Kalb to Gigot: WSJ "dead wrong" for publishing editorial attacking NY Times on bank-tracking story
SUMMARY: On Fox News' Journal Editorial Report, Marvin Kalb described a Wall Street Journal editorial as "dead wrong" for criticizing The New York Times and defending the Journal over their reports on a U.S. program designed to monitor international financial transactions. Kalb, who is a senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, told Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot: "I think you declared war on another American newspaper without due cause. It is mean. It is mean-spirited."
"[D]ead wrong" was how Marvin Kalb described a June 30 editorial in The Wall Street Journal criticizing The New York Times and defending the Journal for their June 23 articles detailing a U.S. program designed to monitor international financial transactions. Kalb made his comments to Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot during a discussion on the July 8 edition of Fox News' Journal Editorial Report, which Gigot hosts. Kalb told Gigot: "I think you declared war on another American newspaper without due cause. It is mean. It is mean-spirited." Kalb later added: "I don't know that you have a right, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which was also fed this story by the government, to accuse the Times of treason. That's terrible."
The June 30 editorial, titled "Fit and Unfit to Print," purported to distinguish the Times' June 23 article from the Journal's (subscription only), as well as the circumstances under which they were written. But, as Media Matters for America has noted, there appears to be no relevant basis for differentiating the two reports. While the Times noted experts' legal and privacy concerns and the Journal did not, both articles revealed nearly identical details about how the financial surveillance program operated -- the basis for critics' allegations that the Times report threatens national security.
Nonetheless, in defending the Journal's decision to publish the story, Gigot claimed that the Journal article on the bank-tracking program does not "make that leap of faith and say, which The New York Times has said, that they think in fact the terrorists already knew it. We are not omniscient. That's what the Times is saying." Kalb responded: "No, no, no. ... You don't have to be a particular genius to figure this out -- the terrorists themselves must know. It is the oldest rule of journalism and terrorism: Follow the money."
Kalb and Gigot also discussed the genesis of the Journal's story, on which the Journal's editorial appeared to contradict itself. As Media Matters noted, while the editorial suggested that the Journal published its report on the bank-tracking program as a result of the Bush administration's approaching the paper with information about the program after the Times had said that the story was "going to become public anyway," the editorial also mentioned that the Journal reporter had been "working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift [the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication ]." Thus, the editorial also seemed to be suggesting that the Journal had been pursuing a story on the financial surveillance program before the administration approached the paper.
From the July 8 edition of Fox News' Journal Editorial Report:
KALB: I think that the story that The New York Times broke is one of those that you end up 49-51, "Do I go with it, or do I sit on it?"
My own feeling is that The New York Times did the right thing by going with the story. In that sense, I disagree with the senator [John McCain (R-AZ), who has said the bank-tracking program should not have been reported], most respectfully.
I do believe, however, that if I were the editor of the Times, a very unlikely prospect, I would have gone with the story in a different way. Not with all of the detail on the finances, but by focusing on another major activity of the administration without sufficient consultation with the Congress and possibly -- although not necessarily in this case -- in some violation of the law itself.
GIGOT: Well, but nobody since that story has broken has said this has violated the law. I mean, there hasn't been.
KALB: No, that's true.
GIGOT: And John McCain and others -- [Rep.] Jack Murtha, in fact, asked the Times not to publish it -- the Democrat from Pennsylvania.
KALB: Yeah.
GIGOT: So there is no assertion here that Congress wasn't adequately informed.
KALB: I think that the assertion was made by The New York Times, by the L.A. Times, by your own newspaper, and The Washington Post, all of whom ran this story.
And what they said was that there was very limited -- very limited consultation with the Congress. Only after the administration knew that the Times was going to go with the story were all of the people on the relevant committees informed.
I think that the editorial that you ran, Paul -- and I say this, as you know, with total respect for you as a journalist -- I think was dead wrong. I think you declared war on another American newspaper without due cause. It is mean. It is mean-spirited.
GIGOT: What we want to know is -- what I've heard from many people, many of our readers is, what is the public interest that was served in disclosing this story? Why did we have to undermine a program that really worked effectively to track terror financing? What specific interest was served?
KALB: Well, number one, I don't know about the undermining of the program. I don't know enough about secret details and all of that. I don't have access to that. And I don't think you do either, by the way. But I think --
GIGOT: No, absolutely not. But we don't make that leap of faith and say, which The New York Times has said, that they think in fact the terrorists already knew it. We are not omniscient. That's what the Times is saying.
KALB: No, no, no. But, Paul, I think what the Times said -- and everybody has said, and you don't have to be a particular genius to figure this out -- the terrorists themselves must know. It is the oldest rule of journalism and terrorism: Follow the money.
So if they are going -- if they know about that, they are going to be very careful about the way in which they send money through regular banking channels. We know from newspaper stories, including those in The Wall Street Journal, that the terrorists themselves are going outside of this established channel to do it in different ways. Hand-carrying money. That sort of thing.
GIGOT: But the --
KALB: So in other words, I don't know that you have a right, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which was also fed this story by the government --
GIGOT: We were not fed the story. The news side -- the news side was fed it.
KALB: -- to accuse the Times of treason. That's terrible.
GIGOT: The news side of the Journal was given the story because they didn't like -- they wanted to affect the way that this story was portrayed. We were trying to answer --
KALB: You said that --
GIGOT: We were trying to answer --
KALB: Paul, you said that there would be a straighter account.
