"Not everyone is thrilled about how new technology has changed the way news is reported. Long-time White House Press Corp member and columnist for Hearst newspapers Helen Thomas is one of those unhappy. She blames bloggers for contributing to the “deterioration” of journalism that led to the Iraq war.
“What I really worry about is that I think the bloggers and everyone, everyone with a laptop thinks they’re journalists,” Thomas said. “And, they certainly don’t have our standards. They don’t have our ethics, and so forth. There’s a deterioration,” she continued. “Reporters laid down on the job in the run up to this [the Iraq] war.” [Emphasis added]"
Standards? Ethics? Say again? Did someone actually mention "standards" and "ethics" in the same sentence as "reporter"?
No, Helen, the problem with journalism today is that most conventional journalists are leftwing hacks, churned out by far-Left, anti-US indoctrination mills like NYU and Columbia University. These "journalists" are more interested in pushing a far-Left agenda than in reporting events as they are. They aren't so much journalists as they are activists. Survey after survey shows that 85%+ of all working journalists consider themselves "liberal" (leftist) Democrats.
I think the gorgeous Helen Thomas, like so many other leftist hacks, is miffed that the American public no longer takes their words as Gospel truth. Why should Americans trust the major news media? -- time and time again we "non-journalists" in the blogosphere have exposed the "standards" and "ethics" of the Old Media for what they are. Here's a small sample of recent media scandals caused by some of those "standards" and "ethics":
The Eason Jordan Affair: CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, was forced to resign after falsely accusing US forces in Iraq of targeting journalists there.
The Newsweek "Korans in the Toilet" Debacle: Ever eager to portray terrorist animals locked up in Guantanamo detention camp as victims of American brutality, Newsweek publishes an article alleging that US guards there threw copies of the Koran into toilets to taunt prisoners. When the story published, some Muslims went on a rampage, (what else is new?), killing around 100 people and burning shops and homes in several countries. Newsweek later retracted the story.
The Legend of Green Helmet Guy: During last summer's Israel vs. Hamassmackdown, several MSM outfits featured the usual daily smattering of pictures of Arab babies killed by Israelis. It struck some of us standard-less bloggers that the same individual kept showing up in some of these pictures. Who would have thought, given the LeftMedia's high ethical standards, that this individual; later nick-named by the blogosphere "Green Helmet Guy," was actually a Hamas propagandist who had been staging anti-Israel photo ops for the "ethical" the Associated Press?
Magic Bullet Lady: Throughout the Iraq War, the Antique Media has pushed the action line of American soldiers as imperialist thugs by publishing picture after picture of mothers holding dead babies, old men covered in blood and old women who purported to be traumatized by US military action. These pictures accompanied, and continue to accompany, nearly every online story about US involvement in Iraq. Quite often these pictures are staged by those sympathetic to one Iraqi terrorist group or another but hey, what does the MSM care? -- the photos help push its agenda of destroying support for the War. With the publication of the infamous Magic Bullet Lady picture, the MSM pushed enemy propaganda past the almost-sublime, and far into the realm of the ridiculous.
Jayson Blair: Blinded by the leftist religion of "diversity," with its sacred racist tenet of holding minorities to lower standards than whites, the NY Times staff ignored clear signs that up-and-coming reporter Jayson Blair, a Black man, might be engaged in plagiarism and story fabrication. When Blair was finally exposed as a serial plagiarist and fabricator, heads at the "paper of record" rolled. In true leftist fashion of twisting evil into good, (and vice versa), and playing the race card, the illustrious Blair went on to publish his memoir of the Times debacle under the title, "Burning Down My Master's House." Fawning, cocktail leftist "news" anchor Katy Couric helped publicize Blair's book by subsequently giving him a primetime interview on MSNBC.
Pro-Kerry bias ordered by ABC News' political director: In a shocking display of leftwing bias, ABC News political director orders his staff to give more favorable coverage to John Kerry than to George W. Bush. No big surprise there, since Halperin is the red-diaper son of anti-US leftist radical Morton Halperin.
CNN Admits Hiding the Truth about Saddam Hussein: In what is one of the most shameful recent episodes of MSM "standards" and "ethics," CNN'sEason Jordan (yep, that same Eason Jordan) admits that he and others in the CNN organization covered for Saddam Hussein. Here's a taste of the ethical Mr. Jordan's journalistic standards:
"Similarly, Jordan wrote, CNN did not report a conversation he had with Saddam's son Uday in which the Iraqi told the network executive that his government planned to assassinate King Hussein of Jordan and two of Saddam's sons-in-law, who recently had defected to the neighbouring Hashemite king. Jordan did privately inform the king, who dismissed the threat. He did not warn the Iraqi defectors, who subsequently were lured back to Baghdad and murdered."
Though CNN hid truths concerning the depth of the Saddam Hussein regime's depravities, its star reporter, antiwar, anti-US leftist Peter Arnett, had no problem announcing the "failure" of US forces to beat Saddam's army during the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He made this proclamation on one of Iraq's state-run tv stations as US forces were closing in on Baghdad.
NY Times Fake Abortion Tale: Again, an example of sloppy and unethical MSM reporting in support of advancing a political or ideological position. Remember, with so many leftist reporters it's not the facts that matter, it's what they think the facts should be that matters most!
NY Times's "Pieta Man": This one was hilarious in its transparency. The NY Times ran a picture of a young man in Lebanon it says was buried under building rubble after an Israeli attack. The picture turned out to be a staged fraud, one with powerful Hamas propaganda value. But hey, when you're a leftist outfit like the NY Times; one always on the lookout for opportunities to promote an anti-Israel action line, such things as obviously staged propaganda tend not to catch your eye.
There are many more such examples of MSM journalistic ethics and standards available online, but I've made my point. I'd love to ask the lovely Ms. Thomas two questions: Since she has been reporting, how many media scandals does she think have gone undiscovered? How many fake stories have come to be accepted as truth before they could be exposed as the lies they were?
Have you heard of famed NY Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty, Helen? Surely you must know how he covered up Soviet atrocity in order to glorify Communism, don't you. If the blogosphere had existed in the 1930s, would Duranty have been able to get away with the journalistic fraud he committed, a fraud which cost many lives? How many untruths, such as Walter Cronkrite's lie that the US was defeated during the Tet Offensive, would have been retracted or corrected if the blogosphere had existed when they were put forth?
With bloggers now policing the Old Media, the likelehood of mainstream journalistic fraud being accepted as widespread truth is clearly less. Given that, I'd say that the blogosphere can only help raise journalistic ethics and standards in the Old Media.
