PressThink: Reactions to "What if Everything Changed for American Journalists on September 11th?"

Reactions to "What if Everything Changed for American Journalists on September 11th?"

Here's my exchange with Washington Post reporter Michael Powell about his own re-thinking after 09/11, plus other reactions. Like: "I find myself a little disturbed by this talk. Are you arguing for censorship?" (I wasn't.) "Don't let 9-11 re-invent journalism," said one. No Rupture after 9/11, said others.

Back from vacation with lots to report about reactions to my last post, What if Everything Changed for American Journalists on September 11th?

Much that was adequate in my own understanding on September 10th, I found useless by the morning of the 12th; and people who say things like, “everything changed on nine eleven” are not so much September 11th people as they are struck by a strangeness recalled from the morning of the 12th. I am one of them. We think there was a rupture.

A rupture for journalists— or not? Responses varied along that fault. Michael Powell, New York bureau chief for the Washington Post, is someone I have talked with over the years. He sent me a piece he wrote two Sundays ago for the Post’s Outlook Section, after terror warnings for New York’s financial institutions were received. “It’s not an answer to your question, so much as a stab at some variety of response.” Powell in his e-mail:

My sense is that clearly we were all in some fashion changed by that day. This is not to argue that it changed, for example, my larger politics and concerns. I’ve written a lot since that day on the erosion of civil liberties, on the sad decline of Little Pakistan in Brooklyn, and on several particularly egregious individual cases. At the same time, well, of course that day changed me, and my sense of terrible possibility.

And he attached a copy of his Outlook essay: “Recognizing the Once and Future Threat: Where Some Feel Safer In Denial.” (Aug. 8, 2004)

On Monday morning, as reports emerged that the Bush administration may have overstated the clear and present danger of the recent alert, my e-mail inbox filled with messages from friends and neighbors. I read their eloquent talk of Orwell and disinformation, and their expectations that those among us who had been worried must feel better now.
I called an old friend on this, writing him back that all this good cheer felt like foolish denial. He responded after a while with the suggestion that those of us — myself and his wife, among others — who came within the shadow of the falling towers on Sept. 11 had acquired an intimate view of terror. The question, which he was generous enough to leave entirely open-ended, is whether such experience renders us captives of irrational fear, or allows us to discern the terrible shape of a possible future.

A more intimate view of terror. That interests me. I think it exists, but it is neither restricted nor guaranteed to those who were there, or “came within the shadow of the falling towers.” Or those who lost someone in the attacks. It’s more a matter of imagination— private and public. Powell writes about 09/11: “the day seemed to open a clarifying window into a realm of terrible possibility. To know what could come meant confronting all manner of questions, from how to defend ourselves to where my family might live.”

Here’s the rest of our e-mail exchange:

Rosen: “Am I so confident of my own rationality in such matters?” I like that graceful way of putting it. To me it’s amazing how many people equate “changed my thinking” with “abandoned my beliefs.” Any political scientist would tell you that people abandon core beliefs very rarely, and so if that’s the test of whether a decisive change has been felt, it’s poor test design at work.

Powell: You’re right, to my mind, to draw a distinction between core belief and a more subtle shift in how one views the world. (Although a neo-con might argue that a change in world view can lead to a change in core belief—the liberal who was mugged by reality trope). I tend to place myself in the second category, the subtler shift in world view, although that varies day to day.

I received a great outpouring of emails after my Outlook piece, and I was intrigued by how many writers assumed that I was now a card-carrying Republican, which is not the case.

The difficulty of raising such a queston with an American journalist is complicated. As you’re very well aware, we are trained, ritually and habitually, to deny harboring a world view and a politics. It’s a conceit, but it runs deep. It perhaps has virtues as well as drawbacks, but it tends not to encourage such reflection.

Rosen: We agree that to deny harboring a world view and a politics is a professional conceit, but common in American journalism; that it runs deep; that it has virtues as well as drawbacks. To reckon with one but not the other is unwise. We agree, as well, that having to maintain such a strange state of innocence—no world view, no politics going on here—tends not to encourage deep reflection.

Some people think the press should take the historic step and abandon the conceit of No Worldview Whatsoever. But in favor of what?

“Admit your biases” is fine as a slogan, and there is a basic honesty there that might help. But as you said “we are trained, ritually and habitually, to deny harboring a world view and a politics.” And there are costs to that training, which to some degree is miseducating journalists and cutting them off from the debate, the discussion— frankly, some of the disgust with their work.

Suppose it were junked— the denial, and the training in it, the habit of saying: we’re just the disinterested observer and take no view of our own. I wonder what would be the problems—practical, political, professional, personal—if journalists were trained to develop a world view, one that was right for their project in journalism, for it claims, its commitments. Seems to me if you are conscious in trying to develop it, you can more easily disclose it.

Powell: At one level, the cult of objectivity always has struck me as fundamentally immature as an intellectual position. Subjectively, during the past few years, I’ve found it incredibly refreshing to read the British papers, where journalists make a cleaner breast of their politics. On the other hand, some of the deepest and best investigative reporting comes from the American tradition, in part because that tradition forces reporters to wrestle with conflicting points of view.

I worked as a tenant organizer for several years in the 1980s and a sense of political engagement carried me into journalism. I can’t imagine not caring about the issues I cover. That said, in the course of time, I’ve learned that passions must be leavened with rigor. So we learn to challenge our biases, or so we hope, right?

An example: When I moved to Washington and began covering District politics in 1996, I found that liberals had nothing to say of interest. They had for complicated reasons simply abdicated. The only sustained critiques of the District’s politics, economics and corruption came from conservative analysts, black and white. [End e-mail exchange]

Here’s David Weinberger talking back to the same conceit Powell talked about:

“Imagine if American journalists could write about the advance of US troops in Najaf without having to hide the fact that they’re surrounded by Marines who are protecting them from Iraqis who are trying to kill them, that they hope the US wins the battle, that they understand the US’s motives better than Sadr’s, that they know the daily US briefings are full of shit but at least they’re in English, that if push came to shove, they’d pick up a rifle and fire at the Iraqis rather than die with the Marines, but they’d never pick up a rifle and fire at the Marines. Everyone knows this anyway. Why try to hide it?”

Cori Dauber, author of the weblog Rantingprofs, is an academic interested in the media coverage of the war on terror. Not a journalist, but she studies what they do and say. She makes an astute observation when she says: “the press never seems all that interested in looking in the mirror except under circumstances where they already know they’re going to like what they’ll see.”

She gives an example: “It was interesting to me that in the aftermath of September 11th, say, the year or so after, there were all sorts of panels that I saw (C-SPAN) looking back. But those panels were inevitably journalists looking back on their performance on the day itself, and happily valorizing themselves.” (My italics.) I have witnessed this too: journalists tell war stories, and that qualifies as “looking back.”

Powell tells a good story about looking back. He goes to the public library about five or six weeks after the attacks, hoping to work on an unrelated story about the Jersey Journal. Leafing through some “yellowed bits of newsprint,” he comes upon stories about “a different plot, the near-catastrophic plan hatched in the summer of 1993 by followers of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.” Their strike, planned for July 4 of that year, would have sent suicide truck bombs to blow up the United Nations building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge.

Reading these pieces, he is struck by how little the story meant to him then. “This conspiracy registered then as another of those obscure plots with an obscure one-eyed sheik out of central casting.” Now this is the sentence that interests me:

Only in the fall of 2001, sitting in that library with a smoke plume spiraling up from the hole that was Ground Zero, did that long-ago plot take coherent and frightening form in my mind’s eye.

That’s part of what I meant by, “We have to start the story over.” Powell is writing about his sense of how near to catastrophe were were then— and are now. In this specific sense (how near?) I think everything has changed for Michael Powell of the Washington Post. Cori Dauber again:

In my research I found example after example of people associated with journalism saying that they were finding their calling again, in those first months. Just take a look at this article for a few examples. They recognized that part of the reason the American people were so shocked to discover the rage “out there,” part of the reason for agonized questioning (“why do they hate us?”) was that [journalists] had failed us in the ’90s.

And realization of a profound failure can have profound effects. Here are some other reactions to my Aug. 13 post:

“My critique must now be founded in two areas rather than one.” Blogger Daily Pundit gives an example of how he was changed.

9/11 changed my world-view from one of business as usual to America at war, and everything is—and must be—viewed through that prism. Do I approve of all the new security “programs?” No, not at all— in fact, I despise many aspects of them. But my critique must now be founded in two areas rather than one. Not just, “Does this infringe on civil liberties?” but also, “is this infringement effective in making Americans safer, and is the tradeoff between the infringement and the safety tolerable in the changed circumstances of wartime post 9/11?

Mark McPherson in comments here:

So what do you propose? That we be “protected” from being frightened by being kept artificially blind by a knowing press? You think too little of the ability of the audience to be discriminating in their thinking. The Press is continually reporting, and then telling the audience what the reporting means, as if people didn’t already do this for themselves. I have zero confidence in the ability of the press to find its way through the maze of truth, hidden truth, willful ignorance and deceit your “Changed America” envisions.
Report the news without sensationalism and wild speculation and flippant analysis. We’ll figure out for ourselves what it all means.

Michael McCanles, who calls himself a “retired academic Renaissance literary scholar and critic with an amateur’s interest in military matters” at comments here.

(1) War works as much by threats of attack as by attack. Movements of troops, visible manifestations of military planning, readiness, etc.—are in fact modes of communicating threats.
(2) The “protection racket” factor: Terrorism is a present act intended to remembered in the future. It’s message is the following: “If you do what I want I will protect you from attack, i.e., from myself. If you don’t, I won’t.”

And those are two reasons I asked: Are journalists who inform citizens of the most powerful and influentual nation in the world participants in the war on terror? This prompted a response from journalist and weblogger Ed Cone:

First, let’s define “the war on terror.” Does it mean whatever a particular administration says it means?
If so, is it just the press that should fall into line, or should political discussion of the war’s direction be silenced, too? Let’s be clear on the differences between patriotism and rote agreement with any particular government policy, during wartime or not.

Cone added as an aside: “I’m a little tired of the ‘I was there’ argument on 9/11. Physical proximity to the events does not confer moral authority on the witness.” I agree with that. On the evidence of this column, Cone supports the “no fundamental change called for,” and no rupture interpretation, which was a definite theme in the responses.

JD Lasica spoke up strongly in comments:

My guess is that the “we’re at war!” crowd would like the press to be nothing more than an adjunct of the U.S. government. (Fox News, with the American flag on anchors’ lapels, long ago fell into line.) I can think of nothing else so dangerous. Isn’t this docile, deferential approach to authority what got us into our current mess in Iraq? That’s certainly one of the takeaways of Howard Kurtz’ expose of newsroom practices that appeared in the Washington Post this week.
Some perspective, please: There were 61 million lives lost in World War 2, without any wholesale changes in press freedoms or redefinition of journalism. Tragically, 3,000 people lost their lives on 9/11 (thousands more in Iraq, but that war has had nothing to do with terrorism until recently).

I had also said “modern terrorism incorporates modern journalism,” and that I found it “impossible to believe that people in the news tribe are unaware of their tribe’s incorporation by terror, their inadvertent, unwished-for status as accessories to the act.”

Over at BOP News, where I cross posted my piece, a reader named Simon said: “I find myself a little disturbed by this talk. Are you arguing for censorship? Should the news media be prevented from reporting acts of terror?” In a later comment he decided I was talking about self-censorship: “he is asking journalists to restrict what they print.”

Actually, I wasn’t. That is all imported into the post. I limited myself to the possible benefits of journalist’s re-explaining the world to themselves in the wake of 09/11, of going back over the story that tells them what they are doing to see if it still fits— and whether anything crucial was left out.

But how did Simon (and others) get there—censorship follows!—so easily? Matt Stoller of BOP had part of the answer. Apparently if you say things like “journalism changed after 09/11” you sound like a fellow traveler with Fox, and with the Right’s work-the-refs view that “journalists are unpatriotic and bad because they show bad stuff on TV which undermines Amerca,” as Stoller put it. Use language like “duty to the nation” and you sound like a winger.

