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Criticized on Seizure of Records, White House Pushes News Media Shield Law (NYT)
Under fire over the Justice Department’s use of a broad subpoena to obtain calling records of Associated Press reporters in connection with a leak investigation, the Obama administration sought on Wednesday to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters in keeping their sources and communications confidential. Capital New York The administration opposed an initial draft of the Free Flow of Information Act, but eventually supported a compromise version that would allow federal judges to protect reporters from subpoenas for information, if the judge determined that the news value of the reports exceeded the government’s interest in uncovering the sources of a leak. HuffPost / The Backstory New York Times reporter Charlie Savage asked Attorney General Eric Holder, who had just announced he’d recused himself from the AP leak investigation, “Are you also recused from the Stuxnet investigation out of Maryland?” The New York Times has reason to be concerned about whether investigators are using similar tactics on them. The Maryland case is believed to be focused on Times chief Washington correspondent David Sanger’s reporting on how the U.S. and Israel helped derail Iran’s nuclear program through cyberattacks. Sanger’s June scoop, along with the Times’ front-page article on Obama’s terrorist “kill list,” spurred Congressional calls to investigate the leaks of classified information. The Washington Post / Erik Wemple Media Matters for America, a group that monitors the country’s conservative media for distortions and inaccuracies, fell in for criticism Wednesday over the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of the Associated Press’s phone records. Evidence of this Media Matters-Obama administration mindmeld? This piece here, which says: “If the press compromised active counter-terror operations for a story that only tipped off the terrorists, that sounds like it should be investigated.” The Daily Beast / Politics Beast David Brock explained all in a statement. “Media Matters for America monitors, analyzes, and corrects conservative misinformation in the media and was not involved with the production of the document focusing on the DOJs investigation,” he said. “That document was issued by ‘Message Matters,’ a project of the Media Matters Action Network, which posts, through a different editorial process and to a different website, a wide range of potential messaging products for progressive talkers to win public debates with conservatives.” Read more

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Justice Dept. Defends Seizure of AP Phone Records (NYT)
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday defended the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of telephone records of Associated Press journalists, describing the article by the AP that prompted a criminal investigation as among “the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen” in a 35-year career. “It put the American people at risk, and that is not hyperbole,” he said in an apparent reference to an article on May 7, 2012, that disclosed the foiling of a terrorist plot by Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen to bomb an airliner. The Washington Post / Opinions The usual reason for keeping a subpoena secret is that the target would otherwise try to destroy documents. In this case, the AP could not have done so even if it wanted to, since the relevant records were in the possession of its phone service providers. Without even giving AP a chance to weigh in, we don’t see how the department could intelligently weigh its prosecutorial needs against this broad subpoena’s chilling effect on reporters and their sources. HuffPost / The Backstory Associated Press Washington bureau chief Sally Buzbee was among the journalists targeted in the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of phone records that has drawn widespread condemnation from members of the media and free speech advocates, an AP spokeswoman confirmed to The Huffington Post. FishbowlNY The Department of Justice is trying to brush off the secret accessing of AP editors’ and reporters’ phone records. The agency already sent one bland letter to the AP about the incident, and Tuesday, it sent another. According to AP CEO and president Gary Pruitt, both letters from the DOJ basically said “Meh,” and not much else about the scary over-extension of the government. B&C Society of Professional Journalists president Sonny Albarado has condemned the Justice Department’s alleged secret collection of AP reporter and editor phone records and said it highlights the need for a federal shield law. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media The Associated Press Media Editors Association has joined other journalists in condemning the Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press phone records, calling it part of the Obama administration’s “continuing witch hunt for leaks and whistleblowers.” TVNewser Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said this may be the least of President Obama’s worries. “I don’t think that’s going to amount to much,” O’Reilly said of the phone taps. “It looks like they went through the warrant process and they had authorization to look at these records — the Justice Department did. But President Obama, he’s got some problems now. He better start to get control of the situation because there’s a lot of stuff going on.” Read more

