JournoList

JournoList was a ListServ (email group) of approximately 400 "progressive" and socialist journalists, academics and "new media" activists. JournoList members reportedly coordinated their messages in favor of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, and against Sarah Palin and the Republican Party. JournoList was founded in 2007 and was closed down in early 2010.

Obama Administration connections

Pajamas Media commentator Ed Driscoll commented on Journolist's connections to the Obama Administration in a July 25, 2010 column:

Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, served in 2008 as an economic adviser to the Obama campaign. At the same time, he was a member of JournoList, the controversial progressive email list.

Bernstein’s bio at Politico, which appears not to have been updated since 2008, states: “He is an economic adviser to the Obama campaign.”

He was known to many for his regular appearances on the financial channel CNBC. His primary employer in 2008 was the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor progressive think tank, but according to his bio when appointed to the Obama-Biden Administration, he also was a member of the Panel of Economic Advisers of the Congressional Budget Office.

Reached today at the Office of the Vice President, Bernstein revealed that his position with the Obama campaign was as something called a “surrogate.” “I was not paid by the campaign,” he explained. “They would call me from time to time to represent their positions, that side of the debate.”

Asked when he left JournoList, Bernstein replied, ‘‘I think I left the list around the time I came here.” Bernstein was announced as Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to the Vice President-elect on December 8, 2008.

One question that has arisen is how closely JournoList members, not only discussed how to shape the news to advance the fortunes of Barack Obama, but coordinated with the Obama campaign. Jared Bernstein’s position as an unpaid adviser and surrogate shows that there was at least one direct link between JournoList and the Obama campaign.

Bernstein’s serving on the Economic Advisory Panel of the CBO appears to violate Ezra Klein’s first rule for JournoList:

At the beginning, I set two rules for the membership. The first was the easy one: No one who worked for the government in any capacity could join.

It would appear that Bernstein’s presence on the list violated Klein’s first rule, since he met the test of working “for the government in any capacity.”

Official campaign, non-official campaign — close enough for (literally in this case) government work.

A commenter notes another Obama official who was on the JournoList. Reader “Hydrangea” wonders why “people keep forgetting that Peter Orszag was also a Journolister.” Orszag is President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget Director.

In March of 2009, Ezra Klein wrote:

“Journolist is meant to serve a very specific purpose that’s actually related to my experience building this blog. The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I’ve been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it’s hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don’t have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information.?”"

Update: Ezra is now denying that Orszag was on the JournoList. So release the full list of members, and let us know who was. Shouldn’t President Obama’s “Non-Official Campaign” staff be even more open and transparent than the administration that it continues to serve?

High powered help

Of those listed by Ezra Klein above;

• Larry Bartels, Donald E. Stokes Professor of Public and International Affairs, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Director, Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University.
• Brad DeLong, Department of Economics, U.C. Berkeley
• Andrew Gelman, Professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University
• Matthew Holt, Health care strategist
• Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University
• Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama
• Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
• John Sides, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University
• Mark Thoma, Professor of Economics Department of Economics · University of Oregon

Reported members

The following names, are reported members of the now-defunct JournoList listserv:

