A Reporter Enables More Misrepresentations from the HuffPost.
Dr. Peter Rost, George Clooney and Me
By Carol Jean Delmar
In an article on April 1 in LA Weekly — “Can Plácido Pull It Off” – the article’s author Joseph Mailander enabled Huffington Post media spokesperson Mario Ruiz to portray me inaccurately. I will address the misrepresentations and clarify the vocabulary used.
Mailander wrote that “The Web site initially told Delmar it would stop publishing her blog for making ‘possible misrepresentations’ that Huffington Post editors would not identify, adding that the ‘Ring’ situation ‘is a highly contentious issue with a great deal of acrimony between the parties involved, and we’d rather separate ourselves from it.’ ”
Then Mailander wrote: “But Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz later told LA Weekly, ‘We stopped publishing her because our blog editors felt her second post didn’t add anything new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera, and because of the contentious tone of her exchanges with us.’ “
Wow! The Web site did not initially TELL me that it would stop publishing my “blog” for making “possible misrepresentations.” Associate Blog Editor Stuart Whatley WROTE me by e-mail that “unfortunately, from the higher-ups, we won’t be able to post your pieces going forward, due to a number of ‘complaints’ we’ve received about possible misrepresentations and such in your FIRST piece. Though you of course will disagree with those complaints, we realize the ‘Ring’ opera situation there is a highly contentious issue with a great deal of acrimony between the different parties involved and we’d rather separate ourselves from it. We hope you understand. Thanks.”
So Mailander wrote that the Web site TOLD me the news when in fact an editor had WRITTEN me, and I have that e-mail in my possession. The Huffington Post didn’t really say it would stop publishing my blog. A better choice of words would have been that the Huffington Post wrote me that it would stop publishing my “blog posts,” “posts” or “blogs” — not because of “possible misrepresentations” that the editors would not identify, but because of “complaints” they “received about possible misrepresentations” on my first piece, which were from people who were not on their staff. The editors won’t identify the possible misrepresentations or the accusers.
Ruiz’s later response was totally inconsistent with what the Huffington Post had previously sent me. Ruiz said that they stopped publishing my work because my “second post didn’t add anything new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera.” Please note that they were now eliminating me because of my SECOND post, not my FIRST one, as Whatley had written me. And in reality, the second post was really my third. My SECOND post was a review of “Camelot” at the Pasadena Playhouse, which was an appeal to a potential benefactor to keep the theater open. And that piece was supposed to be listed under my biography, but Huffington Post editors pretended that the piece didn’t exist even though I sent them e-mails asking them to index it, which they never did although it can currently be found on the Internet on google.
And although my third piece was not posted since the editors blocked me from publishing anything after the second piece, I shortened and edited it, and it was printed as an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Daily News. The editors there thought that it was newsworthy, and they published it, so it must have added something new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera. Please look under my articles on this blog for the Daily News entry dated Feb. 25. Plus even if the post did not “add anything new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera,” my subsequent posts in the new arts section were supposed to be upcoming opera reviews and profiles, yet the Huffington Post decided to eliminate me completely. They had blocked me BEFORE I’d attempted to post and publish the third piece, which was BEFORE they’d even read it, so their actions had nothing to do with that piece, which totally invalidates Ruiz’s claim.
As for what Ruiz referred to as the “contentious tone” of my “exchanges” with them – the editors didn’t even give me their telephone numbers. I spoke to Stuart Whatley once for five minutes when he called to give me a few pointers about posting. I also spoke to the new arts editor a few times since I did have her telephone number; but since the arts page was under construction, she was busy preparing for an exhibit in her studio and always told me to contact another editor.
I was always polite when I sent e-mails to the editors. I also corresponded with Arianna Huffington since she responded to me early on after reading my first piece, which she featured. But for the most part, there was no feedback. After bloggers are approved, they are directed to posting instructions on the Web site and are left to fend for themselves. I assume celebrities receive more preferential treatment if needed. Hey, Barbra, Jane, Alec; Bill, Bill and Hillary – have you had this problem? It would be difficult for me to have had “contentious” exchanges with the Huffington Post since there weren’t virtually any exchanges.
It was brought to my attention by a friend that I shouldn’t take the word “contentious” so personally. After all, the word was used in the first e-mail the Huffington Post sent me as well as in the quote that Ruiz told LA Weekly. In the first quote, “contentious” referred to the “’Ring’ opera situation” as being a “contentious issue.” In the second quote, my friend said the “contentious tone” of my “exchanges” simply reflected my position regarding the contentious issue and the “acrimony between the different parties involved.”
I have to admit that I have and will continue to be contentious when debating on whether or not LA Opera should be honoring the racist Richard Wagner with a two-and-a-half-month-long festival. But I was not contentious with the editors at the Huffington Post. It wasn’t until AFTER I was blocked from posting on the site that I began standing up for myself. Only then did I write a few e-mails that might be construed as contentious. I wrote Arianna Huffington and demanded to know the name of the parties that had complained about the “possible misrepresentations.” There was no answer – as usual.
It was therefore only natural for the Huffington Post to attack me personally rather than divulge the names of those parties when confronted by a reporter. After all, the Ring Festival LA affair has turned into an issue which is no longer about Richard Wagner. It’s about city and county politics.
