The state of the American media is horrific. I’m sure few here would argue with this sentiment.
Over the last several weeks, we’ve seen this horror show become even uglier as Newsweek magazine was coerced by the White House into retracting a story which was likely true, and had been reported in at least four other publications over a two year period.
So what exactly was the dynamic that led to this retraction? The same group of jack-booted chuckle-heads who were employed to muddy the facts related to the “youthful indiscretions” of the president, the same bunch who lampooned Howard Dean’s Whitmanesque yawlp, the same brown-shirts who intimidated voters in Ohio, – the InstaJerks, the Johan Golbergs – all cranked up the Mighty Wurlitzer . . . and guess what? It’s not working anymore.
The Gitmo Quran-flushing story refuses to go away, and every day that goes by seems to add even more substantiation. As much as the Pentagon would like its PR machine (there’s a rather fine line between PR and Psy-Ops, is there not?) to work . . . it isn’t – and all the phallus-obsessed pundits at Powerline, and all the freaks in Freeperland can’t make it so.
Journalism might be back.
One can only hope. It seems as though it takes constant noise to pressure the media into covering anything off the official path, or, heaven forbid, actually investigating anything. Still, it’s hopeful that some news outlets are refusing to fold quietly.
Washington’s motives.
I think the purpose of the NewsWeek exercise had more to do with estabilshing who’s boss domestically, and confirming US support for US policies.
The big argument over “US image abroad” and what responsibility the media have to protect it is a bit specious, since, although US media is read in the rest of the world, it is not viewed in the same way as it is in the US, either in terms of credibility or necessity.
Iraqis, for example, do not need American newspapers to tell them what US gunmen are doing to people, nor is their opinion of the US affected by whether NewsWeek, or CNN, or whoever, reports it or not.
There is also something of a disconnect regarding credibility. While most Americans tend to believe something only if and when it comes from Washington, whether via press briefing or FOIA release, people in the rest of the world are less likely to share that view.
The real story of NewsWeek, and the New York Times piece regarding US policies in Afghanistan is that at no time since the publication of either have outraged Americans stormed the White House and the Pentagon.
On the contrary, as I write this, most US communities are putting the final touches on celebrations to show their support for US gunmen, who as I write this, are Fallujizing Haditha (for a second time) and trotting round to little villages rounding up all males over 16, just like Slobodan Milosovich used to do.
There is little that NewsWeek can do that will affect US image abroad, even if that were truly a concern, which the facts on the ground suggest that it is not.