"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
| This Week: "You can highlight the controversy" |
"You can highlight the controversy"
Last week, we noted Washington Post reporter Jonathan Weisman's suggestion, during an online discussion, that journalists have a choice between "complicity" and "stenography" -- between ignoring false statements by government officials (complicity) and credulously reporting them without challenge (stenography). When readers pointed out to Weisman that he and his colleagues have a third choice -- to "report[] the ... claim accompanied by actual reporting to determine its credibility" -- Weisman explicitly rejected that option. Weisman went on to suggest that such an approach would be inappropriate "analysis."
Unfortunately, Weisman's apparent belief that it is inappropriate for journalists to assess the truthfulness of the statements they report is shared by many of his colleagues -- an attitude the Bush administration and their allies in Congress have taken great advantage of in recent years.
For example, Jim Lehrer, host of PBS' NewsHour, recently told CJR Daily's Liz Cox Barrett that he doesn't think it is his job to tell viewers that a false statement is "untrue":
[Liz Cox Barrett]: How do you approach reporting what a public official has said something that is blatantly untrue?
[Jim Lehrer]: I don't deal in terms like "blatantly untrue." That's for other people to decide when something's "blatantly untrue." There's always a germ of truth in just about everything ... My part of journalism is to present what various people say about it the best we can find out [by] reporting and let others -- meaning commentators, readers, viewers, bloggers or whatever ... I'm not in the judgment part of journalism. I'm in the reporting part of journalism. I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four. Sometimes they're going to come up with five. Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.
LCB: That goes beyond presenting a claim and several counter-claims that appear to call into question the original claim?
JL: That's part of it. Absolutely that's part of it. I mean, if somebody says -- doesn't matter if it's the president or who -- if somebody says, "It rained on Thursday," and you know for a fact it didn't rain on Thursday, if the person was of a nature that you felt you should quote him, "It rained on Thursday." Second paragraph, third paragraph -- or in television terms second or third sentence -- you would say, "However, according to the weather bureau it didn't [rain Thursday]." But you don't call the person a liar. The person who would call that person a liar would be the person who'd read that story and say, "My god, Billy Bob lied." But I'm not doing that. I'm providing the information so that the person can make their decision. People might say, "Well the weather bureau has lied. Or I was out that day and it was raining ..."
[...]
LCB: Is there any place for writing, "Billy Bob said it rained Thursday. The weather bureau said it didn't. I was out that day and I say it didn't."
JL: I would never do that. That's not my function to do that.
LCB: Is it a newspaper's function?
JL: Look, I'm just telling you what I do, ok? I'm an expert on the NewsHour and it isn't how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.
Lehrer, at least, argues for following the false statement with a contradictory statement by another party. But his approach treats the two claims -- that it rained, and that it didn't rain -- as equally valid, even though he knows "for a fact" that one of them is false.
Longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee took a similar stance during a conversation with Lehrer for a PBS special that aired in June, called "Free Speech":
JIM LEHRER: Somebody who's watching this thing now and listening to us and they're going to read their newspaper in the morning. What assurance can -- what can you say to them, not to worry about?
BEN BRADLEE: I think that you ought to be able to say to yourself that this newspaper is put together by people who are dedicated to finding out the truth and dedicated to the proposition that they're not going to publish any misinformation.
JIM LEHRER: How do journalists, how do editors, how do reporters keep lies out of their newspaper or out of their news broadcast?
BEN BRADLEE: By the seat of their pants, they keep lies out. It's one thing if you know it's a lie. Then you can keep it out.
JIM LEHRER: Sure, just don't run it.
BEN BRADLEE: Just don't run it. But you have to run -- it has become socially proper and right to run what the President of the United States says. And if in the process of that, say, press conference he tells something, he says something that isn't true, you've got to learn how to handle that. You can't come right out, quote the statement and then have a paragraph on your own saying, parenthesis, this is a lie, period.
JIM LEHRER: What do you do?
BEN BRADLEE: Well, you, if it's important enough, you would assign a special story to it and say, when the President said A, he flew in the face of-- there are lots of little euphemisms you can use-- of much of opinion, which says the opposite. And you can highlight the controversy. That seems to me to be quite an intelligent way of doing it.
Bradlee's approach is to report a presidential statement "that isn't true," and then report that "much of opinion ... says the opposite," treating a factual question as a mere difference of opinion.
In June, WashingtonPost.com columnist Dan Froomkin explained the reluctance on the part of many journalists to call a lie a lie. In a column noting that President Bush "chose to lie about" then-Treasury Secretary John Snow's future in the administration, and the press corps' failure to characterize his comments as a lie, Froomkin noted:
Lying is probably the one word mainstream journalists are the most averse to using when recounting what the president said -- even when they know he's not telling the truth. The act of lying requires not just the presentation of false information, but an intention to deceive. Reporters -- and, particularly editors -- are notoriously resistant to ascribe such volition without ironclad evidence.
