real journalism

War of the Words

Newsweek retracts Koran desecration story

White House bashes Newsweek report on Koran

White House to Newsweek: Do more


The shite, as they say, has hit the fan.

And yet another PR coup for the White House is in the works.

Newsweek, like its sister publication, Time, are mainstream news magazines that generally walk a fine line between cutting edge journalism and true sycophantic hackistry. The fact is that as general interest publications, they never really hit either end of the spectrum. Instead, they are content on having the luxury of some hindsight...even if just a few hours...before their weekly deadline to digest the news stories that they feature. By that time, there is usually some kind of consensus in the land as to how the magazines should present the stories lest they not antagonize too many of their advertisers (and to a lesser extent, their readers).

It is primarily for this reason that Time, Newsweek and virtually every other mainstream medium helped the White House sell a war in Iraq that we came to find was cynically and deceptively conceived and executed.

At no time during this time did the corporate mainstream media ask hard questions of the President and his co-conspirators during the runup to the war. Instead, they timidly offered a constant barrage of palatable hawkish opinion and an endless supply of "experts" on neo-con foreign policy, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism that the media sucked up like an anteater attacking a termite mound.

This singular lack of journalistic duty offered a myriad of benefits for the media; most importantly, the promise of favorable rulings by government regulators towards the media's giant corporate parents. This tasty carrot, however, also came with the sharp little stick that held out the threat that all access to Administration sources would be withheld if the questions put forth were of sufficient strength to cause any kind of embarrassment or real injury to it.

And so for the past four and a half years, except for a brief period just before 9/11, the public has been spoon-fed bland White House pablum by the corporate news media, with the result that American public opinion has become blinded by the continuous din of White House propaganda.

So as with the CBS/Dan Rather fiasco last year, the White House now has another opportunity to demonize the "liberal press", a term that in and of itself would be ludicrously funny if it wasn't so pathetically untrue.

Perhaps the most incredible headline I found today was this one:

US image damaged: White House

Since the United States, in the person of Colin Powell lied his ass of at the UN General Assembly in February, 2003, the image of the United States has been lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. The ignorance of this US President and the malevolence of his handlers has left the United States in a position where the rest of the world simply watches in amazement as a once-powerful and somewhat respected nation begins to devour itself from the inside in an orgy of religious hatred and intolerance, corporate cupidity and an almost prideful post-literate stupidity of its citizens.

US Image damaged?

Over 1500 US soldiers have died, thousands more have been wounded and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi non-combatants have been killed because of the lies and treachery imposed by this Administration.

The information from the public reports that have recently demonstrated the lies that led to this war was available to the media before we proceeded to get ourselves entangled in the mess over there. Yet that information was not allowed to be heard before we began this slaughter.

The Abu Ghraib torture episode of a year ago seems to have been neatly and finally attributed primarily to a genetic halfwit woman-child and her horndog lover; even though our current Attorney General Gonzalez explicitly stated in a memo to the Justice Department only acts that were specifically intended to cause severe pain and suffering or organ failure would qualify as torture. Moreover, the President, as commander–in-chief, could essentially disregard international treaties and U.S. domestic law governing torture, so long as he was acting in what he thought was the defense of the country.

Coincidentally, the headlines of this week that stated that the Bush's approval ratings were heading for the cellar once again harkended another terror threat level readjustment, but as it turns out, this story is doing the same thing for the Administration that an Orange Alert would do. Put a positive spin on an Administration doing what it can against the contrivances and lies of an adversarial press.

Not only do we have the "false" revelations in Newsweek's story causing riots and death in Afghanistan, but, according to the wingnut media machine, the gross negligence of the Newsweek reporters has demonstrated their hatred of America and lack of respect for the honorable troops who have fought so valiantly against the scourge of Islamic terrorism.

Just how does Karl Rove do it every single time his boy-puppet is in trouble? It's remarkable. It's also tragic, because this will undoubtedly cause any reporters who still have a modicum of integrity to retrench farther into the silent background. And if not them, then certainly their editors will do so.

The ultimate question here is whether the report is true and (if you followed any of the reporting about Abu Ghraib this does have a definite ring of truth) when it is at last safe for the truth to be told, will any real journalists be around to report it?

posted by mauiloa @ 11:40 AM