The worst thing about a conspiracy theory isn’t when you discover that the conspiracy is true.
The worst thing is finding out that the conspiracy is true and that you weren’t in on it.
Which is why I’ve been so hurt by the revelations that important journalists – many of them friends and one-time colleagues — were members of a listserv called Journo-list and were exchanging interesting gossip and trying to plot story lines and saying many, many opinionated things that don’t look good when repeated publicly.
Despite the bad notices that Journo-list has received, I can’t help but ask:
Why, oh why, wasn’t I included?
Am I not important enough?
Here’s how out of it I am: I had never heard of Journo-list until it was shut down – and became the target of conservatives who seem to believe that all journalists were on it. In fact, I’ve spent years reassuring the conspiracy-minded that the journalists I know would never dream of sitting around and plot with each other.
Oops.
Honestly, I was surprised to learn such a listserv existed. For a few reasons:
1. The Fight Club reason. I must concede that a few journalists slant stories or play favorites. But I had been under the impression that the first rule of doing that sort of thing is that you must not talk about the fact that you’re doing that sort of thing. In fact, I always kind of thought that you weren’t even supposed to admit such behavior even to yourself.
2. The Competition reason. As a young newspaperman, I was taught that reporting was a competition, and I shouldn’t be sharing information with other journalists — my competitors. But the folks at Journolist blabbed about their stories and biases in a public forum, with their competitors reading and participating. I wonder if their editors knew.
3. The Boredom thing. I can’t imagine anything less appealing to do after long days of reporting on political stories than jabbering about political stories on-line with other journalists. Don’t the people on Journolist have lives? The reporters I know like to spend their down time talking about sports, drinking, exercising, listening to music, or reading science fiction and trashy novels that have nothing to do with politics.
The real lesson of Journo-list is that many of today’s journalists – at least the mostly Washington-based, big-name political journalists on the listserv — think of themselves as players and activists as much as they do observers and analysts. I was struck how much the people on the listserv sound like political consultants, folks who spin story lines, rather than people eager to get at the truth and explain concepts honestly.
The folks on Journo-list sound like people certain of their power.
I am terribly disappointed that I wasn’t one of them.