Posted on 06/13/2005 10:30:05 PM PDT by CHARLITE
My hometown newspaper is hardly a liberal or conservative rag, as some critics from either side sometimes call it. The San Diego Union-Tribune is a pretty good regional newspaper. Its editorials are mostly middle-of-the-road, maybe conservative only by contrast to some other newspapers. Its op-eds are from a wide range of political viewpoints. Its news columns try to blend newswire stories to achieve more completeness and balance.
Yet like most newspapers, it too often fails to meet basic journalistic standards. This can result in unfairness, imbalance or incompleteness, and sometimes in a functional equivalent of bias by failing to present the complete story. It's as important what is excluded as what is included in judging a newspaper.
Several examples:
My Monday, June 13, edition printed a Washington Post wire story about the debates over conditions at Guantanamo. This facility, for those who are unaware, is where the U.S. imprisons and interrogates several hundred captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Some have criticized the interrogation techniques as too harsh. Although a study, for example, found the overwhelming number of incidents of disrespecting the Muslim bible, the Koran, as having been committed by inmates, worldwide approbation fell on three relatively innocent cases by U.S. military guards.
The Washington Post story read, referring to a Time story about the interrogation of Mohamed al Qahtani: "He was questioned in a room filled with pictures of Sept. 11 victims, was made to urinate in his pants and told to wear photos of near-naked women around his neck. He was forced to bark like a dog and was turned down at times when he asked to pray."
The WP newswire story continues: "The Defense Department said in response that Qahtani's questioning was handled in a professional manner, and he gave important information about Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda infiltration routes."
Pretty balanced, right? However, it is incomplete, particularly in the context of the debate over the proper interrogation techniques to be applied to enemy combatants or the conditions at Guantanamo.
Unmentioned except to say he is "suspected of having close ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers," Qahtani is the 20th hijacker of 9/11, who only didn't fly along because he was turned back at the U.S. airport where he was to meet his fellow co-conspirators. Unmentioned as well is that U.S. trainees in boot camp face worse techniques.
Would these factoids have resulted in a more balanced, a more informative picture for the newspaper reader? You decide.
The point is, U.S. newspapers must rely upon a relatively small number of wire services, from Associated Press, The New York Times and Washington Post, Reuters, Knight Ridder, for almost all of their reporting from outside their cities. And these wire services very often do a poor job of reporting or, indeed, do represent the biases of their sponsors.
The liberal political and social bias of reporters, moreso in national newsrooms than local, and moreso among editors than reporters, has been documented time and time again. The reliance of local newspapers on national newswires, despite their own local standards, too often results in credible local newspapers being compromised. Economics trumps local journalistic standards.
Two other examples from my hometown newspaper.
On May 11, I wrote The San Diego Union-Tribune ombudsperson that the paper had "mimeoed" an Associated Press story that in turn "mimeoed" a press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The story headline said "anti-Muslim hate crimes hit highest level since 9/11." I wrote that the newspaper and AP had failed to mention that FBI statistics belied this false CAIR press release, or that CAIR has among its leadership known supporters of terrorism and its practitioners in the Middle East. No response from the ombudsperson, and no later corrections in the newspaper.
As I wrote the ombudsperson: "Can you Google?... (Can the AP and Union-Tribune) do basic journalism regarding the source and veracity of its source."
On June 9, I wrote a piece (www.poorandstupid.com/2005_06_05_lettersArchive.asp#111832500235820007) for the blog of Don Luskin, a widely read media critic and an economics and financial markets columnist for SmartMoney magazine.
In it I pointed out that the prominently posted Ten Commandments for ombudspersons at their official Web site includes to "(r)espond, somehow, to every call or letter. An acknowledgement may be all that is required," and that the ombudsperson at The San Diego Union-Tribune, who is also executive secretary of the ombudspersons' international organization, doesn't. I had pointed out in this piece that the ombudsperson at The New York Times does automatically acknowledge every e-mail.
She responded to me that night, "I do not have the ability to automatically respond to every e-mailer; no one at the newspaper does." I responded to her, and the newspaper's editor, "Amazing! Even my AOL can. Surely there's someone in the U-T's IT department who knows how. Where there's a will, there's always a way." Even less sensibly, to me, she responded: "It is not a matter of not knowing how. It is a decision that was made by our IT department because of the volume of mail we receive."
The significance of this exchange hit the reader of the Union-Tribune in the face on June 13, in the ombudsperson's own column. There is a major scandal in San Diego regarding its underfunded pension fund and the faults and blaming by San Diego politicians. The San Diego Union-Tribune has done a very good job at coverage, and its editorials have been unsparing regardless of the politicians' party affiliation.
