Posted on 10/16/2007 8:22:00 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
WHAT THE MEDIA SOMEHOW MISSED .... CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY
Retired Army General Ricardo Sanchez made a speech to the military reporters and editors in Washington DC last Friday. The media was quick to quote General Sanchez .. but only selectively. You can read the text of General Sanchez' speech right here.
http://www.militaryreporters.org/sanchez_101207.html
I urge you to do so. After Sanchez finished the speech the reporters couldn't wait to share with the American people his assessment of the war in Iraq. To put it gently, his assessment wasn't mild. Try this quote: "There has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders. As a Japanese proverb says: 'Action without vision is a nightmare.' There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight." He then went on to cite the partisan bickering in Washington as the source of many of these problems, saying: "The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives." There you go ... red and bold ... because it may be one of the most important statements General Sanchez made, and one of the least reported. Here's something else the reporters didn't seem to want to share with their readers; General Sanchez' assessment of the media. I've never heard it said better:
"For some it seems that as long as you get a front-page story, there is little or no regard for the collateral damage that will be caused. Personal reputations sometimes have no value. They report with total impunity, and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct. Given the near instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media, appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry.
"Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change. Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda-driven biases sometimes contributes to this corrosive environment. All these challenges combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America, in some instances. Over the course of this war, tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for our country because of the tremendous power and impact of the media -- and by extension, you individually, the journalists.
"My assessment is that your profession, to some extent, has strayed from these worthy ethical standards and have allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers, and what they see and read on the Web. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases, or agendas."
Again ...well said, General. It's too bad these stalwart reporters don't have just a fraction of the courage and honor that those men and women you commanded have. Perhaps, if they did, we would have seen these comments in print as well.
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.” William Tecumseh Sherman
Yeah, they conveniently missed half of his speech. And the explanation for this? Bias on their part, of course. They’ll publish the part that criticizes the war in Iraq, and leave out the part that criticizes them. Can there be a finer example of biased reporting on the part of the so-called “news media”?
LOL! What a great quote.
Wow, this Southern boy finally has a reason to give Bill the Arsonist a thumbs-up! :)
}:-)4
bump
An honest mistake, I’m sure.
BTTT
GEN Sanchez is giving them too much credit for honourable intentions. IMO. I don't think it's unwillingness. I think is outright refusal.
See, for example, Walter Cronkite and the 1968 "Tet Offensive" ... or Dan Rather and the 2004 "National Guard" forgeries.
I had it posted in my TOC in Bosnia in 2001, just to remind the guys that there were enemies foreign and domestic.
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