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Welcome to the Golden Age of Email Scandals

by Philip Bump | 12:52 pm, July 23rd, 2010

» 20 comments

Earlier this year, a juror in a high-profile case came forward with a shocking allegation: after reaching a verdict, her peers conspired to cover up her dissent and to develop an untrue representation of how their decisions were reached. As evidence, she presented a number of emails between the jurors. The New York Times carried the story that Monday on its front page, below the fold; CNN hosted the emails on its site.

The problem was, however, that the story didn’tt hold up. Each of the eleven other jurors swore under oath (something the original complainant refused to do) that her version of events was erroneous, that the emails were out of context and misrepresentative. The Times ran their follow-up story on a Saturday, on page A18.

It takes no imagination to see how this story has echoes in the current environment. The Journolist emails, of course, and Drudge’s speculative front page story yesterday about “improper contact” between Google and the Administration. The absolution of the scientists in the “Climategate” incident, similarly maligned for selective emails, has also been criticized for lacking follow-up from the media outlets that trumpeted the original accusations.

Here, I’ll admit my bias. I was one of the eleven jurors; an excerpt of one of my emails appeared in that front page Times article. And, after many affidavits back and forth, the court has not yet ruled on the solitary juror’s original claims. But as I said, the story echoes, this week in particular.

We may have entered a golden age of email scandals. There are a number of reasons that emails, in this moment, are a tool ripe for employment – or exploitation – in politics, the law, and relationships.

Email is still new.

In the context of human history, obviously. But even in the context of communications.

Think about how it differs from older forms of communication. There’s the immediacy, of course, but there’s also the simplicity of archiving it. One’s desk drawers don’t have to overflow with old correspondence – it just sits there, on your desktop or in your organization’s backup files, waiting for someone to search “Weigel” or “die in a fire.” And as it travels across the internet, it often does so without encryption. The old saw about email being like a postcard that every mailman can read has an element of truth.

Here’s another way in which it is different than older forms of communication. There’s an implied letterhead on every email sent from a company or organization, that little trailing domain after the @ symbol. If you send an email from an army.mil domain, you are sending an email from the Army. From foxnews.com or from nytimes.com – those emails can be interpreted as though you are acting on behalf of those companies.

The end result will probably be less candor, and perhaps less immediacy, in emailed communications. When this happens, it will spell the end of this golden age.

But that candor and immediacy will transfer (and has transferred) to other media – instant messaging, texts, BBMs – where the same problems will soon start to crop up. In the legal case I mentioned at the outset, a text message was used in an affidavit responding to the isolated juror’s claims. In two years time, I’m going to re-release this post, doing a find-and-replace for “email” and “text”.

An individual email is often just an excerpt of a conversation.

What Andrew Breitbart was to the Sherrod video, the Daily Caller is to “Journolist”. Each broadcasts only the most incendiary parts of a discussion, with all of the subtlety of tossing a grenade.

It is rare that a stand-alone, one-off email will be of much interest. Usually, those emails that elicit a furor are part of an ongoing conversation between the sender and recipient.

Presenting only part of a discussion to make a political or personal point may be effective over the short-term, but over the long-term the audience is owed the full context for the conversation in order to fully assess its impact.

Contrast email in this regard with, oh, I don’t know, voice recordings. In addition to the overhead in recording and storing a conversation, surreptitiously or not, a snippet of recorded conversation demands release of what preceded and followed it. RadarOnline couldn’t release only Mel Gibson’s furious invectives, they had to release the whole thing, because they knew people wouldn’t accept only his side as representative. Yet, for some reason with email, they do.

Voice recordings do have an advantage over email in this regard: emotion. Were Gibson’s words type-written, it’s certain they would lack the emotional power they carry when you hear them in his familiar voice. But again, that lack of emotion can make email a tool for triggering scandal.

There was a sketch comedy show about a decade ago that had a skit in which a witness at a trial was examined. He confessed to the crime with heavy sarcasm to the amusement of the jury and audience. But when the prosecution had his words read back, the cold statement (something like “Oh yeah, I killed him.”) shifted meaning.

