Nixon’s not just out of office… He’s dead! But some people act as if he’s still alive, Austin Bay reminds us in this excellent column.
MEANWHILE: Claudia has a superb piece on the self-absorption of the US press. [Andrew Sullivan should read this one.-ed. No kidding.]:
What’s really going on here is two stories. One involves Newsweek and the ups and downs of U.S. journalism. The other involves a swath of the Islamic world in which anger, fueled by years of gross political misrule, is a chronic feature of life–seeking to acquire a target. What produced these particular riots was the intersection of Islamic-world furies and that brand of U.S. self-absorption in which no subject is more fascinating to the American media than any possible misdeeds of the U.S. itself.
For better or worse, the U.S. media occupy an extraordinary position in the world. Richer in resources than most, and freer than almost any, American reporters enjoy an astounding ability to pursue stories of many kinds, in many places. By and large they produce a brand of journalism that despite its flaws is more reliable than most. But it is also focused chiefly on the U.S.
The tragedy in all this is that while the entire world is by now acquainted with tales–true and false–about Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay, the information pretty much ends there. When it comes to the Islamic world’s most despotic states, almost no one outside their borders can reel off the names of the prisons they run, let alone tales of what happens within. Afghanistan is still recovering from the Taliban blackout of the human soul–which at the time received almost no coverage. Saudi Arabia–whence the Arab News, in its disquisition on Newsweek’s story, denounces the U.S. as “ignorant and insensitive”–provides no accounting to the world of its dungeons. Can anyone name a prison in Yemen?
Roger,
While the press has complained ad nauseum about the dearth of linguistic and cultural specialists in the US armed forces (fair enough) they neatly avoid any self-examination along the same grounds. That is to say, none of the bozos writing for Newsweek or any other MSM outlet, it appears, actually studied the Middle East in college or thereafter, and it shows.
For all its faults, the venerable Beeb, like other vestigial institutions of Europe’s Colonial Powers, maintains a core of journalists with longstanding ties to specific regions of the earth. They are specialists, and when they write about an area, while their biases may be heavy-handed, they tend to know something whereof they speak.
Mirror, meet MSM critics; critics, meet mirror.
What Clio said. The Beeb’s reporters are ludicrously biased, and many of them are simply hacks, but they’re there. Thanks to the license imposed on every UK household, they have the budget to put multiple reporters in places where the entire US press has no staff. The Beeb also has the institutional mandate to cover the emp-, er, world.
Neither is this myopia merely a US problem. Even a publication as sophisticated as Britain’s Economist, with all the advantages of a common language and educational and other cultural ties, manages to mangle its foreign reporting when it comes to matters such as US constitutional law, ethnic relations, and political divisions. The continental press’s coverage of the US is a complete joke. I still recall the Italian journalist who noted with great satisfaction during the Clarence Thomas / Anita Hill brouhaha that the presence of the great Senator Kennedy gave the hearings much-needed moral ballast….
Point is that hardly any publication or organization, anywhere, does a good job when it comes to grasping another culture and presenting fairly and fully that culture’s issues, in correct order and significance.
Still, there’s a better way forward than either the Beeb’s well-educated Arab propagandists or the typical foreign correspondent’s cluelessness. Short of cloning a thousand more John Burnses, we could – imagine this – rely on the locals themselves to tell us what’s important to them.
I know, I know, censorship rears its ugly head, but the right way forward is to use the technology platforms and tools available to us to gain access to what Iraqis and Iranians and Russians and Japanese and Brazilians and Indonesians are thinking. Aggregate. Translate. Converse. Challenge. Synthesize. This will happen.
roger,
your coverage of the newsweek fiasco and oil-for-food knocks the ball out of the park–without steroids. i now read your blog before reading any other site–news included–for a wise voice to start my day. keep it going. people are awakening to the realities you present, and our lives will be better for it. we certainly can’t say that about newsweek.
The Main Stream Media in a lot of cases are acting like the enemy. The breast beating about Abu Ghraib by the nations Press did our country ill and they had to have known it. The contrived photographs from Iraq showing the assassination of Iraqi poll workers was appalling. The continued use of the word “insurgent” by national news is propaganda for the enemy, there is nothing nice about these thugs, they torture until the blood is deep on the floor and yet the NYT’s calls them “insurgents.” They can’t for some reason write about what the head choppers are doing or the grizzly pictures of the handiwork, the Times gives them a patina of respectability that this thuggery doesn’t deserve. I can’t stand reading the words from these haters of our country, this 5th column of rats, they have become the mouth piece of Islamic murderers.
