Before we begin, let us pause for a moment to thank our Almighty for the small pleasures of life, such as almost a full week passing without having to suffer through yet another high cry and desperate whine from JournoList founder and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, as he dishonestly complains about his online cabal of left-wing “journalists” being taken out of context by the Daily Caller’s damning and ongoing drip-drip-drip of an expose’.

JournoList founder Ezra Klein

Yes, thank you Ezra, for finally realizing that you were embarrassing yourself with these complaints as those of us watching this story wondered why you didn’t just go ahead and prove the Daily Caller a liar with a fully contextual response of your own, using that unique WaPo perch combined with the magic of the Internet and your very own personal copy of the full JournoList archives.

While I never took seriously my challenge to Mr. Klein to go right on ahead and clear up all his contextual concerns, he might want to consider doing so now. On June 29th, weeks before the Daily Caller announced the glorious fact that they were in possession of all or part of the JournoList archives, Klein wrote the following:

What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?

Sadly, I don’t run such a list.

You have to love that last sentence. The use of the word ”sadly” is soooo sly. Especially when it appears, that at times, that’s exactly the type of list Klein was running. (more…)

July 27, 2010

Marcus Brauchli

Executive Editor

The Washington Post

1150 15th Street NW

Washington, DC 20071

Dear Mr. Brauchli:

The JournoList scandal is getting worse every day and the Washington Post is at the center of it. Blogger Ezra Klein ran the operation and at least three other staffers were members. (Blogger Greg Sargent claims he wasn’t a member after he joined the Post.) In addition, at least one member of Slate and two from Newsweek, also owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, were members.

Ezra Klein, JournoList founder

The almost constant revelations of political activism and journalistic conspiracy raise an enormous number of questions about Post policies, professionalism and ethics. As a conservative, and therefore a member of the movement JournoListers sought to demonize, I feel Post readers are owed full disclosure.

Any understanding of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics makes clear this list and the Post’s involvement violate a number of ethical guidelines. In fact, much of the code seems to have been ignored. Here are just a few examples from the code: (more…)