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23:00:50 12/28/10
It's a sad day when journalists collaborate with the government, again!
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 23:00:50 12/28/10
I've been astounded by the treatment of Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks story by the media ever since it broke. Howard Kurtz called Assange disingenuous for not outing his sources, which is insane.
Howard Kurtz allegedly understands journalism, so it's outrageous for Kurtz to take offense when Assange refuses to out his sources, as I explained in a post called: Why are the media so eager to bury WikiLeaks? > >
KURTZ: Rick Stengel, let's turn now to your interview with Julian Assange. I found some of his answers to be absolutely disingenuous. For example, you ask whether secrets are ever necessary, and he says, well, his secrets are necessary, protecting his sources, but "our responsibility is to bring matters to the public."
What's important is the information contained in the WikiLeaks cables, not Assange himself -- and when we're dealing with whistleblowers, of course their identities have to be protected.
Journalism 101 states that you never out your sources, no matter where you get your information. The Beltway Villagers even defended the odious Judith Miller when she went to prison rather than divulge that Scooter Libby was her source in the outing of a Valerie Plame, as I've mentioned before . That was information that led this country into an unjustified war based on lies told by Miller and her leakers.
After watching Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC show such disdain for Assange, I asked a question that really hasn't been asked all that much. >
Are folks in the media afraid they might be implicated in Wikileaks cables? >
I expected the State Department to speak out against WikiLeaks, but why have the media been so hostile to WikiLeaks and so passive about the people trying to silence his operation without a shred of evidence of him being guilty of a crime?
I wonder if they are afraid that either they or their friends might show up in some of these leaked cables in an unfavorable light. Yesterday on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell was discussing Assange's bail in the UK and seemed afraid that he might have access to the dreaded "Internet" and destroy the world.
I understand that access to D.C. is very precious to the Beltway Village, so outside of fear of what might be found out about their friends and that they'll earn extra credit for bashing Assange by the powers that be, I still don't get their attacks on the whole WikiLeaks story. And as we've seen, cable TV news has turned away from being a deliverer of news and instead focuses on orchestrating battles of opinions with punditshills and ex-GOP Bushies, but the networks for the most part have to turn away from their own stable of journalistic talkers to bring in a differing opinion on the WikiLeaks story, because the Villagers on TV are routinely characterizing Julian Assange as a terrorist.
Glenn Greenwald posts today about his CNN interview last night over WikiLeaks and he highlighted four points in his post, The merger of journalists and government officials : >
4) If one thinks about it, there's something quite surreal about sitting there listening to a CNN anchor and her fellow CNN employee angrily proclaim that Julian Assange is a "terrorist" and a "criminal" when the CNN employee doing that is . . . . George W. Bush's Homeland Security and Terrorism adviser. Fran Townsend was a high-level national security official for a President who destroyed another nation with an illegal, lie-fueled military attack that killed well over 100,000 innocent people, created a worldwide torture regime, illegally spied on his own citizens without warrants, disappeared people to CIA "black sites," and erected a due-process-free gulag where scores of knowingly innocent people were put in cages for years. Julian Assange never did any of those things, or anything like them. But it's Assange who is the "terrorist" and the "criminal."
Do you think Jessica Yellin would ever dare speak as scornfully and derisively about George Bush or his top officials as she does about Assange? Of course not. Instead, CNN quickly hires Bush's Homeland Security Adviser who then becomes Yellin's colleague and partner in demonizing Assange as a "terrorist." Or consider the theme that framed last night's segment: Assange is profiting off classified information by writing a book! Beyond the examples I gave, Bob Woodward has become a very rich man by writing book after book filled with classified information about America's wars which his sources were not authorized to give him. Would Yellin ever in a million years dare lash out at Bob Woodward the way she did Assange? To ask the question is to answer it ( see here as CNN's legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin is completely befuddled in the middle of his anti-WikiLeaks rant when asked by a guest, Clay Shirky, to differentiate what Woodward continuously does from what Assange is doing)... read on
Woodward has been the cleaner for the Washington Post for a long time, and he's held up to a higher level of worship than even David Border. Here's a classic video which has, of all people, Don Imus confronting Andrea and the Beltway elites over their behavior in 2005 on the Plame case: >
Imus: It seems unclear what you said and perhaps you can clear it up about what you said back in Oct. of 2003---
Mitchell: I have been trying to figure out "what-the-heck" I was talking about, frankly. There is confusion because I am confused.
