Did you ever wonder why travel guides all push the same mediocre restaurants and tourist trap sights over and over? It’s because nearly all travel guides are written by cribbing from existing travel guides until you end up with tourists forming lines that are 3 blocks long at Patsy’s pizza in Brooklyn, the shittiest pizza on earth. It’s clear that “journalists” are no less lazy and dumb, simply cribbing the story handed down from on high so they stay in the same approved narrative and don’t rock the boat. The days of a young Jimmy Breslin ignoring the prepackaged horseshit are long over. Today’s journalists are nothing but McDonald’s workers with words.
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When I was his age, they called people who were worried about the direction the country was going “communists”
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So I guess the theory of Jack Teixeira using documents that he had access to/could get access to isn’t about winning an internet argument? I mean this all smells like a “flex” that went terribly wrong.
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One reason I as former writer (for some really crappy local papers) want ending the Iowa Caucuses priority in the 2024 election is precisely to make those covering it not be able to go to their (figurative) rollodexes and contacts from the past, and go do real journalism in another state.
It needs to be changed up and frequently, like diapers…
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Yeah but see this is an editorial, so I’m told it’s not news and doesn’t reflect the journalistic standards of the paper as a whole. That’s what the NYT says when its piles of anti-trans editorials are “just asking questions”.
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I strenuously object to this broad brush criticism of journalists. Unless you’ve been one or been close to one you haven’t a clue. Our family had to live with the death and kidnapping threats my spouse received because of the investigative reporting he did. Big corporations and advertisers tried to get him fired.
This dude won’t be able to do much touring from jail. And since he’s active military I don’t even want to know what that discipline will look like.
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Leavenworth.
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It was the earlry WaPo story with audio of a teenager concerned about his gaming group.
This sets the stage for both sides, 'cause we need to care for the collateral damage.
One of the deflecting themes that have run through this case is the idea that it’s unusual for young or strange people to get clearances for highly classified materials. It’s not. Way back in the Pleistocene (early 1970’s on) I knew a man who worked as a geologist at the Nevada nuclear test site which required what were supposed to be deep levels of clearance. Well, he was a charming guy, great storyteller, a bit of a good old boy (though he wasn’t all that old), hard not to like. I was in my early twenties when I met him and pretty new to congenital liars. He was married to a friend of mine and a college friend of multiple people I know. Over the next few years, I learned a lot about him that should have made that security clearance questionable. He was a serial adulterer, a child sexual abuser (at the very least he took photographs of his naked teenaged step daughters and most likely did much more to them), a druggie in the 70’s vein with lots of marijuana and psychedelic use as well as a pretty heavy drinker. Fortunately I was never all that charmed by him and before I knew anything about his sexual proclivities, I was suspicious enough of his reliability that I wouldn’t let him watch our young daughter which he kept offering to do. This was a man (now dead) who made decisions about the geology of the underground places where our government was testing nuclear weapons. Since that time I’ve had zilch respect for our security clearance processes.
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That’s the D.C. Court of Appeals, not the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Like a “state” supreme court for the non-state district.
The WaPo piece is really truly gross. White Privilege is an incredible thing.
Guys and Gals: It’s been a rough week - the project go-live has been horrendous and I haven’t been able to keep up with the chaos. I’m flying east to the farm for three weeks, so I’ll be out of pocket a good portion of the day.
Can y’all please slow things down a bit? Please??? 
See you on the other side.
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If you could not make my comment 100% about you and you alone, you’d see that you just stated the problem. Those threats do most of the work in keeping nearly all journalists in line. Laziness, stupidity, arrogance, narcissism and a fear of doing real, actual work does the rest. I applaud your spouse’s bravery and commitment. But one lone voice in the wilderness isn’t enough, not against the cacophony of dim-witted morons beating the same stupid drum.
The right has a new martyr for the fascist cause.
He was not one lone voice in the wilderness. He worked for two major publications. I knew many of his work associates and the inside workings of both publications. Are you a journalist? Every been one? Had one in your immediate family? If not you’re pretty damned certain you know the personalities, work ethics and work pressures of a field you’re only acquainted with from the outside Publications are businesses not high minded non-profits (with a couple of notable exceptions) Are there poor journalists? Lazy ones? Publications with poor ethics? Of course.