I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising

glenn reviews michael hastings' book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan and, as usual, provides a razor-sharp perspective on the bought-and-paid-for crowd of puppets that pass themselves off as exemplars of news journalism...

(note: the post title is a quote from hastings' book...)

[T]here is a perverse, inverse relationship between the amount of power someone wields in Washington and the willingness of most establishment journalists to engage in reporting that exposes or embarrasses them. These journalists love to swarm with contempt on the marginalized and powerless in their world (people and groups like Julian Assange, Occupy Wall Street, Christine O’Donnell, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, etc.), but when it comes to those who exercise real power and are members in good standing of the Washington establishment — war Generals, senior White House officials, corporate officials and lobbyists — they tread with extreme caution when they do anything other than obediently convey messages.

reading glenn gives me some hope that my own grip on reality is maybe not as tenuous as i sometimes get to thinking it is... as most of us know all too well, when the prevailing societal norm is insanity, it's hard to keep believing in oneself...

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Politics today is little more than money laundering in the trafficking of power and policy

bill moyers, a true national treasure, gives the keynote address at the 40th anniversary gala of public citizen on october 20...



molly ivins was right... bill moyers should have run for president...

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This is what happens these days when you attempt to present "un-spun" news

Al Jazeera’s Cairo office burned down by pro-Mubarak ‘thugs’

Al Jazeera's office in Cairo was stormed by a "gang of thugs" and set on fire along with all the equipment inside it, the Arab news network said Friday.

"It appears to be the latest attempt by the Egyptian regime or its supporters to hinder Al Jazeera's coverage of events in the country," the news network said in a statement.

"In the last week its bureau was forcibly closed, all its journalists had press credentials revoked, and nine journalists were detained at various stages. Al Jazeera has also faced unprecedented levels of interference in its broadcast signal as well as persistent and repeated attempts to bring down its websites."

"We are grateful for the support we have received from across the world for our coverage in Egypt and can assure everyone that we will continue our work undeterred," the statement added.

Al Jazeera also said its website "has been under relentless attack since the onset of the uprisings in Egypt." A banner advertisment on the news network's Arabic-language website was hacked Friday and replaced with a slogan reading, "Together for the collapse of Egypt." The banner linked to a page critical of the network.

you can go to this link to register your desire to see al jazeera offered on u.s. cable and satellite tv services...

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Journalism's big fail and the erosion of the common good

william greider, speaking in an extended interview on the failure of journalism to present the social security debate with any accuracy or objectivity, in the process offers a startlingly clear perspective on the failure of journalism in general...

Reporters are so embedded in the established way of understanding things. They are distanced from people at large and don’t spend much time trying to see why ordinary people see things differently from the people in power—and why people are often right about things.

[...]

In the last twenty years, as media ownership became highly concentrated, the gulf between the governing elites, both in and out of government, and the broad range of ordinary citizens has gotten much worse. The press chose to side with the governing elites and look down on the citizenry as ignorant or irrational, greedy, or even nutty.

[...]

The press is dangerously over-educated itself, in that reporters have developed different kinds of expertise themselves. And that brings them closer to their sources, more motivated to write for their approval. All this technocratic expertise encourages them to take a condescending view of the people they are writing for, especially in finance and economics.

[...]

The new technological knowledge becomes a tool that blocks old-fashioned street reporting. The polling and focus groups work against old style reporting. Political reporters rely on the pseudo-science to tell them what people think instead of doing what reporters are supposed to do—talking to real people where they live, listening to their perspectives and respecting their views.

[...]

Reporters and editors are disturbed to learn that growing sectors of the public do not trust their reporting. But this is the natural result of one-sided reporting. It reflects the unconscious class bias of the media—looking up to selected expertise that’s in power and looking down on the everyday citizens. In the old days, when I started as a reporter, newspapers were far more diverse and representative in speaking to and for the variety of popular perspectives. Each newspaper might have its bias, left or right or something else, but there were countering opinions and perspectives that tended to keep the other side more honest. That variety is pretty much gone now, so lots of citizens are finding their own ways to inform themselves, putting their faith in the bloggers or other renegade sources. Who can blame them?

[...]

