There is a disturbing trend in the mainstream media today. All too often, journalists are much more concerned with deadlines than getting the story right and many bias their stories to support their inner beliefs.
This trend reared its ugly head as the sordid details of Scott Thomas’ ramblings in The New Republic were exposed as fabrications. Putting all the political infighting aside, there are two basic issues. Beauchamp misrepresented the facts. The New Republic published his work without adequately substantiating the details – and the American reading public suffered.
Unfortunately, most American news consumers believe everything they read. Journalists should understand that this places a responsibility upon their shoulders to “get it right.”
Freedom of the press brings an enormous responsibility. Our founding fathers knew that a free press would encourage truthfulness in government. How can the government be held accountable when the media cannot be trusted to accurately inform the American people?
An excellent example of how irresponsible reporting can undermine public understanding is the Jessica Lynch story. From the day of her rescue, military officials clearly stated that the story of her capture was not confirmed, yet editors throughout this country propagated the Washington Post claims that she “went down fighting.” The Post article quoted no credible source. Yet today, most Americans believe that the US military lied to them about Ms Lynch when, in fact, it was the American media that “lied.”
Journalists MUST understand that they have a responsibility to us all to do the best they can to tell us the truth. Shame on The New Republic and Private Beauchamp for violating this trust.
Richard S. Lowry
Shame on the media indeed. But those who pay more than passing attention to the media and to the world about them have known for years prior to Rathergate that the mainstream media were, in terms of unbiased truth telling, hopelessly corrupt. Rathergate merely exposed the MSM’s long running agenda journalism to a larger audience, and it’s now reasonably clear that most Americans, even those of the democrat persuasion, know that the MSM is untrustworthy.
In the Beauchamp story, the Army has now affirmed that Beauchamp is not being held incommunicado. He can speak with whomever he wants, is aware of who wishes to speak with him but is choosing not to speak with them. It has also confirmed that in refusing to publish details of Beauchamp’s self-imposed and engineered humiliation, it is doing what the MSM will not do: demonstrating respect for decency, humanity, and justice, even toward one who has betrayed those qualities and the military that values them.
So The New Republic lamely cries that the military is preventing Pvt. Beauchamp from telling them the truthiness that the military is preventing him from confirming old truthiness and telling TNR new truthiness. And it is only the perfidy of the military that prevents TNR from doing the rigorously truthy reporting for which it is justly famous.
Or could it be that a self humiliated private, humiliated with the help and unflagging support of TNR, merely wants to spare himself and his wife and family additional humiliation?
I recall when Jessica Lynch was confirmed captured a news reporter–I believe it was CNN–reported that a Pentagon source told him that Lynch had tried to drive through an ambush. Then the source told the reporter that when her vehicle was stopped, Lynch had engaged the enemy with her M-16. Then the source told the reporter that Lynch, wounded, ran out of ammunition fought off her attackers with her arms and legs and was only captured after she was piled on.
I remember the report because I remember thinking that although the scenario was possible, it sounded improbable. I really thought about that one for a while, wondering about the plausibility of it. I supposed it was plausible, but it was unlikely. The fact that it came from “a Pentagon source” finally made me accept it.
That having been said, I do think it’s sad that much has been made of Beauchamp’s faux allegations, while I’ve yet to read the exploits of a single valor medal winner, with the exception of Paul Smith, in any major newspaper. And I’m glad that I never did get around to renewing my TNR subscription.
Richard, yea, verily!, save that we need to kick this discussion up a notch.
The “trends” you speak of have one root moment, the instant when Walter Cronkite abdicated his journalistic detachment and picked a side in the debate between the government of the United States (at war) and the war opposition. Since that day, journalists of all stripes have felt it their duty to emulate Uncle Walter. In war, at peace, or anywhere else.
Now, that merely critical attitude has to have enablers to have endured this long, and for us to arrived at such extremes as the current non-coverage of the battle. There simply is no coverage of Americans and our allies at war, at the soldier level, the squad and company missions level, or the larger ongoing operational progress. Americans’ connection to this war is nothing but the endless explosion count. Stories such as Wednesday’s WSJ article have become so rare that one is tempted to throw a party to celebrate the singular glimpses at the work.
Some believe the enablers of such poor and biased journalism lie chiefly at the journalism schools and the wider undergraduate programs. There’s data to support this. As we’ve noted here before, not one of the top 50 universities in the US requires an American history class, and world history can be skipped from Kindergarten to the grave. To Ivy-Leaguers and others, the Battles of Yorktown and Saylor’s Creek/Appomattox simply are non-events.
Of course, if history is but employed as a tool to identify every past failure, and to justify every type of future inaction, we still get nowhere. Which brings up the second failure of our schools.
I call it the culture of literary criticism. Here, Criticism becomes king, the intellectual apex. This started with our English departments, where Cummings or Joyce might write a poem, but real intellect is considered to be among the four generations who subsequently analyze and disect the work, and then psycho-analyze the author for good measure. One need only build a good criticism to contribute; no further constructive effort is required.
The culture of literary criticism sought growth, but encountered some resistance as it bled into the nearby realm of professional historians. So it simply created new departments of all kinds: ethno-centric studies and the like. These new departments and centers needed not heed to quite the same standards as the Historians, they could in large part emulate the merely critical aspect of the English faculty. In time, of course, the history departments couldn’t completely elude.
