Posted on 08/26/2006 10:01:08 AM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
Fauxtography Defender's Faux News
Turns out that Greg Mitchell, the Editor & Publisher editor who has been attacking the blogosphere like a rabid ferret for pointing out the bogus news from the Middle East, has first-hand experience with staging news. (Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.)
Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?
I never found out. Oh, I went down to the falls, all right, but when I got there, I discovered that I just could not wander up to strangers (even dorky ones wearing funny hats and knee socks) and ask them for their personal opinions, however innocuous. It was a puffball assignment, but that wasn’t why I rebelled. I just could not bring myself to do it.
So I sat on a park bench and scribbled out a few fake notes and then went back to the office and wrote my fake story, no doubt quoting someone like Jane Smith from Seattle, honeymooning with her husband Oscar, saying something like, “Gosh, I never knew there was so much rock under there!”
Of course, I got away with it.
The attitude speaks for itself, I think.
Rewriting History at Editor & Publisher
Unbelievable. After the blogosphere picked up on his 2003 article revealing that he faked a news story while working at the Niagara Gazette, the editor of Editor and Publisher, Greg Mitchell (or someone covering for him), apparently went in and edited the 3-year old article to make him look less guilty: The More Things Change...
Here’s the original first paragraph, still retained in The Internet Wayback Machine. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll.)
Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?
And here’s the edited version: ‘E&P’ Editor Had a ‘Jayson Blair’ Moment?
Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?
This one sends the LGF Lameness Meter to eleven.
UPDATE at 8/26/06 8:58:11 am:
LGF reader Geepers discovers that this little editing job is even more lame than it appears—because Niagara Falls was turned off in 1969, not 1967: Corps turned Niagara Falls off, on again.
The IJC recommended to both countries that American Falls be temporarily dewatered to facilitate a timely and thorough study. The governments agreed, and on June 12, 1969, a rock cofferdam stopped the flow over American Falls. The Falls remained dry until November 25, 1969, when a backhoe removed the cofferdam.
Ping!
I love reading this crap because it gives me ammunition when I ask a liberal who calls Fox News liars, and I ask them what exactly part of the news has Fox lied about, they of course either cant answer or say that Sean Hannity or Brit Hume, of which I retort to say that they arent news but shows bent on discussion of the news and then I bring out the big guns of CBS, NYT and other slimey news organizations that have actually lied.
I just sent Mitchell an email with the LGF link telling him he's been busted...
The MSM whines non-stop that the Bush Admin manipulates the news. I guess they don't want anyone infringing on their former monopoly to do such.
Bwahahaha!
These people are unbelievable aren't they? How can a person who admits to major journalistic fraud even be an editor of anything, never mind a publication aimed at the profession - it's totally unbelievable!
Not really. Even back in Mark Twain and Thomas Jefferson's days, the "news" media were entirely uncredible, viz:
"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house."
- Mark Twain
"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."
--Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819
"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
--Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle... Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1807
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."
- Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman
The only people who think any of this has changed are in the "news" media. And obviously nothing they say or think can be taken as the truth.
Greg Mitchell is a long time mediot sufferer from Bush Derangement syndrome.
http://bamapachyderm.com/archives/2006/04/23/editor-publishers-crusader-greg-mitchell-again/
April 23, 2006
Editor & Publisher’s Crusader Greg Mitchell, AGAIN
Talk about Bush Derangement Syndrome: A Crisis Almost Without Equal (!)
No wonder so many are starting to look for a way to shorten or short-circuit the extended crisis period. Republicans demand a true shake-out at the White House. This week at Vanity Fair online, Carl Bernstein is calling for a Watergate-style congressional probe of possible high crimes and misdemeanors. Even Neil Young is weighing in with a soon-to-be-released song that urges, “Let’s impeach the president — for lying.”
Yes! The biggest world crisis ever is Bush! Neil Young and Carl Bernstein even said so! And all of us Republicans are in open revolt, calling for people’s heads! (WTF? Is he talking about “Republicans” like Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel?)
And as editor of E&P, what does he suggest?
