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Via Glenn Greenwald, John McQuaid tweets:
WaPo’s failure to acknowledge earlier journalism on the privatization of intelligence is all about winning prizes cc @TimothyS
I can’t speak to the Post’s motivations. But there’s an unfortunate and archaic tendency in old-school media to avoid referencing the work of other reporters when possible — sometimes a piece is too conspicuous to neglect — and hopefully ‘Top Secret America’ will look one day like the last stand of that old way of doing business. Because it’s a great series and a real public service. And in order to research it as thoroughly as it is clearly researched, Dana Priest and Bill Arkin would have had to go out of their way not to read the work of Timothy Shorrock or Jeremy Scahill or P.W. Singer or any number of other writers and journalists and bloggers.
Hat-tipping is positive-sum journalism. It recognizes the truth that another term for “aggregation” is “due diligence,” and it properly contextualizes new information. Everyone wins.
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It really is telling that Priest and Arkin did not acknowledge the in depth investigations of Scahill and Shorrock. Sort of pathetic
Shorrock sure focused on the “what took them so long” piece
Tim Shorrock Asks Why It Took the Washington Post So Long to Investigate the US Intelligence System
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/19/tim_shorrock_asks_why_it_took
“AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Tim Shorrock, an investigative journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of [Intelligence Outsourcing].
Tim, as you go through the first of the series of pieces in the Washington Post—you’ve been looking at these issues for a long time—what are you—what do you think is most important?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, first of all, let me say that, with all due respect to the Washington Post—and Dana Priest and Bill Arkin are very good reporters—we have to ask, why did it take them seven years to do this story? Anyone who’s been covering intelligence or national security in Washington knows that intelligence has been privatized to an incredible extent and national security has been privatized to an incredible extent.
I broke the first stories on the intelligence-industrial complex. The first one appeared in Mother Jones in 2005. In 2007 I wrote a major story for Salon and a whole series in Salon. I disclosed that 70 percent of the US intelligence budget is spent on private-sector contractors. And then, of course, I wrote this book, which has a lot of this information that’s in the Post series. So, I find it rather amazing that it took them this long to actually do this kind of piece, because the information has been there.
And the American people have been ill-served by the Washington Post, whose coverage of these companies has been basically rah-rah journalism—rah-rah Lockheed Martin, rah-rah Booz Allen, look at the profits they’re making. There has not been this kind of careful look at what’s actually happening. So, that’s the first point I’d like to make. And I think, you know, people should look at the work of myself, Jeremy Scahill, other journalists that have covered this sector and put out the word of how much intelligence is controlled and gathered by private-sector corporations.”
Citation of earlier work is an important indicator that you know what you’re talking about. Perhaps you’re conflating the two, but I would draw a distinction between this and “hat-tipping” as currently practiced in the blogosphere, which is useless and irritating.
Good: “Previous work by Shorrock for Salon.com in 2007 criticized the private sector outsourcing of intelligence work,” followed by a few paragraphs on how it relates to the thesis of this story, and how the circumstances or details have changed in the intervening years.
Useless: “Yglesias tweeted a Felix Salmon post about Glenn Greenwald mentioning a Shorrock piece that covered some of the same stuff. Here’s a smart sounding paragraph blockquoted.”
Spencer, Rush Limbaugh is talking about you on the radio, but not in a good way. Congratulations!
Hot diggety dog Congrats Spencer. Has Rush ever gone after EW or Jane? Is he afraid of them?
Does anyone know if Rachel, Keith, Chris Matthews, Dylan Ratigan, Ed have ever had Tim Shorrock on their programs? “what is taking them so long”
Forgive me for linking to an evil website run by someone whose parents named him “Tucker”. This story appears to be based on the famous Journolist, that got Weigel demoted.
Of course, the internet never forgets especially among a bunch of chatty journalists. Someone released a copy, because that is what they do. Spencer is accused of being one of the leaders of the lefty media because of some of his comments.
I would suggest Spencer go into Attackerman Mode and deal with Rushbo.
Thanks for all your work Spencer.