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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rat dog micro-cap picks... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (14719)	10/20/2003 10:29:12 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 48461

A vast left wing media conspiracy??? Sometimes how the media get the story is as interesting as the story itself. Take, for example, the scoop about the Christian general whose controversial comments about religion sparked repeated questioning of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Here's how the piece began on the front page of Thursday's Los Angeles Times: "The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan." Lt. General William Boykin was described as "an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States 'because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan.' " The LAT piece also said: "Audio and videotapes of Boykin's appearances before religious groups over the last two years were obtained exclusively by NBC News, which reported on them Wednesday night on the 'Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.' " The paper noted that its military columnist, Bill Arkin, "writes in an article on the op-ed page of today's Times that Boykin's appointment 'is a frightening blunder at a time that there is widespread acknowledgment that America's position in the Islamic world has never been worse.' " But here's how an MSNBC report handled the credit issue: "NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin, who's been investigating Boykin for the Los Angeles Times, says the general casts the war on terror as a religious war: 'I think that it is not only at odds with what the president believes, but it is a dangerous, extreme and pernicious view that really has no place.' " So was NBC following the LAT, or the L.A. paper following the Brokaw broadcast? The oddity was raised by Hugh Hewitt, a California radio host who often chats me up. Here's what he says on his Web site: "I interviewed Arkin today and discovered that he developed the story on his own initiative as a columnist for the Times, and he decided with the full knowledge and approval of editors at the Los Angeles Times to provide NBC News with the story so that NBC could run the story before the paper ran Arkin's op-ed and the front-page story. He stated that the idea was to get the story some pop by using the audio and video. "The Los Angeles Times thus gave away a scoop on a story that ended up on its front page. Why would it do that? It may have a precedent in the world of journalism, but to me it stinks. Didn't the Times engage in manipulation of the news to increase its impact on the audience? Or did the paper need cover for the story and gave it to NBC in order to generate that cover: "Arkin: It was all coordinated, and I think that NBC's contribution was really its ability to showcase the video and audio of General Boykin which I think is much more powerful than anything I could put into words on paper. "Hewitt: So the Los Angeles Times agreed to let NBC go first? "Arkin: Yes."