The idea of social solidarity represents the core of our society. The belief that we’re all in this together has been trampled over in the last thirty years by conservative ideology. Good citizens and politicians have been sucked into believing that solidarity is not the issue. Until Americans rediscover the importance of solidarity, we’re going to be screwed up as a society. We will be trapped in brutal class conflicts and arguments over who gets more, who must be thrown over the side in the interest of business efficiency.

i'm pleased to see that greider identifies the erosion of "solidarity," a concept that correlates closely with "common good," as a core issue... i don't think the fundamental truth that "we're all in this together" can be argued, but it's a truth that has been consistently subverted by the social darwinism that our super-rich elites and their lap-dog politicians and journalists shove down our throats daily...

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The stunning complicity of journalists in spreading the propaganda of our political and economic ruling elites

glenn is not to be subdued by the torpor of the holidays... perhaps that's because it's now summer in rio and the temps are hovering daily in the mid-80's... however, i'm glad he's on the job altho' i do occasionally get concerned about his blood pressure...

[W]hat always strikes me is how indistinguishable -- identical -- are the political figures and the journalists. There's just no difference in how they think, what their values and priorities are, how completely they've ingested and how eagerly they recite the same ... script.

[...]

It's not news that establishment journalists identify with, are merged into, serve as spokespeople for, the political class: that's what makes them establishment journalists. But even knowing that, it's just amazing, to me at least, ... [that t]hey don't even bother any longer with the pretense that they're distinct or play different assigned roles

[...]

What an astounding feat to train a nation's journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists -- of all people -- lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes -- from all eras and all cultures -- could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists -- of all people -- to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that's exactly the journalist class we have.

[...]

Bob Woodward has become a very rich man by writing book after book filled with classified information about America's wars which his sources were not authorized to give him.

nonetheless...

They're all petrified to speak ill of Bob Woodward because he's a revered spokesman of the royal court to which they devote their full loyalty.

the above excerpts are taken from his post today describing a cnn interview last night which can be seen in full in the clip below...

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A new version of Time Magazine designed specifically for adults

i love it...


TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

thanks to glenn greenwald...

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The 2008 campaign - the most shameful display of deliberately manufactured non-issues imaginable

i've come to the belated realization that there is nothing better than the featured headlines of the daily washington post opinion email to gauge the strategic focus of the beltway establishment elites...

Andres Martinez's Stumped
I'm for Obama -- in 2012
Should Obama run against McCain in four years as the I-Told-You-So candidate?

E.J. Dionne Jr.
Fair Play for False Prophets
Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers?

Michael Gerson
The Perils Of Patronizing
Obama's lofty explanations provided justification for Wright's media campaign.

Charles Krauthammer
The 'Race' Speech Revisited
Rev. Wright's words didn't change. Obama's response did.

the entire world is spinning out of control... poor people across the globe can no longer afford to feed themselves or their families, people across the u.s. are losing their homes, financial markets teeter on the edge of collapse, innocents continue to die by the thousands in iraq, afghanistan, gaza, the west bank, somalia, darfur, sri lanka and east timor... our so-called president takes a regular dump on the united states constitution... no one who accesses an electronic network anywhere is safe from surveillance and, if you're in a big city, you can be spied on while you're innocently walking down the street... torture has become official u.s. government policy... and what occupies the bandwidth, pixels and column inches of our "news" media...? well, go-l-l-l-leeee... absolutely NONE of those things...

this morning is one of those mornings when i think about publishing this weblog and say to myself, "fuck it... what's the use...?" then i think about the outlet it provides for what might otherwise be white-hot rage, and i plow on...

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Early Sunday a.m. WTF: HRC handing out "I'm not bitter" stickers and Iraqi boys dream of being U.S. soldiers???

for some reason, since i've arrived here in kabul, i've been getting up extra early, usually around 5:45... partly it's because the muezzin chanting prayers from the local mosque wakes me up at 4:35 a.m. and, after snoozing for another hour, i'm wide awake, but also i like to get on the 'puter and catch up on the day's goings-on on the other side of the world before i go to work...

i don't necessarily equate "catching up" with "getting pissed off," but that's been my experience this morning... after watching cnn eviscerate the small-minded and semi-hysterical attack on obama by hillary and mccain and obama's response (see previous post), reading ap's spin-enshrouded crap just grinds my ass...

A political tempest over Barack Obama's comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive.

Obama tried to quell the furor Saturday, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly.

"If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.

But the Clinton campaign fueled the controversy in every place and every way it could, hoping charges that Obama is elitist and arrogant will resonate with the swing voters the candidates are vying for not only in Pennsylvania, but in upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as well.

