Government Manipulation of a Free Press - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Elphaba · 01-02-2006, 02:12 PM

Quote:

To my knowledge, the New York Times remains mum on why they held the information of NSA spying on Americans for a year.

The Public Editor of NYT has written an editorial concerning the year long delay of the NSA story. Nothing is really answered, but Calame offers possibilies that seem reasonable. Sadly, I think the possibility of getting out-scooped by one of their own had a great deal to do with it.

Link

Quote:

Behind the Eavesdropping Story, a Loud Silence
By Byrob Calame, Public Editor
The New York Times

Sunday 01 January 2006

The New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.

Despite this stonewalling, my objectives today are to assess the flawed handling of the original explanation of the article's path into print, and to offer a few thoughts on some factors that could have affected the timing of the article. My intention is to do so with special care, because my 40-plus years of newspapering leave me keenly aware that some of the toughest calls an editor can face are involved here - those related to intelligence gathering, election-time investigative articles and protection of sources. On these matters, reasonable disagreements can abound inside the newsroom.

(A word about my reporting for this column: With the top Times people involved in the final decisions refusing to talk and urging everyone else to remain silent, it seemed clear to me that chasing various editors and reporters probably would yield mostly anonymous comments that the ultimate decision-makers would not confirm or deny. So I decided not to pursue those who were not involved in the final decision to publish the article - or to refer to Times insiders quoted anonymously in others' reporting.)

At the outset, it's essential to acknowledge the far-reaching importance of the eavesdropping article's content to Times readers and to the rest of the nation. Whatever its path to publication, Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller deserve credit for its eventual appearance in the face of strong White House pressure to kill it. And the basic accuracy of the account of the eavesdropping stands unchallenged - a testament to the talent in the trenches.

But the explanation of the timing and editing of the front-page article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau caused major concern for scores of Times readers. The terse one-paragraph explanation noted that the White House had asked for the article to be killed. "After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting," it said. "Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."

If Times editors hoped the brief mention of the one-year delay and the omitted sensitive information would assure readers that great caution had been exercised in publishing the article, I think they miscalculated. The mention of a one-year delay, almost in passing, cried out for a fuller explanation. And the gaps left by the explanation hardly matched the paper's recent bold commitments to readers to explain how news decisions are made.

At the very least, The Times should have told readers in the article why it could not address specific issues. At least some realization of this kicked in rather quickly after publication. When queried by reporters for other news media on Dec. 16, Mr. Keller offered two prepared statements that shed some additional light on the timing and handling of the article.

The longer of Mr. Keller's two prepared statements said the paper initially held the story based on national security considerations and assurances that everyone in government believed the expanded eavesdropping was legal. But when further reporting showed that legal questions loomed larger than The Times first thought and that a story could be written without certain genuinely sensitive technical details, he said, the paper decided to publish. (Mr. Keller's two prepared statements, as well as some thoughtful reader comments, are posted on the Public Editor's Web Journal.)

Times readers would have benefited if the explanation in the original article had simply been expanded to include the points Mr. Keller made after publication. And if the length of that proved too clunky for inclusion in the article, the explanation could have been published as a separate article near the main one. Even the sentence he provided me as to why he would not answer my questions offered some possible insight.

Protection of sources is the most plausible reason I've been able to identify for The Times's woeful explanation in the article and for the silence of Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller. I base this on Mr. Keller's response to me: "There is really no way to have a full discussion of the back story without talking about when and how we knew what we knew, and we can't do that."

Taken at face value, Mr. Keller seems to be contending that the sourcing for the eavesdropping article is so intertwined with the decisions about when and what to publish that a full explanation could risk revealing the sources. I have no trouble accepting the importance of confidential sourcing concerns here. The reporters' nearly one dozen confidential sources enabled them to produce a powerful article that I think served the public interest.

With confidential sourcing under attack and the reporters digging in the backyards of both intelligence and politics, The Times needs to guard the sources for the eavesdropping article with extra special care. Telling readers the time that the reporters got one specific fact, for instance, could turn out to be a dangling thread of information that the White House or the Justice Department could tug at until it leads them to the source. Indeed, word came Friday that the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the disclosure of classified information about the eavesdropping.

The most obvious and troublesome omission in the explanation was the failure to address whether The Times knew about the eavesdropping operation before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That point was hard to ignore when the explanation in the article referred rather vaguely to having "delayed publication for a year." To me, this language means the article was fully confirmed and ready to publish a year ago - after perhaps weeks of reporting on the initial tip - and then was delayed.

