In his weekly “Stories I’d like to see” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com.
1. Fast and Furious - zeroing in on Fortune’s different take:
Last week Fortune magazine published this surprising story that convincingly debunks the premise of the so-called Fast and Furious “gun walking” scandal that has enveloped the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Attorney General Eric Holder. Last week the controversy resulted in a contempt of Congress citation against Holder for not turning over documents about the case to a congressional committee chaired by Darrell Issa, the California Republican.
According to a ton of reporting done by Fortune’s Katherine Eban, including on-the-record interviews with many of the ATF agents involved and what Fortune says were more than 2,000 pages of explosive internal government emails and other documents, ATF agents did not deliberately allow American gun buyers working for Mexican drug cartels to “walk” assault rifles across the border to the drug gangs. Rather, the agents were carefully tracking the gun buyers and wanted to intercept and arrest them. They were stopped because prosecutors said that loopholes in gun record-keeping laws—loopholes that have long been protected by the gun rights advocates who are now leading the attack against ATF and Holder—and other constraints on ATF pushed by the gun lobby were such that prosecutors said the agents did not have enough probable cause to make the arrests.
In fact, according to Eban’s reporting, the one ATF agent who has been the key whistleblower and protagonist for Representative Issa’s charges that ATF deliberately let the drug cartels get the guns turns out to be the only agent who actually suggested that ATF do so in a separate case.
Of course, last week was buried in coverage of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision, but it’s still surprising that the Fortune story has not received the broad follow-up it deserves.
First, if true, it makes Issa’s attack on ATF and Holder one big “never mind.”
Second, if true, it makes Holder’s concession months ago that ATF did, in fact, intentionally allow Fast and Furious guns into the hands of the cartels either amazingly uninformed or an equally amazing knee buckling and sell-out of his agency in a fruitless effort to avoid a fight with Issa and his Republican allies. Fortune’s Eban explains it this way: The Obama administration “capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election.” Her article also raises questions about why Democrats on Issa’s committee, who have opposed his tactics and his contempt motion, didn’t fight back using the same emails that Eban uncovered. (Despite the contempt citation against Holder for withholding some documents, the committee has already received thousands of other documents.)
The Fortune article is also a strong indictment of CBS’s 60 Minutes, which made a hero out of the ATF agent whom Fortune portrays as a rogue while making villains out of Fortune’s good-guy agents.
Someone needs to wade through all of this. And until that happens, for my money the Fortune piece is credible enough that the rest of the press needs, despite Holder’s own hapless admission, to stop referring to the charge of Fast and Furious gun walking and the deliberate planting of guns with Mexican drug gangsters as a fact.
2. ICANN’s $350 million bonanza:
Since its formation in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has been the U.S. government’s way of outsourcing to the private sector basic Internet housekeeping questions, such as who gets what domain names and addresses. With a multinational board made up of Internet visionaries (or busybodies, depending on your point of view), ICANN has suffered its share of controversy but has generally been regarded in the press as better than the alternative of having a government bureaucracy—either ours or one set up by the United Nations—play Internet hall monitor.

I totally agree with Steve Brill that other media need to quickly follow up on the fascinating Fortune investigative piece. If that piece is accurate, then most of what the media have been reporting, and what the politicians have been spouting, needs to be thrown out and we need to start fresh. Rarely have I seen a bigger disconnect.
#1 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Tue 3 Jul 2012 at 05:38 PM
Two narratives: one states that the BATFE through a combination of institutional incompetence and a desire to drum up support for increased gun control measures intentionally allowed and facilitated thousands of guns to be walked into Mexico without the knowledge of Mexican law enforcement and the other states that this entire controversy is the work of a couple of low-level troublemakers teaming up with some politico's on capitol hill to embarrass the administration.
The first narrative has the support of a congressional investigation, a dozen whistleblowers in the ATF and FBI who testified under oath (I remember when the media used to like whistleblowes), a couple of dozen pieces of investigative journalism by Sharyl Attkisson, and even the attorney general of the US.
The second is based solely on a single 1500 word piece from Eban whose primary source is the recently promoted, former Phoenix Supervisor David Voth whose job is most in jeopardy by the investigation and has the most to gain in seeing it squashed.
Is this how the press circles its wagons around Obama when he gets his ass in a bind? Does this one piece by Eban justify throwing over a year of reporting by other people under the bus? Why did CJR finally decide F&F is worth a mention only now?
#2 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Tue 3 Jul 2012 at 07:37 PM
I question whether Mike H. actually read the Fortune article. While I can't personally vouch for its accuracy, the article was actually nearly 7,000 words long. Here's how Eban characterizes her reporting:
"Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time."
If Mike H. and other critics want to try to rebut the article's findings, give it your best shot. But please deal with the substance and present evidence, rather than engaging in political shots. Hopefully we're all operating in the reality-based community.
#3 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 03:11 PM
Here's an idea. Make it so that every story in every "Stories I'd like to see" would reinforce a statist or "progressive" worldview. Oh, wait...
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 03:34 PM
For an accurate, factual account of this scandal I'll stick with FAST AND FURIOUS, by Katie Pavlich, published by Regnery.
#5 Posted by Red Ryder, CJR on Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 03:40 PM
Hey Dan, this is like you 100th two line comment about a reporter and something about "statism"?
Twitter is that way ---->
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 04:08 PM
Re The DC power outage: It appears Mike Elk of In These Times may have written the story you wanted to see: http://bit.ly/NtAY4m
#7 Posted by Don McIntosh, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 04:21 PM