Scott W. Johnson

Scott W. Johnson (born 1950) is an American lawyer, executive and a blogger at Power Line.

Legal and business career

Johnson was born in North Dakota to a Jewish family. He received a Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College in 1973 and subsequently undertook a law degree at the University of Minnesota

At one stage, he was a partner of John Hinderaker at Faegre and Benson. He is now Vice-President of the TCF National Bank in Minneapolis.

Public policy

Johnson started working with Hinderaker on opinion pieces on tax, welfare reform and other public policy issues. The articles were run in conservative publications such as "National Review" and a wide range of newspapers. Both Johnson and Hinderaker became involved with the Claremont Institute along with Paul Mirengoff, who was Hinderaker's roommate at Dartmouth.

Power Line

Hinderaker, Johnson and Mirengoff founded the Power Line Blog in 2002. It quickly became a popular site for conservatives as blogging became more important in politics. On September 9, 2004 Johnson posted the "61st Minute" on flaws in the Killian documents used on a 60 Minutes Wednesday story on the George W. Bush military service controversy.

The story quickly spread to other blogs and then to the mainstream media. After defending the veracity of the documents for two weeks, CBS reversed its position and admitted that the documents had not been properly authenticated. After an internal investigation, producer Mary Mapes was fired by CBS, several other executives resigned and CBS apologised to viewers. In 2005, Mapes published a book "Truth and Duty" claiming that Karl Rove was the mastermind behind the attacks. The CBS public eye stated in a review "there's no evidence brought forth - just assertion." [ [http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2005/11/16/publiceye/entry1050734.shtml CBS News Public Eye "Mary's Land: Planet of the Mapes" November 20, 2005] ]

As a result of the 61st Minute Power Line became even more popular obtaining half a million hits on US Election Day in November 2004. The site was named as the first Time Blog of the Year with Lev Grossman writing in the article "Before this year, blogs were a curiosity, a cult phenomenon, a faintly embarrassing hobby on the order of ham radio and stamp collecting. But in 2004 blogs unexpectedly vaulted into the pantheon of major media, alongside TV, radio and, yes, magazines, and it was Power Line, more than any other blog, that got them there." [ [http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1009851,00.html Time Magazine Media Release "Time names Power Line 2004 Blog of the Year" 19 December 2004] ] As a result of the increased profile, Johnson was asked to appear on television political shows on networks such as CNN.

References

External links

* [http://powerlineblog.com/aboutus.php#bigtrunk Power Line About Us]
* [http://www.claremont.org/about/staff/johnson.html The Claremont Institute page on Scott Johnson]
*"Scott William Johnson." Marquis Who's Who TM. Marquis Who's Who, 2004.Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
* [http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php Power Line "The 61st Minute"]
* [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/13/rs.01.html CNN "Reliable Sources" November 13 2005 transcript]