Ed Johnson

The state of journalism is bad. Of course, Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria—high-profile writers at The New Yorker and Time, respectively—were recently exposed as frauds and plagiarists, but that’s not the worst of it. Not even close. The phone-tapping scandal that nearly imploded NewsCorp’s news division last year? Nope.

In fact, nothing illustrates the distressing state of affairs more clearly than the reaction to Judge William Alsup’s recent order that Google and Oracle turn over the names of the reporters and bloggers whom the two companies had paid for potentially positive coverage supporting their case in a high-stakes copyright lawsuit.

Wait, what reaction? Oh, you didn’t even hear about this?

Don’t worry, you didn’t somehow miss the stunned denunciations from the media elite. You didn’t miss the outraged editorials by the Poynter Institute and Columbia Journalism Review. Because they didn’t happen. Just as Sherlock Holmes gets his clue from the fact that the dog didn’t bark in “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the lack of outcry is actually the sound of every insider in journalism tipping his or her hand. Reporters taking bribes from major tech companies in Silicon Valley? Old news!

The corruption is endemic. Take Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch.com, which sold to AOL for $25M in 2010; his bold editorial stand last year caused him to be ousted from the site he started. What was that stand? Simply that he was perfectly justified in simultaneously launching a side business called CrunchFund, which would invest venture capital in the very same startups his immensely powerful blog covered. It would be hard to imagine a clearer conflict of interest, but most of his peers eagerly took his side.

Some, like former TechCrunch editor and tech journalist Sarah Lacy, even followed his lead. This year, she founded PandoDaily, a new technology news blog. Investors include Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hsieh and Chris Dixon. If those names sound familiar, it’s because they are the owners, founders or funders of the biggest companies in tech—outfits like Facebook, Zappos, PayPal, LinkedIn and Foursquare. Mr. Andreesen is also an investor in the news website Business Insider. (Full disclosure: The Observer Media Group is partially owned by Josh Kushner, a principal in the investment firm Thrive Capital, which funds a number of start-ups.)

What happens when the robber barons once again not only pull the strings of the industry, but also control the press that is supposed to cover it and hold them responsible?

At the end of the day, it’s these guys who are the real “customers” of the news outlets: not all of the readers out there, but the marketers, advertisers and investors to whom journalists are trying to a deliver product—that product being you and your attention.

So while the outcry over small ethical lapses like Mr. Lehrer supposedly “plagiarizing himself” or making up a few quotes sucks up all the oxygen, they are in some sense a distraction from the deeper systemic issues. The media focus on these token misdeeds is a way of convincing the public that the truth still matters—an effort to distract from the truly appalling economics of the news itself. It’s not enough that blogs and fledgling newspapers are putting themselves in an unethical position by taking money from the people they cover. In today’s world of page-view journalism—in which writers are compensated by how many times their posts are viewed—every article is in some sense a conflict of interest.

Think of BleacherReport, a consortium of sports blogs, that was just acquired by Turner Broadcasting for $180 million. BleacherReport, like many blog empires, pays its contributors in part based on page-views. (Meanwhile, some unpaid writers are compensated merely with “exposure.”) In other words, an incentive is created to write articles that get a lot of traffic, not articles that are necessarily “good” or, say, “true.” Intelligent readers are known to disdain the more craven methods sites use to drive traffic—particularly the breed of “entertaining slideshows” that Bleacher trumpets in its slogan—but publishers love the money it brings in from pay-per-impression advertisers. And the reason BleacherReport encourages its writers to chase this sort of page-view growth strategy is that its investors demand it.

This is what I mean when I say every article on these sites has a conflict of interest. The goal isn’t to do worthwhile journalism, it is to profit. BleacherReport, like nearly every site from Gawker to Business Insider to, yes, Observer.com, wants to show hockey-stick growth. Then, should they wish to, they can sell for a profit. Just business, of course. But it warps what they write about and how they write it.

But the media is happy to have readers focus on Mr. Leher and Mr. Zakaria, like they're the real problem.

I’ve been around the underworld of PR long enough to know that multibillion-dollar industries love to focus on isolated incidents as misdirection. It’s always about the rogue trader, the “unpreventable” disaster or the overzealous campaign flack.

