Posted on 12/03/2005 9:52:27 AM PST by beyond the sea
The American media is up in arms over reports that the Pentagon hired a public relations firm to write positive news stories about the Iraq war and get them printed in the Iraqi press.
But Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad, isn't letting journalists get away with their phony display of outrage.
After the New York Times front-paged the "fake news" story Thursday under the headline: "U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers," Gen. Lynch defended the practice.
"We don't lie. We don't need to lie," he told reporters in Baghdad. "We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction."
Sounds to us like Gen. Lynch was taking a none too subtle jab at the mainstream media's penchant for reporting - not just planted stories - but its own faked news reports.
Perhaps the next time he's questioned about "planting" stories, he'll get even more specific, by reminding the military's accusers of their own sorry history.
Beginning with:
• The New York Times - and the false reports the Old Gray Lady printed about PFC Jessica Lynch - courtesy of Jayson Blair.
• The Washington Post - which won a Pulitzer Prize for its series on Little Jimmy, the 8-year-old heroin addict - which the paper had to give back once star Post reporter Janet Cooke admitted she'd faked the whole story.
• CBS - Perhaps at the next press briefing, Gen. Lynch could inquire as to whether the Tiffany network has yet discovered just who it was who forged President Bush's National Guard records - before Dan Rather committed professional suicide by putting them in the air.
• NBC - Gen. Lynch might offer the Peacock network a hearty round of congratualtions for their relatively good conduct over the last decade. It's been more than 10 years since NBC aired video of an exploding GM truck gas tank - which was faked by their reporters.
In fact, the list of fake news stories reported by the mainstream press is so long it would make even Baghdad Bob blush.
It's good to know that some in the military - like Gen. Lynch - aren't about to let the press' hypocrisy go unnoted.
I really think the only way to "fix" things is the old pyramid sales thing.
Say all FReepers who really care about this, and that should be nearly everyone here, say we write down what is really happening, the truth about Hillary, the truth about the media, the truth about the Dem. Party, the truth about 'Gorelick's Wall' and the treasonous Bill Clinton, the truth about OKC and Flight 800.
Say each one of us took just a few bucks and printed out this "document" and gave it to just 10 or so friends or acquaintances. Say those 10 folks do the same, and so forth.
I think this kind of thing would work.
But, when the document is presented to the 10 friends, you have to sit down with them and be able to answser all questions about it in a direct, gentle, and persuasive way.
I know these things work when done correctly.
We have to pass out the truth, because the PEOPLE are NEVER going to get it from the old media!!!! The old media is Marxist, they have been for 70 or 80 years, and they are out to take this country down!!!
I hear you!
He was golden! Ari had a great sense of humor, that warm engaging smile, was brilliant and calm, and the reporters loved him.
McClellan (God bless him) is not up to the job!
He is helping to kill the administration.
;-)
Right on.
That's a very good idea.
Thanks.................
I do something similar--I email them to people.
You should understand, though, that some people will refuse to believe it even if it's backed up with proof. I've been asked not to email such items by several people, not a lot, but some. They simply refuse to see the truth.
I have the goods on Hillary that will bury her before the 2008 election, that is, if most American voters learn what I have seen written (in her own words) and know to be TOTALLY TRUE.
She is a socialist/communist/Marxist leaning narcissist. I have the goods on her.
If you want the info, I'd be glad to send it to you by FReepmail.
Oh yes, I certainly understand that what you say it true. That is why the personal sit down in their homes or at the job site at church, or anywhere......... is so important. There has to be eye contact and pure trust.
But I know what you say, even under the best circumstances, there are those you just will not yield their ignorance. When that happens ............ you just move on to the next election fence-sitter! It's not easy work, but it's not hard either, and it MUST be done!
In this state, perhaps the most urgent task is letting old-time Democrats know that the Democrat party is not the party they once knew. Many of these are decent, good, hardworking people and believe the Democrats are of the Zell Miller sort--and we all know how few of those rare birds there are in the Democrat party. They believe what they hear from Democrats on the basis of past credibility. Those days are over, and dear hubby and I do our best to let them know this.