Mr. Keller dealt directly with the timing of the initial tip in his later statements. The eavesdropping information "first became known to Times reporters" a year ago, he said. These two different descriptions of the article's status in the general vicinity of Election Day last year leave me puzzled.

For me, however, the most obvious question is still this: If no one at The Times was aware of the eavesdropping prior to the election, why wouldn't the paper have been eager to make that clear to readers in the original explanation and avoid that politically charged issue? The paper's silence leaves me with uncomfortable doubts.

On the larger question of why the eavesdropping article finally appeared when it did, a couple of possibilities intrigue me.

One is that Times editors said they discovered there was more concern inside the government about the eavesdropping than they had initially been told. Mr. Keller's prepared statements said that "a year ago," officials "assured senior editors of The Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions." So the paper "agreed not to publish at that time" and continued reporting.

But in the months that followed, Mr. Keller said, "we developed a fuller picture of the concerns and misgivings that had been expressed during the life of the program" and "it became clear those questions loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood."

The impact of a new book about intelligence by Mr. Risen on the timing of the article is difficult to gauge. The book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," was not mentioned in the Dec. 16 article. Mr. Keller asserted in the shorter of his two statements that the article wasn't timed to the forthcoming book, and that "its origins and publication are completely independent of Jim's book."

The publication of Mr. Risen's book, with its discussion of the eavesdropping operation, was scheduled for mid-January - but has now been moved up to Tuesday. Despite Mr. Keller's distancing of The Times from "State of War," Mr. Risen's publisher told me on Dec. 21 that the paper's Washington bureau chief had talked to her twice in the previous 30 days about the book.

So it seems to me the paper was quite aware that it faced the possibility of being scooped by its own reporter's book in about four weeks. But the key question remains: To what extent did the book cause top editors to shrug off the concerns that had kept them from publishing the eavesdropping article for months?

A final note: If Mr. Risen's book or anything else of substance should open any cracks in the stone wall surrounding the handling of the eavesdropping article, I will have my list of 28 questions (35 now, actually) ready to e-mail again to Mr. Keller.

The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.

shakran · 01-04-2006, 05:10 PM

This thread:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=99474

is a great example of what's wrong with society and their demands of the media. Instead of demanding that we cover news, they're demanding that we be psychic. The only way to get info about the miners was to talk to the mining company. Reporters could not physically get to the miners. They had to go on what they were being told. And the company, by the way, was only repeating what they heard on the radio from the guys down trying to get to the miners.

Unfortunate? Yes, absolutely. The media's fault? I fail to see how they could have done any better.

But TFP users like Crow Daw couldn't wait to jump on the media.

Now here's where it gets fun. If the miners HAD been found alive and the media had sat on it (unnecessarilly) there'd have been hoardes of people jumping down our collective throats for not reporting it. So basically this was a no-win scenario.

Now don't get me wrong. People always have stupid complaints about the media. 99% of the complaints we get at my station involve the weatherman's tie or how much of a bastard the sports director is for not covering Little Johnny's peewee football game. People almost never criticise us on what we need to be criticised on (why the hell aren't you exposing the ethanol industry for the scam it is? Why do you always wait for some official or group to bring up a problem before you tell us about it?) - instead they'd rather criticise us on stupid crap like that. So I'm used to the ill-informed criticism of the type in that mining thread.

But what irritates me is that people are such friggin' sheep about it. Everyone picks on lawyers because it's cool to pick on lawyers - everyone else is doing it so I'll be more accepted if I do it. So I'll poke fun at the lawyers to fit in - until, that is, I need one.

It's the same thing with journalists. We as a group deserve a LOT of criticism, but instead of criticising us right, the public criticises us for being "media jackals, media scum, pain-in-the-ass reporters" etc. It'd be too HARD to criticise us on what we need to be criticised on because that would take some thinking, so instead we'll parrot what our friends and the people we think are cool say.

So, instead of effecting real change, people are just shouting to hear themselves shout. That's not a real good way of securing a good journalism system.

alpha phi · 01-04-2006, 08:17 PM

shakran:
I was thinking about this earlier today
While watching C-SPAN people were
calling in, mad at the media!
Not at the mine management
for not correcting the mistake for three hours
many of the callers were trying to use this
as an excuse to further gag the media.
The mediator tried to set the record straight
saying someone called the waiting family members
and told them the miners were alive.
and the mine management did not respond to requests for info.
This stinks of useing another tragedy
to further political goals.

pan6467 · 01-05-2006, 12:12 AM

For years Limbaugh and the talking heads on the right have continuously attacked the 2 most important assets to the long term future of this country.

