Normblog has some interesting excerpts from a Bartle Bull subscription-only article in Prospect Magazine. Mr. Bull reported on Iraq for The New York Times. Highlight (note: no “money graph”):
The failure of “hotel journalism” might be forgivable if it were truly about prudence or even laziness. But there has been something wilful about the bad reporting of this story. It is weirdly personal: Iraq must fail. It is in fact the press that failed, on a scale for which I cannot think of a precedent. Will the big media outlets demand the same accountability of themselves that they demand of everyone else? They should, for the success of these elections was not so surprising to those who dug below the surface of Iraq.
UPDATE: Don’t miss the superb post by Brown Line in the comments!
Roger:
The press did not see the civil rights movement coming either. Not their kind of people.
I think the media is a very global phenomenon and tends to be a lot more ideological than they like to admit.
The press did not and still does not know what became of Saddam’s weapons.
The press virtually ignored Islamic radicalism before 9/11, in spite of the growing death toll and Osama’s declaration of war against the United States.
The press was predisposed to cover the Balkans in one way because of their own political mindset but had an entirely different attitude toward the Republicans and their foreign policy.
And the press just assumed that whatever the minders in Iraq told them must be true.
The press was and is anti military, to the point of condemning young people without benefit of trial.
This mindset is obvious among the NGO’s such as Amnesty and international organizations such as the UN as well.
And of course the press hid the crimes of the UN as long as it could. It allows people like those at Amnesty a political relevance they do not possess. But then you know that these people all go to the same dinner parties.
It is about power and privilege and the media has had too much of both for too long.
In the article Bull mentions the BBC speaking daily about the “atmosphere of intimidation and violence” in the days leading up to the election. So many of these media outlets were so totally mistaken about what would happen. By not doing their homework yet presuming to be authorotative, these media outlets will also end up making themselves look quite foolish to the people in Iraq. Why wouldn’t their credibility suffer if the average Iraqi knows what’s going on while the vaunted BBC, NY Times, CNN, etc. remain clueless? It’s fascinating that those with the big megaphones think that people simply have no choice but to accept what they say as true, as if no one has the means or rights to question or draw different conclsuions.
It is not only the Press, but the Democratic Party that has to have Iraq fail also. Since the Far Left has taken over the Party, Dems in mass like Roger, Glenn, myself (not that I am in their caliber) have been leaving the Dem Party in droves. Wizbang has a good read on this subject concerning a good article written by a 9/11 Democrat.
BurbankErnie
So how does one change party affiliation?
BurbankErnie,
Thanks for the link. Ms. Stillwell identifies several maladies of the Left, or Democrats, whichever, that have long and increasingly troubled me. These are the things that drove me from independence to party (Republican) affiliation:
Lola:
One goes to where ever it is that one registers to vote and “re-registers” with a different affiliation. In my case that was town hall and the change was from “Independent” to “Republican”.
As for the “journalists”. What surprises me most is that few seem to have any drive to make a name for themselves by breaking the “big story” that the great pack doesn’t bother with. The rampant lack of professionalism is also a wonder to me. In the end they lack pride, professionalism, and – sadly – shame.
We are like survivors or something sharing our experiences.
I agreed with everything Cinnamon said in that link.
Terrye,
There were also things that moved me (it took forever) away from any tolerance for the “Left” (which to me is the Democratic party here in the US).
As a young man and union member I saw that unions were exempted from assault and battery laws and free to destroy property. No kidding. I also learned, over time, that private employers cared a whole lot more about me than the union ever did. (I was a Teamster once upon a time.)
I stood, many more times than once, at the Berlin Wall. The system that built such a thing, it seemed to me, could not be “no different than us”. In fact it convince me that communism was sick. Those who defended it, or tried to suggest moral equivalence, seemed to me ignorant.
As I traveled to other parts of this world – particularly continental Europe – I noticed more ease and comfort with bigotry than I have ever seen in my travels in the US. It is always couched in some feigned sophistication but that never mattered to me. I see no difference between sophisticated bigotry and vulgar bigotry. That has nothing directly to do with the US “left” or Dems, but they do behave the same way toward those of religious faith. It’s long since gone past any desire for civil secularism or the freedom to not believe, it is nothing short of bigotry anymore. I loathe it and I wind up hurting people I care about because I can’t tolerate it anymore – I tell them they are engaged in bigotry.
Putting two children through out public school system was eye-opening also. The NEA is an arm of the Democratic party and is harming our schools. There are numerous problems with our schools but that is one of them, a big one, and is the only one directly attributable to party politics.
And then, over this last election cycle, to see the levels of anger and vitriole that they are prepared to rise to… well, that just put me over the top.
