
Greenwald: "The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story Is Journalism at Its Worst" - randomname2
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/
======
randomname2
Meanwhile, Greenwald in a tweetstorm:

"Dear pro-govt BBC journalists: even NSA admits it has no idea how many docs
Snowden took. Is this too complicated?"

"Could the journalists who a) attacked Sy Hersh for using anon sources but b)
accepted this Sunday Times report please identify yourselves?"

"Next in the Sunday Times RT @DieZauberer Next they'll be telling us he has
chemical weapons that could reach Britain in 45 minutes."

~~~
classicsnoot
The second tweet [Could the journos...identify yourselves?] is my question. In
fact, wouldn't it be slick to have a simple table of journalists/publications,
major world events, and a simple list of check boxes whether they were for,
against, or indifferent/agnostic? Maybe even some indicator of when they
change their initial position. Might be useful to see which organizations
consistently have to/chose to switch their positions over time...

~~~
Moocat87
This is an interesting idea. An information management tool like git could
accomplish this, but it would be really interesting to see this automated or
self-reported or something like that. Although... the kind of company that you
would use a tool like this to "discover" is not the kind of company that would
self-report this data.

------
phaedryx
Meanwhile: [http://www.wired.com/2015/06/opm-breach-security-privacy-
deb...](http://www.wired.com/2015/06/opm-breach-security-privacy-debacle/)

Anyone else think this is meant to distract from the Office of Personnel
Management breach and hacked SF-86 documents?

~~~
higherpurpose
It's not a distraction in the "hey look over there!" kind of sense. It's more
like "it's totally Snowden's fault all our spies are exposed now...like a week
after the OPM and SF-86 hacks."

------
TillE
Mixing up Berlin/Laura Poitras with Moscow/Snowden is so incredibly sloppy,
especially when it's being misused in an attempt to make a point. It's really
basic stuff for anyone following this case, especially a British journalist
who would have been aware of the court case involving Miranda.

------
randomname2
The Sunday Times has now quietly deleted the key lie about Greenwald's husband
(which the whole article depended on) from the online article, with no note.

It will still be in the print edition, which means it needs a retraction.

------
randomname2
Just out of interest, why did this just submission just plunge in the news
ranking? I assume due to flagging for being too controversial?

~~~
dang
Yes, there are lots of user flags, and also a moderation downweight—not for
being controversial but for being a quasi-duplicate.

Since front page space is the scarcest resource on HN, we try not to have more
than one major thread about a story unless there's significant new
information. In this case there had already been three: one on the original
report [1] and two debunking it [2,3]. To prevent multiple incarnations of the
same story from dominating the front page (a common complaint about HN in the
past), we sometimes penalize these, though never as much as actual dupes.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714072)

2\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714321](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714321)

3\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9715062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9715062)

------
the8472
A userscript replacing all paragraphs containing the phrases "sources familiar
with the matter", "officials speaking on the condition of anonymity" and
"anonymous government sources" with a lorem ipsum of the same length might
help.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'm reminded of the current s/millenials/snake people/ fad. How about
"according to snake people"?

------
mathgenius
At first my lighter side responds by thinking these newspapers are just
shooting themselves in the foot. But then I realise that there really is a
market for this kind of trashpaper. Fortunately, there is also a market for
movies [1], that expose the slime behind these publications.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/03/george-
clooney-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/03/george-clooney-film-
phone-hacking-scandal)

------
clamprecht
One question though: If Snowden had everything stored on USB "thumb drives"
rather than laptops, why did he lug 4 laptops to Hong Kong?

~~~
riskable
In his situation finding a "safe" laptop that hasn't been backdoored or
vulnerable to known (to spies) vulnerabilities is difficult. He has a much
higher risk than the average person.

It is likely that he brought as many laptops as he could because sourcing new
ones (should one get compromised) is difficult.

------
vonklaus
Greenwald just printed the US gov propaganda playbook.

~~~
classicsnoot
Is there a government that does not use propaganda to forward their own
agenda?

~~~
randomname2
No, which is why these "journalists" should know better.

~~~
classicsnoot
agreed.it is almost to the point that we as citizens might be better served by
software that gathers data and outputs it in article form instead of counting
on journalism majors with mortgages to assemble and relate the facts.

------
muglug
A bit of useful background here: The Guardian scooped The Sunday Times for one
of the most impactful news stories of the decade, and I'm sure some of the
Sunday Times article is just a somewhat bitter attempt at retribution.

------
jlebar
Does anyone else feel like this is too angry?

I want to like GG, but this sort of reporting turns me off, even if I agree
with his substance. I feel like you cede a substantial portion of the
journalistic high ground when you rant and call people names like this.

------
graycat
As I noticed many years ago, it's easy to notice that journalism commonly,
correction, nearly always, is a long way short of the commonly taught high
school term paper writing standards of using primary sources, identifying
sources, quoting accurately, etc.

So, we can ask, why is that? Journalism has too few college graduates who
majored in the humanities and wrote stacks of term papers? Nope.

So, why? Sure: "Follow the money". The media is ad supported. They are in the
ad business. For that they want smelly bait for the ad hook.