“…provides no accounting to the world of its dungeons. Can anyone name a prison in Yemen?”
Can anyone name a church in Saudi Arabia? And they are talking about religious ignorance and insensitivity?
The Main Stream Media in a lot of cases are acting like the enemy.
Walks like a duck. Quacks like a duck. Swims like a duck. Flies like a duck…
Can we just admit there are large segments of the American press that would cheer a US defeat?
[Andrew Sullivan should read this one.-ed. No kidding.]
Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay are minor incidents in the overall war on terror. They deserved no more than five minutes of our attention. No, make that one minute if one is looking at the big picture! The Abu Ghraib scandal should have never received front page treatment.
Andrew Sullivan is no longer a serious individual. Only a short time ago, a few people were legitimately comparing Sullivan to George Orwell. He is now to be pitied and best ignored. Sullivan is a bare shadow of his former self. Glenn Reynolds has also come to the same conclusion:
ì…I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.î
http://instapundit.com/archives/023062.php
ìThe Main Stream Media in a lot of cases are acting like the enemy.î
In a practical sense, many members of the MSM do not perceive themselves as on our side in the war on terror. They instead absurdly brag about their ìobjective and dispassionateî duty to be above the fray. These journalists often attended the so-called best schools where philosophical relativism is widely accepted. There is supposedly no such thing as truth. Subconsciously, if not even consciously, these fools are unable to adamantly declare that our values are clearly better than those of the Islamic nihilists.
Robert Crawford,
Can we just admit there are large segments of the American press that would cheer a US defeat?
I think nearly every rational person can agree without hesitation that the answer is “yes”.
The question is, however, whether cheering for a US defeat makes them “anti-American”. They claim not. They claim that making this leap is “incendiary”. I fail to follow the logic.
Perhaps I have read too many essays about Newsweek in the past few days (no, I’m sure I have), but I could swear, in a stronger than a “de ja vu” kind of way, that I have read specific parts of today’s Austin Bay piece yesterday or the day before. Most notably the “paper information template” topic. Anyone else have that feeling? Maybe he has just re-used or built upon prior posts of his on this topic? Or maybe I need a break from this.
carry on.
Roger, I admire that you try to be fair and look at all sides of an issue, but in this case, I don’t think there is the slightest possiblity that WaPo put a story about nascent democracy in Syria on page ten because we’ve become blaze about democracy. It’s far more likely that “the WaPo is loathe to give more credit to the Bush Administration.”
If the issue were only about political patronage, I wouldn’t care which party got the credit, but it’s not. If Gore or Kerry were president, it would be business as usual at the U.N., Saddam would still rule Iraq, Lebanon would still be under Syria’s heel, Kadhafi would still be sword rattling, Albright would still be dancing with Kim Jong Il, we’d have still more summits at Camp David, and we’d have still more leftwing judges and income redistribution.
It matters a lot who sets the national agenda and if Republicans and the president don’t get credit for their accomplishments, they won’t get re-elected and we’ll be right back to square one.
For Andrew Sullivan, the war is a morality play.
For Michael Issikoff it is (was?) another bowl of delicious Lewinskian scoops.
For the BBC and the anti-Bush MSM, it’s a sporting event between Damn Yankees and pesky, underdog “insurgents.”
Is there any journalist aside from Christopher Hitchens who grasps that this is a struggle between liberal civilization and its fascist enemies?
Bruce,
I too am nearing saturation point with this saga. As much as Newsweek’s behavior repels me, I can’t say it surprises me, and I’m willing to cut Issikoff some slack here, if only to help us get focused again on the core problem.
It’s not about Newsweek, it’s about the monstrous “piety” that causes millions of muslims to want to hack heads off because they heard someone pissed on their holy book.
Suppose one of the Gitmo guards pissed on a Koran. Should we be outraged? Should we march in solidarity with muslim “activists”? Should Newsweek suppress all mention of this not uninteresting news story?
Time for us to get a wee bit more hardheaded about our PR campaign. Anyone who considers a PissKoran sufficient reason to hack off heads is not going to be won over by any PR pitch we can possibly muster. This is a loser’s game, and not really worth our time.
“Is there any journalist aside from Christopher Hitchens who grasps that this is a struggle between liberal civilization and its fascist enemies?”