I wish it weren’t so. I wish the Dems hadn’t gone so far left, but they did. I won’t forgive them for the damage they are doing.
Re: the journos and MSM and their relentless ideological bent, watch for what RedState.Org claims will be soon happening for Colin Powell.
Seems like I’m singing in the shower this evening, but folks might find this PoliPundit post interesting (follow the link to Barone also). Maybe, just maybe, the Dems are about to start paying the price for their reactionary recalcitrance.
I think it’s kind of funny that by sitting in my pajamas at home in front of my computer I got a better idea of what the election if Iraq would be like than all those reporters in their hotel in Baghdad. I was pleased by Iraqi’s giving the purple finger to the terrorists but not particularly surprised. Thank you Roger Simon for being one of the bloggers who gave me different (and better!) information than the MSM does.
The US economy is growing even as I write. Relatively, of course. Relative to what? Funny you should ask!
There is a fascinating “discussion” going on over at Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_02_25.html#009142
It seems that being a Kerry voter, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-tax cut, etc. BUT pro-war, anti Dean makes you a vicious Right Winger.
The Left are eating their own in a fairly bloody manner. As a charter member of the VRWC I can’t help a little schadenfreude, but, it is truly bizzare to behold and not at all good for a viable two party system.
knucklehead…”journalists..what surprises me most is that few seem to have any drive to make a name for themselves by breaking the “big story” that the great pack doesn’t bother with”…I’ve wondered about the same thing. In most industries, people at least *try* to outcompete their rivals by doing something different from what everyone else is doing. In media, the strategy seems to be to focus on precisely the same stories as everyone else…how often have we seen the same cover story on both major newsmagazines?
“Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let’s hope we still have the strength.”
Martin Peretz
“But why on earth would anyone in the big media have wanted a failure in Iraq?”
Norm Geras
I doubt that Peretz and Geras will be registering as Republicans any time soon. It is interesting to watch a post about journalism slide so quickly into a discussion of the Democrat party. One might assume that the two were rather closely related – and closely tied to liberalism/leftism as well.
We are fortunate to have the voices of so many journalists and j-school professors giving reassurance that we may dismiss the evidence of our eyes and rely solely on the impartial judgement of those deemed fit to provide our daily predigested news fodder through the great organs of the fourth estate. And yet, a clear and growing majority of the electorate seem foolishly determined to believe what they see rather than what they are told. Even worse, declining viewership and circulation numbers suggest that many are unwilling to pay to read – or watch for free – the “professional” version of events.
Winfield Scott was the last Whig candidate for President (1852). I wonder if anyone knows the name of the last town crier.
First, all hail Norm Geras…he’s really become a hero of mine–especially since I was well acquainted with his passionate Marxism from reading his books years ago and yet just knew, deep down, when the chips were on the table, that his honesty and integrity would never blind him to the reality of the 21st century. ìThings have changed,î as Bob Dylan observed in the great Wonder Boys.
Maybe I should feel as happy and optimistic about Bull’s change of heart, his belated revelation, but I’ve been writing (and yakking it up on TV and radio) about AWOL reporters in war zones since the 1980s. These MSM prima donnas are more interested in preserving a fat paycheck by hiding out in hotels than covering stories for decades. The press–print and television–never leave their rooms, rooftops and balconies (locations secured, of course, by American soldiers and civilian ‘contractors.’)
In Kabul they have the lovely and comfy BBC and NYT houses, the plush Intercontinental Hotel in the suburbs–but never, I mean never, do you ever see them on the streets. They travel in armed packs, in air conditioned caravans to cover the stories (not you, Pamela!) parceled out in pressers by the embassy…abetted by gossip they pick up from real insiders they prod and poke for story ideas. It’s really a disgrace. Every time I see the background to a television spot in Afghanistan I see the same perspective, from the same hotel room balcony. Looks dangerous, no? And thatís the point. Theyíre ëon the sceneí–sometimes even juicing the story by the fortuitous, choreographed gunshot. Ever been curious why you’ve never, never (!) seen a ‘man on the street’ interview about how Afghanis feel about life, America, the WOT, their future? It’s because no reporters will ever leave the safety of their hotels and homes. Itís not just boring, itís dishonest and dishonourable.
I went out last evening with a group of people who work for Nightline, producers and assistant producers and such, and i must say it was eye opening.
I told one of the producers that I have watched Nightline for years, but I added point blank that the show has become ossified in its liberal reactionary-ness, and is destined to go the way of the dinosaur. The news cycle has become so fast that television simply cannot keep up, and the insistence on shows like Nightline of shutting out input by blogs will eventually bury that entire genre of broadcasting.
His attitude was utterly predictable–nobody cares about blogs. Blogs are just run by a bunch of fat, illiterate yahoos with no editors (how many editors did Dan Rather have?? i interjected). Etc. Etc.