Well… I think any journalist of any persuasion would have been wise to wear a little American flag on their lapel after 09/11, and even wiser to explain what the symbol meant in that context, going on air with the news. If necessary, fight about the flag and what it says when worn in a gesture of solidarity.

But I’m also intrigued with the idea of the flag-less press, which shows no signs of membership, no solidarity, except the fraternity of fellow observers.

The pseudonymous Simon, who occasionally posts long, critical responses to posts at BOP news, went on in this vein:

To say I’m shocked by Jay’s piece is an understatement. I am still unsure if Jay really means to say all of this, but while he’s posted a few responses, Jay has not explicitly corrected people on his comments who have given this interpretation.

And he was not the only one shocked. Shaula Evans: “I, too, hope I have grossly misunderstood the gist of Jay’s article.” (See also this book review in BOP.) Another BOP reader, Sasha, hit the mark with this comment, which I basically agree with:

It is easy to fulminate against the press and cry out that a new role must be found. It is very, very hard to figure out what that role would be. How would a reporter decide what should be reported and what should go unsaid for the good of the country? Indeed, how can the reporter be so sure what the good of the country is when we are all engaged in profound debate over that very question. No reporter, professor or politician truly knows the answer, and it is very dangerous to allow them to act at their discretion as if they did.

The phrase, “allow them to act,” shows us that social control, and not only the difficulty of knowing the public good, is at work here. JD Lasica again: “For a news organization, is it more patriotic to learn about the ease with which once can smuggle nuclear materials into this country and then report it only to federal officials (who are the ones guilty of lax oversight in the first place) — or to disseminate that information to the public?”

Stephen Waters—blogger, newspaper publisher and PressThink reader—thought the big lesson was: “Don’t let 9-11 re-invent journalism.”

Journalism may need to change, but through no special impetus from the 9-11 attacks. It is the close proximity of the 9-11 attacks to the author that creates the impression that it is an event of such magnitude that journalistic roots should be shaken. Much larger calamities come easily to mind…. The processes that make up fair, full, balanced, and useful reporting have been forged through lifetimes of hard experience and serious retrospection and ought to be changed for good reason rather than out of fear, vengeance, or proximity to the 9-11 disaster.

Fear, vengeance and “I was there, dammit” being bad reasons, I wonder if searching introspection, agonized re-assessment and a radical questioning of received views in the profession are good reasons for some re-arranging of journalism at the roots. In comments, Waters is optimistic that “the positive effect to journalism from blogs over time will far outweigh any wrenching navel-gazing resulting from 9-11.” Navel-gazing is clearly the category my post belongs in, from his perspective. We’ll put Walters in the No Rupture column.

Michael Hollihan at Half Bakered (a Memphis blog) wrote a lengthy, twisty response:

Somewhere between the Forties and the Seventies, a conservative press sympathetic to those in power and willing to accept censorship for the sake of the national good (inside the “America” container) became an oppositional, liberal press divorced from an “America” container that many viewed with disdain. That arm’s-length distance, that freedom of movement and distance, worked because the wars and enemies were “out there” somewhere.
Even as modern terrorism moved closer and closer, the distance remained. I think many to most Americans expected that the press might collapse back to a Forties-style, pro-America, compliant model. It hasn’t and the problems with that outsider viewpoint are becoming clearer every day. It’s a component of the success of Fox News, in my opinion. I also think it’s part of what drove the earlier success of talk radio — a desire to hear from a press that considers itself American.

“A desire to hear from a press that considers itself American.” Now what do we make of that? Here’s what Hodding Carter III made of it in his fiery speech before journalism professors in Toronto (Aug. 5, 2004):

We practiced journalism with zeal and, occasionally, foolhardy abandon. We took up the implicit demands—the implicit responsibility inherent in the First Amendment—and let people know our editorial mind when most of them would have happily been spared that opportunity. We covered our region, warts and all.
And we participated in the life and civic causes of our town—Greenville, Mississippi—with avocational fervor. We saw ourselves as citizens as well as journalists. We saw ourselves not simply as a mirror reflecting what was happening in the community, or as its critics, but as indivisible from it, a piece of the community’s fabric.

Indivisible from: there’s a journalism ethic with long roots. But how well does it fit with modern, cosmopolitan, “without fear or favor” press think? Here is how Carter concluded that speech:

More to the point, we are a democracy in danger, expressly because of the vast gulfs that separate us from each other. Most particularly, both media and the academy stand too far apart.
This was a luxury not much given to small-town journalists of my early years. We knew we shared a common destiny with what are now termed “markets.” Folks, we still do.

After Matter: Notes, reactions & links….

Jeff Jarvis has some questions: Journalism at eye-level (Aug. 21)

Do we admit we are human and have a human reaction to the event? Do we allow ourselves to root for our side in this war — which requires recognizing that we are at war and what side we are on? And if we don’t — if we act as if we do not have our own worldviews, as Jay puts it — doesn’t that too often end up perverting our coverage so, in a futile and misguided effort to be objective, we try to be fair to terrorists (did anybody worry after 1933 about being fair to Hitler?)? Just because you have a worldview doesn’t mean you have to do nothing but argue for it; it doesn’t mean you can’t ask tough and uncomfortable questions; it only means that your questions have some context.
This is really about admitting that we are human. As a human being, you must have a reaction to 9/11 and to deny it, to hide it, is to lie to those to whom you are trying to be truthful, your public. To instead be human, and admit your reaction and the worldview it reshapes, is to give a context to what you say so your public can better judge it. Isn’t that more honest? Isn’t that thus better journalism?

Ed Cone responds to this post: “Before 9/11, journalists had an obligation to be fearless and tell the truth and not screw up national security. Those obligations only deepened in the aftermath. What changed was perhaps the complacency of the profession. We need to be careful — not to get our soldiers and civilians killed, but also not to allow our government to act without accountability in the name of security.”

Don’t miss The Revealer’s coverage of the resignation of Deal Hudson, President Bush’s adviser and liason to Catholics. “Hudson’s influence is a truly big story the secular press should have brought to us four years ago. It’s not too late,” writes Editor Jeff Sharlet.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit back on Aug. 13: “ROSEN has a number of thoughts on how the press didn’t change after 9/11, and what that’s likely to mean for the future. He certainly captures some of the things that have frustrated me, and many other bloggers.”

Earlier PressThink post on things related: This Summer Will Tell Us If We’re Serious: Tom Bettag Brings Realism Before the Tribe of Murrow.

Developing into a must read is TomDispatch.com, sponsored by the Nation Institute, compiled, edited and frequently written by Tom Engelhardt, an editor in publishing houses for the last 25 years, specializing in serious nonfiction on political and cultural themes. He wrote The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War era. I know Tom. He knows a lot of stuff. He’s against the war. He sees himself as “antidote to the mainstream media.” He’s in favor of good writing that is also angry writing. And he’s an editor, so he edits himself.

Englehardt on the missing stories from Iraq.

See this dissent from the Kerry convention’s unified front on the Iraq war, from Englehardt and one of the writers whose books he has edited, Jonathan Schell, also of The Nation.

Writer, blogger and Reason contributor Matt Welch, from Sept. 2003, Blogworld: The new amateur journalists weigh in (Columbia Journalism Review):

… Like just about everything else, blogging changed forever on September 11, 2001. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon created a huge appetite on the part of the public to be part of The Conversation, to vent and analyze and publicly ponder or mourn. Many, too, were unsatisfied with what they read and saw in the mainstream media. Glenn Reynolds, proprietor of the wildly popular InstaPundit.com blog, thought the mainstream analysis was terrible. “All the talking heads … kept saying that ‘we’re gonna have to grow up, we’re gonna have to give up a lot of our freedoms,’” he says. “Or it was the ‘Why do they hate us’ sort of teeth-gnashing. And I think there was a deep dissatisfaction with that.” The daily op-ed diet of Column Left and Column Right often fell way off the mark…

Welch’s sense then was that The Conversation was not going to be opened up by Big Journalism, which participated in closing it down. Bloggers soon grabbed the momentum in opinion writing. See for purposes of reflection today Matt Welch at his weblog back in December, 2001: Two Ships Passing in the New Media Night.

Posted by Jay Rosen at August 19, 2004 4:58 PM Print

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The News From Iraq is Not Too Negative. But it is Too Narrow: "The bias charges are getting more serious lately as the stakes rise in Iraq and the election. But there is something lacking in press coverage, and it may be time for wise journalists to assess it. The re-building story has gone missing. And without it, how can we judge the job Bush is doing?." More...

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"Find Some New Information and Put it Into Your Post." Standards for Pro-Am Journalism at OffTheBus: "Opinion based on information 'everyone' has is less valuable than opinion journalism based on information that you dug up, originated, or pieced together. So it’s not important to us that contributors keep opinion out. What’s important is that they put new information in. More...

Out in the Great Wide Open: Maybe you heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain Dealer with four "outside" voices brought in from the ranks of Ohio bloggers: two left, two right. Twelve points you may not have seen elsewhere." More...

Some Bloggers Meet the Bosses From Big Media: "What capacity for product development do news organizations show? Zip. How are they on nurturing innovation? Terrible. Is there an entreprenurial spirit in newsrooms? No. Do smart young people ever come in and overturn everything? Never." More...

Notes and Comment on BlogHer 2005 "I think the happiest conference goers at BlogHer were probably the newbies, people who want to start blogging or just did. They got a lot of good information and advice. Some of the best information was actually dispensed in response to the fears provoked by blogging, which shouldnï¿½t be avoided, the sages said, but examined, turned around, defused, and creatively shrunk.." More...

Top Ten List: What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism? "The weblog comes out of the gift economy, whereas most of today's journalism comes out of the market economy." More...

A Second Top Ten List: What's Conservative About the Weblog Form in Journalism? "The quality of any weblog in journalism depends greatly on its fidelity to age old newsroom commandments like check facts, check links, spell things correctly, be accurate, be timely, quote fairly." More...

Blogging is About Making and Changing Minds: "Sure, weblogs are good for making statements, big and small. But they also force re-statement. Yes, they're opinion forming. But they are equally good at unforming opinion, breaking it down, stretching it out." More...

The Weblog: An Extremely Democratic Form in Journalism "It's pirate radio, legalized; it's public access coming closer to life. Inside the borders of Blogistan (a real place with all the problems of a real place) we're closer to a vision of 'producer democracy' than we are to any of the consumerist views that long ago took hold in the mass media, including much of the journalism presented on that platform." More...

No One Owns Journalism: "And Big Media doesn't entirely own the press, because if it did then the First Amendment, which mentions the press, would belong to Big Media. And it doesn't. These things were always true. The weblog doesn't change them. It just opens up an outlet to the sea. Which in turn extends 'the press' to the desk in the bedroom of the suburban mom, where she blogs at night." More...

Brain Food for BloggerCon: Journalism and Weblogging in Their Corrected Fullness "Blogging is one universe. Its standard unit is the post, its strengths are the link and the low costs of entry, which means lots of voices. Jounalism is another universe. Its standard unit is "the story." Its strengths are in reporting, verification and access-- as in getting your calls returned." More...

Dispatches From the Un-Journalists: "Journalists think good information leads to opinion and argument. It's a logical sequence. Bloggers think that good argument and strong opinion cause people to seek information, an equally logical sequence. What do the bloggers bring to this? My short answer to the press is: everything you have removed."More...

Political Jihad and the American Blog: Chris Satullo Raises the Stakes "Journalists, you can stop worrying about bloggers 'replacing' the traditional news media. We're grist for their mill, says Satullo, a mill that doesn't run without us. Bloggers consume and extend the shelf life of our reporting, and they scrutinize it at a new level of intensity.."More...

Raze Spin Alley, That Strange Creation of the Press: "Spin Alley, an invention of the American press and politicos, shows that the system we have is in certain ways a partnership between the press and insiders in politics. They come together to mount the ritual. An intelligent nation is entitled to ask if the partners are engaged in public service when they bring to life their invention... Alternative thesis: they are in a pact of mutual convenience that serves no intelligible public good." More...

Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow! Horse Race Forever!: "How is it you know you're the press? Because you have a pass that says PRESS, and people open the gate. The locker room doors admit you. The story must be inside that gate; that's why they give us credentials. We get closer. We tell the fans what's going on. And if this was your logic, Bill James tried to bust it. Fellahs, said he to the baseball press, you have to realize that you are the gate." More...

