Mar 17 2008
Journalists: Liars Or Fools?
We have come to it with the ‘profession’ called journalism with the recent DoD report which highlights a decade’s old connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda’s number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. I READ the report and posted on it here, as did many others. The fact is the report provides clear and unambiguous connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda and therefore justifies the concern this nation had as to where the next 9-11s were probably going to come from. An alliance with the newly credible al-Qaeda and the man who funded and trained Zawahiri’s terrorist efforts for over decade was not a connection that would be safe to miss.
Family Security Matters is out with another analysis of the report which is along the same lines as everyone else who read and comprehended the analysis – as opposed to the media which took one sentence out of context and created a fantasy version of the report in their minds.
The latest Iraq Perspectives Project report sponsored by a Department of Defense agency has caused considerable interest in the mainstream media. However, this interest has shown yet another weakness in their journalistic systems. Apparently their proof reading is not very good as they consistently added a negative into the headlines, when they surely meant the opposite. How else does one explain the headlines covering a report which starts with the following sentence: “The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.â€
The actual report goes on to detail that, despite having examined only 15% of the documents (although they also examined all of the English document titles), they found solid links to al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda spokesman and Imam Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman’s Islamic Group, al-Qaeda’s Bahranian arm known as the Army of Mohammed, the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan which was the forerunner of al-Qaeda in Iraq, …
So we have to ask those ‘journalists’ who ran with stories where they claimed no connection was made what kind of profession they think they are in? Are you lying for a cause and you don’t care about your credibility or that of the organization you take a clearly unearned paycheck from? Or are you just shoddy and did not take the time to read and understand the report before claiming you did?
There is a reason the ‘business’ of news reporting is having a serious financial challenge with major entities falling fast into oblivion (e.g., The New York Times). The only thing of value to a news organization is credibility. And when you lose that your buildings and machinery and your people are of no value – none. Journalism has sunk so low in the last twenty years to prop up their aging and dying liberal ideology that they have resorted to false stories to try and keep reality at bay.
From Rathergate, with its obviously forged documents (any doubters want to take the case to court?) to the false reporting on this topic and many other stories (like FISA and the NSA). the profession of journalism has sunk to the level of the fictional tabloids. Next thing you know the NY Times will be reporting sightings of Nixon and Elvis in Baghdad as proof America is being duped by a vast right wing conspiracy. Trust me when I say no one would be surprised at all if this kind of story ran in the NY Times and CNN. Their ‘product’ is that crappy.
The way I understand it, one media outlet “leaked” an improper conclusion before the report was released and everyone ran with that. Then when the report actually came out, it said something completely different than the “leaked” report said but since that report was already “old news” by that time, nobody carried the correct story.
The big question is… How do we fix this? This shoddy DNC journalism has been going on for decades. I’m thinking of contacting the FEC, but even if charges could be proven, I doubt that any fines or punishment would be large enough to decapitate the business, but I believe it needs to be done. Perhaps a class-action type suit for ‘libel, defamation of character of the United States’ could have a chance? Just choose one first (NYT would be a good choice), I believe in just the last 6 years there are thousands of examples of mis-leading or outright false stories. Something needs to be done so that the general public has a chance to get accurate information about what is occurring in the world, since liberals have proven to be ‘not connected’ to reality.
Well, look how goes to journalism schools. It is not the jhard driving students that want to be physcians, lawyers, engineers or scientists. The problem of shoddy reporting, poor grasp of facts, and poor analytical ability lies first in the pool selection and secondly in the utter lack of rigour in the education of journalists.
And of course we know that the educational elite, are among the most resistent to self analysis.
Both commentators, Crosspatch and Mark-for-Senate, have barely touched the periphery. Fact: Editors rely on news wire giants Reuters and the Associated Press. If it not on the wires it doesn’t get published. For an eye opener, revisit the news wires and watch the spin that unfolds in the national media as the liberal ideologues of mainstream media craftily distort the mere blurbs–no there word for what comes off the wires than a “blurb”– into the editorialized propaganda of their overseers, their editorial boards.
Journalists do not report the news. They editorialize the news and report their editorialize spin as fact versus opinion. Begs the question: The public’s right to know WHAT? The right-wing biased opinion of their editorial boards!
Yes, there “ought” to be a law. But there isn’t. Until there is, we owe a debt to the emergence of the Strata-Sphere’s of this world for their balanced reasoned analyses.
You don’t “fix” it. You find reliable sources, stick with them, let your friends and family know about them, and let the traditional newsprint outfits die a long deserved death.
I see a future – maybe 20 years from now – where there are maybe 3 or 4 daily papers with national coverage left in the U.S. Everyone else will be on the net.
Purely local news outlets will survive a while longer, although most of them will probably move to a weekly format.
Liars AND fools, AJ…liars and fools.
[…] to al-Qaeda, when in fact the report the SurrenderMedia was trying to cover said just the opposite. As I noted at the time the analysis showed Saddam Hussein had long time ties with Ayman Zawahiri, who at the time ran the […]