Great! The message that will need to be distributed certainly will be different in different regions and states.
Please keep in touch over the years, especially before the elections.
Solution: Liscense all journalists just like lawyers and Doctors, and when they lie? Disbar them as reporters. Make the individuals responsible for their own conduct. Put professional standards in place and compose a canon of ethics for reporters and journalists.
What does it tell you that that is exactly counter to the First Amendment, and that the framers of the Constitution considered the Bill of Rights to be implied in the body of the Constitution? Even if we repealed the First Amendment what you propose would still be unconstitutional!No, the solution I propose is even more radical than abrogating the Constitution: I propose that we actually enforce it. The First Amendment doesn't define "the press," so we should simply understand it to mean printing. Not only newspapers, but magazines and books, are not censored. No only so, but personal speech is uncensored. Free Republic and the rest of the internet fit right between speech and the press, and logically are legitimately uncensored.
But broadcast journalism is peculiar; radio transmission of audio and video ("radio and TV") is a mere technical development like the internet but "broadcasting" is more than radio transmission. "Broadcasting" is government enforcement of a "right" to receive the signals of some particular licensees via government censorship of signals which we-the-people may wish to transmit.
I propose to censor broadcast journalism. It is impossible to regulate it; it is not merely the things they say which aren't so - eg, the fraudulent "Bush TANG memos" from CBS - it is the things which they do not report which manifest the bias of journalism. For example it is news when the economy is good if and only if there is a Democratic president, and it is news when the economy is bad only if there is a Republican president to blame it on.
The criterion by which broadcast journalism should be censored is the claim or positioning of the show as being objective. Ironically it is legitimate, IMHO, to openly broadcast liberal politics. But broadcasters cannot be trusted to be objective; reason and experience forclose that option. That is ironic, of course, in that the original raison d' etre of licensed broadcasting is to do exactly what we know from experience that it will never do.
This has nothing to do with the 1st ammendment. It has to do with professional conduct in reporting the news. Fabrication of news is by definition unprofessional, its not news , its fiction.
Editorial commentary is not news. The simple fabrication of fact is the problem, claimim=ng sources that are fictitious, and unverified facts as if true is unprofessional. No other professionals are allowed to lie professionally and avoid censure: DOctors, Lawyers, Real Estate Agents Police officer, Court Clerks, the list is long.
That standard of conduct should also apply to journalists. Staes by law have the jurisdiction for professional liscencing, usually through the Secratary of States Office. I would love to see it happen.
This kind of thing I could never understand. If you kill America, with whom will the bankers and money lenders do business??
Great thread, BTS
Editorial commentary is not news. The simple fabrication of fact is the problem, claimim=ng sources that are fictitious, and unverified facts as if true is unprofessional.
I don't question that the fabrication is a problem. But the First Amendment is not qualified on the basis of any distinction between commentary and news; the editorial page did not even exist as a seperate entity when the Constitution was ratified. And in fact the First Amendment doesn't allow the government to make the judgement between the two.No other professionals are allowed to lie professionally and avoid censure: DOctors, Lawyers, Real Estate Agents Police officer, Court Clerks, the list is long.You may reply that I have in my prior post advocated exactly that judgement by the government in the case of broadcast journalism - and you would be correct. I do not blush to stand by that, tho, because the government is already judging who gets the FCC licenses and who - you and I - is not allowed to broadcast at all. In making that decision the government is so far outside the Constitution that it is a joke. I am merely advocating that if the government is to license a few to broadcast while censoring the many - which is root-and-branch unconstitutional - the government should not be allowed to license the broadcasting of "objective" news.
That standard of conduct should also apply to journalists. Staes by law have the jurisdiction for professional liscencing, usually through the Secratary of States Office. I would love to see it happen.
Journalism has plenty of codes of ethics. And journalists continually prove that those codes aren't worth the powder to blow them to kingdom come. Because story selection - what gets put on the front page, and what goes unreported - cannot be regulated objectively. The FCC used to have a Fairness Doctrine to balance the liberal and the conservative programming. It was a joke, tho, because while conservatism was limited, liberalism was rampant - but it called itself "the news."
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Right!
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