The next day, Froomkin's Washington Post colleague Dana Milbank made a similar point in an online discussion:
The fact is the word "lie" implies that you know what's in somebody's mind. For example, if what Patrick Fitzgerald has told us is true, Scooter Libby "lied" to the grand jury, because he had to have known what he was saying was false. The president four years ago may well have known what he was saying was false, but that's not provable. I try to stick to what's demonstrably true, and leave the rest to the bloggers.
The sensitivity to the word "lie" that Milbank and Froomkin and Bradlee and Lehrer all expressed is, as far as it goes, correct. The word "lie" does, as Milbank says, imply "that you know what's in somebody's mind" -- and, as such, should be used sparingly.
Unfortunately, the reluctance to call a statement a "lie" all too often extends to failing to note that a statement is false, or even that one of two contradictory statements is more likely to be false. He-said, she-said reporting is a standard -- and damaging -- practice in political journalism.
You don't have to take our word for it. Froomkin and longtime Washington Post editor Barry Sussman recently wrote for the Nieman Watchdog, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University: "Some veteran American journalists see the 2006 elections as offering the press a momentous opportunity to revolt against the status quo of spoonfed soundbites and he-said, she-said coverage." Among the comments highlighted by Sussman and Froomkin was the following, from Nieman fellow Valerie Hyman:
Halt the he-said, she-said coverage. It's insufficient, lazy, and sheds no light on important issues. Instead of spending time getting reaction quotes, test the veracity and authenticity of the original statement. Journalists are under no legal obligation to provide equal space and/or time to opposing candidates. We ARE obliged, however, to expose and illuminate and provoke discussion of critical matters.
In a memo a month before the 2004 presidential election, ABC News political director Mark Halperin both explained the importance of news organizations using their "skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest" and touched on one of the complications in doing so: a relentless effort by Republicans to prevent journalists from doing just that. Halperin wrote:
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.
Last week, we quoted Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Dick Polman's blog post explaining the importance of journalists acting as more than mere stenographers. Polman's post was offered as a response to one of his readers -- a reader who offered a dangerously flawed and all-too-common view of journalism. Polman explained:
Yesterday, after I poked at the Associated Press for failing to fact-check Dick Cheney and thereby allow him to utter a demonstrably false remark, somebody named Anonymous complained that "the AP article was a straight news story. Straight news stories are supposed to report facts and what was said. Separate analysis or commentary articles would then debate the merits of what Cheney said. That's journalism 101."
Back to Dan Froomkin's statement: "Lying is probably the one word mainstream journalists are the most averse to using when recounting what the president said -- even when they know he's not telling the truth."
That certainly seems to be true now, but it wasn't that long ago that the nation's leading political reporters showed far less restraint. Indeed, when Bill Clinton was president, some of the media's most influential voices seemed quite comfortable calling him a "liar."
On June 16, 1999, the CBS Evening News aired a story on then-Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign announcement, during which CBS played a clip of reporter and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer interviewing Gore:
SCHIEFFER: He made the announcement in the little town where he spent summers on the family farm. But as a senator's child, Gore has always been more a man of politics than a son of the soil. Like his dad, he served in the House and the Senate before he was Bill Clinton's running mate. In the White House, he says he wants to champion family values. So I asked him, how does that square with his vociferous defense of the president during the Lewinsky scandal?
GORE: I made a commitment. He's my friend and m -- and my co-worker, and I keep my commitments. I take them --
SCHIEFFER: But he turned out to be a liar.
GORE: -- very seriously. Le -- let me -- let me finish my answer, i -- if -- if I could.
That's how Bob Schieffer described the sitting president of the United States: "[H]e turned out to be a liar."
(For the record, the CBS Evening News segment included an extended exchange between Schieffer and Gore in which Schieffer grilled the vice president about President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Absent from the CBS Evening News report about Gore's campaign kickoff was any mention of why Gore was running or what he would do if elected. We were reminded of the segment by this Daily Howler post.)
By comparison, Schieffer described President Bush as a man of "integrity" during a 2004 appearance on CNN's Larry King Live.
Bush has lied about everything from war to cheese, and yet Schieffer describes him as a man of integrity. But he was comfortable flatly declaring Bill Clinton "a liar." Lying about life and death, apparently, is one thing -- but lying about an affair is going too far.
What is perhaps most incredible about Schieffer's harsh assessment of Clinton is that it elicited not a word of protest from his colleagues in the media (or from much of anyone else.) Imagine what would happen if the host of a network news program, in the midst of interviewing Dick Cheney, referred to George W. Bush as a "liar." Among other things, Howard Kurtz would dedicate the next year of his life to the media's "war on Bush."
But Bob Schieffer isn't alone in taking a different approach to presidential lying now that George W. Bush is president. Washington Post columnist David Broder -- the "dean" of the Washington press corps -- was asked in an online discussion about President Bush's obvious lie about his summer reading list:
Charles Town, W.V.: Do you believe for one minute that George Bush reads (and understands) Camus and Shakespeare?
