Letters to the Editor
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Defining Failure
pluege:
So if the entire media completely failed, how did I know these things BEFORE the invasion
You're defining success by whether an individual (you), paying careful attention, and discounting the frequent repetition of lies and their kin (unjustified inferences, spin of all varieties, etc.) could construct a reasonable picture of what was actually going on.
But this is not why the press is the one profession to receive special Constitutional protection. It is not because of its ability to inform individual smart cookies, while simultaneously misleading a substantial majority of the population. It is because of its capacity to inform the public as a whole. And when the public as a whole believes a whole raft of lies, and the belief in those lies leads it to support, or merely assent to a disasterous, immoral and illegal war, then it is fair to say that the media has failed in its constitutionally protected duty. And when every single faction of the media goes along with the charade, then it is fair to say that every faction of the media has failed.
Indeed, the fact that individual facts were reported, such as you remind us, only serves to damn the media more. For who else is supposed to be more on top of things reported by the media than media professionals themselves? Who else has a greater responsibility to guard the unpleasant truths that power would rather have us forget?
The fact that Knight-Ridder and Gannett (not to mention the foreign press and domestic alternative press) unmasked so many lies that the big boys nonetheless kept repeating is an even deeper indictment of the big boys.
And the fact that the Washington Post ignored its own best reporting.... All I can say is, somebody's gotta bring Dante back from the dead, so he can create a new circle in Hell for them.
Catch my drift?
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What News?
Why should the Fourth Estate be any different from the First, Second, or Third? We humans are atavistic at every stop on the cosmic socio-economic pathway. The more remarkable thing is a propensity for the denial and retribution of the criticized to flourish in the full light of their critics' unassailable arguments for repudiation.
Of course what most think of as the mainstream media - in every medium and in every market - failed to meet the profession's high aspirations for corroboration, verification, credulity, and skepticism in reporting the events and concerns of the nation in the run-up to war in Iraq.
And of course the champions and spokes-people of the mainstream media will deny it, even in the reflective clarity gained from our present understanding of subsequent events.
Worthy of consideration are the ways and means by which critics wrest power from and wield power over the criticized. In the war of ideas (the war of words), the truth will set you free.
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Journalists are the old skool
Frankly I don't give a toss (sorry for my Australiana) what level of delusion national journalists suffer. At least Jayson Blair had the integrity to admit he made it all up. What about the rest of these Bush stenographers and half arsed opinionists that claim to be journalists. They are only fooling themselves if they consider themselves anything more than peddlers of propaganda.
Mainstream (or national) news media has the integrity of the an Enron balance sheet so I treat them as they deserve. Good for entertainment in short burst but not much else. EG When I'm waiting at the hairdresser or Doctor I could watch CNN instead of reading a 3 year old issue of 'O.K. ' magazine. They could replace the National Inquirer with Time and TV Week with NYT. The same level of titillation and lack of truth in all.
I look forward to explaining to my yet to be conceived child that journalists are what we had before blogs. Just like horse and carts are what we had before cars made them obsolete.
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Thanks to Glenn for more great reporting, Plea to contact the FCC
It's important to know that national journalists are so defensive about their pre-war performance.
It's depressing to think how institutionalized corporate and power-serving behaviors are in the minds of journalists. They've literally bought off on the Fox mantra that "as long as I'm showing two opposing positions, it doesn't matter if I'm legitimizing baseless, discredited (power-serving) ideas. "Fall of the Roman Empire", indeed...
It's urgent that we each contact the FCC to advocate increasingly forceful restrictions on wide-scale media ownership in this country.
As I've written before here and elsewhere, it was never the Press' journalistic integrity for which the Founding Fathers imbued it with such value. No, it was always, and only the diversity of opinion and ideas bourn of what used to be independent writers and editors that the Founders pointed to, and relied upon to enable an informed public to learn, sift, sort and make good decisions.
Bloggers notwithstanding, the average Americans no longer enjoys anything like 18th century editorial independence or diversity of ideas in today's mainstream media, and God help us if we cannot get some heaping, steaming measure of it back.
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Outgunned and clueless?
Gary Kamiya wrote, "Watching the mainstream press try to contend with the Bush-Cheney gang is like watching the Polish cavalry galloping up in 1939 as the Wehrmacht tanks approach."
Is that true?
Yes, it's true that most of the press seem oblivious to the contempt in which the administration holds them, and most of the press seem only dimly aware of how the administration outmaneuvers them.
But what truly happened in 1939? According to Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry
Cavalry Charges and Propaganda. . . there were 16 confirmed cavalry charges during the 1939 war. Contrary to common belief, most of them were successful.
The first of them, and perhaps the best known, happened on September 1, 1939, during the Battle of Krojanty. During the action, elements of the Polish 18th Uhlans Regiment met a large group of German infantry resting in a woods near the village of Krojanty. Colonel Mastalerz decided to take the enemy by surprise and immediately ordered a cavalry charge, a tactic the Polish cavalry rarely used as their main weapon. The charge was successful and the German infantry unit was dispersed.
The same day, German war correspondents were brought to the battlefield together with two journalists from Italy. They were shown the battlefield, the corpses of Polish cavalrymen and their horses, alongside German tanks that had arrived at the field of battle after the engagement. One of the Italian correspondents sent home an article, in which he described the bravery and heroism of Polish soldiers, who charged German tanks with their sabres and lances. Other possible source of the myth is a quote from Heinz Guderian's memoirs, in which he clearly stated that the Pomeranian Brigade had charged on German tanks with swords and lances. Although such a charge did not happen and there were no tanks used during the combat, the myth was used by German propaganda during the war. After the end of World War II it was still used by Soviet propaganda as an example of the stupidity of Polish commanders and authorities, who allegedly did not prepare their country for war and instead wasted the blood of their soldiers.
Even such a prominent writer as Günter Grass, who can hardly be accused of anti-Polonism, wrote the following passage, perhaps metaphorically, in his famous novel The Tin Drum:
O insane cavalry! Picking blueberries on horseback. Bearing lances with red and white pennants. . . .
Proper respect! Our White House is much more adept at "catapulting the propaganda" than were the Germans at co-ordinating armor and infantry in September, 1939.
And our press corps is far less effective than were the Polish cavalry.