Psst.... The Press is a Player: "The answer, I think, involves an open secret in political journalism that has been recognized for at least 20 years. But it is never dealt with, probably because the costs of facing it head on seem larger than the light tax on honesty any open secret demands. The secret is this: pssst... the press is a player in the campaign. And even though it knows this, as everyone knows it, the professional code of the journalist contains no instructions in what the press could or should be playing for?" More...

Die, Strategy News: "I think it's a bankrupt form. It serves no clear purpose, has no sensible rationale. The journalists who offer us strategy news do not know what public service they are providing, why they are providing it, for whom it is intended, or how we are supposed to use this strange variety of news."More...

He Said, She Said, We Said: "When journalists avoid drawing open conclusions, they are more vulnerable to charges of covert bias, of having a concealed agenda, of not being up front about their perspective, of unfairly building a case (for, against) while pretending only to report 'what happened.'" More...

If Religion Writers Rode the Campaign Bus: "Maybe irony, backstage peaking and "de-mystify the process" only get you so far, and past that point they explain nothing. Puzzling through the convention story, because I'm heading right into it myself, made me to realize that journalism's contempt for ritual was deeply involved here. Ritual is newsless; therefore it must be meaningless. But is that really true?."More...

Convention Coverage is a Failed Regime and Bloggers Have Their Credentials: "No one knows what a political convention actually is, anymore, or why it takes 15,000 people to report on it. Two successive regimes for making sense of the event have collapsed; a third has not emerged. That's a good starting point for the webloggers credentialed in Boston. No investment in the old regime and its ironizing." More...

Philip Gourevitch: Campaign Reporting as Foreign Beat: "'A presidential election is a like a gigantic moving television show,' he said. It is the extreme opposite of an overlooked event. The show takes place inside a bubble, which is a security perimeter overseen by the Secret Service. If you go outside the bubble for any reason, you become a security risk until you are screened again by hand."More...

What Time is it in Political Journalism? "Adam Gopnik argued ten years ago that the press did not know who it was within politics, or what it stood for. There was a vacuum in journalism where political argument and imagination should be. Now there are signs that this absence of thought is ending." More...

Off the Grid Journalism: “The assignment was straightforward enough,” writes Marjie Lundstrom of the Sacramento Bee, “talk to people.” When a writer dissents from it or departs from it, the master narrative is a very real thing. Here are two examples: one from politics, one from music. More...

Questions and Answers About PressThink "The Web is good for many opposite things. For quick hitting information. For clicking across a field. For talk and interaction. It's also a depth finder, a memory device, a library, an editor. Not to use a weblog for extended analysis (because most users won't pick that option) is Web dumb but media smart. What's strange is that I try to write short, snappy things, but they turn into long ones." More...

Jay,
This is an interesting set of responses you've gathered. The comment from Sasha comes very close to my view that framing the duty of journalism in terms of national service only compounds the problem when we recognize that we are at least two nations with mutually exclusive views of threat, security and appropriate domestic adjustments.

I would also add that for me the American nation includes a commitment to Enlightenment values. That means we support the country when it is right and try to correct its course when we think it is wrong. Many present day Americans clearly disagree with that stance.

It strikes me that the tired, undescriptive, and to my mind wrong-headed phrase "war on terror" can hardly be excluded from this search for what has changed since 9/11.

Some think we are at war with al Quaeda. Some think we are at war with all Muslims. Some think we are at war with Wahabbists. Some think we are at war with anyone who happens to live near strategic resources. Some think we are at war with people who hate our freedom. Some think we are at war with people who hate our middle east policy.

Different definitions of threat require different AND MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE strategies.
From my perspective prioritizing Iraq undermined the search for al-Quaeda and led to subcontracting it out to the Northern Alliance. If we are to defeat the al-Quaeda movement ideologically, invading middle eastern countries exactly how not to go about it.

Obviously the PNAC formula argues otherwise, though the pretense that the road to peace in Israel and Palestine goes through Baghdad surely can be safely laid to rest at this point.

The point I'm lumbering toward is that "reporting" is not an effective site for the nation or its interests to be defined. Surely that should be and is done by policy makers, regional experts, and strategic thinkers. Today, our competing sets of policy makers, regional experts, and strategic thinkers live in opposed and mutually exclusive worlds. That is a daunting task for a journalist to deal with. To my mind, we are nearly in a state of ideological civil war. What are the duties of the press in a time of civil war?

Perhaps we might ask for more historically informed journalism on the development of the party system in the US and its changing function with shifts in media technology?
Markos at daily Kos sees web-based Democratic party affiliated organizations as inevitably displacing the ineffective and out-dated party apparatus in the very near future. The telephone and typewriter era parties we have now just can't compete.
In what ways do party interests tend to trump national interest? In what ways do they overlap, intersect, or contradict one another?

If each side thinks the other is actively endangering the nation it is difficult to compromise or forgive. How should the press respond to such a situation?

Isn't media deregulation at least as epochal as 9/11 in this context?

It is hard to think of an answer that doesn't include the construction of competing media systems that promote and work through the implications of the competing world views as is clearly happening on talk radio and in the blogosphere's division of labor. In that context, it is also easy to predict that the traditional definition of the media as neutral observers will constantly be interpreted as collaboration with the enemy within, enabling the enemy without--by both sides. I don't see any exit for the press short of an exit from the two-nations-in-one situation we currently find ourselves in.
Or seeking employment in one of the avowedly partisan media systems that have been constructed over the last twenty years.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 19, 2004 6:39 PM | Permalink

A more intimate view of terror.

I think it exists, too. I think it needs to be understood and examined, not only for what we've seen, but because of what has been predicted and gone unheeded as inevitable for decades.

I think it is a "lessons learned" question, rather than a change in core beliefs that derives from that intimate view, that is important. It may be a greater understanding of what violence as propaganda is. It might mean a greater sensitivity or awareness to its impact, not just first-order effects but second and third order (or more) as well. It might be a greater desire for order and security (the liberal that has been mugged trope?). It might also be the loss of innocence, naivety, or idealism that results from living through an act of willful senselessness.

To reckon with one but not the other is unwise. We agree, as well, that having to maintain such a strange state of innocence--no world view, no politics going on here--tends not to encourage deep reflection.

I agree more with the idea that journalism clings to a supra-national worldview conceit than a "No Worldview Whatsoever" conceit. Perhaps more an All Worldview, than a No Worldview. It may be important to understand what your conceits are when being reflective.

I could be wrong about the journalistic Worldview stereotype. Perhaps it is BBC's All Worldview, CNN International's No Worldview, New York Time's a New Yorker's Worldview, NPR's My America Wrong Worldview and Fox New's My America Right Worldview.

..., Dauber wonders what happened to the heightened sense of calling the press felt in the months after the attacks.

That deserves a link back to This Summer Will Tell Us If We're Serious: Tom Bettag Brings Realism Before the Tribe of Murrow, and this quote from the 24th Annual Ralph McGill Lecture, "I know a guy who was on one of those government terrorism commissions who used to say I ought to talk to him. I never did." I was busy, not just with Bill and Monica but with other things as well. . .Anyway, I never wrote about the terrorist threat to this country. I was negligent. ‘But I was not alone. The press in general did a miserable job preparing the American people for what happened on September 11,’ Cohen said."

I doubt that those that advocate for no change, are advocating for repeating the same failure. But isn't that what they are doing? Let's keep the same model, but do it better? Do what better? What are the lessons learned?

No one plans to fail, but many fail to plan. Was a failure of 9/11 the "No Worldview Whatsoever" conceit that could not comprehend, or warn a nation's public, of a nationalistic threat? Is it the news value of watchdog journalism that dedicated resources to Condit's cavorting rather than Cohen's failure?

If the Iraq war is a distraction in the war on terror, is the media being irresponsible by being distracted by it?

Sasha's comment is both insightful and naive. Naive because she fails to go on to recognize that reporters and editors decide what should be reported and what should go unsaid every day, whether for the good of the country or their business interests. Naive because it denies the concept of a 4th Establishment press without expressly stating that a necessary change in the journalistic Worldview. So why not ask in a public forum if those interests should not recognize that journalists are participants in the war on terror - defined as a worldwide struggle for democracy, freedom and markets - or something else?

I'm not sure why liberal journalists would not want to win that struggle, might announce it and develop a worldview to map reality to succeed in that struggle, and then report on the effectiveness of efforts by newsmakers involved in that struggle.

Posted by: Tim at August 19, 2004 7:43 PM | Permalink

A snippet from tatere's comment at your cross post:

But thinking of this question in the light of the ideas Jay is raising, in a way what's worse is that most large news organizations in this country don't have any real answer at all. If they have any sense of obligation, it's only to themselves. Not even in an at least clear commercial sense, but to their reputations, to their sense of self-importance.

Posted by: Tim at August 19, 2004 8:43 PM | Permalink

This is perhaps off topic, but living in Japan I've had conversations with people who saw the attack on the world trade center as an attack on a more or less international metropolitan area with an international list victims from dozens of countries including several dozen Japanese business people. These friends find it strange that all the victims have somehow become American, both in the press coverage and in the formal funeral observances.
Doesn't bringing nation and journalism together also carry with it blinders that may misleadingly domesticate terror or erase non-American aspects of the world before our eyes?
We all know that many more than 3,000 people die every year from a myriad of forms of violence.
How many of us remember that many of the 3,000 who died in this terror strike worked in the US, but were not American? What does our press think about them? Does it think about them at all? Should it?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 19, 2004 9:32 PM | Permalink

Hodding Carter is certainly more eloquent and juicy in making the point than I was in my abstracted and dry comment.

He makes the same point: journalists must be *of* the community they would serve.

What are the touchstones of American journalism? "Freedom of the press," the First Amendment? Where do these things come from? The Constitution of the United States of America. Not from Canada, France, or Britain. (How many American journalists could accept the English "D Certificate" do you think?)

Journalism as practiced here is uniquely American, a product of our nation. So why is it so hard to accept for so many journalists?

Posted by: mike hollihan at August 19, 2004 10:24 PM | Permalink

Powell: At one level, the cult of objectivity always has struck me as fundamentally immature as an intellectual position.

Here! Here!

Powell: An example: When I moved to Washington and began covering District politics in 1996, I found that liberals had nothing to say of interest. They had for complicated reasons simply abdicated. The only sustained critiques of the District's politics, economics and corruption came from conservative analysts, black and white.

Fascinating! It's nice to hear someone else discern hollowness beneath laudable campaign clichés. For ages I've been trying to understand how people who fervently believe in the goals of liberalism can be unconcerned with its inconsistencies and overlook problems with its methods.

[It is sad for me to see shallowness underpinning the Kerry campaign -- hollow campaign scaffolding designed only to try to Win -- not govern or lead. This is fearsomely disappointing when some Republican positions really need to be met head-on -- like interfering in the doctor-patient relationship and John Ashcroft trampling the Constitution to save the American flag.]

Posted by: sbw at August 19, 2004 10:31 PM | Permalink

Ben Franklin> If each side thinks the other is actively endangering the nation it is difficult to compromise or forgive. How should the press respond to such a situation?

Gosh. I've got about three different answers:

1) Sometimes the answer is not to play that game. We're going to do that tomorrow when we editorially remind both parties that their buddythugs do not forward the campaign and that military experience isn't a prerequisite to be an effective Commander-in-Chief.

2) Face it. The world is full of variously crippled intellects -- including , sometimes, our own. In an era that allows greater participation than ever before and when the bar for entry into participation is lower -- where everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you don't have to know anything to have one -- you have ignorance that passes for knowledge and insulates the holder from even considering the possibility of being wrong. The blogs are filled with slashing, supercilliousness that is its hallmark. Such exuberence. Such hubris! Such rot! When we see it, if only to protect ourselves, we are obliged to label it for what it is.

3) The greater problem seems not that one side can't compromise or forgive, it's that it can't listen and grow.

Posted by: sbw at August 19, 2004 10:33 PM | Permalink

Tim> I doubt that those that advocate for no change, are advocating for repeating the same failure. But isn't that what they are doing?

Nope. You can learn from experience and yet, even with that experience, find no valid reason to change how you analyze that experience.

