Itās not often that, barely a week after sparking a mini media circus by being arrested on federal property in the course of an undercover operation, an individual can be at the center of another press controversy. But in James OāKeefeās world, it seems, anything is possible.
Last Wednesday, Salon published an article by Max Blumenthal, titled āJames OāKeefeās Race Problem,ā which asserted that the conservative videographerās āshort but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment.ā The story covered some previously reported ground, such as OāKeefeās role in organizing an āaffirmative action bake saleā in college; highlighted comments OāKeefe reputedly made in a college-era online diary that has been preserved at Daily Kos; and suggested that OāKeefeās āracial issuesā shaped his approach to ACORN. But the key bit of news was OāKeefeās attendance atāand his alleged involvement withāa 2006 panel discussion in Washington, D.C., that featured as a speaker Jared Taylor of the white nationalist organization American Renaissance, along with National Review writer John Derbyshire and Kevin Martin of the black conservative group Project 21.
The precise tenor of the event, which Salonās editors described in a sub-headline as a āwhite-nationalist confab,ā is a matter of some dispute. (Readers who are inclined to make their own determination can listen to the audio recordings at the American Renaissance Web site.) At issue here is a more specific point: Blumenthalās claim in the original story that, āTogether, OāKeefe and [fellow conservative activist Marcus] Epstein planned an event in August 2006 that would wed their extreme views on race with their ambitions.ā That was the line that most directly tied OāKeefe to Epstein, whose record includes a subsequent arrest for assaulting an African-American woman, and that most directly gave him ownership of the event.
The problem is that, as it appeared in the Salon story, the source for the claim was unclear. And, as became apparent over the next couple days, Blumenthalās sourcesāincluding Daryle Jenkins, director of a racism watchdog group called the One Peopleās Project, which monitored the event, and a pseudonymous freelance photographer known as Isisādid not actually know whether OāKeefe had planned the gathering.
Jenkins told CJR that OPP representatives had observed several individuals from a conservative group known as the Leadership InstituteāOāKeefe apparently among themāāsetting up the tablesā and otherwise assisting on site. Isis, meanwhile, said in an interview Friday that OāKeefe āwas very actively involved in the execution of the event,ā and likened his participation to a friend helping the host of a party. (She has been similarly quoted by Blumenthal at his blog and also by Dave Weigel of The Washington Independent, who was at the original event and wrote numerous stories about it last week.)
Thatās something, but itās not what Blumenthal originally claimed. Meanwhile, Epstein went on record to say that OāKeefe was not an organizer. And OāKeefeāwho did not respond last week to requests for comment from Blumenthal or CJRādenied any planning role in a conversation with Andrew Breitbartās BigJournalism.com.
When first contacted by CJR last Thursday, Blumenthal did not back down from the claim. āThe story is accurately sourced, and I stand by it,ā he said, repeatedly. Indeed, Blumenthalās sources had no quarrel with his reporting. Isis was quoted by Weigel on Friday as saying, āI donāt believe OāKeefe planned the event.ā But that afternoon, she told CJR that she had no problem with Blumenthalās account. āNitpicking over whether he planned the event, or nitpicking over whether he manned a table or not, isā¦ getting away from the base racism of the situation, which is dangerous,ā she said. āWhat was obvious was [OāKeefe] participating in the execution of the event. I think that Max interprets that as planning, and in the world of event-planning, Max is correct.ā
Thatās not, however, the position that won out. On Friday, Salon posted a correction; according to Blumenthal, the decision to do so was āmutually agreed on after discussion,ā and he has also posted the corrected version of the story on his own site. The sentence in question now omits any mention of OāKeefe: āIn August 2006 Epstein planned an event that would wed his extreme views on race with his ambitions.ā Via e-mail, Salon editor-in-chief Joan Walsh said she takes responsibility for the error.
āI corrected the story because it was brought to my attention, first by David Weigel (not that he alerted me; I read him daily) that the OPP folks’ accounts of the 2006 meeting weren’t exactly what I had believed them to be,ā she wrote. In an earlier message, Walsh wrote: āI should have pushed harder about the exact nature of their knowledge and memory about the event to make that distinction before publication.ā
Walsh is right to recognize the importance of that distinction. As activists and advocates, the OPP representatives are free to draw conclusions from their observations. But as a journalist, itās incumbent upon Blumenthalāand any outlet that publishes his workāto distinguish between what his sources actually observed and what they believe to be true.
A journalistās claim to an audienceās trust is based on the implicit promise that he will take that step. And that responsibility, obviously, doesnāt go away just because youāve got a good story or a worthy target.
And, in this case, Blumenthal did have a real story on his hands. āThe tragedy is,ā Weigel said in an interview Monday, āthe rest of the context in that piece was spot-on.ā Whatever is in his heart, OāKeefe has a history of pushing peopleās buttons on racial issues and testing the limits of what he can get away with. And, as Weigel has written, there has existed among young conservative activists a subculture in which it was considered daring to dabble in extremist politics. Against that background, OāKeefeās presence at the 2006 event merited journalistic attentionābut responsible attention that recognizes that every detail counts, and that no matter how much or how righteously you might disdain your subject, reporting has to be constrained by the facts.
These principles have practical consequences. In flubbing a key detail, and not immediately correcting it, Blumenthalās article undermined the credibility of its broader argument. That is always a risk when going after a big target, especially one who has a platform to talk back. As Weigel put it, āWhat is it Omar says in The Wire? āYou come at the king, you best not miss.āā
More broadly, Breitbart, OāKeefe, and their circle have been able to build an audience in part by exploiting the idea that āthe mainstream mediaāāa term that has been stretched beyond all utility, but by which they often seem to mean any outlet without an avowedly right-wing perspectiveādoes not apply the rules consistently, and can not be expected to treat conservatives fairly. Itās a strategy that doesnāt just acknowledge but enthusiastically embraces the splintering of the audienceāand with it, the shrinking of the publicās trust in mediaāalong ideological lines. And an error of this sort does more than provide OāKeefe with a defense, by allowing him to shift the focus to a point that was not proven. It also, for every minute that itās out there, provides ready-made ammunition for that broader campaignāand for the idea that the media is motivated by ideological biases and personal vendettas, unconstrained by norms that ensure fairness and accuracy.
This is the bigger stakes here: the pressās ability to make a claim for the publicās trust. Part of the way to do that is to make the case, aggressively, for good journalism. But an equally important step is for the press to live up to its own high standards, to demonstrate what good journalism demands. By eventually issuing a correction and owning up to a mistake, Salon and Blumenthal did that in the end. Next time, hopefully, itāll happen from the outset.
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.