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Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe (The Associated Press / The Big Story)
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. The Guardian The AP’s president and chief executive officer, Gary Pruitt, sent a letter of protest to the attorney-general, Eric Holder. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said. HuffPost / The Backstory Though the DOJ did not give the AP a specific reason for the seizure, the dates of the phone calls it targeted offered a clear tell. On May 7, 2012, AP reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, citing anonymous sources, reported that the CIA had thwarted a plot by an al-Qaeda affiliate to “destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.” Politico Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren told Politico in an email that the DOJ’s seizure “sounds like a dragnet to intimidate the media,” not a criminal investigation. “What is stunning is the breadth of the seizure!” Van Susteren said. EFF While the government has not confirmed, the subpoenas appear to stem from an investigation into a government leak of information to the AP. This is not a sufficient excuse. Imagine if “Deep Throat,” the informant critical to Woodward and Bernstein’s investigation of the 1972 Watergate burglary, knew that his identity could be obtained through legal process. His career, and perhaps his life, would have been in serious jeopardy, and a cautious individual would have kept silent. TVNewser Former CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier, now an intelligence and counterterrorism reporter for the AP, was one of the journalists who had their phone logs seized. Dozier was seriously injured in Iraq in 2006. She left CBS for the AP in 2010. FishbowlNY Sadly, the saying “If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention” never seems more relevant than now. Read more

The Associated Press’ Twitter account has been hacked. A few moments ago, its official Twitter sent out a scary note that President Obama had been hurt in two explosions at the White House. The tweet:

Obviously it caught plenty of attention, but the AP’s Sam Hanannel quickly posted that the account had been hacked. The AP Twitter account is now listed as “suspended.”

Here’s something we can all stand behind: The Associated Press has decided to finally drop “illegal immigrant” from its stylebook. Rightfully so, the AP realized that using “illegal” to describe a person is wrong and carries many implications.

The AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, said that the decision to rid the term from the AP manual came about during discussions that centered around using labels when reporting:

The new section on mental health issues argues for using credibly sourced diagnoses instead of labels. Saying someone was “diagnosed with schizophrenia” instead of schizophrenic, for example. And that discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to ‘illegal immigrant’ again. We concluded that to be consistent, we needed to change our guidance. So we have.

Bravo, AP.

Ken Detlet has been named the Associated Press’ first vice president for digital advertising strategy and sales. Detlet comes to the AP from Mashable, where he served as senior vice president of sales and marketing since 2011. Prior to that he worked as VP of sales for Ziff Davis. He also worked for Dow Jones for over a decade.

“This is a strategic move for AP, as we grow our revenue from advertising and sponsorships,” said Jim Kennedy, senior VP for the AP’s digital products team, in a statement. “Ken has all the right skills and experience to chart a unique course for us.”

Detlet’s appointment is effective immediately and he reports to Kennedy.

Nekesa Mumbi Moody has been named the Associated Press’ new global entertainment and lifestyles editor. Moody has been an AP editor since 1998. She joined as an intern and since has worked her way up, most recently serving as music editor, since 2000.

Moody will oversee staffers based in New York, London, Hong Kong, Nashville and Los Angeles.

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that YouTube is emerging as a strong force in the news world. While the majority of people still turn on the TV for major events, the report found that because YouTube allows a user to interact with news organizations via video they have shot, its audience is growing.

“There’s a new form of video journalism on this platform,” Amy Mitchell, deputy director for Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, told the AP. “It’s a form in which the relationship between news organizations and citizens is more dynamic and more multiverse than we’ve seen in most other platforms before.”

Other key findings from the study:

Read more

The new Associated Press Stylebook is upon us. As indicated in an AP press release, the 2012 version promises to clear up any confusion Brian Setzer Orchestra fans have about using “zoot suit” in a sentence, features an expand section on social media and contains a new portion dedicated to broadcast terms.

If you’re interested in talking about the style changes with AP editors, they’re conducting a Twitter chat today at 2:30 and a Goggle Hangout tomorrow at 2 p.m.

For those of you who enjoy reading about/getting unnecessarily frustrated by grammar, the 2012 AP Stylebook can be ordered online here.

Lisa Tolin, a veteran of the Associated Press, has been named its East Coast Entertainment/Lifestyle Editor. Tolin has been with the AP since 2000, when she joined its National Desk as a researcher. According to a press release, she will now oversee a variety of coverage, including books, television, food, fashion, travel, online culture, parenting and homes and gardens.

Alicia Quarles, the AP’s Global Entertainment Editor, said of the move, ”Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge to this role. She is progressive, understands all formats and will help to improve further upon the high quality of our report.”