Go Jonny, Go!

August 20 2004
Counterbias.com
Cory M. Marshall

         

‘Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part." - Leonard Downie, Jr

A mistake?  No, no: a mistake is something like giving the wrong change, or taking one person for another.  Marginalizing critics along with sound judgment on the march to whooping up a war fever rises well beyond the level of a mistake.  Forgetting your child at the mall is pushing the envelope for mistakes.  So, using the power of papers of record to toe a particular line stopped being a mistake once there was forethought, which the editor of the Washington Post, himself, suggests in this latest of media mea culpae.

"There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"  The paper’s Pentagon correspondent expressed it a little more clearly.  That doesn’t sound like a mistake.  That sounds pretty deliberate.  What does it say for a paper to so obviously manage the news in such a way as to favor a particular outcome, when it was in a position to know perhaps better than anyone how faulty were the assumptions that propped up the whole construct?  What does it say about readers who will continue to let it?

But don’t the papers instill that sense of well being, knowing they’re on the job to keep everyone apprised of the goings on in that famous objective manner.  Remember that vigorous pursuit of the first amendment with the “Pentagon Papers” and now think of how once prestigious ‘institutions’ had willed themselves to be essentially flyers, promotional matter for an idea that was skewed from its outset, all the while having known better.  Don’t be mistaken.  Good names in the annals of print journalism are now the stuff of legend.  These wanton editorial boards must now write louder that people should not be so cynical.

"We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for [the war] was shakier" than it actually was. "Those are exactly the kind of statements that should be published on the front page."  These fine sentiments were expressed by no less a personage as Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, fully taking advantage of hindsight.  Though to be fair one can hardly sell a book about Bush at war in the absence of a huge, elective war.   It might have been nice for him to have at least warned his readers who plopped down a fat premium for his story, or novel, or whatever.  In any event, charges about a liberal media now seem increasingly tenuous while a clearly other bias is illustrated.

Where can one turn when one can’t turn to the papers?  There’s always television, isn’t there?  Of course this ubiquitous medium is everywhere and all too willing to spoon feed an unfortunately pliant public palate.  Wasn’t it wonderful to behold Walter Rodgers blitzing across the Iraqi landscape in an army vehicle, conveying to Aaron Brown an anecdote about a general, referring to the flag officer with a familiarity denied the real soldiers.  Oh, but Walter carried on like a trooper for the almost gleeful Aaron Brown who seemed to recall some pre-pubescent enthusiasm for playing war as they spoke with half a world between them.  Watching CNN was the mistake, along with most everything else with news in the title.

What else can one think when news networks and papers entertain people like Ann Coulter, last call’s cruel consolation prize, to shape political consciousness through rigid application of aesthetic sniping and partisan tripe? Or keep “Traitor Bob” Novak -- to whom Jon Stewart lovingly refers to as a “douchebag of liberty”-- in a comfortable position when Mrs. Wilson has been deprived of hers through no fault of hers, but his..  It clearly wasn’t the same editorial board that thought manipulating the truth about Iraq was a good idea.  No, these – to be charitable – decisions were made by different editorial boards which indicates something more than coincidental bad judgment.  Bad judgment seems pervasive throughout the mass media, but perhaps, hopefully, the bad judgment will ultimately be having duped the people, cajoled us and tried to manipulate us.

There’s something unsatisfying in assurances that they will try harder next time when, really, they had all the facts, they just chose to decide which facts were most important. And dictate how the facts could be shown and not the other way around, like if it were truly news.  It’s sad when the fake news is the place to go for a more accurate telling.