Funmurphys: the Blog

Funmurphys Looks At The News

In a recent post , I highlighted the following claim about journalism:

The breakdown of journalistic conventions about point of view. In an earlier era these standards -- favoring austere, stoical language conveying voice-of-God authority -- were designed in part to ensure that stories betrayed no hint of the writer's real feelings.

But the convention was a pretense. There is a generally laudable move toward more conversational -- and more candid -- language in stories. This shift allows a respected pro like the Associated Press's Ron Fournier to unsheathe a knife and write this sentence earlier this year about Mitt Romney: "The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable -- and least credible -- major presidential candidate."

I'd like to pick up a couple of threads from this - one is the generally laudable move toward more conversational and more candid language. Is this a top down or bottom up move? I'll argue that it is a bottom up move, as journalists first push and then find that editors will let pass more and more conversational and candid language in stores. Of course, by candid I mean biased. i.e. representing the candid views of the journalist. At first you read stories where the reporters voice would be cloaked by euphamisms such as "experts say" - without ever naming a single expert who said any such thing. Now you just read the reporter in so called objective news stories not just unsheathing the knife, but sticking it in and then twisting it. So let's be honest about the new honesty, you aren't reading factual coverage anymore, you're reading opinion from cover to cover. And editors let this pass because it conforms to their own prejudices.

And on to the second thread - why did objective journalism sicken and die when it did? Objective journalism was good for the business of journalism. Our new candid journalism has been terrible for the business of journalism but has done wonders for the egos of journalists.

But why can you pick up a newspaper today and find editorializing in every news story where 30 years ago you would find straight news?

I'd say first liberals within the media, just like at universities, became predominant by first making the environment chilly for conservatives and then flat out not hiring them. Now that we have an overwhelmingly liberal media, why not drop objectivity? It's not like a conservative AP writer is going to be able to unsheath the knife, let alone stick it in a twist it because they don't exist. Nor is there a conservative editor or fellow journalist to privately dispute the liberal view in newsrooms. There is simply no hope of a group that is overwhelming composed of individual liberals to produce a product that is anything other than overwhelming liberal. The old convention didn't break down because it didn't suit the consumers of news, it broke down because it didn't suit the producers of news.

The move to objective journalism was driven by concern for the bottom line - an objective AP could sell stores to any newspaper, an objective newspaper could sell itself to any subscriber. The move away seems to be driven by demographics within the profession itself.

Obama's Major League Weapon

I read this story, Obama's Secret Weapon: The Media the other day and I was struck by a couple of thoughts (thankfully, not too hard).

The first, most obvious is that the media isn't Obama's Secret weapon, it's his Obvious weapon. I mean, come one, the media long ago shed any shred of objectivity, and the open rooting for and gushing over Saint Barry has been clear to anyone who isn't Obama Girl. Who's being arrogant and condescending here - does the media really think (1) we're not biased, and (2) the public doesn't notice? How clueless can one be?

And on to the second thought. The story touched on it only the briefest way:

The response was itself a warning about a huge challenge for reporters in the 2008 cycle: preserving professional detachment in a race that will likely feature two nominees, Obama and John McCain, who so far have been beneficiaries of media cheerleading.

Unlike the stock market, I think past media performance is a pretty reliable indicator of future media performance, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that McCain will be covered like all other Republicans before him - with dislike. What Clinton has had to face in the primaries is what every Republican in the last 40 years has had to face in national elections - a media that prefers, or much prefers the other guy. The only reason Hillary Clinton gets any sympathy, or at least a fair shake, in this article is because she's a Democrat and there actually are Hillary partisans within the ranks. McCain benefits from media cheerleading only when he is acting in concert with the Democrats, something he does routinely (and which allows him to claim with far greater effectiveness the position of uniter and bridge to the other side than Saint Barry).

But the authors can't actually face that truth, and instead we get this:

The breakdown of journalistic conventions about point of view. In an earlier era these standards -- favoring austere, stoical language conveying voice-of-God authority -- were designed in part to ensure that stories betrayed no hint of the writer's real feelings.

But the convention was a pretense. There is a generally laudable move toward more conversational -- and more candid -- language in stories. This shift allows a respected pro like the Associated Press's Ron Fournier to unsheathe a knife and write this sentence earlier this year about Mitt Romney: "The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable -- and least credible -- major presidential candidate."

Ron Fournier is respected by whom exactly? Adam Clymer? I laud the move to partisans within the press coming out into the open, but I don't laud the press for having so many liberal Democrat partisans. Why not pour the cup full - if there is no way reporters can hold in check their real feelings - which is a central thrust of this story, and an accurate one, how then can Americans rely on them for accurate, unbiased information? If it's opinions I want, I'd much rather talk to friends than listen to strangers with no particular ability or knowledge beyond the ability to write to length and deadline.

We're into syllogism land. Liberal Democrats clearly prefer liberal politicians from the Democratic Party -- that's what makes them liberal Democrats. The press is overloaded with liberal Demorats; consequently the press prefers liberal politicians from the Democratic Party. The coverage of national politics is partisan, and hopelessly so. Reading the New York Times, or watching a national news broadcast doesn't inform aobut what happened, it informs you about what liberal Democrats think about what happened.

This article is just a part of the press groping their way to this conclusion, but they haven't even begun to contemplate the ramifications of that truth - only part of which is that their audience is only a third to a quarter of the nation, not the whole nation as they expect. Another is that they don't speak truth to power and never did - they speak the liberal Democratic party line to the faithful. These are hard truths and I don't expect most of them to ever come to grips with them. I wouldn't.

The Real Reason the Media Is Liberal

I haven't noticed what station my alarm clock radio is set to until this week. Normally when it goes off, I have it back off in 2 seconds. But now that the funWife is away, I don't have to worry about waking her, and with her and the kids gone, I don't have to worry about missing my time in the shower and messing every one up. So I've been a little slow about turning the alarm off, and it turns out it is set to KHITS 96. And no wonder, they play my kind of music, and they have all the old (and I do mean old) DJs from KSHE's glory days.

I am not a talk radio guy, and while KHITS is not talk radio, morning personalities all talk way too much for my tastes. I foolishly listened to J.C. Corcoran this morning, and at least he wasn't threatening to commit mass murder or doing black dialect while mocking a black man because he missed the Super Bowl halftime show. Today, the liberal J.C. was apparently reacting to a Pew Research Center survey that says that decidedly more journalists self identify as liberal than conservative. Now I happen to think that is a "well duh" kind of result, but J.C. was a mite riled up.

I came to full consciousness when he was saying the media were only liberal in comparison to fringe right wing bloggers. Ahh, another convenient whipping boy, the fringe right wing blogger. Then after he had exhausted his spleen, he went on to claim that the job itself caused a certain empathy and understanding because you got to go into rural areas and see real live bigots like some lounge singer at a Holiday Inn who had a dancing black mannequin named Leroy (not that people in the big city would ever hear bigoted comments on the radio), and see real bad poverty, and travel a lot, unlike most people who live in big cities. So the job itself would just naturally make you a liberal.

I especially liked how the two explanations are contradictory - the first was that journalists are only liberal in comparison to rightwing nuts, and the second was that the job itself makes you a liberal. I didn't wait around for another possible explanation, because the most obvious one, that liberals discriminate against conservatives in hiring, was not one I was going to hear pass the lips of Mr. Corcoran.

Weather Economics.

I'm kind of shocked about a newspaper story I'm NOT seeing, namely the story that says that the recent slowdown is do the the harsh winter we've been having. They used to run stories about how warm weather increased spending:

The warmest January in more than 100 years lured consumers out to the shopping malls to spend money at the fastest clip in six months, giving a strong boost to the economy as the new year began.

So, does the weather play a role? My wife last night was lamenting that she hadn't been able to do any real shopping in a long while because of the lousy winter weather. Yes, an anecdote, but a perusal of back issues says the weather spending connection was once taken seriously by the media. I don't recall one story yet this winter making that claim.

Could it be that the media is trying to (1) tarnish Bush and (2) affect the outcome of the election?

Another interesting part of the 2 year old story:

However, a third report showed construction spending managed only a 0.2 percent increase in January, the weakest gain in seven months and far below the 1 percent analysts had expected.

A big reason for the slowdown was a tiny 0.1 percent increase in private home building, the poorest monthly performance since an actual decline of 0.4 percent last June.

It was a further indication that residential construction, which has enjoyed five boom years, is beginning to slow.

Sales of both new and existing homes fell in January despite the warm weather. Economists predict continued increases in mortgage rates will slow housing further in coming months.

What's this, a slowdown in the housing market 2 years ago? I thought the current slowdown was just that - current and because of the current sub-prime "debacle". Sometimes it really pays to go back and read old news because the news itself has so little correct historical context to it and too much current narrative.

