What Truthout Knows

Truthout’s Marc Ash tells what they know and what they believe about the Rove indictment [1]. Over the last few days, this story itself has become the story as people are focusing less on Rove and more on the simmering tension between journalists and bloggers as news reports [2] purported to have ‘outed’ the trigger-happy blogosphere for repeating a baseless rumor. Unfortunately, what is more interesting is not that some bloggers may have repeated it, but that the majority of bloggers did not [3] .

But Truthout is not only standing by its reporting in the face of an all-out assault by the msm, but has even published a forthright defense on the matter (something the msm, in grand Bush-style, almost never does):

We know that we have now three independent sources confirming that attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment either late in the night of May 12 or early in the morning of May 13. We know that each source was in a position to know what they were talking about. We know that the office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will not confirm, will not deny, will not comment on its investigation or on our report. We know that both Rove's attorney Robert Luskin and Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo have categorically denied all key facts we have set forth. We know we have information that directly contradicts Luskin and Corallo's denials. [4] We know that there were two network news crews outside of the building in Washington, DC that houses the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. We know that the 4th floor of that building (where the Patton Boggs offices are located) was locked down all day Friday and into Saturday night. We know that we have not received a request for a retraction from anyone. And we know that White House spokesman Tony Snow now refuses to discuss Karl Rove - at all.

Ash is very careful to separate the above facts (as he claims them) to what he is inferring from these:

We believe that we hit a nerve with our report. When I get calls on my cell phone from Karl Rove's attorney and spokesman, I have to wonder what's up. "I" believe - but cannot confirm - that Mark Corallo, Karl Rove's spokesman gave Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post my phone number. I believe Howard Kurtz contacted me with the intention of writing a piece critical of our organization. I know that Anne Marie Squeo of the Wall Street Journal attacked us and independent journalism as a whole in her piece titled, "Rove's Camp Takes Center of Web Storm / Bloggers Underscore How Net's Reporting, Dynamics Provide Grist for the Rumor Mill." [2] We believe that rolling out that much conservative journalistic muscle to rebut this story is telling. And we believe that Rove's camp is making a concerted effort to discredit our story and our organization.

Further - and again this is "What We Believe" - Rove may be turning state's evidence. We suspect that the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation may have broadened - clearly to Cheney - and according to one "off the record source" to individuals and events not directly related to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. We believe that the indictment which does exist against Karl Rove is sealed. Finally, we believe that there is currently a great deal of activity in the Plame investigation.

The fact is, there are very good reasons for tension between bloggers and journalists. Obviously, the sheer numbers and networking inherent in the blogosphere provides a cooperative research and fact-checking base the likes of which dwarfs that which any journalist could achieve in a lifetime of schmoozing. Likewise, the past few years have witnessed the blogosphere scooping the msm on almost every issue – often by several months! I’m not necessarily trying to claim that journalists are being squeezed out of their job. However, bloggers are definitely challenging them to do their jobs better and the msm’s high horse would be a lot more convincing if they had sourced the story themselves before debunking it outright and scolding the netroots.

On a side note, I think Rove and co. should probably go ahead and get themselves convicted as soon as possible before Chimpy isn't around to pardon them anymore!