The press and Eductaion.

They attacked the press enough continually calling it biased to the point where ANYTHING the press does is wrong. To the point where the press covers stories up, waits and sits on important information, and has become fluff and more worried about pop culture than pure news.

This works to the Right's advantage and government in that these people have effectively destroyed the media and any news brought out is questioned and fought about and the facts become obscured to the point government gets away with anything it wants to.

The attack on education is even better. Call the schools liberal, make them pariahs and then force them to teach your agenda without question or be attacked, lose funding and get just enough students riled so that again facts are lost and obscured and perception dictated by the talking heads and propagandists become reality.

But I still maintain my optmism and believe that people will have enough and the penduulum will swing back toward center, however, I am pessimistic in that I truly believe the Right will do all they can, take away all they can and to hold the penduulum as long as they can. And only time will tell what the permanent effects will be.

Rekna · 01-05-2006, 08:16 AM

One thing good about this day in age even if one of the parties gain control of the media and bias it there will be the ability to get unbiased news from online. I suspect 20 years from now it will be much harder to prevent people from knowing the truth as there will be few people who don't read news online.

pan6467 · 01-05-2006, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

One thing good about this day in age even if one of the parties gain control of the media and bias it there will be the ability to get unbiased news from online. I suspect 20 years from now it will be much harder to prevent people from knowing the truth as there will be few people who don't read news online.

If we are a nation where the people can afford to be online and the government hasn't taken control of the internet and its contents.

Rekna · 01-05-2006, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

If we are a nation where the people can afford to be online and the government hasn't taken control of the internet and its contents.

most people do have access to the internet and the access will continue to grown. in addition i'd say "controlling" the internet is an impossibility. The only way to control it is to destroy it.

Willravel · 01-05-2006, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

most people do have access to the internet and the access will continue to grown. in addition i'd say "controlling" the internet is an impossibility. The only way to control it is to destroy it.

Can you post anything that you want on TFP? No, because it belongs to someone else. It's a matter of two things: internet law, and hosting capabilities. If there is an international law that say you cannot make a website that explains how to make a bomb, then you can't do it lest you be punished. If you can't find a host for your website, you can't get your info out there. The same corporations that run TV now are trying to do the same to the internet (who do you think invented spam? AOL, actually). The comapnies that own the phone/cable/t1 lines along with corpriate sponsors could have a real stranglehold on information on the internet if they wanted.

Rekna · 01-05-2006, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Can you post anything that you want on TFP? No, because it belongs to someone else. It's a matter of two things: internet law, and hosting capabilities. If there is an international law that say you cannot make a website that explains how to make a bomb, then you can't do it lest you be punished. If you can't find a host for your website, you can't get your info out there. The same corporations that run TV now are trying to do the same to the internet (who do you think invented spam? AOL, actually). The comapnies that own the phone/cable/t1 lines along with corpriate sponsors could have a real stranglehold on information on the internet if they wanted.

tell me which international body controls every country in the world? which country is able to stop information from being put on websites within it's own borders (punishing people and shutting down websites does not stop the information from first getting on there). The fact is that once information is on the net it gets coppied and duplicated many times, even moreso if it is information that is likely to be removed. Why is it the movie industry is unable to stop every film they release from ending up on the net, dispite it being illegal in almost every nation in the world?

alpha phi · 01-05-2006, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

tell me which international body controls every country in the world? which country is able to stop information from being put on websites within it's own borders (punishing people and shutting down websites does not stop the information from first getting on there). The fact is that once information is on the net it gets coppied and duplicated many times, even moreso if it is information that is likely to be removed. Why is it the movie industry is unable to stop every film they release from ending up on the net, dispite it being illegal in almost every nation in the world?

They are working on it as we speak
the US goverment retains control of the DNS system
And
The FBI requires a "black box" at the ISP to record all activity,
and possibly filter upload/download
Filtering is already happening in
China
Tunisia
Iran
and more countries around the world.
The DCMA,RIAA,MPAA are tools to make total control a reality

pan6467 · 01-05-2006, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

most people do have access to the internet and the access will continue to grown. in addition i'd say "controlling" the internet is an impossibility. The only way to control it is to destroy it.

With the ways previously mentioned there would be ways to control it, plus, the very effective tool of just raising the price to where only the people they want to use the net can pay for it.

