "journalist" is simply a reporter with more room to give his opinion.
Reporting is not so glamorous. If I accurately tell you what I saw or heard at dinner tonight, I am reporting. Anybody can report.
What exactly makes the journalists at The Los Angeles Times "professional reporters" and makes me an amateur? For the past decade, I’ve earned my living from my reporting just as they earn their living from their reporting.
As for the journalist as the preeminent pursuer of truth? Another delusion. Journalists have no power to subpoena anybody. They can’t make people talk to them. They can’t fine or imprison people who mislead them. Instead they are stuck with sources who inevitably have an agenda.
Journalists breaking stories is another delusion. Those credited by their peers with breaking stories are almost always passing along a story that was given to them by somebody with an agenda.
The Monica Lewinsky story? It was leaked from grand jury testimony to a Newsweek reporter (Michael Isikoff) and then leaked to Matt Drudge who had the balls to print it (unlike Newsweek).
Journalists didn’t break the Watergate story. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and company simply picked up a few crumbs from law enforcement and prosecutors, the ones who truly broke the Watergate story.
The New York Times did not break the NSA-wiretapping story. It was given to them by somebody with first-hand knowledge and an agenda who first gave it to The Los Angeles Times, which did not know what to do with it.
Which brings me back to the Villaraigosa story. For more than two years, dozens of people have been aware — and thousands more believed without knowing — that Tony had a sham marriage.
I’ve been vaguely aware for years that Villaraigosa had a sham marriage. I just didn’t want to think about it or write about it.
The journalists who covered Villaraigosa’s 2005 campaign to become mayor believed the mayor was screwing around on his wife. But either they did not want to publish this story or they knew their bosses would not permit them to do so (if this had been New York, Villaraigosa’s philandering would’ve been page one news back in 2005).
City Hall journalists have also been aware for about a year that Villaraigosa was not wearing a wedding ring because his marriage was kaput.
I did not have any special knowledge when I broke the story January 29. What distinguished me from my peers was not any journalistic skill beyond the desire to go public with something that makes most of us squeamish.
I never wanted to write about the mayor’s marriage. It was only when I saw it as a media criticism story that I published. The overwhelming majority of what I wrote in that initial blog was a critique of The Los Angeles Times.
What about the ethics of posting the names of women who might be sexually linked to the mayor? Well, if you choose to spend alone time with a notorious womanizer and associate yourself publicly as his friend, then it is fair game for someone else to wonder publicly if you have slept with the man.
From a post to MayorSam:
I am not surprised by the mayor’s infidelity. What does surprise me is any woman who thought her name would never be exposed. He has never been discreet about his affairs. From an inside political perspective…conferences/international trips were places for the mayor to fill his sexual appetite. Everyone chose to turn a blind eye. You really should be careful with what you do out there especially when you are a recognizable figure. And those of you who endorsed him, campaigned for him and voted for him (irrespective of if you are white, black, brown, asian, jewish or other) you all sold us out because we all knew of his past and we all knew of his infidelities and his insatiable appetite. He is a whore in every interpretable way. You chose to make him this city’s leader shame on you!
This is my list for possible mayor’s girls:
Tina Choi, planning commissioner
Unnamed Deputy on mayor’s security detail
Cynthia Ruiz (president of the Board of Public Works of the City of Los Angeles)
Celine Cordero (La Mecha radical, Associate Director of the Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security in the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa)
Jennie Carreon de Lacey (LAUSD school administrator)
Patricia Higuera (more, more) Pregnant Latina La Raza Activist Attorney
Haco Hoang – Policy analyst for mayor, Poli Sci prof gets smashed on this thread
Serena Zeise, Special Assistant to the Mayor.