Tim> If the Iraq war is a distraction in the war on terror, is the media being irresponsible by being distracted by it?

That presumes that the Iraq war IS a distraction in the war on terror. Since others believe that the Iraq war is a critical step IN the war on terror, from their point of view, there is no distraction.

There are a world of distractions. I mentioned Liz Smith earlier who observed that after 9-11 that gossip was a luxury. I don't mind distractions. I mind distraction not being a choice; distraction crowding out substance. I'd choose not to hear so much about Scott Petersen, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Janet Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.

Posted by: sbw at August 19, 2004 10:35 PM | Permalink

Back to Jay's question. What has changed since 9-11? I speak with a more confident voice. I know why I believe what I believe in. I can explain it more clearly. I'm still wedded to process -- to knowing that if someone can show me a wiser path, I'll run to embrace it or weave it in to other truths. More to the point, I fear ignorance that masks itself as knowledge and face it down when it counts, whenever I see it.

Posted by: sbw at August 19, 2004 10:38 PM | Permalink

Ben: These friends find it strange that all the victims have somehow become American, both in the press coverage and in the formal funeral observances. Doesn't bringing nation and journalism together also carry with it blinders that may misleadingly domesticate terror or erase non-American aspects of the world before our eyes?

An eloquent point, eloquently stated. I'm trying to remember how other countries' media covered terrorist attacks in their country when foreigners/Americans were killed - especially if they were the intended target albeit the minority of the victims (as in the African embassies, for example). That might be an interesting contrast.

I agree that America circled its wagons after the 9/11 attack. Your international 9/11 worldview is well taken.

sbw: That presumes that the Iraq war IS a distraction in the war on terror.

I wrote it with the presumption that some journalists have come to that conclusion, right or wrong, but reasonably. And it was really meant as a question for those journalists.

I personally think it would be irresponsible not to report the struggle in Iraq as part of the war on terror. I'm saddened that the struggle in Afghanistan is not reported more.

I'm frustrated that the struggle in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is not reported better. I'm frustrated that Turkey has fallen into a journalistic hole.

I wish that we as Americans, including myself, were better informed about Arab culture and history since WWI. The reporting on the GWOT seems uninterested in framing current events with more than a superficial nod to history - perhaps to appear disinterested, perhaps diffident to venture past a positivistic view.

If I had a choice, I would choose less of the celebrity justice/tabloid news to make room for more of the above. But I think that whatever changed after 9/11 has changed back to pre-9/11, and I don't think there has been much learning from in the journey back to where we were journalistically. It reads like we're heading back to Condit and the summer of 2001 all over again.

Posted by: Tim at August 20, 2004 1:10 AM | Permalink

Tim> If I had a choice, I would choose less of the celebrity justice/tabloid news to make room for more of the above. But I think that whatever changed after 9/11 has changed back to pre-9/11, and I don't think there has been much learning from in the journey back to where we were journalistically. It reads like we're heading back to Condit and the summer of 2001 all over again.

Tim, I like this, and the wistfulness with which it is expressed.

Newspaper websites have limitless room for more of what you want, but good newspapers need to allocate the resources to put in the URL pointers. We will.

The greater problem to overcome is that current schools prefer to grade knowledge, rather than thought. People with knowledge presume they are thoughtful and it is fruitless to try to correct that by pointing it out to them.

Our hope is to engage the community in the process of asking questions and investigating answers. A small corner of a newspaper (and associated weblog) can serve as a Socrates Cafe, if only to demonstrate by example that we are all in this together, continuously questioning to help distill our individual maps of reality to be even better than they already are.

In a sense, the idea behind PressThink belongs in each newspaper.

Posted by: sbw at August 20, 2004 9:22 AM | Permalink

Quite a debate about this post at BOP News... one excerpt...

On the Kunkel passage... my purpose there was to show the situation in its full complexity and absurdity: a mobius-strip world if there ever was one. I don't think the press can avoid "abetting" terror in the same way that the electrical grid cannot avoid speeding the terrorists on their way. By doing its job, the grid allows terrorists to do theirs. In journalism, it's the same way.

But: If we start to control the press we lose one of the major tools of democracy and a guarantor of freedom. In fact a nation dealing with serious threats needs an even more critical and searching--free and assertive press--just to counteract war fever and the larger cloak of secrecy thrown over things in a war against an underground and largely invisible force. That's my view. I am for rolling back Ashcroft and allied forces on many fronts, this being one.

... And then my viewn continues: Modern terrorism incorporates modern journalism, depends on it. If we can't stop the presses, then we have to depend on journalists and their grasp of the situation. Seems to me that starts with acknowledging this much: acts of terror pass through us on their way to "hitting" their target, the very public we serve.

This cannot be an off limits thought when it is merely a fact of life. Yeah, terrorists use you to achieve their most pervasive effects. Now what? If you do your job, and report what happened, as you must, they also win, in a way. What is the intellectually honest way of dealing with that situation?

That's one of my questions, and sometimes my only agenda in saying something is to give a question you haven't heard before the time it needs to leave some, yes, vague impression.

Go to BOP writers respond to this post.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 20, 2004 3:25 PM | Permalink

It's not hard to accept that American methods of journalism have strong merits to recommend them. If you talk to Al Jazeera executives, they feel that they are practicing better American journalism than the American press, with no constitutional protections from where they broadcast. The notion that American methods can't be universal is troubling, I think.

It's also worth mentioning that American journalism has its roots in British practices and French thought, and that we have enshrined some of these strains of thought in the language of international documents, like the UN's doctrine on human rights, and in the constitution occupied forces wrote for Japan. In other words, blind nationalism, of which there is a long and storied history, is not the tradition of American journalism that is admired and considered powerful.

Posted by: Matt Stoller at August 20, 2004 3:54 PM | Permalink

The notion that American methods can't be universal is troubling, I think.

Some say that about skeptics of an Iraqi democracy. No one, and I mean NO ONE, has advoctaed HERE for blind nationalism.

Posted by: Tim at August 20, 2004 4:21 PM | Permalink

Too much MSM journalism suffers from an anti-God bias in choosing what is important to report, when. Terrorism wasn't THE big story prior to 9/11, but it WAS a story. Too much; far too much ink on Bill and Monica, not enough on other stuff.

Today, too much ink on Bush's "lies", NOT enough on Kerry's huge Lie about Christmas in Cambodia. Since Wallace made Nixon Pres. in 68, the press has been happy to demonize Rep Presidents: N, GF (a bit), R, Bush I, and now Bush II.
But where are the tough "alternative" questions; where are the real tradeoffs. Every policy has good & bad parts; costs and benefits. The press has really become irresponsible about reporting these.

The press must enable the terrorists, some -- the means to distribute the terrorist message. The press DID enable Kerry's Lie, and there's no excuse for sloppy, lazy, press NON-fact checking to allow Kerry to Lie about Cambodia in 1986. A Leftist bias so deep it denies itself.

Posted by: Tom Grey at August 20, 2004 5:34 PM | Permalink

In order to continue the timeline of what was and wasn't being reported, from Bettag to ...

MORPHING: The study by a U of I college student finding 23 rationales for war with Iraq used by the administration -- all before the war -- made it's way around the blogosphere once before, but now it's in a WaPo column, so it will get far wider circulation.

Posted by: Tim at August 20, 2004 5:53 PM | Permalink

Grey you're so out of it a response isn't required. Get yourself a good theocracy to move to. Iran for example. The rationales for war were well-understood at the time, it's just that they were unfounded.

Posted by: jeb at August 20, 2004 7:31 PM | Permalink

While I agree with much of what Tom Grey has to say, I think it is out of place in this subject (otherwise, I'd have said some of it).

I think, as I mentioned in the previous threat, that the press needs to think about events that are far from normal, and consider those situations. The reason is that far from normal events actually happen, and since they are relatively unthinkable, people are often not prepared- especially mentally. A lot of the emergency organizations have considered these kinds of scenarious - has the media? Has the media asked if public safety groups are ready for these events? Does the media go on the exercises?

The "War on Terror" so far has done little that makes special requirements of the press.

I bring up examples where there are toughter problems:

-Suppose highly credible word leaks to one outlet that there is a nuke under Manhattan, what do you do?

-If terrorists attack with contagious biological weapons, preventing panic is usually important for the citizenry, as are quarantines, roadblocks, evacuation routes, etc. Does the press accept a request to hold off on something juicy that could contribute to the panic?

-People in part of town start falling to the ground and dying quickly. Others run from the scene, some not making it far. Panic develops in the periphery of live people. What's happening? What should be reported?

-If Washington, D.C. disappears in a nuclear explosion, what does it mean (other than a shortage of beltway bandits and politicians)? People around the country demand retaliation. The government (if one exists) has its own ideas. What does the press do?

-Like today, there is a war and election on simultaneously. The press very much wants to get rid of the incumbent. How much spiking and twisting of news is done to aid the press' goal?

Okay - the last one doesn't fit the discussion. Just feeling ornery.

Side comments... there are some remarks above I wanted to answer...

JD Lasica writes:My guess is that the "we're at war!" crowd would like the press to be nothing more than an adjunct of the U.S. government. (Fox News, with the American flag on anchors' lapels, long ago fell into line.)

This is ludicrous. Fox, always with an eye on the bottom line, chose a patriotic look and flags on the anchors. Its embeds actually stayed with the troops (unlike a number of other outfits, who stayed away from them). It is more friendly to the administration that the rest of the mainstream press, but that is hardly being an adjunct of the U.S. Government. If nothing else, O'Reilly, the most highly rated cable news guy, is quite independent (and a royal pain in the rear in my opinion). I watch Fox a lot and what I see is a lot of cases where both sides (assuming a dichotomous issue) get a fair airing. SBVT attacks Kerry, one of their spokesman and one of Kerry's get's time to speak.

Furthermore, I've seen no evidence (other than the music and the flag pins if they still have them) that Fox has changed post 9-11.

Stoller's ""journalists are unpatriotic and bad because they show bad stuff on TV which undermines Amerca," is a charicature of right wing views

Only in very special cases have I have argued that the Abu Ghraib pictures shouldn't have been shown because of their inflamatory nature to potential enemies, not the American people (this gets conditional in detail - for example, were they going to come out anyway?). Meanwhile the Kerry camp has filed a suit to stop the SBVT from running their ads.

A journalist who is inherently a transnational is going to have trouble being patriotic, since the philosophy is against having fealty to one country. That's also true for a farmer.

I want my journaliists to feel part of America, no part of "the world" and there are a lot of complaints that I have heard that journalists act like the latter. If your rights are affirmed by the first amendment then it seems appropriate that you consider your loyalty to be to the USA.

I would argue, I would hope that the left would agree, that some things should not be said or shown because presenting them would hurt the nation in a way significant enough to justify their suppression (or delay).

The press itself decided not to adequately cover the SBVT press conference on May 5 - for no reason I can see other than coverage would hurt Kerry.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools blog( at August 21, 2004 12:09 AM | Permalink

John,
Don't feel bad. I protested for staying out of Iraq in Minneapolis and all they showed in the local news was the empty square where it happened several hours before as if no one came. Welcome to the club.

I drew the conclusion that Minneapolis news stations did not want to be associated with controversial views, i.e. anti-Bush, anti-government views. Perhaps as corporations their producers are averse to controversy generically? But who is defining controversy here?

Yet isn't there a point when a group or a source contradicts itself so many times it becomes irresponsible to keep giving them a forum to contradict themselves on? Is there a single member of SBVT that isn't on record somewhere saying something other than what they say in the commercial? I realize that doesn't include Nixon and Colson's handpicked messenger, John O'Neill. The one that claims to be a Democrat gave over $15,000 to only Republican causes. Something is wrong with this picture.
This is a very real and basic question that goes beyond this group alone, however. To my eye, Fox has abandoned any standards beyond the RNC line. Their competitors tend to pander to Republicans and repeat their nonsense, but aren't organized or consistent. Are there any standards left for what gets on the air? Shouldn't there be some? What should they be?
But I'm serious about the first question above: What should determine who gets on and who doesn't in terms of changing one's story about matters of fact and still getting airtime?
I suppose we can't neglect the "Drudge Factor" in the seeming removal of most fact-checking standards before going to press or air...You'll note the "Drudge factor" involved anti-Democratic attacks that went on for eight years without substantial convictions or proof of anything beyond Republican ill will and Clinton's inability to control his libido.