Yes, many, they just can’t figure out which side is which.
I have one more point to add. Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay are major stories only if you believe the war on terror is something a a con job perpetuated by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Halliburton. In that case, it makes sense to provide them with ceaseless attention. Anybody else will quickly come to the conclusion that there are far more important issues to worry about.
The comments on the advantages of the BBC and its correspondents paid for by the taxes of people like me are ludicrous.
Here’s two excellent insights on how these comfortably funded, unaccountable and virtually unsackable characters operate:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001204.html
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001205.html
For those who believe that academically highly qualified specialists in a subject make the best foreign correspondents, I say these two words:
Juan Cole.
I doubt Michael Totten has any specialist qualifications relevant to Lebanon, but which of those two would you most trust to report on events in Beirut?
Our wonderful paragon of informed objectivity, The Guardian, has a very highly qualified Middle East Editor called Brian Whitaker. So highly qualified, he has a PhD in Arabic studies. Which no doubt explains why he runs a web site promoting the Arab world, paid for by the British-Yemen friendship society, no doubt also a source of highly educated objectivity. Pick it up from here:
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/about.htm
I expect it’s expertise like that that enabled the Guardian to feature (and continue to feature) this journalist who wrote this article praising suicide bombers just over a fortnight before 9/11:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,543164,00.html
WB,
The bit about it being incendiary is cheap rhetoric. The journos that we’re discussing hold an “ideal” of America that includes them reading a Howard Zinn version of history to a group of Young Pioneers who sit fingering their red bandanas as they listen with rapt attention.
The fact that those of us who aspire to a Norman Rockwell ideal feel that their vision is un-American is simply proof (to them) of our chauvinistic insularity. We just can’t wrap our minds around the historical inevitability that the New Man is about to arrive.
It’s not really the journos, though. The propaganda organs are controlled by editorial commissars who control advancement based upon clear adherence to party line. The journo who wishes to advance learns to mouth the platitudes that lead to advancement. There are 400-500 editorial commissars in the US whose replacement would change the anti-American bias that some of us discern. Someone ought to tell them that Uncle Joe is dead – and so is his party.
Thibaud:
Months back, I made myself watch one video clip of a Zarqawi beheading. It was barbarism and bloodlust, pure and simple. As many of you know, this was not a quick sword swipe or anything close to guillotine speed. It was intentionally slow and violent. I turned ghostly white, not from fear, but from disgust and disbelief. I could not eat for the rest of the day.
Although I had supported the Bush Doctrine from the day of his awakening on the twisted iron heap of downtown NYC, witnessing that 30 second real horror film forged forever my support & belief in the war we are waging.
That kind of in your face experience is one of the only things that might penetrate and transform the romanticizing knuckleheads of the MSM.
I’ve seen many over the past few days display the same attitude that they criticize liberals for. Liberals will watch that same video and turn to Bush and say, “See what you have caused?” And now their counterparts are looking at the riots and resulting deaths in Afghanistan and turning to Newsweek to say, “Look at what you have wrought.”
Don’t get me wrong. I too have undying support for this war. I think it’s right and I want us to win against these monsters. But, I do not want to fall into the trap the liberals don’t even know they’re in. What Newsweek did was despicable, thoughtless and agenda driven. However, I’ll lay the real blame for those deaths where it truly belongs. With the perpetrators.
Maybe the reason these people–call ‘em Ballard’s 500–are making everyone crazy, is because they themselves are in a crazy position. Though there is surely some of the “losing Vietnam made us more humane” stupid isolationism, I think that the desire to lose the GWoT isn’t really consciously explicit in their minds. It’s just that they badly want to stop losing elections and they can see no other way to get back to their recent heavenly days of Demo majorities, except by going after such invisibles (‘prove it didn’t happens’) as their opponent’s motives. This is of course a crazy-making position, and they’ve made themselves crazy with it.
If winning the war means a conservative dynasty, and you can’t wish to lose the war, the only thing left to you is to say that there is no “real” war. The death-cultists are ‘anomalies’ created by a ‘fake’ war.
One by-product of this inevitable position is that these people have to scuttle away from the facts of history. The lack of the facts of history of course defines ‘ignorance’, so that we have the further crazy-making roaming about in the media of highly literate and deliberately ignorant troublemakers who can’t afford to have any ideas and so–in order to prevent exposure–must debate only via name-calling and/or character-assassination.