These people just don’t get it. They are totally unable to see a world beyond their liberal blinders. And/or they want to repeat their strange new mantra “Gannon”. (Whoever the heck he is??)
Months ago, when the Rather forged docs story broke, I emailed this same producer (who is a friend of a friend) and said that this story would provide a perfect opportunity for him to make a name for himself and become a star in the field of new journalism. He was utterly uninterested.
It’s bizarre to me. I guess this is what happens when the intellectual laziness and facile assumptions that run the TV news business bring about a complete brain rot.
These shows, and this mindset, are fast being shoveled onto the dustheap of history. Deservedly so.
Knucklehead:
You are not the only exTeamster I know. The unions served a purpose in the days of laissez faire, but more and more they are becoming the thing they sought to resist, entrenched power. In a way they have become victims of their own success.
And as for the media preoccupation with Gannon, I do not know one single person that is interested. Not in casual conversation, not in passing. People could care less.
A journalist who is a whore? This is news they say? Or they feel kinda sorry for the guy for the way the press is on him like vultures on road kill. Or they do not know who he is and have no desire to find out.
Back in my home town there was a recession in the early 80′s. Someone climbed up on the water tower and painted a message: last ones to leave town, turn out the lights.
That is the media today, they will not know there is a problem until folks start turning out their lights.
Terrye, Knucklehead ó I said this back when Arnie was running but it’s even more true on the national scale: the unions these days can deliver money, endorsements and thugs, but with the exception of the civil service unions, they cannot deliver their votes anymores…
“The unions served a purpose in the days of laissez faire, but more and more they are becoming the thing they sought to resist, entrenched power. In a way they have become victims of their own success.”
Substitute ‘the mainstream media’ for unions and what do you get?
Hmmmmm.
I think the MSM can be included with unions and professional associations and advocacy groups as part of something called ‘the agent problem’. I ran across this notion as I began my journey from (D) to (R) a couple of years ago.
I don’t entirely understand ‘the agent problem’ but it has something to do with a group whose purpose is to be an agent for another group. Over time the agent becomes more and more an agent for itself and often behaves in a manner contrary to the best interests of the group it originally aimed to protect or advocate for.
The problem part seems to be that there is no viable market mechanism to prevent this from occurring, though market forces may, after a time, a long long destructive time, be able to start the process of dismantling these agents.
Think of advocacy groups that have reached their initial goals. Instead of declaring victory and dismantling, they move the goal posts simply in order to remain in existence.
In the case of MSM we, the people, are the group that the media is the agent for. They are our representatives who supposedly keep our elected officials ‘honest’ and thus protect us. But instead they’ve become a bureaucracy as entrenched as any union with political views to match.
The power of the MSM may eventually fade or be watered down but only because new technology came into existence. There is nothing in our political/economic/market system to truly counter it in any big way. If it weren’t for the internet the entrenched media could go on like it has for decades even.
——
Wow, that article by Cinnamon could have been written about me!! Unbelievable! No, not unbelievable. I’ve always felt that I’m not unique. That if I have some views, they are shared by many many others.
The only difference between her and me is that I didn’t join counter protests in the Bay Area, carrying signs. I, instead, went into the dark depths of a forum of 3D artists. I was greeted the same way she was at the protest.
Syl,
That’s a very interesting insight. It does describe a larger version of the “union” problem. I’m going to try to not sink into union bashing (I have an unfortunate habit of getting a bit overwrought when I get on the topic of unions and secularists) but unions do offer a good example of what you describe as “the agent problem”.
Last time I went and tracked down the numbers, IIRC, unions represent something on the order of 14.5 million workers. That is roughly 12-14% of those who are tracked by the “payroll” employment numbers and somewhere around 8-10% or so of the total employment number (“payroll” + “household” or whatever its called).
Once again I’m working from memory (always flawed in my case) but IIRC, of that 14.5 million that are represented by unions somwhere aroung 1/3 (something approaching 5 million) are “civil service” (government workers) or teachers (mostly quasi-government workers).
Unions are the “agent” for only 8-10% of those of us who are employed. They have an excessive level of political power overall, IMO, and way too much control over one of our two political parties. I recall once (6 or 8 years ago?) seeing, somewhere, a quote attributed to the president of the NEA. I’ve tried to track it down and have been unsuccessful. Someone was challanging the NEA for not representing the interests of our school children into account and the response was, paraphrasing, “When children pay dues I’ll take their interests into account.” There, in a nutshell, it seems to me, is “the agent problem”.