The ensuing hand-wringing and self-flagellation generally prevents anyone from bothering to probe any deeper. To go back to the dog analogy, they’ll never bark at institutionalized backroom dealing or insidious incentives, because that’s what they’re comfortable with.

Recently, a writer for the Poynter Institute tried to dismiss some of my criticisms of the online-driven media cycle by asking his readers “Are you interested in hearing about the sausage [being made] from the guy who keeps dropping mouse feces into the grinder?”

Well ... I would hope so. Who better to tell you what's what?

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator and a PR strategist for brands and writers.

HARO's logo (HelpAReporterOut.com)

"This gentleman made a mockery of journalism, and he did it for no other reason than to sell his books, " Peter Shankman told The Observer by phone this week. The social media entrepreneur (who believes in "Twitacles”) was talking about Ryan Holiday, American Apparel public relations expert and social media con man. Mr. Holiday's release of his first book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, last week coincided with him revealing that he had used Mr. Shankman's service, Help a Reporter Out (or HARO), a clearinghouse for would-be expert sources, to deceive news outlets like MSNBC, ABC, and The New York Times.

"Reporters have had sources for years before HARO," Mr. Shankman told us, explaining his service."They've had sources since journalism was created. What I've done with HARO, and what Vocus, the company that's acquired HARO has done, has made it easier for journalists to find those sources on deadline by creating a system where anyone who has knowledge on anything can offer to be a source on a story. That does not take away the journalistic responsibility of vetting a source." (Mr. Shankman is currently the VP of HARO after selling it to Vocus.)

Unfortunately, journalists under a tight deadline might not always have time to vet sources thoroughly, and Mr. Shankman's services prominently displays a message to PR people:

From The New York Times, to ABC News, to HuffingtonPost.com and everyone in between, nearly 30,000 members of the media have quoted HARO sources in their stories. Everyone’s an expert at something. Sharing your expertise may land you that big media opportunity you’ve been looking for..

Mr. Holiday claims that this courting of public relations creates a perfect environment for "lazy journalists" to get duped, and that this was exactly what Mr. Shankman was trying to exploit when creating the website.

As he wrote in a recent Huffington Post article about the subject:

Yes, HARO is just a service and as the middleman Peter can't be held totally responsible for lazy reporters who don't fact check their sources. But then again, it was being aware of such laziness that likely drove him to create the site in the first place, and THAT is precisely what he exploits as a publicist. And today, it's what makes Peter defend the indefensible monster that HARO has become. He makes too much money from it.

After the news broke on Thursday over at Forbes and became the biggest story on the site (which later took down the post, along with the one Mr. Holiday himself wrote about crazy bloggers the next day), Mr. Shankman angrily railed on his HARO blog:

Let’s be clear: This idiot (Ryan Holiday, the liar,) did this for one reason, and it wasn’t anywhere NEAR as altruistic as “an experiment.” He wrote a book on how to lie and get in the media, and he was promoting it. End of story. Want more proof? You know what this guy did before he wrote this book? HE WORKED FOR TUCKER MAX, the man who’s written multiple books on how to lie to get laid. Enough said.

Except not really. Mr. Shankman then went on to once again to chide reporters who fell for Mr. Holiday's con while using his service.

I stand by this: “As a journalist, it’s always been your job to do your research and check the source, whether you find that source on the street, on Craigslist or on HARO.”

The Society of Professional Journalists tweeted a link to the article with the comment, “Journalists: 1) Crowdsourcing is fine. 2) Fact checking is still a thing. 3) Heard of Google?”

In that regard, Mr. Holiday and Mr. Shankman are in complete agreement (along with Jim Romensko, who told Mr. Holiday the duped reporters got what they deserved.) Mr. Holiday, however, thinks that resources like HARO are as much the problem as the journalists who use the site. In an email to The Observer, he wrote:

If HARO really cared about "helping" journalists, you'd think that efforts like mine to point out the vulnerabilities in the system would be appreciated, even if they are a little embarrassing. The correct response would be to list the new safeguards HARO is putting in place to prevent this from happening. Instead they're circling the wagons, denying they have any responsibility to vet their contributors, and pretending it's all ok. Why? Because HARO depends on this kind of easy, lazy journalism and any safeguards would limit its attractiveness.