1. Spencer Ackerman – Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect
2. Ben Adler – Newsweek, POLITICO
3. Mike Allen – POLITICO
4. Eric Alterman – The Nation, Media Matters for America - possibly a former Guardian Associate and possible writer for the Maoist-oriented Guardian, September 1989-1990's ; Also, 2010, writer for The Nation magazine; Professor of Journalism, City University of New York -POLITICO op. cit. An Eric Alterman is listed as the "Circulation Director" for the "Guardian" in the issue of June 17, 1987, p. 19 as well as in the December 9, 1987 issue, p. 19.
5. Marc Ambinder – The Atlantic
6. Greg Anrig – The Century Foundation
7. Ryan Avent – Economist
8. Dean Baker – The American Prospect
9. Nick Baumann – Mother Jones
10. Josh Bearman – LA Weekly
11. Steven Benen – The Carpetbagger Report
12. Jared Bernstein – Economic Policy Institute
13. Michael Berube – Crooked Timber (blog), Pennsylvania State University
14. Lindsay Beyerstein – Focal Point (blog) (formerly Majikthise)
15. Joel Bleifuss – In These Times
16. John Blevins – South Texas College of Law
17. Sam Boyd – The American Prospect
18. Rich Byrne – Playwright and freelancer
19. Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic
20. Jonathan Chait – The New Republic
21. Lakshmi Chaudhry – In These Times
22. Isaac Chotiner – The New Republic
23. Michael Cohen – New America Foundation
24. Jonathan Cohn – The New Republic
25. Joe Conason – The New York Observer
26. David Corn – Mother Jones
27. Daniel Davies – The Guardian
28. David Dayen – FireDogLake
29. Brad DeLong – The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkley
30. Ryan Donmoyer – Bloomberg
31. Kevin Drum – Washington Monthly
32. Matt Duss – Center for American Progress
33. Eve Fairbanks – The New Republic
34. Henry Farrell – George Washington University
35. Tim Fernholz – American Prospect
36. James Galbraith – University of Texas at Austin
37. Todd Gitlin – Columbia University, former leader of SDS Students for a Democratic Society, longtime Professor of Journalism, New York University
38. Ilan Goldenberg – National Security Network
39. Dana Goldstein – The Daily Beast
40. Merrill Goozner – Chicago Tribune
41. David Greenberg – Slate
42. Robert Greenwald – Brave New Films
43. Christopher Hayes – The Nation
44. Don Hazen – Alternet
45. Michael Hirsh – Newsweek
46. John Judis – The New Republic, The American Prospect
47. Michael Kazin – Georgetown University
48. Ed Kilgore – Democratic Stategist
49. Richard Kim – The Nation
50. Mark Kleiman – The Reality Based Community
51. Ezra Klein – Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect, 2010 Business Section columnist, Washington Post; American Prospect blogger; formed [[JournoList, February, 2007}
52. Joe Klein – TIME columnist
53. Paul Krugman – The New York Times, Princeton University, economics, world affairs, and Pulitzer Prize winner (neo-marxist)
54. Lisa Lerer – POLITICO
55. Daniel Levy – Century Foundation
56. Alec McGillis – Washington Post
57. Scott McLemee – Inside Higher Ed
58. Ari Melber – The Nation
59. Seth Michaels – MyDD.com
60. Luke Mitchell – Harper’s Magazine
61. Gautham Nagesh – The Hill, Daily Caller
62. Suzanne Nossel – Human Rights Watch
63. Michael O’Hare – University of California, Berkeley
64. Rick Perlstein – Author, Campaign for America’s Future
65. Harold Pollack – University of Chicago
66. Foster Kamer – The Village Voice
67. Katha Pollitt – The Nation
68. Ari Rabin-Havt – Media Matters
69. David Roberts – Grist
70. Alyssa Rosenberg – Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive
71. Alex Rossmiller – National Security Network
72. Laura Rozen – Politico, Mother Jones
73. Greg Sargent – Washington Post
74. Noam Scheiber – The New Republic
75. Michael Scherer – TIME
76. Mark Schmitt – The American Prospect
77. Adam Serwer – The American Prospect
78. Thomas Schaller – Baltimore Sun(columnist), University of Maryland, Baltimore County (professor), FiveThirtyEight.com (contributing writer)
79. Julie Bergman Sender – Balcony Films
80. Walter Shapiro – PoliticsDaily.com
81. Nate Silver – FiveThirtyEight.com
82. Jesse Singal – The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly
83. Ben Smith – chief writer/columnist for the POLITICO
84. Sarah Spitz – NPR
85. Adele Stan – The Media Consortium
86. Kate Steadman – Kaiser Health News
87. Jonathan Stein – Mother Jones
88. Sam Stein – The Huffington Post
89. Jesse Taylor – Pandagon.net
90. Steven Teles – Yale University
91. Mark Thoma – The Economist’s View (blog), University of Oregon (professor)
92. Michael Tomasky – The Guardian
93. Jeffrey Toobin – CNN, The New Yorker, writer for The New Yorker magazine - POLITICO
94. Rebecca Traister – Salon (columnist)
95. Tracy Van Slyke – The Media Consortium
96. Dave Weigel – Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent
97. Moira Whelan – National Security Network
98. Scott Winship – Pew Economic Mobility Project
99. Kai Wright – The Root
100. Holly Yeager – Columbia Journalism Review
101. Rich Yeselson – Change to Win
102. Matthew Yglesias – Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly, blogger, POLITICO
103. Jonathan Zasloff – UCLA
104. Julian Zelizer – Princeton professor and CNN contributor
105. Avi Zenilman – POLITICO
106. David Brock - Founder of Media Matters
107. Megan Carpentier - Associate Editor at TPM Media
108. Andrew Gelman - Professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University
109. Peter Orszag - White House Budget Director
110. Dani Rodrik - Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
111. John Sides - Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University.
112. Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal
113. Brian Beutler - The Media Consortium
114. Shannon Brownlee - Author, New America Foundation
115. Lark Corbeil - Public News Service
116. Adam Doster - In These Times
117. Gerald Dworkin - UC Davis
118. Kathleen Geier - Talking Points Memo, wife of Rick Perlstein
119. Arthur Goldhammer - Harvard University
120. Jaana Goodrich - Blogger
121. James Johnson - University of Rochester
122. Foster Kamer - The Village Voice
123. Charlie Kireker - Air America Media
124. Robert Kuttner - American Prospect, Economic Policy Institute
125. Ralph Luker - Cliopatria
126. Robert Mackey - New York Times
127. Maggie Mahar - The Century Foundation
128. Dylan Matthews - Harvard University
129. Sara Mead - New America Foundation
130. Rodger Payne - University of Louisville
131. Nico Pitney - Huffington Post
132. Joy-Ann Reid - South Florida Times
133. Lamar Robertson - Partnership for Public Service
134. Rinku Sen - ColorLines Magazine
135. Matthew Shugart - UC San Diego
136. Paul Starr - The Atlantic
137. Matt Steinglass - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
138. Paul Waldman - Author, The American Prospect
139. J. Harry Wray - DePaul University
140. D. Brad Wright - University of NC at Chapel Hill
141. Ari Berman - The Nation
142. Dan Froomkin - Huffington Post, Washington Post
143. Andrew Golis - Talking Points Memo
144. Annie Lowrey - Washington Independent
145. Mike Madden - Salon
146. Michael Roston - Newsbroke
147. Felix Salmon - Reuters
148. Kate Sheppard - Mother Jones
149. James Surowiecki - The New Yorker
150. Ben Brandzel – MoveOn.org, John Edwards Campaign
151. Josh Orton – MyDD.com, Air America Media
152. Sara Robinson – Campaign For America’s Future
153. Ann-Marie Slaughter – Princeton University
154. Amanda Marcotte - Pandagon.net
155. Karen Tumulty - Washington Post, TIME
156. Kevin Carey - Education Sector
157. James Fallows - The Atlantic