David S. Broder: Is that a requirement for the presidency?[sic]
Faced with an obvious lie by the president, Broder essentially said, "Who cares?"
Things have really changed since 1998, when Broder said of Bill Clinton "The judgment is harsher in Washington. ... We don't like being lied to."
Broder, Schieffer, and the rest of the nation's political media elite were once quite comfortable calling the president of the United States a liar. Now they hesitate to even say that a claim is factually incorrect.
"The judgment part of journalism"
The typical explanation -- from journalists and observers alike -- for why news stories should not state that a claim made by a political figure is false is that to do so would be to make an inappropriate judgment that is best left to the reader. As Lehrer said: "I'm not in the judgment part of journalism. I'm in the reporting part of journalism."
While shying away from making judgments about matters of fact, of readily-discernable truth, journalists do make judgments all the time. In particular, judgments about how events and actions are likely to be received by the public are a regular feature of political reporting.
We frequently note the tendency by journalists to tout the political advantage Republicans are likely to gain from ... well, from just about everything. Author and blogger Glenn Greenwald made the same point this week.
In other words, reporters often refuse to offer their judgment about matters of fact, but they do offer their judgment about the potential political effects of events and actions.
This is completely backwards.
Consumers of news lack the time, expertise, and, in many cases, ability to determine which of two contradictory statements by competing political figures is true. They often lack the resources to determine if, for example, President Bush's claim to have "delivered" on the promises he made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is true. That's where news organizations should -- but, with depressing frequency, have not -- come in. They have -- or should have -- the expertise and the time to assess those claims, and to report the facts. That's what readers, viewers, and listeners need. That's what journalism should be all about.
On the other hand, as consumers of news, we don't need journalists telling us what the "political impact" of something is going to be; how it will "play at the polls." It's our job to decide that. It's our job to decide who we'll vote for and why; how we'll assess the parties' competing agendas and approaches to the problems we face.
Instead of telling us how they think we'll react, we need journalists to give us the information upon which we can make an informed decision. To tell us the facts, and the truth, and the relevant context. Then we'll tell them the political impact.
"Just coax along flash over substance"
Last week, we highlighted the ridiculous amount of media attention given to the JonBenet Ramsey investigation, particularly in comparison to the relative lack of coverage of a federal judge's ruling that the Bush administration's warrentless wiretapping operation is illegal and unconstitutional.
Relentless media coverage of stories like the JonBenet Ramsey investigation -- or, worse, foolishness like last year's "Runaway Bride" media frenzy -- drives us crazy, as regular readers know. Still, we acknowledged last week that "if news organizations think they can pay some bills by appealing to the public's inner voyeurs, that's their business. Literally." Our objection comes "when they leave stories of actual national significance uncovered, or poorly covered, while devoting massive resources to lurid local crime stories."
Last Saturday, Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten made similar points about the coverage given stories like the Ramsey investigation. But Rutten also argued that news organizations may not be right in their belief that tabloid news is the right business decision. Rutten wrote:
So what's wrong with delivering news -- even faux news -- in which people are interested?
Nothing.
In fact, if you don't do it, you go out of business. But if it's all or most of what you do, and if you only deliver on the lowest common denominator along the whole range of interests normal viewers or readers have, you're not a journalist. You're a pander -- and people instinctively know the difference and make the distinction. You can see that at work in cable news' overall audience size: While playing the tabloid game moves the ratings needle in relation to all the other shows doing the same thing, the overall audience for cable news continues to decline. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center, for example, found that although 38% of Americans said they regularly watched a cable news channel in 2004, only 34% say the same thing this year.
But the ultimate rebuke to his sort of trivial sleaze was administered this week by CNN itself. Just 24 hours after Tuesday's absurdity, the network aired an excellent and extensively reported two-hour documentary on Osama bin Laden hosted by Christiane Amanpour. You remember Osama bin Laden, the guy who killed thousands of our fellow Americans and is lurking out there still, plotting further murder and mayhem? He may not be blond, female or missing, but it turns out a lot of people are interested in him too. More than 2 million of them watched Amanpour's documentary, which made it the network's most watched show this year.
For the moment, we'll let Albert Brooks' character in the 1987 film Broadcast News (Twentieth Century Fox) have the last word:
AARON ALTMAN: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing ... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance ... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.
..excellent article. And it makes people like Stephen Colbert's character on the Colbert Report look less like a parody and more like a real person.
Facts are treated like opinions. You can't have 2 sets of facts because only one can be right. But you can have 2 sets opinions because you can't disprove an opinion.
for propaganda.
Because I was told in many of my college political science classes that it was one of the GOOD shows for getting honest, unbiased, truthful news with thorough discussion of the topics. But it seems that the new millenium brought more than just a change in the first digit of the year...
