Can you imagine what it’s like to be the editor of a team of investigative reporters? Can you fathom what it would be like to decide the investigatory priorities of a team as talented and experienced as the sleuths at the NYT, WP, or 60 Minutes?
To rise to such a height of the editorial world, one must undoubtedly possess a nose for the story. As dozens and dozens of reports are released by governmental agencies, or come reeling off the wires, one must be able to sniff out the wheat from tons and tons of chaff.
What could be more obvious than the Downing Street Leaks? Even a 17-year old, blind and senile coonhound could see the DSM’s for what they are. They’re reporting gold.
Even the densest editor at the most backward yokel, circulation fifty, local paper in buttfuck South Dakota could catch a whiff of the ratings bonanza that DowningGate represents.
But the fuckers are silent. No one wants the story, no wants the money…because no one wants the hassle, and no one wants the responsibility.
And yeah, the Big-Foot Media are complicit, and they’re fucking dropping the ball on the DSM because they told all those lies too. OVER AND OVER.
This story should, and could at the drop of a hat, make OJ Simpson and Monica Lewinsky look like “cat-stuck-in-a-tree” level stories. It could put Watergate on page A2.
Oh, they’d sell papers and get platinum ratings….
So, what’s holding them back?
NYT covers it this morning, and boy are they pussyfooting around. They bow to Conyers, they bow to the administration, and toward the end they even bow to the left-handed blogosphere:
Seems like they want to regain their standing with the informed public without offending the Bushcos. Anyone think it will work?
it won’t work, because this is now war. This is now a war against the MSM by the non-corporate media. They have to stop covering blogs or they’ll be forced to report that they lied and repeated the lies of the Bushies, even as the intelligence world leaked like a sieve that the ‘intelligence was being fixed around the policy’.
The media has passed on a lot of big stories. Consider the reception the journalist you dedicated your earlier diary to received. That was bigger than Watergate and all he got was smeared.
I also think the media feels they are in it, too. They carry a large responsibility for how this war was launched, and to a certain degree probably aren’t too ready to admit they fostered obvious bullshit.
Here’s WaPo in Feb. 2003
A CASE FOR ACTION
… Unless unexpected change takes place in Baghdad, the United States should lead a force to remove Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and locate and destroy its chemical and biological weapons and its nuclear program. The Iraqi regime poses a threat not just to the United States but to global order.”
This is also my question-
What is holding all of us back? Yes we speak out, sign petitions argue, rant and rave but to the choir people.
Thank god we have John Conyers’ ear now.
I think it is something a bit more sinister holding ‘us’ back, I just cannot prove it yet.
For the MSM it may be just a paycheck or the threat of being black-balled- But as a mass group?? That does not make sense and has it ever happened in the MSM before Bushco and Fox?
I think shame/shock/cognitive dissonance would be holding back all the people who supported the war.
what other US Middle East policy was/is wrong? What has the MSM position been on that policy (and why) ? ? ?
(yes, it has happened before)
to be sure, but the MSM is in charge of holding the curtain shut. Neither wants anyone even to know that there is a curtain. Hence the impossibility of this story.
That’s the million-dolar question, and I honestly haven’t got the slightest clue.
Guilt over their complicity? I doubt they see it as complicity.
Laziness? That makes some sense to me – lazy in the circle-jerk sense of the word, in the closed beltway mentality sense of the word, in the “producing infotainment is easier than straight investigative reporting” sense of the word.
But it isn’t the whole story – far from it.
Maybe this latest crop of news hacks just doesn’t give a shit. That’s hard to accept, but it makes the most sense of any to me, though I can’t exactly explain why right now. It’s more of a gut feeling I have than the result of any objective and rational analysis. The news hacks are looking at their next step – a book, a pundit gig, a step to a better station or paper or beat.
That, plus willful pride – no one’s gonna get on a story because someone else, let along bloggers, says it’s important. If it was important, they would have been the ones to say so, but since they didn’t, it’s not important.
I dunno.
Other loyalties. Find the “common thread” that unites the neo-cons and the pro-war Democrats (and the MSM). Pull it. Watch it all unravel.
If you dare . . .
Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and you’re okay.
Money, it’s a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I’ll buy me a football team.
Money, get back.
I’m all right jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it’s a hit.
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit.
I’m in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a lear jet.