Philanthropist Eli Broad, who has contributed generously to the “Ring” festival, writes for the LA section of the Huffington Post at times; Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky — whose motion to endorse the festival defeated Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s motion to balance it – has also written for the Post; and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his current girlfriend, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas are frequent contributors as well. They all support the festival and do not find the moral issues inherent in it worrisome even though it honors a racist who not only attacked the Jews as being cannibals to dispose of – as Wagner critic Eugene Blum reminded me recently — but attacked blacks, Asians and other minorities as well (“Wagner and Hitler” and “Judaism in Music” to the right; “Know Thyself” and “Herodom and Christendom” on google).
I do not know who enticed the Huffington Post to remove me as a blogger, but I do know that the person or persons were not on the Huffington Post staff, and outside political forces incited the action.
What is occurring in our fair city is discrimination at its worst. I am the one trying to bring the Jewish community and other cultures together. I am the one who wanted to see a balanced and diversely-programmed arts festival with the “Ring” cycles as a centerpiece. I was born in this city. Plácido Domingo and James Conlon were not. I know and understand the people who live here. The financial and organizational disarray which LA Opera is facing was avoidable, even in this recession. But nobody at LA Opera was willing to face the realities. Now they are facing the consequences.
Joseph Mailander has tapped into various truths about the situation, which I applaud, but his presentation of the material needed clarifying because he didn’t practice the art of discretion when picking and choosing the quotes he published. The Huffington Post editors didn’t give a tangible reason for eliminating me in the first place. It all boils down to the fact that there is no freedom of expression on their opinion site. It is a liberal blog where politics, money, power and celebrity rule. There is no room for diverging opinions, even when they are outwardly nonpartisan. Mailander enabled the Huffington Post to take another cheap shot at me and then printed it, which showed a lack of discretion and served absolutely no purpose in my mind.
I want to make it very clear that my arguments are not about anyone personally. My arguments are about the issue of Wagner’s racism and about those who advocate a celebration of his life. The festival of 100 events about Wagner has nothing to do with “celebrating a coming of age of the opera and the city,” as festival leader Barry Sanders told LA Weekly.
“There would be no conversations about Wagner as an anti-Semite were it not for this festival,” he said.
Until I began my protest blog and contacted the Wiesenthal Center, the festival included one lecture on Wagner’s anti-Semitism. LA Opera’s only intent was to celebrate all things Wagner, as was indicated in the marketing materials. Sanders should not attempt to peddle false information to the public. Wagner’s anti-Semitism has been a topic of discussion throughout the world for years. Unfortunately, most Angelenos were not listening until now.
As for Mailander’s paragraph: “Critic [Donna] Perlmutter doesn’t take seriously the opposition to the festival. ‘I mean, these people [opponents of the festival], they’re like the Tea Partiers,’ she says with a laugh,” – I responded with: “If there had been Tea Partiers, there might not have been a Holocaust.”
By the way: Perlmutter writes for the Huffington Post.
GEORGE CLOONEY and the HuffPost:
I’m not the first person to have problems with the Huffington Post. Actor George Clooney seems to have had a gripe, too. The Huffington Post published a post with his name on it. The problem was that he didn’t write it. Please read http://www.bloggersblog.com/blog/315062 for the details. And definitely read the end of the entry copied below, to better understand that it was impossible for me to have had contentious-toned exchanges and for the editors to have blocked me due to my last piece which Ruiz said “didn’t add anything new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera.”
Arianna Huffington wrote a post about George Clooney which also clarifies “the process by which . . . bloggers post.” She explained that “99% of our bloggers blog directly onto the site (they have a password that enables them to post on their own; the first time we see their posts is when you do – when it goes up on The Blog). Of the other 1%, some e-mail us their posts, one or two fax them, and, if they are away from a computer, some HuffPosters will occasionally phone in their takes, which we publish for them – again without any editorial input. Very, very rarely (in 10 months, it’s fewer times than you can count on your hand), we will work with a first-time blogger the way editors do in other, traditional media – suggesting ideas and offering direction on what makes a blog different from, say, a New York Times op-ed.” So you see: It would be difficult to have contentious exchanges with the editors since there are rarely any exchanges.
When I posted my first two posts, they were published immediately. When I tried to post my third post – the one Ruiz said “didn’t add anything new to the discussion about what was happening at the LA Opera” so they didn’t post it and “stopped publishing” me – they’d already blocked the post from being published before reading it. So in essence, BOTH of Ruiz’s reasons for removing me as a blogger are invalid. And since the first correspondence to me by Whatley also had no merit, I was eliminated without cause, and I became a victim of politics, power, money, greed, censorship and a disrespect for human rights.
For more on the Clooney issue, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/business/20link.html?pagewanted=print .
DR. PETER ROST and the HuffPost:
Please read about another victimized Huffington Post blogger, former vice-president of Pfizer, Dr. Peter Rost. According to a 2006 article in The Guardian, Rost wrote on his private Web site in reference to Arianna Huffington that “her online magazine is no more ethical than the people and organisations she criticises on a daily basis.”
I wrote Dr. Rost about what had happened to me, and he responded: “So I’m not alone. . . .”
Rost was blocked by Huffington Post editors after he exposed a heckler who had written unflattering comments on his posts and turned out to be the technology manager of the Huffington Post. Conflict of interest, I’d say. And so did he. In the June 2006 New York Times article “A Blogger Is Bounced From the Huffington Post,” Rost is quoted as having said: “I thought that if anyone could accept being challenged, it would be The Huffington Post. But the first time anyone even hints, the censors go into overdrive and this liberal bastion becomes something similar to the Kremlin.”
So did Rost ever return to the Post as a blogger?
“No,” he wrote me. “But instead, I got paid for writing for a number of real newspapers.”
Please see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/22/newmedia.internationalnews and http://www.search.com/reference/Peter_Rost_(doctor).
