How do we feel about the Chron guys now?

21, Do yu think Bronstein needs to answer some questions? And what if Ellerman tells them they're off the hook and free to talk all they want? Don't you think they should explain their side of the story?

 

I'm not sure they didn't cede their rights to the luxury of silence once they actively positioned themselves as a cause.

http://markandlance.org/


Edit: And since he's never been mentioned on any of these threads, here's a young man who actually needs our help.

http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=118334

 

Exactly.

The wheels of justice were already in motion.

All the Pulitzer talk in 2005 was patently ridiculous.

 

I wish I had written that.

Right on the screws, Jay.

 

I'm really conflicted about this. Do I wish they would answer some questions. Yes. Do I think they should explain at least some of the decisions they made? Yes. Do I believe they have an obligation to do so? No.

If we're going to demand a free press--whatever that means in this case--that should include a newspaper's right to make decisions and stand by them. We're questioning their judgment--ethically, professionally, legally--and they seem to be saying, 'that's fine, we can live with that.' I guess that's their prerogative...it would be dangerous territory to demand that newspapers and reporters divulge their editorial decisions.

But damn, I wish they'd talk.

 

Fine for them not to.

But, to me, that is tacit admission of the worst of what anyone has accused them of here.

 

There was no hijacking of a grand jury investigation. For two reasons: 1) the grand jury testimony stories came a year after the testimony, long after the jury had done its work, and 2) grand juries do not investigate, they hear only the prosecutors' side before deciding if there's evidence enough to go to trial.

Long before the Chronicle published the testimony stories, Fainaru-Wada and Williams had done exceptional work on the BALCO case and its players.

 

Maybe it is the Chronicle's prerogative not to answer some legitimate questions but it doesn't seem much different to me than Mark McGwire deciding not to revisit the past. Bronstein and Fainaru-Wada need to explain themselves.

 

Based, it appears, on a source who actually WAS dicking around with the GJ.

 

All Ellerman could have known about the grand jury's work was what the defendants told him. How is that "dicking around" with the jury? Besides, who says Ellerman was the only source of the Chronicle's BALCO reporting for two years?

As for the Fainaru-Wada/Williams/Chronicle silence being "tacit" admission of the worst, how so? All we know is what Ellerman told the feds to get the best deal he could. He got the feds off the hook. He didn't say a word about MLB's complicity in steroid and HGH. He didn't say it was ridiculous that the athletes walked. He took the fall the way the feds wanted it taken. Why should we trust that story? Is that story worth hanging reporters for? Is it worth weakening a press that for more than 200 years has been charged with keeping government honest?

 

Barry Bonds is not the government. He is a baseball player.

 

Based on what happened in this case and the Judith Miller / Scooter Libby story will the rules of investigative journalism be forever changed? Will there ever be another "All The President's Men"?