When an “agent” becomes powerful enough it seems it runs the risk of becoming the “agent” for its own purposes rather than, or in addition to, those who it once represented. This seems to be part of what has happened with unions. In the corporate world we at least have the imperfect mechanisms of anti-trust to try and limit the power of the powerful. What, if any, mechanism exists to limit the power of the powerful who are “agents” to, for example, the NEA?
This “agent problem” isn’t limited to just unions or the government sector. It works its dubious magic in all large organizations or sectors of society – it is, or is similar to, the problems inherent in any bureaucracy.
I don’t think I went anywhere with that but I do thank you for providing me a new angle from which to ponder the funky lookin’ thing.
Knucklehead writes: “journalists … what surprises me most is that few seem to have any drive to make a name for themselves by breaking the ‘big story’ that the great pack doesn’t bother with”. I’m afraid that it doesn’t surprise me. The narcissism of today’s MSM has been around for many years; anyone who dared to speak a truth that contradicted the profession’s accepted wisdom was shooting his career in the head.
Consider two examples, both from the 1930s. In the mid-1930s, Malcolm Muggeridge was the Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. As he described his experiences in his autobiography, “Chronicles of Wasted Time”, in Moscow he got to know one Walter Duranty, correspondent for the New York Times and a man whom Muggeridge called “the greatest liar I have known in fifty years of journalism”. Duranty reports mentioned nothing about troubles in the Ukraine; Muggeridge, though, had been hearing troubling reports about famine there. So Muggeridge decided to investigate on his own: he got a train ticket to the Ukraine by the simple expedient of going to the train depot and buying one (instead of depending on his handler to get it for him), then made his visit. What he saw horrified him: it was the beginning of Stalin’s terror-famine. When he returned to Moscow, he wrote up what he saw and smuggled it out in a diplomatic pouch. For his troubles, the Guardian not only refused to publish his work, they fired him: they preferred to publish Duranty’s fictions about apple-cheeked peasant maidens and overflowing granaries (occasionally punctuated by losses due to “bad weather”). The journalistic profession purged Muggeridge for telling the truth; the liars, needless to say, remained and prospered.
The second example is also from the 1930s. George Orwell, then an established left-wing freelance journalist, fought for the Loyalists in Spain. There he saw the purges – mass murder and imprisonment – of dissident left-wing groups by the Stalists, who effectively ran the government. They were shooting their own even as Franco’s men were storming Madrid. Orwell wrote what he saw in a series of articles that were turned down by the established left-wing press in Britain; Orwell found that he had become a pariah in his profession for speaking against the established wisdom.
In both cases, left-wing journalists who loved the truth more than they loved their parties or their careers, broke the big story – and found themselves out of work as a result. The system of big journalism is a Darwinian environment in which those who do not conform are eliminated.
That was because the costs of disseminating information were so great that it could be afforded by only a handful of powerful organizations; as the old saying that “freedom of the press belong to the man who owns one”. Except that the Internet has changed that, for the first time in human history. Journalists have power not by superior wisdom or insight or skill, but because they have access to the medium of disseminating their words. But no longer: their monopoly is broken. No wonder the journalists hate us: we have broken their power. I don’t know what Muggeridge or Orwell would written about the Internet, but I am damned certain that had the ‘net existed in the 1930s, they would not have been silenced.
“What, if any, mechanism exists to limit the power of the powerful who are “agents” to, for example, the NEA?”
Nothing, actually. That’s the problem.
I think.
Where’s the accountability? Who watches the watchers who watch the watchers, so to speak.
Roger, your link to the Brown Line comment goes to the Putin post, not this post.
Alan C:
“It seems that being a Kerry voter, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-tax cut, etc. BUT pro-war, anti Dean makes you a vicious Right Winger.
The Left are eating their own in a fairly bloody manner.”
Yep. One interesting feature of the blogs is that they are pulling the Republican party to the center and the Democratic party to the left. Assuming the population stays pretty much where it is politically, that’s a disastrous combination for the Dems.
There is much more of a purge-the-heretics mentality on the left than on the right, which is somewhat odd for a major party that is currently in the minority; it’s quite reminiscent of the communists and socialists and other radical groups which regularly conducted purges for deviation from the party line.
The greatest analysis of ‘hotel journalism’ is Peter Braestraup’s ‘THE BIG STORY’ published in 1977.
This two volume tour de force examines the reporting of the 1968 TET OFFENSIVE comparing virtually every story published in the press (and on the TV NEWS) with what actually occurred and discusses how the stories got it wrong and why.
This book, which in my view should be a text for every journalism course, is unfortunately out of print but is well worth reading if you are interested in the failures of journalism.
Incidently Peter Braestrup does not see bias as the problem, rather he concludes it was ignorance of military matters and lack local knowledge.
Hotel Journalism — It’s not just laziness…