Looking Beyond Flushgate
By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Newsweek's false story on alleged Koran desecration at Gitmo revealed several things. For one, when its editors said that Isikoff & Co. followed proper journalistic standards, then the logical conclusion is that Newsweek needs higher standards, especially when it comes to national security matters during a time of war. Taking the word of someone who saw a report (rather than getting a copy of the report itself) and then "confirming" the story with two non-confirmations may be good enough for Beltway politics or covering celebrities, but it's nowhere near good enough when American lives could be put at risk. If Newsweek wants to play gotcha, whatever, but they goddam better get their facts straight.
This is not just a blow to Newsweek but to mainstream media. Why? Because it reinforces notions of adversarial liberal press bias. When you add the mountain of other obvious incidents of bias such as the Rather/CBS meltdown on Memogate, the distortions of Ken Starr's quotes on judicial nominees, the hit pieces and a whole host of other examples, conservatives are practically handed the hammer in which to bop mainstream media heads. It once again reveals the divergence in worldviews between national media and the American public, and it displays the lack of ideological diversity which would serve as a check and balance to prevent bad stories from going out. As that Pew poll showed nearly a year ago, the national press is not the face of America, at least ideologically so. It's too monolithic. Because of this, they will continue to misreport the news on a consistent basis because they don't have that token conservative in the newsroom who will say, "Hey, maybe we should spend a little more time verifying the authenticity of those memos." They will continue to have a paranoid distrust of conservative Christians. Why? Because are so many non-Christians in newsrooms. They don't get it and they're not inquisitive or open-minded enough to get it, and that's a problem. When only 1 out of 275 employees in the newsroom is an evangelical Christian, as John McCandlish Phillips experienced, that's a problem.
The Flushgate incident (please, someone tell me a better, more descriptive name for this) is also telling about our enemies and our own soft bigotry of low expections. Or, as Andrew McCarthy called it, the smug delusion of base expectations:
Here's an actual newsflash — and one, yet again, that should be news to no one: The reason for the carnage here was, and is, militant Islam. Nothing more.
Newsweek merely gave the crazies their excuse du jour. But they didn't need a report of Koran desecration to fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers, to blow up embassies, or to behead hostages taken for the great sin of being Americans or Jews. They didn't need a report of Koran desecration to take to the streets and blame the United States while enthusiastically taking innocent lives. This is what they do.
The outpouring of righteous indignation against Newsweek glides past a far more important point. Yes, we're all sick of media bias. But "Newsweek lied and people died" is about as worthy a slogan as the scurrilous "Bush lied and people died" that it parrots. And when we engage in this kind of mindless demagoguery, we become just another opportunistic plaintiff — no better than the people all too ready to blame the CIA because Mohammed Atta steered a hijacked civilian airliner into a big building, and to sue the Port Authority because the building had the audacity to collapse from the blow...
...There's a problem here. But it's not insensitivity, and it's not media bias. Those things are condemnable, but manageable. The real problem here is a culture that either cannot or will not rein in a hate ideology that fuels killing. When we go after Newsweek, we're giving it a pass. Again.
I'll join Jonah and say that whatever McCarthy is drinking, I'll have a double.
Finally, Flushgate is part of a malady that many are susceptible to. For lack of a better turn of the phrase, I'll call it Across the Pond Syndrome. That is, if something is said or written that is intended for domestic consumption, beware, because the rest of the world is listening. I'm guessing that Natalie Maines was flabbergasted at the response after expressing her ashamedness of her president at a concert in London. Madeleine Albright reserved her harshest words for the Bush administration when she was in Paris. Eason Jordan was his most inflammatory when safely ensconced (so he might've thought) in Davos. As for Newsweek, the enemy was listening and Isikoff and the editors were unaware. While Albright may have preferred that what was said in Paris stayed in Paris, or that what Isikoff wrote in the US stayed in the US, or that what happens in Davos stays in Davos, the reality is that the Internet did not let it any of it stay local.
For those who think the Newsweek snafu is small potatoes, or that conservatives are making a mountain out of a molehill, consider this. I hate doing hypotheticals, but as someone said on Hugh Hewitt yesterday, what if Rush Limbaugh reported false information that resulted in race riots that killed at least seventeen? Would that be small potatoes? Hardly. The media circus would be tremendous. Michael Jackson would be pushed to A10. However, the flushed Newsweek story is worse. It didn't just trigger riots resulting in deaths, but it put our country in an unjustly negative light and it endangered Americans abroad. It's hard enough work as it is in Afghanistan and Iraq. The last thing the Great Satan needs is more bad PR.
