No excuses: Ron Fournier needs to be recused or fired

I don't think the enormity of Ron Fournier's hit piece on the Obama-Biden ticket can be fully appreciated. This story will be in every small-town paper, and quite a few big ones, by tomorrow. As newspapers reduce their staffs and rely more heavily on wire services, Fournier's reporting and his style as the Washington bureau chief will be more and more prominent. What's more the media swarm takes their cues from sources like the AP. Fournier is a Villager who needs to be cut down. Now.

Fournier's attack on the ticket - that Obama's pick displayed weakness, that he chose the status quo over a reinforcing pick - isn't the most egregious perspective in the world. Obama did fill the gaps in the resume. But as Steve Benen (in his new digs) notes, it was a lazy analysis:

First, on the substance, Fournier's analysis seems a little lazy. By his logic, any potential running mate shows a "lack of confidence" -- picking Hillary would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over women voters; picking Bayh would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over independents and conservative Dems; picking Webb would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over voters concerned about national security; picking Kaine would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over voters in the South; etc. For that matter, "the status quo" in Washington has been conservative Republican rule. Biden may be an old pro and a DC insider, but he's anything but "the status quo."

But much more important is Fournier's personal history with this campaign and these candidates. He famously told Karl Rove to "keep up the fight" while Pat Tillman's case was raging. He considered joining the McCain campaign earlier this year:

Before Ron Fournier returned to The Associated Press in March 2007, the veteran political reporter had another professional suitor: John McCain's presidential campaign.

In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain's inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.

He simply has no business covering the Presidential campaign. It's one thing for an openly conservative columnist - Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol - arguing against the Democratic nominee. It's another thing for a purportedly "objective" journalist, running the AP's Washington office at a time where the wire service has more influence than ever - offering a slanted take without disclosing his bias. The AP has a Ron Fournier problem, and now it's all of our problem.

Think about it: That year, Rove was engineering the president's re-election -- a campaign Fournier was covering as an AP reporter -- and Fournier urged Rove to "keep up the fight"? Even if that phrase was not written in connection with the campaign, that kind of communication is just wrong. If Fournier could produce emails from 2004 in which he urged top Democratic strategists to "keep up the fight," it would certainly remove doubts about his relationship with Rove, but I suspect Fournier cannot [...]

The problem for Fournier is that the now-public email exchange with Rove simply amplifies long-running concerns about his political tilt and its manifestation in his work.

For instance, in the months before Fournier was privately bonding with Rove and urging the White House to "keep up the fight," this was the lead Fournier wrote for a straight-ahead news article about then-Democratic front-runner Howard Dean receiving Al Gore's endorsement:

Dean hopes the coveted endorsement eases concerns among party leaders about his lack of foreign policy experience, testy temperament, policy flip-flops, campaign miscues and edgy anti-war, antiestablishment message.

Gee, not many Rovian talking points embedded in that AP article, eh?

Boehlert's article is long and filled with material about Ron Fournier's biased reporting. Fournier even invented the idea that Al Gore "invented the Internet."

This is not something to be dismissed and I'm not the only one who thinks this. Ron Fournier is destroying the AP and driving the clubby, sneering, insider journalism that has damaged this country. He needs to be stopped. Jonathan Singer has the contact for the Associated Press and I expect a lot more actions on this in the coming days. For now...

Contact the Associated Press (updated)... Kathleen Carroll (Fournier's boss) at kcarroll@ap.org or (212) 621-1500. Be POLITE, but be FIRM. Let them know that you don't want to see them serve as stenographers and amplifiers for pure spin by the McCain campaign.

UPDATE: MoveOn jumps in.

This isn't an isolated incident for the AP reporter who wrote this story, Ron Fournier--who was recently appointed as the AP's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Media watchdog group Media Matters wrote a report showing that Fournier's presidential coverage has consistently smeared Democrats and favored John McCain.

Can you email AP reporter Ron Fournier and CC his boss, Managing Editor Mike Oreskes? Tell them that the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain.

