Memogate: A Symptom of Media Rot.

[richardf8]

The Minneapolis Star Tribune Published this very interesting article regarding some of the questions we should be asking in the wake of "Memogate."



Bruce Benidt: Timid media do too little reporting, too much hyping
Bruce Benidt
September 23, 2004 BENIDT0923

The Dan Rather CBS mess demonstrates bad journalism and the media's terror of being called liberal. But the bad journalism isn't just not checking out the possibly doctored documents -- it's breathlessly chasing the flashy story to begin with.

CBS was hoist on its own petard. "60 Minutes" and its spinoffs and imitators have reveled so long in their "gotcha" approach that they've crossed from journalism through entertainment and into pandering. Ever since seeing Mike Wallace pretend distaste when asking Vernon Jordan if he and Bill Clinton had used the word "pussy" on the golf course -- just so CBS could pander to the audience -- we've known what these shows are mostly about. Ratings. Selling ads. If they occasionally commit journalism along the way, OK.

So in its haste to have a big story, CBS got snookered, it looks like, with documents about George W. Bush's National Guard record that may have been faked.

The snookering is less the problem than the kind of journalism that led CBS to the problem. TV news -- and the yapping-commentator shows that are so much cheaper to put on the air than actual reporting -- doesn't dig into facts and try to find out what really happened in the past or might happen in the future.

TV news programs just have one person from each side gas on and on, and call it fair and balanced. It's the fight, the drama of conflict, that TV news thinks is the draw. Let one side attack and the other side defend and leave it at that -- God forbid journalists should go out and discover what's accurate and real.

Now, with CBS in the doghouse, we have the rest of the media hypocritically crying "shame on them." Commentators are saying CBS should have checked out the documents before airing the story.

Of course they should have. But how many of these same journalists and programs checked out the accuracy of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth accusations about John Kerry's service in Vietnam? Many of those accusations were untrue -- or "contradicted by the record," as some newspapers put it several days after the initial allegations were rushed on the air and into print. None of the cable or network shows that aired the Swift Boat allegations did any reporting to find out if the charges were true. Again, it was enough, in their view, to have someone from the Kerry campaign come on the air to try to rebut the charges.

Mark Twain said "A lie can get half way around the world while the truth is getting its shoes on."

The Swift Boat charges were transmitted without corroboration partly because the media were afraid to be charged -- again -- with liberal bias if the charges weren't aired. And now the media is jumping all over CBS to show again that they don't have a liberal slant.

We have timid media in this country that do too little reporting, too much hyping, and look over their shoulders in fear too much. It's hard to learn what's really going on with this kind of journalism -- and it doesn't serve democracy well.

Bruce Benidt, of Eden Prairie, is a former reporter who now serves on the adjunct journalism faculty of the University of St. Thomas.


I think that Mr. Benidt raises some very important questions to meditate upon; namely what ever happened to solid, investigative journalism? There was a time when journalism served to dig up the unpleasant truths. It seems that modern news organizations have exchanged that role for the position of unquestioningly parroting whatever smut happens to be handed them.

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It is interesting to note the differences. The Swift Boat vets put on their own show on their own dime -- and as a result Kerry has been forced to take back statements he's been making for three decades. According to dozens of articles I've seen, the mainstream media DID report that the Swifties were lying, when they were not. The media didn't seriously investigate SBVT because they WERE telling the truth. And Kerry still hasn't signed his form 180, limiting what can be obtained, despite continued requests. The FOIA request was rejected by the Navy.

(eight paragraphs removed)

So what's the point? Only that Kerry has made these statements, bragging about his record, his medals, his heroics, his ancestry, everything, all through this campaign -- and for the past three decades has kept up this pattern of deceit. The media barely touches this.

Bush has not been bragging about HIS military record; it has been the self assigned job of the media to hound after this, and they've been doing it for five years.

Kerry was telling people he was a successful prosecuting attorney two years ago, when he's never held such a job in his life -- and failed the test trying to get into law school (and avoid Viet Nam).

So let's look at current issues:
Kerry is telling people this week that
(1) Bush "missed a golden opportunity" to invite more countries into the Coalition, and
(2) at the same time telling Australia that their support of the US will bring more terrorist attacks on them and they should get out of the Coalition.

I don't want the US Presidency to be the first real job this boy has besides being junior senator to Ted Kennedy for decades. It is too late for him to grow up.

If character counts -- and it absolutely does -- he IS one, he doesn't HAVE one.

Upshot -- this article wants to treat the Swift veterans as exactly the same as the CBS forged documents, and it doesn't fly. I'd LOVE to keep the focus on current issues and political records; Kerry has been avoiding them.

Oh, and the article's statements about "being afraid to be charged with liberal bias" are utter baloney. They didn't TOUCH the SBVT until Kerry's campaign loudly responded, days later, and then they had to. But they focused on them, very briefly, as "unsubtantiated attacks" without checking. THAT part, only, is correct. Ratio of SBVT versus TexANG coverage? Nine to one, BEFORE the Memogate business erupted.

===|==============/ Level Head

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Circa 1996, I saw an editorial cartoon indicating that the newspaper credo had been "Print the truth!" but was now "Don't offend anybody!" Today I'd say it's neither: just about all major news media in this country stand for nothing but themselves.