Granted they won't be able to control everything that comes on, but they can and may eventually be able to control who has access.

shakran · 01-05-2006, 05:36 PM

plus again you have to consider the costs. Let's say all the journalists are suddenly 100% republican stooges - something that could happen in the future as more of the good ones quit to make more money (managers at mc donalds generally make more than your average TV news photographer - - think I'll be in this business forever? I think not) or quit because they're sick of not being able to practice REAL journalism (another reason I probably won't be doing this forever). So now we've got a bunch of internet "citizen journalists" reporting on the internet to balance out what the republicanjournos are doing in the rest of the media. Only trouble is, like I've said before, it costs a LOT of money to gather the news. I sure don't have that kind of cash. Do you?

Rekna · 01-05-2006, 08:32 PM

I don't believe there will ever be a body that will be able to control the internet, they can make it hard to access certian things but nothing will ever prevent it. There are far to many hackers that break every form of protection invented. Filters can be fooled easily. Blocking information from the internet is like trying to stop a flood with your hands.

shakran · 01-06-2006, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

I don't believe there will ever be a body that will be able to control the internet, they can make it hard to access certian things but nothing will ever prevent it. There are far to many hackers that break every form of protection invented. Filters can be fooled easily. Blocking information from the internet is like trying to stop a flood with your hands.

Which is both good and bad. We've all seen how those stupid internet rumors spread. And hell most of those aren't even believable (forward this and Bill Gates will give you $100, etc). What if, in this future "news on the web" world, some idiot starts spreading lies, but makes them believable? You'd end up with an information anarchy in which you could never really know what news was true and what was false. That, if possible, would be even more of a disaster than the news situation today is.

samcol · 01-06-2006, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Which is both good and bad. We've all seen how those stupid internet rumors spread. And hell most of those aren't even believable (forward this and Bill Gates will give you $100, etc). What if, in this future "news on the web" world, some idiot starts spreading lies, but makes them believable? You'd end up with an information anarchy in which you could never really know what news was true and what was false. That, if possible, would be even more of a disaster than the news situation today is.

A free press means a press free of government control. This is the only way that all of the truth has the possiblity of being brought forward. If a website has say 70% disinfo and lies, but 30% of the material was spot on and not being covered by anyone else, then it would be a diservice to the people to have the government restrict it because of it's track record. It's the job of the consumer to discern the information not the government. People know when they smell BS that's why they are going to the internet now instead of mainstream news.

The real disaster would be the truth not getting out due to governmental censors, not someone spreading rumors on the internets!!!ELVEN!!11

Take for instance www.rense.com. I don't agree with every article they post, but I find their view of how news should be handled to be spot on.

Quote:

Disclaimer and Fair Use

The idea of a free press in America is one that we hold in the highest regard. We believe in bringing our site visitors and program listeners the widest possible array of information that comes to our attention. We have great trust and respect for the American people, and our worldwide audience, and believe them to be fully-capable of making their own decisions and discerning their own realities.

Among the thousands of articles posted here for your consideration, there will doubtless be some that you find useless, and possibly offensive, but we believe you will be perceptive enough to realize that even the stories you disagree with have some value in terms of promoting your own further self-definition and insight. Our site is a smorgasbord of material...take what you wish and click or scroll right past that which doesn't interest you.

We suggest you don't make 'assumptions' about our official position on issues that are discussed here. That is not what this site is about. We believe it to be unwise to sweep controversy under the carpet. We also firmly believe people should not only read material which they agree with. The opinions expressed through the thousands of stories here do not necessarily represent those of Mr. Rense, his radio program, his website, or his webmaster, Mr. James Neff.

We are not going to censor the news and information here. That is for you to do.

We strongly recommend not 'assuming' anything. Read, consider, and make your own informed decisions. People 'assumed' the Warren Commission report was accurate. It was not. People 'assumed' the Federal Government would never conduct biochemical experiments on the general populace. But it did, by the score. People 'assumed' the world was once flat.

shakran · 01-06-2006, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

A free press means a press free of government control. This is the only way that all of the truth has the possiblity of being brought forward. If a website has say 70% disinfo and lies, but 30% of the material was spot on and not being covered by anyone else, then it would be a diservice to the people to have the government restrict it because of it's track record. It's the job of the consumer to discern the information not the government. People know when they smell BS that's why they are going to the internet now instead of mainstream news.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not, nor would I EVER advocate government censorship of anything. What I'm saying is that under the current journalism system, you can at least have an idea who the reliable sources are. Yes, every source makes mistakes, but the networks, and (reputable) newspapers TRY to get it right. And if they don't it's pretty freakin' embarassing to them.

The net will turn all that on its head. I could go start a website tomorrow and write all sorts of lies about Bush. I can't be held accountable for it if I hide my real identity. If you didn't have alternate sources, you wouldn't be able to determine whether my stuff was false or not because you couldn't determine who I am or my track record for accuracy. Now, if ALL of journalism turns that way, we end up with total information anarchy. Again, it's not something the government needs to or should step in and stop, but it is a potential problem

Quote:

The real disaster would be the truth not getting out due to governmental censors, not someone spreading rumors on the internets!!!ELVEN!!11

You're speaking as though there could be only one disaster

Sure, that would be a disaster, but not being able to tell fact from fiction would also be a disaster, since the real news would then hold no more value than fake news.

Quote:

Take for instance www.rense.com. I don't agree with every article they post, but I find their view of how news should be handled to be spot on.

Why? It has horriffic inaccuracies (Sharon is not "at least clinically dead" according to reputable sources, and the chemtrails bit is an old whacko conspiracy theory that has NEVER held water), and it's absurdly sensationalist.

alpha phi · 01-10-2006, 11:10 AM

US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist

Quote:

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an
Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom
where he was sleeping with his wife and children.
Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of
the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Quote:

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and
seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.
The director of the film, Callum Macrae, said yesterday: "The timing and nature of
this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the
US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to
grant him an interview about our findings.

Beyond manulipition and into direct intimidation.

shakran · 01-16-2006, 10:28 PM

Host: Re your challenge on the Gannon matter. Sorry, I completely missed your post.

I'll agree with you that it was the blog that figured it out (journos sorta fell down there - more on that in a minute) but it was the mainstream media that reported it after the blog discovered it.

Now, the reason I only say journos sort of failed there. You gotta understand. There are a LOT of dipshits in this business, just as there are in any other. Just because someone is incompetent or asks idiotic questions does not mean they're a planted stooge. They could just be a moron.

I honestly don't know enough about the individual comments reporters made to "Gannon" before he was exposed - I know they said he didn't belong there, but exactly what did they mean by that? I haven't been able to find out. "You don't belong here" could be taken two ways: 1) "You're not a real journalist, get the hell out" or 2) "You're a complete moron. Stop wasting our time. If it's 2, then there's no reason to raise a fuss.

Furthermore, once again we beat our heads against the trap the media has bought itself into. If a real journalist were to discover who gannon was and expose him, that real journalist would instantly be labeled part of the "liberal media" and every effort would be made to marginalize him and his report.

Especially interesting since there's no such thing as the liberal media. Media outlets are pretty much universally owned by corporations, which understandably lean conservative since the conservatives are the more business-friendly. Why would they hire a bunch of loudmouthed liberals and tell them to go out and spread liberalism if they want to encourage conservatism?

01-04-2006, 08:17 PM	#83 (permalink)
alpha phi seeker Location: home	shakran: I was thinking about this earlier today While watching C-SPAN people were calling in, mad at the media! Not at the mine management for not correcting the mistake for three hours many of the callers were trying to use this as an excuse to further gag the media. The mediator tried to set the record straight saying someone called the waiting family members and told them the miners were alive. and the mine management did not respond to requests for info. This stinks of useing another tragedy to further political goals. __________________ All ideas in this communication are sole property of the voices in my head. (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 "The Voices" (TM). All rights reserved.

01-05-2006, 12:12 AM	#84 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	For years Limbaugh and the talking heads on the right have continuously attacked the 2 most important assets to the long term future of this country. The press and Eductaion. They attacked the press enough continually calling it biased to the point where ANYTHING the press does is wrong. To the point where the press covers stories up, waits and sits on important information, and has become fluff and more worried about pop culture than pure news. This works to the Right's advantage and government in that these people have effectively destroyed the media and any news brought out is questioned and fought about and the facts become obscured to the point government gets away with anything it wants to. The attack on education is even better. Call the schools liberal, make them pariahs and then force them to teach your agenda without question or be attacked, lose funding and get just enough students riled so that again facts are lost and obscured and perception dictated by the talking heads and propagandists become reality. But I still maintain my optmism and believe that people will have enough and the penduulum will swing back toward center, however, I am pessimistic in that I truly believe the Right will do all they can, take away all they can and to hold the penduulum as long as they can. And only time will tell what the permanent effects will be. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

01-04-2006, 05:10 PM	#82 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	This thread: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=99474 is a great example of what's wrong with society and their demands of the media. Instead of demanding that we cover news, they're demanding that we be psychic. The only way to get info about the miners was to talk to the mining company. Reporters could not physically get to the miners. They had to go on what they were being told. And the company, by the way, was only repeating what they heard on the radio from the guys down trying to get to the miners. Unfortunate? Yes, absolutely. The media's fault? I fail to see how they could have done any better. But TFP users like Crow Daw couldn't wait to jump on the media. Now here's where it gets fun. If the miners HAD been found alive and the media had sat on it (unnecessarilly) there'd have been hoardes of people jumping down our collective throats for not reporting it. So basically this was a no-win scenario. Now don't get me wrong. People always have stupid complaints about the media. 99% of the complaints we get at my station involve the weatherman's tie or how much of a bastard the sports director is for not covering Little Johnny's peewee football game. People almost never criticise us on what we need to be criticised on (why the hell aren't you exposing the ethanol industry for the scam it is? Why do you always wait for some official or group to bring up a problem before you tell us about it?) - instead they'd rather criticise us on stupid crap like that. So I'm used to the ill-informed criticism of the type in that mining thread. But what irritates me is that people are such friggin' sheep about it. Everyone picks on lawyers because it's cool to pick on lawyers - everyone else is doing it so I'll be more accepted if I do it. So I'll poke fun at the lawyers to fit in - until, that is, I need one. It's the same thing with journalists. We as a group deserve a LOT of criticism, but instead of criticising us right, the public criticises us for being "media jackals, media scum, pain-in-the-ass reporters" etc. It'd be too HARD to criticise us on what we need to be criticised on because that would take some thinking, so instead we'll parrot what our friends and the people we think are cool say. So, instead of effecting real change, people are just shouting to hear themselves shout. That's not a real good way of securing a good journalism system.

01-05-2006, 08:16 AM	#85 (permalink)
Rekna Junkie	One thing good about this day in age even if one of the parties gain control of the media and bias it there will be the ability to get unbiased news from online. I suspect 20 years from now it will be much harder to prevent people from knowing the truth as there will be few people who don't read news online.

01-05-2006, 05:36 PM	#92 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	plus again you have to consider the costs. Let's say all the journalists are suddenly 100% republican stooges - something that could happen in the future as more of the good ones quit to make more money (managers at mc donalds generally make more than your average TV news photographer - - think I'll be in this business forever? I think not) or quit because they're sick of not being able to practice REAL journalism (another reason I probably won't be doing this forever). So now we've got a bunch of internet "citizen journalists" reporting on the internet to balance out what the republicanjournos are doing in the rest of the media. Only trouble is, like I've said before, it costs a LOT of money to gather the news. I sure don't have that kind of cash. Do you?

01-05-2006, 08:32 PM	#93 (permalink)
Rekna Junkie	I don't believe there will ever be a body that will be able to control the internet, they can make it hard to access certian things but nothing will ever prevent it. There are far to many hackers that break every form of protection invented. Filters can be fooled easily. Blocking information from the internet is like trying to stop a flood with your hands.

01-16-2006, 10:28 PM	#98 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	Host: Re your challenge on the Gannon matter. Sorry, I completely missed your post. I'll agree with you that it was the blog that figured it out (journos sorta fell down there - more on that in a minute) but it was the mainstream media that reported it after the blog discovered it. Now, the reason I only say journos sort of failed there. You gotta understand. There are a LOT of dipshits in this business, just as there are in any other. Just because someone is incompetent or asks idiotic questions does not mean they're a planted stooge. They could just be a moron. I honestly don't know enough about the individual comments reporters made to "Gannon" before he was exposed - I know they said he didn't belong there, but exactly what did they mean by that? I haven't been able to find out. "You don't belong here" could be taken two ways: 1) "You're not a real journalist, get the hell out" or 2) "You're a complete moron. Stop wasting our time. If it's 2, then there's no reason to raise a fuss. Furthermore, once again we beat our heads against the trap the media has bought itself into. If a real journalist were to discover who gannon was and expose him, that real journalist would instantly be labeled part of the "liberal media" and every effort would be made to marginalize him and his report. Especially interesting since there's no such thing as the liberal media. Media outlets are pretty much universally owned by corporations, which understandably lean conservative since the conservatives are the more business-friendly. Why would they hire a bunch of loudmouthed liberals and tell them to go out and spread liberalism if they want to encourage conservatism?