As usual, Ballard & Larsen get it right and say it well.
Speaking of churches in Saudi Arabia, I read recently that the Pope wants to establish diplomatic ties with countries that the Vatican doesn’t have ties with yet. Into the list falls Saudi Arabia (which apparently sent a couple of delegates to Pope JP II’s funeral). It’ll be interesting to see if ties are established. it’ll be even more interesting to see if the Vatican diplomats (especially those who are ordained priests) are allowed to bring into the country their religious paraphernalia.
The press prides itself on ‘objectivity’ when in reality the word is ‘neutrality’. Just like Annan vis-a-vis Rwanda…must.not.take.sides. Which is why ‘If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists’ is so offensive to them and thus the word ‘insurgent’ is the result.
There are dangerous consequences for America from this ‘we’re above it all’ mentality. The obvious one is feeding the propaganda of the al Qaeda minded thus making life more dangerous for all Americans. Less obvious is how it harms the muslim world because the MSM refuses to address the differences among muslims themselves. They give us the ‘Arab street’, which is only representative of muslims who have a voice or a mouthpiece such as al jazeera, as the voice of all of them. How blind is that?
This is ironic because our media is so frightened of turning Americans against all muslims that they refuse to analyze what is happening. We hear ‘religion of peace’ but we see atrocities and the MSM does not explain the difference beyond the facile al Qaeda vs the rest of them.
This results in some damning all muslims, damning Islam, which is exactly the opposite of what the MSM desires to happen. It also results in some thinking al Qaeda is the only danger.
The riots that ended in deaths, incited by the Newsweek piece, are a case we should all look at very very closely. The apologists, those who deem themselves neutral and above it all, claim well, the anti-American riots were going to happen anyway, the Newsweek piece was just one factor. Others blame muslims for being so pissy about any insult. But, in fact, many who demonstrated just wanted to demonstrate their objection, which is perfectly fine. But it was the hardcore in their midst that turned demonstrations into riots that ended in tragedies.
So Americans are all over the map in their reaction to the reaction as are the muslim reactions as well. And who is to blame for our various impressions? We’re not getting the information, the analysis, we need to understand what is going on from the mainstream media. This war is as much within the muslim world as it is between the hardcore and the West/America but it’s never explained to us.
Being neutral is making the MSM blind.
Thanks for that, Bruce W, made my day! Lola, in addition to the KSA attendance of the PJPII’s funeral, did you catch the news (yest?) that the influential Kuwaiti Parliament had just broken with a thousand histories and voted equality–in the form of suffrage–for women? Added to (see Roger’s post) Syria, doesn’t it present a strange picture that the more liberal the big world gets, the less our liberals seem to like it?
There’s little explanation for the willful ant-perspective other than that these guys really are all about party politics. That this necessarily places the welfare of humanity in a merely secondary position, explains why on a previous thread commenters are worrying about a linking of the far right and far left. Worth a mention in that long before that nice 1939 treaty between Molotov and Von Ribbentrop, the dark enabling currents had to have begun to run.
I agree with Syl here. The media is not doing its job.
When I watched Galloway the other day I thought about the incredible amount of propaganda he was thrwoing around and I thought to myalef if the media was as good at relating facts as it is at taking sides people would be laughing at this gas bag.
I heard he got into with Salmon Pak and lectured the iraqi on Iraq.
And it seemed reasonable to people for him to do so.
The BBC’s shameless spinning of this was of course expected. We’re reaching the point where it’s almost hopeless to expect anything like responsibility from a press that is as partisan as it is vacuous.
I know it sounds nuts, but this problem will not go away until bloggers get press passes and offer live TV coverage and real-time publication of transcripts. The only way to finally smash the BBC and the more egregious MSM perps is to create a thousand C-SPAN knockoffs.
Technically, it seems like a cinch. Not sure on the costs and the business model, however.
BBC…poor old Adolph came along just a few decades early. Today’s BBC could’ve knocked-out England in 1940, the USA could’ve had no European base to fight from, Hitler would’ve surely beat USSR, and the world by now might well be in the grip of a police-state so powerful that this little corner of the universe would be eternally frozen, like Dante’s Outer Circle. On tiny points the big tops spin.
