How corrupt the media?

[Undertoad]

You're right, it's definitely NOT the job of the media to make the case for war. But I still consider it their job to report the big facts on the ground.

The question is to what degree they see that as their job.

I finally found the Amanpour (of CNN) quote I was looking for here:

Said Amanpour: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that she couldn't report.

"It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone," Amanpour said. "It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels."

CNN is one of the outlets that admitted holding back on stories about the regime. On the other hand, they were booted out by Hussein early in wartime, for making reports by videophone instead of from the information ministry, and Amanpour herself was booted out way back in the beginning of the year for some reason I forget.

[Undertoad]

Why the Bush admin. didn't make the humanity case: well now that I think about it, they DID -- the case just didn't "take".

They didn't press it and make it the major point for war, and the reason they didn't do that, I think, is that it's generally a good idea to use only as much political capital as you have to.

There are worse hellholes on this earth and if humanity is the major reason to go, there were several places we should have gone to before Iraq. But the real case for war is a very complex mix of security, needs, interests, international relations, etc. as well as cases that HAVE to remain hidden. Bush could NOT go on TV and say "We need to turn Iraq into a successful democracy because it will probably destabilize Syria and Saudi Arabia, and we can't do that any other way without screwing up the oil market and hosing the whole world for a decade." (I don't know how much that point really sways the case, but you get the idea)

[Whit]

      Ok then, UT. Bush is really fulfilling a noble ambition to make the world a better place. He's using secret info to uplift all of humanity. Sure he is. Whatever you say.

[Undertoad]

I'm a postin' machine! Chris Muir's Day by Day comic savaged Amanpour yesterday for that:

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/?CartoonDate=09/16/2003

And I have yet more thoughts on the topic which are bubbling up! Sorry!

[Undertoad]

No, see, Whit, that's not my point at all. My point is that it was Bush's case to make, not the media's, and our decision to make, not the media's.

It was the media's job to give us all the information. They decided it was their job to either make the case... or savage it. They then decided that it was better for them not to report information because it would have been pro-war.

Instead, they made the decision, and then reported the information to you in ways that you would like if you had come to the same conclusion.

It's exactly the same problem as Fox not reporting information that would be anti-war.

[SteveDallas]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Why the Bush admin. didn't make the humanity case: well now that I think about it, they DID -- the case just didn't "take".

They didn't press it and make it the major point for war, and the reason they didn't do that, I think, is that it's generally a good idea to use only as much political capital as you have to.

As opposed to what actually happened, which was a case study in minimizing the use of political capital? I'm sorry, I still don't buy it. Bush's flacks are masters at getting the press to report what they want to report. If the administration had wanted the humanity case in the foreground, they would have gotten it there. The international community response may or may not have been different, but it could hardly have been worse than where we are now.

Bush could NOT go on TV and say "We need to turn Iraq into a successful democracy because it will probably destabilize Syria and Saudi Arabia, and we can't do that any other way without screwing up the oil market and hosing the whole world for a decade."

When is somebody going to start a "Manhattan Project" for alternative fuels? The only reason anybody gives a damn about these places is that they're sitting on top of oil. Remove the value of that oil and all of a sudden it doesn't matter a whole lot what's going on there. Surely reducing American dependence on foreign oil is a cause that conservatives and liberals can all agree is in the short- and long-term strategic interests of our country? Oh, shit, it would also reduce dependence on domestic oil producers. Never mind.

Besides, I see no signs that anybody really wants Iraq to be a successful democracy. Oh sure, everybody gives it lip service, but again, if they wanted it, they'd be trying harder.

[Griff]

If Bush wanted to invade Iraq without the French tagging along, what better way than to avoid selling the humanitarian angle? Consider the problems for the Bushites if they had to divey up the pie internationally after the invasion. just a crazy thought

[Whit]

      UT, as I said earlier, for that matter lots of people have said, we know the media is biased. It's been discussed a lot on this site. You acted like this was amazing new information. What's more, intentionaly or unintentionaly, you were extremely one sided in what that meant.