Lecture Vs. Conversation

I hate to tell Steve, but newspapers don't control the national conversation anymore - they're still stuck in national lecture mode. At this point, they just hope to remain a part of the national conversation.

Dear AP, Richard Armitage Was The Plame Leaker

I was greated by this article this morning: Former press secretary points finger at Bush, Cheney for deceit in CIA leak scandal. I made the mistake of reading it. Here we are in 2007, and the AP still hasn't figured out the leak. 10 paragraphs about the leak that mention Rove, Libby, Plame, Wilson, Cheney and Bush but somehow manages to leave out Armitage. You know Richard Armitage, the guy who actually was Novak's source of the leak? Who didn't come clean for years and who Fitzgerald wanted to spare from embarrassment?

Our crack press - not bothering us with facts so they can continue to beat a dead horse. If we treated their reporting like testimony, they'd be serving a life term by now.

General Sanchez and Editing

I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I haven't written one in a while, but their treatment of Lt. General Sanchez's remarks the other day caused a big enough gasket blowout to generate a letter. It wasn't one of my best, and I knew it was a little long for their taste, but I couldn't see a way to get from the 350 words I wrote to the 250 max they like without damaging my arguement. And frankly, the word limit just one more constraint newpapers operate under that doesn't exist on the internet.

First, the letter as printed:

Lt. Gen. Sanchez's message

"Ex-Iraq commander blasts Bush policies" (Oct. 13), about Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez's address, was appalling. It did not include his criticism of the media: "The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas.... You are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war."

Yes, Mr. Sanchez blasted the Bush administration, but he also blasted other government agencies and Congress. He said: "The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable." His focus was on getting the nation focused. All readers were provided was another military officer who "harshly criticized the administration's conduct of the war." There was no hint of his equally harsh criticism of the press, Congress and political partisanship.

His message was clear: The military has been shouldering the whole load of the war on terror, but it cannot win the war all by itself, and partisan politics has kept the nation from bringing the full range of its power to bear on the war.

He said, "Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort.... America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good about all else...."

The letter as written, with the edits (mostly deletions) in red:

General Sanchez's Real Message

Your article of 10/13 on Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez's address to the Military Reporters & Editors Association was appalling. Your mis-reporting is exactly what the general spent almost half his address discussing. Somehow you didn't see fit to include this direct quote about the press: "The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our servicemembers who are at war." Clearly, you are among those General Sanchez called out by saying "the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases, and agendas."

Yes, Sanchez blasted the Bush administration, but he also blasted other government agencies and Congress. "The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable." His focus was on getting the whole nation focused. Somehow all that went unreported and all that your readers were provided was a another military officer who "harshly criticized the administration's conduct of the war." Not a hint of his equally harsh criticism of the press, Congress, and political partisanship in general.

His message was pretty clear - the military has been shouldering the whole load of the war on terror but it simply cannot win the war all by itself, and partisan politics has kept the nation from bringing the full range of its power to bear on the war. Or in his own words, "Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort and America should not accept this. America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good about all else. All too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their political party above loyalty to the constitution because of their lust for power."

So as always, I ponder over the edits. Some were good, such as removing my weasel word "pretty". Some are just annoying, like the change of "Not a hint of his..." change to "There was no hint of his..." which is what you'd expect of an english major who doesn't see a verb and who has been taught to abhor sentance fragments. Some were clearly for length, such as "And America should not accept this." Re-reading the letter I wish I had swaped the ending around to end with my own words instead of the General's, but I can't expect them to clean up my act to that extent. But some make me see red - such as removing the last line about putting political party above loyalty to the constitution, or my linking at the start what the General was complaining about and how they reported his speech. I really think they were trying to soften General Sanchez's criticism of the press, and of the Democrats.

That's why I have a blog, that's why I use the internet and primary sources as much as possible for my news, and that's why newspapers have lost the trust of the majority of their readers.

The Joys Of A Democrat In The White House

In some ways I look forward to a President from the Democratic party. Overnight, the Democrats will be for the war on terror. I know that right now the right is calling the Democrats the Surrendercrats and otherwise calling out the lack of a Democratic backbone, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that with a Democrat in the White House the Democratic party doesn't just rattle sabers, it slashes away with great gusto. Bill Clinton had no trouble attacking other countries, and the Democrats didn't say boo. Our attack on Serbia over Kosovo was pre-emptive, our airforce bombed Serbian state television -- killing civilians and members of the press -- because we didn't like what they were broadcasting.

And lest we forget, it was the Clinton administration that invented "extraordinary rendition. It was Peace Prize winner Al Gore who defended the procedure in interal deliberations thusly: ""That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass."

Since the mainstream media isn't just made up of Democrats, but has become a chief supporter of Democrats, the tone of stories will change overnight. Our successes in Iraq will at last be reported; the economy will improve overnight (except for those areas that the Democrats want to change, so healthcare will still be in crisis, and the deficit will be mentioned only in the context of the need to raise taxes). And with the press not feeling the need to smear Bush any way they can, the tone of overall reportage in general will improve, while the stores about how bad the US is will dramatically decline, so much so that our stature in the world will improve (which naturally will be described as result of the policies of our wise and beloved Democratic President). Yes, the stories the US press pushes are picked up internationally; the idea that somehow our press stops at the waters edge and has no influence on how the rest of the world sees us is laughably naive. It's human nature to assume that a country's own press is more accurate than any foreign reportage.

You might think I'm cynical - but I don't. I think I'm quite scientific, since I've seen this happen before.

Arab American Actors

When my local paper ran this article about Arab-American actors typcast as terrorists, they put the headline "Do these men look like terrorists" over the pictures of three American actors of middle eastern descent. So I thought to myself, they don't look like IRA terrorists, or ETA terrorists, or LTTE terrorists, or FARC terrorists, but oddly enough, they do look like Arab terrorists (Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas spring to mind). Really, what does a terrorist look like?

I suppose fewer movies should be made about current events? Or should TV and movies employ blue-eyed blondes to protray arabs?

Left unsaid is that the complaint used to be that blacks were always pimps and hustlers, asians were martial artists or brainiacs, italians always mobsters, etc.

As far as I can tell, the claim is that Hollywood, that liberal bastion, is stereotyping Arab-Americans. Must be the Jews fault.

Raindrops On Roses

A Few of My Favorite Things, St. Louis Post-Dispatch version:

Eric Mink has the day off today.

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

We Can't Handle The Truth

Last night I was watching the local news (mainly for the weather) when they did a story about a Washington University coed raped in her dorm room. They talked about the suspect, read a description, and never mentioned he's black. I only know that because they showed the composite sketch. My wife thought it odd that they would mention gender, height, weight, age, hair length, even the cap he was wearing, in describing him, but not his skin color. Fox 2 News has the same lack of information. KMOV, the TV news outlet in town we usually watch(and I'm not sure why we were watching KSDK instead of KMOV - maybe because Karen Foss retired) has no trouble in using his skin color. I guess KMOV isn't worried all us bigots will be confirmed in our error.

So today I'm not surprised by this news: Another rape a Duke University, but no mention of (black) skin color. The media just keeps protecting us from our baser instincts - or so they think.

Think they'd ever caught Michael Devlin if they didn't include the color of the pickup in its description? White, BTW.

A Tipping Point?

Are there already more mil bloggers in country than members of the MSM?

At what point will there be more bloggers embedded in Iraq than members in good standing of the MSM? I ask because Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston are going over, joining Bill Roggio and Bill INDC/Iraq among others.

Since Michelle has decided to go on her own nickle (donations accepted), she asked that Eason Jordan pay Kathleen "Who are you to question me?" Carroll's way instead:

"I have notified Jordan of our plans and encouraged him to move forward with his trip and his offer to bring Curt of Flopping Aces.

More importantly, I have asked Jordan to extend the travel funds and security coverage he would have spent on me to the AP's Kathleen Carroll.

Ms. Carroll, you may remember, was the AP executive who derided bloggers for sitting at home instead of traveling abroad to do their own reporting during the fauxtography debacle last summer:

"It’s hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.

Yet, from her own comfortable office, Ms. Carroll has decided that bloggers, Jordan, the U.S. military, and Iraqi government officials are all wrong to question her news organization's questionable news sources.

Questionable news sources? Pretty strong words, but the Confederate Yankee
digs into the story the way reporters in the movies do:

The only way I can do this is to take the 61 stories Curt found, Google the keywords and dates of the described events, and see if other news organizations can corroborate the details of the events provided. Those with LexisNexis access might be able to do a better job of verifying or disputing these accounts, but you get to research using the tool set you have, not the tools you would like to have. As I don't have the time to do a complete search, I'll attempt to search through roughly the first half of the 61 stories using Jamil Hussein as a source."

The result? Short answer - not pretty. Long answer - go read it yourself.

