Howard Kurtz on Media Critics

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and CNN writes today on media critics. I thought this might be an excellent opportunity for some introspection on the torrent of criticism buffeting the MSM today.

Nah, his examples of media critics were Tony Blair, OJ Simpson and Paris Hilton. The article is an introspection-free zone. Too bad; Kurtz has the bully pulpit, but apparently not the chops to take this topic head-on - without the snark.

Joe Klein: Nobody Loves Me But My Mother

Joe Klein is feeling a little mopey. The big bad lefty blogosphere has been attacking Joe and he's quite sad. The latest row started when he spoke with Congresswoman Jane Harman about the vote she would be casting on the Iraq War funding bill. Harman was going vote for the bill, but later decided to vote against. Klein spoke with her before she changed her mind and reported she was going to vote for the measure. For that, Klein caught some stick from lefty bloggers.

Klein:

[B]logging ... [is] a brilliant format for keeping readers up to date on the things I care about—and for exchanging information with them. ... But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. ...

[Politicians like Jane Harmon, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] allowed themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position. Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate and raise money against them. They may be right—in the short (primary election) term; Harman faced a challenge from the left in 2006. In the long term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.

Klein also equated left wing bloggers with Rush Limbaugh and right-wing hate-talk radio. One one hand, it's a reasonable admonishment; We surely don't want to debase ourselves to the level of our enemies. And Joe does have a point on his writing on Harmon; he probably didn't deserve to be intensely attacked.

For the most part however, the lefty blogs I visit are long on reason and facts - with large dollops of sarcasm and anger. There is an essential difference between the lefty blogs and dolts like Limbaugh - we are infuriated by the lies and manipulations of the Bush Administration and idiot neocons, theocons, paleocons, racists, money-grubbing rip-off artists and all-around protectors of the rich and powerful. Limbaugh, OTOH, asks what color toilet paper and wipes their asses.

Klein knows this difference, or he should know it. I will give Klein the point that we bloggers can be too angry at times (myself included). And with the power of the blogosphere, it may seem like an angry wasp attack.

The rest of Klein's sad story is one big glass of red whine; alas, poor Joe Klein. Klein's problem is his first instinct is to be a stenographer to power. That's okay, except when you are a key writer for a major news weekly. We want facts and investigative reporting, not cocktail party chatter.

Okay, that's maybe too hard on Klein. In some ways, his heart is in the right place. He has come out recently smoking on BushCo. But you know what? So has Limbaugh. So has Peggy Noonan. So has anyone with an IQ north of 50. Klein joined the Bush-bashing party at the same time as the rest of the MSM - and many right wingers, too.

Joe, you are going to continue to take the slings and arrows from the left. You should have been doing gumshoe journalism not cocktail party stenography all along. And I don't give a rat's ass if that offends you. Feel free to hit the ignore button on me and my ilk all the time. The fact of the matter is the elephant in the living room is the MSM's stenography to power.

The elites of MSM are shocked and chagrined to get heaps of criticism from the wasps of the blogosphere. Y''all are simply going to have to get used to it. There's a new sheriff in town and his name is Accountability.

See my post two months ago on Klein.

Thomas Sowell: You Old Coot!

Someone forgot his Geritol:

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

I post this as a reminder of just how deranged American conservatism has become. Notice its the media, educators, etc., not the president who led us in a quagmire of a war based on lies. The saving grace is the curmudgeons are dying off at a rapid rate.

Fox News: Dumbing Down the Bias

We all know the allegations - Fox News is biased towards the right, and dumbs down the news. Are these allegations correct? Certainly the democratic candidates for president thought so when they snubbed Fox News for their first debate. And we all know that Dick Cheney appears almost exclusively on Fox (except when he's rolling Tim Russert, but I digress).

Let's take a look a what researchers and others have found. First, World Public Opinion completed a year-long analysis of news sources. Their key finding:

[T]he frequency of [Iraq War] misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals’ primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions [about the Iraq War], while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.