From UT:
Anyone anti-war: you have to read this to find out how you got that way --

      The piece you linked was interesting only as an example. Also your last post was the first one in which you admitted the corruption goes both ways. Interesting bit, bizzare conclusion. You've been hanging with TW to much.
      For the record, I got your point. The media shouldn't be biased, agreed. However, I'm no idealist. People should also be able to resolve their differences without violence and no one should ever feel they have to turn to crime to make ends meet. Of course in the real world...

[Undertoad]

Yup, I really haven't done a good job of coalescing my thoughts before I post 'em!

The reason I swung the story that way is because I too have bias -- we all do -- but the real problem, I think, is the corruption.

Or maybe how strangely relentless the bias is?

Help?

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
... -- but the real problem, I think, is the corruption.

Or maybe how strangely relentless the bias is?

It is what Kennedy had to keep demanding of his advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What does he see? What is he being told? What is the environment in which he is being informed? What are his options?

There is nothing unusual or corrupt in that topmost NY Times reporter story. It is how all reporters work to find those brass tacks. Every news organization takes a different approach. Each use different reporters with different SOPs. Overall, the major news media got the story right. They universally kept coming back to the same bottom line - there was no smoking gun in that Weapons of Mass Destruction story. And now they are slowly exposing another fact - Saddam apparently had destroyed in 1996 the last few WMD he had tried to hide.

Even the aluminum tube story was obvious. If one read tabloid versions, then one could never have understood the underlying perspective - to see from where each report was being written. And yet it was quite obvious from reports from so many news organizations that aluminum tubes had no WMD purpose. There was no final 'smoking gun' proof of that conclusion. But from the reports, any claim that aluminum tubes were for nuclear weapons production had almost near zero supporting evidence. Once details in long news reports (the perspective) were considered, then a conclusion was clear: those alumunim tubes were for some other purpose and not for centrifuges.

Jimmy Carter did same thing in Panama. He pretended that the election was fair and legal. He openly decieved so that he could broadcast live on Panamanian TV; that Noriega had defrauded the elections. Would you now call Carter corrupt? He lied? He deceived? But like those reporters, he conived to get facts reported. According to some conclusions here, then Carter was corrupt.

Walter Cronkite was absolutely forbideen by CBS top management (Stanton) to report on VietNam. Absolutely forbidden. So yes. CBS did lie - and yet was one of the strongest sources on how wrong the VietNam war was. Cronkite eventually was permitted to do one special report on VietNam. Extremist hawks openly called him a communist for doing that report. Cronkite finally reported the facts about VietNam - but only once. So brutally forthcoming was his report that CBS (Stanton) refused to permit him to make any more VietNam news documentaries or white papers or whatever you might call them. Yes, the great Walter Cronkite was forced to lie by remaining silent. But like all great news reporters, one fights only the battles one can win. Walter only reported what he was permitted to report. However, those who learned how to also read into a reporter's perspective knew from Walter's report that VietNam was so wrong - that what he said was accurate far beyond what he reported. Walter's one relatively censored report was so accurate (once his perspectives were considered) that even Lyndon Johnson concluded, immediately after that report, that the war was lost.

By taking perspective, by reading those news reports that are long and comprehensive (not Daily News type reports), by compiling information from many different news sources both foreign and domestic, then it was obvious Saddam had no smoking gun that justified war. Today, the reports go farther. Not only did Saddam have no smoking gun. He also had no WMD. And he was not hated by most every Iraqi as Rumsfeld would have us believe.

Reporters are not corrupt. They report as best they can - and try to provide their perspective in that report. In Israel, when being openly censured because Sharon had invaded Lebanon, each reporter added that his report was being censored by Israeli military. Blatantly reporting what their perspective was so that you could separate Israeli propaganda from actual facts.

