What's striking is that a member of the Fourth Estate, an entity that is tasked with holding the government accountable, is himself held to account for potential journalistic blunders by none other than a mere citizen (albeit a citizen with a blog and a wide audience). Are the netroots becoming the Fifth Estate? In any event, progressive populism is coming back, one click at a time.

Jonathan,

Way to take responsibility, even when A. Nag' doesn't even deserve that much, given his past transgressions.

but given Nagourney's explanation, I was wrong to attack for writing the story and interviewing the former Vice President without having seen the documentary first.

Now I'm not familiar in the least bit with journalism, but it sounds like on-the-spot interviews are fairly rare. Fair enough, in Nagourney's defense.

But does he mean to tell us that he willingly made the request, knowing full well that he could be called back in 5 minutes or never, without having seen the movie?

As [a] rule, I do not do interviews with authors, film-makers, etcetera, without having read their book or seen their movie.

I would have either had to arrange to get a videotape or find a special screening.

An Inconvenient Truth opens in the DC area on Friday, June 2.  To find out when & where it opens in your area check: http://www.climatecrisis.net/findatheate r

Boy, are they beginning to be scared of us, or what?

   ...the David Broders and Richard Cohens of the world would respond with Jonathan Singer's class when we call them out.

Far be it from me to take the Pollyanna side for once but...

It's at the very least interesting that AdNag should offer a personal comment. MyDD is not exactly the biggest beast in the bloggo jungle (but what there is is cherce!) so it's not as if he's getting his hair mussed with the tidal wave of bad publicity.

And - it's a good tactic for the journos. Always easier to be snarky to someone you know will think it beneath him to respond.

In the interests of a "scoop" A.N. conducts a meaningless interview. And then publishes a contentless piece.

True ethical behavior (whatever that was) would have had him keep the material as notes for a real piece after he had seen the film. Nothing Gore says these days is breaking news, he repeats the same talking points at every opportunity. So there was no need to meet a deadline except for a little egotism.

What is significant is that Gore called back!  A tipoff he's not done with politics yet?? (I hope!!)

That's what I like about most of the progressive blogospere: being able to clearly say you were wrong  instead of hiding it. You could just as well not have published Adam Nagourney's response and none of us would have known.

While it's not nice to have days when we're wrong about something (happened the other day on Dkos as well) it's terrific to see that we're able to do an Oprah and be appreciative of it.

The one thing Nagourney does not address in his email is whether or not he planned to write a piece about Gore without having interviewed him.  I probably shouldn't even suggest it, but I don't really feel he's earned the benefit of the doubt.

"It's at the very least interesting that AdNag should offer a personal comment."

Why? Journalists are people too, they spend leisure time on the internet too, and those interested in politics probably check out various political weblogs. If he came across an instance of his own work being discussed, why wouldn't he respond?

Uh...sorry, so sorry but this 'explanation' is total bullshit. If you haven't seen the movie that the person you are interviewing, for the purpose of dicussing the movie, made then why did you do the interview?

Oh...yeah.

That would be about the money.

I still like what Gore had to say to Nagourney -- that "political scribes have to take off their cynical lenses through which they view every moral challenge as political spin"

This is pretty much one of the reasons why I am skeptical of someone like Gore or Kerry in Presidential races-they talk in "Harvard-esque" terms and statements, while much of the country is "Wisconsin University"...get what I mean?

They're talking over the heads of much of the country with their language.  Most that hear that comment from him are scratching their heads and saying "what the hell does that mean?!"  We need people to get to this candidates are start telling them, or writing FOR them, speeches and filling them in on simpler, straight forward ways of talking to the American people.  

It's always infuriated me when we get candidates on a national platform that start frothing at the mouth of "grander visions and a brighter horizon in the distance of our wonderful nation that our forefathers intended to begrandiose...blah, blah, blah!"   When someone on the other side simply says "I want you have great pay, affordable health insurance and gas prices that won't have you make a choice between heat and food for your family."  Period.