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No higher duty: “You’re a reporter!” — 63 Comments

1. Fascinating post. For what it’s worth, I am a reporter at a small community newspaper and cover the crime beat. I would and have absolutely warned cops of dangerous or potentially dangerous situations based on information I’ve received, and without compromising sources. It CAN be done.

   You can remain detached, keep your journalistic ethics and remain a human being and still get the story. But bottom line I would choose to prevent the loss of innocent lives than get a story any day.

   The type of reporter or videographer that would stand on shore filming as a person was drowning or in this case witnessed a terrorist attack in progress and acted in collusion with the terrorist is nothing short of a reprobate.

2. Wallace isn’t the only one, sure and true. As well, what these reporters have said, loudly, often, and publicly, including that they are anti-American (Jennings, for example, says that anti-Americanism comes from his Canadian mother and he maintains it to this day, and of course Wallace many times about many things, plus so many, most, all? others). People who I have spoken with REFUSE to believe, accept, or deal with honest quotes, or even whole interviews with some of these elites. I hear that President Bush is corrupt because of this or that (usually some shadowy business deals involving 10 countries, transactions through secret banks, and things an economic and computer genius would have trouble following). And they ignore the very words of these “newsmen”, in spite of hearing directly, from their faces, their attitudes, beliefs, and leanings.

   I am not even a strong supporter of the president, I just cannot understand the hate. Nor can I understand the inability of the haters to see anything else, especially on their side. I see lots wrong with both parties, or, what I used to think of as my party. The gay agenda and the multiculturalism have invaded and infected my side of the aisle. Socialism has gained a grip. Both of those are mainstays of the party elite, though and thankfully, fairly well rejected by the rank and file (so far). I fear my party, more than theirs, in that I am supposed to have input and be represented by my party. Anyway, I don’t think the left of center and further can get past Bush, to look at their party, the news, newsmen, or most else.

   I’ll be gone a bit, and will not leave my little “gifts” (think pet) for a while. I hope the new place is beginning to fit like it should, and fits better in time. I thought I should wish you a Merry Christmas, again. In the celebration and season, even I see hope.

3. I will lay out Wallace’s and Jennings’ case:

   Good reporting, via shining light on an invalid or hopeless American war policy, can bring change to that policy, thus saving a large number of American lives.

   Wallace and Jennings might also argue that shining light on a valid American cause will rally the support of the American people to the cause, and the support of the American people will allow the war to be carried out more effectively. This would, in it’s own way, save more lives than the 15 which would’ve been saved if Jennings had warned the Marines of an impending attack.

   The problem I have – with my hypothesized Wallace/Jennings rationale – is it puts the reporters in the position of playing God with human lives. Or, it at least puts reporters in the position of making cost vs. benefit decisions which are properly made by due representatives of the American government – such as the President, or an authorized military commander. The reporters have no ethical or moral authority to make cost-benefit decisions about the lives of those Marines. The reporters have no higher authority from God. The reporters have no governmental or constitutional authority from the United States. Mike Wallace, possibly, is comfortable playing God. But I am not comfortable when he plays it.

   St. Thomas Aquinas laid out principles

4. Oops. I thought I had deleted the reference to St. Thomas Aquinas principles of Natural Law. I had originally intended to reference his principles for identifying situations in which it might be morally permissible to take a life. These are the principle of forfeiture, and the doctrine of double effect. If you are interested, here is a good discussion and explanation: http://www.central.edu/philrel/nlaw.html

5. 20 years on Mike Wallace is jealous of Bilal Hussein.

6. “Jennings, for example, says that anti-Americanism comes from his Canadian mother and he maintains it to this day…”

   Are you quite sure about that, Doom?

7. “Good reporting, via shining light on an invalid or hopeless American war policy, can bring change to that policy, thus saving a large number of American lives. ”

   In this case the journalists have placed themselves on Mt. Olympus. They are saying, “We are wiser and we kinow better than the citizens that have been elected to protect the country.” In fact they have detached themselves from being Americans at all and instead have become all-wise “citizens of the world.” In their so-called wisdom they feel justified in letting people die just because they believe they are right.