Looking beyond this, Flushgate should serve as a cautionary tale for the wannabe Woodward/Bernsteins out there. Time will tell if this is taken to heart.
(cross-posted at Obsidian Wings)
« We need more COIN in the Afghan realm — Comments (0) | Juan Cole Protesteth Too Much — Comments (12) »
Looking Beyond Flushgate 17 Comments (0 topical, 17 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Isn't this taking it one step too far? I thought the retraction was only about the claim that there was a report that documented the desecration. There have always been allegations about desecration of the Koran. That is nothing new. Maybe it was the first time that it has been widely discussed. But the inaccuracies in the article were about the existence of an official report with specific findings. Any claims that that automatically makes the underlying events false too seem a bit disingenuous. Though they certainly are tainted.
Another thing that makes me nervous:
the logical conclusion is that Newsweek needs higher standards, especially when it comes to national security matters during a time of war. Taking the word of someone who saw a report (rather than getting a copy of the report itself) and then "confirming" the story with two non-confirmations may be good enough for Beltway politics or covering celebrities, but it's nowhere near good enough when American lives could be put at risk.
Doesn't it strike you that that is similar to the way that we got into the Iraq war? I know that this has been bandied about, but if there is this much outrage about a news story that cost 17 lives, why is the same (or higher) standard not held to a government that depended heavily on flawed intellegence that has cost so many more lives? It just seems that statements that are worded that way are hard to take as objective when it seems that they are simply serving an ideological purpose.
I thought the retraction was only about the claim that there was a report that documented the desecration.
Other desecration claims were made but could not be verified by reputable sources, unless you're willing to accept at face value the words of a detainee who is most likely a terrorist and an enemy of the United States. The Newsweek report was the first account from a purportedly credible and accurate source. The Pentagon then went through 25,000 pages of investigatory materials and found no evidence that US personnel did such a thing. Either you believe the Pentagon or you don't.
Doesn't it strike you that that is similar to the way that we got into the Iraq war?
There're similarities and differences. With the Iraq War, the intelligence (flawed though it was) led the agencies to conclude that Saddam was developing WMDs and had large stockpiles. Other countries with decent intelligence services came to the same conclusion. Bill Clinton came to the same conclusion. All Newsweek had to do was verify whether the allegation was in the report or not. They weren't dealing with flawed intelligence, but with intelligence that did not exist.
Here's a statement that is not simply serving an ideological purpose:
When Michael Isikoff decides to surface in the media again, he needs to be asked, point blank, whether his so-called "source" is a member of Congress, it's staff, or the staff of its committees. If he can't or won't answer that question, then we can certainly draw some "ideological" conclusions from that answer. It's not like we are asking for a name. It's just a general question that only needs a yes or no answer.
the Administration did use to justify the war, and I am thinking particularly of the "mobile biological weapons labs" drawings showing in Sec Powell's speech at the U.N., and the Nigerian yellowcake story were based on completely unreliable intelligence that the Administration knew, or should have known, was bogus or at least highly suspect but chose to use because it fit the story they wanted to tell.
Additionally, Donald Rumsfeld said on ABC on March 30, 2003, "[w]e know where they [WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." It was said with an air of absolute certainty. There is no other way to characterize that statement as anything other than an outright lie. He didn't say "we think the weapons are there" or "intelligence points to the weapons being there" he said "we know where they are." Well they weren't there and apparently hadn't been for about ten years.
So for this administration to criticize Newsweek for using poorly sourced information is more than a little hypocritical.
We all know about the double standard, what if the shoe were on the other foot, but that should not be our point, the point is that good journalism does not report potentially dangerous news without good corroboration of the facts. If Newsweek did not think about the consequence of their story in the extremist world of Islam they are merely ignorant, even if responsibility for the deaths lie with the rioters, but if we reveal that patterns in the newsrooms are driven by ideology, not truth or journalistic integrity, expose their motive, not the injustice of how they are treated when they screw up, but that their standard has become `disprove our stories,' rather than taking on the journalistic responsibility of proving their stories to readers. How many of these manufactured stories slip through if this is their standard? That is the question to ingrain in people's heads not a blame standard.