“your coverage of the newsweek fiasco and oil-for-food knocks the ball out of the park–without steroids. i now read your blog before reading any other site–news included–for a wise voice to start my day. keep it going.”
ms anne speaks for me in this as well. I never trusted the msm much prior to the last presidential campaign and that just served to confirm my opinion. Today the quislings in the local fishwrap had an editorial about how Newsweak should’ve been more sensitive to the rock-worshippers’ sensitivities and how the Pentagon should’ve had a more rapid response to the questions about Gitmo; like flushing a large book in the toilet shouldn’t have thrown up multiple red flags to these dimwits. Like the Pentagon should be spending large amounts of manhours debunking these urban legends. In the midst of that blood pressure spike I came over here for an intelligent discussion (trolls excepted) of the matter.
It’s gonna give me as much pleasure to see these gasbags go down as it did watching the Berlin Wall fall.
Buddy,
Whilst I agree about the BBC,I think that you would have been facing a USSR that encompassed all of Europe.On the bright side,there would be no turmoil in the Middle East since the Soviets would have rolled over the border through Turkey and Iran.
We are now on the eve of “THE PERFECT STORM”. If any of us were to choose an issue that reflects the idealogical differences between the liberals and the conservatives, the NewsweAk debacle is the one. This is the pivot point. The straw that broke the camel’s back.
This controversey has reporters attacking the Presidential Press Secretary, all suggesting that if the story isn’t true, it is probable. Now the liberal press is pressing to print what they believe is “probable”. What an incredible world they are suggesting, for example, the probable news tomorrow morning is that the Iraqi terrorists will probably lie down their arms when they read more articles about how terrible our soldiers are. The American public will probably throw out those conservatives that believe news should be fact based, Rather(?) than fanciful thinking. Probably I will read that John Kerry has decided there is no reason to sign his 180 form disclosing his “other than honorable” discharge.
What are earth are they trying to defend? If “probable” becomes the standard for journalistic excellence, I suggest that it is probable that they will not have an employer very quickly.
Wake up you dumb shits. The history of the world and your own children will regard all of you as traitors to your country. Does that mean anything to you?
thibaud makes a good point: we conservatives must not let our pique at Newsweek lead us to make excuses for those who are truly responsible for last week’s bloodshed. “Newsweek” published a single erroneous paragraph about an event that in our society is simply not a big deal; and its editors get hammered when religious maniacs in other lands use that paragraph as an excuse for riot and murder.
Yes, “Newsweek” should have demanded verification of the story before they published. Yes, “Newsweek”‘s editors probably were motivated by anti-Bush partisanship. Yes, one should use tact and restraint when writing of things that people revere. Yes, Michael Isikoff is a horse’s ass. But no report of the destruction of any sacred object – Koran, Torah, or conscrated Host – should lead to bloodshed in the streets. “Newsweek”‘s story is a case study of how not to do journalism, but its editors are not accessories to murder.
In truth, our world and the world of Islamofascism are at war. Our view of life or theirs will prevail. Either we will become more like them and allow purported desecration of a Koran to become a matter of state concern; or they will become more like us and deal with alleged desecration with self-restraint. We must not let our mortal enemies dictate what we can publish about any book – even one as revered as the Koran.
Brown Line:
I agree but the truth is for all their ranting about the horrors of Abu Ghraib or Gitmo or whatever the media is a whole lot more scared of the Islamists than they are our military.
Here is a challenge to the media:
Where is the moderate muslim and what or who is he afraid of?
Go ahead guys, pretend it is the US military in Viet Nam or a republican president during the Watergate scandal: expose Islam’s dirty little secrets. I dare you.
Holy crap! Speaking of clueless, self-obsessed media, I just got my Oprah magazine and found an article about why young Palestinians become suicide bombers (and it ain’t PA terrorist indoctrination, folks)!
Gonna have to cancel that one, too…
http://www2.oprah.com/omagazine/200506/omag_200506_girls.jhtml
Roger:
Newsweek didn’t kill anyone. but they did give the nuts the best kind of firestarter the Islamo fascists needed. I f I am taking care of a suicidal patient and I give him a sharp pair of scicsors to cut out newspaper articles and I neglect to collect it and then they kill themselves I am not guilty of suicide but I am guilty of being negligent.
The saddest part of the story is I doubt that the question of whether the fact that since the story was so weakly sourced that maybe Newsweek shouldn’t print it out of concern for the Troops was ever brought up. Podhoretz pointed out that the press already self censors itself over certain matters, such as the identity of rape victims, because of the greater good of society. The fact that we are at war and our soldiers don’t rate the same respect says more about the press then any of the rips it has been given. I am not suggesting that the Press should be the PR wing of the DOD but if the incident is questionable or is not a sign of systemic abuse I do not think it would be a sin to at least consider the damage to the troops before making their decisions.