Literally ANYONE can sign up for an account and be a source. Do journalists know this? I could sign up for a new account under a fake name tomorrow and HARO wouldn't care the least. (nor could they stop me)

I may have lied to some reporters to prove my point, but at least I'm not lying to myself the way these journalists and publicists are: there is no way around it, HARO is icky and bad for the news.

But then again, why should we trust Mr. Holiday's claims of altruistic intent? After all, he IS a self-proclaimed "media manipulator," and the truth isn't so black and white. In the case of some of the stories Mr. Holiday chose to become an "expert" in, there was essentially no way he could be vetted: He was quoted in the Times article claiming to be a record collector, when in fact, as he told The Observer, he didn't even know what an LP was. He replied to an MSNBC pitch on HARO asking "HAVE YOU BEEN THE VICTIM OF GERM WARFARE?" with this hilarious e-mail:

My name is Ryan Holiday and I'm the Director of Marketing for the LA-based
clothing company American Apparel. I am also a germ warfare survivor.

I'm young (24) but I've worked my share of crappy, wage-labor jobs. At one,
a Burger King in Sacramento, CA, where I worked during high school, I made
an enemy out of a line cook. He was a tall, rangy kid from another local
high school -- Shaggy we all called him. Shaggy and I liked the same girl.
She chose me, etc., etc. Anyway, one day Shaggy shows up to work sniffling.
I didn't think much of it. I avoided him, he avoided me. At one point, late
in our shift, he calls me over. He says, "Hey Ryan, come here. I got
something to show you." So I wander over, because I'm curious.

I get there and he's holding something in his right hand. It's cupped, so I
can't see what it is. Turns out it was one of those small packets of
pepper. Shaggy opened the pepper, snorted the contents, and then sneezed
directly in my face. Just all over my face. Big, phlegmy chunks of flu in
my hair, on my nose, some even got in my mouth. I rushed him, because it
was an obvious attack -- germ warfare. Several employees held me back. I
quit on the spot. I haven't been back to that Burger King or seen Shaggy
since.
Would love to talk more!
Ryan Holiday

The story made it into the MSNBC piece, though it was removed when Mr. Holiday exposed his con. Mr. Holiday used his real name, his real age, and his real job. He told The Observer that he even once knew a guy named Shaggy. This human interest story would have been almost impossible to fact-check. (Though neither does it really count as "germ warfare.")

As for Roy Furchgott, the young man who wrote The New York Times piece about turntables and record-collecting, well, he's not going to be talking about his experience anytime soon. When reached for comment, he advised us to first contact the Times’ PR department. They replied via email, saying that Mr. Furchgott wouldn't be available for comment, and:

Our fact-checking process is already quite vigorous. While we have no written guideline that would say specifically to verify a source like these online "experts," it is one of those givens that fall under the broad guidelines of the 1999 Newsroom Integrity Statement and the ethics handbook. The freelancer who made this error has been reminded of these policies.

So what have we learned here? That the Internet has made it easier for people like Mr. Holiday lie to journalists? Is that the lesson? Because if so, The New Yorker was already way ahead of the HARO-gate:

You've been warned.

Until they do.

Earlier this month, Tammy Battaglia—a breaking news reporter at the Detroit Free Press—wrote a story about a 26 year-old roofer who was electrocuted while working on a job. He was saved by being kicked off of a roof by a co-worker.

It's a pretty great filing, but that's what it was: a filing, another day's work. It didn't go viral, or national, but it's certainly a great piece of local reporting any paper would do well to have. So imagine Battaglia's surprise at a little piece of fan mail she got from one of the greatest writers to ever reside in Detroit, and one of the most well-known crime novelists and masters of dialogue in the King's English: Elmore "Dutch" Leonard.

Leonard, who's currently experiencing yet another peak in popularity with the success of FX's Emmy and Peabody award-winning Justified (which is based on his Raylan Givens stories), decided to write in to Battaglia to tell her what a fan of her writing he is. He doesn't own a computer, so the letter—like all of his manuscripts—was hand-typed.

