Status on campaign conference call MP3s

Monday, March 24, 2008 by Dave Winer.

We begin this week where we began the last. Thanks to McClatchy, we're getting almost half of the conference call MP3s. But that's not half as good as getting them all, not close.  

Imagine getting a trial transcript with more than 1/2 the testimony missing. Some days you get the words used by the defense, other days, the prosecution. Never both.  

Our pleas openly stated in public and expressed privately, have gone mostly for naught. Occasionally there's a nibble, but never any followup. 

I have excellent contacts in the Internet parts of the Obama campaign, but emails on this subject have gone unanswered. The Clinton campaign was worse, they thought I was signing up to support the candidate and suggested I give money, stuff envelopes, etc. 

I've been in touch with numerous professional news organizations, with reporters, editors, and technical people. I don't want to say who because I don't want to embarass anyone.  

Dan Gillmor, in a private exchange, a former tech journalist at the SJ Merc-News, volunteered a perspective that's common-sense and refreshing. This is their job, at the news organizations, to provide readers with information, not to control the flow of news and spin it for us, rather pass it through transparently, so we can make up our own minds. 

I consume lots of professional journalism, and it's sad and angering that so much of what they report as the mood of the people is really their mood, based on no actual information. Because no one can expose them, they get sloppy, it builds over the years.  

It's outrageous to me, listening to them talk about the Wright tapes, they're getting it wrong. I have actually watched the videos. Have they? Either they have or they haven't. If not, it's grossly irresponsible. If they have, it's criminal, the way they deliver incorrect conclusions and show misleading evidence. When all the networks do the same thing, it's collusion, anti-trust, conspiracy.  

Sometimes, rarely, a little truth leaks out.  

So no, I don't trust them, and as journalists like to say, if your mother says she loves you, check it out. They need fact-checking to keep them honest, that's why we need the source material.  

I had the image yesterday, listening to the Meet The Press podcast, of irresponsible children throwing around lit sticks of dynamite in the middle of a sacred library. Our democracy is at its most vulnerable right now, and they're behaving as if it was a sporting event. Because I listen to the actual words the candidates and their representatives use, I know when they're lying. Of course this is the real reason they don't want to help us get the MP3s. They may not be conscious of it, but it's the reason.  

However, I'm sure that eventually we'll get them.