The Associated Press has fired long-time reporter Christopher Newton for allegedly inventing sources, including those in a recent article on crime statistics.

"Chris Newton maintains these experts are real and accurately quoted, but our editors have been unable to verify that they even exist," said AP spokeswoman Kelly Smith Tunney."

Tunney said "15 questionable quotes have been found among hundreds of articles written by Newton and that AP is still reviewing his work. She added the news agency has discovered no instance where the questionable material was central to the story."

Newton has been writing for the AP since 1994. He had been based at the Justice Department, covering federal law-enforcement issues and activities since June, 2002.

The finalists for the 2002 Online Journalism Awards came out today. They are listed here. The winners will be announced during the Online News Association's third annual conference in New York City Oct. 18-19, 2002.

The awards are presented by the Online News Association & the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. They honor "Excellence in English-language Web Journalism Worldwide" and have categories for sites with user hits under 200,000 per month and over 200,000 per month.

Bloggers take note:

Congratulations to James Tarranto and Best of the Web for its selection as a finalist in the Online Commentary category. It is the one category that is not divided into affiliated and independent media.

"This category honors a body of work by a single writer for commentary original to the Web. (Print syndication after Web posting does not disqualify an entry.) Topics can range from news commentary to essays, reviews, criticism, opinion and humor. The writer should display an original voice, freshness of insight and clear writing. Creative use of the medium will be considered. "

The nomination forms for next year will come out in July, 2003.

"Gonzo Journalist" Hunter Thompson said in an interview today with CBS Market Watch, among other things, that President Bush should quit.

Hunter, who had the CBS reporter call back so he could finish his dinner before speaking with him (at 7am) discussed a variety of topics, from his conversation last week with Bob Dylan who was in Aspen to perform (we hear Dylan was great by the way, and had everyone singing along for Subterranean Homesick Blues) to:

"He has a new book coming out in December. The title? "Kingdom of Fear." That's basically how he views the state of the U.S. right now.
The only stock he said he ever bought was the Boston Celtics.
He still has harsh words for the "greedheads" and the Republican oil tycoons who come to Colorado and complicate his life.
His advice for President Bush: "QUIT!"
His advice for his fellow citizens: "Get out and vote."

The article about the interview is almost as much fun to read as the interview. But then, we've always been a major Hunter fan. We were especially proud to know him when he took to writing about Lisl Auman, who is doing life for a murder of a policeman. Her case is on appeal, and Hunter wrote about it a lot in his ESPN column. He also got the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to file an amicus brief on her behalf. Lisl was in police custody at the time of the crime and she was convicted and given life, no, under the "felony murder" rule. Our coverage of the case has links to Hunter's articles and information about the case.

Unlike some other bloggers, Howard Bashman of How Appealing knows how to credit a songwriter.

We always thought the song Howard quotes from today, "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats (old Bob Geldorf band) was the best rebuttal to those who said that the juvenile rage and school violence associated with Columbine, Paducah and Jonesboro were either new phenomena or the result of a sudden increase in the availability of guns. The song was a hit in the early 1980's. You can listen to it here.

"The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

The telex machine is kept so clean
As it types to a waiting world.
And mother feels so shocked,
Father's world is rocked,
And their thoughts turn to
Their own little girl.
Sweet 16 ain't so peachy keen,
No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.
They can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?....

All the playing's stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with her toys a while.
And school's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die.
And then the bullhorn crackles,
And the captain crackles,
With the problems and the how's and why's.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die?"

Back to song credits....TalkLeft has had a line from a Bob Dylan song as our "motto" since the day we started blogging (see bottom left column of main page)--we not only credit Dylan but link to the lyrics. In case there was any doubt as to what our position would be on the issue of she who failed to credit Jackson Browne, now you know.

Update: This just in from Reuters on an interview with Michael Carneal, the teenage "shooter" in the Paducah, Kentucky case.

"People want one simple answer I can't give it," he told The Courier-Journal of Louisville in an interview at the Kentucky State Reformatory, where he is serving a life sentence."

"Back then, Carneal said, he believed his parents didn't love him, and that he was constantly taunted by other students, including some who he said falsely claimed he was gay."

"One thing that did not influence him, he said, is video games or violent movies."

Ratings for yesterday's daylong 9/11 coverage:

[viewers]

FOX NEWS 1,004,000

CNN 922,000

MSNBC 316,000

Here's the New York Times ratings analysis.

Counterspin today takes issue with The Daily Rant for calling NPR Host Tavis Smiley "divisive" and cynically comparing him to Rush Limbaugh because Smiley "once called President Bush a 'serial killer'."