It reads:

Dear Ms. Battaglia,

I read your story the other day about the roofer narrowly dodging death and admire the way you wrote it: the way you took your time and used dialogue, Quinlan telling what happened and his co-worker's first attempt to help, summing it up with the one-line paragraph "That didn't work either." Not wanting his mother to know about it pays off the story. She does and makes the reference to warming up cat food. What I admire the most is the sound of your writing, your effortless style.

Take it easy,

Elmore Leonard.

Rather than scream about it on Twitter, it was one of Battaglia's colleagues who Tweeted it out ("@elmoreleonard sends praise letter to coworker @tammybattaglia. Way to go, Tammy! Very jealous. ‪#freep‬ ‪#elmoreleonard") along with a photo of the letter:

To cap it off, Elmore Leonard's assistant—the guy running his Twitter account—re-tweeted it out to all of Leonard's fans following him to see the writer's endorsement of Battaglia. It's easy to imagine that most working journalists in the world don't get any kind of formal recognition for their efforts—like awards, or national stories, let alone any media coverage—besides the kind words of their editors and co-workers.

As far as plaudits go, however, this has to be one of the cooler ones anyone's ever received. That one is absolutely worth framing.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

All over Twitter, and Tumblr, and email and Instant Message, media folks are passing around a new Tumblr they are wasting their precious time laughing at today.

Welcome to Editor Real Talk: It's a series of GIFs with captions that cannily take note of the various euphemisms employed in newsrooms by editors (and what those euphemisms actually mean), or how editors are secretly reacting to certain situations. It's basically the Texts With Bennett of media people, except with far more truth to it.

For example:

WHEN A LIQUOR COMPANY SENDS US SAMPLES

The implication here is that being sent free liquor is very exciting, because most people who work in media are generally amiable, little monsters (hence, the Muppets) who also happen to be ravenous, freeloading alcoholics. It is funny because it is generally true.

Another one? Sure.

WHEN I SAY “SOMEONE SHOULD TOTALLY WRITE THAT PIECE”

The idea being conveyed here is that when editors come up with purportedly "brilliant" ideas and then say the words "someone should totally write that piece," they are not actually suggesting that anyone could and should write said piece, they are indicating that the person or people in their immediate vicinity will write that piece. These words can also follow a writer casually tossing out an idea, like, say, "You know what's funny? Media couplings. How odd are they!" which you say jokingly because you have to say something but some editor seizes the moment and their eyes light up and they say "someone should totally do that" and you're like "Do what, arbitrarily rank them?" and they smile by which they mean "you have spoken the monster's name, the monster is now yours to feed" (the lesson being that if you work in a newsroom never suggest anything unless you have already started working on it because you so desperately want to, otherwise, you will end up working on it).

Again, this all rings of very distinct truths.

We don't know who's doing this one [UPDATE: We do now, see below.], but it is very, very good and should probably be on every aspiring media employee's required reading list prior to employment in any media workplace. We have heard that Jenna Wortham of the New York Times is working on this, but one factor ruling her out is that Wortham is not a top-editor, and thus, might not have the time to do this* because she has work to do all day.

At this point, everyone

(A) In the top-tenth of their masthead,
(B) With a door to their office,
(C) With an assistant or deputy,
(D) Taking more than five meetings a week, none of which are with sources

are suspect. Please tell us who is doing this. Please.

*NOT-A-TOP-EDITOR REAL TALK.

UPDATE: As we published this, the writer of Editor Real Talk came out a few minutes before. Why so soon, Ann Friedman, Executive Editor of GOOD Magazine? DID YOU ALREADY GET A BOOK DEAL? Either way, well done, and while we are relieved you are not anybody we work for and feel bad for your no doubt euphemism-plagued writers, you could've been anyone. Really. This is that good/true/funny/terrible.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

But this wasn't just any ordinary commenting troll.

All the way from Birmingham, Michigan, one Kurt Luedtke commented with a story (emphasis ours):

I've been waiting for a chance to blow this whistle.