The question isn't whether (some) bloggers do journalism (this one never soils his hands that way), but do journalists do journalism anymore? Or do they just write the story a source gives them, no questions asked.

Business As Usual, or The Press Lies

I'm shocked, shocked that someone would accuse the news media of turning a blind eye to the provenence of their sources.

Next people are going to claim that the news media shamelessly plugged the silicone breast implant scare no matter how many times it was debunked, or that they used pre-packaged interviews provided by trial lawyers, or just in general demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth.

I mean, once the media finds out somebody stages fradulent events, they'd stop using them.

So shame on you, Jeff Medcalf, even writing a song about it.

I mean, it's not like the business model is selling your attention to advertisors, it's selling you the truth. Right?

Another Press Fault

You remember how the American press was bemoaning the perils of embedding - no, not that they would be physically hurt, but that they would become beholden to the American Armed Forces, and horrors! might even favor the military because they spent so much time with them.

Well, why don't they have similar worries when it comes to foreign stringers, who do the bulk of the international reporting for the American press? Instead, they have no worries about who they hire to do their reporting, no matter how often it leads to biased, inaccurate, or faked coverage. Apparently the press thinks foriegners are made of far sterner stuff than Americans, able to withstand any and all entanglements, biases, and scrupulously fair and honest.

The New York Times Is Worse Than Nixon

Tom Maguire is all over the NYT's latest "the public be damned" moment, and points the way to this funny satire by the New Editor entitled "NYT Announces Formation of Shadow Government":

"Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it's the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost on morons who don't work for the New York Times, especially the knuckledraggers and mouth breathers who vote for Republicans," said Keller. "And while we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, we just feel ... well, that we're smarter."

"What he said," said new shadow Secretary of Defense Paul Krugman.

A Response to Mr. McClellan

I think the only proper response to this Bill McClellan column, "Mr. President, you can woo blockheads for Talent" is, pardon my French, "Bill, you can kiss my ass."

Why I Hate The Press: Reason 1

Yesterday I'm reading a USA today editorial about how we need a press shield law to protect America. Not just no, but hell no. Can we get a special prosecutor, someone who's able to keep his eye on the ball, unlike Fitzgerald, to start prosecuting the leakers who are trying to help our enemies? And I mean yesterday. Because it's getting to the point that if Bill Keller were to show up on the inside of cage in Guantanamo I'm not sure I'd complain, let alone be troubled by that -- and that just isn't right.

Media Bias: A Description

The best description I've read of bias in the entertainment media and what it means from Andrew Klavan at Libertas:

All the same, it’s a relief to see it. I mean, personally, I would prefer my romantic comedy to come without partisan politics at all, but I suspect that’s almost impossible nowadays. One side has so much control over the narrative assumptions that underlie most movies that merely to work under a different set of assumptions is to declare an opposing position. I mean, in movies, the big corporation is always bad, the environmentalist always good; the gun-lover is always crazy, the religious guy always repressed or insane. The patriot is always a jingoist, wise men are always black, gays are always friends and advisors and, if you watch carefully, a poor man’s crimes are almost always traceable back to a rich man’s perfidy. The suburbs are always either comic or stifling, abortion may be rejected but never for moral reasons and – my personal favorite – the United Nations is always a force for truth and justice instead of the loathsomely corrupt gang of child-molesting, sex-trading kleptocratic tyrants we know and abhor.

In short, at the movies, as on the network news, one worldview is assumed to be the steady state of affairs, while any other is considered a more or less ugly aberration. As a result, even the slightest indication that the hero of a movie might be, say, a Charlton Heston fan is bracing, a noticeable statement nearly shocking in its aggression. As for patriotism, faith, energetic capitalism – what some of us call normal on a good day – these become ferocious political pronouncements measured against a radical baseline.

Amen, brother Andrew. OK, I teased you, because to learn what it means you have to go visit and read the end. I will add a filip of my own - it's worse than described because the entertainment media and the news media provide a seemless web of reinforcing bias since they have the same ones.

No Bias Here

The official figure of economic growth was revised upwards to 5.3% for last quarter - a blistering pace. And where was this tidbit of information - why, on page 3 of the business section in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Any guess about where it would have been if a Democrat was President? Mine is above the fold front page.

Dana Milbank Sucks

Yes, my title is an ad hominem. But I claim truth as a defense. The sad thing, Dana is just another in a sea of terrible reporters who can't tell where their opinion leaves off and reality begins.

The Real Story of Katrina

Not only is most of what you know about Katrina not true, but you've never heard the real story of Katrina: the National Guard (with lots of help from the Coast Guard, and the Lousiana Fish and Wildlife Department), supposedly overstretched and worn out from Iraq, saved tens of thousands of lives in New Orleans. Why? Quiet competence never gets media attention:

The procedure ran under a system known as EMACs (Emergency Management Assistance Compacts), a mutual aid pact among states. The conference call became a daily routine that was New Orleans' primary lifeline to outside aid. It bypassed local officials and the fouled-up federal chain of command that led to much publicized infighting among the Governor, FEMA and the White House. According to the Senate Select Committee on Katrina, "This process quickly resulted in the largest National Guard deployment in U.S. history, with 50,000 troops and supporting equipment arriving from 49 states and four territories within two weeks. These forces participated in every aspect of emergency response, from medical care to law enforcement and debris removal..." the report said. All from the Superdome.

Meanwhile, late Monday, Louisiana National Guard HQ moved its high tech "unified command suite" and tents to the upper parking deck of the Superdome. This degraded communications for about four hours but ultimately gave them satellite dishes for phone and Internet connections to the outside world, Wi-fi, plus radios that were the only talk of the town. Helicopters and boats, as we noted, were already bringing in survivors there. About fifty men and women, black and white, worked per shift, equipped with maps, laptops, phone and radios to coordinate the rescue operation. The rescuers called it the "eagles' nest".

The operation was impossible to hide or ignore and some news outlets may have mentioned it in passing. Still, I haven't seen anything reported that sounded like what the two Majors described Tuesday morning: helicopters landing every minute; big ones, like the National Guard Chinooks, literally shaking the decking of the rooftop parking lot; little ones like the ubiquitous Coast Guard Dolphins; Black Hawks everywhere, many with their regular seats torn out so they could accommodate more passengers, standing. Private air ambulance services evacuating patients from flood-threatened hospitals. Owners of private helicopters who showed up to volunteer, and were sent on their way with impromptu briefings on basic rescue needs. Overhead, helicopters stacked in a holding pattern.
...
In all this time, Dressler said, "We didn't see a single camera crew or reporter on the scene. Maybe someone was there with a cell phone or a digital camera but I didn't see anyone." This was in the headquarters area. Maj. Ed Bush, meanwhile, did start seeing reporters on Tuesday and Wednesday, but inside the Dome, most were interested in confirming the stacks of bodies in the freezers, interviews with rape victims, he said, and other mayhem that never happened. He pitched the rescue angle and no one was interested. A few reporters and film crews did hitch rides on helicopters, came back, and produced stories of people stuck on rooftops, not stories about rescues, he said.

Neither Maj. Bush nor Dressler saw TV until the end of the week. They were aghast. Apart from sporadic mentions, the most significant note taken of this gigantic operation was widespread reporting of the rumor that a sniper had fired on a helicopter. What were termed evacuations in some cases, rescue operations in others, were said to have been halted as a result. "I never knew how badly we were being killed in the media," Maj. Ed Bush says. In reality, the only shots fired at the Guard were purely metaphorical and originated with the media. Rescues continued 24/7 at a furious pace.

I'm reminded time and time again just how badly the press, which always holds others up to such high standards, does in getting stories right.

A Letter To The Editor

I do so enjoy a good letter to the editor. And today the Post served up a good one:

Paradoxical Post

In light of the May 4 editorial opposing use of the term "Christmas holidays break" by the Francis Howell School District, the May 5 edition is a fascinating example of paradoxes.

On May 4, the Post-Dispatch told us the issue is of no practical impact at all, but on May 5, the story was on Page 1, above the fold. On May 4, the Post-Dispatch decried the emotional content of the issue, but on May 5 published a letter from a lady who does not live in the Francis Howell district but who most emphatically does not want Christmas shoved down her throat. (I suppose she avoids all shopping malls from October on each year.) On May 4, the Post-Dispatch told us Americans are free to call the holiday whatever we want, but on May 5 repeated warnings the district may face lawsuits.

On May 4, the Post-Dispatch warned us of how emotions can be whipped up, and on May 5 demonstrated its willingness to be one of the whips.

Roger W. Collins

Roger, Roger, Roger, you need to remember a foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Blogs Vs. MSM

I wrote this in response to the Don Surber post The Truth About Newspaper Circulation

Don,

Why does blog vs. MSM have to be binary either or? They both have strengths and weaknesses. Do I have to read only one and not the other?