This comes on the heels of a recent Pew Center poll showing that Fox News viewers are among the least informed on current events.

In addition, researchers Ethan Kaplan and Stefano DellaVigna analyzed the question of Fox News bias by looking at the impact of Fox News on voting patterns. From the National Bureau of Economic Research:

[Kaplan and Della Vigna] found that the introduction of Fox News had a small but statistically significant effect on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gained an estimate of between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points in the towns that broadcast Fox News. They also find that Fox News had a significant effect on Senate vote share and on voter turnout. Their estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its viewers to vote Republican according to a first audience measure, and 11 to 28 percent according to a second, more restrictive audience measure.

Here's some other info on the Fox New Bias:

• Media Matters reviews a series of internal Fox memos.
• A documentary on Fox News - Outfoxed.
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting covers Brit Hume (from the way back machine - pre 9/11).
• Journalists have found Fox News to be, far and away, the most conservative news source.
• The public outing of terrorist who, unfortunately, wasn't really a terrorist.
• Osama, oops I meant Obama, attended a Madrassa, as reported by Fox. Nice.

Gary Kamiya on why the media failed

Gary Kamiya, writng in Salon, has an important article on why the media failed. He leads with:

It's no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. Every branch of the media failed, from daily newspapers, magazines and Web sites to television networks, cable channels and radio.

Kamiya's article is excellent; I highly recommend this to be standard reading for anyone who consumes news. I've carped on this subject here - a lot. So, I'm not going to recite his writing - you can get that from the source.

I did however, want to take a moment to at least give some applause the heroes of the media, those who spoke truth to power. From Kariya:

Not all was lost. Some of the best breaking commentary was on the Internet, on blogs like Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" and Helena Cobban's "Just World News," but these sites had a limited readership. There were some notable exceptions on the print side, like the superb reporting of Knight Ridder's Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, who aggressively reported out the Bush administration's bogus claims about the "threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. The Washington Post's Walter Pincus also questioned Bush administration claims about WMD (his big pre-war story on this subject, after almost being killed, was relegated to page A-17). And the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh and Mark Danner, writing for the New York Review of Books, also distinguished themselves with excellent coverage of Abu Ghraib, following the thread that led directly from the blood-spattered rooms outside Baghdad to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

If you don't know these authors (and I will admit I do not read Pincus' column), its time to do so.

Joe Klein: Monday morning quarterback

A most interesting column from Joe Klein. He writes:

When Bush['s] hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.

Wow. That's pretty tough stuff. These are thoughts I agree with, and I'm sure many fellow liberal (and conservative) bloggers may also agree.

So, we should be applauding Klein. Here is an influential MSM member forcefully speaking truth to power. I've complained bitterly about the how MSM are stenographers to power who would rather trade jokes and sip martinis with the powerful than hold the light of truth to them.

My problem is Joe Klein's history. Matt Taibbi recently excoriated Klein. Taibbi has known Klein for a long time, and rips him for the very point of stenographing the powerful.

Oh yes, Klein did write in April 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was a "big gamble". Back to Taibbi:

[A]ccording to Klein, he's been against the war since that September 2002 column[.]... Except for one thing -- while Klein in that column did point out many things that could go wrong in Iraq, and suggested that we all give the invasion a good thinking over before we signed off on it ("this should cause us to pause, slow down, talk this over"), he didn't actually say we shouldn't go. In fact, he would say just the opposite six months later, on Meet the Press:


MR. KLEIN: ... This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it--it's--it--it probably is.

RUSSERT: Now that's twice you've said that: 'It's the right war.' You believe it's the wrong time. Why do you think it's the right war?

Mr. KLEIN: Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has--Saddam Hussein has to be taken out."

Now, it is gratifying to see Klein go off on BushCo; I wish more of the MSM would go off on BushCo. However, important members of the MSM - Bob Woodward, Tim Russert, Tom Freidman, Joe Klien, et al, had their chance - a once in a generation chance - to speak truth to power at an incredibly important time in our nation's history. These men had a chance to influence history, rather than simply swim downstream with the current.