Named in 2013

• Larry Bartels - The American Prospect, Salon, Princeton University
• Adam Blickstein - Real Clear Politics, Huffington Post
• Eric Boehlert - Media Matters
• Hilary Bok - Johns Hopkins University
• Kevin Carey - Education Sector
• Steve Clemons - The Atlantic, Huffington Post
• Adam Doster - In These Times
• Justin Elliott - Salon
• Jason Furman - Brookings Institution
• Jeet Heer - Canadian Journolist
• Jeff Hauser - Political Action Committee, Dennis Shulman Campaign
• Simon Lazarus - Slate, Huffington Post
• Sarah Posner - The Nation, Salon, The Guardian
• Linda Perlstein - Slate
• Eli Sanders - The Stranger, New York Times
• Benjy Sarlin - The Daily Beast
• Micah Sifry - Sunlight Foundation, Personal Democracy Forum
• Russ Wellen - Focal Points Blog, Huffington Post
• Rachel Weiner - Washington Post, Huffington Post
• Ben Williams - New York Magazine

Alleged Members

The following have been listed as members of JournoList, but have subsequently denied membership:

• Cenk Uygur – The Young Turks
• Will Bunch - Philadelphia Daily News

Not to be confused with...

JournoList should not be confused with another completely separate organization, (still in operation), Journolist: The Internet for journalists, run by John Morish of the United Kingdom.