There is NO DEBATE in this country. No HONEST dialouge where FACTS are proven and LIES exposed. I am tired of jouranlism in this country. It is practically NON EXISTANT. It is almost purely TABLOID news.
...in the average American television-viewer than I do. If "reporters" are only going to give us statements, without making any attempt at verification, leaving that up to us, where will we go to verify anything? I tried to get the username Winston Smith. It was taken. No big surprise there. So I went for the more cynical Yossarian, and I see I was right to do so.
The conservatives have discovered that B-llsh-t is a much more powerful tool than the truth. In depth analysis is tediousand arduous. Very often it is not satisfying when you do get to reality.
BS can be wrapped in star spangled patriotism tied in little Biblical verse bow. Doesn't require much critical thinking on the part of the consumer. BS gets really good if semen is spilt. Truth is limited to ,well, the truth. Bulls--t is limited only by the human imagination.
The administration plays the media fiddle masterfully. We know this.
From 'Network'
Howard Beale: Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullsh*t. Am I still on the air? I really don't know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullsh*t. Bullsh*t is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullsh*t. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bullsh*t. And then, there's the noble man bullsh*t; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullsh*t. I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for forty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don't have any bullsh*t left. I just ran out of it, you see.
There’s a book written long ago, by the author Upton Sinclair, perhaps you’ve heard of it, it’s called “The Brass Check”.
It’s sub-titled...
"Who owns the press, and why? When you read your daily paper, are you reading facts, or propaganda? And whose propaganda? Who furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life? Is it honest material? No man can ask more important questions than those; and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book."
You can see from the sub-title that the subject matter of the book is a subject that would probably interest most of those who visit the MMFA website.
The book was written in 1919. It’s author had identified the “press” in his day as a serious threat to social “reform” and “progress”, and to Democracy itself (a government by and for the People). From the sub-title you see the word “press”, but then only “your daily paper” as an example of that “press”. That was the “media” he wrote about then, in 1919; it was the “media”, there being no TV and radio (and no Internet Wire) in 1919.
Among any number of “propaganda” tactics used by that “press” in the author’s day, was of course the “smear” or the character assassination; whatever slanders and libels the “press” would chance to make, to perhaps intimidate any public person from the public stage, for reasons political or otherwise; and to perhaps do these things for nothing so important as a political purpose, but simply for the reason that scandal and ridicule sell newspapers too.
The author may in part have written this book (an “expose” if you like, of a “media” that holds Truth not as an ideal, but as simply another opponent to trample over on the way to gain) for the reason that he was many times the object of the “media’s” smears and character assassinations and slanders and libels...
You see, he was one of those social “reformers” or “progressives” that the “media” might oppose, as it opposes Truth. Upton Sinclair was a Socialist in his day, and there were actually quite a few back then; they were, as best I can tell, not advocating the overthrow, violent or otherwise, of the U.S. Government; no, as best I can tell from the man’s writings, he was just greatly concerned and politically motivated, by “social issues”; issues such as poverty, wages and working conditions, public health and safety in all it’s forms, women’s rights, pensions for the elderly, civil rights and Justice...
I wasn’t there, but as best I can tell, that’s what those Socialists took as their politics; that was Upton Sinclair’s politics.
Anyway, I post to simply relate an observation of the “media”, of the newspapers, in that day, in 1919.
If we were to think that the “media” back then had Truth as some ideal that it served, we would not only be wrong, we’d be wrong at least three times; because there seems to be at least three things in line and being served by the “media”, before Truth ever gets served:
1. Circulation: Admit it, if the “media” is a privately-owned business, then it’s circulation represents the basis of it’s revenues (and no business ever did well, ignoring revenues). How does circulation oppose Truth? Because if more people are buying lies than Truth, then it’s lies that will be sold; if more will buy sensational, then sensational it is; if ridicule, scandal, slander, and libel are what’s profitable, then that’s what the “media” sells. Twice the circulation is twice the revenues, and half is half; and if lies will double the circulation, and Truth cut it in half, then you do the math, and decide what it is the “media” sells.
2. Advertisers and Sponsors: Admit it, the “media” comes to you with ads and commercials; they are also revenues; those sponsors and advertisers not only ride along, but are perhaps even in the driver’s seat. Will anything appear in the “media” that opposes in anyway the very sponsors of that “media”? Will NBC report anything harmful (however deserving) about General Electric? You decide.
3. Ownership: Admit it, you wouldn’t expect the owners of the “media” to publish or broadcast anything that opposes their business interests or political (or even religious) beliefs, would you? There’s not an employer I know of, who would allow those he pays to go about opposing his business interests or political (or religious) beliefs.
[link to teleread.org]
Good post. There was also a book written in the late 20's by a reporter whose name escapes me about the press of that day, controlled by the elite, which was sucking up to the fascist movements in Europe.
