The MSM and the not-so-subtle art of writing the lede
I could probably spend all my time on this blog just analyzing the myriad variations on one theme: how the MSM skews the news by editorializing when it should just be reporting.
Sometimes it’s done overtly. Far more often, though, it’s a relatively subtle use of language and–if you’ll forgive the expression–nuance. But once you know where/how to look–well then, like Chickenman, it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere (those who were anywhere near Chicago and a radio in the late 60s know what I’m referring to by that phrase).
Here’s today’s example from the NY Times: an article about Tony Blair (the first one I looked at when I clicked on their website) entitled “Blair Urges Europe to Stay Aggressive Abroad.” The headline is actually one of the better ones (although I’d prefer the substitution of the words “vigilant” or “militarily prepared” for “aggressive”).
It’s the lede that’s so “interesting.” Here it is:
As he seeks to define his legacy and stamp his imprint on the future, Prime Minister Tony Blair urged his successors today to maintain the warlike foreign policy that he promoted, sending troops into battle in Africa and the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.
An excellent example of the approach the media has used for some years now, what I’ll call the “what’s in it for me?” outlook. A prime minister or president is always regarded as a self-serving, narcissistic politician rather than a statesman (is this word even in the vocabulary of the MSM any more?).
Of course, politicians do tend to be narcissists, and concerned with their own images. It goes with the territory. But to report, in a straight news article, on a speech by Blair about the central defining worldwide issue of our times–the current war against Islamist totalitarianism–as though Blair’s primary concern is his himself and his legacy (oh, how I’ve grown to hate that word!) is a profoundly cynical and destructive way of looking at things.
It would be different if the article were actually about
Does this sound like the speech of a guy obsessed with himself?:
The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan, or Indonesia, or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia–the new frontiers for our security are global…It has taken a generation for the enemy to grow. It will, in all probability, take a generation to defeat.
Sounds like a reasonable assessment of a sobering situation, by a man concerned with the future, yes–the future of his country, Western civilization, and the world.
Heh, Chickenman. I was nowhere near Chicago, but I listened to Chickenman skits every day on Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam in 1968. It seems one of the WLS jocks was drafted and sent to Saigon. Upon arriving, he sent back for all the Chickenman tapes and the costume as well. He was noted for wearing the costume at various location around Saigon. I guess he really WAS everywhere. 🙂
urged his successors today to maintain the warlike foreign policy that he promoted
In my opinion, “warlike” was the most biased part of that lede.
Wow- Chickenman- my hero when I was growing up in Toronto. Later on lived NYC till Sept 11. I too had your transformation Neo. Your doing a great job. Don’t stop; you got a lot of fans.
I’d like to see a talented wordsmith start a blog where he/she prints a NYT story and then rewrites the story using the old who, what, where, when, and how rules. Eliminating superlative adjectives and overblown nouns would also help.
It would provide an instructive classroom for people to see how the MSM is trying to manipulate them.
The best classroom to learn propaganda, Jimmy, is to look at terrorism and the Middle East. Compared to them, the Leftists like the Socialists, have much to learn.
The NYTimes are amateurs when all is said and done, in propaganda.
A prime minister or president is always regarded as a self-serving, narcissistic politician rather than a statesman (is this word even in the vocabulary of the MSM any more?).
Maybe it’s projection: you know, assuming that everyone else is similarly motivated?
Or perhaps it’s the mark of a “respected” reporter to be unflinchingly cynical because it shows that he’s not blinkered by the charming naivetĂ© of the masses.
Of course, cynicism and naivetĂ© have in common their ability to blind people from half of reality: the naive from the world’s ugliness and the cynical from those rare instances of actual nobility.
Skepticism, darlings, is the way to go: fact-check, fact-check, fact-check.
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Why is it that he or Bush or Superman is always seeking to define their legacy according to the media? Can’t the reporters grasp the fact that, even in today’s enlightened PC world, some leaders do what they do for the good of the people they represent or for the team. Their legacy is the respect they receive for doing what they believed was right. These reporters, by their writings, certainly tell me much about how they think. They should be removed from their positions and be allowed to write fiction; something they have mastered.
dicentra elegantly stole my thunder. I would only add “What does it say about a person that he finds it impossible to believe that other people act unselfishly?”
dicentra elegantly stole my thunder. I would only add “What does it say about a person that he finds it impossible to believe that other people act unselfishly?”
Acting on behalf of Big Oil is “acting unselfishly”. I see.
Charlemagne, give evidence for the point, please. I will warn you in advance that we are unlikely to be persuaded by the “Well Bush…Cheney…oil guys, and er, Iraq…has oil, and uh, y’know…don’t you see?” argument.
Amr, I came away with that question too. To me, that lede is is simply weasel-wording meant to sneak in a reporter’s analysis of the situation in a story that’s supposed to be just straight reporting.
Callimachus voices a similar thought in his “Legacy Schmegacy” post:
“Can anyone tell me where the media gets these ideas? Where is the slightest shred of evidence that Dubya ever gave a moment’s thought to a legacy? Look at the last six years. Does this look like an administration that loses sleep over what historians, who hate him now, are going to say in the future…”?
Dicentra and Callimachus both got it right: This is projection on the part of the media. They cannot seem to make the necessary shift of paradigm in order to view Bush’s and Blair’s actions as they are, instead choosing to view them through with the paradigm that anyone who believes what they do practice power politics and self-aggrandizement, rather than act to personal beliefs of what’s the right, proper thing to do. Which is so amazingly hypocritical on the MSM’s part, I’m taken aback; I hardly ever see such analysis made of people like Carter, and rarely saw such made of people like the late Yassir Arafat. That judgement seems to be applied selectively. And in a way, even though in their minds they probably believe they’re judging the following people as evil &/or malicious, they backhandedly hand people like Bin Laden and Nasrallah compliments by portraying them as simply yet truly believing in their twisted philosophies, rather than considering that they might actually know their agenda is manipulative and openly malicious, yet be cynical enough pursue them in order to gain power. Or in short, to be engaging in BS simply to dazzle the crowd of useful fools. I simply never see that analysis applied to leaders such as that, only to Western leaders who deviate from the norm that the MSM attempts to establish.