Even Woodward and Bernstein were called treasonist by so many right wing extremists in those Watergate days. But W&B were permitted to report what many other news organizations did not permit their reporters to report. CBS News was censored by CBS top management - not by quashing stories - but by not permitting their reporters to dig into Watergate. CBS even refused to let their reporter have exclusive copies of the Pentagon Papers. So when CBS News did report a Watergate story, then you knew that report took a herculean effort by a reporter and his anchorman to get the story told. And that there was far more to that story. Again, news is not corrupt. The reader / consumer must also read that reporter's perspective - what it took to get the story and therefore what part of the story is most accurate.
.
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The benchmark of this entire discussion about press and corruption really lies in a benchmark example - those aluminum tubes. Some did not collect enough facts, read enough reports, and appreciate the reporter's perspectives to see that those aluminum tubes were not for centrifuges and uranium reprocessing. The overwhelming information from those "corrupt" news reporters made that obvious - those tubes were not part of a WMD program.

That topmost NY Times reporter story only demonstrates the perspective that reporters must procede to get the story - and how the reader / consumer must learn what the reporter (and his peers) are really saying. Yes, that story also requires reading his peer's (competition) reports. And it requires stories too long for tabloids such as the Daily News. Its not corruption. Its called perspective. One without appreciating the perspective would instead call news reporters corrupt. Even cops sell drugs to dealers to make the bust. Are cops corrupt? Even DAs make deals with obvious criminals. Are DAs corrupt? Perspective; not corruption.

[Undertoad]

"When President Bush informed the nation last Sunday night that remaining in Iraq next year will cost another $87 billion, many of those who will actually pay that bill were unable to watch. They had already been put to bed by their parents."

Is this:

A) A smarmy line in an even smarmy-er blog rant

B) The front-cover tease of a story in next month's The Nation

C) Howard Dean's biggest laugh line in a stump speech in Iowa

D) The opening sentence in a front page New York Times story

(via Agenda Bender, who saw it in The Corner)

[warch]

E. All of the above?

[Torrere]

The humanitarian aspect sure as hell took in the United States. I can't remember it well enough to pin dates to it, but I believe that it became popular when our soldiers started fighting in Iraq.

tw, I can't quite figure out what you're trying to say. What are your examples supposed to show? That reporters are the paragons of morality? That some reporters are corrupt and some aren't? Are you trying to disprove the claim that everyone has bias? Are you showing us that it is the top management that is corrupt? (That is likely -- power corrupts, after all).

Most reporters aren't striving to let out the truth. They flow like seagrass in the tide of public opinion, and struggle feebly to direct the tide.

I'm surprised that tw did not mention the classic case of yellow journalism, specifically Hearst and Pulitzer pushing the United States toward the Spanish-American War.

Edit: English made better.

I applaud those parents that put their children to bed before Bush addressed the nation. Kids shouldn't be watching that kind of indecency on network television.

[tw]

Originally posted by Torrere
tw, I can't quite figure out what you're trying to say. What are your examples supposed to show? That reporters are the paragons of morality? That some reporters are corrupt and some aren't? Are you trying to disprove the claim that everyone has bias? Are you showing us that it is the top management that is corrupt? (That is likely -- power corrupts, after all).

Those words corruption, bias, etc apply if the reporter is the almighty who knows all the facts and reports with intent. That is what too many assume when they accuse the press of corruption. Is it corrupt to report that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched in 45 minutes even though there was no evidence AND that Saddam acutally had no WMD? No. A reporter must report the news. He must report what, for example, the government official claims even if it is obviously or internal sources say it is not based on known facts.

That rediculous claim is from Tony Blair. The BBC demonstrated in details that this Tony Blair statment could not be supported by other sources. Furthermore, the BBC also noted how other Tony Blair claims were based upon absurd sources such as a graduate thesis. That the British government claims were even plagurized from that graduate paper - word for word complete with typographical mistakes. To provide perspective, the BBC noted how other claims were made without valid basis. As it turns out, the BBC was reporting correctly. Tony Blair was all but completely inventing those Saddam WMD claims.

