From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 01:07:26 MDT
>Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>> Of interest regarding when the "system" fails and self-corrects:
>>
>> May 11, 2003
>> Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE.html?pagewanted=print
>>
>> Gives one lots of food for thought -- if a system where there
>> are supposed to be checks and balances can fall on its sword
>> so effectively, one has to wonder about other systems (e.g.
>> scientific peer review) where one is supposed to be seeking
>> the truth or "authoritative" reports (the ETCgroup [RAFI] or
>> the Greenpeace/"Plant Research International") are worth
>> the paper they are printed on.
>
>You must be joking. Checks and balances? Reporting? Have you ever been
>reported on? They make up anything they damn well please. Fact checking
>by editors? A joke. Amateurs lie for reasons. Reporters lie to make
>their five column inches for the day.
Also reported in today's SMH, which ran five of his stories. This report
mentioned a complaint about the NYT "fact checking" from Boris Johnson,
editor of The Spectator (the Brit political/news mag) who had filed a story
with the NY Times about the US making donations to members of the UN
Security Council to win support for US action on Iraq. His story mentioned
as an hypothetical example, "giving new squash courts to the President of
Guinea" which was changed in the paper to read "President of Chile". He
complained, only to be told by the checker that "as a matter of principle
we don't like to make deprecatory comments about a black African country".
(Apparently its OK to make them about a South American country.)
Much of the problem seems to stem from the sad drift in journalism from
reporting to opinionating that has been taking place over the past few
decades. Once opinions and facts were kept separate in most of the media,
but that doesn't seem to apply now. Perhaps it's because journalists these
days are better (?) educated than hitherto, or that journalism is now
regarded as a profession rather than a craft. Whatever. We've all seen it
in news reports on topics that we might know more about than the journo
writing the story. Often the stories are complete crap.
Barry Williams
the Skeptic of Oz
----------------------
On Tue, 13 May 2003, Barry Williams wrote:
> Also reported in today's SMH, which ran five of his stories. This
> report mentioned a complaint about the NYT "fact checking" from Boris
> Johnson, editor of The Spectator (the Brit political/news mag) who had
For another interesting take on the Times and its bias these days,
consider Monday's Joe Conason column for salon.com in which he looks at
the way one of the NYT's White Water EDITORS reviewed the Sidney
Blumenthal book The Clinton Wars last week. The factual howlers are
everywhere, and this was a guy in charge at the time. Helps explain why
the paper savaged our last elected president even in the absence of
evidence against him for the crimes he never committed. Amazing stuff, at
least to me.
> Much of the problem seems to stem from the sad drift in journalism from
> reporting to opinionating that has been taking place over the past few
> decades. Once opinions and facts were kept separate in most of the media,
I think this drift is a myth. Opinion passed as news is alive and thriving
in England as even a cursory clance at the papers will show, and has a
long history in the US. Mark Twain's "How To Edit an Agricultural Paper"
(may not be the exact title) was hardly exaggeration. Well, all right,
that's exactly what it was, but I'm sure the images were drawn from
Twain's years as a reporter in the Midwest as well as on papers like The
Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City and whoever he was reporting for
in San Francisco when he went to the Sandwich Islands.
George Seldes tells lots of tales in Lords of the Press, which details the
rise of the great US newspaper families and in his shrill but documented
volumes with names like You Can't Print That, where, among other things,
you can read colorful stories of the US reporters in Europe during WWII
who were not just embedded, they were in uniform IN the miltary and
answerable to Patton. Somehow, at least some of them still got the story
out. But the so-called free press has always been reserved for those who
own one. Ask Seldes, or Izzy Stone, who followed in his footsteps. Ask
Ralph Ginzburg or Barney Rosset what price freedom.
And then find a tradition of reporting devoid of viewpoint. Royce Brier
winning his Pulitzer by commandering the only phone booth to report on the
last lynching in California was no more keeping his viewpoint out of the
story than Richard Harding Davis watching the Germans invade Belgium in
the fog, marching in "like a tide of gray ghosts."
Forget Hearst, look at the origins of the Chicago Trib, the NY Post, of
the LA Times, which once nearly caused a war with Mexico because the
Chandlers, the family owners, didn't want to pay taxes on property they
owned there. Or the thunderous headlines when the San Francisco Chronicle
discovered a local bakery was going to begin selling all of its English
muffins pre-sliced. Exec Ed Scott Newhall ran front page banner lines for
days investigating the "scandal." Separating opinion and fact? It's a nice
story, but it's not true and maybe never was. If someone can make a case
for it being the norm at some time and place, that would be instructive,
but it will take some proving, I betcha.
Anima
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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