I once employed a reporter who liked to talk on the phone. The reason he came to work was to talk on the phone. Most of his calls never produced a story but they were free, because the newspaper paid for them. This is why he got out of bed to come to work before dialing.

Going through the phone bills one month, we came upon a godawful charge for a 45 minute call to Santiago, Chile, hundreds of dollars. Our newspaper was in Detroit. Not that what happens in Santiago is not important, but it was not of great interest to Detroit readers.

Asked to explain, the reporter said: they put me on hold! He was indignant. That he chose not to hang up and that he was not paying for the call did not penetrate. I don't remember that he ever said why he was calling Santiago but trust me, it was not work-related.

Here is why this story is important, and why there is hope for the ink-stained wretches who may wish to soldier on: The reporter who thought it was cool to call Santiago on the company's dime is now in charge of editorial budgets for the New York Times.

Questions:

• Who the hell does this Kurt Luedtke guy think he is?
• Who is the Times brass in question?
• And is the story true? If so, it's nothing earth-shattering, but it would certainly illustrate an interesting moment in the past of the person with one of the most precarious and "tough, but someone's gotta do it" jobs in the entire world of journalism.

 
One quick Googling of Mr. Luedtke's name turned up a more-than-kind-of incredible answer as to his identity:

Not only was he most definitely once the executive editor of a newspaper in Detroit—the Free Press—but he also happens to be the screenwriter of 1985's Out of Africa. Among its eight Academy Awards, it took home Best Picture, Best Director for Sydney Pollack, and Best Screenplay for Mr. Luedtke, who also wrote Pollack's journalism-based thriller Absence of Malice and Pollack's 1998 Harrison Ford-starring thriller Random Hearts.

The Observer called Mr. Luedtke on Friday afternoon to see if he'd tell us who he was naming. "How'd you get this number?" he asked. We explained to him: Google. Also, we're reporters. "That's right!" he laughed. "The guy I was talking about, well, we're still friends. I want to see how they react, first. Try me after the weekend," he snickered. We detected a hint of mischief in his voice.

The fact is, there's only one person on the Times upper-masthead who both worked at the Detroit Free-Press and whose job it is to "oversee newsroom administration and finances": Times deputy managing editor William "Bill" Schmidt.

A source familiar with Mr. Schmidt's position inside the newsroom explained that part of Mr. Schmidt's unenviable job—besides rabidly guarding the ever-diminishing Times coffers—is to send out the good or bad news regarding Times staffer buyouts, a tough gig this year, especially given the looming fact of what many feel was an unfair $10.9M "golden parachute" given to former New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson.

We reached out to Mr. Schmidt: Is it he Mr. Luedtke is referring to? And if so, is his former editor's story true?

Mr. Schmidt responded the next day over email:

So here's the deal: nearly 40 years ago, as a young reporter in Detroit, I did, alas, run up some charges on the Free Press phone bill, chasing a story that involved -- improbably -- an angle in Chile. If I had studied Spanish rather than Chinese, maybe the calls would have been shorter. Who knows? Story never panned out.

Kurt was the editor of The Free Press at the time, and over the years, he liked to remind me about it. Each time, his recollection gets a bit more cinematic. Of course it would. The guy wrote "Out of Africa" and "Absence of Malice."

For my part, all I can say is that lessons were learned back then that serve me well today.

The Observer attempted to contact to Mr. Luedtke for the opportunity to comment on Mr. Schmidt's email, on which he was copied. Mr. Luedtke was not home, and did not respond to another request for quote over email.

And now you know:

1. Your mistakes as a young reporter will haunt you forever in the form of mischievous former editors.
2. That said, your mistakes as a young reporter won't haunt your forever on your ascent upward, assuming the most anyone can do with them is troll you in comment sections to hysterical effect.
3. Young reporters totally have it easy because they can just Skype arbitrary (or arbitrary-seeming) calls to Chile.
4. The New York Times has Oscar-winning commenters.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

It is not a primer on the acquisition of friends. In September, Facebook introduced "Subscribe," an option which allows other users to receive only your public updates. You can encourage subscribers to hang on your every word without having to let them into your photo albums, contact information, etc. It's just one of many new Internet-based relationship categories (Gchat sources, Twitter crushes) for which journalists (an historically unpopular race) should be grateful.

