Replies

Just like the impending Afghan death at the hands of American G.I's story the New York Times is set to run shortly. They have a very clear agenda and that is to hobble America in the War On Terror and discredit the Bush Administration. Every one knows what these guys in the legacy media are up to. Its not about objectively assessing the importance of current events and giving readers' a fair appraisal of the world around them. For the media elite, a shared template trumps any prior commitment to putting the interests of our country first.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

Since we know that Isikoff considers the news to be malleable like clay, and since we have an unnamed "source," who's to say he didn't simply make the whole thing up from start to finish? Seriously, Newsweek is an agenda driven tree consumer. Since this piece was meant to be an embarrassment to the military up to Bush, maybe there isn't a source beyond Isikoff's imagination.

I hate to say it, but back in days of the Vietnam War protests, with the exception of a few nut cases like John F. Kerry and Jane Fonda most of the protesters were young, irresponsible college-age kids, many of them high on drugs and many of them anxious to dodge the draft.

In contrast, today you have many, many older people in positions of power and influence, not to say privilege, who are behaving in much the same way. Pinch Sulzberger evidently hasn't grown up one wit from the days when he was a hippie war protester. Bill Keller is behaving no better than one of those druggies in Haight Ashbury. Evan Thomas is no more responsible than a crazed Weatherman or SDS leader.

It truly is disgusting. There's no excuse for it.

The Old Media is for all practical purposes above the law.

Aside from the relatively new ability of the private citizen to publicly bust them in a demonstrable lie (as we here did in Memogate), they cannot be policed from the outside. This new private ability is of as yet uncertain potency. For the time being, the Old Media continues able to escape serious financial and legal ruination as consequence of misdeeds of scale and import sufficient to land anyone else in jail or in the morgue.

Unless and until that changes, or they are given compelling motive to honestly and effectively police themselves from the inside, they will continue to do as Newsweek and CBS have done.

It is not sloppiness: It is the ARROGANCE of the Untouchably Safe, playing power games without risk of consequences to themselves.

The mentality behind the MSM? Selfishness, pure and simple. Selfishness and cowardice.
Cheap talk about how bad everyone is who has to make decisions and live with the results - who have to work to a bottom line - makes journalists feel superior to the people who make the country work. That is pure selfishness.
The MSM coheres in the idea that nothing actually matters except PR, and each individual component of the MSM gets good PR from all the others. Provided, of course, that the favor remains mutual. But the moment any person or institution ceases to support the pretensions of any of the others, all of the others will turn on him and drum him out of "objective journalism."
So the MSM is at bottom a mutual admiration society and a non-aggression pact which makes the MSM cohere in selfishness and fear. It is united for the purpose of picking on people who are natural Republicans - people who have responsibilities and who naturally make mistakes because they actually do things.
The result is that the MSM is hyper partisan under its facade of "objectivity"; liberal politicians do not so much lead and direct the MSM as they follow it, and operate in symbiosis with it.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The MSM talking heads must really be into Greek Mythology because each and every one of them thinks they're a media God.

If you defy them they will throw lightening bolts at you from atop The CBS building with scorn, hatred, and shock that the ignorant masses would dare speak out against the news givers.

Little do they know that they're just a pack of mangy old wolves.