Imus: So when you told Alan Murray of CNBC, that it was widely known that his wife worked for the CIA-(interruption)--what, were you drunk?
Mitchell: I don't even remember the deal.
Imus: What this suggests to me is that you knew she worked at the CIA, but you didn't know what she did there. Isn't that fair-did you know that?
Mitchell-(garbled)
Imus: Why did you say that Andrea?
Mitchell: I messed up...(later)
Imus: Russert was a little short with me---almost like he was trying to hide something....
Imus (laughing): I realized -- well this is an unfair thing to say, I was gonna say -- all you folks in Washington are all in bed with one another, but that would be an awful thing to say ....
I think Imus was right on when he said 'all you folks in Washington are all in bed with one another,' and Mitchell knew it. As time goes on it's pretty hard to miss.
Digby beats back one of the bigger zombie lies being told by the media about Wikileaks. >
There are many fine points in the piece, but he mentions one zombie lie I'd really love to kill --- the one that all of these so-called reporters seem to have absorbed as if it's the received word of God --- the one that says Wikileaks dumped 260,000 cables indiscriminately on the Internet.
Here's the truth, from an AP news report from December 3, 2010. There's no excuse for journalists not to know this by this point:
Respected news outlets collaborate with WikiLeaks >
By The Associated Press
12.03.10
The diplomatic records exposed on WikiLeaks this week reveal not only secret government communications, but also an extraordinary collaboration between some of the world’s most respected news-media outlets and a website that is facing increasing pressure and criticism from governments worldwide.
Unlike earlier disclosures by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of secret government military records, the group is releasing only a trickle of documents at a time from a trove of a quarter-million, and only after considering advice from five news organizations with which it chose to share all of the material..
This is the saddest day for journalism since their guileless acceptance of the WMD boogeyman and giddy cheerleading for the Iraq war. It turns out that journalism is important, but most of these "professional" practitioners of the field are not only failing to practice it, they are hostile to the idea that they should practice it. It's very revealing.
It's just another sad and revealing day for all the hacks running around and impersonating real journalists. Not all journos are acting like this. Major props goes to the Ray Odroso of the Village Voice.
Read more here .
1 Views
13:51:00 06/05/09
THE NEWEST PHARAOH REACHES OUT
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 13:51:00 06/05/09
An Egyptian vendor displays a copper plaque in Cairo's Khan el-Khalili market a few days before the newest pharaoh's arrival yesterday. The inscription reads, "OBAMA, New Tutankhamen of the World".
Photo: AFP / Khaled Desouki N
o, I'm not making an incendiary wingnuttist joke, as can be seen by the photo here. Cairo souvenir vendors have been selling a range of 'New Tut' paraphernalia (the t-shirts are big sellers) in anticipation of the American Messiah's arrival in the Land of the Pharaohs yesterday. If his hosts are receiving him with this attitude, who am I to judge? Just go with the meme, I say. The President evidently felt the same way during a visit to Giza after his big speech at al-Azhar, pointing out a depiction of his own likeness on one of the pyramids.
His earlier arrival in Riyadh went without a gaffe — unlike his previous meeting with King Abdullah at Buckingham. It was interesting watching the raw video feed here, with several cameras offering close-ups as he appeared at the door of AF-1, and as he descended the stairway. But at the moment he approached the king, and as I watched intently to see how much of a bow would be performed this time , the view switched to a long distance shot from behind the monarch. Not a hint of a bow could be detected though, not even a slight dip. Just the customary Arab/French double kiss.
I could practically hear Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (who makes even Bush's Scott McClellan seem like a competent straight-talker by comparison) heave a sigh of relief. He won't have to come up with any more creative excuses . After the deep royal bow at Buckingham, Gibbs said it was absolutely necessary in order to shake hands, because the King is so very much shorter than The One. Yet this time, the handshake and the kisses could be accomplished without it. > "Greetings, Your Majesty. My, how much you have grown since our last meeting!" A better message could have been delivered if this had been Indonesia's S.B. Yudhoyono instead of Egypt's President-for-Life Mubarak.
Photo: AFP / Khaled Desouki After a few hours of meetings and sight-seeing (and receiving some heavy-duty gold bling from the king), it was a short hop to Cairo and the long awaited and over-hyped "outreach to the Muslim world" speech.
