Playboy, Tommy Christopher, and the Lessons of Traditional Journalistic Values

I'm sorry Melinda. You fired the best of the old crew and retained the worst. T. C. had bright and funny comments on interesting topics. Your shakeup has lost me. I guess I'll go to Digby or Helen and Margaret. Oops, MargaretandHelen.com.

Naturally, this won't be believed. This medium thrives on conspiracy theories and misinformation galvanized as truth via repetition.

AOL has a knack for and history of changing things to "new and improved" versions that are "new and improved" in a way apparent only to those inside AOL itself and that (a) don't completely function properly (see various complaints of "censorship") and (b) alienate a certain portion of their user base.

The whole PM change to PD thing falls into that category and fits the profile to a "t".

So the "kids" were shown the door in favor of the "grown-ups"? Is that it? Fucking lame.

I'm really sorry to see Tommy Christopher and some of the other bloggers go. They represented my last connection to anything AOL. I've tried to get into the other writers here, but don't find them nearly as personable as the old PM crew. I wish the new site success.

Have fun folks!

Melinda -

I for one appreciate your attempt to end speculation. There are some with which your explanation may not hold water, but, as I suspected from the beginning, at the fulcrum was a business decision; everything else seemed like disappointed overreaction.

Everyone has fans. Fans get upset. It's a part of the business.

That people are suspicious of the motives and integrity of the media should come as no surprise to you, or anyone else still in possession of their pulse, eyes, and ear drums. The media put on a display of bias and corruption in the last election that would make Pravda jealous. The media's pathetic lack of adherence to the journalistic standards you trumpet has a lot of people in a state of permanent distrust.

You are a defender of women's rights, and a critic of "hate speech", and you had both issues handed to you in the Playboy hate rape list. The fact that it was politically motivated makes it even more despicable, yet the story never got MSM attention, and given the values ostensibly held by those in the media, there was a suspiciously muted coverage.

You do have some very good writers in Carl Cannon and David Wood, as well as Matt Lewis. In fact most of your writers are well qualified in their craft, but the net effect of Politics Daily up to now has been political monotone. It is decidedly to the left on nearly every issue, and frequently has the substance of a goose down pillow.

You covered Tiller, wall to wall, but ignored Pvt. Long's assassination. This is especially disturbing given the small number of abortion provider deaths committed by extremists compared to the number of citizens, and soldiers killed by Muslim terrorists. American citizens are being recruited, and trained in foreign countries, to come back and kill our servicemen, or us, and it is a BIG story, and you ignored it.

I was one of the people who let you have it over the Christopher/Playboy controversy. I have seldom agreed with him on much of anything, but he was clearly on the moral high ground with his criticism of Playboy, which I saw damn little of in the liberal media. As an editor, you are supposed to have the nations pulse, and a balanced touch. If nothing else, you were tone deaf and the victim of your own poor timing. Or, you are now engaged in the time honored, and ever more frequent practice of CYA. I have no way of knowing for sure, but the next time something vile, and politically motivated, like Playboy's depraved list is put out for public consumption, I hope you will attack it vigorously, regardless of the politics. Ironically, Christopher was fired after possibly his finest moment at AOL.

Great, an Editor In Chief should maintain high standards of journalism and I am looking forward to this new integrity in Politics Daily. Are you also stating Weiss, Lev and Gibson are no longer posting on Politics Daily?

If editing means completely removing an article, I, without any formal training, am qualified to be an editor. How about doing the job of editing and edit out the profanity.

I typically lean right in my politics, but appreciated Tommy's perspective.
This was a a bad judgment call in editing, managing and reorganizing.

Three strikes you're out.

Gee, will the common folk that post comments here, be kicked off the site for using profanity??

Guess you are trying to sterilize the site, and remove all gritty commenting and story writing...still smacks of censorship to me.

If the use of the "f" word was the issue, why not bounce the story back to the author for editing? This is an excuse to get rid of the original writers from PM, nothing more, nothing less.


My days of commenting here are numbered...not too many writers left that I enjoy reading.

Melinda:

At the risk of garnering more nasty responses, the following are excerpts from several posts I made before and after the Tommy Christopher termination was reported. From my perspective, there was ample reason to part company with TC, aside from the Playboy controversy.

“Before anyone gets too choked up over Melinda Henneberger dumping Tommy Christopher, take a moment to reflect. As impolite as it may be to discuss Christopher and his pink slip, he is a writer with pedestrian talent. Other than his fixation with homosexual issues, or his rants against George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and the Palin family, Tommy offers little. I constantly chided him for irrelevant dithering.”

Apparently, his journalistic apex was his contact with Helen Thomas. After he occasionally blocked my posts, I reminded Tommy “You have no need to fear words. You look foolish with your leather jacket and tough talk, but afraid of those who disagree with you. Even worse, you expose yourself as a liberal hypocrite.” What is it about irrelevant topics he refuses to understand? Our nation is in crisis. There is ample substantive subject matter.