One day with Halliburton dwarfs the Clinton administration in terms of criminal activity. How Republicans can hold up their heads in public without investigating the Halliburton crimes in Congress is beyond me...But that's not ENTIRELY the fault of the media, now is it?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 1:10 AM | Permalink

I would note that before the war, polls were showing opposition to invading Iraq as the majority view and the media still consistently underreported protests my wife and I attended--when they even acknowledged they happened at all.

I used to assume that spineless media coverage was driven by polls. That doesn't fit this evidence. What is driving newsroom decisions to disappear protesters or not cover SBVT?

Anecdotally, I know a reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and he says the owner and the chief editor are hardcore Republicans and anything that strays far from Republican friendly territory simply isn't getting in the paper. But that's just one newsroom. What 's going on in the others?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 1:19 AM | Permalink

Actually no. The polls showed a majority supporting the war. I do think the protests in America were under reported, but I would add that they were dwarfed by the protests overseas.

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 1:39 AM | Permalink

Tim,
Glad to be of service.
This poll is from May, 2003 and you're correct for that date. I was actually thinking of the first few months after 9/11 when Iraq invasion trial balloons were already being floated. This poll was taken well after the administration "rolled out their product in the fall, because you just can't roll out a new product in the summer."

My recollection, however, is that there was a period of time prior to that where a majority of Americans opposed going in, and even when a majority began to favor it, it was generally on the condition that the UN approved which of course was not how we did it. So your poll wouldn't contradict that. But I'm strictly going on a recollection of news stories. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 1:53 AM | Permalink

By the way, based on Japanese news coverage ALL my Japanese friends are convinced that Gearge W. Bush is toast. Kerry will obviously be elected the next president because so many things have gone wrong the last three years.

I'm sure it will amuse several of you that I spend quite a lot of time trying to persuade them, that, no, for reasons that escape me, nearly half of the American population still favors Bush, they seem to think he's a basically good man, and many of them even agree with his ideas on policy.
They've been a little frightened by US nationalism since 9/11, so they're not shocked by the idea. But I always have the feeling that they don't really believe me.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 1:59 AM | Permalink

Ben,

You are correct that the link points to polling from March 2003, and where the poll questions had been asked previously, shows the previous poll results for trend analysis. At the bottom of the page is a link to page back in time for older poll results.

If I remember correctly, the summer of 2002 was when the trial ballons were being raised and September and October 2002 was when the Bush administration went into full PR mode - leading up to the congressional vote on the use of force and Bush's presentation to the UN. I do think there was a swing in numbers then, but I don't remember the trend.

There was a significant majority if we had a UN resolution that reaffirmed, or reauthorized or renewed UNSCR 678 or another one like it and lots of troops and money from other countries - Desert Shield/Storm redux. That's what Bush and Blair were pushing for as a follow up to 1441 and Chirac said he would veto IIRC.

There was a simple majority without the UN and going with a couple of allies or alone.

I was in Germany when Reagan was re-elected. I told them that I would start caring who the Germans thought we should elect when they started giving me a ballot for their elections.

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 2:09 AM | Permalink

Tim,
I was actually passing along the Japan anecdote as an insight into Japanese news coverage of the administration. The ruling party is militantly pro-Bush, but most of the news coverage sends the message that the US is not getting what it wants, that American interests are generally being reversed, rather than advanced.
Alliance with Bush actually suits Koizumi quite well. He's been taking a much more unapologetically nationalist line about a lot of things. The war on terror fits in to his agenda perfectly.

I might add that the Japanese response to the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks was actually very similar to the US response to 9/11 in terms of social psychology.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 2:20 AM | Permalink

Ben, it must be late. I apologize. I was trying to be analogous with the German media not liking Reagan (or Bush I), and the whole Reagan/Thatcher/Kohl dynamic at a time when a USSR was more than an historical footnote (putting nukes in Germany).

I ended up with a different impression than my German neighbors, mostly because we got the majority of our news information from different sources (I watched some German shows, but the German news was more to work on the language skills).

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 2:56 AM | Permalink

It occurs to me that the abstraction, or national frame of our discussions on media gate-keeping may play a part in how our views of what gets covered could differ so markedly.
I grew up in central Illinois reading the Springfield Journal-Register and the Chicago Tribune. I never saw a copy of the New York Times until I went to college.

Those of you familiar with Chicago will recall that the Tribune is the Republican paper and that the Sun-Times was the Democratic competition. The Sun-Times went out of business at some point in the 70s I believe. They never had the regional distribution of the Tribune to begin with. The Chicago Tribunes' editorial page has been pro-Republican for a century. Their hard news coverage tends to tilt that way to a degree. Consequently, I bridle when it is said that "the print media" is dominated by Democratic opinion. In the midwest/Illinois region, that is objectively untrue.

There may be markets that are dominated by Democratic leaning papers. The Illinois market certainly is NOT one of them.

That leads to the further point that to a certain degree it doesn't matter what the political views of a reporter are when it is the owner and the editor who are making the calls about what gets printed. Has anyone seen surveys of the personal politics of newspaper owners and editors?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 11:12 AM | Permalink

"It occurs to me that the abstraction, or national frame of our discussions on media gate-keeping may play a part in how our views of what gets covered could differ so markedly."

Any abstraction, which by definition frames the starting viewpoint to begin with and the inputs and outputs that proceed from that starting point.. ..Well any abstraction WILL PLAY A PART in views (whether they are in agreement or disagreement doesn't matter a lick).

How big a part depends on how much bias is attached to the abstraction.

The meme that eliminating bias is a negative, therefore, would be one of the most biased and self-serving views a journalist would attempt to posit. Or Journalists, if you prefer (or my preference: pseudo-journalists on blogs).

"Consequently, I bridle when it is said that "the print media" is dominated by Democratic opinion. In the midwest/Illinois region, that is objectively untrue."

I read the Sun Times mainly, but that was prior to age 14 when we moved from Chi-town and, iirc, I mainly read sports and comics anyhoo. Similarly, Columbus Dispatch is only remaining paper.

So what? I'm eagerly awaiting some explanation from pseudo-Ben or anybody, about that 12 to 1 ratio, and the implications. (Just getting back into reading these threads, in case that has been discussed rather than avoided. The comments being almost entirely from those pseudo-enlightened by their own definition, I may have a hard time doing more than skimming...)-;

"Has anyone seen surveys of the personal politics of newspaper owners and editors?"

It doesn't matter as much as you would like, liar-Ben. There has, apparently, been a balance reached that owners have outta necessity largely ceeded editorial control to Libertarian's and those with Lobotomies, in return for being allowed to corner the marketspaces.

Iow, I believe the owners decided ownership was more important than editorial input, and they couldn't manage to have it both ways.

Just like reporters can't have it both ways:

A 12 to 1 ratio is a good thing, and bias is actually a good thing in reporting.

Well, actually they can have it both ways and do, but some will notice.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 11:36 AM | Permalink

Ben Franklin> That leads to the further point that to a certain degree it doesn't matter what the political views of a reporter are when it is the owner and the editor who are making the calls about what gets printed. Has anyone seen surveys of the personal politics of newspaper owners and editors

I have NEVER had a discussion on this subject with ANY reporter of mine. Your implication is presumptious and demeaning. You believe it because you want to believe it to confirm your prejudice. Or you believe it because if you held the job of publisher, that's what you would do.

Posted by: sbw at August 21, 2004 11:37 AM | Permalink

By way of example:

"By the way, based on Japanese news coverage ALL my Japanese friends are convinced that Gearge W. Bush is toast. Kerry will obviously be elected the next president because so many things have gone wrong the last three years."

It would probably not cross your mind that friends of somebody falsely-playing the role of "Ben Franklin" would likely be as stupid as the imposter himself, would it "Ben"...??

Nor would it cross the minds of any of you who have gotten a EL-Lobotomy would notice that not all of the things that have gone wrong past 3 years can be layed at President Bush's doorstep.

Well, again, the meme could be floated and is. Some see past it, some don't.

"I'm sure it will amuse several of you that I spend quite a lot of time trying to persuade them, that, no, for reasons that escape me..."

Exactly.

"They've been a little frightened by US nationalism since 9/11, so they're not shocked by the idea."

Yeah, the U.S. protecting it's citizens would be shocking to some.

"But I always have the feeling that they don't really believe me."

The are, perhaps, smarter than I gave them credit for...;-D

~~~~~

"The ruling party is militantly pro-Bush, but most of the news coverage sends the message that the US is not getting what it wants, that American interests are generally being reversed, rather than advanced.
Alliance with Bush actually suits Koizumi quite well. He's been taking a much more unapologetically nationalist line about a lot of things. The war on terror fits in to his agenda perfectly."

Which is basically the same scam the World Press is doing on President Bush.

Funny you can see the scam in the Japanese media, but not the World Press, pseudo-"lover of freedom".

"I might add that the Japanese response to the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks was actually very similar to the US response to 9/11 in terms of social psychology."

Yeah, that psychology being seeing murderers as people to be dealt with.

Funny people who are almost completely and entirely stupid are attempting to claim an "enlightened" view would be otherwise.

I guess seeing murderers as people to be dealt with just isn't rocket-science ENOUGH for some people to even understand.

Nup, I'm not gonna be likely to stomach much more on this thread..

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 11:53 AM | Permalink

"I have NEVER had a discussion on this subject with ANY reporter of mine."

But that's the thing. There ARE occasions when you, as publisher, SHOULD have a discussion... I know.. I know.. goes against the meme that "we all gotta get along in the world, from the microcosm to the macrocosm"...

Well, how does that meme work in reality.

Point is, SOMEBODY should have a talk.

I mean, how do total and complete perversions of reality get turned into phrases like "gone missing".

I just can't get over that one, like "occupation troops". "GONE MISSING". Can you hear me now?? It is such clear stupidity. It clearly shows where the author/editor/publisher is coming from: Bias combined with stupidity, and add to that the demeaing bias that the stupid readers aren't even going to notice.

What's gone missing is un-biased reporting, to those who care to see what's going on.

What's gone missing started in the Tech Press, with the cover-up against i5. What do you care about i5?? Because if you can have a cover-up so universal and so total in the Libertarian Techies who are so "in favor of openness and freedom and truth"..

..well, they're largely the same mother bloggers you folks rely on in so, So, SOOOOOO many ways.. that's why.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 12:07 PM | Permalink

You who is posing as "Jeb Bush from Florida"

"There's a difference between reponding to small groups of criminals and countries by proxy."

Your notion of small groups of criminals apparently is quantitatively based.

There is no quality to your thinking, which is supported by too many people who actually have a brain, which you apparently don't. I'm not less of an American, nor more stupid than you, just because I don't live on one-a the coasts. That'd be another meme The Press has decided is a bias that's just okay-fine.

What I've called "Bi-Coastal Affective Disorder", or BAD.

Your stupidity in implying that less than 20 "criminals" who can fly a plane is not really much of a problem that needs responding to is rather laughable. As is the meme that you've choked on, which is that there were NO WMD IN IRAQ and IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11.

That'd be the lie, which you try to spread, "Jeb".

I'm not familiar with the Hayden Lake reference, but suggest you check OUT of the jail you've locked your brain into, and make sure to get all your belongings on the way out, like said brain, "Jeb"...;-D

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 12:18 PM | Permalink

sbw:
I personally know a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press who tells me that his editor and owner are Republicans and that this directly affects their news judgment. It is no secret that the Pioneer Press is Republican and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune generally leans Democratic. Even their poll results typically tilt five points in favor of their party of choice. If you find these facts personally threatening, looking to me won't resolve your crisis. If they don't apply to you, than they don't apply to you.

J.Toran:
I wouldn't be so self-satisfied. What my friends can't believe is that Americans could possibly think the way you do. They are particularly mystified by the claim that we are "defending American citizens" in Iraq. Their problem is with you, not me.

The response to the sarin gas attacks was a new police attitude that members of all religious groups are guilty until proven innocent regardless of having no connection with previous threats other than some form of religious belief.

The second response was a rise in nationalism driven by veteran's groups to revise Japanese history and claim in official government approved high school history textbooks that they didn't invade Manchuria or China, they liberated it. That there were no murders or rapes in Nanjing, that that is a calumny invented by Chinese propagandists. They even claim that it was Chinese who killed and raped Chinese in Nanjing. They insist that anyone who believes that Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in China is a masochistic, traitorous tool of Japan's enemies who is betraying their country. Sound familiar?

So, no, it wasn't a "let's deal with murderers seriously" question of "rocket science." It was a question of let's assume guilt by association with no rational justification, remove civil liberties to screw with groups we've never liked sort of "rocket science." All new religions are criminally suspect. That will make Japan safe--from religious freedom.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 12:25 PM | Permalink

"I wouldn't be so self-satisfied."

Ha! I don't remain self-satisfied for long, which is how I learn faster than stupid people like you, Ben.

"What my friends can't believe is that Americans could possibly think the way you do."

Let them talk to me, and I'll make believers outta 'em. Maybe not believers, in the sense you know the term... Believers in the sense that they could, at least, believe somebody could talk the way I do. You wouldn't want that tho, would ya, pseudo-Ben...?

"They are particularly mystified by the claim that we are "defending American citizens" in Iraq. Their problem is with you, not me."

It's been noted before that they wouldn't be your friends, if they looked at things logically. So of course their problem is not with you, you ex-pat.

"The response to the sarin gas attacks was a new police attitude that members of all religious groups are guilty until proven innocent regardless of having no connection with previous threats other than some form of religious belief. "

I'm not familiar enough. But I would guess this is your usual lies and exaggerations. My guess is that the Japanese Police have noticed that "innocent until proven guilty" is an ideal worth dying for, yet not everybody bording a plane or subway is necessarily innocent either.

"The second response was a rise in nationalism driven by veteran's groups to revise Japanese history and claim in official government approved high school history textbooks that they didn't invade Manchuria or China, they liberated it. That there were no murders or rapes in Nanjing, that that is a calumny invented by Chinese propagandists. They even claim that it was Chinese who killed and raped Chinese in Nanjing. They insist that anyone who believes that Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in China is a masochistic, traitorous tool of Japan's enemies who is betraying their country. Sound familiar?"

No, and if you are implying some connection between what the Japanese have done and what was done in Abu Ghraib, then you'd be guilty of treason if you weren't an ex-pat, in my mind.

"So, no, it wasn't a 'let's deal with murderers seriously' question of 'rocket science.' It was a question of let's assume guilt by association with no rational justification, remove civil liberties to screw with groups we've never liked sort of "rocket science." All new religions are criminally suspect. That will make Japan safe--from religious freedom."

Excuse me, but you lost me.

You bringing up the subject of "rational justification" is an oxymoron on your part, and somewhat of a sick joke.. and one I'm not gonna play here with the likes of "you" and "Jeb".

Btw, false-tongued "Ben", you are attempting to remove my civil liberty to survive on this planet, so you ain't 'zactly home free in that department, fool.

Btw, I finished re-reading the first post on this thread, and had forgotten it was (presumably, don't ya luv this form of anonymous communication) you're antonym, "Ben Franklin". You wouldn't actually know ANYthing about the issues you 'spoke' to, is my main point.

Find you manage to get a lotta people agree with you in part, which is the scary thing about all this.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 12:45 PM | Permalink

J. Toran: But that's the thing. There ARE occasions when you, as publisher, SHOULD have a discussion...

Of course, I have discussions, it's a silly use of everyone's bandwidth to suggest I wouldn't... but never "I Republican, you'd better be."

Ben Franklin: I personally know a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press who tells me that his editor and owner are Republicans and that this directly affects their news judgment.

Funny how people react according to what they, themselves, think. That's their shortcoming, not that of the newspaper's management. I repeat the only thing I tell reporters and editors on their first day on the job: "Write so that tomorrow you will be able to look back with pride on what you wrote today." There is no pride in kowtowing.

Posted by: sbw at August 21, 2004 12:47 PM | Permalink

Although not directed to me, I will try to clear up this point of corn-fusion:

"I personally know a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press who tells me that his editor and owner are Republicans and that this directly affects their news judgment."

Indirectly, you idiot, or you would NEVER see such LIES like "documentary" in the same sentence as "Fahrenheit 9/11". (Although the Minnesota Press may not have published these specific wordings, if they're picking up stories off the wires (like most/ALL?) then they probably are.)

And btw, the Publisher pays the bills, so is more atuned to printing things that both sell papers and make sense to the readers. Maybe in a few places people are sick and tired of reading the same old lies the reporters blog about in their newspaper articles.

Ya thin'...?

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 12:53 PM | Permalink

I always enjoy when a liberal owned newspaper takes pot shots at a conservatively owned newspaper because the owner is conservative (Murdoch, Scaife, Moon, ...). Besides being an ad hominem circumstantial logical fallacy and guilt by association, it's the pot calling the kettle black.

IOW, journalism at its most automatic. It is warranted when there is evidence that the owner is involved in the reporting or editorial process. I don't think that happens much, but I do think it happens.

I do think these two links are informative for watchdog'ing the potential media bias and influence:

CJR's Who Owns What

Top 25 Media Companies’ Campaign Contributions, 1999-2002

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 1:00 PM | Permalink

Crap, should-a previewed that. What had gone missing wuz the /. The bold/italics was supposed to be like this:

"Indirectly, you idiot..."

Anybody know a good editor...;-D

Btw, "sbw" I agree in part and I'm not gonna STOP writing just because you say so and you don't like EVERYthing I'm writing here. You ain't the publisher of me, afaik. That'd be Mr. Jay Rosen, or Jay since I've been posting here for a while under the pseudonym of JamesJayTrouble. (What EXACTLY is the convention here, besides taking your intellect off before entering this place, I mean...;-)

Btw, I wonder if all publishers are so high and mighty that they've forgotten that the meaning of the word 'pragmatic' is slightly different than 'kowtowing'. And people with money (generally?) have less need to be pragmatic, in my experience.

People that have had a lobotomy also say there is no value to kowtowing, which works well as long as they're never in a position of not being able to dictate what's what.

Bloggers would know little to nothing about these things, of course. (Can't recall if "sbw" is a blogger, or has just gotten the Libertarian Lobotomy by other means.)

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 1:06 PM | Permalink

I'm still a coder.

It was supposed to be:

"INdirectly, you idiot..."

WTF.

How come it keeps changing back when I keep typing in...??

Ah, your software was written by bloggers no doubt. And bloggers are, by definition, not altogether there, or here, or whatever... And the blogger-written software mis-matches the being/end italics. Trying to be helpful, this is the first site I've seen do this... Doesn't surprise me in the least, 'cause I've seen even more bizarre things, by far...

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 1:16 PM | Permalink

Let me explain Libertarian Lobotomy another way, if I can:

Typical non-coverage by way of partial-coverage:

"Though it was initially accused of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid in which almost 200 people died it subsequently emerged those attacks were the work of Islamist radicals and ETA's last fatal attack was in May 2003."

You get the limbal this is trying to portray, (and whether it's intentional or not matters not the least,) versus the facts of the matter...??

Anybody get the false-meme this is propagating?? This is just the same kind of mind-numbing propaganda/bias-good-'journalism' that the World Press has BEEN doing. Just the same as the mind-numbing Tech Press has done before it, for the past decade or so.

And no, I dunno EVERYthing going on, but I see at least THIS much. I'm not sure of ALL the implications of this, which effect me personally and professionally, as some of you may know.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 1:48 PM | Permalink

J. Koran,
I have no idea what meme you think this is supposed to be promoting, but you've piqued my curiosity as a former anthropologist. Pray tell.

To me, it refers to the Spanish government's false charges that Basque separatists bombed the train before the elections. It was these lies and the governments' fixation on domestic enemies rather than foreign terrorists that got them voted out of office. The Spanish people couldn't figure why they should have a dog in the US's misguided fight. So they elected a government that will defend their national interest rather than Bush's version of US national interest.

Your version would be?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 1:58 PM | Permalink

I have tried to raise the topics on TomDispatch for discussion a couple of times now and haven't gotten any bites. I'll try one more time.

Taking Bush at his word that we are promoting democracy in Iraq, does our use of airpower advance that cause? If so, how? If not, why not?

From reading the press and watching the TV news you would never imagine we are building fourteen permanent bases. That means we intend to be there for decades. Doesn't this almost ensure that any government that tolerates our presence will look like a puppet? For democracy to succeed in the middle east it will have to align itself with Arab nationalism of some kind. Isn't permanent occupation bound to prevent that?

What do we think about urban warfare of the kind we are engaging in? Is that likely to lead the country to see the U.S. as their ally in the promotion of freedom? Judging by the recent statements of every member of the Iraqi soccer team willing to give interviews at the Olympics, the answer is a resounding no.

What strategies is the US putting into place in Iraq now that the name of our occupation force there has changed from the coalition provisional authority to the largest US "embassy" on earth. They haven't stopped overruling Iraqi decisions just because their name changed. For example, they overruled the Allawi offer of amnesty for Mahdi militants who had killed Americans. They seem to be preventing Allawi from distancing himself in anyway from puppet status. Could this approach possibly enhance the legitimacy of Allawi's regime in Iraq? How? And what strategy is our "embassy" advancing? Couldn't we use some reporting on that?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 2:34 PM | Permalink