This hurricane is but another example. It was a dud. A trivial storm. But could the press report it in its correct prespective? Ted Koppel said it best last night. That a reporter can only be criticized for overplaying a story. But he can be fired for not giving a major storm its just emphasis. Again, the press did not know how bad that storm would be until late in the game. It was apparent that by hitting the outer banks as a category 2 or smaller, it would not be significant. But they had to play on its worst case scenario. Is that corruption? Of course not.

Its all about perspective. And in those longer news reports are the details so that the reporter can provide that perspective. Those who would read the Daily News or other tabloids don't get anywhere near enough detail to gain that perspective. And so they would assume the press was corrupt, incompetant, or just plain stupid.

Each reporter has a perspective. Not just in what he sees and what his confidential sources are saying. He sometimes must answer to an editor who has an agenda - such as the west coast guy who kept reporting that Vince Foster was murdered by the Clinton people.

Even stories have perspective. That trailer-trash Arkansas girl with a duck beak for a nose who claimed Clinton had sex with her. So they put her up in an expensive west coast beachfront condiminim with a Mercedes - until Clinton was no longer president. Then suddenly all her cash dried up. Many heard her claims. Many did not read those details - such as her expensive plastic surgery - from money that she could not have earned. In those details was enough fact to say her claims just were not credible. Perspective. Many never bothered to read where she did not even know she had to renew the Mercedes registratiion. For anyone else, that was a nothing story. But her traffic ticket was national news because of what was not directly said - who was paying for the Mercedes and its registration previously? It was a report about the story's perspective.

Without that perspective, then one would have to claim the NY Times is a corrupt paper - because they keep exposing all those mythical weapons of mass destruction. Perspective. All those Washington Post reports from Woodward and Bernstein kept suggesting that corruption existed inside the White House. As we now know, the top crook was the President himself. But back then, so many failed to read the perspective. 49 out of 50 states voted Nixon for a second term even though Watergate was somehow completely tied into top White House people. Woodward and Bernstein's reports back then could not say that directly, but the perspective they kept providing said corruption was deeply embedded in that White House.

What word is being used most often in this and the previous post? Perspective. One will never get perspective of the story if Fox News or the Washington Times or 700 Club is their major news source. They will get perspective of political intent. Unlike other major news media, the intent of those three is to report from a political conservative agenda rather than seek the irrefutible facts.

There is no magic sound byte to summarize this concept called "perspective". But if one does not have enough sources and if one does not delve into the details, then one would only blindly says, "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction because the White House said so." Perspective made those claims dubious. Perspective now says those claims were being made knowing full well that no sufficient evidence existed. Perspective said there was no smoking gun to jusitify war. Not bias. Perspective. Better news sources provide the perspective of their reporters and not the perspective of a political agenda.

Are the Washington Times, et al corrupt? Of course not. They state outright their perspective.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by tw
This hurricane is but another example. It was a dud. A trivial storm.
(snip)
It was apparent that by hitting the outer banks as a category 2 or smaller, it would not be significant.

It was apparent to who? The over 35,000 people in Pitt and surrounding counties that got hit with Hurricane Floyd would disagree that only a Cat2 hurricane is a dud. 56 people died in Floyd and subsequent flooding, and it was the 6th most expensive hurricane in US history (according to CNN).

100+ mile an hour winds are NOT trivial. It knocked out power to over 1 million people. I think this was a poor example on your part, tw.

Am I glad it didn't knock out my power and blow my roof off? Absolutely. But doesn't mean the media should have downplayed the significance of the storm, simply because it was only a cat2 when it hit outer banks. I'd really be interested to know if you've been through a hurricane.

Some real (not photoshopped) pics: