Posted on 04/17/2003 4:56:12 AM PDT by RJCogburn
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:09:37 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WHEN SADDAM Hussein's psychopathic son Uday told CNN's top news executive, Eason Jordan, that he planned to assassinate his two brothers-in-law who had defected from Iraq, he wasn't concerned that Jordan would rush the explosive scoop onto the air. Uday figured the influential journalist would sit on the story and say nothing - and he was right. The news didn't leak, and the brothers-in-law were murdered soon after.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
There it is folks, in all its glory.
Does anyone still wonder why we call them "presstitutes"?
I, for one, don't believe that this crap STARTS with the reporters them selves. I think it starts with the bureau chiefs and the higher-ups who think that our paper can out-do the other paper. Accuracy be damned, just file a story!
I'm all in favor of competition, but when speed becomes valued over truth, competition degenerates into a brown-nosing contest, and nobody wins.
When ''the name of the game'' becomes ''keeping on good terms'' with the world's most evil men, journalism turns into something awfully hard to distinguish from collaboration
Not hard for me to distinguish
News organizations boast that they cover even the toughest beats without fear or favor. Sometimes it's true. But sometimes journalists choose to censor themselves instead - to toe a vicious regime's line, to soft-pedal its ruthlessness. They may do it to save their skin or to ingratiate themselves with the dictator or to protect the bragging rights that come with access to a big story. Whatever the excuse, the results are the same: The public is cheated, the news is corrupted, and a despot is strengthened.
The first thing that all armed political parties learn is how easy it is to intimidate the press. The Bolsheviks, Italian Fascists and the Nazis all knew how persuasive a brick through the window could be. Latin American drug dealers have edited many a story by offering to supply newsmen with a Columbian necktie. American and European journalism is conditioned to face only the civilized kinds of persuasion encountered in the First World. But a newsman who can successfully resist the blandishments of a two martini lunch may be convinced by pistol held to his gut. And herein lies the beginning of the tale.
Historically, only a clandestine press has been able to successfully cover events in an environment dominated by armed political parties. Whether during the American War of Independence, or in Nazi Occupied Europe or behind the former Iron Curtain, it is the secret newsgatherer and the hidden press that is the most effective. Ironically, technological developments like the Internet has made clandestine journalism easier than before. It is no coincidence that forums like the FreeRepublic and the blogspots have proved far better at analyzing and even gathering news than the traditional media providers. The secret policemen had no one to shake down; no offices to burn; no one worth executing.
The solution to the current crisis of news integrity must begin with an admission that the traditional information gathering model is fundamentally useless in totalitarian environments. Newsgathering should move to a paradigm where there are hundreds and thousands of reporters, each "embedded" in the millieus they report on, posting fairly raw information onto electronic forums. The editor's function should largely be assumed by moderators who will sift, emphasize, clarify and summarize. This is what some of the better blogmeisters like Glenn Reynolds, or Andrew Sullivan, actually do. It is a function that forums like FreeRepublic perform, to an extent.
It's all about access and who breaks the story first, even if it's entirely incorrect. That's how CNN got into so many places that others couldn't. They sold out their credibility.
It will be interesting to see how much further they can sink. As their ratings continue to plummet, they will get more desparate and it will get even more crazy.
About the same thing as is happening to the liberals. AS the libs lose it, they get more and more entertaining.
As for Eason, his life story could be entitled:
"One Fell Out of the Cuckoo's Nest".
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