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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMedia: If you can't do your job . . .
by delphine
An open letter/Op Ed to the Talking Heads Media
What has happened to Journalism?
In 2004, John Kerry, a verifiable war hero, had his military war record savaged for weeks based on the unsubstantiated claims of a few men. To believe those men, you had to believe that Kerrys official military records were doctored in some way, that the man he saved was a liar, that the very act of piloting a swiftboat into enemy territory wasnt brave, that two tours in Viet Nam didnt earn him our respect, and that the military erred in awarding him medals because he wasnt wounded enough.
The media, rather than researching the issue, ignored all of that and actually amplified these malignant lies designed to attack his greatest strength by giving these guys a huge amount of air time. Those lies and their media-fueled amplification are together known as swiftboating.
The media also spent weeks vilifying Dan Rather over the typeface on some memos, and virtually none of them compared the content of those memos to the official military record that Bush himself released. If they had, they would have found that every single one of those memos corresponded chronologically with documentation in that military record supporting the content of the memos. Those journalists that did this comparison were marginalized and ignored.
One mans excellent, official record was trashed, while other mans rather pathetic record was ignored.
Those of us who understood the concept of journalism began to mourn its absence.
Also during that campaign, two stories shared the front page of the Los Angeles Times. One was written by a reporter traveling with Cheney, the other by a reporter with Kerry. Cheney had attacked Kerry, and Kerry had responded. In neither case did these reporters practice actual Journalism and find out who was correct. But the story by the reporter traveling with Cheney did not even include Kerrys refutation. I emailed the reporter about it.
His response to me: Its hard to write stories while youre traveling on a bus all day.
My response, aside from pointing out that his colleague had the Kerry response and he had a cell phone, was:
If you cant do the job, get off the bus.
This week the subject is Mitt Romneys role in Bain Capital, the company he founded and managed as CEO, President, and sole shareholder for many years. This is what his campaign claims as his strength his ability to run a business. He claims this means he knows how to create jobs.
There is no dispute that Bain went into several businesses, increased their debt substantially, then closed them, and fired all of the employees, in some cases leaving them without their pensions and walked away with millions in profits.
Yet the media has left it up to the Obama campaign to reveal this. They have left it up to Romney to spin it. They have left it us to up to figure out the facts. This is what they consider to be balanced. This is what they consider to be Journalism. The facts are the facts: either Bain did this, or they didnt. Why isnt that a story worthy of researching and reporting?
Instead, the story this week is about comparing Obamas ads with the swiftboaters.
This is not only patently ridiculous, but insulting to the concept of an informed electorate as well.
<...>
In fact, the Romney campaign and Romney himself have lied consistently and the media looks the other way.
For weeks the GOP has been saying Obama is "on a spending spree" when in fact he is spending less than other presidents. They claim he has raised taxes when 98% of us have received tax cuts. Romney's stump speech has included claims that Obama did not once mention the debt or deficit in the State of the Union address. That's only one of Romneys out and out lies about the SOTU that can be revealed by a simple viewing of the speech.
And Romney, incredibly, claims that Obama has not offered a jobs bill.
Romneys campaign has been caught creatively editing Obama speeches, but that was a small blip in the news. Romneys very statements are laughably untrue even his statements about his own record. The lies are virtually endless, and virtually all of them are easily researched and refuted.
And why are the Romney campaign and the GOP so unconcerned about spouting easily refuted lies? Its because Journalism has been exiled from the mainstream media, and they know it.
- more -
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/14/1109954/-Media-If-you-can-t-do-your-job
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Scuba
(53,475 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)indeed!
longship
(40,416 posts)That is a fact of life. The muckrakers are gone in MSM.
WCGreen
(45,558 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,151 posts)And completely on target!
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Not that our talking heads will care, really... but I'm glad that there are some who at least, recognize the truth.
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)I'm sending this URL to every news organization I can think of. If enough of us do this, will things change? Probably not. But, just maybe one journalist that still remembers why they're still paying off their student loans that helped earn a Journalism Degree will feel some shame. Maybe that one journalist will find his or her voice and start doing the job they should be passionate about.
Kicked, recced and SHARED!!
handmade34
(22,756 posts)calimary
(81,334 posts)Paul Begala once said that 100 paper letters would change the course of a newsroom. PAPER letters, that can be xeroxed, passed around held in the hand and looked at repeatedly, posted on the coffee room bulletin board, and placed in the public record. When it's on paper, it carries more weight.
snot
(10,530 posts)it will fall on deaf ears.
It needs to be preached to the people.
RevStPatrick
(2,208 posts)"The media" is doing its job, and doing it very well.
Its job is to make money for its owners.
And to "catapult the propaganda" that its owners want catapulted.
Period.
Anybody who thinks that "the media's job" is anything other than this is seriously deluding themselves. "The media" does not exist to tell you the truth. Or to do anything, really, than to put advertisements in front of your eyeballs, and to make you think and behave in a way so as to make it easier to extract money from your wallet. Period.