Why make a comparison between the hits the top 770 newspapers get and those one top blogger gets? Shouldn't you be comparing either the hits of the top newspaper to the top blogger or the top 770 newspapers with the top 770 bloggers? If 770 newspapers get more than 365 time the hits one blogger gets, does that mean the top blogger gets more than twice the hits of the average top 770 newspapers? Wouldn't that be an amazing statistic?

Don, what's with "blogs have no credibility"? With whom? You? Do you have any data (the plural of anecdote isn't data) to base this on? Frankly, there are blogs that have no credibility with me, and there are those who have a great deal of credibility. There are a few MSM outlets left that have a great deal of credibility with me, but most have little to none. Can I generalize from my opinion to what the general public thinks? Not without data. For what it's worth, my memory of the last survey I saw on this subject said that only 19% of people surveyed thought that newspapers were usually reliable.

There are some blogs out there doing far better analysis than most of what I read in the newspapers. Not opinion in the sense that most opinion pieces are written: I present only the facts that support my position, but a real exploration of what's going on and an honest attempt to make sense of all the messiness of the real world.

There are blogs out there doing original reporting - who's provided better basic eyewitness reporting in Iraq than Michael Yon (or Michael Totten in the middle east)? We get better basic eyewitness reporting of protest demonstrations in blogs all the time. Blogs finally got Dan Rather off the air, and Captain Ed brought down a government. The sad truth is that at the moment the best blogs are bringing clarity and the best newspapers are bringing FUD (and the worst bloggers are far worse than the worst papers).

For me, there are certain structural problems with the MSM (what is news, the news cycle, that sort of thing), but they pale in significance to what I would consider the real problems of the MSM today: bias, arrogance, poor judgement, and quite frankly just lousy quality. These are quite fixable problems if the MSM can just realize what the problems are - and I fully expect with the MSM moving to the net the outfits that correct them will thrive and those that don't will disappear.

I want a reliable press who can report the facts, provide the context,and help me understand what's happening in the world. I'm not getting that today, and I'm unhappy about it.

Eggers Resigns At The Post-Dispatch

Terrance Eggers, the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is leaving the newspaper effective May 19th. Last November, Ellen Soeteber resigned as Editor-in-Chief. It seems that Mr. Eggers is leaving for the same reasons Ms. Soeteber left - the Post has money problems, or as they described it, the paper faces a "choppy advertising market that prevented Egger from meeting modest revenue targets during his last year of a decade-long run in St. Louis."

I have to feel sorry for newspaper people these days - its the best of times as the internet beckons, and it is the worst of times, as the current advertising base dries up. Here we are in a robust expansion, and the ad revenue isn't coming back -- which means it isn't going to come back. I think this accounts for the generally unhappy outlook on the economy by the press -- their economy isn't good, so they assume nobody else's is, either.

Bill McClellan wrote about Mr. Egger's departure. Bill get's his facts right but his interpretation is way off: "An odd but endearing quality of newspaper folk is that we profess to know a lot about everybody else's business but know almost nothing of our own." It isn't odd but endearing - it's thoroughly annoying. And then he notes the big bucks Mr. Eggers has been paid ($3 million when Pulitzer was bought out, $675,000 retention bonus, and $1 million severance package) -- all the while his editorial page has been blasting other execs for similar excess. The press can't stand the same scrutiny and standards they hold everyone else to.

Rumsfeld For Press Secretary

So President Bush needs a new press secretary, and Ed Driscoll has a couple of candidates. My own would be to have Don Rumsfeld slide over to take that position. Who better to do battle with the forces of darkness every day? Now that al qaida is on the run, he can turn his attention to islamofascism's last bastion of support.

After watching him actually say "my goodness gracious" in response to a question from a reporter the other day at a press conference that was mainly about how some tough guy generals were complaining about how mean Rumsfeld was -- a regular Dinsdale Piranha -- I knew he was a black belt in verbal aikido. Of course he said it while the look on his face said "you are a moron who smells like stinky cheese, bigtime. And I mean bigtime on both the moron and the smell." Since most communication is mostly non-verbal, you need a guy who can communicate so well both verbally and physically.

And the left would clearly like him, since they didn't think McClellan was a good speaker, unlike Rumsfeld.

Tempest Meet Teapot

Hugh Hewitt makes a good point about the media pushing the story about dissenting generals calling for Rumsfelds resignation:

Why are MSMers Broder and Dionne willing to assign such great credibility to a half dozen generals (out of at least 4,700 and perhaps as many as 7,000 retired gerenals and admirals) when there is no evidence that they have credited similar insider criticism of their own business, say from Bernard Goldberg, John Stossel and Michael Medved to name just three MSM-insiders turned MSM critics.

My news judgement tells me this is a popular story with the media only because they hate Rumsfeld (and the feeling is apparently mutual) and a perfect example of how the liberal media monoculture distorts not just the story, but story placement as well. Of course, I don't bother with Broder and Dionne because (1) I already know their take on any given subject, and (2) it lacks depth and undertanding.

For Us But Not You

One of the things I dislike the press for is the way they hound people who have suffered a profound emotional experience - the loss of a child, displaced by a natural disaster, victim of a terrible crime. David Gelernter wrote eloquently about the hounding in his book Drawing Life. And when called on it, they always tell us not to shoot the messenger, they have no choice because it's what the public wants.

Jill Carroll came home from being kidnapped in Iraq, and after a couple of brief statements the press has respected her request to respect her privacy. What about the clamoring of the public that must be obeyed? I guess that can be ignored for a fellow member of the press. Too bad they excercise such restraint for other people.

Unity Takes Time

Cori doesn't seem to think that it's right for a columnist at the paper to break news while the reporters sit on their hands. Don't read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch then, where columnists routinely break news that their reporters show little interest or ability to cover.

But what's more important is what's actually reported -- the progress in the talks between the political parties in Iraq to forge a government:

The political agreements are fragile, and they will be blown away if the factions can't form a government soon to put them in practice. Meanwhile, beyond the Green Zone, Iraqis are still being slaughtered every day in the streets. But given where Iraq was six months ago -- when Sunni and Shiite leaders were barely talking -- their agreement on the framework for a unity government is important. These negotiations may not succeed, but they are not a fairy-tale fantasy, as some critics argue.

We Americans are an impatient lot. From my meagre experiences abroad, time takes on a different meaning once you leave the country.

I'm wondering if that chick at the AP will take Mr. Ignatius to task for the "as some critics argue" line. OK, that was a rhetorical device because I'm not wondering at all, since she didn't note that President Bush was following the lead of the reporting about him which is routinely larded up with "some critics claim" constructions without ever naming the critics.

Couric Jumps Ship

Katie Couric is leaving NBC's Today show to anchor the CBS evening news and take part in 60 minutes. As Rachel at TinkertyTonk notes "I cannot remember the last time I watched the network evening news. Can you?" Ah, no, I can't. And the next question would be when did I last watch the evening news and not notice their bias?

The NYT article gets the salient fact right here: "The evening newscasts have for some time been programs in decline at all three networks, with audiences that have grown markedly older." I do clearly remember the parade of denture, medicare supplement, and adult diaper ads last time I watched even though I couldn't tell you when that was. So great, a women gets to helm the nightly newscast when pretty much nobody cares.

Breast Asymmetry Linked to Cancer

In a study with 504 women, researchers at the University of Liverpool led by Dr. Diane Scutt found that a difference in breast size was linked to an increased risk of cancer in a fairly linear way, with every 100 milliliters of difference equating to an increase in the risk of cancer of 50 percent. The average breast size is approximately 500 milliliters, so we're talking fairly sizable differences here.

You can tell the caliber of the news organization by the headline (and photo) they chose to run with this subject:

BBC: "Uneven breasts linked to cancer"

Daily Mail: "Uneven breasts may increase cancer risk"

Xinhua: "Breast asymmetry may increase cancer risk in women"

Atlanta Constitution Journal: "Asymmetrical Breasts May Raise Cancer Risk"

Elites TV: "Study: Breast Size Matters When It Comes To Cancer"

Glasgow Daily Record: "MATCHING BREASTS ARE BEST"

The Sun (UK): "Lopsided boob risk"

Missing the Real Story

One of the things that burns me up about the coverage of Saddam's trial is that it focuses on the wrong two things and ignores it's only point. It focuses on what he or his lawyers did in court, but not the testimony. Witnesses come in and describe the horrors he perpetrated - hardly a mention of the contents of their testimony. Saddam stands up and blusters - full coverage. And the other question that consumes the press is Saddam getting a fair trial. Personally, the fact that he's getting a trial at all is all the fairness he deserves (yes, I'm aware of the proceedural arguments for the need for a "fair" trial) and the whole point of the trial is for the fullness of his crimes to come out and that he be given a chance to answer for them.

