This is a good idea, and I must commend Mr. Hewitt. I suggest that cumulative ratings for reporters be produced, so that we could rank a reporter on the cumulative treason index scale.
Good idea, Miss Marple! Although it seems that THIS reporter, Paul Watson, is working from a rather SEVERE deficit that will be difficult to overcome.
What are the odds that the L.A. Times will print anything that will improve the poor guy's average?
How about a COMBINED treason score for each newspaper?
Although it seems that THIS reporter, Paul Watson, is working from a rather SEVERE deficit that will be difficult to overcome.
From Democracy NOW! - August 19, 1999 :
Story: WITNESS TO A WARAlmost five months ago, on March 23, NATO airplanes dropped their first bomb on Kosovo. A few days after that, thousands of Kosovar Albanians began to be expelled from their homes by Serb forces and paramilitary troops; others were jailed or massacred. With all international humanitarian observers and journalists expelled from Kosovo, there were few witnesses to these crimes.
One of the few foreign journalists, and the only North American, who stayed in Kosovo throughout the NATO bombings was Paul Watson, reporter for the Los Angeles Times. When his colleagues were expelled from the province after the allied attacks began, he turned around at the border and went back into Kosovo, convincing Serb soldiers at every checkpoint that he had the authorization to remain. He closely escaped several bombings, was under constant threat and was arrested three times. From his hotel window in Pristina, the Kosovar capital, he watched as columns of Kosovar Albanians were marched out of their homes. His remarkable story was published on June 20, entitled "A Witness to War." He has continued to report from Yugoslavia for the Los Angeles Times.
Guest:
Related link: Los Angeles Times - To read Paul Watson's articles on Kosovo and on Yugoslavia, including "A Witness to a War," go to today's complete newspaper and click on "NATO Crisis in Yugoslavia."
- Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times correspondent in Yugoslavia.
Journalism students are taught to criticize and mistrust their own country. I see them as dogs trained to sniff out nail clippers when the real monsters are pointing Uzis at their heads and they haven't a clue, because they were never trained to look at the big picture, only to question the US government.
Oct. 2000, Durham City News-
Education: HERSCH, AT DUKE, TELLS ETHICS STUDENTS: BE CYNICAL BUT ETHICAL Pulitzer prize-winning author and journalist Seymour Hersch spoke to students and members of the public last night at the Terry Sanford Institute at Duke on the subject of ethics in journalism. Using his own experiences in the investigation and breaking of the My Lai story in 1969, Hersch employed a relentless, challenging approach to jolt attendees into talking about the ethical issues involved in "getting the story." The essence of his advice: when dealing with government sources, be monumentally sceptical - assume untruth until proven otherwise. Never violate ethical and legal requirements - it damages journalistic credibility immensely. Look to the Internet as the redeemer of aggressive investigative journalism, which is essentially in hibernation right now because of the expense. --- He also predicted that the Cole warship bombing story would take a new twist - with emphasis shifting to the negligence of Navy brass in entering the port in unsecured fashion, without establishing a proper "perimeter," thereby inviting assault. (His prediction is already coming to pass, as CNN is reporting the new inquiry this morning....)
Here is how Hugh could do it: he needs a voting area on his website for articles (unfortunately, not all could be done, but 5 or 6 of the top culprits could be used). Results could be posted after 24 hours, and then move on to the next group. A simple program could do the cumulative averages.
I am quite interested: which paper would get the highest TI score...LA Times, NY Times, or Washington Post? Which reporter would fare the worst? Conversely, we could also run stories from the Washington Times and New York Post.
In my dreams, I see ads which say "The LA Times, with a treason index of 9.5, has attacked our President..."