Jason Leopold
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Jason Leopold is a reporter who currently works for Truthout.org and he is also the author of the 2006 memoir News Junkie. Leopold spent two years covering California’s electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. A Lexis Nexus search shows that Leopold has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California’s newly deregulated electricity market. Mr. Leopold has also reported extensively on Enron. He was the first journalist to interview former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron’s bankruptcy filing in December 2001.
Mr. Leopold has broken numerous stories on the financial machinations Enron engaged in and his investigative pieces on the company have been published in The Nation, Salon.com, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, CBS Marketwatch, Entrepreneur, Utne Reader and numerous other national and international publications. Mr. Leopold was also a regular contributor to CNBC and National Public Radio and had also been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country. Mr. Leopold has been writing about foreign and domestic policy online for publications such as Alternet, CounterPunch, Common Dreams, ZNet, Z magazine, The Raw Story, Counterbias, Scoop and Truthout.org.
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[edit] Controversies
[edit] Salon.com article
In 2002, Salon.com retracted an article by Leopold which had implicated Bush administration official Thomas White in the Enron scandal; according to Salon.com, it could not authenticate an email that said White was aware of the financial machinations of the division he ran. Afterwards, Leopold and Salon.com's editor engaged in an online debate over the incident with Leopold sticking to his story and the Salon.com editor accusing Leopold of a separate plagiarism incident (Leopold in turn claimed he had cited the publication in question three times in the story). [1] [2]
[edit] "Off the Record"
Prior to writing News Junkie, Leopold's book was titled Off the Record. The book's release was permanently cancelled, however, following reported legal threats from Steven Maviglio, allegedly one of the subjects of the book. [3] In that book, as in News Junkie, Mr. Leopold revealed many secrets of his life as a journalist such as a prior drug addiction, bouts with mental illness and suicide attempts, breaking journalistic rules, and lying to employers about a criminal conviction. Mr. Maviglio did not follow through on legal threats when News Junkie was published. He is featured prominently in the first two chapters.[4]. News Junkie went on to be a Los Angeles Times bestseller and has received rave reviews for its brutal honesty and candor. Publishers Weekly said Leopold's "scrappy memoir...may be required reading for aspiring journalists." Some of the other reviews can be found at the Columbia Chronicle http://www.columbiachronicle.com/paper/arts.php?id=2644, the UCD Advocate http://www.ucdadvocate.com/media/storage/paper538/news/2006/08/30/LifeArts/news-Junkie.A.Literary.Ride.Like.No.Other-2252176.shtml?norewrite200609152126&sourcedomain=www.ucdadvocate.com, The Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/books/article/0,1713,BDC_2516_4845515,00.html
[edit] Awards
Leopold received a Project Censored award in September 2006 for a story he wrote on Halliburton in 2005 that received little attention from the mainstream media http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=mktw&guid=%7BEE56F111%2D430E%2D449C%2DB95C%2D01F50D963103%7D&link=&keyword=project%20censored. That story was the number two most underreported story in Project Censored Top 25 list of underreported stories for 2005. Leopold also won a Project Censored award in 2004 for a story he wrote about a secret meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger's had with Ken Lay prior to the film star's tenure as Governor of California. In 2001, Leopold's former employer, Dow Jones Newswires, named Leopold Journalist of the Year for his groundbreaking work on the California energy crisis.
[edit] Reports of Karl Rove indictments in 2006
May 13th, 2006, Mr. Leopold reported on the website Truthout.org that Karl Rove had been indicted. [5] The story spread quickly throughout the blogosphere[6]. Rove spokesman Mark Corallo issued a flat denial of Leopold's story, calling it "a complete fabrication". [7] On May 15th, Truthout.org Executive Director Marc Ash defended the story, saying they had more than two sources with corroborating information. [8] On May 18th, Ash provided another update, saying that they had found additional sources as well as three "network level" reporters who offered "off-the-record confirmation and moral support". [9] On May 19th, Ash issued a "partial apology" for "getting too far out in front of the news-cycle". He said "we will be taking the wait-and-see approach for the time being."[10] Truthout.org is the only news outlet to have reported Karl Rove being indicted. [11][12] [13] Rove never was indicted.
