The major media’s failure to examine itself and to share
that with its customers is nothing short of malfeasance of
the highest order. The media’s influence on the fates of
hundreds of millions of people and the future of nations
requires such transparency, and quickly.
MSM Hung By Own Stringers. So Are Americans
Bruce Kesler
Democracy Project
There’s little reason to doubt that there’s severe sectarian violence between some Iraqis in some parts of Iraq. The real questions are: How much is there really?; and, consequently, How really difficult is America’s and other Iraqis’ mission there to construct a reasonably stable and free country that won’t export or encourage terrorism?
There’s, also, little reason to doubt that much of the reporting we’re getting, which is feeding despair among many Americans, is unreliable. The major media has not been forthcoming about its reporting practices, so we are left in the dark with our -- possibly excessive, but definitely debilitating – fears.
The major media’s failure to examine itself and to share that with its customers is nothing short of malfeasance of the highest order. The media’s influence on the fates of hundreds of millions of people and the future of nations requires such transparency, and quickly.
The latest instances were unearthed by citizen bloggers, operating with only their keyboard. The key question that arises, then, is why the major media with all their vast resources could not or would not vet their own stories?
Flopping Aces blog documents Associated Press and other prime news reporters relying on false reports, and Patterico’s blog pretty well demonstrates “the L.A. Times reporting unconfirmed enemy propaganda from an Iraqi stringer with ties to the insurgency,” and Dan Riehl points out another instance of “trash” reporting.
Last September, I posted about Reuters seed-funding NewAssignment.Net with $100,000 to “draw ‘smart crowds’ – groups of people configured to share intelligence – into collaboration at NewAssignment.Net and get stories done that way that aren’t getting done now.” I proposed:
…the first project to be the detailing of the backgrounds
of the thousands of stringers employed by the major media
around the world. There are, at least, three fundamental
questions to be answered: Is the world’s media being
manipulated, by whom, and how much?
Instead, if one looks at the link to NewAssignment.Net (above) one will see its direction aimed at more of the liberal left’s agenda of “scandals.”
Without Reuters’ $100,000, however, conservative bloggers have repeatedly revealed the biggest scandal of all, that we can’t depend on – or minimally, don’t know what to depend upon -- in what we hear from the media about the war in Iraq, which has taken tens of thousands of American, allies, and Iraqis’ lives, not to mention hundreds of billions of American dollars, and which directly affects the fates of hundreds of millions of people in the region, Europe and the U.S.
This isn’t a new problem. It was a significant influence on America’s mistakes and ultimate failure in Vietnam, as a new detailed history explains:
<<< Despite a heavy influx of personnel and war supplies via the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, by 1962 the war against the communists had experienced a dramatic turnaround and was going well. Yet Diem's mandarin ways of governing also drew sharp criticism from some of his own people, and Western observers, and this included the American ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge. The overthrow of Diem on November 1, 1963, instigated by Lodge without the consent of President Kennedy, is seen by Mr. Moyar as a terrible miscalculation that resulted in a needless defeat — "Triumph Forsaken" as stated in the title of the book (Cambridge, 562 pages, $32).
Mr. Moyar's basic thesis is not new. It was argued in the 1960s by some of the most experienced American journalists on the scene such as Marguerite Higgins, Keyes Beach, and Joseph Alsop, as well as by scholars like Ellen J. Hammer and Dennis J. Duncanson. The contrary view was pushed by two young reporters, David Halberstam of the New YorkTimes and Neil Sheehan, who looked upon Vietnam as if it were fundamentally the same as the United States and attributed all difficulties to Diem's authoritarian rule. Lodge shared this outlook, and this caused him to view the Diem regime with fierce contempt.
Some of the most interesting parts of Mr. Moyar's book describe how Mr. Halberstam and Mr. Sheehan presented Lodge and their readers in the United States with grossly inaccurate information on the Buddhist protest movement and on South Vietnamese politics, much of it unwittingly received from two secret Communist agents. Pham Ngoc Thao was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army and was touted by the Americans as a brilliant Young Turk who could help turn South Vietnam around. Pham Xuan An worked as a stringer for Reuters and brilliantly manipulated and misled the foreign press. As a result of disinformation and driven by their own bias, Mr. Halberstam and Mr. Sheehan seized upon the Buddhist protest movement as evidence that the Diem government was hopelessly repressive, lacked public support, and therefore deserved to be overthrown. They argued that 70% or 80% of the South Vietnamese population was Buddhist and that to alienate the Buddhists was to alienate the country's majority. In fact, the number of Buddhists was between 10% and 27% of the population, depending upon whether non-practicing Buddhists were counted. Most of South Vietnam's Buddhists lived in the countryside and knew nothing of the political disturbances in Saigon and Hue.
A significant number of the protesters against Diem were communist agents and this included some of the monks. Such infiltration was easy, for any Vietnamese man could pose as Buddhist monk by shaving his head, donning a monk's robe, and acting with humility. For many years the Hanoi regime kept silent about the sensitive subject of its involvement in the Buddhist movement, but in the early 1990s it began publishing detailed accounts of its complicity. A high-level communist resolution in 1961 had advised planting agents in religious organizations: "Once our agents are planted, they then lead these organizations to work for the cause of the people." According to one communist history, the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front "quickly directed the people of all classes of the population to cooperate actively with the Buddhist monks and nuns in a resolute struggle until the goals were achieved."This account credits the NLF with organizing several demonstrations in provincial capitals in which the demonstrators denounced the United States and Diem and demanded "freedom of religion" and "democracy." >>>
I’ve written about this stringer problem several times, pointing at a key cause of today’s increased dependence on stringers, the cheapness of our major media to fund foreign reporting by qualified journalists. See (at links below). Others have pointed out simply sloppy, unprofessional journalism. See (at links below).
The conclusion is here, that our major media owe us and their own credibility basic journalistic transparency and standards.
<<< Elemental standards of journalism include that headlines should accurately reflect the story, and that a story should be verifiable and corroborated. Instead, much of the major media is too often engaged in tabloid journalism: rumor-mongering and sensationalism.
The MSM has not been forthcoming about its policies and controls in its use of Iraqi stringers. The MSM has not been forthcoming in verifying the statements of “witnesses”, instead echoing their statements….
The MSM has a responsibility to itself and to Americans to start coming clean and clear about its reporting policies and practices, and enforcing them. Or, admit to being a tabloid journalism, not claim to be reporters of record. >>>
The key question that must be answered is where the funding will come from for a major, credible examination of major media reporting in Iraq? It's not coming from the major media, or J-schools, or J-journals. Their paychecks depend upon not revealing the Emperor's illusory threads. It hasn't come from a Republican Congress and is even less likely from a Democrat one, as politicians avoid retribution for their own selfish survival over their national duty. Where's a patriotic billionaire when one needs one?
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin’s excellent post, updated with “when it rains, it pours...here's a third must-read from milblogger John Noonan raising questions about AP stringer Bassem Mroue,” steers me to another example of MSM stringeritis, here. (all links below)
democracy-project.com
floppingaces2.blogspot.com
patterico.com
riehlworldview.com
democracy-project.com
newassignment.net
nysun.com
democracy-project.com
democracy-project.com
democracy-project.com
democracy-project.com
democracy-project.com
michellemalkin.com
op-for.com |