Do you think these people would read  your stories if you were out hawking papers on the corner? Do you think they would talk to you if they knew you came to work dressed like that? Acquiring many Facebook subscribers is the ideal way to get your stories out to the kind of people who don't read newspapers and fashion yourself as a pseudocelebrity in their eyes.

So, for the newsroom troglodytes, a few tips and tricks for making your posts the most seductive to new subscribers, courtesy Facebook:

• Be relevant. "Commentary and analysis on current events and breaking news receives 3x as many likes and 2x as many shares as the average post."

• Acknowledge the existence of others. "Reader shout-outs can increase in feedback by as much as 4x. Also, asking for recommendations can lead to a 3x increase in comments above an average post."

• Be smart. "In-depth analyses on global issues can yield a 1.5x increase in likes and 2.5x increase in shares."

• Be something to look at. "Powerful photos can yield an increase of a 2x inengagement (likes, comments and shares). Also, behind-the-scenes photos resulted in up to a 4x increase in engagement (likes, comments, shares)."

• Be funny. "Jokes in posts or a humorous picture can yield a 1.5x increase in likes and almost 5x increase in shares. Humor often shows the lighter and more personal side of the journalist, which is likely why it results in higher engagement.

Not so different from making friends and influencing people IRL, huh? Except when you do it on Facebook, the company is gathering everything you and your readers say, running it through sentiment analysis, and selling the data to your competitors at Politico. Keep up the good work!

*Disclaimer: We only watched the trailer of the Social Network.

Stu Loeser

Stu Loeser, Mayor Bloomberg's spokesperson, just sent out a note regarding an Awl report listing the names of reporters arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests. In the email, reprinted below, he goes on the attack, noting that only 5 of the 26 reporters arrested are credentialed by the city, almost as if to distinguish between the rights of credentialed and non-credentialed reporters.

And who were the actual, real, card-carrying, government certified reporters arrested? AP reporter Julie Walker and Patrick Hedlund from DNA Info were both issued Desk Appearance Tickets for Disorderly Conduct, while Paul Lomax of DNA Info and Karen Matthews and Seth Wenig, both of the AP, had their arrests for trespassing voided.

Full memo after the jump. Do enjoy, and, don't forget: Bloomberg's spokesperson reads The Awl. Be less stupid:

 

To:       Interested Parties
From:   Stu Loeser
Re:       Just 5 of the “26 arrested reporters” are actually credentialed reporters
Date:    Thursday, November 17, 2011

Like all of you, I’ve heard and read many reports of reporters who supposedly were wearing valid NYPD press credentials, yet allegedly encountered problems on the streets of New York. Like some of you, I had those stories in mind when I read The Awls’ rundown of “The 25 26 Arrested Reporters and What They Do.”  (In case you missed it, that piece, that piece is linked here.)

Not being familiar with many of the media outlets for which The Awl says these reporters work, I had the list of “26 arrested reporters” checked against the roster of reporters who hold valid NYPD press passes.

You can imagine my surprise when we found that only five of the 26 arrested reporters actually have valid NYPD-issued press credentials. Note that we didn’t check – and don’t really care for the sake of this exercise – if the reporter’s credential lists the media outlet for which he or she currently works.

One more thing. Of the five reporters with valid press credentials who were arrested, three were arrested for trespassing and had their arrest voided. As the Associated Press and others reported, there’s no doubt that these personnel – and others – were in fact trespassing.  There’s no question that protesters sliced open a chain link fence and tried to take over private property.

This report was published by the AP:

“Reporter Karen Matthews and photographer Seth Wenig of The Associated Press in New York were taken into custody along with about eight other people after they followed protesters through an opening in a chain-link fence into a park, according to an AP reporter and other witnesses. Matthew Lysiak of the Daily News of New York was also arrested at the park, according to witnesses and the Daily News.”

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Stu

Update 9:59 p.m. Stu Loeser responded to our post from his @stuloeser Twitter account (and also made some very helpful copy editing suggestions!).

Also, @Megan, it's not "AS IF" I'm distinguishing btw "credentials and non-credentialed reporters" (sic), that's exactly what I am doing

& @megan, you don't have a press pass; that's your option. But why should some random NYPD take your word that you're press?