The best I can say now about Joe Klein is an adept Monday Morning Quarterback.

Michael Ware: Drunken McCain Heckler?

Or not?

For anyone who missed it, Drudge issued this post:

During a live press conference in Baghdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bag[h]dad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.”

Drudge went on to note that Ware tries to stay drunk as often as possible while in Iraq. All in all, pretty damning stuff - if its true. The charge is fishy because there is no footage of the heckling, only an unnamed source.

Ware appeared on TV w/ Soledad O'Brien, and had this exchange:

O’BRIEN: Let me ask you a question. there was a report that said you were heckling and you were laughing during the senator's press conference. Is that true?

WARE: Well, let's bear in mind that this is a report that was leaked by an unnamed official of some kind to a blog, to somewhere on the internet. No one has gone and put their name forward. We certainly haven't heard Senator McCain say anything about it or any of his staff have come forward to say anything about it. I did not heckle the senator. Indeed, I didn't say a word. I didn't even ask a question. in fact, when I raised my hand to ask a question, the press conference abruptly ended, so what I would suggest is that anyone who has any queries about whether I heckled, watch the videotape of the press conference.

Raw Story has footage from the press conference. There is no evidence that Ware heckled McCain in any way. The whole thing reeks of bull shit. This is how many politicians - especially reeps - crush their opponents, with innuendos and outright lies.

Michael Ware get my utmost respect. He is no stenographer to power. I hope the rest of the press corps rises to his defense.

Thursday political potpourri

Glenn Greenwald on why Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater couldn't survive in today's conservative scene. Greenwald's money shot:

[T]he right-wing movement in this country is now -- an authoritarian movement animated by the Orwellian slogan that "security leads to freedom" which embraces and seeks ever-expanding government power based on the claimed need to protect people from all the scary, lurking dangers in the world -- dangers which are constantly stoked and inflammed in order to maximize the craving for "security," derived by vesting more and more power in the hands of our strong, protective Leaders.

Meanwhile, the Politico reports republicans are fearful of a 2008 meltdown. Hmmm, I couldn't possibly guess why.


Former British ambassador Craig Murray charges the Brits have produced a fake map of the Iran-Iraq border to explain away the hostage crisis.
Murray writes:

A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.

B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.

Murray goes on to note that none of this excuses the Iranians not giving back the Brits. Barry Lando picks up the story, too.


The New York Times reports a widening income gap between the rich and poor in this country to a level not seen since before the depression. Cue a Bush administration mouthpiece saying with a straight face that everyone has benefited from the tax cuts. Ahh yes, here's Brookly McLaughlin, the chief Treasury Department spokeswoman.

[T]he share of income taxes paid by lower-income taxpayers will be lower than it would have been without the tax relief, while the share of income taxes for higher-income taxpayers will be higher.

The administration can get away with this because they are without shame. Meanwhile, reep POTUS candidates are all vying for more tax cuts (WSJ).

Yesterday was the annual broadcasters dinner with hosts Dubya and Flava Rove. This little affair is quite informative about the incestuous little affair between big media and the political elites. The American public is ever the loser when Karl Rove can rap to the correspondents who give your nightly news.

The Saudi King isn't holding Dubya's hand anymore, at least when it comes to the Iraq war. Street cred at the Arab Summit apparently trumps American interests. Wow. I am so surprised.


On a positive note, the Tuskegee Airmen are finally going to be honored with the richly deserved Congressional Gold Medal. My only complaint - they aren't taking George Tenent's.

More on sad old Max Frankel

I was surprised that Max Frankel's article didn't garner more attention. I wrote about in this in my blog on Sunday, but really didn't see much written elsewhere. I now realize that's not true. Two really excellent criticisms are up.

Brad DeLong skewers Frankel's self-serving mendacity.

A more honest commentator than Frankel would have written differently: would have written that the long-run survival of journalistic legal privileges depends on the existence of a community of journalists that policies itself, and that rewards journalists who inform the public and punishes those who kneel to their political masters. Frankel had a chance to engage in this task of self-policing this morning. He failed to do it.