J. Koran,

Excuse me, but you have no intimate understanding of what is important, and what is not important. For you to impune The Holy Qu'ran and convolute it with my name is a misconcoction... As I've 'said' before, a misconcoction is so base because based on a concoction, not even a concept.

You are being false yet again and you're, to that use semi-hateful blog parlance, iaw, not on the cluetrain or clueless.

I was gonna let this slide at first, until I put it in the context of the entire bloggin' piece of bloggin' blog.

I have no idea

If you (and a few other people I notice) would-a stopped right here, I could have agreed.

what meme you think this is supposed to be promoting, but you've piqued my curiosity as a former anthropologist. Pray tell.

My version is that is precisely, pretty much exactly 100%, one of the limbals I figured most would get.

Which implies other limbals... Moreso, this was the conclusion.

Phone call, so that concludes some-a this (to me) nonsense.. for now.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 2:56 PM | Permalink

In relation to the airpower question, it was al Jazeerah's broadcasting of airpower victims that
truly enraged the Arab street. Doesn't the US media blackout on victims of US airpower effectively prevent us from facing the consequences of our actions?

Doesn't scapegoating Al-Jazeerah simply redouble our refusal to look at what we're doing? Al-Jazeerah didn't bomb Iraq, we did. Why does broadcasting that fact mean Al-Jazeerah has a problem?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 2:58 PM | Permalink

J.Toran,
You've managed to have yet another conversation with yourself alone. If you care to share your conservative fantasy some of us are willing to listen, though not likely to be able to help.

Given that the Spanish government lied about who the terrorists were, it's hard to see how reporting that would be other than a truth "meme." You don't seem to care much for those.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 3:02 PM | Permalink

Perhaps, but perhaps also my views are too liberal for you in other respects. As for the following:

"Given that the Spanish government lied about who the terrorists were, it's hard to see how reporting that would be other than a truth 'meme.' You don't seem to care much for those."

The Spanish government initially lied about who the terrorists were, but did you see the word 'terrorists' in this article...?

And the conclusion of this article is genuine, ya say...? Why is this news being continuously pumped out like elevator-news...?? Musac-like news-ack, iaw, bloggin' blogs... Why is this still be reported, and 'master narrative' can only be called on to save yer butt a few times, not every time.

And ya say yer name is "Ben Franklin", speaking of liking "truth memes".

@pseudo-jeb: Masking the source of the attacks sure didn't work for the ousted political party in Spain, true. Masking the attacks in France a couple weeks later sure HAS worked to reinforce the meme that the Iraq invasion would only spread Al Quaida attacks further, I would observe.

Look up, especially throughout the blog-wad known as a 'sphere'.. references to attack on Spain vs. references to attack on France, quantitatively or qualitatively, either one..

And especially since a few months back when they happened. Which meme continues on.. and on.. and on.. and on........... falsely on. And don't give me the equation that these things, in The Press, are measured according to how many lives are sacrificed at the altars.. because I notice some times The Press skews it that way and other times it chooses not to.

Get a count on these two attacks, and measure it according to the implications instead of the bodies.

Now, why is (only) one of these attacks (still) being reported on almost-daily-basis...?? Do the math.

(I grow weary of this non-debate...)-;

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 3:56 PM | Permalink

Witness the hubris here of Ed Cone: "We (journalists) need to be careful---not to let our soldiers and civilans be killed, but also not to allow our government to act without accountability in the name of security." How does Ed propose, not only to prevent people from being killed, but to control the government? How did the press get that kind of power?

Posted by: paladin at August 21, 2004 3:58 PM | Permalink

Give me a break, please.

"Insurgents have repeatedly sabotaged Iraq's crucial oil industry, its main source of income, in an effort to hamper reconstruction efforts here."

That would be the difference, right there, between the definition of an 'insurgent' and the definition of a 'terrorist', afaik. An insurgent would not take a scorched-earth policy to their own country, as a general rule.

If these are al Sadr's "men", then he has apparently no control over them (nor authority (in the literal sense) to speak for them).

Sometimes I wonder if people actually maliciously do these things in order to make The Press look suspicious, but I believe it's not normally the case.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 4:14 PM | Permalink

"How did the press get that kind of power?"

Simple: Same way bloggers got credentialed to be journalists.

Combo of No checks, No balances, and No "clueless" need apply.

And most of the journalists who are into bloggers, and those who are into blogging themselves, and those who've been into this for years.. Well, they are saying they're protecting our freedoms and keeping The Press honest.

How many times, seen these memes...??

And the results, how COULD they be so CONTRADICTORY to that, in reality. (How could they NOT be, I'd ask.. and Ed Cone isn't near the worst, just because he's now decided to be a political activist and all... Both Party's needed to be taken over by somebody, so Ed Cone et al may as well have one and the other's can have the other, right?)

Would it was otherwise, Mr. or Ms. "doodah"...)-;

Any non-anonymous comments, wise or otherwise...?? Btw, if Ed Cone et al and all actually HAVE any answers (even just one) in either of these, I'd like to see them.

But they'll keep bloggin' like always, 'cause it's just plain fun.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 4:23 PM | Permalink

May as well go back since I've come this far:

To "sbw", who said:

"Of course, I have discussions, it's a silly use of everyone's bandwidth to suggest I wouldn't... but never 'I Republican, you'd better be.'"

But, first off, whether you did or did not personally have such-and-such conversation is one thing. My point is, how many publisher's can say they've had this conversation?...:

'I Publisher, and as your boss and as a reader of your writings, you'd better be a little less-biased and start writing articles instead of propaganda.

And your blogger-buddies... ?'

I see no evidence this meme is getting around either the Pressrooms and DEFINITELY not 'round the (cough) blogosphere.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 4:35 PM | Permalink

I just skimmed first part of some-a this "a project of Nation Institute".

What I saw was uncovered in Afghanistan.

From above:

"... Like just about everything else, blogging changed forever on September 11, 2001. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon created a huge appetite on the part of the public to be part of The Conversation.."

Matt Welch is a blogger, iirc from past correspondence on this site (again, iirc), is Tom Englehardt...??

That'd be a huge appetite for therapy. Who does NOT have this appetite?

Bloggers want to own the conversation, via owning the Press and via owning the Political Parties... Both are done deals, from what I've gathered...)-;

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 4:44 PM | Permalink

On war, John Kerry is all Vietnam and no Iraq

Matt Welch covered the Democratic convention for Reason magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and will be reporting on the Republican Convention at http://reason.com/conventions. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 5:05 PM | Permalink

I'm not sure why Japan popped up, but let me clarify a few things.

Japanese culture is radically different from ours, so much so that generalizing from Japanese actions is likely to be meaningless.

Asia in general tends to be highly racist, and Japanese look at the world that way. The school book history controversy comes by from time to time. The Chinese and Koreans get all bent out of shape each time. Japan is also extremely sexist. The culture is also very hierarchical, almost feudal in the strictness of the hierarchies, except that people can move up in the professions. They can go from lackey to boss (and then abuse the lackeys).

My source: a close relative who is Japanese, born and raised there and spends half time there to this day, and another close relative who spent 20 years there as a gaigin (which still beat his 3 year in Rihyad). Also a walking tour of Akihabara with said relative quietly translating for me the amazing insults being hurled at her for being with 2 gaigin.

I don't claim to understand the society - I know just enough to recognize that it is alien enough to be hard to compare with ours, and hard to predict.

Similar sorts of characteristics occur in other Asian countries. When I was in Korea, Japanese couldn't get cab rides (another school book controversy).

One thing that annoyed the Japanese was the DNA evidence that proved that they were genetically Korean.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at August 21, 2004 5:16 PM | Permalink

I may follow-up on Tim's recent link better than the one I refer to below:

Btw, in reply to "Useful", I would note that America, Europe and also Arabia, Africa and ALL ELSEWHERE also have racist aspects to them. Some more than others... Thus your specific point is an area where one CAN apply some generalizations.

And I would think that people that have diffuse understandings of cultures might recuse themselves from geo-political topics, but who does NOT have an opinion...?? And who but bloggers are willing to admit they could be wrong.

Oh yeah. Matt Welch and I had disagreed on his pseudo-synopsis of the blogging DNC coverage. And the blogging of the bloggers in the aftermath of the (cough) DNC coverage. I read the first paragraph of this blog-as-journalism you linked to, "Tim". What I'm still not clear about is centered around these questions:

Was Matt Welch a credentialled journalist prior to drinking the "electric blog-aid acid test"...??

How easy IS it to get credentialed by Reason magazine...?!? I've seen a couple/few pieces referred to lately of non-Reason by this very so-called 'expert' source. However, you ever see headlines day-after-day/week-after-week about the i5 rather than Linux and Windows, in THE Tech Press or THE Press...?? (SO little surprises me any more...)-;

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 5:29 PM | Permalink

Save everybody some time.

"The U.S. Army is trying to figure out how long the fighting in Iraq will last, what the ultimate losses will be, and how many American troops will be needed before everything settles down."

And if the U.S. Army is going to blogs-as-journalism to get these answers, would not the terrorists also...?

And, assuming the U.S. Army actually IS trying to answer this question (again, in public like the partially-stupid 9-11 commission suggested), then I believe that would largely account for why the Battle of Iraq II has gone on this long.

The question should be wrt WWIII, not Iraq, anyway.

Sorry, to those of you who've gotten blogged by the mother bloggers you've decided to choose as expert sources. I didn't invent i5, nor Linux, iyrc.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 5:36 PM | Permalink

And if the U.S. Army is going to blogs-as-journalism to get these answers ...

Heh. Actually, I thought the reference to Malay was interesting.

The Malay insurrection of 1948-60 was carried out largely by the Chinese minority (37 percent of the population of 6.2 million). The Malay unrest, like that in Iraq, was pretty low key, with most of the population never bothered by the violence or military operations. The Malay situation eventually left 6,710 rebels and 3,400 civilians dead. The armed forces lost 1,865 (1346 Malayan and 519 British).

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 5:52 PM | Permalink

I could have stood to read further and more than what I did, obviously. I may re-visit or may not.

I had intended to mention, but forgot to ask: What is the name of that one 'bloggerzine'?? "This is Rumor Central" or "This is Rumor Control" or what?

No matter, as it seems to be more like "This is Bloggo Journalism at it's RTFM fineness" or "This is Inciting (Iran) to Riot" or some such... I believe I'm going to try to avoid blogs, to the extent I can, from now on for a while...)-;

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 6:31 PM | Permalink

It clearly hasn't occured to either of you that these are all studies of COLONIAL OCCUPATIONS! Doesn't that complicate your position just a little bit? This is colonial military strategy study.

Are you finally getting honest about that?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 21, 2004 6:36 PM | Permalink

Well, that's actually why the reference to the Malayan Emergency is interesting. Are you arguing that the small number of Chinese communist insurgents fighting against the majority of Malayasians (including the majority of Chinese Malaysians) were fighting against the British colonialism?

Or were they actually fighting for a communist Malaysia, regardless of the nationality or race of anyone that stood in their way?

Posted by: Tim at August 21, 2004 7:05 PM | Permalink

J. Toran wants me to tell reporters 'I Publisher, and as your boss and as a reader of your writings, you'd better be a little less-biased and start writing articles instead of propaganda.

If you had read earlier my statement about what I instruct reporters and editors, you would recall that "the only thing I tell reporters and editors on their first day on the job: 'Write so that tomorrow you will be able to look back with pride on what you wrote today.'"

But your reply to what I wrote was consumed pouncing needlessly on the word 'kowtowing' so you may not have noticed I might have said something of substance.

At a second glance, you must see that your hypothetical instruction above -- to be "a little less-biased" -- is an impossibly ineffective instruction. No one can see their own bias, and no editor or reporter can prescriptively diagram what is propaganda to avoid.

My instructions avoided your flaws to establish an effective feedback system where the results of one assignment would be fed back to constructively improve the next assignment. I set a continuously improving standard for quality.

And you, want to replace it with something that, even in your eyes, you now should see can't work and shouldn't even merit a second glance?

J. Toran, I don't mind your zeal, but give other people some credit for working brain cells and try to weave their wisdom into your own. While you are at it, give those people some respect since, although they may arrive at different answers, they try to live their lives as earnestly as you live yours.

Posted by: sbw at August 21, 2004 7:27 PM | Permalink

Excuse me for interrupting, and perhaps only provide more 'gossip'.. but do I even need to provide my views on this:

"All of this makes Iraq a rather unique rebellion, guerilla operation, civil war, or whatever you want to call it. Comparisons to other guerilla wars will be difficult, because the size of the population supporting the guerillas has a direct bearing on the chances of the guerillas succeeding. In Iraq, the small portion of the population supporting guerilla operations indicates that the possibility of success is very low. But the fighting could go on for a while. The Malay insurrection of 1948-60 was carried out largely by the Chinese minority (37 percent of the population of 6.2 million)."

"whatever you want to call it"...?

Unfortunately, the people supporting these wars would be, also, the people in Iraq who do not care to defend themselves militarily.

I would add that "Comparisons to other guerilla wars will be difficult," (other than the continuing conflicts in Afghanistan?,) because why...?!?

And the economics of warfare being what it is, you can do SO much more with SO few. (I gather the $1 BILLION cost and RISING is very largely "credited" to 250 of the "Trippi Tribe & Cult". So if they could each just supply.. say $6,000,000 each.. then we could all just call this even-Steven...)-;