I don’t have a solution myself now, although all pleas for serious probes, journalistic or official, of the many alleged White House misdeeds should be heeded. But my point here is simply to start the discussion, and urge that the media, first, recognize that the crisis—or, if you want to say, impending crisis — exists, and begin to explore the ways to confront it.
I don’t even know why this surprises me–I guess it doesn’t, it just irritates the hell out of me. What an arrogant prick.
James Taranto gets it, spot on:
But it is a crisis for the press. For journalists of a certain age, Vietnam and Watergate were triumphs that they are eager to repeat. It doesn’t look as though that’s going to happen. Our advice to newsmen? Pray. “Lord, grant me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Amen. Now stop crusading and report the damn news.
Tags: Editor & Publisher, Greg Mitchell, BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome, media, activist media, MSM
This is another example of why we must document what the left has said when we are exposing them in lies and spins.
A link to a site can be removed or the info at the site can be deleted or changed as it was done in this example.
I call this documentation of what our enemies have posted or stored electronics, Grampa Dave's First Rule:
First Rule: Document what is at a left wing site instead of just using an internet link. If possible put it's contents on Free Republic or other blog cites. Send yourself an email with what was at the cite, word for word, and the link. When the link is removed or the material has been deleted or edited, then we have proof of the malfeasance on the left. Ping our excellent indexers like Backhoe, milhous, cindy, kcvl or whomever so they can document, index and store the info.
- Mark Twain
I don't think the media term had been coined in Twain's day. He would have referred to The Press, or newspapers, because there was no other media. A Google search of that quote comes up with non-Twain sources.
(Since we are harping on The MSM for inaccuracy, we shouldn't be posting inaccurate quotes on this thread in particular).
Excellent advice. A copy-and-paste posted to a FR thread keeps things easy. However leftist moonbats only fool themselves if they honestly believe they can ever take back anything from the Inet. For example Wayback Machine also enables FReepers to recall when The Democratic Socialists of America proudly and prominently displayed endorsements and portraits of Pelosi and her fellow Democrat travelers serving in Congress. Before Pelosi and her minions got embarrassed and sanitized the DSA site by purging their endorsements and portraits.
Proud member of the Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™ Crew of the FReeping Parasitic Information Gatherers Brigade.
The People President Clinton Didn't Have to Pardon...
Because They're All Dead
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/clintonfriends.htm
If you can give me any sources that contradict the quote being from Twain, I will certainly revise my file. However, I am in apparently quite good company, as all the searches that I have done on the net cite Twain for that quotation, including "the media" part.
That being said, I found at TwainQuotes.com that they list the last portion of that quote as coming from a Twain speech titled "License of the Press". Until I can verify the first portion, I will no longer include it in the quotation.
However, the part about cretins in the press who "fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse" is the pertinent part anyway. And Mr. Twain's high opinion of said cretins in "journalism" is much, much higher and much more appropriately worded than my opinion of them. [grin]
Thanks for the heads-up though. I will continue to research it. Unlike Rather/Mapes, who continue to proclaim the accuracy of their false reporting.
Hear hear. Every Freeper should commit this list to memory. Note that except for the Janet Cook disaster, these have all happened within the past couple of years!
- NYT: Jason Blair
- WaPo: Janet Cook ("Jimmy's World")
- Boston Globe: BG reporter Patrick Healy "clarifies" Kerry's "foreign leader" remarks
- LAT: Brian Walski "combining" two Iraq photos
- CNN: Operation Tailwind, Eason Jordan, "access" in Iraq
- CBS: "fake but accurate" TNG docs
- NBC: Dateline faking exploding gas tanks on GM pick-ups
- ABC: Food Lion reporting fraud (ABC lost civil court case)
- Newsweek: Koran-flushing
- Fox: Well well well...no fake news!
Note also that this is just a partial list!
Sweet! LOL.
abb: wiki also contains an article for Drive-by media. ROTFL.
Proud member of the Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™ Crew of the FReeping Parasitic Information Gatherers Brigade.
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