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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
catbirdman
Published Letters: 36
Great muckraking, Glenn, as always -- but I had trouble comprehending this:
(1) How can ABC News just let these Saddam-anthrax reports -- as false as they were consequential -- remain uncorrected and unexplained, even though today?
Did you mean to write "through today" or was something omitted? Anyway, thanks for reminding me why my kids will never get to visit Disneyland (not with their daddy with them, anyway) -- no way I'm financing that fascist rodent, Mickey!
Hi ABC News,
It's great that you have finally issued a retraction for your erroneous anthrax/bentonite reporting that helped to propel Americans to support the Iraq War. Thanks. I would be more impressed if you would identify the four highly-placed sources who fed you the faulty information -- I mean, they damaged your credibility as a news organization. Failure to identify them will prove that credibility and integrity are not your primary concerns even as ABC News now hypes Iran's nuclear capability (again supported by those highly-placed sources -- maybe even the same ones who gave you the wrong story about bentonite way back when).
As President Bush said, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice . . . won't get fooled again."
Thanks,
xxxxxxx
Long Beach, CA
p.s. I live near Disneyland and have small kids, but I doubt that I'll ever take them there. After The Path to 9/11 and this stuff coming out of ABC News, it makes no sense for a patriotic American like me to give your company my financial support. I hope other sensible Americans come to realize that Disney and ABC have become right-wing shills and reach the same conclusions that I have. You'll have nobody to blame but yourselves.
My one run-in with an overt filter was in 2000, when the LA Times contacted me and many others for what would have been an interesting, in-depth report on an ambitious new approach to endangered species protection in southern California. It wasn't to be a hit piece, but would have a lot of facts on how the endangered species act works that most people don't know about. The piece was finished and ready to run when Bush won the presidential election. The LA Times promptly pulled the piece and it never ran.
I asked the reporter why, after she and a lot of people like me had gone out of our way to prepare this piece of investigative journalism, it was being killed due to an election in Washington that would really have little immediate impact on land use decisions in California. She just smiled and said, "Politics." She was not surprised and didn't seem to think there was anything strange about this decision. Her bosses had to consider all the long-term consequences of running pieces like this, no matter how seemingly arcane. They would self-censor this piece so as not to come across as being out of step with the new American Conservatism that was emerging in 2000.
I write about this incident on blogs every few years, and I apologize to anyone who may have read it before, but I think it vividly describes just how delicate these filters are. Major media outlets -- even "liberal" ones like the LA Times -- filter out stories like this ALL THE TIME. It's just what they do and none of us is supposed to notice it. And if we do notice it we're not supposed to complain about it. Thank god for people like Glenn who don't buy it, who call them on it, and who have a big enough bullhorn to get the word out without the "help" of the MSM.
http://progressive.org/mag_wx051807
Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
May 18, 2007 By Matthew Rothschild
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.
In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”
Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”
He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20."
The White House released it on May 9.
I'm basically a left-centrist, and for more than six years I have honestly tried to be "bigger" than those on the Right, to maintain some semblance of civility, but it's over. Fuck them. They unilaterally tore the country apart and now there's nothing left to say except Fuck The Right. Their claims to legitimacy have all run out, as has my patience. For years I held out hope that cooler heads would prevail -- now I yearn for a long, hot summer. My vote goes to whichever presidential candidate shows the most promise in sticking it to the Right, good and hard. It's all they understand. I'm done taking it and I'll bet a lot of other mostly-centrists are, too.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
