Posted on 04/05/2003 9:22:26 AM PST by Jackson003
It says something about how sincere the news media is in its quest for relevance when one of the biggest stories of last week was that one of their own, Peter Arnett, got fired. A journalism professor once told me that reporters do not get rich, but they do have a lot of fun and when they die they get one heck of an obituary. As of this writing, Arnett still lives, but his termination generated more newsprint and broadcast time than any other American job loss that day. But maybe Arnett’s firing did merit the kind of exposure it received, because when he fell from grace he may have taken pluralism along with him.
Arnett was fired earlier this week by NBC and National Geographic Explorer after he appeared on state-owned Iraqi television to tell his interviewer that American war planners had “misjudged the determination of Iraqi forces,” which had them “rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance.” Arnett lamented that this all could have been avoided if American war planners had only listened to his warnings voiced “many times in my commentaries on television.” He went on to boast that his reports from Baghdad were helping stem the tide of pro-war sentiment in the United States. “Our reports about the civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war.”
NBC was initially supportive of Arnett, claiming in a statement that the interview was a “professional courtesy” to his Iraqi hosts and that his comments were “analytical in nature and…not intended to be anything more.” They backtracked quickly, however, once about 8,000 e-mails arrived at the corporate office in opposition to Arnett’s action, and a media consulting group reported that only 14 percent of viewers thought war dissenters were not getting enough attention. NBC got the message: war dissent will turn viewers away, and advertisers are sure to follow. Arnett was history.
(Excerpt) Read more at americandaily.com ...
They spend too much time reading the NYT.
As for President Bush, the same poll found his approval ratings had climbed to 71 percent, with 54 percent of the country expressing “strong support.” His critics like to claim that this is just rallying around the commander in chief during a time of war, but this is nothing more than aggressive spin by those who live in mortal fear of Bush’s proven ability to rally the nation.
Americans do not automatically support a war-time president. President Harry Truman’s approval ratings dropped so precipitously during the Korean War that he did not seek reelection; the Vietnam War had a similar effect on Lyndon Johnson. Bill Clinton, who is supposedly the greatest political mind of our century, maybe even of all time, could not budge his popularity by ordering troops into combat, and claimed after September 11 that he might have launched his own war on terrorism if he could have mustered the political support for it.
Thank you! I got tired of every good poll result for the Prez being qualified by that "fact"--- "of course, that's just the typical rally-around-the-president bump..."
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