Games People Play
7/10/03 | William McKinley
Posted on 07/10/2003 3:39 PM PDT by William McKinley
Games People Play
By William McKinley
"If I promise you the Moon and the Stars, Would you believe it?
Games people play in the middle of the night" - Alan Parsons Project, "Games People Play"
The recent fiasco experienced by the New York Times over the creative writing exploits of Jayson Blair should have served as a warning to journalists to be careful over the information they publish. A news outfit depends upon its credibility, just as surely as our society depends upon news reporting in order for people to make judgments over their own governance. Yet it appears that some lessons are not easily learned, as was recently demonstrated by some events which are to this moment still unfolding.
Doug Thompson has been involved in journalism for decades. According to his biography, he has won awards for his reporting and his commentary, and he has worked as Press Secretary for a few members of Congress. He runs a news and commentary webzine called Capitol Hill Blue. Chris Betros is the editor of Japan Today, an English Internet news publication based in Tokyo. Both men find themselves in an uncomfortable position for a journalist, where the story becomes partly about them. I can best describe William Rivers Pitt as a propagandist and a left wing agitator. On July 8th, a sequence of events commenced involving all three that demonstrates that in the aftermath of Jayson Blair, the field of journalism still has not immunized itself from the ministrations of charlatans...
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