That being said... there are plenty of places to get real information, and I think DU is one of those places. "Journalism has been exiled from the mainstream media..." Yes. Get used to that fact, and stay away from "the media" except for when you want entertainment.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)Which is why I started to wander at the use of the word "If".
What the is the question supposed to be?
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)He lived in Wasilla for a summer and just talked to people who knew her, her neighbors and friends, her political allies and adversaries. How hard could that be? They told him the stories the media had not told us. It just made me ill. She was given a complete free ride by our national media who failed to tell us who the real Sarah Palin was.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)kentuck
(111,104 posts)Indeed.
Ghost of Huey Long
(322 posts)They will not stop until we stop them.
They have been lying FOREVER! They stole an election. They lied about an attack on our nation. They lied to allow the administration to use 9/11 to attack two innocent nations. The presented all of the Bush administration lies as if they were fact, drilling it in over and over 'Saddam is going to get us'
When the forgery was being used, they could have easily done 5 minutes of research to realize it was fake, then shut up about it. The people at the UN laughed when they saw the forgery and determined it was fake with a google search. It had the wrong letterhead, they didn't even try very hard because they assumed the media would cover it up.
The 'liberal' media are alone responsible for the state of the nation. A Democracy cannot exist without a free press.
These elite greedy lying cheating assholes have always been with us, and will always attempt to commit crimes...it is up to the media to confront and help control their evil deeds by exposing them to the light.
When the media is doing the exact opposite....well that is how we got there.
WE need to now make them feel responsible, make them feel guilty about enabling fascism by as mass movement against the corporate media and their control of 'reality' in this country.
http://occupytvstations.com/
90-percent
(6,829 posts)Correct me immediately if I'm wrong, but CABLE TV IS NOT THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES, is it?
Is cable the public airways in these of television and radio in the 60's, when all you had was 13 channels and assigned frequency bandwidth?
In other words, in this age of Cable, there is no longer any such thing as "the public airwaves" and the old quaint rules about the obligations of the public trust are INOPERATIVE.
And cable allows them all to say what ever they want with no oversight or accountability what-so-ever.
Like I said, CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG!
-90% Jimmy
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)The media has been in the tank for some time.
underpants
(182,839 posts)I LOVE DU!!! thanks for that.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)The big boys won't
Support truthout at the national level, and Raw Story
Support things like the East County magazine as well. Comic-Con, none of the big boys would give organized labor the time of day. We do.
evilhime
(326 posts)a drama written by Aaron Sorkin who gave us the West Wing... it is showing us what news journalism SHOULD be not what it currently is. Now if only we could get that message out to the main scream media... but I don't think we can because as another reader responded above, they are owned lock stock and barrel by the same entities that are committing the fraud. Murrow is rolling over in his grave! Double time.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)Overseas
(12,121 posts)War Hero vs Torture Guy was really disturbing to me. That the media could give the Swiftboaters so much of the "Some Say..." coverage and not discuss it as "What Has Our Nation Come To? We have reached a new low. The GOP that purportedly loves our troops ..."
Kerry having a price tag on the hunting vest was supposed to make the war criminal's "victory" more understandable.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I subscribe to Mother Jones, Consumer Reports, Public Citizen and National Geographic.
No cable. (That way not a penny of my money goes to Fox News except whatever link there is if any between my National Geographic and Fox.) No newspapers.
The silence in the MSM about the fraud that Bush perpetrated to get us into Iraq was, among a lot of other things, just too much for me. I have a long list of misinformation, horrible staffing decisions, omissions and misleading stories on the part of the LA Times that have led to my discontinuing my subscription to that propaganda organ.
I don't know much about the field of journalism other than my experience as a reader. But I read and watch the news in order to learn the facts, not the opinions of the news reporters. When I was younger, I believe that our news reporting seemed more factual and less opinionated.
And, yes, the coverage of the Kerry campaign was just heartbreakingly dishonest. And then the Bush II era was like a descent into one of the rings of Dante's Inferno when it came to press coverage.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)See:
http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=newscorp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_magazine
Its various media properties reach about 360 million people monthly.[4]
October 2007, National Geographic created a new Global Media group composed of its magazine, book publishing, television, film, music, radio, digital media and maps units. Tim Kelly, 51, president and CEO of National Geographic Ventures, has been named president, Global Media.
Too much consolidation. Very sad for a lifetime reader like me.
eppur_se_muova
(36,271 posts)"The channel is owned primarily by Fox Cable Networks, a division of News Corporation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel
pa28
(6,145 posts)spanone
(135,847 posts)the media hasn't done it's job since 9/11. it's become a complete joke.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)like all successful corporations. Else they'll be replaced post haste.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)including political celebrities, and not examining the content of the quotes for truthfulness. If a celebrity says you should never use aspirin again because it causes unwanted pregnancies, they'll quote it. Will they follow up with a doctor, or employ any common sense to see if the statement has any truth value? No, that might lead to judging the speaker. And they don't want to appear to take sides.
Journalism used to be openly biased in favor of truth. Now they try to be "fair" to every lie that comes along.