Reality bites in rough year for US newspapers

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=10&u=/afp/20040425/ts_afp/us_media_040425053723

NEW YORK (AFP) - US newsrooms, more geared toward rooting out scandal than generating it, are emerging from a torrid 12 months that severely dented press credibility and dethroned a brace of high-profile editors. snip

Then there was Associated Press reporter Christopher Newton, fired after the news agency found it could not verify the existence of more than 45 people and a dozen organizations cited in 40 articles he had written. snip

In April of last year, The Los Angeles Times sacked a staff photographer working in Iraq (news - web sites) for electronically manipulating a picture showing a British soldier directing Iraqi civilians to take cover from a firefight.


Most recently, in March, the biggest-selling US newspaper, USA Today, exposed a former star foreign correspondent as a plagiarist and fabricator in a front-page story.


The paper said Pulitzer Prize nominee Jack Kelley faked major stories, embroidered others with gory details and appeared to lift portions of material from other sources without attribution.

more

[Enraged_Ape]

1. Gee, maybe they should get back to the business of reporting facts

Just a crazy thought.

[LynzM]

2. I wave the BS flag!!

"US newsrooms, more geared toward rooting out scandal than generating it".... hrm. Well, at the very least, picking and choosing which stories have the most 'scandal appeal' and over-reporting those, at the cost of ignoring stories that truly matter...

[bemildred]

3. What credibility?

When have they even had any credibility?
They are and always have been lying shills.

[nodictators]

8. They're much worse now than ever

Sure, back in the 1920s, A. J. Liebling said, "the freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one."

However, over the years, then until recently, the press, especially the national press, has mustered the courage to tell the truth.

Now, we see a bunch of toadies reporting to the WH every weekday morning to get their propaganda points for the day. Soon, they will show up at the WH correspondents dinner to be the laugh-track for Bush's stupid jokes.

Remember, just a few years ago, the WH correspindents dinner was a "roast" of the president. When they finished their skits, the president would roast the press.

That all changed after Bush took the presidency, and before 9/11.

[bemildred]

10. I disagree somewhat.

There are fewer independent voices, it is true, although the
internet makes up for that in spades, but the supine whorishness
of the mainstream media has always been just as bad as it is now,
or even worse.

[Judi Lynn]

4. This is as close as the article gets to the deeper problem:

While some observers categorise the spate of press scandals as an errant annus horribilis, others see it as symptomatic of a deeper cultural malaise at a time when public trust has been battered by corporate fraud on Wall Street and questions over the motives behind the war in Iraq.


"The proper borderline between fiction and reality has never been less visible than it is today in our culture generally," said Mark Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University.
(snip)

Can we ever expect to see ANY newssource address the issue of the media whoring profoundly for our Republican Presidents? This is a problem with deep roots:

By covertly disseminating intelligence leaks to journalists, Reich and the OPD sought to trump up a Nicaraguan "threat," and to sanctify the U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's government as "freedom fighters." The propaganda was aimed at influencing Congress to continue to fund the Contras.

Take the scary news that Soviet MiG fighter jets were arriving in Nicaragua. With journalists citing unnamed "intelligence sources," the well-timed story surged through U.S. media on the night of Ronald Reagan's reelection. At NBC, Andrea Mitchell broke into election coverage with the story. The furor spurred a Democratic senator to discuss a possible airstrike against Nicaragua. But the story turned out to be a hoax. Several journalists later acknowledged they'd been handed the story by Reich's office.

It isn't the only erroneous story journalists link to the OPD. According to the Miami Herald, for example, Reich's office promoted the fable that Nicaragua had acquired chemical weapons from the Soviets. According to Newsweek, the OPD told reporters that high-level Sandinistas were involved in drug trafficking, but U.S. drug officials said there was no evidence for such a charge.

Reich's office worked alongside the White House National Security Council, collaborating with CIA propaganda experts, Army psychological warfare specialists and a then-obscure Marine lieutenant colonel named Oliver North. Declassified documents detailing OPD activities are on file and online at the National Security Archive, a DC-based nonprofit (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/).
(snip)

http://www.fair.org/articles/otto-reich.html

You notice the time when the media isn't scurrying to spread the right-wing word, it's involved in relentless attacks on the remaining Democrats who struggle to continue a "two-party" form of government.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I wonder when...

These genuises of the press are gonna grok the fact that being propagandists and stenographers is fertile ground for the Jack Kelleys and Jason Blairs of the world? I mean, when you are writing pap for an intended and salutary effect for those im power, this sort of thing is naturally gonna happen. Cause=effect=cause.

[leftchick]

7. and don't forget Judith Miller...

Why the hell she has not been fired for being Chalabi's stenographer I will never know... :grr:

[NMDemDist2]

9. GROK

what a great reminder of a wonderful book. I am going to dig it out of the garage and re read it--- thanks!

[gulliver]

6. And the president brags he doesn't read newspapers.

He "has it done" for him.

[MrTriumph]

11. Newspapers forget their mission.

Not to say all papers are alike, they are not. But here in N. Texas we are plagued with two dominant large papers, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram and much larger Dallas Morning News, that have become little more than shills for the conservative political machine.

Tax abatements for big developers- yes.
Property tax restrictions for seniors- no.

Reporting on corruption at city hall- no.
Bashing public schools- yes.

And the endorsement of incumbent right-wing office-holders clouds election coverage.

Example: Very late in her first campaign for US House, a scandal broke about Kay Granger. It was revealed her insurance co. had done business with the city of Ft. Worth while she was mayor. And although the Star-Telegram promised to dig into the story, it was dropped and no ink has been used to cover that scandal.