The point about ownership is very good. Look at CNN...notice how much of their air time is spent promoting Time/Warner products. I've read of reporters fired from the New York Times for reporting on bad companies that the NYT had invested in. The 'media' goes out of their way to keep us compliant consumers of shiny trinkets, to actually report reality and demand badly-needed changes would be downright revolutionary. So much for the myth of the liberal press.
I can't believe that people can buy the warped reasoning of these journalists -its actually quite disturbing.
These journalists argue that it's okay if the media is saturated with lies and falsehoods, because the public will be able to decide for themselves what is true. But society goes to the news for the facts! How can they sort out the truth from the lies if the media is unwilling to point out when a politicians statement conflicts directly with the facts?
How is it that one president is nearly impeached for lying, while during the presidency of another, it is a matter of media policy to ignore lies and falsehoods?
The media is necessary for democracy to function properly; society relies on the media to provide them facts about the world in which they live. These journalists are not just making a mess of journalism, they're screwing up society at large.
What this demonstrates is the extent to which these so-called "Journalists" have sold their souls to the right-leaning corporate moguals who run the news industry. They simply lack the guts to respect themselves and say "no" to selling out their consciences. When the conscience goes, and the backbone is also gone there is nothing left. These cowards should be ignored and they should find that no person with a shred of decency wants to be interviewed by any of them.
Bradlee's suggestion for confronting a Presidential lie is to "assign a special story" (containing euphemisms for lie) to it. Polman's reader thinks "Straight news stories are supposed to report facts and what was said. Separate analysis or commentary articles would then debate the merits of what Cheney said. That's journalism 101."
The problem with both is obvious. Separating the fact-check from the lie ensures that the lie will be propagated to many readers, but the fact-check won't (i.e., not to readers -- and they will be many -- who read only the "straight news story"). In other words, this methodology is guaranteed to mis-inform many readers, the very antithesis of a journalist's professional responsibility, ESPECIALLY in "straight news" reporting.
The only professional, responsible approach is to include fact-check context information in DIRECT JUXTAPOSITION to the lie (i.e., in the same or next sentence or paragraph -- not lie printed in lede and fact-check in graf 27). Anything else is simply doing the propaganda bidding of those wishing to insert the lie into the public discourse.
The Society for Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics states in its Preamble:
And the very first point made in the body of the code is this: If we let reporters get away with this apathetic "stenography", we might as well replace them with automated video recorders and save the Big Media bosses even more money to plow back into tabloid dramedies and government shilling. Because certainly what they have come to define as "journalism" doesn't need human beings anymore.Most media has been very diligent about transcribing accurate quotes from Scott McClellan and now Tony Snow.
How can you argue the honesty of perfectly relaying what the spokesmen tell them?
You don't expect them to "analyze" or "question", do you?
I think that would make them activist reporters.Har.
Peer review.
Scientists are expected to have their work reviewed by their colleagues, and I can personally attest that while the process may be slow and occasionally there are personal and other issues but, generally, it works amazingly well.
In medicine, decisions made by practitioners are subject to peer review through mortality and morbidity meetins in hospitals and autopsies (this been decreasing lately, however).
In the law, cases are reviewed later and by higher courts, with the exact kinds of strengths and weaknesses that attend scientic review.
I consider journalism to be a professions. In this case, the need for timeliness may result in mistakes but, just as in medicine, resolution a poor decision in the emergency room is not and should not be the same as a poor decision during a scheduled operation. Journalists should have regular reviews of their accuracy and their attempts to rectify demonstrable errors. Their employers should maintain a staff of senior correspondents and give them the support staff to make these reviews (that's what the scientific journals do). Bob Schieffer should fear the phone call from Cronkite (or Rather, or Wallace, or Bradley) telling when he screws up (as we all do) and then do better. Cronkite should have been fearing a similar call from Murrow (and may well have did). Couric should now be fearing the call from Schieffer (and all the other active journalists-not just in her own organization) when she messes up, and Couric should spend part of her day policing what her colleagues are reporting in light of what is generally known.
I don't expect this to happen, but until it does, the MSM will continue to become marginalized as a source of important information. The danger is, though, that without a system of accountability, we have nothing to replace it. The Blogosphere has no such mechanism as yet, but maybe they're evolving toward one. But I think it would be dangerous to rely on what some person might be writing while drinking beer in their underwear, just because you agree with that person most of the time.
This includes me.
from my typos!
Happy Labor Day.
What is this lie that Clinton allegedly told? Clinton's famous statement was "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.'' And this was not a lie. For Baby Boomer heterosexuals, "have sex" means only one thing, penis-vagina sexual intercourse, which Clinton did not have with Miss Lewinsky.
Clinton also said "There is no sexual relationship" with Lewinsky, a true statement in the present tense at the time it was uttered.
The third and final candidate for Clinton's lie was in response to a question in a deposition in the Paula Jones case that had a bizarre four-part definition that was so convoluted that Clinton was justified in answering "No" to that question also.
In short, Clinton didn't lie, but the lying hypocritical media say that Clinton lied while denying that it is their job to note when politicians lie.