Yet as the ombudsperson relates, on June 4 the paper erroneously reported on the front page and editorialized about it because the reporter did not have a voice-mail message saying he was out of town and, thus, an important correction from the mayor's office was not picked up. A later correction ran the following week on an inside page. As Maurice Stans famously said, when acquitted of Watergate related charges, "Where do I go to redeem my reputation?"
Another example from the past week:
A dogged, experienced reporter followed up with the Boston Globe reporter and editor to release the document it had received from John Kerry, Form 180, that the Globe reported supposedly released his full military records, in order to resolve some of the campaign's disputes. The way the form is filled out crucially affects the completeness of the documents received, and needs verification by independent experts. The Globe (owned by The New York Times) refuses to release the form. This matter has haunted Kerry's veracity for a year, and when he finally acts, it's to only release the possibly incomplete Form 180 to a friendly reporter and newspaper.
As the reporter narrated, in Editor & Publisher (www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000955265), "The Boston Globe made several calls to editors at The Chicago Sun-Times, complaining that I was giving them the kind of unpleasant treatment reporters give sources who stonewall on questions about matters they think are of vital public interest. They were right. I was. And those questions got the Globe to admit they had the SF-180 two days later." Apparently, as to the Globe's journalistic standards, what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.
The New York Times, in May, published an internal report on the need for it to better train its newspeople and to enforce journalistic standards. It acknowledged that earlier efforts had inadequate results. The outcome, now, remains to be seen.
All newspapers need to, also, put far more focus and energy into training in and enforcement of basic journalism 101 standards. There is no reason to believe that conservative newspapers or reporters are less guilty of journalistic failures, but they are outnumbered 6 or 8 to 1.
The issues of "liberal" or "conservative" with regard to the media often pale in the face of sheer incompetence or hypocritical self-defensiveness.
Bruce Kesler is a regular contributor to The Augusta Free Press.
To often, I see otherwise fair newspapers print biased AP stories without any verification of the truthfulness or fairness of same.
The San Diego Union Buffoon does a miserable job of original reporting. If you listen to the local Roger Hedgecock show, you'll hear local stories -- like the city council deliberately underfunding the pension system, or the horrifyingly bad Chargers stadium deal -- that will be covered days or weeks later, if at all. It's pretty much a house organ of the local political structure and doesn't rock the boat lest the businesses who are so chummy with City Hall pull their ads.
Disband the Pulitzer Committee, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of standards of objectivity arise, but, absent that, virtually every clown and/or clownette who draws a paycheck from a newspaper/magazine will take a shot at the brass ring of a Pulitzer, and ''standards'' be damned.
The fallacy in that is that the very definition of news is anticonservative. What is not interesting is no news. The fact that you did a day's work yesterday is not news; you work every weekday.Say you build houses. Your life's work might be tantamount to the complete construction of several houses (you don't do the whole job yourself, and you buy materials, but your own work output figures out to maybe as much as ten or twenty houses worth of effort over a lifetime. Your life's work will never make the newspapers except as ads for the houses you build. And the odds are that none of your houses will burn down in your lifetime. But for that very reason, it would be news if one of them did burn down.
You build the house gradually, but if it burns down the change is sudden and unexpected - it is news. People who go into the news business understand that they are in the bad news business. And they hammer out bad news on deadline. They don't just report because something happened, they report because the deadline is coming. There is something about that process that should creep a conservative out; it is negative and superficial.
And the third characteristic of journalism is its claim of objectivity. That should creep a conservative out for the simple reason that it is a vice - arrogance - to claim a virtue. And all "mainstream" journalists are in cahoots when it comes to claiming objectivity for mainstream journalism. You don't see NBC ripping CBS a new one over the fraudulent TANG memos; "the dog ate my homework" from CBS is greeted with perfect credulousness by the "tough" reporters of NBC.
Journalism is arrogant, negative, and superficial. There is no reason to expect that it will not be anticonservative. In fact, liberalism is simply politicians toadying up to journalists to get postive PR.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Meida bias bump.
[[To often, I see otherwise fair newspapers print biased AP stories without any verification of the truthfulness or fairness of same.]]
You hit the nail right on the head. It's called "cut and paste" in computer lingo. Bloggers get accused of it all the time yet the print media gets a free pass.
