Honor system no longer extant
   by Gene Lyons

If there’s anything you’ll never read in this column, it’s a categorical
defense of the news media. One way or another, my last three books have
been about the terrible harm done to individuals and the country by
slipshod and dishonest reporting. Among those criticized most vigorously
have been some of the major so-called liberal news organizations
—broadcast and print. Here’s how I put it in a 2003 Harper’s review
of Eric Alterman’s fine book, "What Liberal Media? The Truth About
Bias and the News":"

‘Bias,’ left or right, isn’t an adequate word for what’s taken place over the
last decade or thereabouts. Claiming the moral authority of a code of
professional ethics it idealizes in the abstract but repudiates in practice,
today’s Washington press corps has grown as decadent and self-protective
as any politician or interest group whose behavior it purports to monitor.
"I wouldn’t stipulate a golden age of American journalism, but I would
argue that TV fame and money have become big corrupting factors.
Celebrity journalists and sleazy tabloid coverage have existed since
newspapers began during the 18 th century. But the American press used
to be regulated by an informal but fairly effective honor system. Now
it runs on a star system not unlike Hollywood’s. Once a degree of
professional visibility is achieved, it’s hard to lose.

I’d cite currently imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller as
Exhibit A. Her bungled" exclusives" on Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass
destruction did as much to drive the U.S. to war as the Bush administration’s
fanciful geopolitical imagineers. If she were a sports reporter, she’d have been
laughed out of the profession. Baseball fans demand that you get the scores right.

But you know what? I also know of crooked cops, disbarred lawyers, drug
addicted physicians, child-molesting teachers, skirt-chasing preachers, scientists
who fudge data, corporate execs who pad profits, ballplayers who bulk up on
steroids—well, you get the point. If there’s a politician alive who’s never lied,
bronze him fast before somebody gets a photo of his hand in the till.

Anyway, I recently wrote a column about the GOP media machine’s
domination of Washington. "Outfits like FOX News, The Washington Times
and Wall Street Journal editorial page... serve as propaganda organs of
the Republican National Committee," it said. I knew that would annoy some
people, because one of contemporary conservatism’s articles of faith is that,
although the GOP controls all three branches of government, it is constantly
being picked on, boo-hoo.

Sure enough, the letters and e-mails came rolling in. What really chapped
some readers was my point that the Democrats have no equivalent apparatus.
One guy wanted to know if I’d ever heard of "ABC... CBS, CNN, NBC,
the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post."
Actually, yes, as the sentence following the one he quoted mentioned the
last two newspapers’ role in touting Iraq’s WMD.

But it wasn’t the fellow’s poor logic that struck me. It was reading the
same complaint in virtually the same words from a dozen readers. When
that happens, you know you’re dealing with recycled propaganda, so I
Googled the list of alleged Democratic media outlets exactly as he’d
presented it.

I got almost 100 hits, most traceable to a right-wing Washington outfit
called the Media Research Center, which exists to bully journalists who
stray from the GOP party line, often through the dark art of selective
misquotation. My favorite was when MRC honcho Brent Bozell made the TV
talk show circuit claiming that then-New York Times editor Howell Raines
had shown contempt for Real Americans by writing that Ronald Reagan
"couldn’t tie his shoelaces if his life depended on it."

Bob Somerby at dailyhowler. com tracked down the quote. Turns out it
came from a book Raines wrote about fishing. He was quoting a Camp
David fishing guide. The guide was talking not about Reagan’s brain
power but about his lack of interest in tying trout flies.

Does anybody believe someone would make that kind of "mistake"
accidentally?

Meanwhile, if the news organizations on MRC’s laundry list owe fealty
to the Democratic Party, they’ve an odd way of showing it. All of the
above pushed the phony Whitewater scandal for years. They played Bill
Clinton’s sexual sins bigger than the invasion of Normandy. Their coverage
of the 2000 election clearly favored George W. Bush, and their failure to
effectively expose the Swift Boat dirty tricksters probably decided the
2004 election. Their collective performance during the run-up to the Iraq
war was a national disgrace. Otherwise, yeah, they’re more "liberal" than
Rush Limbaugh. But then, that’s how the fundamentalist mind works in
religion and politics: You’re either with them 100 percent or you’re the
enemy. In that regard, no selfrespecting press organization can be anything
but "liberal" in the sense of sharing a post-enlightenment world view that
distinguishes between fact and belief. And facts, see, are the enemy of dogma.

  Back to bartcop.com