US spokesman quits after Wikileaks remark zips round the Twitterverse
You are talking to small group in a mini-seminar at a top university. You never think your remarks will finish up with Obama - and with you out of a job.
State Department spokesman P.J.Crowley, a retired colonel, talking to a "a small seminar" on the power of blogging, tweeting, and Facebook, called the Pentagon’s treatment of the Army private accused of leaking classified documents toWikiLeaks “ridiculous’’ and “counterproductive."
Private First Class Bradley Manning is being held in solitary confinement in a military jail for 23 hours a day. He is stripped each night and given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed.
BBC reporter Phillippa Thomas was not on duty. She is at Harvard as a Nieman fellow - a top-drawer year out for journalists. Crowley's bombshell came in response to a student's question. When Thomas asked Crowley if he was on the record, he paused and said yes.So she blogged his remark. Read her blog here. The next day,CBS’s Political Hotsheet picked up it up, so did Foreign Policy Magazine and Salon. On Friday, President Obama was asked about it at a White House press conference.
On Sunday, the State Department circulated a statement from Crowley announcing his resignation.
Crowley said in his statement that he took responsibility for his comments, which he said were “intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact’’ of actions taken by the national security agencies on US standing in the world.
“The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values,’’ the statement read.
The media world is buzzing about how fast off-the-cuff comments make it on to the world stage in the Internet age.
John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor specialising in the Internet, said, “Anyone has the ability to record and amplify what is said in any setting. It may well help you - or it may well cost you your job.’’
Crowley, an experienced spokesman with more than 24,000 Twitter followers himself, frequently joked with the press at the podium of the State Department briefing room. His admirers say he took a stand of conscience and knew the consequences.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, told the Boston Globe he heard about the remarks on Twitter within minutes.
“If you want to get your message out, the old-fashioned way is to have a quiet discussion with a reporter as an exclusive. The new way is to let it boil up from the tweeters and the bloggers who are going to be in every university audience.’’
Crowley,59, has kept on tweeting, saying that his successor “will do a great job.’’
Crowley's full remarks according to an unofficial transcript read: “I spent 26 years in the Air Force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don’t know why the DoD is doing it. Nevertheless, Manning is in the right place.’’
Crowley also said that Manning had damaged US interests by leaking 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks..
Charlie deTar, the MIT student who asked the question about Manning, said the fact that Crowley had to resign is “frankly kind of depressing.’’
“He seemed to be saying something that he truly believed, and he had some integrity there, but I don’t know if he expected that his statements would cause such an uproar,’’ deTar said