Coward.

Firedogblog dog piles on Frankel.

Yet the argument Frankel offers, like all other arguments the NYT has offered in this case, is fundamentally dishonest. Frankel has, indeed, finally yoked the fate and interests of the NYT to the complicit involvement of Judy Miller.

...

You see, Max, it's not that we liberals have lost patience for reporters privilege. And our eagerness to have Judy testify came not just from a desire to see Cheney and Libby exposed.

Rather, it comes from a desire to see you exposed. It is time that the NYT stops pretending that it stands on the side of the public, as passive unwilling dupes of this Administration. It is time that the NYT stops laughing off the role of Miller and Gordon and Tyler and Raines and Keller and now Frankel in bringing this country to war on a pack of lies. It is time the NYT stops claiming these were leaks, rather than willful cooperation in the publication of propaganda.

Finally, Dan Froomkin summarily covers Frankel, though offering no personal commentary, other than posting some Brad DeLong quotes.

I suppose it is too much to ask any members of the traditional members of the media to take on some one so august as old Max. Its a damn shame because more and more its those ankle-biting blogs that are taking on the roles the press has eschewed in favor of martinis with the powerful.

Max Frankel: Justifying stenography to power

Over time, I've become increasingly disillusioned with the press, particularly in their coverage of major crises and events. I am not talking about the incessant coverage of freak shows like Anna Nicole Smith; no, coverage of the Iraq War - particularly in the dark days of 2002 and the first half of 2003 have seriously burned me up for some time. In particular, the perception that media elites are far more interesting in cultivating and maintaining relationships with those in power than they are in speaking truth to power.

This has become painfully evident in the run up and sad aftermath of the Iraq War. Reporters like Judy Miller, who became an acolyte of the charlatan Ahmed Chalabi, gave cover to Bush Administration propaganda about winnebagoes of death and Niger yellowcake.

Then there was the Valerie Plame outing. Countless books will be written on this topic, but an important contribution was published today by Max Frankel in the New York Times Magazine, a media elite during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Mr. Frankel does two things in the article - he provides an insightful analysis of just what transpired - starting with Ambassador Wilson's fateful trip to Niger and concluding with Scooter Libby's conviction.

In addition, Mr. Frankel makes the case why we need to maintain the system of making secret official information available to the public through official leaking to the press. Mr. Frankel is particularly excised by prosecutors coercing reporters to give up their secrets - such as in the case of Judy Miller who spent time in the big house protecting her source, Scooter Libby. Mr. Frankel also spends time comparing whistle blower leaks made in the public interest from the abusive leaks made by Mr. Libby and Vice President Cheney, et al, to discredit Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson. Mr. Frankel concludes:

It may sound cynical to conclude that tolerating abusive leaks by government is the price that society has to pay for the benefit of receiving essential leaks about government. But that awkward condition has long served to protect the most vital secrets while dislodging the many the public deserves to know.

As Justice Potter Stewart wrote after studying the unending contest between the government and the press during the cold war:

So far as the Constitution goes ... the press is free to do battle against secrecy and deception in government. But the press cannot expect from the Constitution any guarantee that it will succeed. ... The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act nor an Official Secrets Act. The Constitution, in other words, establishes the contest, not its resolution. ... For the rest, we must rely, as so often in our system we must, on the tug and pull of the political forces in American society.

In loose translation: Prosecutors of the realm, let this back-alley market flourish. Attorneys general and others armed with subpoena power, please leave well enough alone. Back off. Butt out.

Mr. Frankel, you cynical bastard. What you might call reporting, I call stenography to power. I have no more use for you than I do with the lying, cheating Bush Administration's running of the Iraq War. Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, knew full well the sour game the administration was playing to discredit Plame and Wilson. Yet, Woodward did nothing until prosecutor Fitzgerald came on the scene and busted up the endless martini lunch reporters were having with the administration. Media Matters quotes Woodward before it was even common knowledge that he was privy to the administration's mendacity:

On the July 11 edition of CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Woodward claimed Fitzgerald's investigation was "just running like a chain saw right through the lifeline that reporters have to sources who will tell you the truth, what's really going on," and was "undermining the core function in journalism." He also warned: "We better wake up to what's going on in the seriousness on the assault on the First Amendment that's taking place right before our eyes." On the July 17 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Woodward said, "[T]he idea of the government and special prosecutors monkeying around with the relationship that reporters have with sources is a very, very bad thing."

