Posted on 09/26/2004 7:52:09 AM PDT by SmithPatterson
The Media, Losing Their Way
By David S. Broder
Sunday, September 26, 2004;
We don't yet know who will win the 2004 election, but we know who has lost it. The American news media have been clobbered.
In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.
With these events coming after the editors of two respected national newspapers, the New York Times and USA Today, were forced to resign because their organizations were duped by lying staff reporters, it is hard to overcome the sense that the professional practices and code of responsibility in journalism have suffered a body blow.
After almost a half-century in this business, I certainly feel a sense of shame and embarrassment at our performance. The feeling is not relieved by the awareness that others in journalism not only did fine work on other stories but took the lead in exposing these instances of gross malpractice.
The common feature -- and the disturbing fact -- is that none of these damaging failures would have occurred had senior journalists not been blind to the fact that the standards in their organizations were being fatally compromised.
We need to be asking why this collapse has taken place.
My suspicion is that it stems from a widespread loss of confidence in both the values of journalism and the economic viability of the news business.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Nice try, but the two aren't equivalent. The former was well-researched and adequately documented, resulting in Kerry having to publicly back off at least two of his "war hero" assertions. The latter is a partisan hack job put up between CBS and elements of the Kerry campaign.
David Broder pounds his chest and laments the destruction of the great temple.
Look Mr. Brock the old media has been in the dumpster with the demrats since oh FOREVER!! sir, wake up and smell the coffee all you gabbing nabobs,you should because all the rest of us have been on to you guys for years.
ooops Mr. Broder
You are right. They are trying to use the Rather fraud as a way of condemning the Swifties. Give them credit for trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but there is no truth in equating the two.
Broder is so clueless he doesn't even get it that with his own arguments he's proving why the media has lost.
The fact that the media keep trying to spin the truth to perpetuate their fantasies, such as Kerry being a war hero, is what has caused them to lose crdibility. Yet, Broder keeps tryng with his lies about the Swiftvets' charges.
Inaccurate. The MSM got dragged into reporting this kicking and screaming. FR and the other new media forced them to report it.
How surreal, if you think of it: a member in top standing of the dinosaur press contingent gives ample and amusing evidence of exactly why he and his 'media outlet' qualify for such inclusion.
Where's a good right-wing Beckett or Pirandello when you need one, eh?
Before Broder had sniffed out this self righteous piece of hypocracy, he had committed the very act of malpractice of which he complains:
...a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry...
We're ashamed and embarrassed about you too.
The economic viability of the news business has deteriorated BECAUSE of the lack of values in journalism.
Broder is a prime example right here in this article. He takes 260 vets and totally discounts their story, claiming its a "scurrilous attack" without bothering to take into account any of the things that have been said in Kerry's own words. Broder is as big a dem flack as Gregory, he just has enough pride left to try to disguise it.
The media gave itself over to blowhards and self-servers long ago. They will never recover from their grasp, because the new breed now run the show.
This isn't true. "Others in Journalism" ignored the Swiftboat Vets completely, and would have ignored the forged memos completely, but tech-savvy citizens stepped in to expose MSM hypocrisy and malfeasance. Only after citizens manned the barricades of the blogosphere did MSM elitists respond.
This piece tries to falsely exonerate the MSM even as it indicts it. Seems like the same old same old to me.
Well, I read this far and stopped. Broder demonstrates the grotesqueness of the media problems and doesn't even realize it.
How can he defend his lie calling the Swift Vet statements and book a "sham event" and saying they purveyed "scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam servie of John Kerry"? That is a lie, David Broder. The Swift Vets have in fact exposed several things about the life and times of John F. Kerry.
But THEN Broder goes on: "...a forged document".
A forged docuement?! Why David Broder makes it sound like it's all a big brouhaha over one little slip of paper. He acts as if the media as a whole has not been on an obssessive mission to get something on George W. Bush and they have decided one area of vulnerability is his Guard service. Why, David Broder ignores the AP filing suit to get "all" of the records as if some scandal will be hidden somewhere somehow and then on the scene appear forged documents (plural, you ass David Broder). Context is something these jerks who dare to think they are above us ignore constantly.
Ah, as I type MTP begins and Broder is on the roundtable later in the hour. I doubt I stick around to see his arrogant mug and pursing lips. What a supreme Clymer David Broder is.
LOL...the VRWC made Dan do it.
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