Trash Journalism
Over my cornflakes this morning I was mulling this comment by Deltoid’s Tim Lambert, which he left in response to my criticism yesterday of Joe Romm, who is on the hot seat for claiming
It is exceedingly common in regular journalism to ask people for a quote that makes a very specific point “” I’ve been asked many times by reporters to do similar things.
Now, before I address Lambert’s astonishing comment, let’s remind readers what Romm first told Stanford’s Ken Caldiera, whom Romm was seeking a specific quote from, relating to Caldiera’s controversial role in the Superfreakonomics book by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. As detailed by Dubner on his NYT blog, Romm explained his motivation thus in an email to Caldeira:
I want to trash them for this insanity and ignorance.
Not enough has been said about that. I’m returning to it, because in his response to me, Lambert is obviously approving of such behavior, because he writes:
I think Romm was refreshingly honest.
This just blows my mind. It would be one thing if Romm said to Caldeira, I want to refute Dubner and Levitt, or I want to repudiate them.
But no, Romm says he wants to trash them. That’s plainly out of bounds. That’s not how reputable journalists operate–we don’t set out to deliberately trash people. Yet Lambert finds this “refresingly honest.” No, Tim, this is trash journalism.
Update, Oct 21: Romm still can’t bring himself to admit he erred:
Given the circumstances, I don’t think I did anything wrong.
Romm is a thug? I’m shocked!
Too funny. You want to trash Joe Romm. I guess that means that you are not a reputable journalist.
Tim,
Huh? I’m not looking to trash Romm. I’m critical of him, yes. If I wanted to trash him, I’d use personal smears, guilt-by-association and ad hominem attacks.
Come off it, Keith. Dubner systematically misrepresented Caldeira’s work and then blamed Caldeira for it. You don’t criticise him for this, instead you blast Romm.
I guess you could say that Romm was refreshingly honest in his email exchange with Caldeira he seemed to think he could browbeat him into doing his bidding, Caldeira uses the word “panicked” about his dealings with Romm, but would Romm have been so refreshingly honest if he had known that later Caldeira would cc Dubner?
You’re not honestly suggesting that Romm is being a journalist, are you? Seems to me pretty clear that he’s not a journalist. He’s a political blogger, with up-front political objectives. Not that this necessarily excuses his aim of trashing Dubner, just that the standards of journalism can’t be what are brought to bear on the rightness or wrongness of this aim.
Ben,
Your distinction eludes me. Romm fancies himself a journalist, and he’s cited approvingly as an authoritative source on climate change policy and science by leading journalists, such as Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman, largely on the strength of his blogging at Climate Progress.
Do they cite him approvingly for his heavy-handed critiques of journalists and skeptics, or is because they consider him a righteous, credible source for groundtruthing in the climate wars? I dunno. I’ll let you be the judge.
Oh, and Ben, I just checked Climate Progress, and here’s the headline on his latest post (emphasis added): “Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Calderia backs up my reporting on error-riddled Superfreakonimics.”
He believes that what he does is akin to reporting. And remember, he defends himself by saying this:
“It is exceedingly common in regular journalism to ask people for a quote that makes a very specific point.”
So it’s confirmed that Dubner knowingly misrepresented Caldeira. Keith is perfectly fine with this and has another go at Romm.
Tim,
Can you point to anywhere in my two posts and multiple follow-up comments where I say I’m fine with Caldeira being mispresented? Please, don’t put words in my mouth.
BTW, Romm believes he did nothing wrong–that asking a source for a specific quote so he could trash somebody–is acceptable. That’s why I had another go at him.
Keith, it is inescapably weird that you focus on Romm while giving the (journalist) Dubner half of the Dubn and Dubner team a free pass. You’re applying a non-journalistic agenda. I don’t find that shocking, but it does make your critique of Romm self-canceling.
In your spare time you can address why it’s obvious to someone like Eric Pooley that Romm isn’t acting as a journalist.
To me, and I realize there’s an element of pot-kettle-black here, it looks as if some time back you got mad at Joe for being mean to your friends and now look for every opportunity to trash him. By now it must be boring even for you.
[…] I wrote here: It would be one thing if Romm said to Caldeira, I want to refute Dubner and Levitt, or I want to […]