As a point of reference, the eligibility guidelines for NYC Press Credentials include:

Applicants must be a member of the media who covers, in person, emergency, spot or breaking news events and/or public events of a non-emergency nature, where police, fire lines or other restrictions, limitations, or barriers established by the City of New York have been set up for security or crowd control purposes, within the City of New York; or covers, in person, events sponsored by the City of New York which are open to members of the press.

Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days .

Depp.

The Rum Diary, based on another literary punch-out by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, was made three years ago, shelved in some musty editing room where unreleasable movies go, and looks it. The dust still shows.

Johnny Depp is dismally miscast as the alter ego of the rebellious author with the “screw you” attitude—a wasted, beat-up alcoholic who goes to Puerto Rico to work for a doomed newspaper called the San Juan Star whose faltering editor (Richard Jenkins, unrecognizable in a gray wig) is helpless to draw much attention to world events on a lawless island overwhelmed by gangsters and riots. Aaron Eckhart is an American P.R. mogul selling off pieces of pristine beachfront used for U.S. military target practice to rich corporate powers to build hotel towers, condos and ugly villas. After getting hired on to write promotional copy for brochures, the protagonist falls for his gorgeous girlfriend (Amber Heard) and a scene-stealing turtle named Harry with a jeweled shell. In no time, he gets fired, smashed to hamburger and left in a drunken stupor on a fly-specked floor. To Hunter S. Thompson fans—little boys weaned on comic books who never grew up to crave bare breasts and bare-knuckle beatings—it’s a call to arms. “There is no dream—just a piss puddle of greed, spreading throughout the world” is the cynical philosophy of the author, and the movie. With no job, no money, no girl and no future, the protagonist sees that the way to redeem himself as a journalist is to write an exposé of the criminal activities in San Juan—a sort of rum diary of corruption—and publish it. But how do you get your old mojo back when your paper is already closed down?

In an attempt to distract the viewer from the fact that there is nothing going on here, director Bruce Robinson cobbles in cockfights, sexual tension, a red convertible racing at breakneck speed, a traveling carnival, endless bottles of rum and a hermaphrodite witch doctor who drives a garbage truck. It’s all window dressing for an empty ruin, haunted by the hungover ghost of a mostly forgotten writer who died in 2005. The oddest thing about The Rum Diary, though, is all those half-nude shots of Mr. Depp, who is covered with tattoos, trying to camouflage them with Max Factor. Everyone has seen them, so if you’ve gone that far to abuse your body already, why not let it all hang out? In a role that is practically a beachcomber, the sun on that much greasepaint looks like he’s got spotted fever.

rreed@observer.com

THE RUM DIARY

Running Time 120 minutes

Written by Bruce Robinson

Directed by Bruce Robinson

Starring Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi and Aaron Eckhart

2/4

“This was my attempt to sum up what it meant to be a newspaperman in this city,” Mr. Hamill told the crowded room of mostly middle-to-late aged fans and the occasional young reporter. The audience hung on every word as Mr. Hamill, who speaks in the gruff, measured voice that is reminiscent of black-and-white movies, talked about the days when New York was a city of many competing dailies and midtown had more competing bars for the reporters after close.

After reading sections from the novel (which Mr. Hamill said is difficult to do because “you miss how everything hangs together”) he opened the discussion up to questions on “anything you want to ask about the novel or anything else – except the debt ceiling.”

Unsurprisingly, the first question was on the state of newspapers.

"Newspapers are not going to go away in the next 18 months.They are going to be here sharing with the Internet as the Internet rises and professionalizes," he said. "I am not a big fan of aggregators and stuff like that. I think that’s all bullshit. Journalism is not a hobby, it’s a profession."

He also cited The Daily Beast, which he gave credit to for having editors who read and writers who get paid.

"I think part of it will be generational. I watch the subway crowd very carefully. There are a couple of old guys without walkers reading the Times and The Wall Street Journal and some people reading the free papers," Mr. Hamill told the audience. "And then there are people thumbing away. I want to think that they are reading something good but I can never get a position where there is no glare on the screen. Somehow I don’t think they are reading Madame Bovary."