We take issue with the comparison as well. The quote at issue was made by Smiley on Rivera Live, October 24, 2000--the subject was whether there was a difference between Bush and Gore on issues of importance to minority voters, particularly African-Americans.

Tavis was answering a question from Geraldo referencing a comment made earlier in the show by Arianna Huffington, also a guest on the show. Tavis had been stuck in traffic and arrived late on the set. Geraldo recapped her comments to him. Here are the remarks in context.

Ms. HUFFINGTON: [Ralph Nader] really, genuinely believes that it doesn't really make any difference to the country whether Gore or Bush is president, and I, frankly, completely agree with him. In the end, when it comes to major issues, Charlie, things that you care about, like the war on drugs, like incarceration rates, like 1,400,000 African-American men disenfranchised because of felony convictions. On all these issues, it doesn't matter. They're absolutely similar; so they are when it comes to corporate takeover.

[Later in the show, after Tavis' arrival]

RIVERA (to Smiley): But Arianna suggests that neither of these candidates [Gore or Bush] is making the minority vote or minority issues, whether it's housing, you know, this ridiculous failed war on drugs, any--any issue you want to think of impacting poor folks, many of them black and brown, n--neither candidate's making that a big priority. Do you agree?

Mr. SMILEY: I think she's right about that to a certain extent. There are--there are some issues on which, if you are a--a voter of color, certainly if you're an African-American, you have a hard time choosing. For example, both of these guys support the death penalty. As far as I'm concerned, Bush in Texas is nothing more than a serial killer.

RIVERA: Whoo! Whoo!

Mr. SMILEY: But we can't expect that much more out of--out of Gore because this guy supports the death penalty as well, and indeed, the Democrats, when they came here to LA, increased the penalties for which the death penalty can apply in their platform. So if you--if you believe in the--that the death penalty is disproportionately applied to African-Americans, how do you support...

RIVERA: I do.

Mr. SMILEY: ...I do--I do, too--how do you support either one of these guys? On the other hand, there are some clear distinctions, and for me...

RIVERA: Like? Like?

Mr. SMILEY: For example, the issue that I've been talking most about on radio and television--I cannot abide the thought of having three more Clarence Thomases on the Supreme Court. If Bush gets elected, by his own words, his two favorites on the bench now are Scalia and Thomas. If this guy gets a chance, he's going to put three more Clarence Thomases on the bench, and for all this diversity on display that we saw at the convention in Philadelphia, people are talking the talk, but nobody's walking the walk.

And this surplus that we keep talking about spending, who's talking specifically about how this surplus is going to be spent to help those who are economically, politically and socially disenfranchised? And so, you know, you can look at these guys, as Arianna says, and not see much difference between the two of them.

But for me--and I'm not--I'm not typically a one-issue voter--I'm voting Supreme Court. We screw up, we pick the wrong guy to run the White House, we can ostensibly straighten that mess out in four years. You pick the wrong guy to run the White House and he stacks the bench for the next 30, 40, 50 years, you can't straighten that out.

Source: Lexis

Tavis was expressing his opposition to the death penalty and correctly pointed out that under Bush's stewardship as governor, Texas executed more people than any other state. Bush maintained during his presidential campaign that the 143 executions in Texas while he was governor were "fair and just."

Tavis was not being divisive--nor was he inciting viewers or promoting extremist views, as Limbaugh does. He was pretty accurate on all accounts.

Also from Altercation today, the very sad news that Warren Zevon has incurable lung cancer. He's one of our favorites. We wish him the best.

Update: From the LA Times, Facing Mortality with Mischief Rather Than Tears.

First it Jeb's daughter Nicole splashing the front pages with her recent drug probe. Now its brother Neil's turn: he's getting divorced after 22 years of marriage and 3 children, one of whom, 18 year old Lauren, is an international fashion model.

Brother Neil's claim to fame:

"Bush, 46, served until 1988 as director of Denver-based Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan, which cost taxpayers more than $1 billion when it collapsed. He was one of 12 defendants who agreed in 1991 to pay $49.5 million to settle a negligence lawsuit brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Bush denied wrongdoing and was not charged in the grand jury investigation that followed, but the federal government imposed sanctions on him should he ever become involved in any other federally insured savings and loan or bank. "

Update: Hesiod of Counterspin reminds us of this from Jake Tapper at Salon on Jan. 24 regarding Neil Bush's speech in Saudi Arabia:

"Presidential brother Neil Bush, while giving a speech Monday in Saudi Arabia, condemned the American media for stereotyping the Arab world and urged Arab leaders to hire lobbyists and public relations representatives to combat these negative images as well as to sway public opinion to a more sympathetic view of Arabs in the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to reports in foreign media outlets. Bush implied that Israel has done a better job of getting its message across in the American media."