Here are their emails:

Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, mOreskes@ap.org
Ron Fournier, AP reporter and Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, rfournier@ap.org
After you email them, please help us track our progress by reporting your email here:

link

UPDATE II: Jane at FDL has created a neat little letter to the editor tool that was very successful the last time they used it, generating 15,000 LTE's to a Nedra Pickler story earlier this year. And then there's this:

The Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated press, Ron Fournier, commands speaker's fees of up to $10,000 per appearance.

As of this writing, Fournier appears to available for booking through the All American Talent & Celebrity Network. I called to confirm that he was still listed with the agency, but I haven't heard back yet [...]

Here's AP's ethics policy on outside appearances:

OUTSIDE APPEARANCES:
Employees frequently appear on radio and TV news programs as panelists asking questions of newsmakers; such appearances are encouraged.

However, there is potential for conflict if staffers are asked to give their opinions on issues or personalities of the day. Advance discussion and clearance from a staffer's supervisor are required.

Employees must inform a news manager before accepting honoraria and/or reimbursement of expenses for giving speeches or participating in seminars at colleges and universities or at other educational events if such appearance makes use of AP's name or the employee represents himself or herself as an AP employee. No fees should be accepted from governmental bodies; trade, lobbying or special interest groups; businesses, or labor groups; or any group that would pose a conflict of interest. All appearances must receive prior approval from a staffer's supervisor.

A shill and a cheat.

Media Industrial Complex

Turns out Ron Fournier, now heading the Washington bureau of the AP right into ruin, had another job offer on the table prior to that:

In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain’s inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.

Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for “a senior advisory role” in communications.

“He did us the courtesy of considering the offer before politely declining it,” Salter said.

Why would he take it? He gets the free Dunkin' Donuts for McCain anyway, which I assume would have been part of his job description.

Fournier is clearly a partisan cheerleader ("Keep up the fight!") masquerading as a journalist. But am I supposed to be shocked by this? The late White House press secretary Tony Snow worked for Fox News prior to his arrival. The National Journal's Linda Douglass is on the Obama campaign. There's an endless revolving door between media and the corridors of power, and it's been true since Bill Moyers and even before. That's kind of a separate case, but my point is this: When I talk about the failures of the media, there's no real discernment between it and the failures of a cloistered, insulated establishment. Because they amount to the same thing.

What's far more disturbing is that these cozy establishment relationships lead insiders to expect to get away with contradictions while maintaining their perceived honorable reputation - which happens a lot on the McCain campaign:

A while back the McCain put a new rule in place that no one involved in their campaign could be a federal lobbyist or foreign agent. But CBS has an interview out with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis that appears to say that rule is no longer in effect. Asked how many lobbyists work on the campaign, Davis tells Katie Couric: "We don't make it a litmus test for employment at the McCain campaign."

THIS is the problem. The laziness, the willingness to be fed information for access, the inability to challenge any official statements or make a judgment on the side of truth or even remember what is being said from one day to the next. Fournier is not a problem, he's just a symptom.

Connect The Dots

Apparently Ron Fournier has been shaking up the AP, trying to get its reporters to put on a rhetorical leather jacket, to pepper their factual stories with cutting language and tell-it-like-it-is panache. Unfortunately, because reporters have been drilled to not have opinions (and most of them don't), they're using this directive to parrot right-wing spin and fuck up wire service stories. I don't want to tar all journalists here, but having worked in newsrooms, there's a lot of laziness, as they've come to rely on their fax blasts and the sweet nothings their sources tell them. When Fournier says "have a mind of your own!" the problem is they don't, so all it does is give them carte blanche to more directly play out their tired, rigid narratives, only now from the perch of news instead of opinion.

As for Fournier, when he exhorted his charges to tell it like it is, he must have meant this:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

Never mind it though, because he's very sorry about it. That's OK, because it gave us all the context we needed.

(Incidentally, that above quote came from a House Oversight Committee report on the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch cases, which was an object lesson on how the Bush Administration handles controversy - apparently nobody remembers anything about these events, owing to as the executive summary puts it "a universal lack of recall." Another in a long line of convenient memory losses.