Watergate and Newsweek
Posted by Mark Noonan
Blogs for Bush
Paul Geary over at The New Editor compares and contrasts
the Watergate and Newsweek scandals:
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...what is fairly unprecedented about the current run of errata from the likes of Newsweek, the New York Times, and CBS, is the willingness to run stories based on flimsy evidence unencumbered by actual fact-checking or source-vetting; that is, Journalism 101...
Contrast this with those heroes of modern journalism, Woodward and Bernstein. As anyone who's ever seen or read "All the President's Men" knows, the two were frustrated by the knowledge that something wrong was certainly going on in the White House, but Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee had the temerity to expect actual proof to corroborate what would be a nation-wrenching story.
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As Mr. Geary also points out, the hubris of the MSM is what is leading to it's downfall. With each journalist and editor hoping to break the next Watergate scandal we've already got a bad situation; journalists are supposed to just report what happens, not look for something to be happening. Added to this dangerous mindset is the MSM attitude that they can do no wrong; right now, and for the past few days, the MSM has been circling the wagons around Newsweek...dredging up additional bogus stories of desecration in order to post-facto legitimize the Newsweek story.
A bit of humility is the only thing which can save the MSM from complete destruction at this point; editors, publishers and reporters need to step back and realise that they are not tin-plated gods, the fountainhead of all Truth. They are just men and women, horribly imperfect as we all are, and that while no one person can hold all truth, in the collective mind of humanity truth may be discovered. The blogosphere knows this and revels in it; time for the MSM to start learning from the blogs.
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