Political insiders differed on whether Obama's comments, which came to light Friday, would become a full-blown political disaster that could prompt party leaders to try to steer the nomination to Clinton even though Obama has more pledged delegates. Clinton supporters were eagerly hoping so.

They handed out "I'm not bitter" stickers in North Carolina, and held a conference call of Pennsylvania mayors to denounce the Illinois senator. In Indiana, Clinton did the work herself, telling plant workers in Indianapolis that Obama's comments were "elitist and out of touch."

god-rotten-dammit... obama doesn't have ANYTHING to apologize for... "bitter" is an entirely accurate description... i don't live in pa. but i'm bitter... i'm bitter about a lot of things, not the least of which is that my government has totally abdicated its sworn obligation to defend and uphold the united states constitution... i'm bitter that my those running my country are enriching themselves and their cronies at my expense and at the expense of billions of poor saps like me around the world who are having their money, their livelihoods, and often their lives taken from them by brute force... tell me those aren't things to be bitter about...

then, to make it worse, i read the headline of this wsj opinion piece...

Let's 'Surge' Some More

followed by this jaw-dropping piece of journalistic shit...

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."

first of all, being the reporter who has been embedded with u.s. combat units in iraq the longest is absolutely NOT a claim to credibility... it is, rather, a claim to being the journalist who has been exposed to the side of the story that his handlers have decreed he should see for the longest... if there had been even the slightest mention of time spent in iraq as a NON-EMBEDDED journalist, i might be tempted to back off a little...

secondly, iraqi boys, like boys everywhere, are fascinated by action heroes... the guns, the equipment, the humvees, the swagger, the raw demonstration of power - all of that captures boys' attention like nothing else can... but seeing that and transforming it into a solid demonstration that u.s. soldiers are "winning hearts and minds" is nothing more than journalistic obscenity... (take a moment to re-visit two of my previous posts, "Just another day in Iraq," and "Scenes from an Iraki childhood," and then talk to me about "hearts and minds...") and if all that isn't obscene enough, check this next part out...

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.

the outrages of abu ghraib "FADING" in memory and "PALING" in comparison to al qaeda brutalities...? is yon saying that we should be happy that "OUR OUTRAGES" aren't as bad as "THEIR OUTRAGES"...? even worse, he conveniently and totally ignores all the recent revelations that those abu ghraib "outrages" are linked directly to the orders given by the president of the united states and his criminal accomplices... reading yon's unadulterated crap, I'M OUTRAGED...

finally, if i ever again see u.s. soldiers called "warriors," i will have to puke... my country is not sparta... we don't nurture a "warrior" caste... we don't breed people to wage endless war... we don't live to honor those who fight and kill... and, moreover, i don't want to live in or be a citizen of a country that does those things...

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Whatever our government tells us is just words and our media complies by spreading "fake" news

hersh was speaking in saskatchewan...

When the American government says the US is winning in Iraq and is not torturing prisoners, they are just words, [Seymour] Hersh told his audience of journalism students in Regina, Canada. "We are in real trouble [in Iraq]."

[...]

Hersh said media outlets spread 'fake' news and suggested his audience resort to translations of local media sources when learning about issues concerning the Middle East.

we have an inborn tendency to want to believe that what someone is telling us is true, particularly if the source has a position of authority or supposed credibility... a mindset of never listening or believing what someone is saying is an unnatural act... our government and our media know this and have used it to their full advantage, and if you don't happen to be someone who has the time or the inclination to dig, dig, dig for the truth, your views will, by default, be shaped by what those ever-present voices are presenting as reality... it shouldn't have to be that way and our founders are turning over in their graves as i type this...

hersh's last comment about turning to local sources in translation is one of the very best arguments for following juan cole...

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More on the shamelessly UNcovered Spitzer backstory [UPDATE and BUMPED]

[BUMPED]



from youtube and brasscheck tv...

Mortaging America's future
for a quick buck

It's one of the most amazing displays of journalistic incompetence and malpractice in recent memory.

The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.

While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer's public charges against the White House.

Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.

To the 9/11 fiasco, the Iraq War, the travesty of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the shredding of the US Constitution, we can now add a deliberate and reckless undermining of the credit and banking system of the US to its list of "accomplishments."

our collective screwing is part and parcel of a coordinated, comprehensive, and thoroughly strategized plan on the part of the powerful, super-rich elites to continue to accrue ever more power and money... why would we expect anything less...?