It was a comedy sketch, but we’ve all had that experience – an email being misinterpreted when the tone of it is misunderstood. Now imagine that email being read by someone who you’d never intended to read it, perhaps someone looking for evidence of wrong-doing. Perhaps someone with the improbable name of “Tucker”.

The Freedom of Information Act just got a lot more robust.

It used to be that FOIA requests took time to compile. When it became law in 1967, responding to a request was not trivial. Even if the respondent wanted to do so as quickly as possible, it still took a long time to look through old documents and filings.

Not so anymore. While still more complicated than searching one’s hard drive, it’s much easier for the government to respond to even the most far-reaching of requests. This is very much for the good of democracy, of course – but, as in the Drudge-linked example above, it’s also much easier for those trying to rake muck. With access to a wide range of communication, it’s easy to succumb to confirmation bias. (Lawrence Lessig wrote an excellent essay on the dangers of too much openness last year that is worth revisiting.)

The moral of the story is this: as much as we hold the Administration to account for overreacting in Shirley Sherrod’s case, we should exercise the same restraint when the next email scandal breaks. I say this in part from self-interest, of course, but the point remains. Our relationship with email is still evolving, and we live in a moment in which it can easily be misunderstood. We owe it to ourselves to take isolated emails out of context with a grain of salt – no matter the source, no matter the topic.

We’ll only see more revelations like those of recent months. It is up to all of us to assure that we understand why we’re seeing them.

Or to get everyone to give a sworn statement about it. I can go either way.

Andrew Breitbart, Astor Trial, Drudge Report, Journolist, Lawrence Lessig, Mel Gibson, New York Times, Oksana Grigorieva, Philip Bump, Shirley Sherrod, The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson

Azarkhan

“Daily Caller is to “Journolist”. Each broadcasts only the most incendiary parts of a discussion,”

Please stop the lies. Below is Andrew Sullivan’s take on Journolist. He is no Palin fan:

Ezra Klein’s attempt to pass off JournoList as just a water-cooler confab seems pretty much exploded by this latest Daily Caller piece. I mean: what is the point of putting out an email with the subject line “The Line On Palin” if there isn’t an actual line? And what is this if not organizing a media narrative:

“Okay, let’s get deadly serious, folks. Grating voice or not, ‘inexperienced’ or not, Sarah Palin’s just been introduced to the country as a brave, above-party, oil-company-bashing, pork-hating maverick ‘outsider’,” Kilgore said, “What we can do is to expose her ideology.”

What you mean “we”? Look: you know how appalled I was by the Palin pick, but on this issue, I have to side with the JournoList critics. If this was not an organized media campaign in the service of a political candidate, what would be?
mproust

Destroy Pompous Ass Phillip Bump

The Obama Bumper Sticker Removal Kit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=201pgTaEseQ&feature=related
republicanblack

This is a crying shame. For someone with a background like Shirley Sherrod, whose father was a victim of race-driven murder overcame this whole thing and moved to be helpful to whites. The NAACP should be ashamed of itself for jumping to conclusions, and also for not doing the research on Shirley, check the story out on this and how she could make millions like Palin:

http://apleblog.com/2010/07/23/shirley-sherrod-should-make-lemonade-%E2%80%93-just-like-palin/

NAACP should close its doors. They are no longer an organization that respects history
ImNotBlue

It’s funny… I really don’t remember a lot of complaining about “email scandals” after Sarah Palin’s email account got hacked. In fact, I recall a lot of folks defending the hacker, saying it was HER fault for having a too-easy-to-figure-out password.

I wonder what has changed between now and then?
Azarkhan

” I really don’t remember a lot of complaining about “email scandals” after Sarah Palin’s email account got hacked.” ImNotBlue

Thank you.
paulmdoro

ImNotBlue said:
It’s funny… I really don’t remember a lot of complaining about “email scandals” after Sarah Palin’s email account got hacked. In fact, I recall a lot of folks defending the hacker, saying it was HER fault for having a too-easy-to-figure-out password.

