Free Republic

Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week “broke” the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt... A search found a listing for "writer and journalist" Leslie Cauley, indicating she gave $2,000 to Gephardt on June 30, 2003, when Gephardt was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And that seems not to be her only tie to Democratic politics ... Cauley's link to a Democratic campaign seems likely...

Facing shareholder dissent and getting flak for bloated executive pay deals, The New York Times is frantically searching for crisis p.r. experts as the company gears up for a public battle over the future of the newspaper giant. Chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. and other top management have been criticized for putting off the concerns of Morgan Stanley portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry and for a share price that's plummeted 50 percent since 2002. Soon after Morgan's attack last week on The Times, the publisher's spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, was phoning Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon seeking advice, sources familiar with the...

Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. apparently was given quite a chilly reception in his annual state-of-the-Times address..... Newspaper Guild members have already had to give up their raises for the year to rescue their embattled healthcare coverage, and 500 employees are losing their jobs. Floyd Norris, a business columnist, was said.... to be particularly intense in grilling Sulzberger on why (Pinch) would not give back his hefty million-dollar bonus this year to save jobs. "He kept ducking [the question]," ......"It was lame, lame, lame."

Journalists, if they want privilege under the laws of the United States, have an ethical responsibility get across the information they want, but not get anyone killed, blow the covers of agents or ruin operations. If they reach an impasse with the government, they as journalists have to be responsible enough to decide whether the value information that they are putting out there outweighs the potential damage. Many journalists might hate me, but that’s right out Poynter Institute for Media Studies ethical playbook. That's journalistic ethics. Not that I should be giving a lecture on it. One thing worth noting...

WSSU students question Blair's paid appearance Former reporter, forced to resign from N.Y. Times, will speak, answer questions By Mary Giunca JOURNAL REPORTER Tuesday, September 14, 2004 Disgraced journalist Jayson Blair will speak at Winston-Salem State University on Wednesday, and some students are asking why the university is spending $3,000 to bring him there. Ebonee Russell, a senior and a reporter for The News Argus, the school's paper, said she wonders whether Blair deserves any attention from the university at all. "What kind of role model is he? What kind of example is he setting for the students here?" she...

DISGRACED former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair has completed his first journalistic piece since the plagiarism and fabrication capers that caused his downfall at the Gray Lady came to light in early May. Blair has written a freelance piece for Jane magazine's "It Happened to Me" column: a first-person narrative about the affair that eventually forced the resignation of Blair and the paper's two top editors. David Granger, the Esquire editor in chief, had earlier lined up a piece from Blair, but dropped him like a hot potato after a Media Ink story revealed that the Times exile had...

(snip)...His work was never great and it got worse over his career. As he was promoted, his error rate soared, according to an epic-length mea culpa published by The New York Times last Sunday. Blair wasn't just filing bad copy, he was misbehaving at company expense, particularly at the watering hole around the corner. "His mistakes became so routine, his behavior so unprofessional," admits the newspaper of record, "that by April 2002, Jonathan Landman, the metropolitan editor, dashed off a two-sentence e-mail message to newsroom administrators that read: 'We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now.'"...