While I'd agree that the core of one problem is militant Islam, that doesn't discharge "Newsweak" of its failings in executing miserable journalism. They, and their fellow "journalists" have been set out on a mission to find/create "gotchas" on Bush and/or the US military. Its just inbred in them so maybe we ought to have it classified as a genetic defect contracted by attending "J school."
The fact that Islamic wackos used "Newsweak's" failing as a justification for their own uniquely insane brand of 7th Century behavior is quite aside from the problem of journalism in the West and particularly in America. If you saw any of the "questions" from yesterday's Whitehouse press briefing you'd have to be living on another planet not to see the problem.
On at least one occasion yesterday McClellan was cut off in mid-answer for the umpteenth time by some reporter named Elisabeth saying that 'she knew his answer already.' I wish that McClellan would have said "Elisabeth if you already know the answer why do you come here. Its a beautiful Spring day, why didn't you go to the park."
------------------------
You are absolutely right. Its well past time for us to stop giving Islam a pass when they behave exactly same way they accuse us of behaving. There are more than ample examples of Muslims murdering Christians, Jews, Hindus, et al, desecrating churches and temples, etc.
Its well past time for Islam to grow up and join the 21st Century. I don't know anyone who would deny them the right to practice their religion in peace --- but I do know lots of people who are getting tired of them practicing it with decapitations. There are plenty of decent non-violent Muslims --- if they genuinely believe that Islam is a religion of peace then its their responsibility to "take back their religion."
... There is no other way to characterize that statement as anything other than an outright lie ...
Actually I can characterize it differently --- "bad intelligence".
And as I recall Bush said that the "Brits" had intel on attempts to purchase yellowcake in Africa. He never said we knew it and he never said Niger. Lets pillory the administration for their mistakes, not for lousy reporting by the press.
I said the first paragraph were examples of bad intelligence that should have never been used.
The outright lie was Rumsfeld's statement, with absolute certainty, that he knew where the WMD were.
that you are defending Scott McClellan yet all your posts close with that wonderful quote from Krauthammer?
And you're right, Elisabeth probably would be better off in the park. Scott McClellan never answers the question he is asked, although he is not nearly as good at it as Ari Fleischer was. Well at least he hasn't answered a question directly since Jeff Gannon left.
The outright lie was Rumsfeld's statement, with absolute certainty, that he knew where the WMD were
Making a statement, even with absolute certainty, that subsequently turns out to be incorrect does not constitute a LIE.
... interpret my comments as a "defense" of McClellan. I was criticizing the press.
From her remarks it is clear that "Elisabeth" has her mind made up and doesn't want to be confused by anything approximating facts. In that case one can only wonder why she wastes her time coming to the press briefing. She has written the story long before the briefing started so she could have gone to the park and simply called in her story.
The statement was made as one of fact, not supposition or couched in any kind of qualification. He knew where the weapons were. They weren't there. He either lied or as Joe Biden says he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. So either way he didn't know where the WMDs were. That is a lie in my book, what would you call it?
All the same to me. The Pentagon will sell a war with all three. And really, I am almost to the point where I could care less what fraud they perpetrate except for the fact that schools are closing in my area for lack of money. We have plenty of money for policing the world, or at least borrowed money. But tax money for education, protecting our border, and cleaning up toxic wastes, well I guess those priorities have been flushed, along with honesty.
"Its well past time for Islam to grow up and join the 21st Century"
Did you type this with a straight face? You vote for a bunch of neo-puritan numbskulls busily dragging America back into the 17th century and then have the brass b's to criticize Islam! God, or maybe Allah, help us.
How come religious fundementalists in this country are so premenstrual about being taken seriously and demand that their agenda be respected, but are so quick to belittle anybody else's faith? Unless, of course, that someone else happens to be Israeli.
Your obscure movie quote to ponder as you wander off into a perpetual, banned state. Au revoir, troll.
soft bigotry of low expections
No kidding. As Robert Spencer asks on FrontPage today, "When in April eBay offered a consecrated host for sale, imagine if Catholics had rioted and seventeen people were killed."
Can you imagine how the media would be treating Catholics — and in fact all Christians — today? [some might doubt it could get worse -- ed.]
Why do Muslims get a pass on this stuff? It's like everybody thinks, "Oh yeah, desecrate the Koran. Of course they rioted and killed people. Wouldn't everybody?"