Okay, how to get lots of smelly bait, easily? Sure: Have one newspaper write a
smelly story, and then do two things:

First, have other newspapers write much the same story with much the same
smelly content and, for _credibility_ , maybe quoting the first newspaper.

Second, with such a good thing, so much smelly bait all on just one or two
days, of course, sure, keep it going! So, write more such stories. Then with
so many stories, maybe the readers will conclude that with so much _smoke_
there has to be at least a little _fire_ in there somewhere. So, all the media
just does a _gang up_ , _pile on_ , get on the _band wagon_ , have a case of
some _implicit collusion_ , get on the _big wave_ and ride it, and, better to
_fit in_ with the _gang_ and, thus, get the security from being _one of the
gang_ , don't tell the truth, contradict, or _rock the boat_ and, instead,
just to along with the gang \-- mob.

So, create lots of smelly bait across lots of newspapers for lots of days.

Now that ad revenue is really adding up. All from a seed of nothing, zip,
zilch, zero, nichts, nil, nada. Easy money!

There is a lot in common between the OP and the movie _Absence of Malice_
(1981) written by knowledgeable newspaper guy Kurt Luedtke. To paraphrase from
the movie, "If we only published stuff we really knew, then we'd publish
monthly" and nearly all of that would less important than Mrs. Murphy's cat
Fluffy crying high in an oak tree.

There really is a lot of important information the newspapers could publish,
but they won't consider doing that, apparently because it is just not part of
their traditions. Or, really, in the grand new standards of _intellectual
safety, efficacy, and relevance_ of the ascent of man from mathematics and
science, the newspapers are still back in the days of superstition,
phlogiston, Chaucer, and the techniques of formula fiction.

E.g., what is the definition of GDP? Okay, now, to be more relevant, how is it
actually measured? Are there some critiques of that measurement technique? If
we are going to pay any attention at all to GDP, then we at least should
discuss how the heck it gets measured.

Yesterday Hillary claimed that some of the best paid 25 hedge fund guys pay a
lower tax rate than kindergarten teachers. Okay, address that issue: Give us
some solid answers. True or false? If true, then how do they do that? I.e.,
what parts of the tax law are they using?

I can toss off such questions faster than I can type, and so can nearly anyone
interested in government, but such will nearly never be addressed in the
_mainstream media_.

One of the points in common in the OP and the movie is the defense by the
newspaper that "We have no evidence that the story is false". Of course,
neither did they have any "evidence" the story was true!

It's old stuff, e.g., back at least to the movie _Citizen Kane_.

That's just what the newsies -- newspapers, news magazines, TV news, news Web
sites, etc. -- do. It's a very old story.

Greenwald's point is solid: Can't believe what you read in the newspapers.
Indeed, that remark is so common and so readily believed by the public that it
is in an old Andy Hardy movie from the 1930s. Did I mention "old"?

Some years ago, I really, really wanted to be a _well informed citizen_ and
subscribed to more and more news publications trying to know more. One day I
added up I was receiving 22 publications a month. Earlier, I spent a summer
with my parents in DC and each day read _The Washington Post_ fairly
carefully. Net, I finally concluded I wasn't learning much. Now I subscribe to
nothing on paper and very little on the Internet.

I still want to be _informed_ , but the _media_ is junk. Maybe I'd take _The
New York Times_ , but I (A) have no dead fish trimmings to wrap, (B) need no
packing materials (besides, all that ink creates a mess), (C) have no need for
kitty litter, (D) for my fireplace already have plenty of fire starter paper
from all the phone books that are left, etc.

So, _media_? Sure, light entertainment following the rules of formula fiction
with good guys, a problem, bad guys, etc. Any connection with actual reality
is thin and incidental.

The media would be less harmful if people would just ignore it, and I'm
getting good at that.

------
ougawouga
I'm glad Greenwald called then put for using the term "boyfriend" for his
10-year old spouse. Something didn't sit well with me about that term, but I
couldn't have vocalized it. It seems meant to evoke sexual connotations, when
they played no part in the story.

~~~
venomsnake
Well ... he is his boyfriend and due to his relationship with Glen was more
potent tool for putting pressure. So it is relevant.

~~~
randomname2
The point is, if he were married to a woman, they would probably have called
her "his wife", and not "his girlfriend".

~~~
rhino369
Are they married though? Gay marriage is legal and if they aren't, boyfriend
isn't "gross" here.

~~~
jccc
"After two years of living together, they became common-law husbands."

David Miranda: "I never met anyone like Glenn — he's my husband and I don't
know where either of us would be without each other."

Greenwald: "They [the goons who detained Miranda at Heathrow airport]
humanized the story, and they gave a platform for my charming and admirable
husband to speak out."

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/natashavc/david-miranda-is-
nobodys-e...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/natashavc/david-miranda-is-nobodys-
errand-boy)

Regardless of whether they are technically, legally married according to a
particular definition, they consider themselves to have been married for 10+
years, and actually do seem to have some legal basis for that view.

BTW, I can think of other minority populations that historically have been
named by the majority with diminutive words -- language that intuitively sees
that population as less legitimate. Perhaps a good rule of thumb is to call
people what they want to be called, and default to the respectful choice if we
don't know.

(Full disclosure: I am a man married to a man.)

