What Does A Liberal Look Like? According to Lucy Morrow Caldwell, A Harvard Student (UPDATE)
Lucy Morrow Caldwell.
Just yesterday, this name elicited a firestorm across teh_interwebs when Slate ran a "report" showing that Rudy Giuliani's 17-year-old daughter Caroline, Harvard '11, was a de facto member of the "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" Facebook group.
Links were exchanged, hatred spewed forth like only the 'Net can provide and backlash -- yes, backlash -- ensued, offering up the idea that Ms. Caldwell turned a blind eye to news integrity and unleashed this bit of "breaking news" on the world.
Did Lucy Morrow Caldwell invent breaking news for her own benefit?
According to multiple sources, she just may have. Why? Let us ask you this: Is the joining of a Facebook group by a minor who is not eligible to vote truly a reason to get CNN's news ticker all ticked-off?
For the record, we at IvyGate think Caldwell's motives are suspect. After all, how long was Giuliani a part of that group? Was it breaking just because someone who is not one of her friends on Facebook noticed? Remember -- the noose-tightening line in Caldwell's piece is that she removed herself from the group at an otherwise-uncollegiate-for-the-summer 6:01 a.m. But where was the news when she originally had joined it?
We're actually on the side of Insider Chatter on this one:
If Slate's Lucy Morrow Caldwell is aware of corporate owner WP's Pentagon Papers and Watergate investigative heritage, it is NOT evident in her "undercover" Facebook reporting. Howard Kurtz is billed as the Washington Post media critic, but he is content to regurgitate a college intern's inept public posting of a fellow Facebooker's profile."
Ouch, and that's coming from an editor who's actually been billed as "Howard Kurtz, Jr."
Do we really care about Caroline Giuliani's political views? Here's a little justification to how little this matters for her, thanks to a blistering New York profile of Caroline's stepmother Judith:
When I ran into Rudy at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in late April, he told me Judith skipped the event because "she's up taking care of our daughter [Whitney] at Skidmore." The locution "our daughter" was hardly calculated to repair his frayed relations with the biological children he shares with [Donna] Hanover, especially 17-year-old Trinity-prep-school senior Caroline, who uses Donna's surname and reportedly didn't bother telling him when she was accepted recently by Harvard. ("In the next few months, Rudy really has to repair his relationships with Andrew and Caroline," says a Republican strategist. "He can't be the Republican nominee and have his kids estranged from him. That ain't gonna cut it.")"
So when the scrutiny comes down on the younger, collegiate Giuliani's profile, which reveals a "liberal" slant -- the most popular of political views on Harvard profiles, and for that matter, Facebook in general -- IvyGate smells some agenda-setting.
Allow us to take a look at the even-handed journalistic history of one Ms. Lucy Morrow (that's with an "o", not a "u", as in Edward R.) Caldwell:
On April 18 in a scathingly controversial, post-Duke rape flap column entitled "Rushing to Rape?" in The Crimson, Caldwell inferred that women who are inebriated and sexually assaulted may, in fact, deserve it. Well, that may be too harsh, so here are her exact words:
The most effective way for a woman to "take back the night" is to take control of her sexual behavior. This ranges from personal safety measures (like being sensible about drinking) to avoiding high-risk situations in which intentions are not made clear (so often, these scenarios are instances of common sense gone askew). Only when she has taken this responsibility will she be in a position to reflect clearly on how such sexual issues affect her.
"As for Take Back the Night at Harvard, I suggest that at their closing candlelight vigil, they light a candle for the other victims of sexual violence politics-the ones who find themselves unfairly accused of serious sexual misjudgment. To acknowledge those victims-now that would be seizing the night. Otherwise, honey, you can have it."
(Two of her other three Crimson article listings concern the failure of Title IX.)
The response? Editorials and commentary from all sides, calling her column "rushed," "uninformed" and mistaken, as well as missing "nuance" and ignoring statistics.
Hmm, sounds to me like this adds up:
- Rushed -- breaking news suddenly hits teh_interwebs!
- Uninformed -- no comment from Giuliani herself!