[UPDATE]

here's what brought spitzer down...

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

wow... amazing, ain't it, that this editorial was largely uncovered during the extended hoo-ha over spitzer's downfall... i didn't even know it existed until today...

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Reporters on Bush: "His rhetoric is exhausted" and he's "going through the motions"

seein' as to how bush has never been particularly interested in doing the REAL work of being president, being much happier to talk smack, show off, bully people, and strut, i'm surprised it's taken this long for the press corps to lose interest...

When White House press secretary Dana Perino appeared on “The Daily Show” last week, host Jon Stewart asked how she got the day off: “Did they not need press secretarying today?”

These days, with President Bush largely relegated to the sidelines rather than the headlines, it’s not surprising that Perino can knock off early.

Fewer than half the seats were filled in the White House briefing room that Thursday afternoon, when deputy press secretary Tony Fratto was even asked at one point if an upcoming economic speech by Bush would provide anything newsworthy.

“No,” Fratto replied, “you shouldn't look for new major announcements tomorrow.” Some laughter and grumbling followed among the press corps.

here are the money quotes...

“You can’t attribute it all to the presidential campaign,” said Julie Mason, White House correspondent for the Houston Chronicle. “[Bush’s] rhetoric is so exhausted. He rarely makes any news. It’s rarely worth anyone’s time to cover him like we used to.”

[...]

[Television analyst Andrew Tyndall] said that he felt it wasn’t so much the media disdaining the White House so much as Bush is now “going through the motions.”

my impression is that bush has been giving the same speech since he first took office, and it sounded "exhausted" even then... after it became obvious that a serious number of his brain cells were either dying or committing suicide, i have been incapable of understanding why anyone would pay any attention to him at all...

i've posted this youtube clip before, but it's time to trot it back out... the question now is the same question we've been asking for the past seven-plus years... what is wrong with this man...?



amazing, huh...?

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Attacking Obama: How Fox spreads the virus

a new video clip from robert greenwald and brave new films...

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Propaganda

from postmodern times...

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Another whine from a blog-challenged reporter

check this out...

Blogs: All the noise that fits
The hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-finding of reporters.

By Michael Skube
August 19, 2007

[...]

The blogosphere is the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like postings and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined.

[...]

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, whose popular blog Daily Kos has been a force among antiwar activists, cautioned bloggers last week "to avoid the right-wing acronym MSM." It implied, after all, that bloggers were on the fringe. To the contrary, he wrote, "we are representatives of the mainstream, and the country is embracing what we're selling."

Moulitsas foresees bloggers becoming the watchdogs that watch the watchdog: "We need to keep the media honest, but as an institution, it's important that they exist and do their job well." The tone is telling: breezy, confident, self-congratulatory. Subtly, it implies bloggers have all the liberties of a traditional journalist but few of the obligations.

[...]

The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks.

But they are, more often than not, trademarks of the kind of journalism that makes a difference. And if there is anything bloggers want more than an audience, it's knowing they are making a difference in politics. They are, to give them their due, changing what is euphemistically called the national "conversation." But what is the nature of that change? Does it deepen our understanding? Does it broaden our perspective?

[...]

The more important the story, the more incidental our opinions become. Something larger is needed: the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence and, as the best writers understand, the depiction of real life. Reasoned argument, as well as top-of-the-head comment on the blogosphere, will follow soon enough, and it should. But what lodges in the memory, and sometimes knifes us in the heart, is the fidelity with which a writer observes and tells. The word has lost its luster, but we once called that reporting.

i rarely choose to post about either the blogosphere or bloggers and i don't very often take a bead on journalists, other than to excerpt what i believe to be their relevant (and, occasionally, outrageous) work... but i can't let this one lie...

my first reaction...? arrogance... my second reaction...? elitism... my third reaction...? ignorance...

i can only speak for myself, but it would be completely impossible for me to be as informed as i am (take a leap of faith with me here) were it not for blogs... yeah, sure, there's opinion galore, sometimes little in the way of fact-checking, plenty of irreverence, strong emotion, harsh invective, vulgar obscenity and occasionally outright slander... there's also a ton of unfiltered perspectives, unsanitized viewpoints and heartfelt stories from and about ordinary people that illuminate what's going on in the country and the world in ways unobtainable elsewhere... over and above that, there's an increasing amount of very good investigative reporting, offering information dug up from sources that reporters on a newspaper or magazine payroll might never have uncovered... none of this is to even mention, of course, that one of the many reasons the blogosphere has exploded is that many of THOSE goddam reporters haven't been doing their job...

