Posted on 12/17/2004 8:22:45 AM PST by bkwells
A new Gallup survey is rather disquieting for those of us in the media. It finds that not even a quarter of Americans perceive either television or newspaper reporters to have "very high" or "high" standards of ethics and honesty.
There are various explanations for that perception in the eyes of the public. But the belief here is that one major contributing factor is the public's perception that some of what they read on the front pages of the major dailies or watch on the evening news is politically slanted.
Indeed, the public need look no further than coverage of the war in Iraq to see prima facie evidence of media bias.
Take the recent incident involving Edward Lee Pitts, a reporter with the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Pitts sat in on a town-hall-style meeting in Kuwait between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and soldiers awaiting deployment to Iraq.
Rather than simply report the give and take between Rummy and the troops, Pitts got himself into the act. He surreptitiously fed one soldier a "gotcha" question about vehicle armor, that the soldier almost certainly would not have asked on his own, that the reporter knew would put the defense secretary on the spot.
Then, as Pitts later boasted in an e-mail, he "went and found the Sgt. in charge of microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out the crowd."
What was really groovy, Pitts continued, "was that after the event was over the throng of national media following Rumsfeld – The New York Times, AP, all the major networks – swarmed to the two soldiers I brought from the unit I am embedded with."
Then there's Kevin Sites, the NBC News correspondent, who was embedded with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. During last month's military campaign to retake Fallujah from the insurgents, Sites filmed the shooting of an apparently injured enemy fighter by a Marine.
The footage was broadcast not only here in the United States, but throughout the world. It further inflamed anti-American sentiments in the Arab street, not to mention among Iraq's Sunni minority.
Sites denies being an anti-war activist. He professes to be "shocked to see myself painted" that way. Yet, his previous work, featuring photos of captured Iraqis, appears on a Web site entitled "Images Against War." Surely, the anti-war site did not use the lensman's work without his assent.
Finally, there's the Abu Ghraib story. It made worldwide news after a sensational report last spring on "60 Minutes II," featuring CBS News "correspondent" Dan Rather, exposing abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers.
Now CBS producers have never seen fit to broadcast footage of the various men (and at least one woman) who have been beheaded by insurgents (or terrorists) in Iraq. Yet, they chose to air highly inflammatory photographs showing American soldiers mistreating captured Iraqis.
It would be one thing if CBS had been exposing a cover-up by the Pentagon. But the fact is that, a month before the "60 Minutes II" report aired, the Army announced that 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty for degrading Iraqi prisoners.
As it happens, the Abu Ghraib prison photos that aired on "60 Minutes II" were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes. She's the same producer who obtained the phony documents suggesting that President Bush did not fulfill his Vietnam-era National Guard obligations.
Of course, Mapes and her colleagues at CBS News would deny being anti-Bush, would deny being anti-war.
Questions about armor plating for the Humvees used in Iraq needed asking. The story about the Marine shooting an apparently injured, apparently unarmed insurgent fighter needed telling. And scandalous treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib needed exposure.
But as Marshall McLuhan, the so-called Oracle of the Electronic Age, famously said: "The medium is the massage."
Indeed, when stories appear on the front pages of major dailies or air on the evening news offering decidedly negative assessments of America's prosecution of the war in Iraq, or reflecting badly upon this nation's men and women in uniform, many Americans wonder about the reporter's motivation.
In many cases, if not most, the reporter may simply be calling it as he or she sees it. But in at least some cases, it seems, the reporter's story is driven by anti-war bias.
Imagine that! /sarcasm
Ping
I remember the days when news organizations were objective and told the whole story, not just one side of it. One would think after the resounding defeat Skerry was handed despite the MSMs rhetoric & bias they would get the message. Who knows? If they were more fair and balenced like FOX, they might just get more viewers back and raise thier ratings which, last time I checked, was the most important thing to a news network. NAH - that would make too much sense, wouldnt it?
The media has the capacity to control what news gets on the air. When the media is owned and operated by smaller and smaller groups, the news gets skewed.
The spilled cranberries on the table are more noteworthy than the bowl of mashed potatoes and parsley on the same table.
Why? The media crew wants to stick it to the chef and the wait staff.
It just Drives the MSM crazy that we are not sitting in front if the boob tube patiently waiting for them to spoon - feed us what they want us to know.