GIGOT: Right.
KALB: A straighter story written by Glenn Simpson.
GIGOT: I think that that's what --
KALB: What does that mean? That he's going to do it uncritically? I don't think so.
GIGOT: Well, he didn't do it uncritically. He did it straightforwardly.
Gigot and his talking-points supplier from the GOP have no shame, no shame at all. The WSJ Editorial Board has several times slammed Murtha for his position on Iraq and attempted to discredit him. But now, when they need something - anything - to support their contention (that the NYT was waved-off the story by both Dems and Pugs), they all of a sudden do a "180" and hold his opinion in high regard. No rules, nothing constrains these people.
And how does Gigot make this fantastic leap of faith that everyone in Congress who should have been consulted by the WH was consulted, and that there was no error or omission on the part of this admin?
Why do these so-called "journalists" do Bush's dirty work by making up things and distorting known facts? Why do they love their president more than they love their country?
I've got audio clips of Melanie Mogan on her KSFO show calling for the editors to be hanged. She included the WSJ, the LA Times and the Washington Post in her accusations of treason.
So I wrote the WSJ publisher and advertising dept. and said "Why do you advertise on a program that calls for the death of your editors?" (WSJ is a sponsor on the program).
I haven't heard back.
Also, one of her co-hosts said that the Associate Press should all commit mass suicide.
Today another co-host joked about Bill Keller going to the electric chair and made buzzing noises of him getting electrocuted. What a swell bunch!
Being a conservative means never having to think or know what the hell you're talking about. Lucky for them. They'd be totally screwed if they did.
"What we want to know is - what I've heard from many people, many of our readers is, what is the public interest that was served in disclosing this story?" - Gigot
Well in case you forgot, its the same public interest that's served every time the WSJ or any other newspaper in this country publishes a story on an action of the government when it affects all the people, especially one on a matter of privacy such as finances: TO INFORM.
To inform their readers that the government they placed in power is monitoring an aspect of their lives, if not with their consent, at least without their knowledge.
This is the function of a free press in a paticipatory democracy, to serve as both a watchdog of and a de facto fourth branch of the government.
If you spent less time being simply a mouthpiece and a lapdog for the Bush administration, perhaps you'd remember this.
...this was the same point that caught my attention. His very asking of the question points out his lack of understanding of what is occurring in this matter, and all other matters regarding this administration. Or perhaps it points out the attempts to cover up what is really occurring - that this administration is continually violating the very laws of the land that it is sworn to uphold. Not just once or twice, but constantly. This is an outlaw regime, and stories like this one serve to INFORM the public, which is the specific purpose of the press in the first place. How idiotic a question he asked...
Refresher course implies he studied Journalism 101 in the first place. That assumes facts not in evidence.
It's about time someone handed the WSJ's ass to them on live television! I never heard of Marvin Kalb before this, but he laid it out better than anyone...nobody in the news business should be attacking the Times, especially the WSJ.
You're probably too young to remember the glory days of the Kalb boys, Bernard and Marvin, with Walter Cronkite of the CBS Evening News. That was when statesmen rather than bottom-line jerks ran the news division. Go, Marvin. He deserves as much thanks as Stephen Colbert for elegantly speaking the truth.
Jeremy, Marvin Kalb is a distinguished journalist from the old school of the Chancellor's, Huntley's and Brinkley's.....he has a brother, Bernard, who was also part of the early NBC crews, (50's, 60's & early 70's) who, unlike today's creampuff journalists, really believe in the power & credibility of the fourth estate.
One can only hope that the kind of true journalism from that era can somehow creep back into the daily fiber of "reporting the news" again someday.....highly doubtful tho.
You said, “One can only hope that the kind of true journalism from that era can somehow creep back into the daily fiber of "reporting the news" again someday.....highly doubtful tho.”
This can’t happen until Americans unite in an organized effort to regain our government away from the corporations that now “own” it as if it were just another company, or division of a company. Until that happens, the media is useless, not worth watching unless you want to be misinformed or just generally disgusted.
That was what jumped out at me, too . . . I find it hard to believe that an editor at one of the nation's largest and most respected newspapers seems to forget this basic tenet of public journalism.
Then again, once you receive enough talking points from Rove - not to mention enough paychecks from your corporate masters - I guess its easy to forget.
"the terrorists themselves must know" of course. this is no secret that we are tracking money. it's been shouted from the rooftops. all this outrage about a non-story and when it was announced that a cia agent was outed by "two senior administration officials", doing serious damage to this day, did bush call anyone in and say did you do this, and will you sign this statement? [oh, wait, he told them to.] the only thing we got was weeks of silence before the justice dept. began a half hearted investigation.
bush, of course, told them to go after wilson which is how plame's name got exposed. and how is that karl rove goes scot free when he told chris matthews that she was "fair game"?
Let's hope the NYT never runs a story saying we use wiretaps against the mob. I'm sure they don't know that.
This "secret program" is no secret to al qaeda. They know that we're tracking them. This program was designed to keep it from the American public.
Gigot is a total hack. He got thumped on a regular basis on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer by Mark Shields for Christ sake. They had to call up David Brooks from the minors to replace his sorry butt.
that the press must retain a prudent skepticism of those in power to best serve the public. Sadly, Gigot appears to only cast a critical eye on anyone who isn't a conservative and he's in a position to inflict severe damage upon the institutions of democracy. He should either be fired or resign forthwidth.