Reasons to Not Hate Twitter #1: You Can Bother The Mainstream Media Into Doing Journalism (Now With Jake Tapper's Response!)
***UPDATED*** 4:45 PM
Looks like Tapper checked out the article, here's his latest tweet to me:
jaketapper @igotmyreasons this is the blog posting you were complaining about > http://bit.ly/16VW8P Due respect, it's hardly he said/she said.
I thanked him for the link, correcting what's below, and told him that was my opinion. If he writes anything more interesting I may post it, or see @igotmyreasons or @jaketapper to see what we are up to.
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This post, no doubt, will do nothing to remove my reputation as a bit of a punk here (nor do I shy away from that description), but it may let you see there's a method to my madness.
It may also help the Luddites here (and there seem to be a lot of you, sorry) who irrationally "hate" twitter realize it's silly to hate a neutral technology, and like most things, you get out of it what you put into it.
I'll start by putting in piss and vinegar and end with reasoned debate (I promise!). I haven't screen-shotted every tweet nor have I been able to find all of the old ones, so you will have to take my word on some of this.
I'll assume you are smart enough to follow along without all the jargon explained; feel free to comment if any of this is confusing.
BTW, it's all true, this isn't satire or a hoax.


Part One: Mark Knoller Drools For Bernie
Let's begin our "harassment" (notice that's in quotes, legal team) with CBS News' portly right-wing apologist and Senior White House Correspondent Mark Knoller. Here's a tweet he offered up, presumably a prelude to an interview with Mr. Bias himself:

This is all kinds of wrong. It seems Mr. Knowler has thrown any hint of professional ethics, or even the fear of the appearance of conflict of interest, out the window to ACTUALLY ENDORSE a book and a political point of view.
From the sub-literate, discredited Goldberg, even.
Where's the endorsement?
Ignoring the hinky factor of saying "honored" (how much shit did Brian Williams take for saying that about the president?), the language he chose is from the Bernie's new book's TITLE:

So this would be like saying "I'd be honored to discuss with Anne Coulter how Godless the liberals are." In case there's any confusion about how Knoller feels about his bromance with Goldberg, consider that "drooling" was Mark's addition.
Hawt.
Now if this was just an olde tyme webblog, it would end with my snarky observation.
But imagine if there was some magical way to actually CONFRONT Mr. Knoller on his craven, unethical misuse of his position and influence? A magical device that would not only do that, but allow him to reply?
If only, if only...
Oh snap. We got us some twitter, I almost forgot.
So I wrote him saying (in the nicest way possible) something along these lines:
How can you justify endorsing a right-wing political hack like this?
Moments later, the magical @reply arrrived:

Well I scoffed back, challenged, and everyone on his feed saw it. They saw when I asked him if he had even read Bias, and that I had.
Drawing the line at outright lies, he didn't reply.
I told Mr. Knoller that since he had only read Bernie's press releases, we should discuss him after he'd read his BOOKS. I told him he was charmed by a pathological liar. But Knoller had nuthin,' and he knew it, I knew it, and thousands of his followers knew it.
He'd been publicly "stuffed" by an unknown in front of thousands of his own followers, and he wasn't about to argue back, cuz I WAS RIGHT. Best to hope his followers (and especially his bosses) didn't see this exchange.
Because one thing CBS News can't afford is a drooling press pool. So he got smart, and shut the hell up.


Part Two: Jake Tapper vs. the Intellectual Elite
My interactions with Jake Tapper (ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent) are friendly and topical, but they didn't start out that way.
Long before I was tweeting him during his press conferences with Robert Gibbs (and he was tweeting me back, natch), he wrote this:

Whoopsie. When you shame the intelligentsia you might wanna spell it correctly. Maybe that was the point, to make fun of that high falootin' book learnin'.
I guess it wasn't, since he replied to my hysterical observation that he wanted to punish US with bad spelling with:

OK.
Well, I did promise "serious" debate, so after I told him he was the testosterone addict who calls people "pal" and all that good ol' guy stuff, I challenged him on an article he wrote about Palin's "Death Panels".
I tried to locate this blog and couldn't, sorry, I should have written this sooner.
The article was 90% quotes. It was the typical "he said/she said" article quoting Palin, then Obama, then conservatives, then supporters of health care reform.
But nowhere in the article did it say if the death panels were real, or even in the bill.
Two "sides" presented pretty much equally, with no comments on the content.
When challenged, Jake said he had linked to a previous blog where he HAD, in fact, debunked the claim. This was true, but the link was within the body of the text like:
On Sarah Palin's FaceBook page she said...
There was no way for a reader who DIDN'T click a obtusely-labeled link to know what the truth was.
So I kept at him. We wrestled for a bit and he finally offered this (paraphrased) agreement:
Perhaps I hold hyperlinks in too high esteem. Something to consider, thanks.
Now this may happen on blogs, to some extent, but it's unlikely you'll get a reply in real time from the White House Press Room saying "I'm on it!" when you hit up Jake Tapper on Gibb's latest misrepresentation during a live appearance.
And kind of unlikely you'll get a sort-of commitment to do better journalism, based on a specific critique.
I'm sayin...













I had my own Twitter experience with Jake Tapper. For a journalist, he makes a great hairdo.
I think you're reaching with Knoller, tho. I think he's good at what he does, and has a dry wit. And I don't normally have much good to say about the D.C. media.
September 9, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reaching how? I'm pretty sure he isn't supposed to make endorsements, and Goldberg is a crappy choice... he clearly hasnt even read his most important book.
Do you think Goldberg serves "an important fuction"? Lyiing?
September 9, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink