The Liberal Media Hall of Shame
I'm sure you've heard all about the article written by a soldier named Thomas Beauchamp (originally under the name of Scott Thomas) for The New Republic in which he "documented" several instances of inhumane behavior on the part of US soldiers in Iraq. His story, called Shock Troops, begins with this error:
I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.
It is the story of soldiers callously mocking a women whose face had been disfigured by an IED. Many bloggers noted that the story did not seem to add up, and their doubts forced The New Republic to print a defense of Beauchamp in which they said:
Beauchamp's latest, a Diarist headlined "Shock Troops," was about the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war. The piece was a startling confession of shame about some disturbing conduct, both his own and that of his fellow soldiers.
However, they also admitted that this incident happened in Kuwait, before Beauchamp arrived in Iraq. That is, before he could have experienced "...the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war." Mark Steyn said it best:
War is hell, but, if you beat up a bloke in a pub in southern England a year before D-Day, that may not be the best anecdote to prove your point.
Now, it appears that the whole account may have been a fabrication, though I'm not sure that this has been definitively established yet.
In any case, my point today is that the war in Iraq simply drives liberals crazy, and because of that, they keep adding to the ranks of what I call the Liberal Media Hall of Shame. Beauchamp and The New Republic magazine are only the latest inductees. To be inducted into the Hall of Shame, you have to fight against the war in Iraq by making false and sometimes outrageous allegations against our troops or the war's leaders (Bush and Blair, mainly). One of the inaugural members was, of course, Dan Rather:
Dan Rather to Step Down at CBS
Anchor's Decision Comes Amid Probe of Flawed Bush Report
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A01
Dan Rather said yesterday that he will end his nearly 24-year reign as CBS News anchor early next year, setting the terms of his departure instead of waiting for an investigative report on his rushed and admittedly flawed story on President Bush's National Guard service.
...
Rather apologized in September for a "mistake in judgment" in relying on apparently bogus documents for a "60 Minutes Wednesday" report charging that Bush received favorable treatment in the Texas Air National Guard three decades ago. But the apology followed 10 days in which Rather and his network doggedly defended the story despite mounting evidence, some of it assembled by Internet bloggers, that the memos in question could not have been written on an early 1970s government typewriter.
And then there was CNN executive Eason Jordan who, like Beauchamp, made outrageous (and outrageously false) allegations against our troops:
CNN executive resigns after controversial remarks
Friday, February 11, 2005
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan resigned Friday, saying the controversy over his remarks about the deaths of journalists in Iraq threatened to tarnish the network he helped build.
Jordan conceded that his remarks at the January 27 World Economic Forum were "not as clear as they should have been." Several participants at the event said Jordan told the audience U.S. forces had deliberately targeted journalists -- a charge he denied.
And we should not forget BBC chairman Gavyn Davies, who made the career-ending decision to accuse Tony Blair of lying:
BBC chairman resigns as Hutton inquiry clears Blair
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 28, 2004
A British judge has cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of wrongdoing in the death of weapons expert David Kelly. Shortly afterward, the chairman of the BBC resigned because of criticism of its "unfounded" reporting in the case.
Reading from his long-awaited report on the inquiry of Kelly's death last July, Lord Hutton said the government did not "sex up" a dossier on Iraqi weapons, a claim made by the BBC.
...
Shortly after Hutton's report was released, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies announced his resignation.
And then there was Howell Raines, the executive editor of The New York Times, who was relentlessly hammered by Andrew Sullivan for creating a culture of biased reporting. Sullivan even created a "Raines Watch" feature on his web site in order to monitor developments. Here is its initial entry in March of 2003 [note: this link is no longer working -- perhaps his old blog entries have been expunged forever]:
RAINES WATCH: Now that the war has begun, you can rest assured that the New York Times will go into overdrive to discredit it. Today's offering has the following headline: "Move to War Leaves Some Feeling Alienated." In fact, the story is about liberals in California, a somewhat odd subject for a story the day hostilities begin. Readers are hereby asked to keep an eye out for the Times' forthcoming attempts in news stories to broaden and focus on dissent at home.
According to this Wikipedia article, "Raines was lauded by many for instituting a program to increase diversity and to revive advocacy journalism." Another Wikipedia article says this about advocacy journalism:
Traditionally, advocacy and criticism are restricted to editorial and op-ed pages: a fire-wall exists between the editorial section and the newsroom. The Wall Street Journal, for example, has a policy of strict separation between the news desk and the editorial board; most major print and electronic news outlets do as well. In contrast, advocacy journalism takes a position on the issues of the day, and one is likely to observe subtle or obvious editorializing in reports.
Gee, 'ya think? Well, it was Howell's "commitment to diversity" that really did him in. Raines resigned from his position in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The New York Times Thursday announced the resignations of its two top editors -- the latest bombshell in a journalistic melodrama since a rising star reporter was forced to resign for plagiarism.
Still, the advocacy journalism that Andrew Sullivan was hammering away about helped to set the stage for Howell's resignation, so he at least deserves a brief mention in any discussion about the Liberal Media Hall of Shame. And now we have Thomas Beauchamp and the editors of the The New Republic (because they are defending him) as the newest inductees.
By way of comparison, who are the conservative reporters who are torpedoing their own careers by fabricating stories about Clinton or Reid or Pelosi? I can't really think of any. The only conservative reporter who comes to mind is an extremely minor one by the name of Jeff Gannon whose "offense" was to ask a softball question of Bush during a press conference. If liberal reporters were similarly slimed for asking questions of an opposite nature (i.e., questions designed to make Bush look bad), we would not have a White House Press corps.
Career-ending journalistic insanity -- mostly attributable to the war in Iraq -- appears to be almost exclusively a phenomenon of the left. If you know of some prominent counterexamples, though, please set me straight.
POSTED BY ENGRAM
engram-backtalk.blogspot.com |
