Do Liberal Journalists Need a Hiding Place to Talk?

Reports of this new JournaList, a secret blog of like-minded "progressive" journalists, are starting to raise eyebrows around the nation, and eyebrows should indeed be raised.

Just a thought: If secrecy is necessary in order to properly conduct business with more than a couple of people, then perhaps the rest of us ought to be concerned about what that business entails.

We've already heard about "The 8:45" the morning conference call that goes out from an Obama-affiliated organization to various people with the talking points of the day. Naturally the White House denies involvement with the call or its contents, though several of the participants are good buddies with Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.

Now we hear, from The Politico, about this secret blogsite whose participants include, it has been disclosed, the writers at The Huffington Post and Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker.

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

So we aren't supposed to be worried that these mostly mainstream journalists are sharing talking points among themselves, for publication to provide a "united front"? Read some more:

In an e-mail, Klein said he understands that the JList’s off-the-record rule “makes it seems secretive.” But he insisted that JList discussions have to be off the record in order to “ensure that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions.”

One byproduct of that secrecy: For all its high-profile membership — which includes Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman; staffers from Newsweek, POLITICO, Huffington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and The New Yorker; policy wonks, academics and bloggers such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias — JList itself has received almost no attention from the media. [SNIP]

But a handful of JList members agreed to talk for this story — if only to push back against the perception that the group is some sort of secret, left-wing cabal.

Several members volunteered that JList is unlike listservs such as Townhouse, the private, activist-oriented group formed by liberal blogger Matt Stoller.

“No one’s pushing an agenda,” said Toobin.

Yeah, right.

If a group of conservatives had a secret web site for sharing ideas, liberal media members would be in shrill scream mode over the threat to democracy. Mark Hemingway at NRO had this observation:

... one of the most valuable currencies in Washington is access to the press. The article notes that many stories have started on or been shaped by JournoList. If you're a liberal blogger or activist, you can now push your story on the highest echelons of journalism with a quick email. If you're a mainstream journalist, is it really ethical that you don't give the opposing view equal access?

I think the real answer here is simply that there are no conservatives on the list because this just confirms — yet again — that mainstream journalists are privately hostile to conservative ideas and are somewhat committed to advancing liberal ones.

But good thing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is denouncing the Republican "cabal." They're probably discussing what to do about that on the JournoList right now.