It's as important what is excluded as what is included in judging a newspaper.
$$$$$$
This is a very important concept to share with people who are only marginally interested in "news." So much of today's events are ignored by our media.
Having spent three months at MCRD in San Diego in 1960 I can testify to that. If these reporters were to talk to a few exMarines they might gain some perspective.
Listen up you sh*t birds...assume the chinese torture position? LOL.
A question I asked on another thread I'd like youse guys to consider: Given the competing "media" since the early days of the republic until recent times, how and why did the "progressive" side come to prevail? Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.
FGS
.....how and why did the "progressive" side come to prevail.....
Interesting question.
If you ask any Arab, they will tell you the American press is controlled by the Jewish establishment. The Jewish establishmnet is predominently liberal, therefore the press is predominently liberal. Tme money controls the agenda.
Now that's liable to draw some fire. But, it possible enough, at least on its face. Also, my gut tells me there's something else, that a liberal Jewish influence may not the complete or only answer.
Tme money controls the agenda.
The "bottom line" in all things, eh? The love of money(power) is the root of all evil? Simple as that? I have a problem getting my simple mind around this whole thing, so I'll hafta work on connecting the dots.
But I'll tell you something bert, whatever the reason(s) for the media's depths of depravity, it's not isolated to this country. It's a worldwide phenomenon; the 800 pound gorilla; the elephant in the living room. Where do we start?
FGS
I've thought of [that] question myself on more than one occasion, my friend.
Interestingly I noticed that ilk seems to permeate certain occupations more than others, also.
Various low-level government positions, much of academia {spit} all pay below average salaries as opposed to [the] more respectable, private sector occupations.
There are of course exceptions but they're rare and so by & large it's true.
Check it out for yourself & see what I mean.
Ever heard of a well paid "activist"?
And how many urinalists, academics (outside the collegiate level) or workers at the SSA, HUD etc are pulling down anything meaningful in the way of money?
The losers seem to have *gravitated* to very specific areas of &/or within our society, possibly because the performance expectation(s) are quite low for those jobs.
~eh?
What's worse is many -- if not all -- of these low level positions are within the governmental bureaucracy we all rely on so heavily, are quite numerous and all have a critical impact on our society -- in a cumulative sort of way -- in one form or another.
Go ahead and unionize the kinds of numbers those positions command -- as they have -- and it isn't long before there's real trouble.
Interestingly enough when the Liberal-Socialist Left was busy *factoring* out what made us "United" and what it'd take to topple the "old" Establishment some years back, all we heard were terms like "Institutionalized" racism, bigotry, elitism etc ad infinitum ad nauseum
Remember?
Welllll now-a-days *they've* assumed -- & staff -- virtually all those positions and insodoing the term "Institutionaized" has come to mean something quite different, even though the term essentially describes the similar condition?
Now -- like so many other things we thought we once knew so well -- the term's taken on the obligatory Liberal-Socialist twist.
"Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated."
Well FWIW, that's it. :o)
The whole putrid situation's now "Institutionalized Ignorance" complete with *real* institutions filled to overflowing with Liberal-Socialist *nuts*.
We can honestly say not only do we know where the inmates are but they're also running the institution(s).
But the insanity only begins with such a revelation y'know, because guess who's paying the nuts wages regardless the amount?
Yup, us.
Damn.
That suggests another question which we must now grapple with, which I really didn't mean to do.
Just who *are* the real *nuts*??
Guess it'd all depend on what the *meaning* of "nuts" is today, huh.
... ;^)
Well yeah. Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, Crankcase, etc; Rockefeller, Soros, "Shakedown" Jackson, Kerry(by marriage), etc; assorted Hollyweirdos, tenured perfessers.... There's a few moneyed activists. They just don't call themselves that, nor does the MSM. They are driven by sensitivity and compassion for their fellow man(puke!). Now their minions on the other hand, want, maybe require, leadership. Hence, their activist attachment to the nanny state?
Interestingly enough when the Liberal-Socialist Left was busy *factoring* out what made us "United" and what it'd take to topple the "old" Establishment some years back, all we heard were terms like "Institutionalized" racism, bigotry, elitism etc ad infinitum ad nauseum Remember?
Yep. The thrust to our society's weak underbelly. "They"(whoever "they" are) know the weaknesses of the human condidion. Worked too....so far.
That suggests another question which we must now grapple with, which I really didn't mean to do. Just who *are* the real *nuts*??
Heh, being taken for a ride are we? And we're told to just sit back and enjoy the scenery.....on our nickel?
All's I know Dan is I'm getting sick o' their $HIT!
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