North Korea launched a number of missiles and detonated several provocative nuclear devices.
Nancy Pelosi denies knowledge of CIA “waterboarding” or “torture” briefings.
Obama , Pelosi and Reid saddled our children and our grandchildren with unimaginable debt.
Banks are insolvent.
The Auto industry collapsed.
We have a possible Swine Flu pandemic.
The Iraq war is flaring up again.
Afghanistan is losing ground.
Pakistan is nuclear and unstable.
After nine weeks of market gains, the DJIA is 1000 points lower than it was on election day.
Foreign nations have given the Obama Administration lip service but not much else.
The Administration recently proposed the most severe tax on fossil fuels in America's history.
Unemployment is headed for 10%.
The taxpayers effectively own GM and AIG, and
Stumblin' Joe Biden thought it was prudent to tell the world where the VP secret bunker is located.

Tommy may have talent, but he chooses to waste his skill on the absurd and the inane.

Ms. Henneberger:

I am completely satisfied with your explanation. You made a business decision for what sounds like artistic reasons--you have a direction you want PD to go. I understand that completely. Journalism at its roots, is still just a business, and as everyone who has ever run a business knows, 'there are no friends in business.' If you didn't know that before--you have just received Lesson 1.

I will still miss the Political Machine format; nonetheless, I wish you well in the direction you want to take PD.

Thank you for the explanation which, as you note, you are under no obligation to provide. However, I would take issue with some of your points.

You mention that there were no inquiries by the press and none were received by your corporate office. The reality is several people made inquiries in the only venue available to us. The inquiries were made on another article you posted. Most of us do not have a direct line into or a way of communicating directly with you or the corporate office other than through the internet. Too often, when e-mails are sent or comments are made through the Feedback section, no response is received. We are left to wonder if the message did not get to the proper hands or if we are simply being ignored.

You became aware of the rumors that were floating and the speculation running rife in the blogosphere on Friday night. Didn't it occur to you to check and see if people were questioning or commenting on the termination anywhere in any of your comment sections? As a seasoned reporter, it seems logical to presume you were aware but made a conscious decision that, if you ignored them, they would just go away. You should know that most rumors begin with a small kernel of truth and grow from that. Obviously, the portion of the rumor that was factual is that Tommy Christopher's employment was terminated. That small truth was enough to form the foundation for an entire building.

You make the point that "The founding principle of Politics Daily is to do old-school journalism in a sustainable format". You list a number of experienced journalists as the basis for the new format. You also note that a number of them "formerly" worked for well known and respected newspapers. Has anyone at AOL considered that these former employees are no longer there because the newspaper format you are copying is no longer viable? If most people want to wade through ten articles they have no interest in to find one they want to read, they will simply go out and buy their local newpaper. We came to Political Machine to find up to the minute news and opinions written with an edge. We also enjoyed exchanging comments with people who held diverse opinions and bloggers who would respond to our posts when time allowed. Politics Daily doesn't offer any of these. Instead, we get a daily dose of what designer Michelle Obama and the girls are wearing and three articles by three writers who say exactly the same thing about the same event (e.g. Obama's failure to address the treatment of women in Muslim societies).

You also state that the Playboy article had too much profanity and was, therefore, not fit to print. Yet you allow posters in the comment sections to use every form of profanity available and engage in highly personal and vicious attacks without even noting that there are, or should be, some rules of courtesy and decency that need to be observed when posting in a public forum. In the old Political Machine days, these people were chastised or deleted so there was very little of that sort of thing.

You mention your political position and religious views. So, I will tell you that I am 66 years old, widowed and Irish Catholic. I tend to be moderate rather than liberal or conservative in my fiscal and social views. Yet, on more than one occasion, someone with an opposing view has responded to one of my posts by calling me a slut, whore, etc. (and these are some of the nicer things). While I must admit it's flattering that someone thinks that, at my age, I spend a good part of my day "doing it" and even more flattering that they think folks would actually pay for the service, it is a little disconcerting.

I understand the obvious. AOL is a business subject to decisions made by people who feel they are acting in the best interests of the corporation as a whole. I applaud your efforts to raise and maintain journalistic standards and adhere to your ethical and moral compass. I may be in the minority but I feel that terminating the employment of the former Political Machine writers was bad business. I'm not sure how many people would even have come to this site on April 27 or the days that followed if we had not been looking for these writers. The majority of us did not like the new format and found it difficult and cumbersome to navigate. You responded to our complaints and made it more user friendly. We appreciate that. But I personally feel it was unfair and sneaky to use our interest in the articles written by the Ris brothers, Caleb Howe, Tommy Christopher etal to bring us here and then decide that they were either outdated or too edgy to fit the new format.

Like Mr. Bline, I wish you success in this enterprise but it is not a business I will continue to patronize.

Melinda

Somebody has to take a stand. As a journalist he should set good examples because there are people who believe whatever journalists put out because they are held to a certain standard.

We are capable of expressing ourselves without using profanity, and we should.

I have strong opinions so it doesn't matter who his replacement is. I wish him good luck.