I find it amazing how quickly the press has rallied round newsweek and suddenly decides that Mclellan suggesting that Newsweek help repair some of the damage they were accountable for by explaining what the policy of the Army is towards the Koran is some form of executive intimadation of the press. It only took days for the press to blame the error on the President.
I became aware of “the self-absorption of the US press” over twenty years ago when I lived in India. Time and Newsweek were being sold at newsstands there all over the country, and yet the messages they were trumpeting weekly on their covers was of little or no interest to Indians. In many cases these messages were directly harmful to American interests and destructive of goodwill toward America. The editing was clearly done by Americans for Americans with no thought given to the potential impact abroad. Why they seemed to be oblivious toward the negative perceptions of America they were creating was a mystery. I found it hard to believe they were that arrogant and ignorant. Why Indians were reading this tripe was likewise a mystery.
The situation is worse though. The problem can be more acutely characterized as the self-absorbtion of the Northeastern press. Newsweek is no more concerned with its accuracy about or impact on Kansas than it is on its accuracy about or impact on Maharashtra. Mostly, it’s really Northeastern reporters writing for other Northeastern reporters and perhaps a smattering of sundry Northeastern luminaries as well. It’s a strange sort of suicidal cultural imperialism.
Roger,
I wouldn’t be too hard on NEWSWEEK. They’re just following the MSM path into oblivion. They just don’t, “Get it.” There too obsessed with navel gazing. Their too preoccupied with trying to find another Watergate and casting the GWOT as the new Vietnam, too notice the world has past them by.
We have passed the tipping point. The MSM is no longer the provider of objective news/information of the day.
Go Pajama Media!
The Internet and the Blogos have eclipsed the MSM in that role. We all know who the real foreign correspondents in this war are. They are the brave soles that risk their very lifes to blog the events from within these repressive regimes.
We need to move on and let the MSM sink into it’s grave.
The Internet and the Blogos now have the power to assist in the first digital revolution in history.
For newer readers here, who aren’t bored to tears yet on my broken drum message, read further here:
Link Here
Roger;
Elisabeth Bumiller of the NYT to Scott McClellan today. “Are you aking them(newsweek) to write a story about how great the American Milatary is?”(You have to hear the tape to get the full flavor of the sarcasm)
What I imagine Scott wished he could tell her. Elisabeth, I would never ask anybody in this room to consider writing a story about how great the American milatary is because I know that if anybody in this room tried they would never stop throwing up. All I am asking is that you don’t treat as gospel any rumour that is being spread by former Al Queda and Taliban Islamo Fascists.
Wichita Boy has a point here. When I was farming I would sometimes listen to news reports about agriculture and was amazed at the sheer stupidity of the the people doing the reporting.
We midwest farmers might as well have been in the deepest jungles of Africa practicing arcane rights known only to a few well studied anthropologists.
For instance did you know that farmers paid for the infamous dairy buyout a few years ago? No? Well thanks to the media neither did anyone else. When we were on the farm the government took money right out of our milk checks, kind of like payroll taxes. We had money taken out of our checks to pay for the over all program, the surplus and the buy out. Instead Mike Wallace does a bs story on ‘white gold’ and shows America a picture of a beef cow. sheesh.
I thought right then and there if these guys are as inept, obnoxious and biased about the rest of their reporting as they are about this they are less than worthless.
BTW I thought that film clip of the White House press briefing should be seen by every American. Just who the hell do these people think they are?
PeterUK–thanks, glad you concur wrt BBC; after reading your posts for some long period of time, I’d be surprised (horrified) otherwise! Point is, the tools of modernity are such that the next powerful fascism could well become the eternal end of politics. Not to mention, the end of people who appreciate such things as this blog. You have to wonder about the intellectual depth of powerful professional communictions industrialists who apparently cannot comprehend the hard-won and fragile nature of liberty.
Terrye, that snotty, aggressive, harshly-shouted “Are you the editor of Newsweek?” also boiled my blood too. I almost wish the sgt@arms had come over, tapped the reporter, and escorted him from the room. Let him cool his heels in the hallway, contemplating the utility of decorum.
