Do not underestimate the POWER of the media!
Posted on 03/09/2008 4:05:59 AM PDT by Iron Munro
The most interesting part of the controversy over Obama advisor Samantha Power's referring to Hillary Clinton as a "monster" -- one might say the only interesting part -- is that immediately after Power said it, she tried to proclaim that it was "off the record." Here was Power's exact quote:
She is a monster, too –- that is off the record –- she is stooping to anything. But the reporter who was interviewing her, Britain's Gerri Peev of The Scotsman, printed the comment anyway -- as she should have, because Peev had never agreed that any parts of the interview would be "off the record," and nobody has the right to demand unilaterally, and after the fact, that journalists keep their embarrassing remarks a secret.
It's extremely likely, though, that had Power been speaking to a typical reporter from the American establishment media, her request to keep her comments a secret would have been honored. In one of the ultimate paradoxes, for American journalists -- whose role in theory is to expose the secrets of the powerful -- secrecy is actually their central religious tenet, especially when it comes to dealing with the most powerful. Protecting, rather than exposing, the secrets of the powerful is the fuel of American journalism. That's how they maintain their access to and good relations with those in power.
Illustrating that point as vividly as anything I can recall, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson had Peev on his show last night and angrily criticized her publication of Power's remarks. Carlson upbraided Peev for her lack of deference to someone as important as Power, and Peev retorted by pointing out exactly what that attitude reflects about Carlson and the American press generally
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Exactly. CNN covered up for Saddam Hussein's atrocities in the 1990s, to keep their Baghdad bureau open.
And the New York Times reporter in the 1930s helped conceal the truth about the mass starvations of people in the USSR for the exact same reason.
This is a fascinating read. I’ll have to finish it later.
I disagree totally with this article, unsurprisingly. It’s from Salon.
Take this line:
========whose role in theory is to expose the secrets of the powerful=======
BZZZT, wrong answer. The media’s job is not to be activist, their job is to be wholly accurate.
If the media are busy “taking on the powerful” or “taking on the rich” or “taking on x”, then they aren’t doing their job. That is by definition activist media.
Let me put this another way. Let’s ask SCOTUS judge John Roberts:
=======“If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy’s going to win in court before me, ... But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy’s going to win.”=====
Now, granted he was talking about judges, and court cases, and etc. But a journalist is(like it or not) very much like a judge. And there are times, very often actually, where the little guy is in the wrong.
The BBC talked about this when they admitted to their bias.
http://www.newsbusters.org/node/13530
Hillary got away with taking a $10,000 “loan” that was invested for her subsequently yielding $100,000 in a years time by saying she started reading the WSJ. The official press is much tougher on Brittany Spears than it is on politicos.
It is an essential part of the BBC’s journalistic role to hold those with power and responsibility to account, and in politics that includes the opposing as well as the governing parties. But it should never arrogate to itself the role of ‘the Opposition’. There are those in the international media who regard themselves as the sole bastions of freedom and justice against (as they see it) the overweening follies of Washington. There is not a shred of impartiality in such a position, and the BBC has no place in such company.
Every time I see Carlson, I want to slap him and swipe his lunch money.
American journalism has deteriorated into nothing more than anonymous sources and off the record comments. Politicians and their operatives should expect to be on the record all the time.
Nevertheless, Ms Powers’ comment was not newsworthy and shouldn’t have been published, IMO. Such tabloid sensationalism adds nothing to the public’s knowledge about either candidate.
I hate the American MSM, but I don't think the British journalist is in a better position to boast. The case with Prince Harry in Afghanistan is an example of how they in fact also consider the request of 'important people'.
I see your point, but yours is not a good example. There was a legitimate concern for the Prince’s safety.
This lady lost her job for saying out loud one time, what goes through every member of the drive by media’s head a hundred times a day: Hillary is, was and will be a monster.
I agree with you. The old saw, the media should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” is more of the same garbage. Who is more “comfortable” in America than the media, yet they NEVER are “afflicted” with investigations. Unless they investigate themselves, and “out” every gay, and expose every womanizer, and reveal every chronic disease, and publicize every racial slur among them, they have no business reporting on anyone else.