BTW.....Mary Mapes still has a job? incredible!!!!
When was that, if ever?
Back when there were people like Edward R Murror and Douglas Edwards. They reported the news - good and bad. They didn't attempt to sway the public with opinion. The Corrupt and Biased System began with programs like 60 Mins. where they actually served the public by finding scams and revealing them. Over time, 60s Mins became a vehicle for attacking Conservatives and Republicans.
The schools of journalism began brainwashing students into the leftist agenda. Only students who accepted that agenda and wrote articles that supported the leftist and communist succeeded. Others were failed or had information placed in their academic files that prevented their ability to get a decent position.
The MSM eventually became filled with those who called themselves journalists, but were in reality, hacks for the leftist agenda. They sought out ways to tarnish Conservatives and Republicans and at the tsame time, covered up news that was negative about liberals.
The end result is a totally biased news source. The MSM is up in arms in their efforts to down play the rise and importance of the internet and sites such as this one. Sites that enable Conservatives and others to exchange views on news items and world events without the tainted coloring of the MSM. Now, being unable to totally control what people learn and in what manner they learn it, the MSM along with the leftist in Congress will be seeking ways to legislate, via judical fiats, the actions of primarily Conservative blogs.
I can remember no such time when the media was objective.
Love it and 100% true!
I beg to differ. Even the sainted Murrow fell victim to advocacy journalism with his "Harvest of Shame", CBS "White Paper" Report, not long before he died. He condemned the short handle hoe as an abuse of Mexican Bracero Labor (now you know why we have illegal immigration instead of guest workers from Mexico). However, he neglected to tell the audience that the laborers actually preferred the short handle hoe and after Murrow's program public opinion forced them to use the more difficult long handle hoe.
There is also the matter of the Daisy Ad in the election of 1964 and the networks repeating it ad nauseam, as "News".
No, I don't accept your apology for "journalism". I stand by the same view of reporters as General Sherman: "Reporters are spies and should be shot by supper, but they would only be sending their dispatches from hell by breakfast".
BTW, Look up "Walter Duranty" and the New York Times.
I remember the days when news organizations were objective and told the whole story, not just one side of it.When was that, if ever?
Not in my lifetime. Back in the fifties, journalists and other Democrats were in full cry over "censorship." The whole hulabaloo was captured by a contemporaneous commentator who noted that the whole country was full of people saying that they were being muzzled, and the media was full of reports of people saying that.But if you think that the Iraqi media were full of such reports about Iraq five years ago, I'd like to sell you my interest in the Brooklyn Bridge. Few things are as stupid as saying that you are being muzzled, when your words are reported in the newspaper and you are put on TV in order to say it. "McCarthyism" is bunk - and so is every journalism outlet which says otherwise.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
bttt
When was that, if ever?
Not in my lifetime.
Not in anyone's lifetime. Reporters/Journalists are nothing more than grifters with a pen and someones misfortune to exploit in the media.
"It just Drives the MSM crazy that we are not sitting in front if the boob tube patiently waiting for them to spoon - feed us what they want us to know."
We need to work on the 25% that actually believes what the media clowns put out.
Yup. I noticed one just this morning on our local station ( I do believe it was CBS). They were giving us the latest update on the arson fires in the Indian Head area.
It's funny (har...har) that at the beginning, before anyone had any suspects, the media figured it was Eco-terrorism. Cause so many people in the area did not want the development. But, now that the police are questioning a security guard that was hired by the builders, the media says, "well, since this guy is white (and an apparent hick) and this is a neighborhood with a lot of black families moving in, WELL, this looks like it could be a "HATE CRIME."
First, of all, ALL CRIMES ARE HATE CRIMES. No one hold the monopoly on hate crimes. MSM - GET OVER IT!
Second, and here's a biggy for them to consider..........there is a very, very large population of black families in that whole area. ok? So, how does fit into their equation?
Third, I think that it is time for the MSM to get out of the Tabloid news arena. Just report the facts.
Last, I think that we need less News Channels. Not of them need to be 24/7/365! And, I think that many reports have resorted to making up and speculating stuff just to be able to keep their job. And, to fill in all those hours they are required to be on the air.
I can't believed that this was actually printed in an American newspaper.
bttt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.