Request Professional Opinions on How Gov's Family Tie was "missed"?

Exactly. If "Host" were investigating Australians, he'd find most of their ancestors arrived via prison ship. And who gives a shit.

Also, "Host," why on earth are you using Wikipedia? You need to have much higher standards in your research:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm

 

Welcome to the world of citizen journalism.

 

I trust Wikipedia about as much as a pile of warm cow dung.

 

Gray Davis' grandfather died over a year before he was born. How is it relevant to Gray Davis himself and/or the 21st century in general? It's not.

 

When I read the first post, I thought the end was going to have a "You, Dear Sir, are entitled to a large sum in monetary value, ranging between L5-10 million British currency......."

 

Yes, it is.

Journalists aren't the only ones who ask questions, journalists aren't the only ones who confront sources with discrepancies or explanation. If you're researching something, ostensibly for publication (whether it's for a reputable publication or you plan to post your findings at your own personal site), and you're going to make a heavy accusation like that -- it IS your responsibility to seek the truth.

Unless you're not all that concerned with the truth, and more concerned with all the dots you can connect.

Yeah, he's going to get a big, fat click on the other line when he tries to call Gray Davis' office. Just like real journalists do. But it's still his responsibility to try. That's what he's gotten himself into.

Sorry, it's pretty cowardly to do the research, write about it, make the accusation ... and then hide behind, "Oh, well, it's not my responsibility" or "Oh, I'm just a layperson, not a journalist." Bullshit. If you want to play historian, or journalist, or researcher, on your own time ... then you're putting yourself in that role. So, show a little backbone and stand by your work.

 

1. The (alleged) sins of the father should not be visited upon the son.

2. I think the "disclosure on July 20, 2008" was this yahoo updating Davis' Wikipedia page with his 'bulletproof research.'

3. He is starting to rival some departed posters in post length, and it scares me. We've seen this before, people. Let's not encourage the behavior.

4. I agree with everything Buckdub and jgmacg said about research.

 

Part of the problem -- and the danger -- is this isn't just an "accusation," at least in the former sense. He's not just having this conversation with his buddies at the bar. He's publishing his thoughts via Wikipedia. He can publish his thoughts via other niche websites if he finds a sympathetic audience. And so it's out there. And it can grow.

In a time before Google, this guy would come up with his conspiracy theories (or maybe not, without Google), call the local newspaper to "have a reporter investigate this hot scoop" and we'd take a note but likely brush him off as crazy. Not so much, today.

 

No, "the problem". and the "danger", is that, this inspired me:

The mindset here seems to be, nearly unanimously, about "protecting" the powerful, not about speaking truth to them, finding out...and publishing....the secrets of the powerful, even if it pisses them off, and it will.

Not much has changed...it wasn't a journalist who won this recognition, a century ago:

 

And to continue my thoughts from last night, since I was sleeping by the time host posted his last reply ... 8)

I actually have more of a problem with these two statements than I do with the fact that most of his research seems to come from a Google search:

One of the principal rules of historical research -- and this applies to anyone, not just journalists -- is that if you start with baseless assumptions like this ... you can usually find some kind of "proof" to back it up, if you're looking hard enough for it. (Not that host has posted anything -- here or on D-Kos -- to back up these claims about the so-called cover-up.) That's actually the easy part, as any good researcher knows. What's the old saying? "It's not what you know, it's what you can prove."

But as any good detective also knows, you've got to spend 90 percent of your time compiling evidence before you can apprehend the suspect. And as any good historian knows, if you're doing your job right you'll probably leave twice as much material on the cutting room floor as what you actually publish.

Finding 12 sources on a Google search and shouting "Gotcha!" (or even asking "Gotcha?") ... well, you've got a lot more work to do.

And as I said before, this isn't just a journalism thing. There's not a professor in the world who would give you a passing grade if that was the extent of your research on a term paper. I mean, these are basic, basic rules of research. I've seen freshman college students use more and better sources -- but this is "bullet proof" solid, in your opinion? Hardly.

Do more research. More importantly, do your own research. Real research. Seek the truth -- that's the point, right?

 

The "facts" are, that the members of the press who have "covered" Gray Davis, first elected California governor in 1998...are at least ten years, "too late", getting out the controversial and unusual story of his grandfather. If Davis himself did NOT know about his grandfather's background and what he was accused of, during his lifetime, he is too incurious to have been elected governor of any state.

Here is where his "background info came from:

...and the press covering Davis accepts what he discloses, at face value, through three gubernatorial campaigns.

...and Davis kept silent, about his own family links to support of the Nazi regime in Germany....while his political opponent took the heat from the press, at least six weeks before the October, 2003 reporting of 1975 pro-Hitler comments, attributed to Schwarzenegger. It was Schwarzenegger who acted in good faith. he asked the Weisenthal Center, in 1990, to investigate his family's possible complicity with the Nazi regime.

Davis maintained that he was from an "upper middle class" family. Wasn't there more to it, than that? Didn't the money come from here?
We don't know....the press seemed not to have bothered to delve into Davis's background:

(There is a misprint in the first story segment....it should read "1941")

Again....there seems to be two "news worthy", and accurately described "stories" here...Gray Davis's hidden and misrepresented "background", and the complete failure of the press that cover(s) him, to find it and report it. The circumstances also hint at how dependent political coverage is on oppostion research....fed to the press by both political parties. Republican party officials must have made a tactical decision to hold "this stuff" back. After a while, much earlier in his political career, Davis himself probably figured this out, too. His opposition would not feed these details of his family background to the press.

 

No, there's no newsworthy story here. His grandfather's alleged sins --- which occurred well prior to his birth, and in fact prior to his mother's pregnancy --- have nothing to do with his political career or the 21st century.

I can only assume that you have some sort of political ax to grind with Mr. Davis and are therefore engaging in anonymous character assassination.