Peter Jennings is dead. As is the era of news reporting he represented.

They cried, "Wolf!" before, about the Iraqi WMDs. Now they need to explain more, to concince us to pay attention.

Other journalists? If so, 'nuff said.

Sherman don't play that no more. Set the Way Back Machine for 2003.

"Hey! Did Schneider go to Hollywood Upstairs Journalism School too?"

that to [ABC News], GG is just a dirty f*ckin' hippie? How dare he/we question their pronouncements? They win PEABODY's fer chris'sake!

I don't know what you mean by "illuminating". Although this guy's title is "Senior Vice President of ABC News" his resume actually suggests that he is a PR flack and not a journalist.

If the story turns out to be wrong, will he accept responsibility and resign? I thought not.

I am sure that ABC News has well-qualified reporters with unimpeachable integrity, but the same can be said of the BBC or Al Jazeera, and they don't necessarily always get the story right.

The fact that the journalist behind the story got an award means nothing. Was this a Nobel Prize for Journalism open to all the journalists in the world and adjudicated by an international panel, or was it some kind of incestuous, in-house domestic award?

You speak of the track record of the press in general as a reason why ABC news's assurances of the reliability of their sources should be questioned. But I would go further to assert that ABC itself is one of the worst offenders and is in fact the LEAST reliable of any of the major networks. For evidence, I'd cite this incident:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/senate-democratic-leadership-threatens.html

While ABC news and ABC entertainment are two different entities within the Disney sphere of influence, I would suggest that the brazen disregard of facts shown by the entertainment division and the defiant nature of their response to the controversy suggests that as an entity ABC/Disney has pretty much blown it in the trust depertment.

Need I mention that the 700 Club still airs on ABC/Family?

I don't have the time to efficiently check this out, but wasn't ABC News just as big a cheerleader for the Iraq "war" as all the rest of the corporate media?

I'd perhaps place some faith in McClatchy (previously Knight-Ridder), since they did some seriously sceptical reporting prior to this so-called war, but I do not recall anything similar from ABC.

Am I wrong in that?

If I'm not wrong, then that entirely undercuts their "trust me" meme. They simply have to do better than that. There's probably little I'd agree with Reagan on, but the "Trust, but Verify" quote certainly would apply here. And with no way to verify, and with past history of unwarranted cheerleading for this administration, they should understand that only a fool would trust them on such an important matter as their story laying groundwork for yet another war.

--Ron Robertson

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1604931.ece

All you have to do is go read the archives of Media Matters, Eschaton, Digby, Media Whores Online etc. etc. to see why Democrats can't trust the MSM. They are biased against us and our presidential candidates. They helped sell the egregious WMD hoax.

Attention media whores: we do NOT trust you

gee, ABC News is sure sounding parental these days. Schneider has NO idea that most of us (the great unwashed) do not deem the network news as trustworthy after the snowjob they did before the Iraq War commenced. They've been wrong about everything and they think they deserve our trust? No way, Jeff....to trust you guys these days we'd all have to check our brains at the door.

...to a decision maker, whether in business, government, academia, whaterver, is often in the form "how could you be so stupid?" Consequently, few people (in this case reporters and editors) choose voluntarily to associate with such advisors.

I don't know what you mean by "illuminating". Although this guy's title is "Senior Vice President of ABC News" his resume actually suggests that he is a PR flack and not a journalist.

Spokespeople reflect the views of the people they represent. His defense of ABC News is the defense of ABC News itself, and it reveals what journalists think about the product they create. That's why I found it "illuminating," since the whole thing boils down to an entitlement they have to be trusted.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/abc-entertainment-president-personally.html

I don't have the time to efficiently check this out, but wasn't ABC News just as big a cheerleader for the Iraq "war" as all the rest of the corporate media?

He said a couple of times that Peter Jennings was out there prior to the war aggressively questioning the administration's WMD and other claims and that ABC News wasn't really guilty of gullibly passing on those claims. I don't recall what Peter Jennings said or didn't say about any of that, but I highly doubt that ABC News was some stalwart challenger of prevailing WMD and Iraqi threat orthodoxy, or else that would have received a lot more attention.

But as I said, that's his claim, and I don't (yet) have facts I can point to in order to say it's true or not true.

It never happened and yet the MSM was all over it like white on rice.

Glenn: I think you meant "see" in this sentence rather than "seem".

"They seem themselves as trustworthy and solid professionals with a record that merits great respect and faith."

Glenn's becoming a good pathfinder. Here'a couple of pathfinding tools, in no particular order

1. Follow the money.

2. Remember the first rule of objective "normal, nonideological journalism": Thou shall not think for thyself, seek instead a high-ranking source

Here's some clues and false starts:

Ever watch the tv show Lost? Ever notice that some of the characters are named: Locke, Rouseau, Sawyer, and Hugo?

I think that means something.

Maybe it's just current reading material, but all the recent foibles of the mainstream media (especially journalists whose sense of importance is buoyed by awards or simply name recognition of their employers) seem to share the same root cause as what Chalmers Johnson outlines as an inability to think (he traces it back to Adolf Eichmann's trial, applying it to current powers-that-be). Although it is manifesting itself in different media (no pun intended), the end result in the same; so many journalists have forgotten what responsible reporting is, and have lost the ability to think beyond what is fed to them. Somehow the most basic of high-school level paper-writing instructions (footnotes, references, bibliography) escape certain hoity toity members of the national press, and as far as credibility for those individuals goes, they might as well be writing for a rag in the checkout aisle of the grocery store.