Some NYTimes Columnists Are Not What They Appear to Be on Twitter, Either
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, October 13 2010
Sunday New York Times columnist Frank Rich had a curmudgeonly column this week entitled "Facebook Politicians Are Not Your Friends" arguing that the Internet has failed to deliver more political transparency, and decrying politicians and groups that use social media to serve up a false front to the public. Then he picked on the punching-bag-du-jour of the analog class, Twitter:
The more recent miracle of Twitter theoretically encourages real-time interconnection between elected officials and the citizenry. But it too has been easily corrupted by politicians whose 140-character effusions are often ghost-written by hired 20-somethings, just like those produced for pop stars like 50 Cent and Britney Spears.
Or, Rich might have added, the 140-character effusions generated by unpaid bots working for 20th-century publishing giants like the New York Times. To wit, here's Frank Rich's most recent tweets:
PdF friend Rich Robbins noted this and called out New York Times associate managing editor Jim Roberts, via Twitter, on the incongruity. Roberts, to his credit, responded personally:
With this column, Rich, who is usually one of the Times' most trenchant columnists, had an off day I think. After all, politicians have been lying about themselves since, um, the invention of lying. The Internet hasn't suddenly induced more lying. And the problem of secret donors influencing the process also isn't a creation of the Internet; Rich should aim his ire at the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision for opening that floodgate a bit wider than it already was.
If anything, the Internet has made it far easier to find out what politicians and secretive interests are up to. Until recently, much political disclosure was on paper. You'd have to make a trip to the Federal Election Commission to look up the records by hand. Now, the Sunlight Foundation's TransparencyData.com gives you all the donations made by a single donor across 50 states in one click; PoliticalPartyTime.com tells you which lobbyists are hosting fundraisers; Politifact.com fact-checks political ads and statements almost as fast as they appear. To be sure, the post-Citizens United world of stealthy Super-Pacs is crying out for more disclosure. But the internet is our best hope for addressing that problem too.
[Full disclosure: I have been a senior technology adviser to the Sunlight Foundation since its founding in 2006.]