JournoList

JournoList (sometimes referred to as the J-List) was a private Google Groups forum for discussing politics and the news media with 400 "left-leaning" journalists, academics and others. Ezra Klein created the online forum in February 2007 while blogging at The American Prospect and shut it down on June 25, 2010 amid wider public exposure. Journalists later pointed out various off-color statements made by members of the list denigrating conservatives, as well as a seeming conspiracy to prop up then Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Others defended such statements as being taken out of context or simply a matter of private candor.

Ezra Klein controlled the forum's membership and limited it to "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics." Klein justified excluding conservatives from participation as "not about fostering ideology but preventing a collapse into flame war. The emphasis is on empiricism, not ideology." Posts within JournoList were intended only be made and read by its members. Klein defended the forum structure saying that it ensured "that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions." JournoList member and Time columnist Joe Klein said the off-the-record nature of the forum was necessary because "candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private." The existence of JournoList was first publicly revealed in a July 27, 2007 blog post by Mickey Kaus.

However, the forum did not attract serious attention until March 17, 2009 when an article published on Politico detailed the nature of the forum and the extent of its membership. The Politico article set off debate within the Blogosphere over the ethics of participating in JournoList and raised questions about its overall purpose. The first public excerpt of a discussion within JournoList was posted by Mickey Kaus on his blog on March 26, 2009.

On July 20, 2010, The Daily Caller (DC) published the dialog of the JournoList concerning Jeremiah Wright. The contributors discussed killing the Wright story, as it was reflecting negatively on Barack Obama. In a separate discussion, about an ABC News-sponsored debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton, Michael Tomasky, a writer for The Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of JournoList: "Listen folks – in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn't about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people".James Taranto observed that one JournoList contributor, Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent, stated "If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them – Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists".

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