It appears that Ezra Klein is folding the off-the-record progressive listserve Journolist today, after someone maliciously leaked emails from the very talented Washington Post reporter David Weigel. I don’t know who did this or why. This leak was a particularly lousy thing to do.
Ezra made the right decision to close up shop once someone proved intent on going through the archives to embarrass or to hurt people. I hope that he saves the archives somewhere under lock and key, because some fine writing and conversation were posted there concerning large and small matters of American culture and social policy.
Like many others, I have personal and intellectual reasons to be grateful for the chance to participate. It’s disappointing, though unsurprising, that professional jealousy or some other motive led someone to abuse this opportunity. As often happens in life, it’s hard to build something valuable, but it’s easy to damage it.
“Ezra made the right decision to close up shop once someone proved intent on going through the archives to embarrass or to hurt people. I hope that he saves the archives somewhere under lock and key, because some fine writing and conversation were posted there concerning large and small matters of American culture and social policy. “
And one hopes that whoever did the leaking also saved the archives. Why should journalism be the only profession entitled to conspire together in secret to get their story straight, without worry about whistleblowers?
Brett, reading that comment triggers my vomit reflexes. You are not usually so vulnerable to conspiracy theories concocted by people angry at having been excluded. Please read Ezra’s description of what the list actually was and did.
Vomit all you like. That’s the take on it journalists would have, if any other profession did the same.
Really, Brett? You think that journalists would be shocked, indeed sickened, by the existence of members-only conversation venues for the purpose of discussion and debate among groups of people who share some interests and have worldviews that are not violently incompatible with each other? Is that really what you think?
The only interesting thing about JournoList is that it was done electronically, and some of the attendant features (archiving, ease of duplication, size, breadth) made it easier to betray its purpose and thereby to destroy it. A hundred years or two hundred years ago the same sort of thing happened all the time, only the exchanges of views too place within peoples’ parlors or by the circulation of physical letters.
Look at it this way: JournoList has leaked before, including leaks to Mickey Kaus when he was trying to prove Ezra Klein was a monster and JournoList an abomination. Surely, the sort of puppeteering and conspiratorical groupthink that many have insinuated about JournoList would have been the juiciest possible things to leak from it - much as messages mischaracterized in that fashion were the juiciest things leaked from the private emails of that English climate research group. And yet, nothing of the sort has emerged. Conspiracies are a good story, even small and contrived conspiracies, and JournoList allegedly had hundreds of members - and the worst things to emerge have been some juvenile remarks. So where’s the malign plot? The simplest explanation is that JournoList is exactly what everyone involved with it has said it was.
Warren, yeah, Kaus attacked Ezra Klein over JournoList. But no problem w/ Steve Sailer (Human Biodiversity list). Draw your own conclusions.
Some listserve maintenance software logs archive queries. If the software that Klein was using to run Journolist did so, then Klein would be able to find out who trawled the archives for the Weigel material. It may be that Klein is closing the list because he knows who did it.
The only interesting thing about JournoList is that it was done electronically, and some of the attendant features (archiving, ease of duplication, size, breadth) made it easier to betray its purpose and thereby to destroy it. A hundred years or two hundred years ago the same sort of thing happened all the time, only the exchanges of views too place within peoples’ parlors or by the circulation of physical letters.
This is right, but it gets to how stupid Ezra Klein’s idea was (who I like as a journalist and commentator, but who seems clueless on these things). You do this by conference call, not listserv.
Ezra should know better- his “private” twitter feed got broadcast to the world when he insulted Tim Russert. So it’s weird that he still doesn’t get that e-mail can never be the freewheeling conversation he desires.
So, the only problem here is that they used the wrong technology to run an ideologically exclusive cabal of journalists conspiring to coordinate news coverage to the benefit of a particular political party? Don’t worry, then, I’m sure that they’re going over the records right now to try to work out who blabbed, and Journolist will be back, more secretive, and with the right technology.