Posted on 01/01/2006 2:17:53 PM PST by smoothsailing
Jack Kelly: Shooting the new messenger
An article about blogger Bill Roggio shows mainstream media running scared
Sunday, January 01, 2006
It was the journalistic equivalent of a drive-by shooting. The targets of Washington Post reporters Jonathan Finer and Doug Struck were two of journalism's favorites: Web loggers and the U.S. military.
"Bloggers, Money, Now Weapons in Information War," read the headline over their story, which appeared Monday. "U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage," the subhed said.
"Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey less than two months ago when a Marine officer half a world away made him an offer he couldn't refuse," the story began.
The insinuation of the headline and the opening paragraph is that Mr. Roggio was recruited and paid by the Marines to write favorable things about military operations in Iraq.
Drive-by shootings are notoriously inaccurate, and the story by Mr. Finer and Mr. Struck contained so many errors it should be an embarrassment to The Washington Post.
Here are the facts: Lt. Col. Christopher Starling, the operations officer for the 2nd Regimental Combat Team, 2nd Marine Division, did a Web search for stories on Operation Matador, which the 2nd RCT had conducted in Western Iraq. He was intrigued by the analysis of the operation Mr. Roggio made on his Web log, The Fourth Rail (www.billroggio.com), and called it to the attention of the regimental commander, Col. Stephen Davis.
"They called my site the command chronology for Western Iraq," Mr. Roggio said. "They basically said I'm the only person who's discussing the operations in context."
Col. Davis suggested to my friend Bill that he should come out to see the situation for himself. So Bill....
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I love the smell of the WP imploding in the morning...
bump
Thank goodness for the Internet.
What is surprising about two hack journalists like Finer and Struck not letting the truth get in the way of their story?
The editorial cartoon is priceless.
Finer should be struck and Struck should be fined.
Right ON!
I think that fits. We do need someone to let us know what is really going on, because it's plain the MSM won't. And about getting paid for it, check out my tag line.
I guess this is the point. One of the happy evolutions in my life has been the developing of alsternate media into a salient, then a force. That the MSM is agenda driven rather than fact driven is beyond argument.
The satisfying part is how diminished is the power of the MSM. Can you imagine how fast Bush would have been run from office over the spying story if not for Rush Limbaugh first, than such sites as NRO and JWR second, then the blog world and sites like Free Republic third, and finally FOX News. It all must be driving the "editors of the Washington Post, CBS and the Minneapolis Star and Tribune to TUMS (with calcium) and hard liquor.
Neither Finer nor Struck would recognize truthful reporting if it bit them on the ass!! They are part and parcel of why the American public rates news reporters below used car salemen in terms of trustworthiness. They should both try to report the way things are, not the way they think things ought to be. Shame on them for this attempted hatchet job! They got caught, now watch the rats run for cover.
you should be both.lol.
Great 'toon
...exposes, what the MSM really fears: the Cold hard facts/ the Truth.
Cartoon is right on target.
Blogging -- doncha just luv it?
Nice catch.
....but their reporting in this instance contained so many errors of basic fact that one wonders how on earth this example of their work made it into print."
The answer, as Mr. Tapscott well knows, is that editors are less vigilant in fact-checking stories which advance their agenda.
True as far as it goes but the real answer is they are no longer even attempting journalism as normally think of it, but have instead become the open propaganda arm of the enemy. In addition, they and the Democrats/Communists/Islamists are the enemy.
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