Sources: It's Rove

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Editor and Publisher says an MSNBC analyst believes Karl Rove to be Matt Cooper's source. Here's a follow-up article.

Explain to me how this isn't plastered all over front pages and dominating political talk show agendas.

Oh, I know why. It's because all of a sudden, what Rove and Cooper discussed is "unclear."

They have the notes. They have the e-mails. Editors should know as a matter of procedure the identity of the unnamed source and what information is relayed. Something in those documents, between the notes and the correspondence between Cooper and his editors, should definitively identify the source and the information that was relayed. If not, some editors at Time, Inc. took Cooper at his word and probably broke all sorts of procedural rules over there.

When I wrote for my college paper, I did a big investigative piece on drug sources in the community. I spoke directly to a major drug supplier who was doing all sorts of other illegal things. In order to write the story, I had to ensure his anonymity. I wouldn't divulge the source, but I also had to ensure that at least one other editor at the paper knew who the anonymous source was, so she could back me in the case that someone accused me of simply making shit up. As I understood it at the time, having one's editor know the identity of an anonymous source is pretty much the status quo in newsrooms for this type of story.

So it's very, very likely that confidential correspondence exists between Cooper and at least one of his editors that discloses the identity of the anonymous source, and what information he was responsible for relaying.

If that correspondence exists, why don't we know the identity of the source with any degree of certainty?

Brazen

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People ask me all the time about my thoughts on how blogs have changed the political landscape. One of the things I usually cite is how blogs keep many of the little details from going unreported. And I believe this may eventually lead to more transparency in government. But before "transparency" and "government" can be used in the same sentence without prompting fits of laughter, those little details need to turn into courses of action that actually penalize government officials when they do something wrong. No government official is going to want to move toward transparency unless they are moved in that direction by compelling forces. And I think those compelling forces are motivators of fear.

In other words, no lobbyist should comp meals to an elected official, out of fear that someone in the blogosphere will uncover it, and that the resultant controversy will bubble up to the mainstream press. No major corporation should appear to benefit directly from a war that the administration has failed to adequately justify, being rewarded with fee increases and more work for its incompetence.

I think the big disconnect is that the blogs are indeed reporting on the minute details, these things are bubbling up to the mainstream press, but that's pretty much where many of these things die. The Downing Street Memo pretty much sealed the deal on the war in Iraq being a forgone conclusion, despite the president's insistence otherwise. But where has that gone? We hear mumblings about impeachment that eventually die down, but nothing ever really gets done.

And yet, we've impeached a president for lying about an extramarital affair - something that has almost next to nothing to do with how the country is run. People seem to want to give Bush a free pass on taking us to war under false pretenses. So it's not the uncovering of the facts that's the problem. It's what we do with these facts once they emerge, which tends to be absolutely nothing.

To truly experience the transparency that citizen reporting can bring to government, we need to make all the details actionable. I wish I could say that I knew how to do this, but I can't. Mainly because I don't understand the lack of outrage on the part of the public. It's not that they're not getting the information - this morning I was watching MSNBC and heard them report on at least three stories I first read about on blogs. So the model of MSM reporters tapping into blogs for direction on stories is certainly working. It's just that when the stories do manage to bubble up, the reaction is often a resounding "So what?"

I think if we could find out what factors are contributing to the apparent apathy, we could get the model working the way many expected it to work. Instead, we have elected officials brazenly and flagrantly violating the law, ethical guidelines and more because the chances are that they won't be held accountable.

Podcast Update

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Well, we didn't get around to making our podcast last night, which is kind of unfortunate. But I know the rig works and we've tentatively scheduled some time next Tuesday to do a sort of trial run. And hopefully this will yield some good audio content. What I want to get a sense of with the trial run is the following:

1) If we talk on the subject matter for 30-45 minutes, how much usable content will that yield? How much time would we have to spend in order to get 30 minutes of usable material?

2) How long will it take to edit the content using Audacity? How long will it take to add intro loops, cut out awkward silences and compress the audio into an MP3 that will yield adequate sound quality without breaking the bandwidth bank?

3) With four participants, how likely is it that each participant's voice is distinctive enough for listeners to be able to figure out who is speaking?

That's mainly what I want to find out. Then I can get a gauge on how much time will be needed each week to produce a podcast that will develop a healthy listener base.