But having said that, I’m still struggling with Jeff’s argument that reporters should reveal their biases. It’s a point I have heard many times, but I’ve never gotten a handle on exactly how reporters should do that.

To use myself as an example: I was raised in yellow-dog Democrat country, but I vote independent. I thought the Iraq War was the dumbest foreign policy decision of my lifetime (yes, including Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs) but for reasons closer to Pat Buchanan’s than Moveon.org’s. Because I agree with Colin Powell that we broke it, so we have to fix it, I oppose withdrawal until we are reasonably certain that pulling out is in the best interests of both Americans and Iraqis.

I don’t know Murtha and have no particular biases one way or another about him, but as a veteran I do have a bias in favor of the opinions of those who have actually fought in wars. But I also have a strong bias in favor of neutral reporting of both sides of controversies.

So when a guy like Murtha stands up in Congress and calls for withdrawal, do I disclose all of the above? And does the desk editor who polishes my copy? And the copy editor who writes the headline? And the news editor who decides where to play the story? And the editor who hired us all to begin with?

Even if we were willing to disclose those biases — all of them potentially relevant to how we played the story — would anybody bother to read them? And would they help anybody understand what was really going on?

The story revolves around the life of marines in and around Fallujah. I wake up each morning, have my morning drink, take a shower, warm up the car, drive to work, drive home, then relax. After relaxing I turn on the daily news and watch the highlights or hot topics of the Iraq war. The television has sensationalized the war so much that at times I believe people forget these are real people in these 30 second video clips, this is someone’s brother or sister we are watching, not an actor who walks back to his trailer after a filmed battle scene. I hear debate over when the troops should be brought home, the discussion seems so impersonal, I feel that this is the wrong way to discuss this topic, the topic should be nothing but personal.

Each time I drive down the freeway to work and I see the flag at half staff I throw up a quick prayer for the soldier that flag symbolizes, I may not know him but I know his kind and if praying for him is the least I can do to show my appreciation and respect then I consider it an honor and privilege to do so. I hope in the weeks to come more and more people discuss this topic, do not be discouraged by close-minded people who call you un-American if you discuss this issue. American soldiers such as these same brave men and woman fought for and died for your right to discuss these exact types of issues.

Educate yourself, speak with your elected officials, do all that you can to support these brave men and women. Do more than just watch a 30 second clip on CNN or Fox News. Get involved, find out information, make an informed comment when you discuss the issue of bringing home our soldiers.
Raymond B
http://www.voteswagon.com

There’s no one truth in opinion about facts.

But it’s critical the facts themselves remain unvarnished and undistorted.

Case in point is the Cronkite example quoted below. It can be argued Cronkite’s distortion, (purposeful or accidental?) which I’ve emboldened, was responsible for the additional deaths of 48,000 service personnel, as the death toll when we cut and ran was 58,000.

“there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, and the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard Walter Cronkite (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet ‘68 offensive by the communist NVA. They were completely and totally amazed at hearing that the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, The NVA had not gained access to the Embassy–there were some VC killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn’t gained access. Further reports indicated the riots and protesting on the streets of America.

According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead that they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, and eventually the protesters in American would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield.”

http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=15400

If only Giap had not been encouraged to keep on. We are winning in Iraq. Yet, press reports and the behavior of liberals reflect Cronkite’s style, and give encouragement and comfort to the enemy.

Jeff, instead of asking reporters to reveal the biases you do have because your audience deserves to know them, so they can judge your judgments, something they understandably would be reluctant to fess up to since it would mean painting themselves as partisan hacks, why not encourage them to overcome their personal biases and strive to look at each new story with objectivity?

Telling them it’s fine or not fine is moot, since all journalists come with an opinion - some are just more talented at making it look like “the facts” than others are.

Perhaps a solution is to feature “dualing journos”, each with opposite bias.

Wow! Talk about Orwellian! It was only the lead story all over the place, along with mucho MSM commentary and handwringing about how it’s All Over For Bush! Wasn’t a big deal, good grief!

I don’t think the Murtha story was done out of deliberate bias, though. MSM didn’t all gather in the MSM war room and conspire to promote Murtha. It could be a trap for conservatives to accuse media of such liberal conspiracies when journalists *believe* they are merely reflecting the actual state of things.

The bias problem for mainstream journalists, I believe, comes from an honest imbalance of gullibility. Hand a typical liberal journalist a memo from the Republican party, and he automatically casts a suspicious eye on it. He will go into — what did Woodward just call it? — hyper-investigative mode, something like that… because he doesn’t agree with the underlying philosophy of conservatives in the first place. That, and the ghost of Richard Nixon, informs that journalist that something *must* be amiss about Republican claims. And if they dig hard enough, they’ll find something — anything — to contradict anything. Even if it’s just the word of some nameless “bipartisan expert” who just happens to be registered as a Democrat.

At the same time — and we’ve seen this far too often — this same journalist is handed memos, press releases, and sometimes even forged documents from the Democratic party, liberal special interest groups, or simply partisan kooks in a Kinko’s in Texas, and suddenly investigative journalism flies out the window. People want to believe what they already believe. Reporters will only dismiss the overtly incredible, the scant dubiousness being what leads the fringers to accuse liberal reporters of being “media whores”, and embarrassing them into being that much more “hyper-investigative” on conservatives in order to prove that they are not shills for anybody.

No matter that they’ve been burned before, media just got the same story (Murtha) from the Democratic party and chose not to question the underlying claim that Murtha was a war hawk who just now suddenly did a 180 (which of course would properly be the lead story if not substantially untrue)… just as they didn’t feel any pressing need to investigate the questionable claims of Jimmy Massey, or the dubious war record of John Kerry, even as they were pressing hyper-investigations into the far less relevant TANG record of George W Bush.