Many media outlets also reported that Al Gore lied in saying that he discovered Love Canal, specifically misquoting him in saying "I was the one who started it all." Al Gore said no such thing. He actually said "That was the one that started it all" and he was actually crediting a high school student with writing him a letter that brought the issue of toxic waste dumps to his attention, and thereby broader legislative response to the issue.
The media also accused Al Gore of lying when he said that Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story was based on him. But in fact Erich Segal did base the Oliver Barrett IV character in part on Al Gore.
In conclusion, the media have had no trouble in falsely accusing of CLinton and Gore of lying, but the media have plenty of trouble truthfully stating that Bush, Cheney, et al are lying.
"I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.'' And this was not a lie. For Baby Boomer heterosexuals, "have sex" means only one thing, penis-vagina sexual intercourse, which Clinton did not have with Miss Lewinsky.
This HAS to be one of the most bizarre defenses of the indefensible that I've ever heard! How would YOU describe what went on between Clinton and Lewinsky that involved contact between her MOUTH and his Penis that would result in an orgasm? O-R-A-L _______!
Too funny!! Really, thanks for that!!
As a matter of common sense, of course Clinton lied. But for the last few years you Bushites have been very adamant that the definition of lie means that one needs to know that what they are saying is untrue, as has been discussed in the article. And by that standard, you're wrong...you can't prove Clinton knew he was lying, since you don't know what his definitions are.
For example, Tommy goes so far as to say that it's unfair to call Bush a liar when he cites a report that does not exist, and there is no other report with the same results. To Tommy, he could have still believed he was telling the truth (how this is possible is never explained), and therefore unless we're "mind readers" we can't call Bush a "liar".
[link to www.commondreams.org]
(and before you scoff at the source, note the article itself is from the Washington Times...hardly a liberal bastion)
So the minute you admit that Bush lied to get us into war, you can say Clinton lied. I'm fine with that. Then you can start rationalizing how lying about oral sex is unacceptable but lying about justifications for war is just fine.
I'm a 25-year newspaper reporter and editor.
Here's how real journos would handle your example about the rain.
It IS our job, during the interview, to gatekeep the fact from the fiction. The bone of contention in your analysis is in the news gathering, not the news reporting, which I'd generally have to agree with Schaefer et al.
In this example, the responsible journalist asks the source, "Where were you that you did not see rain, because the fact is that it rained here?" Perhaps the "lie" is really a mistaken day, or a slip in communication that he was in a different city. He either lets go of the lie, or you clarify the communication until it is reasonable, and do not let go of follow questions until the explanation IS reasonable to any rational person who would be reading your report.
It is irresponsible to assume deception, but it is more irresponsible not to confront it, you see.
I was glad to see, finally, a WH press corp reporter do just that (halleluia) the other day when Bush referred to being in Iraq because of 9/11. The reporter asked, properly, "But what did Iraq have to do with 9/11?" Bush, not lying, replied, "Nothing. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11." I'm quoting from memory, not transcript here. But, then Bush went on to do the usual dance, nuance, etc. to try to rationalize in his code for those who drink the Kool-Aid, why the public should equate the two even though the fact is, as he said, that there is no relationship whatsoever. LOL
THAT was how reporters should behave. If there were any other real reporters with spine in that room, the next one would have piggybacked on that and confronted Bush on just who he was trying to reach with the "freedom/911/Iraq" jibberish after he spoke the truthful fact.
In fact, someone should have then, or sometime, ask him if he is substance impaired while he is on that podium. The same press corps didn't find it embarrassing to ask Clinton if he took a bj, so why should they be shy asking the boy if he took a little drinky winky before coming to the podium?
It's worth noting here, that the part of the August 21 White House press conference to which you refer, is as transcribed...
BUSH: You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived [in Iraq], and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
HERMAN: What did Iraq have to do with that?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
HERMAN: The attack on the World Trade Center?
BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.
...the questioner, HERMAN, is Cox News staff writer Ken Herman.
The question and answer are remarkable, both for the simplicity of the fact, and the complexity with which it's stated.
The president was caught off guard, when in the midst of having invoked both 9-11 and Iraq in the same sentence, by way of saying "terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East", he was asked what those two things had to do with one another; and as we all can read, his reflex response was immediate, brief, and true: "Nothing".
The simplicity of the fact, is made strangely complicated, when as you can read, the transcript shows that following the blurted out response of "nothing", we have the president immediately saying...
BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.
...now, perhaps I make too much an analysis of these words, but perhaps not.
You decide.
But after having blurted out "nothing", the president seems to interrupt himself and make a sentence fragment, "except it's a part of" (and the transcript shows "--", which I take to mean a pause); and then he utters a sentence that has nothing whatsoever to do whatever that sentence fragment, "except it's a part of", might have led to, by saying...
BUSH: -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.
...which I would note, is a statement that in no way whatsoever reads that "Saddam Hussein" had "nothing" to do with "the attack", but instead merely states that "nobody [in this administration] has ever suggested... that".
