Media Takes: A Dogged Blogger at the Libby Trial
In her former life, Jane Hamsher produced Hollywood movies–most notably Quentin Tarantino's 1994 Natural Born Killers, in which she made a cameo appearance as a female demon. She later wrote the bestselling tell-all Killer Instinct about her experience making that flick.
This week, however, Hamsher, 47, can be found in the credentialed press rows of Judge Reggie Walton's federal courtroom in Washington, pursuing her latest passion as the liberal www.firedoglake.com blogger covering the Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial.
She is among a handful of bloggers who finally won the right to cover a federal trial as part of the horde of credentialed media. And Hamsher has drawn the most attention, in part for her association with Arianna Huffington–Hamsher writes for her friend's popular blog www.huffingtonpost.com–but also for firedoglake's dogged coverage of the case, its pointed media criticism, and its live blogging of the trial.
Visitors to the site can in close to real time follow witnesses, testimony, legal maneuverings, and, occasionally, the sartorial choices of those on the stand. During the trial, weekday visits to the site have more than doubled to nearly 200,000, Hamsher said.
At firedoglake.com, which she started in 2004, Hamsher has assembled a paid group of bloggers that includes a former prosecutor, a public-radio announcer, an activist in the progressive movement, and a stable of other guest bloggers.
Hamsher achieved online notoriety last year when she posted on her site a doctored photo depicting Sen. Joseph Lieberman in blackface. Hamsher, who supported Lieberman's antiwar rival Ned Lamont in the race for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, eventually took the photo down and posted an apology.
Her very presence at the trial is a testament to her commitment to the story: Hamsher had major surgery last month for breast cancer, her third episode with the disease. But there was no way, she said, she was going to miss the opportunity of potentially seeing Vice President Dick Cheney on the stand. (As the trial winds down, Cheney has not been called as a witness, though his appearance has not been ruled out.)
"This was a hobby that became all consuming," says Hamsher. "When I heard about blogging, I was immediately fascinated." It seemed a fine fit, she said, because she could be political, sassy, and snarky–a style that she found came naturally to her when she wrote her book.
During a lunch break at court Monday, Hamsher sat down for a discussion with U.S. News about her passion for blogging, the Libby trial, and the ongoing debate over whether the administration set out to undermine war critic Joseph Wilson and out his CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
On her fascination with the Libby trial and the investigation that led to the charges.
The Hollywood gene kicked in. It's very Shakespearean. There's Dick Cheney, the oily villain sitting there with a sneer on his face. There's Scooter Libby, the loyal soldier. There's the beautiful spy, her dashing ambassador husband, the journalists. It was such a good story. It did become, for a variety of reasons, the signature story of the blogosphere.
On why the Plame leak story was perfect for her blog.
The media was having difficulty covering it because they were so involved in it. When the investigation started, Karl Rove's attorney starting putting out all this stuff. And every day the story would change and the blogosphere would document that. We had thousands of people showing up at our site and pointing out that the stories were never consistent. This story had so mach information, and so many articles were written that it enabled the blogosphere to take in all of this information. And a cadre of professional people–not kids in their underwear–came together, compared notes, and developed a narrative of the story that was a pushback to the one that was being generated by the powers that be.
On conservative critics who say the Fitzgerald investigation was a bust because the case for more serious charges wasn't made.
To that, we were quick to say that like any organized crime case, if you can't get people to tell you the truth, you can't make a case. So if the only thing you can get on people is lying, and hopefully flip them so you can get the information, you need to make that case. And that's what Fitzgerald is doing.
On scoring, with the help of Huffington, an in-court media credential.
I think we deserve it. I think we've done very good work on the Plame case. We have expertise and very serious people who know what they're doing. Our work on this particular topic has done a lot to defeat the notion that bloggers are fact free.
On the limitations of the traditional media.
I don't have any problem with the mainstream media–that's too monolithic. There are good journalists and bad journalists. And there are pressures in the system that encourage people to be bad journalists–the necessity of getting access, the tendency of Washington, D.C., journalists to live inside a bubble, the reliance on conventional wisdom. I don't think every journalist is subject to that.
On how the Fitzgerald investigation and subpoenaed testimony of journalists will affect reporters' future ability to gather information from confidential sources.
I think there is a distinction to be made between appropriately invoking reporters' privilege when using sources who are taking risks to get you information as opposed to using it to further an administration effort to launder disinformation. Sometimes that's not an easy distinction to make. In this particular case, Fitzgerald had the ability to subpoena journalists without going to the attorney general for his signature. Because he's done that, I think the floodgates have opened a bit, and even though I think he acted appropriately, what's happening on the heels of it could be very scary for journalists who are being somewhat persecuted by the Justice Department.
On why the Libby trial hasn't made bigger news.
It's hard to cover it. I'm surprised at how few people are covering it. This could be Watergate. This story is about disinformation fobbed off on the American public as the reason for going to war in Iraq. People care about that.
On the genesis of her blog's name.
I like to lie by my fire with my dogs. I never thought this would be anything.