But that isn't what we get. Is this how the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa was covered?

A Network Moment

I was complaining about the news media the other day at work. I started with the local newspaper, the Post-Dispatch. I was relating that I had to disregard any item in it that was "news" because the high likelyhood of its inaccuracy. I was told there were other sources of news. I then said TV news wasn't any better and that cable news focused far too much on sensational but trivial stories (yes, even Fox). Just get your news from the internet I was told. The trouble is that even on the internet most of the primary sources are the very same news organizations that have been misinforming me for years and show no inclination to stop. You have to check everything against primary sources, which is a time consuming pain in the rear.

What I want is a reliable newspaper I can read in the morning. I love the idea behind them, it's just the execution that stinks. I want to be able to flip on the TV and be informed by accurate and relevant reporting. This current passing off opinion as fact just drives me nuts, and does so because I care about the news. If I were indifferent, I wouldn't care that the press can't do its job.

In other words, I'm having what he's having:

I want to be able to read the New York Times or watch CNN, or listen to NPR and be able to trust what they're telling me. Since I can't do that, since the media is no longer fulfilling their basic function, I have to blog, and I have to read blogs. It pisses me off, because I had better things to do this decade than be my own news service. I don't like having to read transcripts of press conferences because I can't trust the media to even write down what was said correctly. I don't like having to spend hours finding real experts on the web to analyze how this or that media expert has distorted the facts. I don't like having to pore through the blogs of journalists, soldiers and Iraqi citizens so I can get some inkling of how things are really going, without the hype. Even though I do it, I don't even like having to download the Brookings report once/month in order to see what the numbers say about how the war is going.

But I have to do all that, because its the only way I can truly be an informed citizen.

Is that really too much to ask for?

And I feel this anger too:

But I’m pretty sure the message behind “The Unit” wasn’t that the press is the cause of global terrorism. I haven’t watched the show or anything, but I’m just guessing that the message is that terrorists are the cause of global terrorism. Not American foreign policy, not economic inequity, not religious oppression, but terrorists themselves. You know, the killy, murdery, explodey kind.

That’s a nuance that’s lost on the Express’ Chris Mincher, though. “The enemies are nothing more than terrorist caricatures with beards and guns,” he writes. “Their goal: killing. Their purpose: to be shot. Their motivation: unknown.”

Maybe Chris longs for a TV show or movie that personalizes terrorists, that tells their story, that makes us empathize with them and think that maybe they’re just not that bad after all.

Sometimes a bad guy really is just a bad guy.

Questions Easy, Answers Hard

Is it just me, or does Larry O'Donnell sound like he had a few too many before going on the air with Hugh Hewitt? Actually, Larry always sounds like he's had a few too many and isn't a happy drunk.

What about the ambulence attendents? Would they be in on the cover up, too? Maybe an intrepid reporter can track them down and get their story.

Here is another example where reality will divurge between left and right; it will become an article of faith on the left that Cheney was drunk when he shot Mr. Wittington, and it will become an article of faith on the right that he wasn't. And I'm not one of those people who like to split truth down the middle, either Cheney was or he wasn't and so one group is quite simply wrong.

I Love To Laugh

I cannot tell a lie - I'm simply filled with glee at thought of the Scooter Libby trial. At this point, I don't care if Scooter is convicted or acquited, if he wrongly is set free or wrong is convicted -- what I want is the press to get what's coming to them. I neither know nor care about the guilt or innocence of Scooter -- but I want to see the press pay for the crimes they've committed against the truth all this time. Yes, I understand that nobody from the fourth estate will be fined, let alone jailed, but just having to go into court and be exposed to the best disinfectant, sunshine to quote the St. Louis Post Dispatch editorialist (not plagiarize, since the Post editorial page no longer recognizes plagiarism).

Libby was indicted because his testimony didn't agree with three reporters. So what else can his defense be but that he was telling the truth or at worse made a simple but unintentional mistake of recall based on what everybody actually knew at the time?

And the benefits are limited to just the people who are called to testify - the disappointment of those who aren't might be palpable, as they too might be exposed like everyones unfavorite, David Gregory:

I'll bet that the Libby defense team will want to chat with more than just Ms. Mitchell. That said, we should note that David Gregory may really be out of the loop - he chimed in with this:

GREGORY: And it is interesting--it's also interesting, I should just point out, that nobody called me at any point, which is unfortunately...
WILLIAMS: Apparently not.
GREGORY: ...not the point.
RUSSERT: Does anybody ever?
GREGORY: But I just wanted to note that.
RUSSERT: I've been meaning to talk to you about that.

Stand tall, Stretch - you may be the last man standing if Russert, Mitchell and Williams have a ghastly experience at the Libby trial.

Yes, that is the unmistakable stylings of Tom Maguire. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants today.

Some Professionalism

I guess I should be glad I've only dealt with nice people at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (like Carolyn Kincaid, Greg Freeman, and Bill McClellan), and not the jerks Cathy Seipp dealt with at the New York Times. Just so we're clear - don't tell me anything confidentially until after I agree to keep it confidential.

Another Confederacy of Dunces

I don't think I'm the only one who's licking his chops at the thought of the Scooter Libby trial and the thought of all those top drawer journalists hauled into court and forced to testify. What a gratifying spectacle that will be. It's too bad they don't allow TV cameras into court rooms - they really ought to make an exception in this case. Perhaps it could be on pay-per-view, I know I'd pay good money to watch. It would be Reality TV at it's finest. Instead we will have to content ourselves with comparing the carefully sanitized version from the organizations who have their minions testifying and independent outlets. I'm reminded of the ending of Samson - you know, where the Philistines capture him and make sport of him in their temple, so he pulls the temple down on him and them.

Do I know if Scooter lied or not? No, I wasn't party to the conversations. I do think lying during a criminal investigation is not just a bad thing, but a legally punishable one. My problem is that once Fitzgerald concluded that no law had been broken by the leak of Ms. Plame's connection to the CIA, then his whole investigation should have been over. And that conclusion had nothing to do with his investigation of Libby - in fact, that should have been determination number one. And once the determination was made that there was no crime, then the Fitzgerald should have shut the whole enterprise down and gone back to actual crime fighting. If Fitzgerald got sand in his eye, it was because he took it off the ball. Instead, he went ahead to try and find out who said what to whom when in Washington. Good luck buddy, you'll need it.

Bill And Me

Bill McClellan is probably the most popular columnist at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Not the best, that would be Dave Nicklaus. Bill does a mix of local and national stories, more local than national, and is probably best known for his tales of ne'er do wells, and he has quite the soft spot for hard luck stories.

A couple of years ago he wrote a column about Johnny "Taliban" Walker Lindh (which is no longer available) where he had quite a lot of sympathy for Mr. Walker. I have sympathy for Mr. Walker to the extent it appears he went to Afganistan and fought for the Taliban before September 11 2001. Poor judgement and a very bad choice to be sure, but not treason. But in making his case, Mr. McClellan had to go for the icing on the cake, so he claimed that Mr. Walker had every right to be confused because the US was friendly with the Taliban at the time because of the Taliban's anti-drug stance, and as evidence of that friendship was the 43 million dollars the US paid the Taliban:

"At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs."

Despite being repeated ad naseum in 2001-2003, the United States never did provide the Taliban 43 million dollars. Robert Scheer, as was his wont, twisted some facts into this fiction and once a "respected" newspaper prints it, it must be true.

So when I read this lie repeated again, I went into full attack dog mode. Namely, I wrote a letter (Okay, email). It's what I do. When an op-ed contributor to the Post Dispatch had made the exact same claim earlier, I wrote the letter to the editor linked above.

So Mr. McClellan and I had the correspondence included below the fold. In summary, while Bill never exhibited a smug or insulting manner (upon re-reading, if anybody was smug and insulting, it was me) but he dispayed an astonishing vagueness, disregard for facts, and a touching yet misplaced reliance on his feelings and cynicism. In the end he agreed that he was wrong (probably just to stop the emails) but of course there was no correction or mention that an important thesis in his column now rested on empty air.

Now on to the correspondence:

I carefully marshalled my facts, my links to supporting evidence from respected sources, and I even provided in my conclusion why I thought this was important (and still do) -- there seems to be no way to correct bad information once printed.

Dear Mr. McClellan,

In a column a couple of weeks ago, you wrote about John Walker: "At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs."

We didn't give money to the Taliban as part of the War on Drugs. That is Scheer (http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm) fabrication. What we did do is provide humanitarian assistance, mostly wheat and other food, worth 43 million dollars to Afghanistan. This assistance went to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and Secretary Powell at the time made it quite clear that not a penny would be going to the Taliban regime because in his words, they "have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."