I wonder what has changed between now and then?

I don’t recall that. Did members of the media blame Palin for having a too-simple password?
jimw1016

BS Removal Kit? Hmmm…I guess this is goodbye to all of you partisan idiots? I wish I could say it’s been fun, but I can’t See ya, it’s about time someone used chemistry for a worthwhile cause. The end to partisan bullshit, it should be called “USA Survival Kit”, WHICH IS WHAT THE USA AND THE PLANET TRULY NEEDS NOT A BUNCH OF PARTISAN IDIOTS BICKERING AND DOING AN ENORMOUS WHICH IS WRECKING OUR LIVES AND THIS PLANET. WAKE UP!
jimw1016

republicanblack said:
This is a crying shame. For someone with a background like Shirley Sherrod, whose father was a victim of race-driven murder overcame this whole thing and moved to be helpful to whites. The NAACP should be ashamed of itself for jumping to conclusions, and also for not doing the research on Shirley, check the story out on this and how she could make millions like Palin:

http://apleblog.com/2010/07/23/shirley-sherrod-should-make-lemonade-%E2%80%93-just-like-palin/

NAACP should close its doors. They are no longer an organization that respects history

And how shall we deal with the news media, government and the remainder of those INCLUDING FOX I MIGHT ADD,? Almost the entire country jumped the gun on this one and I really have to say…so much for journalism and news reporting (based on fact). Someone has said this a few times during the last weeks, “Journalism is dead”, ain’t it the truth? So is governance on every level.
jimw1016

ImNotBlue said:
It’s funny… I really don’t remember a lot of complaining about “email scandals” after Sarah Palin’s email account got hacked. In fact, I recall a lot of folks defending the hacker, saying it was HER fault for having a too-easy-to-figure-out password.

I wonder what has changed between now and then?

Who wants or needs to read her unintelligent drivel anyway? We need a real president with a business background to make this mess operate like a machine.
jimw1016

Azarkhan said:
” I really don’t remember a lot of complaining about “email scandals” after Sarah Palin’s email account got hacked.” ImNotBlue

Thank you.

Who really cared beyond Palin?
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

@Pbump: You were a juror for the Astor trial?

I blogged about the case back in ’07 after Tony and his wife had relinquished stewardship and they had agreed to returning the art work, along with the initial repayment . So count me among those who had followed the case from the beginning. Though it seems that I may have only blogged about it twice and perhaps because I was only semi-following it by the trial — after I had convicted them in my own mind and had learned that despite the soap opera aspects, they didn’t give me a lot of traffic — I have to admit that I didn’t recognize your name from among the jurors.

(Damn dude, if we’re ever in the same city. This seems to be another reason for us to grab a drink)

Otherwise, I kind of like a lot of the post-death FOIA revelations and as a fan of openness in government, I can’t say that I have a big problem with them all around. I’ll also say that perhaps that though I’ve never revealed emails, I have ready access to most of my communications since ’01 and a lot of the stuff prior to then, I have stored on various hard drives.

Oh, and I also have a few of the more titillating pics, stolen from Paris Hilton’s phone.*

(* Miss Hilton was also “hacked” due to “security” questions. A tactic still used today)
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

IOW: Good post and limited revelations should always be taken with a grain of salt.

BTW: Because it may help illustrate the FOIA part of post and because I have no problem linking to Gawker, I offer up this “update” post from John Cook that links back to his examination of Irving R. Levine’s FBI file and to a columnist with the Charlotte Observer’s quest to find who had been traveling with one of their reporters, whom Levine believed may have tried to recruit as a spy.

Taken in totality, it sort of helps describe, how things may not always be as they seem.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

^there’s a “the” and a “him” missing from the above, but I’m sure that folks get what I mean.
lanquihue

PB: “… Daily Caller is to “Journolist”. Each broadcasts only the most incendiary parts of a discussion…”

Carlson has challenged any of the listserv participants on journolist to produce email that rebuke the context of those he’s published thus far.

