David Talbot
Salon Editorial
An editorial by Salon Editor David Talbot in which he defends Salon's editorial integrity against attacks by the Wall Street Journal's editorial page and other far-right organs.
Recently Salon has felt a blast of hot air from the right. The Wall Street Journal’s arch-conservative editorial page, columnist and TV pundit Robert Novak and the Moonie-owned Washington Times, among others, have all taken aim at Salon’s articles about Kenneth Starr’s investigation, principally the story we broke March 17 about payments from conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife being funneled through the American Spectator to key Whitewater witness David Hale. Salon’s highly partisan critics have dedicated themselves to impugning the credibility of one of our sources, as well as that of the story’s co-author, investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Murray Waas.
Our critics’ anxiety is certainly understandable. As a result of Salon’s reporting, the Justice Department has decided that the alleged payments to Hale must be thoroughly investigated, a probe that could strike at the heart of Starr’s massive Whitewater inquiry. Starr and the Justice Department are now involved in a momentous tug of war over who will control the Hale investigation.
The lead editorial in Friday’s Wall Street Journal took the most pointed aim at Salon. The Journal tried heroically to shore up the tattered reputation of the American Spectator, a publication that allowed itself to be used as a money laundering machine for Scaife’s anti-Clinton propaganda operation. So distressed was the Spectator’s publisher about this misuse of the magazine that he protested vehemently, only to be fired by editor R. Emmett Tyrrell. Despite this, and a barrage of other bad publicity about the Spectator (including former Spectator writer David Brock’s recent repudiation of his own “Troopergate” story), the Journal still champions it (albeit somewhat faintly) as a “bona fide publication.”
Salon, on the other hand, is disparaged as an “Internet magazine … (paid circulation zip).” We plead guilty to both charges. Because Salon is free and because of our commitment to publishing important and overlooked stories, our circulation has grown to nearly 8 million page views a month and over a half million individual users. Our reporting on the Clinton-Starr national drama has not only been more enterprising than the Wall Street Journal’s, it has been more reliable. Let’s not forget the Journal’s only “scoop” to date — that a White House steward had caught the president and Monica Lewinsky alone together. Unfortunately, this shocking exclusive proved to be untrue, which the Journal was forced to concede a few days later.
The Journal’s editorialist also implies, in a particularly garbled passage, that Salon has a sinister relationship of sorts with White House spinmeister Sidney Blumenthal. This is a smear, pure and simple, of the kind that the Journal’s editorial pages have long been masters. When facts fail the Journal’s editorial hit team, as they so often do, they resort to party-line invective.
For the record, Salon is a thoroughly independent publication that has published a wide and vibrant range of reporting and opinion during its two-and-a-half-year history. As a scroll through our archives will clearly attest, we have attacked President Clinton from the left, right and center — taking him to task for everything from his failed health-care reforms to his show of tears over the Rwanda holocaust, an epic tragedy he could have brought to a quicker conclusion. Throughout the Lewinsky affair, we have published scathing attacks on his character from regular columnists such as David Horowitz and Camille Paglia, as well as contributors such as Barbara Ehrenreich.
But we have also grown concerned, as have many Americans, about how Clinton’s most obsessive critics seem so intent on advancing their own political agenda that they have resorted to covert and anti-democratic tactics to bring down his presidency. This secret campaign against Clinton, and its connections to the Starr investigation, is a story of far greater importance, in our opinion, than the Lewinsky saga.
The most pressing question, then, is not about Salon’s demonstrably independent journalism, but about major journalistic institutions like the Wall Street Journal. How did a great national newspaper allow its editorial pages to be hijacked, for many years now, by far-right propagandists? During the Clinton presidency, these propagandists have turned the Journal’s pages over to some of the most noxious sludge that has ever been dredged up in American politics, including dark charges about Vincent Foster’s death and Clinton’s “connections” to Arkansas cocaine smuggling.
Who is on watch at the Wall Street Journal while this rot corrupts the newspaper’s good name? When will someone in authority at this venerable publication finally step forward and say, “enough” to this subversion of the Journal’s reputation?