Terrye raises an excellent point that dovetails with the one I opened up with: almost all journalists are generalists. There is nothing inherently wrong with this–no media outlet can hire (or would want to) the equivalent of a large university to cover every conceivable angle. However, the lack of detailed knowledge makes it critical that journos A) familiarize themselves with the state of thinking of those involved and B) read ALL sources (not just those of their own govt) critically, asking who might have an ax to grind, etc.
Whenever my sister starts dating a new guy, she always holds up his family as so much more enlightened, so much more functional than our own. Why is that? Because she doesn’t know the first thing about them. After a while, she starts to see their flaws and then, shortly before she dumps the guy, really can’t stand anything about them. Between the initial fantasy and the final kiss-off, something approaching balance exists–that’s what journalists need to strive for. As for my sister, she’s currently single in Manhattan…
Bruce W,
That kind of in your face experience is one of the only things that might penetrate and transform the romanticizing knuckleheads of the MSM.
Heh, now, don’t go equating us knuckleheads to the MSM Sturm und Drang gang. Kuckleheads are not willfully so – our affliction is an accident of birth. The MSM purveyors of idiocy do their work willfully, with forethought and malice.
Clio, “…currently single in Manhattan“? She live in Battery Park?
Terrye raises an excellent point that dovetails with the one I opened up with: almost all journalists are generalists. There is nothing inherently wrong with this–no media outlet can hire (or would want to) the equivalent of a large university to cover every conceivable angle.
Agreed, nothing wrong with it. But generalists can’t survive in the deep waters of the internet, which swamp all notions of traditional general-journalism credibility. Pre-internet, information asymmetries allowed the NY Times reporters to get away with fudging and bluffing their way their way through complex or arcane notions– social security, say, or Florida election law or farm subsidies. They had exclusive access to experts; their readers were stuck with lapping up what the Times decided was Fit to Print.
Not so today. If you want to understand social security, for ex., then go to an economist’s website. Brad DeLong is a rather excitable, often nasty, liberal Clinton admin economist, but he knows his stuff and writes clearly, interestingly and in detail on social security. A regular feature on DeLong’s blog is his hilarious eviscerations of incompetent journalists– drawn from across the spectrum, incl the NY Times and the Economist– and their mangling of facts and logic re SocSec.
What is the point of reading the NY Times’ hack’s quotes and storylines lifted from economists when you can with a few clicks go directly to the source? Oh, and DeLong and many other economists actually write better than journalists. The Little Men no longer have a curtain to hide behind.
Prediction: journalists will realize that their only competitive advantage is either gossip ‘n’ gotcha or else opinion dressed up as “analysis.” Which means more partisanship, more opinion, more niche-marketing, more Drudgery.
Very good point, Thibaud…why hire someone to tell you what Joe says, when you can listen to Joe?
Repeat after me, Bill Keller: the internet disintermediates.
Quit trying to charge the end-user a commission for simply passing along other people’s expertise.
Newswreck can print what it likes. It’s a free country. I’d bet they could even put a picture on their cover that they claim is the president’s butt print, taken off his bicycle seat; and they’d be within their journalistic rights to do so. (Man, do I miss Lenny Bruce. And, the ability of comedians to make laughter out of this work.)
Having said that, what surprises me most is that Americans saw that arabs are paying way more attention to a magazine that hardly even gets viewed, here. Let alone that we have much of a belief that Islam is a religion of peace.
Who knows why Isakoff bought this story? But I’d bet he didn’t make it up. That he was pulled in by someone at the Pentagon. Who snared him to make this mistake. Anonymous sources can trap ya, sometimes, ya know?
As to Dan Rather. When he did his fake news, Americans got so angry, it probably gave Bush 4 or 5 million more votes on election day. That’s how Americans are. And, we’re a pretty independent group.
Meanwhile, at least now we know that over in Afghanistan, for all our military efforts, and taxpayer supported expenditures, those folks don’t like us very much.
You think “democracy” is sprouting out all over? Heck, even in Canada, they’ve got a very poor handle on this stuff.
And, meanwhile, here in America, that loser, Barry Goldwater, who once extolled the virtues of “EXTEMISM IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY,” while he lost back then; has seen this piece of garbage reappear in our own toilets.
WHile the dysfunction out of the senate, now, with Dr. Frist threatening to jump; and the democrats, who are in the minority, at least trying to defend this country from a takeover by religious fanatics … can only mean one thing.