A couple of things:

1) Is there anyone out there who sits behind a desk, that doesn’t religiously keep every single email they’ve ever sent or received? (I can tell you that the practice has vindicated my ass more than once)

2) That said, there’s just no way that anyone can convince me that out of four hundred subscribers to journolist, not one of them has any saved emails that would show that Carlson has taken anything out of context.

3) I suspect that Carlson has in fact published some emails out of context, but is silently daring people to come forth with exonerating emails, emails which he does not have, but would be more damning in the broad perspective than the small damage the published ones have done. Touche, Tucker.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

@lanquihue: The “context” is that he’s posting single emails from an archive of something like 25,000 and thus far, we’ve learned that a few of them aren’t fond of Keith Olbermann and a couple of bloggers or academics tossed out ideas worthy of a DailyKos random. The more outlandish thoughts, which are those the website chose to highlight were either ignored or quickly knocked down.
lanquihue

Magister, it’s almost as though you didn’t even listen, but simply repeated the “context” talking point. Please point to any emails on the list that are taken out of context. Carlson has challenged you to do this, and so does everyone else who reads these comments.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

@lanquihue: One answer could be that a “context” would be that there are more than 25,000 emails in the archive and thus far, Carlson and his crew have published excerpts from maybe… say… twenty “out of” it, but I realize that’s not the answer that you are seeking.

So instead, let’s look at a specific example.

Yesterday or the day before, Azarkhan was spamming multiple threads with the following clip, which I’ll expand to include a longer excerpt;

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

This juvenile and simplistic theme was suggested by Spencer Ackerman, who at the time was blogging for the Washington Independent, an unquestionably liberal website that I first became aware of because they sent a reporter to Wasilla after Palin was named, so that she could get feel for the candidate.

And what they fail to mention is that Mr. Ackerman, who looks to be in his late 20s in his Wikipedia photo (and from his implied graduation date, along with other evidence) had been dismissed as a writer and blogger from The New Republic for either “insubordination” or “irreconciliable ideological differences” depending on the account.

Based on Wikipedia and a linked article in the New York Observer, Mr. Ackerman had become disillusioned with The New Republic and had expressed an interest in being fired. At one point in response to a disagreement with the editor, he sent him an email offering “‘make a niche in your skull’ with a baseball bat”; He declared in an editorial meeting that he was willing to “skullf**k” a terrorist’s corpse and then he started a personal blogspot called “Too Hot for TNR”, where among other things, he made cracks about his employer.

After The New Republic, he went to work for another magazine and blogged for TalkingPointsMemo before going to work at the Washington Independent. He also has another personal blog, plus one at FireDogLake and at the end of June, weeks before the Daily Caller articles appeared and days before the Weigel story broke, he became a blogger for Wired.

IOW: The “context” of Ackerman’s childish suggestion is that he has a tendency to speak before he thinks; he likes to play outside of society’s rules; he has had a lot of jobs since ’02 and now he’s blogging for a publication, which recently had their own journalism practices questioned.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

Note: My “IOW:” probably should’ve started with “Another ‘context’” and for the record, as the Daily Caller noted in their article, Mr. Ackerman was talked down by another blogger and an editor, plus obviously no one expressed agreement with the ide or it would’ve made its way into the article.

And, since I’m back making an additional comment…

It’s also kind of ironic in light of the “context” idea that a Daily Caller blogger used the short version of the Ackerman quote in an editorial, where he had taken Breitbart’s original assertion that Shirley Sherrod had discriminated as a federal employee and said that she was rightfully fired.
lanquihue

(copy and paste, since you don’t get it)

Magister, it’s almost as though you didn’t even listen, but simply repeated the “context” talking point. Please point to any emails on the list that are taken out of context. Carlson has challenged you to do this, and so does everyone else who reads these comments.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

@lanquihue: I suspect that you’re applying only one meaning to “context” — for example, a movie poster saying “it’s a ride” clipped from a review which actually said “it’s a ride straight to boredom that’ll have you struggling to stay awake — while I’m using a broader definition.