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Jewish World Review Feb. 11, 2005 / 2 Adar I, 5765 Journalism double standard: Doesn't the media get it? By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When he called to cancel his 25-year subscription to the Los Angeles Times,
he was made an extraordinary offer, reports the web logger Laer (Cheat
Seeking Missiles).
The LATimes offered to sell him the newspaper without the news and opinion
sections, Laer said. He was thunderstruck.
"How often must the beleaguered circulation department...be dealing with
calls like mine, for them to come up with a special like this? How many
late night workers do they employ to strip down opinion-sanitized versions
of their paper in order to cling to a diminishing subscription base?"
Hundreds of readers cancelled their subscriptions to the Philadelphia
Inquirer during the election, and the circulation department there is making
its editors call to try to lure them back.
Since the primary reason given for the cancellations was the Inquirer's 21
straight days of editorials praising John Kerry and attacking President
Bush, it's doubtful those who wrote the editorials will be effective
salespeople.
A controversy you've probably heard about and one you almost certainly
haven't illustrate why readers cancel subscriptions.
"It's fun to shoot some people," Lt Gen. James Mattis said at a conference in
San Diego Feb. 1st. "You go into Afghanistan, you've got guys who slap
women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. Guys like that
ain't got no manhood left anyway, so it's a helluva lot of fun to shoot
them."
Mattis' remarks caused conniption fits throughout the news media. Typical
was the Miami Herald, which said Mattis should have been given a tougher
punishment than the verbal reprimand he received from the Commandant of the
Marine Corps. "His callous remarks make light of the terrible toll of war,"
the Herald whined.
Mattis — arguably our most effective combat leader — already has been ably
defended by my friends Ralph Peters and Mac Owens. But I enthusiastically
second his sentiment. If I were still a young Marine, I would take enormous
pleasure in personally sending Islamofascists to Hell.
Journalists who got their panties twisted over Mattis apparently see nothing
newsworthy about having the head of news for CNN accuse the U.S. military of
deliberately killing journalists.
Eason Jordan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
that "he knew of about 12 journalists who had not only been killed by
American troops, but had been targeted as a matter of policy," said Rep.
Barney Frank (D-Mass), who was there.
The Davos confab ended Jan. 30th. Yet, in a column published Feb. 5th, I
became the first "mainstream" journalist to mention Jordan's remarks.
The silence is puzzling. If what Jordan said were true, it would be a
bigger scandal than Abu Ghraib, about which the media have made sure you
have heard. And if CNN's top news executive slandered U.S. troops, that
also is — or ought to be — news.
Washington Post media analyst Howard Kurtz finally wrote something on Feb.
7th. Kurtz omitted eyewitness testimony from Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd
(D-Conn); reported panel moderator David Gergen as saying something quite
different from what he told columnist Michelle Malkin, and skipped over
suppression of a videotape of the discussion.
Kurtz also failed to mention he has a show on CNN. "If a pr agent or damage
control spinner produced a piece designed to try and save CNN exec Eason
Jordan's job, it would be the piece Kurtz wrote," said web logger and former
Democratic political operative Mickey Kaus.
It goes without saying that CNN has yet to report on the controversy. ABC,
CBS and NBC have so far ignored it, too.
The editor of the newspaper where I work recently held a discussion with
staff about what to do about web logs. The consensus seemed to be that we
needn't worry much, because we report the news, and bloggers only offer
their opinions. But the Eason Jordan story was brought to our attention by
a web logger, and it was other bloggers who uncovered earlier remarks by
Jordan in the same vein. Sounds like reporting to me.
The earth rumbles, and we think it's our big feet, stomping the
Lilliputians. But what if it's an earthquake about to swallow us up?
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© 2005, Jack Kelly | ||||||||||
