Josh Wolf is a blogger who spent 226 days in jail for refusing to hand over his footage of a San Francisco anarchist protest in which a police officer was injured. That's because not handing over evidence like that is contempt of court, which we know thanks to the case of Judith Miller and that glamorous spy lady. But at the time Josh did not get as much credit from the "mainstream media" because he was just a blogger, and also possibly someone who hangs out with anarchists, and with the exception of Mumia Abu Jamal journalists generally try to avoid anarchists. Anyhow, Josh is now a free man, and get this…part of the mainstream media! Which is to say, he is a Real Mainsteam Journalists. And he has a message for his critics, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: "If the haters who said I wasn't a real journalist, are still lurking, I hope you don't have too much indigestion after eating your words." Ha ha yeah, Corrections. We'll let you grab a Nexium before we share the details of his important new gig.
He is a cub reporter for the Palo Alto Daily Post. (We'd link, but it doesn't maintain a website!)
For the Aug. 7 edition of the Post, Wolf penned items for the police blotter ("First block of Embarcadero: Six windows were reported broken at 10:59 a.m."), wrote a lead-up to the county fair (Headline: "Cattle Drive Means it's County Fair Time") and a short item on a homeless woman who was charged with writing threats to a police officer. (Wolf had to use dashes in the family newspaper to convey the offensive word she used.)
That fucking family newspaper bullshit again. We sympathize, Josh! Here's more:
He files 10 to 15 stories a week written in standard newspaper style, devoid of personal analysis, and most of his stories are only a few hundred words long and fail to include what Wolf calls the "significant nuances" of his reporting."I could write 10,000 words on some stories," Wolf said.
And to think the U.S. Attorney basically accused Wolf of harboring delusions of grandeur.
Dave Price, the publisher and editor of the Post, said he first met Wolf after trying to dispatch a reporter for a prison interview with him in 2006. After Wolf's release in April 2006, Price said he wanted to meet "the legend among journalists" and, after a short trial period during which Wolf wrote a few stories, offered him a staff job.
This young literary man is also a Renaissance man: he maintains his blog and also Twitters.
Video Blogger Wolf Now A Real Journalist [SF Chronicle via Romenesko]
[Also: this story reminds me of something that happened in P.J. O'Rourke's hippie youth. The only thing that would make this story better is if our "legend among journalists" became a well-liked Republican shill and Weekly Standard contributor!]