- Missing nuance -- well hell if the estranged daughter of a presidential candidate isn't in line with his campaign!
- Ignoring statisics -- um, like how "liberal" is the status quo for most Harvard students, most college students, most Northeastern college students, and most blue-state residents on Facebook, a social network whose specialty is the portion of the population that trends liberal and is comprised mostly of students in higher education and young professionals. An Old Boys' Network this ain't!
So the more we look at it, the more it seems like Caldwell either sat on the story -- after all, she had the time to write the damn thing and it sure doesn't appear that she's on Slate's payroll (she certainly isn't down the street of its offices in Washington, D.C.) -- or cunningly pitched it out and Slate jumped too hard, too quickly. After all -- why Slate? Why not The Crimson? Why not IvyGate (need "Gate" say more?) Why not the Boston Globe? Why not The New York Times?
Nevetheless, it's just not adding up, and to us, it's a reason to suspect Caldwell's motives. It's mildly interesting, but it's doing more to put Giuliani needlessly in the headlines (and he needs it) than to contribute to the national election dialogue. It's not Watergate, it's Facebook. So when it comes to this news, we folks at IvyGate say this:
To Caroline Giuliani, whose plain-jane-for-a-college-student profile was needlessly attacked for representing a political view (which can only be described as weak -- she's only just out of high school for Christ's sake!) contrary to her estranged father, whose surname she reportedly doesn't use and whose attention she did not seek months ago when having been accepted at Harvard -- with regards to your supposed support of Barack Obama:
Honey, you can have it. -- ANDREW NUSCA
UPDATE 1:03 A.M. -- Some curious food for thought: A quick Facebook search revealed nothing for Lucy Caldwell at Harvard -- so either she's not on the site or she's set her privacy settings to avoid being the subject of the same scrutiny she's brought on someone else. Dear old Newell said he saw her come up in the listings as late as noon today, but got nothing at an 8 p.m. search this evening. Something's clearly changed. Hmm.
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Read more: Caroline Giuliani, Citizen Journalism, Edward R. Murrow, guest editors, Harvard, Intrepid Journalism, Investigative Facebooking, lucy morrow caldwell, Rudy Giuliani
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August 7th, 2007 at 12:12 am
harvard student karmic character assassination. keep it up, fellas
August 7th, 2007 at 1:05 am
annoying, too-long post with too much bolding. typical “editorialiste.”
August 7th, 2007 at 2:10 am
She did have a Facebook profile. Screenshot here: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2007/08/06/slate-trawls-facebook-find-anti-giuliani-scoop-ex-mayors-daughter
See also her Crimson opinion on Lena “Sex and the Ivy” Chen:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516868
August 7th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Um, what exactly was the point of this article? Giuliani’s daughter was outed as an Obama supporter. It’s not exactly the Watergate, but it’s still newsworthy. (And hey, she might be a member of “Conservatives for Obama”)
Oh, and what the hell is a “de facto” member of a Facebook group? As opposed to “de jure”?
August 7th, 2007 at 7:02 am
this is probably one of the most ridiculous articles ive read, and the only reason i read it is because i saw it on CNN…and that is a shame, because CNN shouldnt waste time on such an insignificant facebook group. I myself am on plenty of groups, most of which i join just because i was invited and also because none of them matter. Find something important to write about.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:28 am
CNN wastes a lot of time on shit news. remember when paris lost that rat of hers? it was the breaking news for the whole day. Christ.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Ditto on asking the point of this particular post. What does this add to the conversation? Are you saying that Rudy’s daughter did not join the group and that this is all one elaborate hoax?
August 7th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Unlike my fellow commenters, I think Nusca did a terrific job with this post. This whole story is nonsense and completely blown out of proportion (it made the front cover of AM New York). What we need to realize is that its facebook, and if she wants to partake in a group, she can do so without being subjected to all of the scrutiny that has ensued afterwards. Is it wrong for her and her father to have differing political beliefs (and I use that last sentence loosely, because like the editors, I doubt that she has yet to solidify her political views)? Furthermore, I applaud Nusca’s investigation into the motives of Caldwell, who obviously appears that she had nothing better to do with her time and felt like tarnishing someone’s good name. Slate should really fire her for passing this shlock as “breaking news”.
And meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden is still out there…
August 7th, 2007 at 9:46 am
i like how he managed to find room between all the bold text (which, incidentally, isn’t enough to make this non-story interesting or funny) to throw in a weak self-call. just wonderful. when do we get new guest editors again?
August 7th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Slate editor responds: http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/197025.aspx?ArticleID=2171730
August 7th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I’m sort of surprised that no one running this non-story attempted to make big deal about Rudy’s daughter describing herself as looking for “random play” and “whatever I can get” (according to the screenshot with the slate article). I’m sure family values voters would be horrified.
August 7th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
lucy caldwell has a long history of writing terrible, pathetic crimson op-eds, and is a blight on the harvard campus. seeing her publicly humiliated on ivygate, and newsbusters, for writing stupid crap on Slate.com is just divine justice. more! more!
August 7th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
what a lame article– one faux-journalist wasting time trying to “bust” another faux-journalist. this article, with it’s witch-hunt tone and overbearing bold print, seems like Nusca is putting his own agenda before common sense, because common sense wouldn’t allow someone to spend so much time on such a meaningless “news story”. keep up the honest reporting, douchebag.
August 7th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
THIS GIRL WAS SO STUPID FOR NOT DELETING THE MINI-FEED NOTE!!! SHE KINDA DESERVES IT, HOW DUMB IS THAT? THAT’S LIKE STEALING A CAR AND TAKING A REPORTER WITH YOU!
August 7th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
@ lame: What Caldwell did was extremely unethical. She basically outed an incoming student and put her in the national spotlight for no apparent reason than to create a useless fluff story and tarnish her (and Giuliani’s) good name. Nusca’s tone in this post may seem like he’s now out to get and destroy Caldwell’s reputation, but she deserves it. To do this to a fellow student is outrageous. The Crimson should really fire Caldwell for having this article go national. What’s even more outrageous is Slate.com’s editor who is supporting Caldwell. This kind of stuff shouldn’t be published, nor should it be brought to the national level.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
What’s lower than lame? Pathetic, maybe? At any rate and no matter how you rate it, this drivel was a waste of the electricity to produce it in the first place. Relating a teenager’s politics to that of their father? Why not delve into democratic teen’s sexual conduct? The Bush daughters were savaged along these lines, but for the writer’s liberal penchant I suppose I shouldn’t hold my breath for anything but more of the same boot’ scrapings.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
To All Of The Commenters: I just want to make something clear. Whether or not you agree with my style choices in this post, I’d like to say that I’ve got no vendetta against Caldwell. This point of this post — and I’d like to make this absolutely crystal clear — is to raise the questions of 1) whether it was a necessary news item to the extent that it was on the cover of all these publications (for example, it was the cover of amNewYork this morning!) and 2) if it was indeed questionable that Caldwell would put this forthright at this time for these reasons. Is the story newsworthy? Obviously, it appeared on this blog and it certainly does have context within the national dialogue (but only within the framework of Giuliani’s ailing family ties). But to this extent? It was glazed over that she was estranged from Dad. How should we reasonably expect that she’ll fall into party alignment at election time? Jacob Weisberg’s response in Slate’s The Fray only addressed the newsworthiness on the surface. What I want to know is why the nuance behind such a story should be obliterated for the sake of grabbing attention.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
jeez, lucy caldwell is such a sad, sad little person. she would do anything to make the news. let’s all stick with the level of caldwell’s journalism and report that’s she is republican and yet wrote a piece like that on giuliani.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
English, please!
August 9th, 2007 at 2:05 am
this is the most retarded ivygate blog article i have read in a long time. like who the fuck cares if she left the facebook group first of all, and why do we need an UPDATE? let it rest already and go learn how to be funny or at least intriguing.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The only redeeming part of this post is the way the retarded boldfacing of random words suggests the journalistic prose of Jackie Harvey.