Mr. Greenwald's bio from the page at the link:
I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. I am the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My third book, "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and will be released April 15, 2008, by Random House/Crown.
I disagree here. There has to be room for information exchange between people and media or media will be reduced to digging through cans. This journalist will find that no one will talk to her going forward because everything is fair game. She will find her source of leads drying up and in the end will be rendered ineffective. It’s one thing to approach someone with a set of facts and confront them with it and it’s another when someone asks for a lack of attribution.
I think the information exchange should also include the knowledge that this relationship is like the scorpion and the frog, with the media and the powerful taking turns playing the different roles.
Every time I see Carlson, I want to slap him and swipe his lunch money.
tucker carlson ~ a poster boy for in the closet republicans!!!
This was the excuse to get rid of her. Previous remarks about Israel had already made her a problem. I think the Scot's reporter was absolutely right to print her remarks.
She Told The Truth
The actual role of the media is the one the GOP has stupidly given them: to choose our candidates for us, and to set the terms of the debate.
Everyone credits “The Clintons” with being so brilliant about their every move, while not realizing that others can play their games as well. My thesis is that Powers intentionally told the truth about Hillary since that was the only way to highlight the truth about her. The fact that she would resign later was a given, and well worth it to call it like they see it.
True. I have seen more than one reporter get used for disinformation purposes and that’s just as bad.
Actually Hillary began with only $1,000 loan.
Great post! Thanks Glenn Greenwald. Telling.
Ping
Samantha Power lost her job for the PC crime of “Lese Majeste”.
Simple as that.
Yes, as far as it goes. But it makes no allowance for the "Killian Memo" effect. It is in fact a left wing screed in its own right. One thing to say that someone should have been harder on a Bush Administration spokesman or official, another to say that Rather was right to promote a hoax so long as it was an anti-Republican hoax.
Journalism as we know it only traces back to the Civil War era. Back then the Associated Press was in its infancy, and the Lincoln Administration promoted the AP with preferential access to government officials and to the telegraph offices in exchange for "good behavior" on the part of the AP. Little if any different from the behavior of CNN's Baghdad Bureau and the Saddam Hussein regime.
Thanks c_I_c. I see it as more insight into the twisted symbiotic relationship. Was Geeri Peev trying to affect an election? etc., etc. (don't know the background of Geeri Peev).
And people wonder why the Bush Administration seemed to have a “bunker mentality.”
Great video of Tucker's idiocy is describing MSM’s dirty little secret.
I wish this women worked in the US.
I think it says a lot about the mind set of the people who surround a certain candidate and how they talk to one another. It’s very revealing.
The msm does dig through cans. Look what they did to Foley of FL. They protected the klinton boy until Drudge spilled the beans. Most knew all about him when he fiddled in Arkansas.
WOW! Thanks very much for the link. Tucker should go back to the bowtie. It would make it more difficult to slide his head up his ass.
Nice catch. It’s why they fawn over evil dictators and other spicy news-generators. It’s good money. They have more blood on their hands from Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror than any action taken by the U.S. military to stop it.
Downright scary.
Academics like her are like politicians who spend their lives inside the beltway.
They both need a dose of the real world on a regular basis.
Bingo! The MSM bias only cuts one way. Can you imagine if a Republican threatened the press with loss of access? Not gonna happen and they wouldn’t care anyway. The Dems wield all the power when it comes to the spin of MSM stories.
Apologies to “monsters”. There hasn’t been a word invented that accurately discribes Hillary.
Sheesh. describes. (probably better to dis Hillary anyway)
They were tipped off by dem operatives. That they ran with it without fully vetting the story and the sources shows how they lean but Foloy needed to go and shame on the GOP for not getting rid of him before it was too late.
And give him a wedgie.
I personally think she found out about Obama’s OK-ness with being Hillary’s veep and wanted off the team.
That is COOL!
I stole it from somebody her on FRP, but I love it, in a scary kinda way.
Walter Duranty.
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