I thought the recent analysis in Arab News, (SO SOrry, forget Amir's? byline) on the current options was so badly superior to this analysis so I'm not sorry I called this a blog.

Must be a bloggin' reader, I'd guess, or somebody who relates closely to those who do...

Outta here, perhaps now, for now??

What else would you look for, and where...? These are always the essence of the questions, afaik.

The seeds generally are found near the plants, but not always.. right or left?

"Lord, give me the strength to be direct and loving with my neighbors.
Help me resist involving others needlessly when differences arise."

Happened to see this, in my 'rounds':
http://woh.gospelcom.net/devo/today.php

To "sbw", I should have written "also say, in addition.. [what you said]". Anyone can and can't help but, see parts of their own bias. It is laziness disguised to say otherWise. Sometimes large parts. Show some respect yourself, to yourself and your craft.

Speaking of which:
"Free Poll Alone Can Empower Iraqis
Amir Taheri, Arab News"

And did Mr. Schwartz' blog explain why I even need to type in any brackets, whatsoever, yet?!?

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 7:45 PM | Permalink

This Thomas Englehardt gives the appearance of being a Mother Blogger. A novelist with pretensions of joining the Blogger Revolution that is preparing to train the U.S. Government, like they have trained the World Tech Community.

Yet, the enemy is still called "ignorance", in the common non-blogger parlance.

Just as anybody could be likely ignorant to believe I haven't given Mr. Kerry the better method of defusing the whole Nam press thing, on purpose.

To whit:

The (I gather ancient practice) of not criticizing a sitting President's war-time policies TOO AWFUL MUCH. Even though that may be what The Press wants... Iow, some things that have gone missing 'out of fashion', and some things that have gone missing IN action (and deeds and all that).. Well, some are still useful, to US fools.. as anybody.

And "jeb", I'm just saying I'm against blogs, and anonymous group-think decision-making, and TOO FAST is 'know better' than TOO SLOW.

Thaz all.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 8:24 PM | Permalink

And this is journalism?? Or is not-journalism, ie a blog-like dyslogic.

"Being a doctor and being a soldier are not conflicting duties, said Martha Huggins, an author, sociologist and longtime torture researcher from Tulane University who spoke in June at an American Association for the Advancement of Science (news - web sites) conference on the topic. "

Even if officers or other military personnel were abusing prisoners and detainees, it doesn't mean the system expects a doctor to be complicit, she said."

'They put you in that position. They have validated that they want you to be a doctor,' and that means doing no harm, Huggins said."

I mean, given the oath that was quoted, and given the war on terror is primarily against non-uniformed 'soldiers "of fortune/survivalism"'. 'Perhaps' Ms. Huggins is not familiar with the duties of somebody in uniform (of any kind, but especially the uniform of armed forces). And, if not, she should recuse herself and those with her views from this discussion or any further discussion along these lines.

So the first question of all the 'ethics' involved to be solved is who are the combatants and how are they to be identified...?

Period. (Question mark.)

Combatants not generally wanting to make themselves visible, nor identified in any way if possible, afaik.

(Lacking that.. this is a blogger of an article of faith, so to speak...)-;

And the point would BE that very few have willingly PUT themselves INTO the positions they find themselves. That position being: Pawns of "the not-quite-plainly-visible 'global warrior' caste". (Even violent business-people/tribes understand this, I believe.)

At least, this is part of what is plainly non-obvious to me.

What is obvious is there is a clear and present danger in believing ALL 'scientific evidence', especially that of socialogists, and even more, psychologists in these matters of ethics.

Ethics being a similarly non-exact science, but in most other ways non-similar.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 9:11 PM | Permalink

Crap, I meant to preview that one.

I do not mean to imply I'm in favor of WWII tactics, nor WWI tactics, either. They both are among the options, plus nuclears, to the few.

Some think the better approach is to spread these things around like candy, to everybody. That applies well in some cases, and exceedingly poorly in others.. Like weapons of ANY destruction.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 9:14 PM | Permalink

Paladin,

My reference to journalists keeping Americans from getting killed means simply that concern for our neighbors and country is important along with concern for scoops and awards, that is to say, journalists should be careful with information that relates to national security.

And you twist my words when you morph my statement that journalists should not "allow our government to act without accountability in the name of security" into having journalists "control the government." The former -- a key source of the press's power that you question -- is simply a reminder of a basic role of the press in a free society, ie, being a watchdog on government power; the latter is a construction of your own making.

Posted by: Ed Cone at August 21, 2004 9:57 PM | Permalink

"journalists should be careful with information that relates to national security."

This is apparently a new rule which came along after the Plame affair, I would assume...?

And I may be twisting words again, but it sounds like the watch-fox guarding the chicken-scoop(s) is your proposed solution to national security, Mr. Cone...?!?

I don't see where bloggers watching over The Press (Tech or otherwise), has helped much either ..and more than likely contributed to the current situations. So a reversal of fortunes might indicate a reversal of roles, and maybe The Press can keep a closer eye on both The Tech Press and bloggers...?? What with all the 'new tools' coming in the next year or so, likely. I believe The Press CAN teach some old dawgs and some 'Young Turk' pups some 'new math'... ?

Thaz 'bout all I'm saying, lez say, in summary form.. in 'bloglic', as you noted Mr. Cone. I'm talking pub-sub-lic, and most-a you seem to be talkin' 'bloglic'...;-)

And, btw, government power is hardly to be summed up as "a construction of your own making", like it is a "Fahrenheit 911" kind of 'documentary/reality' we're dealing with here. At least I recognize I haven't even gotten a chance.. I haven't really played a down yet, in this 'game', un-like some y'all gamers. If you're getting your political documentaries in a movie theatre, then what precisely is that called...?

I, personally, am blogged up with some of this non-(common-)sense.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 21, 2004 11:56 PM | Permalink

J. Toran,
Are you trying to prove your "blogs are self-deluded nonsense" thesis with your own posts?

Please try to form sentences and thoughts before typing.

Your considered opinion of Tom Engelhardt has deeply impressed all of us. Thanks for sharing.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 22, 2004 1:41 AM | Permalink

A blog is a technological innovation. Bloggers are people who write or read information using this technology. Many blogs allow readers to comment. Most blogs link to other blogs, both in a "blogroll" and in articles.

Generalizations beyond that start breaking down. You need to subclass the blogs and bloggers.

It is perfectly possible for professional or amateur journalists to practice real journalism using blog technology. But that doesn't make all or most or many bloggers "journalists." On the other hand, non-journalist blogs can be very valuable in a number of ways.

Other forms of information can be disseminated using blogs, and blogs can form communities.

Some blogs are personal diaries. Others are focused on specific areas - science, a narrow subset of a specific science, activism for one group, advocacy, support groups, etc. In other words, a blog is a very general purpose tool. What it is used for depends on the blogmaster and sometimes, the community of commenters.

Other than forums for discussion, my main use of blogs is to keep track of certain areas in national and international news. In that sense, several blogs serve as indexes, pointing into other blogs with timely articles or online articles from traditional journalism.

J. Toran comments:

I disagree with the conclusion of this. Americans, unless they have been in some of these highly racist societies with a friendly (and truthful) native, are going to have trouble appreciating the radical differences vs. our society, and how racism is an extremely critical part. Japanese, in particular, have a subtle set of rules of interaction, and you would never, ever realize that racism was a critical part of some interaction you have.

I am sure there are other cultures which are radically different, but the only two I have personal experience with are Japan and Korea. Others have seemed much more consistent, probably because they are descendents of European colonialism.

If you travel the world, you come to realize how relatively non-racist are the US and Western Europe (with the exception of its growing antisemitism, and its hidden racist confusion with Islamic immigrants).

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools blog) at August 22, 2004 3:32 AM | Permalink

The BIG denial of the anti-Vietnam War folk is that often there is a tough choice.
War, fighting evil; or
letting evil triumph.

When Kerry's anti-War Left got America to stop fighting in SE Asia, evil won, and murdered millions. The anti-Nixon media was part of this genocide-enablement. The US media has not even addressed this, much less accepted their responsibility. So far, the lack of "Kerry Lied" coverage shows the media WAY out in partisan Dem hack land. If we don't have the facts, like Kerry's Form 180, why not? And why weren't Kerry's lies noted sooner?

The anti-capitalist Press has far too long supported lies it likes. Truth is coming -- it's messy though. The press isn't always wrong to dislike Bush, for instance.

Posted by: Tom Grey at August 22, 2004 12:52 PM | Permalink

J. Toran,

Pretty much the only thing I could understand in your most recent post is that you think I said that government power is "a construction of your own making."

What I actually said was addressed to Paladin, who had taken my statement that the press needs to be a watchdog on government and misstated it as saying the press should "control the government."

It was this misstatement that I called a "construction of (Paladin's) own making."

Posted by: Ed Cone at August 22, 2004 1:21 PM | Permalink

@Chuck Moulton,

It's called a "ruthless crap detector". And btw, I dominate discussions by using it, although it's not an infallible tool. You're full of crap, iow, especially if you read the posts from today.

But I catch the drift that you'd rather I not post so that, in actual fact, would make you the bully. And notwithstanding your attempt:

Ed Cone,

I mis-read your post, regarding "the latter..."

What was it in my post you didn't understand, as I thought it plainly obvious...??

I'm sick of bloggers and even more sick of journalists sinking to the levels of bloggers. And even more, journalist/bloggers taking over the political parties.

So I'm sick of The Press, in actual fact, controlling the Government through manipulating the vote. Just because you all nearly-perfected the process with the Tripp-D campaign, (by bloggers controlling/mis-leading this The Press, obviously,) that just makes me even MORE against this what-you-hold-so-dear, The Blog.

And I'm especially sick of people taking over political parties, and taking over anything they CAN take over, and doing it in the name of "liberating the po' peeps". Like Linus Torvalds did before you.

Now SOME of this was obviously not mentioned in the post. But wasn't most of this pretty plain?

Or what was there that was not plain, in that post and any others, Ed...??

John Moore,

"I am sure there are other cultures which are radically different, but the only two I have personal experience with are Japan and Korea."

And you don't see how this influences your mis-statements??

"Japanese, in particular, have a subtle set of rules of interaction, and you would never, ever realize that racism was a critical part of some interaction you have."

The first movie I ever saw, iirc and I believe I do, was To Kill a Mockingbird, but I've already written on that.

And limiting racism, conceptually, is a poor starting point. Classism is a form of racism, as is sexism. There are many forms, not hard to see.

World travelers tend towards calling themselves 'cosmopolitans' or 'bloggers'. I'm not impressed, in fact impressed negatively by these so-called self-proclaimed 'experts their field' and 'experts in all fields' types. Not everybody who has crayons is a Rembrandt. I'm more impressed by experience. I've worked for and with black people, white racists, a Muslim, homosexuals, Jews and many others. I've had all of these groups of different people, as well as others, working for me, other than I don't recall hiring any Jews or Muslims. (Back in the day, ('bout a decade ago,) I had a small staff, from 2.5 to 8, usually very few.)

My point is, self-exhaltation about how world-traveled one is only leads me to conclude you are a blogger. And probably the easiest way to find a friendly and truthful native to guide you, these days, is to read a blogger and note that almost everything they write is tinged with self-advertising. An admixture of partial-facts and wholly-false-lies and mostly air from intelligent air-heads... No matter how subtle, almost everything they write will be friendly and the near-perfect opposite of anything resembling 'truth'. A truth that is so partial it is less than useless, because it gives the appearance of being SO useful.

"Appearances can be deceiving"

The exceptions are so rare. But the lies and mis-statements are not, perhaps to some, so readily apparent.

Btw, from the 'Useful Fools' site I finally today had chance to review SPJ's code of Journalism Ethics, which are good. Even better would be if journalists could follow some of these ethics, at least on occasion.

Finally, "keep promises" is not (properly speaking) a subject of Journalism, as it's the essence of any ethics-based systems. I've promised myself I wouldn't waste time and energy blogging, but did again today.

Sue me.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 22, 2004 4:23 PM | Permalink

Afaik, my posts engage a person's intelligence, rather than insulting a person's intelligence.

Not always, of course, and that would be a perhaps-too-subtle difference for some to bother with.

I name name's, which to some is insulting, because I do not care for 'sly' innuendo and character assassination. Especially character assassination by way of CYA. So if that has anything to do with my 'insults', then you would find that view, if you observe closer, to be inverted in that respect.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 22, 2004 5:29 PM | Permalink

Uhhhh... And you would be "lasso at sign truth.now", right?

You don't lasso truth, afaik.

This whole "truth" meme has been carried to such an extreme it's beyond recognition.

That'd be the better part of the-actual-truth, 'truth be(ing not-)told'.

So to 'speak'.

Posted by: J. Toran at August 22, 2004 5:33 PM | Permalink

J. Toran,
I wish you'd start a website of your own so you could do your stream-of-consciousness diary over there. Maybe linking to it from here occasionally when relevant? Is that so much to ask?

You overuse the word "blogger" so much, I'm expecting you call food you don't like "bloggy" food.

If you must continue posting here, please find a second word or thought to cryptically wear down to the point of meaninglessness. "Blogger don't like" is tired. Give it a rest.

Posted by: Ben Franklin at August 22, 2004 8:12 PM | Permalink

J. Toran, JamesJayTrouble, or whatever other names you go by. I have lost patience with you. Your posts are incomprehensible, your tone is hostile, you pick fights, insult just about everyone, and you have repeated well past the point of absurdity your "point" that blogs and bloggers are a ridiculous waste of time.

Worst of all, you post at a rate and length that is completely excessive, and distorts the forum. I'm sorry, but I must ask you to find some other weblog to comment at. You are not welcome here any longer. And I am closing this thread.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 22, 2004 10:02 PM | Permalink