Letters to the Editor
GlennGreenwald
Published Letters: 2095 Editor's Choice: 18
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Michael Harold:
[Read the article: The Bill Moyers documentary on our failed and barren press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many of the beltway journalists chose to lie for all the wrong reasons.
I don't disagree with you entirely, but I think it's more complext than that. Like every group, "journalists" are a diverse lot. They have different motivations, different skill levels, different goals.
A lot of journalists, including (one might say especially) are quite stupid. They just lack any real intellectual abilities. And so they are prone to being easily manipulated, pressured, bullied, and tricked.
Independently, there are some who know no better - read what that CBS correspondent say - it's what they all say:
Did we report what the President said about his case for war? Of course we did. That's our job. Did we also report that his views were challenged or disputed by others? Absolutely.
Their culture now is that "journalism" means to report that the Government says "X", critics say "not X" - AND EVEN WHERE THEY KNOW THAT "X" IS FALSE - to do nothing further. Many believe that's their role.
Finally, there are some - many perhaps - who know what they did, know it's wrong, and are either scared to admit it or who want to be corrupt. That group definitely exists and I never mean to minimize it or suggest otherwise.
What I try hard to do is confine my criticisms to things that are rooted in empirical evidence, in demonstrable facts. I try not to speculate about things, especially free-form speculation, except when I make clear that's what I'm doing.
Trying to discern someone's motives is the most difficult thing there is. Does George Bush wake up in the morning and say "I am on the path of Good and am going what God wants and therefore will continue," or does he wake up and say: "I know I am lying, deceiving, corruption and pretending to be interested in the moral Good in order to generate profit and power?" Nobody knows the answer to that, no matter how much someone claims they do, and the answer lies, almost certainly, somewhere in between.
Few people are simple or can be reduced to pure and unconflicted drives. Ultimately, to me, what matters far more is their bad behavior, rather than the underlying, always-hidden motives for that behavior. Their behavior can be proven, their motives only guessed at.
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Paul Rosenberg:
[Read the article: The Bill Moyers documentary on our failed and barren press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I found Beinart to be a cipher. He could well have been a sociopath.
There are certain people who rub me the wrong way to such an extreme degree that I actually try not to write about them because I feel like the aniums they provoke will be impossible to contain. For me, Peter Beinart is one such individual.
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Jill Howell:
[Read the article: The Bill Moyers documentary on our failed and barren press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are now four journalists who have articulated this point of view and they have been consistent in stating the opposition party is responsible for challenging what the administration says; journalists have clearly abdicated this role.
I couldn't agree more with everything you said. In fact, ever since I read the reaction from the CBS White House correspondent to the Moyers documentary, that point has been kicking around in my brain because he so clearly crystallized it -- they believe (just as he said) that their duty is to pass along what each side said without regard to the truth -- just pass it along -- and they've then discharged their duty.
There is no duty to investigate it, no duty to find out what is true -- they just repeat what they hear, from government officials and their sercet sources, and that is it. And you're right -- it's the consistent explanation we've been hearing repeatedly from these national journalists in response to criticism.
That is why, as I said above, I don't think they're all conscious, knowing wrongdoers -- for some, the role of journalists are simply to pass along what they hear, and as long as they do that, then they are doing their jobs, and doing it well.