Should liberal journalists be equally gullible about conservative claims? Of course not! If Republicans pull a Murtha, it’s right that the record be corrected. It’s the gullibility on the left *about* the left that’s the problem.

To some degree, conservatives may also have themselves to blame for avoiding journalism as a career. Despite some wacky fringe claims that the preponderance of journalists are liberal because they are “smarter”, journalism just really isn’t a very attractive career option for conservatives. When I was still a Democrat, I was already turned off early by a couple of journalism instructors who made it fairly clear that journalism was a tool for “changing the world” based on your own personal agenda, as opposed to merely transcribing facts. I felt that it was such a dishonest profession that I would have been more comfortable with a career taking pick-pocket lessons from Fagin. I’m sure many conservatives avoid journalism because it simply isn’t as lucrative as other career choices. Who’s smarter? A low-paid muckraker or a bank manager?

Blogging gives us the freedom to share opinions. I can hold an opinion that all people with red hair are pyromaniacs and I can blog about this. I could not write a news story stating as fact that all people with red hair are pyromaniacs.

I see no reason why journalists should not strive to objectively report the facts and give balanced coverage to all sides of what it is they are reporting on, and do not think it is a good idea for people who report news to not bother even trying to uphold those standards whether they are MSM journalists or independent bloggers.

There is a difference between reporting something as fact and giving us your take on it. A line separates them, or should separate them. In the MSM, it is the columnists who are supposed to serve the opinion side of the business, not its reporters, who in my view should aspire to providing their audience with fact-based, objective reporting and balanced coverage. Instead everyone interprets the news in accordance with their own biases by slanting facts to support their opinion and ignoring facts which contradict their opinion.

If I am understanding Jeff right, he would like to see more interpretation (or bias or perspective) and less objectivity since in Jeff’s mind aiming for objectivity, balance, fairness … these ideals are lost causes, things that can never work in the real world. All we have to do is declare our bias and then we can get on with giving it free rein.

If this is truly the future of news - everyone acting like a talk-show host declaring and peddling their own brand of superficial, ill-thought out propaganda, whether it be left, right, backwards, forwards, up or down - then what purpose will the news serve? If, as Jeff suggests, we should “kill the myth that journalists can be thoroughly objective,” even in blogs, what are we left with? News will shift from aspiring to being a source of objective information to being a means of allowing us all to indulge our prejudices and our biases without ever having to consider another point of view. Is this really what we want? Personally, I think standards have dropped enough in the MSM and don’t think journalists need to be encouraged any further in this direction.

I also think that this is not the future of news. Since we have the opportunity to receive our information from less biased, more objective sources, if we so choose, MSM’s standards will eventually have to rise. But they aren’t going to rise anytime soon by us telling them it’s fine to give primary consideration to their bias and secondary consideration to the mere facts at hand.

Balanced news reporting needs to trump your left wing bias.

G’night All.

Fact is, if we met we’d probably find a bridge.

Sleep well.

“The ‘masses’ are also over 50% of the country not represented by left stream media, and who have neither the time or perhaps ability to source their news elsewhere by now.”

Fascinating stuff. Cheers.

You edited my comment three different ways! and tried to present it as if it was an accurate quote. Now obviously anyone here can compare what I said and what you said I said. But you of course know the exact changes you made as you purported to quote me. And I am supposed to respect you in return?

Nothing but the facts, Jay. That’s what we expect from you and the MSM. Your error indicates - like Fervers’ comments - that you guys continue to believe you are our ’superiors’, ‘our betters’ and our ‘kings’.

And Ravo. If we were to further explore the business relationships between Al Jazeera and CNN dating from the early stages of the Afghanistan war, for example, it only gets worse and worse and worse…

Also interesting. It may sound redundant, but thanks again.

Consider, too, other ways in which the MSM collaborates with our enemy as it decides exactly what it presents as *news*:

The Enemy on Our Airwaves
What is the relationship between al-Jazeera, al Qaeda and America’s TV networks?

BY DORRANCE SMITH
Friday, November 4, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

…..In addition to being subsidized by Qatar, Al-Jazeera has very strong partners in the U.S.–ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Video aired by Al-Jazeera ends up on these networks, sometimes within minutes. The terrorists are aware of this access and use it–as in the Ake case–to further their aims. They want to reach the American audience and influence public opinion.The arrangement between the U.S. networks and Al-Jazeera raises questions of journalistic ethics. Do the U.S. networks know the terms of the relationship that Al-Jazeera has with the terrorists? Do they want to know?…

…Mr. Smith spent nine months in Iraq as a senior media adviser to Ambassador Paul Bremer

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007498

Eileen: “The ‘masses’ are also over 50% of the country not represented by left stream media, and who have neither the time or perhaps ability to source their news elsewhere by now.”

kat: “The masses are those people gullible enough to actually believe what MSM calls ‘news’.”

Most interesting. Thanks.

EXACTLY!

….and you can bet that what these guys do, just like with what Cronkite did, gives plenty of comfort, hope and staying power to the enemy!

In 1968:
“According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead that they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, and eventually the protesters in American would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield.” - Mike Doty

Seems to me, that’s just what the Democrats and media are doing that now.

So we’ll just have to fight the presently configured MSM like the enemy to the U.S. it actually is.

The terrorists know the lessons of 1968, and count on today’s liberals and media to give them the victory they can’t win on the battlefied, …just like Walter Cronkite and the resultant American protestors did for the North Vietnamese.

“Vietnam ‘Exit Strategy’ and Iraq: Déjà vu All Over Again?”
http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=15400