but ya know what, and this is what mr. elite reporters-vs.-bloggers skube entirely misses...? 90% of the truly great journalistic reporting that i read, i get pointed to by bloggers... thanks to bloggers, i find that i consistently read sources i didn't even know existed and/or would never have had the time or patience to dig out for myself...

one other thing he misses, and this may be the biggest one of all... reporters are increasingly turning to blogs as a far more direct and complete way to tell their stories, and bloggers are increasingly moving into traditional journalism as a way to reach more readers... mr. whiney-pants skube, firmly stuck in a pre-blogosphere mindset, insists on framing an either-or situation, when, in reality, it's both-and... the blogosphere and its wonderful platform, the internet, is transforming global dialog and truly allowing, for the first time in history, EVERYONE not only to be informed but to take part...

bite me, mr. skube...

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Normalizing the unthinkable

do yourself a favor and go read the transcript, watch the video or listen to the mp3 of this john pilger speech during the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago...

here's a teaser, thanks to democracy now via co-blogger tobymandrake...

John Pilger - the eminent investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker - is a harsh critic of the corporate media. Pilger began his career in journalism close to half a century ago. He has made over 50 documentaries and is the author of numerous books, his most recent is titled "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire."

[M]edia clichéd language ... is designed to normalize the unthinkable; of the degradation of war, of severed limbs, of maimed children, all of which I've seen. One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 last year the New York Times declared this in an editorial: "If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry." This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn't say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That's the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them—they've spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.

there's plenty more, much of which confirms the complicity of our two political parties' and our media in keeping us from learning the truth...

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An Iraqi correspondent for a U.S. news agency survives a routine Baghdad traffic stop

mcclatchy offers several iraq blogs on its website, all interesting and informative... a post yesterday on the inside iraq blog details the horrifying possibility that, on any given day, the "authorities" might just shoot you dead on your way to work...

Terror at a traffic stop. If any digging was to take place into my identity and my profession, then I was dead. NOT a doctor, no, a correspondent for an AMERICAN news agency! I was left there waiting to hear my sentence for more than 20 of the longest minutes of my life.

imagine any resident of any u.s. city having to face something similar...

[UPDATE]

oops... i didn't realize that an iraqi journalist working for the nyt had indeed been killed on friday... i guess that puts the above into an immediate and concrete perspective...

the circumstances are particularly tragic...

Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist from The New York Times as he drove to work Friday, the third staffer of a Western news organization to be killed in the past two days. In his last moments, Khalid W. Hassan called his mother on his cell phone and told her he had been shot.

as i said above, can you imagine living like that on, not just a daily basis, but an hour-to-hour basis, dreading every time the phone rings, every time there's a knock at the door, every time you leave your house...? horrible...

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Is Eugene Volokh a blogger? Is Howie Kurtz a journalist?

Jailed Man Is A Videographer And a Blogger but Is He a Journalist?

kurtz, along with the government, obviously has some difficulty grasping the idea of citizen-centered journalism...

[Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger,] was a student at San Francisco State who worked part time as an outreach staffer at a community college television station. He started a blog and occasionally sold videotape to news organizations.

"I would define a journalist as someone who brings news to the public," says Garbus, a noted First Amendment lawyer handling the case on a pro bono basis. "It's a definition that might cause journalists some discomfort because it opens up the gates."

But U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan says in a court filing that Wolf's resistance "is apparently fueled by his anointment as a journalistic martyr" and that he needs "to come to grips with the fact that he was simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events."

perhaps their difficulty stems from this...

Wolf's case has attracted far less attention because he is not affiliated with any news outlet.

it's also very interesting that one of the sources kurtz contacted is himself a blogger with a fairly far-right reputation [see The Volokh Conspiracy and PajamasMedia], a fact which kurtz conveniently fails to mention...

"It's one thing to say journalists must respect promises of confidentiality they made to their sources," says Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It would be quite another to say journalists have a right to refuse to testify even about non-confidential sources. When something is videotaped in a public place, it's hard to see even an implied agreement of confidentiality."

but, after all, volokh IS on the faculty of UCLA while wolf was only a staffer at a community college...

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