On May 26th, Ash reaffirmed that several independent sources existed to back up Leopold's story, and added that "We know that there were two network news crews outside of the building in Washington, DC that houses the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. We know that the 4th floor of that building (where the Patton Boggs offices are located) was locked down all day Friday and into Saturday night. We know that we have not received a request for a retraction from anyone. And we know that White House spokesman Tony Snow now refuses to discuss Karl Rove - at all." Ash speculated: "Rove may be turning state's evidence. We suspect that the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation may have broadened - clearly to Cheney - and according to one 'off the record source' to individuals and events not directly related to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. We believe that the indictment which does exist against Karl Rove is sealed. Finally, we believe that there is currently a great deal of activity in the Plame investigation."[14]
On June 3, 2006, Ash released another follow-up on the story, stating that "Right now we have only general indicators as to why an announcement might not be made when an indictment has been returned. And even though these indicators do exist, we need to more clearly understand exactly what is happening in this case before we can report on them." [15]
On June 12, Leopold wrote claiming that the indictment of Rove was in federal case number 06 cr 128, tantalizingly titled "Sealed vs. Sealed." Leopold acknowledges that the grand jury that handed down this sealed decision also meet to discuss other cases, but contends that "legal experts watching the Plame-Wilson investigation have been paying particularly close attention to Sealed vs. Sealed since the Karl Rove indictment story was published. The legal scholars have said that a federal prosecutor can keep an indictment under seal for weeks or months - something that is commonplace in high-profile criminal cases - especially if an investigation, such as the CIA leak probe, is ongoing."[16]
On June 13, Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, released a statement that said Fitzgerald "has formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges [against Rove]...[and] we believe that the Special Counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct." [17] [18] Nevertheless, Ash continued to stand by Leopold's story and questioned the accuracy of Luskin's statement, saying "the information he is providing is directly contradicted by the information we have." [19]
On June 15, 2006, Marc Ash responded to Luskin's statement by stating that "obviously there is a major contradiction between our version of the story and what was reported yesterday. As such, we are going to stand down on the Rove matter at this time. We defer instead to the nation's leading publications." He continued by stating "Mr. Leopold did not act alone in his reporting of this matter. His work, sources and conclusions were reviewed carefully at each step of the process. There is no indication that Mr. Leopold acted unethically. Please keep in mind that over the years we have reported on many examples of individuals being scapegoated in crisis situations by superiors seeking cover from controversy. Truthout, however, does not do scapegoats. And we stand firmly behind Jason Leopold." Ash also indicated Truthout would protect Leopold's sources, but would release "a more comprehensive accounting of this matter on Monday, June 19." [20]
On June 17, the Washington Post published an article by freelance journalist Joe Lauria in which Lauria quotes Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, as saying that Jason Leopold impersonated Lauria in a phone interview with him. However, Lauria never provided any documentary evidence to back up his claims. He never contacted Mr. Leopold for comment on the story, instead, using private emails the two exchanged when Lauria said he would review Leopold's book [21]
On June 20, Marc Ash posted a lengthy response to the entire episode. He revealed that "Our primary sources for this report are career federal law enforcement and federal government officials speaking on condition of anonymity. This report was developed under the supervision of all of Truthout's senior editors, which should be taken as an indication that we view this matter with the utmost seriousness." As of this latest posting, Truthout.org continues to stand by Leopold's story:
- After spending the past month retracing our steps and confirming facts, we've come full circle. Our sources continue to maintain that a grand jury has in fact returned an indictment. Our sources said that parts of the indictment were read to Karl Rove and his attorney on Friday, May 12, 2006. Last week, we pointed to a sealed federal indictment, case number "06 cr 128," which is still sealed and we are still pointing to it. During lengthy conversations with our sources over the past month, they reiterated that the substance of our report on May 13, 2006, was correct, and immediately following our report, Karl Rove's status in the CIA leak probe changed. In summary, as we press our investigation we find indicators that more of our key facts are correct, not less...What appears to have happened is that - and this is where Truthout blundered - in our haste to report the indictment we never considered the possibility that Patrick Fitzgerald would not make an announcement. We simply assumed - and we should not have done so - that he would tell the press. He did not. Fitzgerald appears to have used the indictment, and more importantly, the fear that it would go public, to extract information about the Plame outing case from Rove. Yes, it does appear that Truthout was used, but not lied to or misled. The facts appear to have been accurate. We reported them, and in so doing, apparently became an instrument. From all indications, our reports, first on May 13 that Rove had been indicted, and then on June 12 when we published case number "06 cr 128," forced Rove and Luskin back to the table with Fitzgerald, not once but twice. They apparently sought to avoid public disclosure and were prepared to do what they had to do to avoid it. Our sources provided us with additional detail, saying that Fitzgerald is apparently examining closely Dick Cheney's role in the Valerie Plame matter, and apparently sought information and evidence from Karl Rove that would provide documentation of Cheney's involvement. Rove apparently was reluctant to cooperate and Fitzgerald, it appears, was pressuring him to do so, our sources told us...We are well aware of the Lauria article and the series of attacks The Washington Post has launched against Jason Leopold and Truthout. As always, we will carefully consider all information and then publish a thoughtful response. In this case, we will publish our response on Wednesday, June 21, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.[22]
[edit] Bibliography
- News Junkie, 2006 (ISBN 0-9760822-4-1)