This assistance brought the total US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for the year to 124.2 million dollars, and was a continuation of similar aid provided by the Clinton administration. The US was the largest aid donor to Afghanistan for both 2000 and 2001. You can these facts for yourself at CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/index.html) which provides a contemporaneous account or Dan Kennedy at the Boston Pheonix (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01839506.htm) who debunked Scheer's account.

Jason Blair was a fool; guys like Robert Scheer can drip misinformation into the media over years without ever losing his ability to do so. And the way the media is set up, once the information stream is polluted, there is no way to clean it up. People will be citing this bunk in good faith until no one remembers the Taliban.

Kevin Murphy

I thought I kept it short and factual, thus perfect for the busy columnist. So I was happy to get a reply, just dismayed at the contents.

Kevin: I read the LA Times piece and the CNN story. I could not call up the Boston Phoenix story. But after having read those first two, it seems to me that things may not be as black and white as you indicate. Couldn't both stories be true? That is, we were giving them "humanitarian aid" -- just as the CNN story said -- but perhaps we were their biggest donors precisely because, as the LA Times story said, we saw them as allies in our War on Drugs. I'm not sure about this, but it certainly seems possible, if not likely, to me.

Bill wants to hold on to what he wrote while trying to claim we're both right. How can we gave money to the Taliban like Bill claims be right at the same time we didn't give them a penney as I claimed? I guess if I were a columnist at a major newspaper, I'd understand. Also note the confusion of the motive - allies in the War on Drugs - and the action - providing money to the Taliban. So if you have the motive right, you must have the action right? It was such an unsatisfactory reply that I had to write again.

First, you seem to be unclear as to who the "them" are - of all the organizations we gave money to in Afganistan, none of the them were the Taliban. So you're assertion that we gave the Taliban the money is simply wrong. (See Colin Powell's announcement of the aid: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/2928.htm). From that announcement:

"Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement. "
Hardly the the ringing endorsement of an ally.

Second, the reason we gave the money to the UN agencies and non-governmental agencies is clear - people were on the verge of starvation in Afganistan. (See Anne Applebaum's article in Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/105417/). From that article:

"War and politics have compounded a natural crisis: Afghanistan is now experiencing a second year of drought and may be on the brink of a terrible famine. The World Food Program thinks the drought has severely hit 4 million people in the country: Kenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary-general in charge of humanitarian affairs, has said that 1 million are at risk. The numbers vary widely because no one actually knows what is happening in the interior of the country, where refugees report that they were surviving on boiled grass. "

Giving food to starving people is something that enjoys broad support in this country.

I know what you're thinking - what about that line in Secretary Powell's announcement:
"We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome. "

While an intriguing line, it doesn't contradict that fact that we didn't give money to the Taliban, and that food was the main thing provided (most of the 43 million was food and not money). To me it indicates an awareness that an anti-drug program is not without costs to people outside the US, and that the US is willing to help out - not that the Taliban was an ally in the War On Drugs (a war I'll note in passing that I don't support). If we wanted to reward the Taliban, wouldn't it have made sense to have provided them with something other than insults?

While we are all free to draw our own conclusions from the available facts, you cannot change the facts -- even in an opinion column. We didn't give a penny to the Taliban, and any claim that we did, for whatever reason, is false. To leave out that most of the aid was food and what cash was provided was for food and food related aid while Afganistan was in the midst of a famine is misleading.

Kevin Murphy

Okay, more facts, and I'm clearly rebutting (1) money to the Taliban, and (2) aid was quid pro quo for being part of the War on Drugs. Clear, persuasive, and impossible to misconstrue. Hah, was I ever wrong.

You seem to miss my point, Kevin. We were giving aid to Afghanistan while the Taliban were the government. There is no denying that -- whether the aid was mostly food or all food, and whether the aid was given indirectly -- from our hands to the UN to the Afghans. We were giving the Afghans aid. The secretary of state made explicit mention of the fact that the Taliban was restricting the cultivation of poppys, a decision he said we welcomed. I'm not making any of that up, nor am I changing facts. Is it that far-fetched to think that we give aid based on whether we approve of specific actions a government takes? I think we often give aid based on whether or not we think somebody is playing ball with us. Perhaps I am just too cynical, and you might argue that we would give aid to anybody whether we liked their policies or not. But I can think of several famines in which we did not rush forward with aid. We often use foreign aid as a carrot. I have never thought that was so wrong. Is it your argument that the present administration is less concerned about international politics and more altrusitic than former administrations?

Bill seems to skip right over all my facts and clear statements of what my argument is and when I don't agree with him, feels I'm the one missing the point. And his response is a classic of muddleheaded thinking. It's Dowdism (the elimination of the inconvient and the rearrangment to suit the quotor) applied to thinking. Note the repetition of unfounded assertions. Note the restatement of a clearly made argument into something completely different at the end. It's pretty clear to me who's missing the point (and it ain't me).

I'm not missing your point. Your point was that John Lindh could have been confused about our feelings for the Taliban: "At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs."

You have ignored my points and provided no supporting facts.

You said we were giving money to the Taliban. There is no denying that we didn't. Trying to equate providing food and money to the UN and NGOs, and giving cash to the Taliban is wrong. Would it have been the same thing if in the 60's the USSR had given money to the Weather Underground or the Nixon administration? I mean, it's all Americans. According to you it would be the same thing.

Would giving food to the Afgans indicate that we liked the Taliban government? Just the opposite, since we made clear that we were giving the food to NGO's and the UN precisely because we didn't like the Taliban.

We gave food to starving Afgans. This is a payoff to the Taliban how?

The Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation. Powell said we'd work on ways to help out Afgans, including the farmers hurt by that ban. That would mean we were trying to make the farmers allies, not the Taliban. Powell indicated that until the Taliban stopped being the Taliban, not only wouldn't they get anything from us, we would continue to support UN sanctions against them. Maybe you and I have different definitions of "ally".

We provide monetary and military aid directly to governments pretty much completely based upon international political concerns. But that isn't what we are talking about here. We're talking about food aid here - and the only time I know that we've withheld food aid is in North Korea where for several years we asked for better accounting and NGO access and never got it. Doctors without Borders pulled out of North Korea because they said the food aid was only going to supporters of the regime (http://www.msf.org/countries/index.cfm?indexid=22D113E8-BEC7-11D4-852200902789187E). I don't think this administration is much different than any recent ones when it comes to providing famine relief by and large without regard to the current relationship between the two countries. If you're a deeply cynical person, you might consider food aid to a country we dislike in our best interests as it would tend to undermine the recipient.

If you could think of these famines where we haven't rushed forward, could you do me the favor of telling me? As I tell my wife, I'm not a mind reader.

Kevin Murphy

Okay, I got snippy. But at least I'm providing facts and clear reasoning. Could I have been any more clear? I thought the reasoning by analogy would be a big help, but apparently not.

Okay, Kevin. We're not getting anywhere. I'm a little more cyncial than you, that's all. Maybe we don't do things in our own self-interest. As far as famines go, I could go back to the terrible famine in the Soviet Union under Stalin or to the more recent one in Somalia in which we intervened only after it was on television for months. But if you want argue about what constitutes aid, and whether or not our motives are absolutely altrusitic, I know I can't change your mind. Thanks for the notes.

There's our problem, I'm insufficienty cynical. So is being more cynical right? I guess in this case. We aren't arguing about what constitutes aid, but who it's going to. We aren't arguing about the degree of altruism of our motives, but what they were. I suppose some debate teacher taught Bill this technique - divert attention from what's said by restating it incorrectly. Or maybe he's that stupid. But hey, at last I have some verifiable claims from Bill - even if they are pretty much a tangent. I don't know about you, but the impression I get of Bill's fact gathering technique is trying to remember back to what he learned in junior high or what he read somewhere that made an impression on him. The idea of actually trying to do a little research, especially the internet, never seems to have entered his head.

You are right, we aren't getting anywhere. But it isn't because I want to argue about what constitutes aid, or how altruistic our motives are -- I don't. It's about simply getting facts right. It's a sad day when the top columnist at a major newspaper can't see that giving food and money to organizations not connected to the government in a country is not the same thing as giving money to that government. All the other stuff is interesting but not pertinent. You cannot say we gave money to the Taliban for any reason and be accurate for the simple reason we never gave money to the Taliban.

I will comment on your two examples - we did send food to Somalia, and when it was used as a weapon by Somali warlords, we sent in the Marines to insure its proper distribution. Rather than an example of where we withheld food for political reasons, Somalia shows both our willingness to provide famine relief and the limitations thereto.

As far as reaching back to the famine under Stalin in the early thirties, I'm not sure what you want. The soviet regime maintained that there was no famine, and used people like Walter Duranty to reinforce that message (hey, when do you think the NYT will give back the pulitzer for his lies? Just curious). In a sense they were right - there was no famine, there was murder by starvation. When a country's government is deliberately starving certain of its citizens for policy reasons, I'm not sure what you want the US to do. Invade? We did that in Somalia, but I'm not sure we could have been very effective in 1932 invading the USSR. (see http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/eara.html).