Mr. Frankel, Mr. Woodward, "monkeying around with that special relationship" isn't the problem - you collectively, the media elites, are the the problem. If you had done your duty - reported, investigated, spoke truth to power - the Iraq War may have never occurred. Or if it did still occur, the public certainly would have had a far greater understanding of just what was happening in the run up to the war.

You would rather maintain a flawed principle at the price of war? Surely you have lost your soul during one of those martini lunches.

Iraq in the News - How bad will we lose and those sliding benchmarks

Two articles on Iraq are up today. First, a series of experts predicts how Iraq may eventually turn out. Second, the NYT reports today about those sliding benchmarks that BushCo set down before the surge.

From the Rolling Stone article on Iraq predictions, this quote from retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak:

Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now. Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again.

I will let each of you read the article in full to see the range of predictions. They range from beyond awful to merely terrible. No one thinks the US is going to come out of this with a win. Ever.

In checking the list of experts, I was both heartened and discouraged that Robert Kagan or Kill "The Vampire" Kristol (AKA Nostradumbass) weren't included in the discussion. I was heartened because these idiots frankly belong in jail for the blood spilled, prestige lost and money wasted on The Stupid Pointless War. OTOH, I would have enjoyed the other experts smacking these idiotic neocons around, just for the fun of it.

The other article is relevant here because this speaks directly to how things are going in Iraq - in the midst of the surge - and how things may be turning out.

The Bush administration, which six months ago issued a series of political goals for the Iraqi government to meet by this month, is now tacitly acknowledging that the goals will take significantly longer to achieve.

In interviews this week, administration officials said that the military buildup intended to stabilize Baghdad and create the conditions for achieving the objectives would not be fully in place until June and that all of the objectives would not be fulfilled until the year’s end.

A “notional political timeline” that the administration provided to Congress in January in an attachment to a letter from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had called for most of the objectives to be met by this month.

Dan Froomkin has been railing against the mainstream media for failing to report on benchmark progress. Well Dan, here some progress on the reporting of the benchmarks. So, we have movement on the media side, but not much else.

Bottom line: Until Iraqis can learn to live together and forge meaningful political (read - political NOT military) solutions, the Iraq wound will fester indefinitely.

Nepotism in the Surge

When I grow up, or if my blog grows up (LOL, not very likely), I want to be Glen Greenwald. Writing yesterday under the tagline, Why would any rational person listen to Robert Kagan?:

Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan -- whose brother, Frederick, is the architect of the President's "surge" plan -- has a column in the Post this morning predictably assuring us that the surge is a great success. The headline is "The 'Surge' is Succeeding," and you already know what it says without reading it. The Evil Media has claimed the war is lost. But now it is clear that they are wrong. We sent more troops, the Great Gen. Petraeus has arrived, stores have re-opened, and Pajama Media bloggers Mohammed and Omar say things are getting better. Thus, Kagan says, there "is a new chapter in the story."

Greenwald goes on to list a series of WRONG predictions and statements about how things have been going in Iraq made by Kagan and his fellow neo-con Bill "The Vampire" Kristol (aka Nostradumass).

And there's more today from Greenwald: It turns out that Frederick's wife, writing for the Weekly Standard, also has a pro-surge article out. Color me not surprised.

Frankly, I can't expect much else from the Standard. Their flagpoles seemingly rise if they even think about the Surge. But Greenwald makes an excellent point that the Washington Post should disclose this absurd conflict of interest. WaPo tries so hard to appear even-handed, I think they miss out on what's fundementally right and wrong.

Plus, they must maintain their access to power, after all.