We’re watching our own system break up right in front of our eyes.
Carol, I used to have similar feelings about Barry Goldwater. I changed my mind slowly as almost accidentally I learned of the way he lived his live, how he really felt about the nation and it’s people, and what policies he tried to advance. Turns out (surprise!) that image (which you apparently share) is not–in the objective historical factual sense–exactly true. Wonder where it came from? One source might be those who utterly misquote his “Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice“.
These are the same folks, no doubt, who currently hold that a ‘moderate’ defense of Liberty is sufficient against the current existential threat (putting aside for a moment the notion that the senate war over a judiciary that might return abortion-on-demand back to the states, is an existential threat, in favor of discussing the global death-cult 911 jihad variety of threat).
And, I guess if the one side of the cultural war is the army of Religious Fanatics, then the other army must be the Spawn of the Devil. Who was it that was campaigning for ‘nuance’ in politics?
Thibaud–
I disagree regarding survival of journalists in the Internet age. While the Internet is a magnet for subject-matter experts who can pick apart most generalist reporting, those journalists who are smart, intellectually curious and–this is the key–armed with logic, reasoning and research skills can handle almost any subject with fairness and care. It’s those whose bias blinds them to such things who get into repeated trouble.
Junk science, for example, is rampant today. Yet mainstream journalists seldom even question most scientific studies. Why is this? An afternoon’s perusal of statistics books will teach you that most of the epidemiological studies have less predictive quality than the darts (or is it the analysts?) in the Wall Street Journal.
Digging for the truth is not what most of Rick Ballard’s “Elite 500″ are doing. They are digging for something else 90% of the time, and that’s the problem.
Fresh Air,
I’ve no doubt that well-educated, numerate journalists could do a much better job than the current crew. I would dearly love to see the kind of writing you describe. But aside from a few isolated examples, I simply don’t see them. Neither do I see any change ahead.
Who goes into journalism these days?Overwhelmingly, it’s not merely the math-is-hard crowd but innumerates who can’t even research and think clearly. People with lack enough writing ability to follow Roger’s path, enough mental rigor to become a lawyer, enough brainpower to pursue a hard science profession.
The requisite talents in the pre-internet era were enthusiasm, high energy and a nose for news. That doesn’t cut it anymore. Mr Google can outrun and out-speed-dial the swiftest journalist. At the same time, far more of the public have advanced educations than did forty years ago. Legacy media is a buggy whip business.
Sadly, much of what you say is true. I still hold out hope that linear thinkers will someday be transferred out of the shrinking ranks of science and economics reporters and cover domestic and foreign affairs.
But I find modern liberals astonishing weak in general in their grasp of the art of argument. Somehow I think this a large measure of the cause, not simply that many dumbbells go into journalism, which is self-evident. Mandatory logic, statistics and economics courses for all J-school students would be a good start. Maybe a six-month hitch with the military, too.
Mandatory logic, statistics and economics courses for all J-school students would be a good start. Maybe a six-month hitch with the military, too.
There’s a thought. How about war correspondents and military beat reporters who’ve actually, um, served in the military?
As to stats and economics, that’s an uphill battle. People who take those courses want to be challenged by hard stuff (and stats and econ are of course soft stuff compared to advanced math and physics). People who choose journalism as a career usually do so because it’s a soft bed. Bloviate to your heart’s content.
I think the inevitable result is that journalists will morph into bloggers. And bloggers will take on more and more reporting activities.
Complete agreement on the military. Math & physics, though, while nice, are overkill. And since stats is based upon calculus, I’m not sure it’s so soft. Plus, it’s damn useful–as Charlie will tell you.
But, as a J-school grad myself, I have to disagree about the soft bed. Being a reporter is a hard life, and journalism courses are much tougher than the mealy-mouthed stuff dished out the English department. The real education, don’t forget, is not in the classroom anyway; it’s at the student newspaper or internship.
Journalism, I guess, is really a calling more than a science. Passion drives people to it; unfortunately that passion is channeled towards bailing out the leaky boat of liberalism these days, rather than something useful, like reporting the news.
Since I seem to have administered a chloroform to the thread, I’ll stop yapping now.
No, you guys, no chloroform administered. We still be out-cheer a-readin’! And enjoyin’!
“Facts?! Ew! People can facts off computers! I produce infotainment-like journalistic art product!” ó Phil Foglio, Buck Godot
LOL!