Money, it’s a crime.
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it’s no surprise that they’re
Giving none away.
Maybe it’s because there is and has been the constant editor, publisher, the suits, that say. . .we are not going with this story. And if they are not going with “your” story, “your” name isn’t going to be showing up in that paper as the writer/reporter, and you know what egos writers have. . . .So the only way to get your name out there is to write what they want you to write. After 5 or more years of this, you know they see where the paycheck comes from, they see that prestege and recognition isn’t coming from pieces that will never be published.
Just seems like. . . .
The media doesn’t know how. They don’t teach real journalism at J schools anymore.
Fear and Avarice.
The Bushes have so much power, obscene amounts of money and a bloodlust for revenge. TI bet we don’t know the half of it. I think the MSM is afraid of Bush… the Wussies.
What are they afraid of? Most reporters, editors, publishers, have families, mortgages, bills, heck, they’re people too… and the days when anyone above the copy editor regarded newspapering as a “calling” are long gone, bought out and burned out by the conglomerates.
As tightly as the Shrubberies control information, and as little time and money is available in today’s “newsrooms” for real coverage, and with no real upstairs support for serious reporting, this is a story which will simply be cut off at the knees. Courage, yes. Suicidal mania, no.
Reporting this story comes close to regicide… and as the saying goes, if you shoot at the crown… you’d better not miss.
He was talking to President Clinton and they chatted for a while about heart surgery and the tsunami and what good friends Clinton is with the Bush family now (and how Clinton wishes Hillary was as close to them).
And then Letterman said something like… I’ve heard something about the Downing Street Memo? Do you know anything about it?
And silence fell in our house.
And Clinton spoke convincingly of nothing.
And Letterman followed it up with a pointed question, bring the subject back to DSM and how we got where we are.
And Clinton said that “however we got where we are we have had an election there where more people in Iraq support the current government than currently support ours”…. and spoke very strongly of nothing.
David Letterman, bless his heart, attempted to follow it up — I swear he did.
But Clinton just kept on message (whatever it was)
And, in my house, we look at each other and tried not to cry. I really don’t think that it is entirely the media’s fault.
wow– anybody know if this footage is online?
John Stewart, Dave Letterman– I guess it takes the court jester to point out the King has no clothes.
There was some discussion of it over at dKos (sorry, no link). I wasn’t particularly happy with the tone of the thread.
… but didn’t find it. Anyone with better skills prepared to take this on? I’d love to see it too.
these days and his backing of late of BushCo. How dare he? To what purpose? So he looks like a good ol’ boy?I have lost all respect for Clinton(what little I had left).
I was appalled last eveing when I could not find any of the big three covering DSM, only Olberman and that didn’t get the coverage I had hoped for probably because Keith was off last night.
afterdowningstreet.org seems to be building momentum and I loved the guy on the panel…he is very articulate, passionate and knowledgable. But WE are complicate if WE do not keep this DSM controversy front paged every GD day!!! WE must keep the pressure on. I as many others called CSPAN yesterday to complain that they were not going to show the replay until tonight and you know what? They changed the replay to last night, right where it should be. WE need to get louder in my opinion until the RWMM has no choice but to acknowledge the DSM and BushCo is sent to jail for high crimes. Call your congresscritters every day demanding, yes, demanding an investigation. Call, write and compalin loudly to the media.
How about we all pitch in $5(thats one coffee or drink out these days) and take out an f’ing full page ad in the NYT or Washigton post accusing BushCo of war crimes? I’m in…how about you?.
I wonder if Bill got one of Rosee’s Verichips inserted when he had his heart surgery. Now that is nuts. His newfound “friendship” with Poppy is so important that he is afraid to speak out against Junior??? WTF?
How about we all pitch in $5(thats one coffee or drink out these days) and take out an f’ing full page ad in the NYT or Washigton post accusing BushCo of war crimes? I’m in…how about you?.
Excellent idea.
anyone know if Boo can set up a paypal account and do we have any marketing/ad experts here? If we do this we must do it soon because the are really trying to bury DSM.
Mr. Clinton is looking out for Mrs. Clinton’s political career.