"The U.S. media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims, and the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, could be influenced through a sustained lobbying and P.R. effort," said the younger Bush, according to the Arab News, Saudi Arabia's first English-language daily."

Court TV Anchor Rikki Klieman has assembled a great show today (on now) about civil liberties and Sept. 11--guests are NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelley, former Commissioner Bernie Kerik, Bill Bratton (former NY Police Commissioner and one of 13 finalists for that job in LA and Rikki's husband) and Homeland Security deputy chief Jerry Howar. There's more, it just started, so if you are by a tv, tune in.

Over on Alternet, John K. Wilson reviews the new book It's a Free Country. Law Professor and civil liberties expert David Cole is a significant author of the work.

The full title is "It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America after September 11." Published by RDV Books, edited by Danny Goldberg, Victor Goldberg and Robert Greenwald, the book "challenges the idea widely publicized in the media that domestic liberties were mostly unaffected by terrorism."

An Amazon review describes the book as a "groundbreaking collection of new pieces examining the effects of President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft’s legislative assault on civil liberties following the terrorist bombing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon."

Contributers of original material besides Professor Cole include Michael Moore, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Steve Earle, Tom Hayden, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Robert Scheer (LA Times columnist), Ira Glasser (former head of the ACLU), cartoonist Matt Groening, historian Howard Zinn, Lillian Nakano, Congressman Bob Barr, Michael Isikoff, Anthony Romero, Norman Siegel, Kenneth Roth, Nadine Strossen, Michael Tomasky, Helen Zia, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

There are interviews with Nat Hentoff and Congressman Barney Frank and firsthand stories from Middle Eastern and American victims of civil-liberty infringement, such as the chief of police in Portland, Oregon who resisted federal pressure, and Fathi Mustafa, a Palestinian caught in the wave of racial profiling.

In the Alternet review, John Wilson says,

"One of the most shocking things about "It's a Free Country" is the inclusion of statements by members of Congress. The media presented America post-Sept. 11 as a glorified oneness of thought in support of the war on terror. These sharp criticisms by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Bob Barr (R-Ga.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) were almost invisible in the press. "

"The media failed to report the fact, as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) observed, that the USA Patriot Act was "strengthened" to restrict civil liberties by after-committee "backdoor maneuvers" without the knowledge of members of Congress who voted mere hours after the legislation was finalized to approve it, unaware of the changes made by the Bush Administration."

Buy the Book Today!

NPR's new audio and visual perspective on 9/11 and its aftermath entitled The Sonic Memorial Project is now up. From the site description:

"Shortly after September 11, NPR's Lost & Found Sound brought together independent radio producers, new media producers, artists, historians, and listeners from across the country to collect and preserve 'sound memories' of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood, and the events of 9/11."

"We set up the Sonic Memorial Phone Line at 877-894-8500 for you to leave your stories, recordings, and audio artifacts, both personal and historic. Hundreds of you called with testimonies and remembrances, music, and small fragments of sound. "

"Your stories have been woven into radio broadcasts on NPR. And now, they are a part of a living archive and a new kind of listening experience called 'The Sonic Browser.' "

"SonicMemorial.org is produced by Picture Projects, best known for its award-winning online documentary, 360 degrees.org, and the new media company, dotsperinch, in collaboration with Lost & Found Sound."

We're a long-time fan of 360degrees.org for its perspectives on the criminal justice system.

Updates on this from the site:

"The Sonic Memorial Project is a part of The Smithsonian Institution's exhibition, September 11: Bearing Witness to History. Five phone booths allow visitors to listen to stories from the archive and leave their own testimonies and remembrances. Open until January 11, 2003."

"ABC News is broadcasting two Sonic Memorial specials on September 11. Reporter Robert Krulwich brings viewers into the towers before 9/11 to experience radio row, weddings at Windows on the World, the immigrant workers who cleaned the towers at night, and other untold stories."

"This fall, The Museum of Television and Radio in New York City will feature the entire Sonic Memorial in their listening room."

Bill Bratton used to be New York's "top cop." Before that , he was top cop in Boston and he is now hoping to become top cop in L.A. We hope L.A. has the sense to hire him, because he is the one person who could turn around that battered and corrupt police department.

Bratton is married to our good pal Rikki Klieman, the vivacious, smart, savvy and articulate Court TV anchor who in her prior life was one of the leading criminal defense attorneys in Boston, and one of the best female trial lawyers in the country.

The Boston Globe ran a great profile of their life together yesterday called Partners in Crime. We thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish and think you will too.