Letters to the Editor
-
Footage
I saw what appeared to be nightvision footage (it was black and white) of the men they shot on the news the day it happened. It seemed straightforward at the time... Men without uniforms carrying AK-47s and running together. I really felt at that moment that, OK, they're carrying weapons they must be legitimate targets.
Things never are that simple, are they? This is probably the single greatest flaw in current American military thinking. The very issues surrounding WHO TO SHOOT are multifaceted and confusing and way beyond the morality inherent in the tragically comic "rules of engagement."
The solution?
Call everybody al-Qaeda. "Shoot 'em all and let god sort them out." Talk about the ghost of American military misadventures past.
-
Body count
If I may make a bigger point: The return of the body count. In the early phase of the afghanistan as well as the iraq conflict, the military was quite proud to proclaim: "We don't do bodycounts". No in both theatres they body conut lustily. A sure sign of defeat.
-
I hesitate to refer to it as "refreshing"
When foreign journalist actually get the chance to expose the man behind the curtain. But as your post yesterday points out, some people just automatically trust certain sources of information oblivious to the fact that
A: Those sources fully control access to the information provided and
B: Those sources have a powerful motivation to lie.
I was wondering when and how you were going to get to that particular Joe Kline article, because I knew, going in that it was a perfect example of propaganda operations in action.
I truly feel sorry for the people who have to operate in a theater where the only way to tell friend from foe is when they open fire on your position. But that being the situation is EXACTLY why its important to be honest about what is happening. The American people are being deliberately blinded no less thoroughly now than they were during the run-up to the war when there was a chemical-weapon missle battery over every ridge. Only now, we know who all should know better which makes the blatant dishonest of the insider press all the more unforgivable.
-
Mirrors In Place of Windows
These people who are reflecting rather than reporting military action should be drawing their salaries from the DOD instead of the New York Times and other media employers, as should every other person calling himself or herself a journalist but not disclosing conflicts of interest, biases and sources of information.
This is fundamentally dishonest, unethical and not only is it unpatriotic, but in some respects, it's criminal when the faulty reporting leads people to wrong conclusions and thus influences elections and votes on issues.
-
Well Said!
And, as usual, something that desperately needs to be said. But if you thought you recieved vicious and personally insulting comments last week, just wait and see what the wingnuts will say about this one!
(and don't expect a christmas card from Mr. Klein either)
-
Malkin
On a similar note...
Arbiter of truth Michelle Malkin traveled to Baghdad earlier this year to get to the bottom of all the lies that AP has been spreading about Iraqi civilians being killed in Iraq's peaceful capital.
The net result of her journey?
Now she has contacts in the press liaison's office of the Multinational Forces and when she needs to pass along THE TRUTH to her readers, she simply posts links to MNF press releases.
Hooray for the truth!
-
Where's David Naughton when you really need him?
Sing along, everybody:
I'm al-Qaeda,
They're al-Qaeda,
He's a-Qaeda,
She's al-Qaeda...
Wouldn't you like to be al-Qaeda too?
-
It's bound to get worse
Based on what I see at the high school level, the corruption of journalism will only get worse.
This past school year, my daughter took a semester-long intro journalism course at my urging. To our surprise, instead of teaching the basic principles of journalistic writing, the instructor simply put the students to work writing articles for the student newspaper. I ended up writing a "journalism basics" handout for her to use. She used it, not because the teacher cared one way or another, but because she's devoted to learning how to do things right.
In my kids' yearbook, I read a paragraph about one senior that left me amazed. She was interviewed about her journalism ambitions. Her goal was to be a "news anchor" for Fox News! I would like to hope perhaps this was satirically spoken, but I know her slightly, and I don't think it was.
At my own high school, kids who intend to pursue journalism as a career are routed into a "new media" class, where they get to take turns reading the school announcements every day on the within-school TV channel. They aren't learning how to write or how to apply their critical thinking skills. They aren't learning how to investigate anything for its accuracy. They are learning how to read with charm and vivacity from a teleprompter.
These are our future conveyors of the "news," folks. They haven't a clue that they're getting it wrong. They wouldn't know "good" journalism if it bit them in the butt. I truly hope that these few observations are not typical, but I fear they may be.
-
Journalistic laziness
>other than a deliberate desire to disseminate Bush administration propaganda about the war, it really is virtually impossible to understand why our media's "reports" about the war blindly assume, time and again, that whatever the U.S. government or military says can simply be converted without investigation or skepticism into what they report as "news."
Glenn - Your use of "slothful" at the end of your post gives a more plausible reason. These guys are too lazy to do their own research, or even to think about whether to insert the word "alleged" into reprints of press releases. This doesn't just happen in war reporting - look at how criminal suspects routinely are described as though they're undeniably guilty. It's the same mindset. These guys get paid no matter how little work or thinking they do, so they do as little of either as possible.
-
I wonder if groups/individuals can sue-
especially military families-when we find these erroneous stories are disproven. Seems fair that the anchorperson/reporter/pundit should be liable for what he says on air. any other person in any other field can be sued for not doing their job. In this case:"doing thier job" means giving the public the absolute most honest answer and covering all of the who,what,where,when,whys of journalism.
(another meta momnet Glen). I was thinking of the differences in integrity between say, a Joe Scarborough, Abrams, Limbaugh to nationally-loved newsmen like Cronkite, Murrow,maybe even Bob Schaeffer:the differences are that these latter examples did not insult thier viewers by intonating,enunciating,pointing out where they saw the flaws or leanings of a story. These were men who read the news with facts. You had faith in them to give you the truth. They were proud of that fact and never soldout to corporate lords.Personal integrity has now been replaced by puckered lips. Why even flaunt the fact of an ivy-league education now:an education intended to make a person self-reliant and free-thinking-when one is reduced to simply reading off cue cards like a monkey.
Perhaps monkeys will be the cheaper replacements to do the news in the future.