Mr. Hamill, who teaches at NYU, said that students make him hopeful for the future.

"Meeting these kids at NYU made me far more optimistic than I was before. The sense I get from them is that they are not like the swine in The Social Network who will betray every living human being for money. They are in it to lead meaningful lives," Mr. Hamill told us afterwards.

The book-signing portion of the event took place in the grand lobby of the museum. Fans clutching books to their chests waited on the marble staircase to get a witty saying inscribed.

Before we left, Mr. Hamill gave us some advice.

“I didn’t want to be Hemingway or A.J. Liebling. I wanted to be the best Pete Hamill that ever lived,” said Mr. Hamill. “To keep trying to improve yourself and learn more. To be modest about the small triumphs you have and to use your craft to reach out to people from whom you can learn stuff – whether it’s writers or musicians or artists. You can’t learn much from politicians. I’ve lost all faith in their ability because it’s all image and horseshit.”

Also: “Never go into a bar that needs a bouncer,” he said.

ksmoke@observer.com

All of the above is inarguable. But, of course, for some critics, the story is a good deal larger than all of that. For them, the story is about Mr. Murdoch. According to his critics, there is no evil to which he will not descend. The scandal at the News of the World has touched off nothing less than a media crusade against Mr. Murdoch, with the publisher’s oh-so-innocent enemies assuming the moral high ground as they attack not just the tactics of rogue journalists, not just the culture of British tabloid journalism, but the very character of Rupert Murdoch.

Please, spare us.  While it’s clear that many things were amiss at the News of the World, and while many questions remain to be asked of the relationship between British reporters (including those who don’t work for Mr. Murdoch) and Scotland Yard, it is simply wrong to assail Mr. Murdoch simply because of his politics. Yes, he was a part of London’s tainted tabloid culture, but that does not make him a symbol of that culture.

Rupert Murdoch has apologized, profusely and with genuine humility, to the family of Milly Dowler, the young murder victim whose phone was hacked into by reporters from News of the World. The family’s attorney said that Mr. Murdoch put his head in his hands as he expressed his grief. What more could he have done? How many publishers have apologized to families whose suffering has been exacerbated by media coverage? How many publishers would have closed a valuable property like News of the World? Mr. Murdoch did that, and more—he dropped his bid to purchase B Sky B, which was extremely important to him.

Mr. Murdoch clearly is one of the most powerful people on the planet. He is unabashed about his politics and he is willing to spend billions to underwrite media properties that reflect his world view. Those who disagree with it are free to read another newspaper or flip to another channel. Despite what you might have read or surmised from coverage of the scandal, Mr. Murdoch has no monopoly on news and opinion—in this country, in the U.K., in Australia, or on Planet Earth. Nevertheless, he is a big target for those who disagree with him—or who simply cannot compete with him.

They have piled on in recent days, with untoward enthusiasm. The scandal in Britain is a tragedy on many levels, for the Dowler family, for the families of journalists who are now out of work in a terrible economy, for the integrity of the Metropolitan Police in London  and surely for the Murdoch family. But there is no sense of sorrow in the tone of Mr. Murdoch’s critics. Instead, they gleefully insist that the scandal is a reflection of his personal failings.

Mr. Murdoch surely is not perfect. But he happens to be a world-class visionary who has revived dying newspapers (against the advice of his more-practical advisers), supported alternative vehicles for political and cultural criticism from Fox News to the Weekly Standard, and improved the readability of properties like The Wall Street Journal. He has been a staunch supporter of Israel and a crusader for education reform in New York.

Rupert Murdoch’s opinions are not to everybody’s taste. They are not intended to be. But New York newspaper readers should realize that there is a reason why this city is home to one of the world’s last newspaper wars, why there is greater diversity of opinion in this city’s newspapers than there was a quarter-century ago, and why politicians of both parties have had good reason to fear a phone call from the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

That reason is Rupert Murdoch, who came to New York in the 1970s and singlehanded revitalized the city’s newspaper landscape.

He has done this city a service. It is important to remember that as his critics seek to portray him as the media’s world king of darkness.