Excuse me for saying so, but this was the wrong venue for him to be proclaiming the hope and change message to the world's Muslims who hunger for democracy and freedom. Not all of them do, of course, but for those who are hungry for those things, a much better example of the possibilities could have been selected. And some Egyptians with those very aspirations agree with me on this .> "It is a disaster," said Wael Abbas a renowned journalist and blogger. "He shouldn't be coming to Egypt. It's not a free Muslim country.
"He should speak in a Muslim country where they respect the rule of law." The most populous Muslim majority country on earth, Indonesia, would have been a much smarter choice. It would have sent a far more powerful message to "the Muslim world" had Obama been seen embracing the democratically elected President S. B. Yudhoyono rather than the Egyptian 28-year-long autocracy of Mubarak who jails, and yes, tortures his critics. Prior to his arrival Obama hailed his Egyptian counterpart as a "stalwart ally" — not exactly the change many are hoping for.
All that said, the major focus of the world's interest was the speech itself. As I watched it yesterday (conveniently timed at 5 pm here), I marvelled at his ability to appeal to everyone . Human rights defenders had parts to cheer, and the anti-Israel folks had other parts to cheer. People who believe America is a force for good could cheer at some points, and those who blame America for everything that's wrong in the world could cheer at others. It was striking to see this back-and-forth, "on the one hand... but on the other hand..." construction play out with the audience — cheering the "one hand" but sitting absolutely silent on the "other hand" in most cases. If you're wondering how to write your own Obama speech, see here . There's a definite pattern.
He seemed to be showing off his knowledge of Islam quite a bit, recalling the azan (call to prayer) he heard blaring from mosques during his youth in Indonesia, "at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk" (leaving off the mid-day one, the afternoon one, the night-time one, and the extra ones during Ramadan). He spoke of the zakat , and the hijab (but not the burqa). That last was troubling for me, and only one of the numerous instances of false moral equivalence that are easily spotted in the speech . There was implicit criticism of those who would deny women the right to wear hijab in his country, yet nothing to criticize those who would force women to wear it (or the burqa) in others. As the courageous author of "Infidel", Ayaan Hirsi Ali once said , "The veil is to show that women are responsible for the sexual self-control of men."
And, by the way, he actually said "hajib" in the speech rather than "hijab". I'll bet you won't find that in any transcript, but that's what he said.
There were many clever lines, well delivered (I especially liked, "Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons..."), but I was left with an uneasy feeling I couldn't put my finger on. It felt too much like pandering, to everybody at once. And if he could get away from those darn teleprompters and just speak with his heart from bullet-point notes, he could avoid the dizzying ping-pong head effect. And somebody needs to tell him to avoid that constant looking down his nose, jutting out the chin pose after applause lines. Way too much like Mussolini.
The moral relativism was just too thickly planted in those 55 minutes, and new policy or initiatives were absent. I had expected at least one solid new announcement among the platitudes, but I can't find any. There were far more apologies than there were policies. The esteemed Dr. Charles Krauthammer puts this very well, far better than I will ever do ( wai AllahPundit for the clip).
It would be great if at least a few of the establishment media personalities could manage to climb out of the Messiah's tank, or even poke their noses out, long enough to exercise their journalism degrees. What follows, if you have twelve minutes to spare, is a delightful instance of a very smart, well-spoken woman (Liz Cheney) figuratively pulling one of these personalities (Andrea Mitchell) up for a moment of air. Andrea was down pretty deep, and after a breath or two fights to get back down into the depths of that tank. Toward the end she pleads for time to "do my homework", so determined not to accept the truth is she. One doesn't skate around Liz Cheney that easily, as you will see.
The hardest truth here is that Liz knows her stuff, and Andrea unfortunately doesn't. They discuss yesterday's speech, then a couple of other very important subjects which most Americans still don't seem to have a clue about.
Truth Teaser: Liz' father never linked Saddam Hussein with the attacks of September 11, 2001. Strangely, most Americans apparently recollect exactly the opposite. Saddam's contacts with al Qaeda went back at least 10 years, and strangely, most Americans apparently recollect exactly the opposite. The intel services have never recanted this established fact (Liz misspeaks "recounted" rather than "recanted" I believe here). Saddam paid for terrorist attacks against Israel. I'm sure most Americans still don't get that either. Saddam could have easily given his known WMD technology to other terrorist-supporting regimes or terrorist groups.
But Barack says the overthrow of Saddam was an unnecessary "war of choice" after September 11, 2001. He really did. (Oh, but also that the Iraqis are far better off now without Saddam, so at least there's that.)
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Again, wai AP at Hot Air for the clip.
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