Re: Davis letter

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Actually, how about something on the Dallas Morning News editorial board?

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

I'll brainstorm. Down for more hit pieces?

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:59 PM, Tim Rogers <timr@dmagazine.com> wrote:

I don't have anything in the story idea hopper. What chew got?

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah, I'm still here. Is there anyone else who needs to be made fun of, investigated, etc? Otherwise I can try to think up some ideas today.

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Tim Rogers <timr@dmagazine.com> wrote:

And that happened.

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2010/11/30/mark-davis-vs-barrett-brown/

So what's next? I want to give you another assignment. (I'm assuming you're still in Dallas, yes?)

--
Tim Rogers
Editor
D Magazine
750 N. St. Paul St., Ste. 2100
Dallas, TX 75201
214-939-3636
www.dmagazine.com

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

The December issue includes a letter from Dallas Morning News columnist and conservative radio host Mark Davis regarding the article I wrote on him for the previous edition of D. In that letter, Davis writes the following about the process by which I prompted him to unknowingly attack Ronald Reagan in the course of answering my questions:

But I want to make sure readers understand how he played his catch-the-conservative game. In the first part of the game, he concocted a question about something fairly arcane, and I gave him an answer. But in the second part of the game, he applied as my "answer" a paragraph from a column I'd written about something else. Maybe if one admits to sneakiness up front, that is Teflon for whatever follows.

Contrary to what Davis writes here, the portion of his prior column which I introduce in the course of demonstrating its flaws was not portrayed as any sort of "answer" to the questions I asked him via e-mail; it was clearly marked as having been taken from that column. In fact, that portion of the article is introduced with the following two paragraphs:

Now, the reader may perhaps object that it is unfair to set someone up in such a fashion, akin to baiting deer in an effort to shoot them. If that is the case and it is not - then let us do something more akin to sitting around in the woods and waiting for a deer to walk into a tree over and over again until it dies; let us see if Davis can write a column in which he accidentally attacks Reagan without any prompting from me. Better yet, let us see if Davis can write a column in which he accidentally attacks Reagan not only while himself bringing him up by name, but also in the course of lauding him for having refrained from doing several things that he actually quite famously did.

A few months ago, Davis took Obama to task for signing a nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Russians. "The ignorant assertion that our nukes and their nukes are the same is not new, Davis noted in a column for The Dallas Morning News. Ronald Reagan ignored such droning 30 years ago, driving the Soviets to their knees by refusing to gut U.S. nuclear capability and by refusing to scrap missile defense technology."

It would be impossible for any reasonable person or even an unreasonable person in the midst of a PCP binge to interpret this as a claim that what follows from Davis is in response to a question I had asked him. At any rate, I wanted to provide this clarification for the record, as anyone who read Davis' letter without being familiar with my article might assume that I am in the habit of falsely presenting information as deriving from some particular context in some sort of devious effort to make a mainstream political pundit look incompetent, whereas such a trick would hardly be necessary in the current media environment, unfortunately.

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Tim Rogers <timr@dmagazine.com> wrote:
Yes. He'd forgotten that you two had exchanged email.

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Great, thanks. Just so I'll know how to phrase it, Davis did indeed agree that he had misunderstood the piece when you talked to him about it, right?

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:32 PM, Tim Rogers <timr@dmagazine.com> wrote:

I see what you mean. Yes. The quote marks, to me, made everything copacetic. But I certainly see why you'd want this to be as clear as possible. Send me a clarification. I will get it up on our blog. I'll link it to the Feedback from the issue, too.

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Remember when he sent this e-mail to you and you asked me about it? Then I forwarded you the e-mail interview at your request and you checked them over and explained his mistake to him and you told me he admitted to being in error. It wouldn't be that important but I'm running a media reform group and now there's an assertion on record that I've engaged in the fraudulent practice of trying to pass off something else as an answer to an interview question when I did no such thing.

Again, here's the pertinent sentence: "But in the second part of the game, he applied as my 'answer' a paragraph from a column I'd written about something else." I didn't portray that as an "answer" to a question I asked him at all; I introduced it accurately as being from a previous Dallas Morning News column. Do you see what I mean?

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Tim Rogers <timr@dmagazine.com> wrote:
The letter in the magazine makes plain that you asked Davis a question and he responded. Then you examined something he'd written. That's accurate, is it not?

But to answer your question: yes, you can respond. It'll have to be online, though.

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Is there any way I could have a response to Davis' letter ran in the next issue? As it is now, the letter has been run without any note explaining that his charge that I fraudulently ran something that wasn't actually his response to the question is entirely false, so anyone who reads the letters in this month issue will assume that I have lied to the entire readership and fraudulently tried to pass off something else as an answer to my question, and you've already explained to Davis his mistake.

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Tim Rogers
Editor
D Magazine
750 N. St. Paul St., Ste. 2100
Dallas, TX 75201
214-939-3636
www.dmagazine.com

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302I g

--
Tim Rogers
Editor
D Magazine
750 N. St. Paul St., Ste. 2100
Dallas, TX 75201
214-939-3636
www.dmagazine.com

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Tim Rogers
Editor
D Magazine
750 N. St. Paul St., Ste. 2100
Dallas, TX 75201
214-939-3636
www.dmagazine.com

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Tim Rogers
Editor
D Magazine
750 N. St. Paul St., Ste. 2100
Dallas, TX 75201
214-939-3636
www.dmagazine.com

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302