Kevin Murphy

OK Mr. smart guy, you want to wander off on a tangent, I'll crush you like the bug you are. I just couldn't resist the Duranty column, because it really undermines the idea that the newsmedia has ever been any good. There was no golden age. OK, what's going to be his response?

Kevin: One reason we're not getting anywhere is from the start I said there might be some truth to what you're saying, but you insist on claiming all the truth and I don't think you can back that up. In fact, you're too much of a "what is the defnition of is is" guy for me. We gave aid to the Afghans while the Taliban ran the government. To me, that's a fact. But you do your "definition of is is" argument that it's not really aid, because it's food, which is like saying we don't give the Egyptians aid because it's really weapons -- and no, I don't want to debate that -- and furthermore, you argue, we didn't really give the aid to the Afghans because we gave it to the UN to give to the Afghans. Very Clintonesque. I still say the fact is we gave aid to the Afghans. At the time we gave the aid to the Afghans -- or in your view, we gave food to the UN which was supposed to give to the Afghans -- the Secretary of State specifically mentioned how helpful the Taliban were in stoppiong the growth of poppys. I'm not sure I understood your denial of that except you said something about how we wanted to help the farmers, and the farmers are not the Taliban. I mean, Kevin, you could argue that the sky is not blue, and I would still insist it seems blue to me. So let's just stop. You're convinced you're completely right about all of htis, and I don't think the facts are on your side -- unless you twist them. And with all respect, I don't have time to keep restating my position.

Clintonesque!?! -- them's fighting words bub.

So now I realize I'm beating my head into a brick wall because I'm insisting on claiming all the truth. He still is hung up on what is aid and can't make the jump of who the aid is going to. When I say we didn't give money to the Taliban, he's stuck on money and I'm talking about the Taliban. And apparently he likes his facts one fact at time, any more than that and he gets confused. And then he decides to go for a little analogy himself, only he make sure he picks on he can win - the sky is blue. Yep, I'm going to argue that one. I bet he doesn't even know why the sky is blue (because sunsets are red). Of course, he can look out any window and see that we gave money to the Taliban in 2000. That's some window. And with all due respect, all you've been doing is simply restating your position and misstating mine.

I'm not trying to claim all the truth. I'm trying to focus on a very specific idea, namely that providing food to starving Afghans is not the same as providing money to the Taliban. Yes, we gave aid to the Afghans while the Taliban ran the government (although we never did recognize the Taliban government as the government of Afghanistan), but the Taliban government did not equal the Afghani people. You cannot substitute Taliban government where ever you see Afghan person(s). They are not the same. Again, let's look at your exact remark that I thought was in error:

"At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs."

We were not giving the Taliban money. We were sending food to starving Afghans. We send food to starving people around the world, typically without a concern for their government. We've sent over 500 million dollars worth of food to North Korea in the last ten years, the government of which we clearly dislike, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We're sending millions of dollars worth of food to Zimbabwe, even though we clearly dislike the regime of Robert Mugabe, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We have sent millions of dollars worth of food to the Sudan under a government we clearly dislike, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We did not like the Taliban - we never even recognized them as the government of Afganistan.

We did not send money to the Taliban. Sending food to starving people is not the same as giving money to their government - that is a fact to me.
We did not like the Taliban. Sending food to starving people does not indicate whether or not the United States government likes another country - that too is a fact.

That leaves the idea that we thought the Taliban were our allies in the drug war. I'm not a mind reader, so I'm forced to look at all the facts to arrive at my conclusion.

Secretary Powell's statement:
We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.

We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations. We provide our aid to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's warring factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement.

UN sanctions against the Taliban are smart sanctions and do not hurt the Afghan people, nor do these sanctions affect the flow of humanitarian assistance for Afghans. "

Are those the words of one ally to another - the only thing we welcomed by the Taliban was their ban on poppy production. And we didn't think much of that; Asa Hutchinson, head of the DEA thought the ban was a cynical ploy to increase the price so that the Taliban could make more money off the huge existing stockpiles in Afganistan (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/03/inv.drugs.terrorism/?related)

And I'm not arguing that the sky is not blue; I was making a cynical argument that if you follow the money (isn't that what cynics do?) that since we clearly said we weren't going to give the Taliban a dime, but we were looking for ways to put aid in the hands of the actual farmers, we were treating the farmers, not the Taliban as an ally. The ally would be the group we we send aid to, not the one we insult. And yes, the farmers are not the government. If I want to give Bill McClellan money, I don't send it to the US Treasury, nor when I want to give the US government money do I send it to Bill McClellan. Perhaps as your wife handles the finances, you aren't acquainted with such a simple economic idea.

But I think Occam's razor solves this question nicely - is it simpler that we sent food to a country with starving people because we don't like to see people starve given our history of sending food to starving people despite their government; or that we sent food to people living in a country whose government we wanted to consider an ally but whom we didn't recognize, whom we got UN sanctions against, whom we'd attacked once before and whom we would go on to depose, because they had banned poppy production while they continued to sell heroin and other opiates?

If the Taliban government is the same as the Afghan people, is it fair to say that when we wiped out the Taliban, we wiped out the Afgans themselves? No, such a statement is absurd on the face of it, and so to is equating the Taliban government with Afghans in general.

Kevin Murphy

I'ts like hearding cats - you've got to keep coming back to the point. When I was in Pakistan I was told they hit their camels in the head with a brick to get their attention. That was my metaphor for the last email. Would this be the straw that broke the camel's back (yes, I realize that's a mixed metaphor)

Kevin: You are correct that we did not send the Afghans money. I was wrong on that point. The rest I think is a little hair-splitting.

He still can't get it right - we didn't send the Taliban the money - not the Afgans. Even the gods themselves wail in vain.

NOTE: The links provided were good in 2003. Your milage may vary.

Hiltzik: Stuck on Stupid

I've gone all year without a post criticising the media (I never get tired of that old joke) and I even went so far as to half way defend them yesterday. But for everything that's wrong about the news business today, read the assault with a limp weapon perpetrated on Patterico part 1 & part 2. Mr. Hiltzik commits the classic emotional fallacy of believing that his name calling works. It doesn't. Far better bloggers than I have responded, from Patterico himself, not just once, but twice, Armed Liberal couldn't say it all in just one post, but fine writing stylist and all around classy guyTom Maguire manages it in just one response.

Highlights of the Hiltzik's essays were his informative comparison of right wing critics of the news media (not just Patterico BTW - and yes, I'm disappointed I wasn't mentioned along with Hugh Hewitt and Mickey Kaus - not that I deserve it) to Stalin and their blogs to his show trials, his charming theft of Tailgunner Joe's line about how he had all kinds of evidence in his briefcase but he wasn't going to share, his claim that people who hadn't worked in daily journalism had no basis of criticism of same, and his rousing defense of story placement in the times that "The written language is a linear communications medium" so "something has to come first".

Argumentative, insulting, stupid, unsatisfying, remarkably fact free and misleading, and ultimately headshaking are the blurbs this critic ends with. Sadly, it's the standard response to criticism from those who understand daily journalism from their employment therein.

Battle of the Network Jerks

I guess it goes to show you just how bad David Letterman is that he's worse than Bill O'Reilly. When O'Reilly makes you look like a fool on your own show, you're a fool.

Media at Work

Hmm, which story provides the information you really want?

A or B?

Most of the stories cover the deceptive doctor angle, and don't mention any questions about how effective Nuvo or Cetaphil is as a lice killer. Only the ABC story (so far) focuses on whether or not Nuvo or Cetaphil works and examines the evidence, i.e. what kind of study was done and the basis of the buzz around Nuvo.

One story is easier to write, but far less informative.

The next step would be to examine the roll the press plays in hyping stories like the original Nuvo press release and who a press release is turned into press story. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Codger At Work

The press in theory is all about speaking truth to power but in practice its about offending those it doesn't like and if it happens to offend those it does like then it grovels while speaking soothing platitudes.

You Can't Handle The Truth

So, President Bush has finally decided to go after those Democrats who are smearing him by claming he lied or mislead about the intellegence on Iraq in order to drum up support for the war. It will be an uphill battle because not only will he have to contend with the Democrats, but the news media as well. The Democrats aren't that formidable a foe, but the news media is much, much smoother at lies and misrepresentations. Good luck Mr. President, you'll need it.

Masters of the Obvious

Is headline writer that difficult a job? Check these out:

Bin Husin May Have Been Planning Attacks

"Police found more than 30 bombs in the hide-out of a Southeast Asia terror ringleader shot to death during a raid by an elite security unit, triggering speculation he was planning more attacks, authorities said Thursday."