The air has been filled of late with much somber commentary about the damaged reputation of the presidency. But we feel even more concern about the credibility of America’s media institutions. While the public looks on with puzzlement and disgust, too much of the press has sunk to the level of that “bona fide” publication, the American Spectator. It’s time for some deep and fearless media soul-searching.
A heaven made in hell
Even as he slid deep into madness in his jungle “paradise,” Jim Jones found support in high places in San Francisco
This November 1978 photo shows bodies of followers of cult leader Jim Jones at the Jonestown commune in Guyana, where more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple died. (Credit: AP) By early 1977, it seemed that Jim Jones had conquered San Francisco. He had Mayor George Moscone in his pocket and commanded the fawning loyalty of power brokers such as Willie Brown and rising stars like Harvey Milk. Using San Francisco as its power base, the Peoples Temple was ready to expand its operations in Los Angeles, Seattle, and other cities where it had already sunk roots.
But in July — on the eve of a Peoples Temple expose in New West, a California magazine owned by Rupert Murdoch – a spooked Jones suddenly uprooted his flock and fled to the jungles of Guyana, far from the reach of curious reporters and government investigators.
Continue Reading ClosePeoples Temple’s inside man
When investigators began uncovering Jim Jones’ sordid web of violence and corruption, he was one step ahead of them
Former Peoples Temple leader Rev. Jim Jones (Credit: AP) David Reuben — a short, scrappy investigator with the kind of commanding beak that looked like he enjoyed sticking it in people’s business — leaned back in his chair in San Francisco’s Hall of Justice building, nursing a cup of jailhouse java. Reuben listened with growing intensity as a middle-aged couple named Al and Jeannie Mills unraveled a jaw-dropping story about their lives in Jim Jones’s peculiar church. The Millses were the kind of homespun, American Gothic–looking people you wouldn’t glance at twice on the streets. But if 10 percent of what they were saying was true, Reuben figured, this case was going to rock the city — and the tremors would radiate far and wide.
Continue Reading CloseJim Jones’ sinister grip on San Francisco
How the Peoples Temple cult leader ensnared Harvey Milk and other progressive icons
Left: Former San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Right: The Rev. Jim Jones, pastor of Peoples Temple in San Francisco (Credit: AP) Jim Jones, the strange and charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, proved a master at politically wiring San Francisco in the mid-1970s. The driven preacher had begun his climb up the political pyramid by planting roots in the Fillmore district, the city’s devastated black neighborhood. Jones moved into the Fillmore at its most vulnerable moment. Urban renewal czar Justin Herman – the Robert Moses of San Francisco — had “literally destroyed the neighborhood,” observed community activist Hannibal Williams, “[and] people were desperate for solutions, something to follow. Jim Jones was another solution. He had a charismatic personality that won the hearts and souls of people. And people followed him to hell. That’s where Jim Jones went. That’s where he took the people who followed him.”
Continue Reading CloseFearless journalism has a price
A message from Salon's founder: "The country needs a fighting, independent media more than ever"
As the founder of Salon and the one responsible for making payroll and paying the bills each month, I am well aware of how important readers – not just advertisers – are to a media enterprise like ours.
Salon members were once the secret behind our website’s success. At one point, nearly 100,000 people signed up as paying Salon subscribers. This amazing achievement – at a time when the absurd mantra “information wants to be free” held sway – helped stabilize Salon as dozens of other worthy websites were disappearing into Internet history.
Continue Reading CloseSalon Special Event: Where does the Occupy movement go from here?
The growing movement against oligarchy has spread like wildfire from Zuccotti Park and across America. Now — as local governments and police departments harden their reactions to the popular uprisings and as the weather grows more challenging — Occupy activists are shifting tactics and strategies. This is the winter of our discontent.
How should the 99 percent occupy America? Where does the movement go from here?
On Thursday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m., Salon will convene a public forum on the future of the Occupy protests. The event will be held at the Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission Street, San Francisco.
Continue Reading ClosePage 1 of 24 in David Talbot