No one likes to talk about Clinton’s role in 1. media deregulation, 2. corporate foreign policy (NAFTA, Unocal in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq…) 3. corporate investment fraud (Citigroup, Enron, WorldCom, Tyco…)
The go-go 90s were very much aided by deregulation in the media, banking and investment. Everybody who was anybody in corporate America were getting rich by wild speculation, unsecured loans, cooked books, ripping off their customers, shareholders, laborers on an unprecedented international scale.
Clinton and Alan Greenspan helped make ’em rich and what they are today. George Bush has taken Clinton’s corpo-nomics to a whole new level. Bill and Hillary are not going to bite the hands that feed them and they are not going to let anyone follow the money. No wonder Clinton and HW are “buds”.
that Clinton was our best Republican President.
The news media has to have a continuous flow of stories. Something like the Jackson case is perfect, because it goes on for months and there’s something new every day. Stories that are just a single point in time from several years ago simply don’t go anywhere. What are the reporters supposed to do? They report the story. Then what happens the next day? Nothing, because there’s nothing new.
When Clinton’s problems were the story there was a new scandal every week for about a year. When Nixon’s problems were the story there was a new scandal every week for about a year. Same with Shiavo, OJ, etc.
What’s today’s follow-up scandal for the DSM story?
I agree that the lack of response to DSM is frusterating as hell, but I do remember a little about how things came down during Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. It seemed to be an eternity before people woke up and recognized the crimes that had been committed. And Nixon got re-elected during all of that. The one difference was who controlled Congress – which might be a really big difference. With all of that said, I was pretty young at the time, do others have better memories of how all of that came down?
The entire MSM has become an extension of the White House. Hell, Karl Rove only needs to make six phone calls.
I had this discussion with some colleagues yesterday. I pointed out that journalists are said to have brought down Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon too. What are today’s journalists afraid of? One colleague said: losing their jobs. The other said: losing their readership. I think they’re right. I’m not at all sure DowningGate would result in a ratings bonanza.
My colleague is an intelligent, pacifist, Asian-American middle-class professional who watches Dr. Phil religiously and skips over all news related to the war in Iraq because “it’s too depressing.” I wonder if this story really would be a ratings bonanza. Here in San Francisco, one of the bluest and most anti-war cities in the country, malaise has permeated the consciousness of all of my friends to such an extent that they just don’t want to know anything about the war. They have no hope that anything they do will have the slightest effect on events. They just keep shopping. And of course the media encourages this. It’s a vicious circle of infotainment and consumerism.
Commercial media could be instrumental in ending this war, but it would take someone in a publisher’s position in MSM who is dedicated to the public interest above commercial interest. Otherwise, the American public won’t wake up until there’s a draft.
It’s interesting that you mention Watergate in connection with the DSM story and its non-coverage. Watergate’s coverage might be instructive here.
I’ve been reading Katharine Graham’s “Personal history” (Mrs. Graham was the publisher of the Washington Post during Watergate.). I was very young when Watergate happened, so I’ve only seen it as a big, explosive story that brought down a president.
It didn’t start out that way. Did you know that the Post covered the story alone for months and months? It started out as a local story, but even when it started growing, nobody else would touch it. Not the New York Times, not ABC, not the Chicago Tribune. Nobody. At one point, CBS news ran a big story, but then nothing else for ages. The story stalled, didn’t go anywhere for ages. The Post, which didn’t have the clout and national reputation it has now, was completely on its own.
What happened in the meantime? Post people were frozen out of White House briefings and social occassions (Graham was quite prominent and socialized with many Presidents). There were veiled and not-so-veiled threats. Activists tried to get the Post Company’s TV stations’ licenses pulled. Graham was criticized on a number of fronts for allowing the Post to persue the story. The Post kept after the story.
In the end, it took over a year (maybe closer to 2) for Watergate to finally become a big deal and for the rest of the media to pile on. During this time, the Post was preparing to go public. Watergate was a big, risky story that could have destroyed the paper, and possibly the entire Washington Post Corporation. But, they kept at it. The reporters and editors convinced Graham that the story was worth persuing.
Contrast that with today’s big media conglomerates. They’re afraid of losing money and their reputations by covering the story. The growing discontent with Bush is starting to embolden the press. Frankly, I’m happy to see that some attention is being paid, and that the attention seems to be growing. Rather than being discouraged, keep at it. If newspapers won’t print or break the big story, someone else will have to do the hard investigative work.
What’s that old wolf meets dog parable again?