Why the 'may' in the headline -- he held on to the bombs for sentimental reasons? He was planning one heck of a stage show for the comeback tour of Great White? Whose speculating, experts? Sheesh a la Beef, what ninnies are writing this stuff.

The Best Darn Talking Points Period

Speaking of policy disputes versus morality plays, Brent Scowcroft criticized Bush administration policy and the Bush administration responded. If you believe Joe Klein, and I don't, the Bush administration responded by sending out "talking points about how to attack Brent Scowcroft" based on a claim by a source who deleted the email before he read it. Well, as Jim Taranto points out: "He [Klein] "reports" that the White House is trying to "destroy" Scowcroft, based on an anonymous source's description of an e-mail that not only Klein but the source himself hasn't read! It's such a hilariously inept bit of journalism..." The sad thing is that as we've seen, this is isn't inept journalism, this is SOP for journalism, and the main reason I don't get excited over claims of malfeasance reported by the media until I can see the primary documents with my own two eyes.

Like a lot of people who have read the talking points, I find them both civil and cogent, and frankly the right way to approach a policy dispute. I reprint them here from Elephants in Academia:

1. Bernard Lewis is perhaps our greatest living historian on the Middle East.

2. Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" was accurate, courageous, and important, as we learned from (among others) Soviet dissidents.

3. The assertion that we have had "fifty years of peace" in the Middle East is an odd one, if you consider (a) America's 1991 war against Iraq (which General Scowcroft favored); (b) the Iraq-Iran war (in which there were a million casualties; (c) the conflict in the early 1970s between Jordan and the Palestinians; (d) the civil war in Lebanon; (e) the four wars between Israel and Arab nations; and (f) the attacks of September 11, 2001 (which was carried out by Islamic radicals who emerged from the broader Middle East).

In some ways this point underscores the enormous difference between the worldview of Mr. Scowcroft and those in the Bush Administration. Mr. Scowcroft seems to believe that the status quo in the Middle East is tolerable, maybe even preferable; we do not. The President believes that if the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. In the words of President Bush, "In the past, [we] have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold."

4. The "bad guys" -- the most ruthless among us -- do not "always" rise to the top. In fact in many elections - in Spain and Portugal, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Czech Republic and Romania, South Africa and the Philippines, Indonesia and Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iraq, and many more - we have seen enormous strides toward freedom. For example, the Western Hemisphere has transformed itself over the last two decades from a region dominated by repressive, authoritarian regimes to one in which the overwhelming number of countries there have democratically-elected governments and growing civil societies.

It's also worth bearing in mind that some pretty bad guys (like Saddam Hussein) "win elections" in authoritarian and totalitarian societies. Indeed, non-democracies make it far easier for the "bad guys" to prevail than is the case with democracies. Is it the supposition of Mr. Scowcroft that from a historical point of view dictatorships have a better record than democracies? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well they can never turn out well? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well we should prefer authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? The habit of mind that sees all the weaknesses in democracy and all the "strengths" in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes is, well, curious.

5. Mr. Scowcroft insists we will not "democratize" Iraq and that "in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful." Except that in the last two-and-a-half years Iraq has moved from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the writing of a constitution, to the passage of a constitution. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress. Iraq still faces challenges, including a ruthless insurgency -- but there is no question that the people of Iraq long for democracy and for victory over the insurgency.

The charge that the way we have sought to bring democracy to Iraq is "you invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize" is itself deeply misleading. Mr. Scowcroft's invasion was in fact a liberation -- and overthrowing one of the worst tyrannies in modern times and replacing it with free elections is a good start on the pathway to liberty. And of course this year we have also seen political progress -- not perfection, but progress -- in Kuwait, Egypt, and among the Palestinians.

6. The notion that democratic progress in Lebanon is "unrelated" to the war in Iraq is undermined by what the Lebanese themselves have told us. To take just one example, here are the words of Walid Jumblatt, who was once a harsh critic of American policy: "'It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

7. Mr. Scowcroft seems to wish that Syria were still ruling Lebanon with an iron fist. Brutal repression may be;wicked -- but (Scowcroft seems to believe) it does keep a lid on "sectarian emotions."

8. Sometimes when given a chance, we humans don't screw up. Sometimes ;human beings reach for, and (even if imperfectly) attain, nobility and the advancement of freedom and human dignity.Which seems to me to be an argument against cynicism and despair -- to say nothing of repression and tyranny. Let the debate proceed.

I suppose too many people don't know who to have a civil debate, so they have to resort to name calling and lying.

Real Journalism

Imagine my surprise to read this article in my paper on Sunday which completely bebunks the stories told by an OIF veteran named Jimmy Massey.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.
...
Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Gateway Pundit is all over this and thinks Mr Massey should be behind bars; I think he should be in a mental institution getting the help he obviously needs (along with his partner in madness, Cindy Sheehan.)

And not content with that, Mr. Ron Harris then goes on to ask "Why did the press swallow Massey's stories?" The quotes Mr. Harris presents do not paint a pretty picture of the press:

Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey's unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP, said he didn't know why the reporters didn't talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

How typical -- stonewall when called on shoddy journalism.

While the story never comes to a conclusion about why didn't the press checkout his stories, I'll give you my answer - in some cases they wanted to believe them, and in other cases they just never bother. I don't know which is worse, but check out more quotes from the story:

David Holwerk, editorial page editor for The Sacramento Bee, said he thought the newspaper handled its story, a question and answer interview with Massey, poorly.
"I feel fairly confident that we did not subject this to the rigorous scrutiny that we should have or to which we would subject it today," he said.

Mr. Holwerk, please don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining. What steps have you specifically taken so this doesn't happen again? Yes, no doubt today, after having been alerted, you wouldn't run Mr. Massey's ravings without the slightest scrutiny like you did the last time, but what about other stories?

Rex Smith, editor of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, said he thought the newspaper's story about Massey could have "benefited from some additional reporting." But he didn't necessarily see anything particularly at odds with standard journalism practices.

The paper printed a story in which Massey reportedly told an audience how he and other Marines killed peaceful demonstrators. There was no response from the Marine Corps or any other evidence to back Massey's claims.

Smith said that, unfortunately, that is the nature of the newspaper business.

"You could take any day's newspaper and probably pick out a half dozen or more stories that ought to be subjected to a more rigorous truth test," he said.

"Yes, it would have been much better if we had the other side. But all I'm saying is that this is unfortunately something that happens every day in our newspapers and with practically every story on television."

Mr Smith, I have to credit you with telling it like it is, and in the immortal words of Latigo Smith, "the Truth hurts", but how do you look at yourself in the mirror every morning while willingly and knowingly participating in a gigantic fraud on the American people. Yes, fraud. We pay newspapars to tell us the facts and provide all sides to a story, and here you are telling us that what we get for our money is a collection of fairy tales that on a good day might concievably have some ever so slight basis in fact, but you don't really have any idea.

Michael Parks sees it differently. He is the director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Parks also reviewed stories written about Massey.

"A reporter's obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that's accused," said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "They can't let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don't do that, it's a clear disservice to the reader."

Dear Mr. Parks, it isn't a disservice to the reader, its fraud. When the press claims one to fact check but doesn't, it's fraud. And this happens over, and over, and over.

"We're not stenographers, we're journalists," Dixon [former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University Department of Journalism] said. "What separates journalism from other forms of writing is that we practice the craft of verification. By not doing that, that's saying they're abdicating any responsibility from exercising news judgment. ... As a journalist, you want to put accurate information before the public so they can make opinions and decisions based on accurate information. When something like this happens, harm is done, the truth suffers."

Amen Brother Dixon, Amen. Now if you can make that teaching stick with your students, I'll be much obliged to you.

My own theory on why Mr. Harris wrote two such take-no-prisoners articles: His sense of truth was offended by what happened. He was one of the imbedded reporters with the marine unit that Mr. Massey was maligning and as such he was a witness to the truth. And so he wrote two articles, one that looked at the liar, and the other that looked at those who uncritically spread the lies, and he discharged his duty to the truth.

Mr Harris and the Post delivered real journalism, powerfully delivered in two short articles. And Mr. Arnie Robbins, new editor in chief of the Post, that's something that I, and plenty others who also want real journalism, are willing to pay for, whatever the format.

The Editor Is Gone, All Hail the Editor

Ellen Soeteber has resigned as the Editor in Chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her resignation followed a large voluntary employee buyout at the Post. I know the paper comes in for a lot of criticism here, but I do try to call attention to those times when the paper did a good job.

I think Ms. Soeteber did a good job within the limits of current journalism. By that I mean the faults of the Post are pretty much the faults of journalism today - too often smug, arrogant, unbalanced, inaccurate, and unfair. Certainly she did a much better job than Cole Campbell who championed "public" or "civic" journalism, which in those days just meant the the newspaper was supposed to be an advocate for public and