And this is noteworthy to me, because it is typical of the cleverly worded statements these people make, when they have the opportunity to resort to those carefully crafted phrases.
And I would point out also that the president said to Brian Williams, during his carefully-prepared-for NBC interview on 8-29...
BUSH: I personally do not believe Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said to Al Qaeda, "Attack America".
...in addition to Dan Bartlett's statement to Neil Cavuto, on Fox on 8-31...
BARTLETT: ...when it comes to the plot of 9-11, nobody has suggested that or directly said that Saddam Hussein ordered those attacks.
...and note, that both of these statements, well crafted, in no way whatsoever assert that 9-11 had "nothing" to do with Iraq, but both instead merely state that "I personally do not believe" so, and "nobody has suggested that or directly said that".
And finally I would note, that all three statements excerpted here, each contain (truly) the phrases, in order...
BUSH: ...Saddam Hussein ordered the attack
BUSH: ...Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said to Al Qaeda, "Attack America"
BARTLETT: ...Saddam Hussein ordered those attacks
And if you did not agree that each statement was a carefully crafted way of implying that 9-11 and Iraq may be connected (but that, in order, "nobody [in this administration] has ever suggested... that", and "I personally do not believe" so, and "nobody has suggested that or directly said that")...
Then you might agree that none of those three rather complicated statements were as brief and as true, as was the simple reflexive response, "Nothing".
I never went to collage, but i thought journalism was about FACTS, and interviewing or reporting was about relaying information that is accurate and true. How can Leher make such an idiotic statement, and is he playing tennis with Bush Sr. too, as the stenographer Bob Scheiffer does.
with the fifth anniversary of 9-11 coming up the right wing and a lot of the mainstream media will attempt to deflect attention away from the bush administration's deemphasizing of counterterrorism. this is from page one of the phoenix memo, sent by the phoenix fbi office, dated 7-10-01: "the purpose of this communication is to advise the bureau and new york of the possibility of a coordinated effort by usama bin laden to send students to the united states to attend civil aviation universities and colleges." page 7: "this information is being provided to receiving offices for information, analysis, and comments." and an fbi agent in minneapolis, colleen rowley, was trying to get her superiors to pay attention to zacharias moussaoui, who had attended another flight school, and had info on his computer that might have led to the stopping of the attack. as for the "wall", the fact is that the cia knew about moussaoui, even though he was an fbi target. 9-11 report page 275: "on august 23 , director of central intelligence tenet was briefed about the moussaoui case in a briefing titled 'islamic extremist learns to fly' ". of course, bush had been clearing brush for weeks. page 259: "tenet told us that in his world 'the system was blinking red' . by late july, tenet said, it could not get any worse." of course, bush did nothing. held no meetings and continued his vacation. the center for american progress web site notes: "official annual budget goals memo from a.g. reno to department heads dated 4-6-00, second paragraph she states: in the near term as well as the future, cybercrime and counterterrorism are going to be the most challenging threats in the criminal justice area. nowhere is the need for an up to date human and technical infrastructure more critical." compare to: "official annual budget goals memo from attorney general ashcroft, dated 5-10-01, out of 7 strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism." ashcroft actually had agents investigating porno. and it's well known that ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in july 2001. in sum, it was a deliberate decision by the bush administration to turn their attention elsewhere. the information was there to stop 9-11, but bush was not "on point".
9-11 report, all page 100: "in his state of the union message in january 1995, president clinton promised 'comprehensive legislation to strengthen our hand in combatting terrorists, whether they strike at home or abroad.' in february, he sent congress proposals to extend federal crime jurisdiction, to make it easier to deport terrorists, and to act against terrorist fund raising. in early may, he submitted a bundle of strong amendments." "when president clinton took office, he decided right away to coordinate counterterrorism from the white house." all page 101: "during 1995 and 1996, president clinton devoted considerable time to seeking cooperation from other nations in denying sanctuary to terrorists." "when announcing his new national security team after being reelected in 1996, president clinton mentioned terrorism first in a list of several challenges facing the country." "[counterterrorism chief] clarke was awarded a seat on the cabinet level principals committee when it met on his issues, a highly unusual step for a white house staffer." [clarke was not allowed to do so under bush, and repeatedly denied requested meetings with bush.] page 174: "president clinton was deeply concerned about bin ladin." [unlike bush, who said he was "not on point" about him.] from mother jones magazine sept/oct 2000: "under the clinton administration, the bureau's antiterrorism budget has soared from $78 million to $609 million, while the number of agents devoted to counterterrorism has jumped from 550 to nearly 1400." and the thing to remember is that this was being done when this was not a really big issue with the public, as it is now. clinton was doing it when there was no great political gain, unlike bush, who only became our indispensible savior after 9-11. i think what needs to be repeated over and over is that we no longer have the press we had years ago, when newspapers and media were distinct companies. now the media is owned by large corporations, nbc by general electric for instance, and they are going to defend a guy like bush because he gives them what they want, tax breaks, no government regulation, and pretty much a free hand. the idea that any real truth teller is going to make it with these companies is laughable.
