[DEBATE] : (Fwd) US bantu education/journalism (cont.)

Thu Dec 13 15:59:58 GMT 2007

what you poor benighted South Africansa don't understand is that we've  
evolved beyond news journalism to that higher plane known as  entertainment.

In a message dated 12/13/2007 6:37:23 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
mandiwrite at icon.co.za writes:

When I  feel despair about the state of news journalism in SA, I will reread
this  to make me feel just a little bit better!
Mandi
----- Original Message  -----
From: "Patrick Bond" <pbond at mail.ngo.za>
To:  "debate at vodamail.co.za:SA discussion list"  <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:29  AM
Subject: [DEBATE] : (Fwd) US bantu education/journalism  (cont.)

>  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11516
>
>
>   Peter Beinart As Cautionary Tale In Journalism  History
>
>
>     by David Sirota  <http://www.smirkingchimp.com/user/david_sirota> |
>   Dec 11 2007 - 6:39pm |
>
> Just eight months ago,  PBS's Bill Moyers
>  <http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html> aired  perhaps
> the single most devastating indictment of the Washington press  corps
> that I have ever seen. In his documentary, which looked at how  the media
> cheered on President Bush's push for a war with Iraq, Moyers  interviewed
> one of the key cheerleaders: then- /New Republic/ editor  Peter Beinart.
> Moyers asked Beinart "what made you present yourself as  a Middle East
> expert" in the lead up to war? Beinart said that though  he had never
> been to Iraq, he is "a political journalist." So Moyers  naturally asked
> what kind of "political journalism" and reporting  Beinart did to make
> sure his pro-war cheerleading was sound? Beinart's  answer was the stuff
> of journalism infamy:
>
>   *"Well, I was doing mostly, for a large part it was reading,  reading
>     the statements and the things that people  said. I was not a beat
>     reporter. I was editing a  magazine and writing a column. So I was
>     not doing a  lot of primary reporting. But what I was doing was a lot
>   of reading of other people's reporting and reading of what  officials
>     were saying." *
>
> This is  the kind of quote that your journalism professor puts on the
> board  during your freshman year as an example of all that is wrong with
> the  reporting today. And you might think that after such an utterly
>  humiliating admission, Beinart would change his ways, and do, ya know,
>  real reporting the next time he opens his mouth about Iraq.
>
>  But you would be wrong.
>
> In his latest /Washington Post/  column
>
<http://www.cfr.org/publication/14926/nonstory_remakes_the_race.html?breadcr
umb=%2Fbios%2F12510%2Fpeter_beinart>,
>  Beinart claims that "the war has receded" as a priority for Americans.
>  As proof, he cites himself reading a live-blog from a /New York Times/
>  reporter covering a Democratic presidential debate. I kid you not.  Here
> is Beinart's lead "proving" his assertion that "the war has  receded" as
> a priority:
>
>     *Last  month, Katharine Q. Seelye of the /New York Times/
>      live-blogged the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas. As  the
>     discussion bounced from subject to subject, she  marked the topic and
>     the time, then gave her  thoughts. At 8:34 p.m., it was driver's
>     licenses;  8:55, Pakistan; 9:57, the Supreme Court. By night's end
>   she had 17 entries totaling almost 1,500 words. And she hadn't  typed
>     "Iraq" once.*
>
> As the  /Atlantic Monthly's/ Matt  Yglesias
>
<http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/12/the_wars_end_1.php>
>  says, "Basically, the evidence for Beinart's side is that media elites
>  who control the debate questioning process don't want to talk about  the
> war." In other words, just like he pushed America to war based  on
> "reading the statements and the things that people said" and not  actual
> reporting, he is trying to downplay the Iraq War as a major  issue by
> simply reading the punditry of other Washington reporters,  rather than
> looking at the actual facts.
>
> It's no  wonder why he has chosen to do this: The actual facts blow his
> entire  thesis about the Iraq war "receding" to smithereens. As /Editor &
>  Publisher/
>
<http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_conten
t_id=1003683365>
>  reports, "a new Gallup poll reveals that when 'asked which issues will
>  be most important in determining their vote for president in next  year's
> election, Americans by a wide margin say the war in Iraq, with  more than
> one in three mentioning the war.'"
>
> What's  really offensive about Beinart's behavior is as much his
> desperate  propagandizing about the war he helped push America into as
> his  disregard for any semblance of intellectual honesty. This is not
> some  casual error here - this is a person who was quite literally
>  embarrassed on national television just a few months ago and is now
>  employing exactly the behavior he originally was embarrassed for - as  if
> journalistic integrity and ethics are just nuisances to be ignored.  Most
> normal people would react to getting factually crushed on  television by
> sitting back and thinking about how to avoid such  egregiously
> irresponsible behavior in the future. Not folks in D.C.  like Beinart -
> it's full-speed ahead for them.
>
> Equally  appalling (though, frankly, not shocking) is the fact that the
>  /Washington Post/ continues to publish him, and that for all his
>  dishonesty, he has been rewarded with a perch at the Council on  Foreign
> Relations. Apparently in Washington, helping push America into  the worst
> foreign relations disaster in contemporary history and then  continuing
> to lie about that disaster is a resume builder, rather than  a blemish.
> Yes, you actually get a bigger platform and get paid more  and get a
> cushier job in D.C. the more inaccurate and deliberately off  the mark
> you are willing to be.
>
> The Peter Beinart  story is not troubling because this one insignificant
> warmonger  continues to live the good life in D.C. It is deeply
> disturbing for  what it says about the sorry state of the media's role as
> a check and  balance on power. The Peter Beinart story is,
> pound-for-pound, the  saddest, sickest commentary of all on a Washington
> media culture whose  insularity has totally divorced it from even the
> most basic tenets of  journalism. And that's a tragedy for those of us
> outside of  Washington, living in the reality-based community.
>
>  /Cross-posted from Credo Action  <http://www.credoaction.com/sirota>/
>
>
>
>
>

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