Letters to the Editor
Paul Rosenberg
Published Letters: 995 Editor's Choice: 16
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Odd Man Out
[Read the article: Response from ABC News re: the Saddam-anthrax reports]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]TokyoTom:
Don`t forget Rathergate, CNN-Operation Tailwind and the CIA/Contra/crack stories
Glenn, a useful contrast to the cases where the press should apologize but does not when it acts as a mouthpiece for liars in the administration and military are the cases where it actually does real reporting, but backs down under pressure from the establishment and cans the reporters involved.
TokyoTom's main point is unassailable. But one of his examples is not.
You really do have to examine each case individually, even when they look strikingly similar. Tailwind has been meticulously analyzed and torn apart by Jerry Lembcke in the book CNN's Tailwind Tale: Inside Vietnam's Last Great Myth:
http://www.amazon.com/CNNs-Tailwind-Tale-Inside-Vietnams/dp/0742523284
Lembcke's previous book, The Spitting Image was a similarly meticulous debunking of the myth of anti-war protesters spitting on returning Vietnam War veterans, so no one can seriously accuse him of fronting for the establishment.
What Lembcke finds at the bottom of the Tailwind story is a web of rightwing conspiricism, which had multiple sources feeding one another, supporting one another, and reinforcing one another--but that quickly fell apart once subjected to scrutiny... quite differently from the other two examples.
The fact that this rightwing fantasy had crossover appeal to many on the left is something Lembcke doesn't spend enough time on, but it is quite telling: conspiricism is the strength of the right and the weakness of the left. The strength of the right, because it directly expresses their worldview. The weakness of the left, because it represents an abandonment of the more complex, reality-based structural analysis of history.
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Blaming The Victim
[Read the article: Do national journalists agree with Gary Kamiya?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]pluege blames the people and absolves the media:
1) the quote says the media "completely" failed. That statement is plain false if the truth was available.
2) democracy is participatory and it is work. If the governed fail in their responsibility to do the work (see [1]) that is NECESSARY to be adequately informed than it is the INDIVIDUAL THAT HAS FAILED - they fail the country and they fail themselves.
Here's a very good rule of thumb: if one person in ten doesn't understand you, that's their problem, if nine people in ten don't understand you, that's your problem.
When the truth is available, but difficult to discernce because it's buried beneath an avalanch of lies and distortions, and a majority of people are mislead as a result, then the blame belongs on the the media, not the people. This is the test of their success or failure.
The principle is simple, really: the customer is always right. For the media, this means: the readers are always right. If you can point to a story you did, and say, "Look right here! We told you the truth!" but 70% of your readers have no memory of it, because you passed along so many other contradictory messages, then that result among your readership tells you that you've failed.
A much milder analogue of this is integral to the editing process at our paper. When a story is edited, if the person editing is confused, the writer has to do a rewrite. The assumption is that if an editor gets confused, then a non-trivial percentage of readers will get confused as well. And it doesn't matter how clear you, the writer, thought you were being. The proof is in the pudding: You weren't clear enough. The standard is not what you wrote--the standard is whether people get it or not.
The same is true with respect to the press doing its job to inform people before the Iraq War: The standard is not what they wrote or broadcast--the standard is what people got. And the people, collectively, got lies.
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It's Not The Weekly Standard I'm Worried About
[Read the article: Weekly Standard: Bush has "near dictatorial power"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of course, it's entirely appropriate to write about the Weekly Standard in this context. But it's not them I'm worried about. It's the fact that they are simply expressing quite clearly what seems to be the operative default assumption that forms the background for virtually all foreign policy discussion in our national media, and amongst our political elite more generally.
The whole lot of them need to go back to high school and re-take their class in civics. There is nothing the least bit obscure in the enumeration of Congressional powers. If I were as ignorant as the talking heads who dominate current discussions, I damn sure wouldn't have made the honor roll. The things they don't know were the meat and potatoes of the tests we had to make sure we'd actually read the material.
Maybe we could arrange a switch. Let their kids run the country while their civics lessons are still vividly in mind. And send them back to school where they can learn a thing or two about American civics and history, as well as basic critical thinking skills.