he's the producer of the upcoming abc "docudrama" based [supposedly] on the 9-11 commission report. the interview is frontpagemagazine.com 8-16-06. he claims: "i also expanded my research beyond the commission report which only goes back to 1998, concluding that i needed to go back to the first attack on the wtc in 93." complete and utter lie. under the chapter "counterterrorism evolves", the commission goes back to the beginnings of our national security agencies and has numerous passages on the 1940's through the turn of the century. nowrasteh must have missed this: 9-11 report, page 72: "second, the fbi and the [clinton] justice department did excellent work investigating the bombing [in 93].....as a result of the investigations and arrests, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york prosecuted and convicted multiple individuals.... for crimes related to the world trade center bombing and other plots." he also claims "the 9-11 report details the clinton's administration's response-or lack of response-to al-qaeda and how this emboldened them to the oct 2000 attack on the uss cole in yemen where 17 american sailors were killed. there simply was no response." another lie. you can see in my two posts above that clinton was actively involved against al-qaida. 9-11 report page 174: "president clinton was deeply concerned about bin ladin." bush was not, as he admitted. as for the cole, it did not become clear until the very end of clinton's term that the responsibility for the cole was al-qaeda. in condi rice's 9-11 commission testimony, in answers to richard ben-veniste, she said "i do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the cole...", and she went on to say that doing so would "embolden the terrorists". nowrasteh also said in the interview that abc approached him to do this 6 hour talking points ad for the gop. hmmmm, what's coming up in november? i know, elections for congress. so let's run a total lie about how the democrats can't be trusted with national security. any more doubt about the myth of the liberal media?
there is a link to this interview on the "right wing uses abc docudrama" article. it's "frontpagemag".
Most journalists have by their lack of any real investigative reporting on important issues, such as administration lies after lies about the wars, Katrina, spying, the health of the nation in both health and wealth, which are some of the real issues amongst an ever increasing list of what can be fairly call, The big scam ripe-off, are only helping those in power at the moment who are selling off the family jewels making huge short term profits for coporate sponsers who in turn finance their attempts to hold unto power to continue the rape and pilliaging without been impuned or fear of criticism in any form of substance. Nothing is been said about war-mongering/profiteering, Novaks treasonist act of outing a CIA operative, inflated pricing of medications, fuel, insurance, milk for kids etc or the whole Katrina mess which brought to the fore the forgotton face of mass poverty in this country while billions are squandered on a war of choice. Journalists have a responsiblity to investigate anything they see needs to be looked into without fear of been not needed anymore in whatever news corporation they work for pandering to the administration. The bias in CNN,MSNBC and the farce commonly known as Fox News only displays more and more the slow decline from real journalism to tabloidism. Journalist need to grow back their teeth and claws. Then again if they want to remain wimps they can look at English rags like The news of the world or the Sun for some pointers.
This site spends too much time crapping around with quoting what some journalist said. As though that would ever prove anything. You can't illuminate these issues by quoting reporters. They are incompetent at evaluating their own profession.
Journalists cannot distinguish between two opposing ideas because they are, either by nature or nurture, predisposed not to. They are what are known as "P" personality type in the Myers-Briggs personality classification. There are four dimensions:
I/E - Introverted/Extroverted N/S - Intuitive/ Sensing T/F - Thinking/Feeling J/P - Judging/Perceiving
Journalists are P's not J's. The J knows immediately what he or she thinks about something. To the P, though, all ideas are equally good. The P journalist simply has no ability to determine which idea is better than the other. They are accepting of all ideas. This makes them easy to minipulate, and basically, they will believe anything said by anybody. and report on it. This is exactly what you want on the front lines of news gathering because they provide very little filtering.
In the news organization, it is up to the editor and the rewrite desk to exercise news judgment, apply the filter of their judgment, and to shape the story, that is, the reporting. (Substitute Producer for editor for broadcast and online). To the extent that they do so, the news organization will be functional.
But the editors/producers better be "J" 's. Put a "P" in the editor seat and you have just another "P" who doesn't know a fact from a fiction or a lie from the truth - a disaster in an editor or producer. (Don't be fooled by Bradlee's "P" sounding policies - he's a J.)
If you are a reporter who is a J, then either apply for the editor's job, or become a syndicated columnist.
If you are an editor who is a P, get out your notepad and hit the street looking for the next story and let the professionals who know what they are doing edit the news.
In either case, find the proper match between personality and job and you will be much happier, and so will your editor, or producer, your publisher or network and your readers or audience.
how about a letter from media matters asking abc why they turned over complete control of this "docudrama" based on the 9-11 report to a man who states "the commission report which only goes back to 1998". if he really believes that, he hasn't read it. or he's lying. take your pick.