Needless to say, the culture has grown beyond academe. We see it now obviously aiming at the secondary and elementary schools, where the phrase “Critical Thinking Skills” must be uttered at least twice per page in any and every discussion of curriculum. ‘Twould be nice to believe that those who embrace this phrase mean science, mathematics, and the technical arts, but those worthy subjects didn’t really need a new epithet, did they?
Naturally, the Journalism schools, with their close ties to the departments of English, were likely not long immune to the spread of this culture. And so, telling a story simply doesn’t cut it anymore. It must be a critical story, one which shows the journalists’ wisdom and the subject’s (in our case usually the USG’s), defect.
Somewhere (can’t find it), I read a great argument for the disbanding of the J-schools. That’s not going to happen. But somehow, we need to assure that the would-be reporters entering those schools are a little less muddle-headed than the crops they’re now getting.
Not one to stand up in defense of the American media machine…
However, let’s not forget the complete EMBARRASMENT the Army created for itself in the Pat Tillman debacle.
I’ve a feeling that the Army has to shoulder some of the blame for the Jessica Lynch story as well.
Army leadership consistently demonstrates a lack of farsightedness in such matters. Sure, it’s cool to “cook up” a hero for the press in the short-term. What they fail to see is the fact that, eventually, the real story WILL get out.
Then generals will have to utter “I can’t remember” in front of Congress some 70 times.
And what I cannot understand is why it sees the need to do something so ascinine, when there are plenty of heroes to be heralded for the masses.
Then again, I learned long ago to never apply logic and reason to ANYTHING the Army does.
No, Richard, I don’t believe the military “cooked up” the story. I think they didn’t clarify certain points of the story as the media rushed it to print. They could have done more to “stop the presses” before it snowballed into the legend it became, which later had to be corrected (much to the Army’s embarassment).
Notice how the Army NEVER told the press, “whoa, hold on, let’s figure out what happened before we print all this up.” Instead, the Army pinned a Bronze Star w/V on her chest and paraded her around as a hero. They did nothing to stop the media bandwagon as it ran with the story.
Look at the Pat Tillman episode. A man gets killed by his fellow Rangers in the confusion of a firefight (and probably due to some bad decisions made on the ground). Instead of coming right out and saying, “hey, the situation was messed up and Pat Tillman was killed by some blue-on-blue,” the Army pins a Silver Star on him and they say he was killed leading his squad through an enemy ambush.
LTG (ret) Kensinger conveniently got amnesia when he was asked about his role in falsely portraying it to the public as something other than what it was. It takes a lot of moral courage to do that.
Again, I’m not an apologist for the media, but let’s be honest about finding fault with the current situation.
The Army PR machine gives me the impression that it’s run by the Keystone Cops.
If anyone ever gets the PR department right, it’s the Marine Corps. Even when the Corps screws something up (which it does from time to time… hey, we’re all humans, even Marines… though they’ll be the last to admit they’re human) it still can come out smelling like a rose.
As someone once said, America will need a Marine Corps as long as it believes it does.
PSYOP Cop,
Jessica Lynch was awarded a Bronze Star with V for her POW experience. It may not have been right to give her that award, but no one ever claimed she received the award for fighting.
As for your desire to have the Army discredit the “hero” story, everyone in Jessica Lynch’s vehicle was killed in the ambush and her company commander had fled to safety. There was no one to tell what happened to Jessica during the ambush and she was not forthcoming with her story. Actually, she waited until she was interviewed by Diane Sawyer to proclaim that she did not fire a shot.
Also, Sergeant Donald Walters was the real hero who fought to his last bullet. He was captured north of the Saddam Canal and summarily executed by Saddam Fedayeen. The military was conducting a criminal investigation to bring Donald’s murderers to justice. Even the Corps will not comment on ongoing investigations.
It took me more than a year to piece this story together. The truth is that the Army did not know what happened with Jessica when the story broke and that is exactly what they repeatedly told the public. By the time the Army completed its investigations, the media and the American public had lost interest.
If you read “Marines in the Garden of Eden” the entire story is there. I agree that the Corps does a much better job with public relations, but I also think the Army is getting a bad rap for the Jessica Lynch debacle.
You continue to bring up Pat Tillman. I cannot comment on that issue because I am not familiar with the details of that situation. But, I am an expert on the battle of An Nasiriyah.
I don’t doubt there were heroes in the 507th Maintenance that day. One of the POW’s I believe received a well-deserved Silver Star for taking out an MG position (or was it a mortar position… I forget) before running out of ammo and surrendering.
However, the Army still did not dispute the “facts” as the media spun the story out of control. Sometimes, in the world of information, omsission of action is as bad as an action itself.
I don’t believe the Army itself was responsible for the Lynch media episode. However, its lack of action to put a kabosh on the “story” as it developed ensured that the media would take the ball and run with it.
And, in the end, it’s the Army left holding the bag. Nobody in the media will be responsible for it. They never are.
PSYOP Cop,
You are absolutely right. The Army should have stepped up and debunked the story. My point was that they faced a dellima. Initially, they would have had to say that the media report was incorrect but they didn’t actually know what happened with Jessica.
When the facts started coming out, it was an ugly story that I am sure the Army did not want to tell. So, as you pointed out, they used the Ostrich public affairs techique.
Faux Ostrich Print Andi
This Faux Ostrich Print Andi is still one of our more pop