   I liken it to a family member who, after receiving higher education, looks at his family and sees that it is dysfunctional. Considering himself above all that, takes it upon himself to constantly criticize and distance himself. Even to the extent that he won’t call 911 when he sees a burgular breaking into the house. His family may not be the paragon he wished it was, but to knowingly allow harm to that family falls to the level of………..pond scum.

   Further, such a journalists (like Wallace & Jennings as well as many others today) forfeit any right to be embedded with our troops because they have nothing but contempt for their mission. I am with COL Connel in holding nothing but contempt for them.

8. I don’t think the issue with Wallace and Jennings was the notion of them trying to “get the story” as opposed to saving lives. It’s more, I think, the principle of reporting, which is “cover the story, don’t become the story”. A sort of non-interference principle of reporting, that reporters should be out there to observe but not interfere with what they’re observing. I don’t think it has anything to do with whether or not the soldiers being attacked were American or not — it’s simply a matter of whether or not reporters should get involved with the things they are reporting on.

   Of course, this principle it seems ought to be superceded by the principle of saving lives — however, you might consider this argument (I’m not saying I believe it, but I am offering it). One reason reporters are often allowed into dangerous areas, even enemy territory, is that they are seen, basically, as uninvolved observers. For this reason reporters have managed to get information to the public in a wide variety of very dangerous situations. If reporters started to regularly get involved in an active way with what they were reporting on, this information flow might stop. They might become much more active targets than they already are, in war zones, etc. This would have the effect of making it much harder for us to find out what is going on especially in parts of the world where we’re not ordinarily very welcome.

   I actually think this is a tough ethical question to resolve — by intervening to save the lives of some American soldiers, they might not only be risking their own lives, but putting the lives of many more reporters at risk. At that point the question I think becomes less cut and dried. I think in my case, I’d probably err on the side of saving lives, but I do think Wallace and Jennings have a reasonable case to be made that reporters should not interfere with what they’re reporting on.

9. If most repoters for the international news agencies have the ethics of animals, then logically should they not be put down as animals if they become a rabid threat?

10. It’s more, I think, the principle of reporting, which is “cover the story, don’t become the story”

    The idea that a person will stand by and watch evil occur because it benefits them personally, that such a person has “principles”, is too much into the territory of the Faeries, Mitsu.

11. This would have the effect of making it much harder for us to find out what is going on especially in parts of the world where we’re not ordinarily very welcome.

    That might be important to people that get their info from reports, Mitsu. But we aren’t those people.

12. Quite a few journalists evidently downplayed the atrocities of the Saddam Hussein regime in order to protect their “access” for future reporting. See my post Journalism’s Nuremberg.

13. Should journalists think of Iraqis and Vietnamese or “Kosanese” as something other than human?

    Neoneocon writes: “Oh, I know: postmodernism, reporters elevating themselves and their profession into “journalists” who stand above such petty emotions as nationalism–and even, it seems, their duty to prevent the killing of their fellow human beings.”

    A reporter is about to witness an ambush behind enemy lines. Since it takes place in enemy territory, we know the armed men about to be ambushed are on their way to kill opposing soldiers and possibly civilians as well. What gives the journalist the right to “play God” by deciding it’s better to prevent the deaths of one group of soldiers and thereby abet the deaths of the others? At least by saying nothing, he’s doing his best under the circumstances to avoid actively helping anyone kill anyone.

    The hypothetical isn’t about the “duty to prevent the killing of their fellow human beings,” it’s about whether journalists have a moral obligation to take the American side in a war.

    We can have an honest debate about the nature and extent of the moral superiority of one military force over another, but we can’t honestly assume it in a hypothetical situation.

    The Marine referred to in the article argues that he and the people under his command would risk their lives to save the journalist, thereby contrasting their behavior with the journalist’s. But such a contrast ignores a crucial detail: The hypothetical asserts that the journalist’s action to save American soldiers under ambush would almost certainly lead to his own death.

    As a journalist, he or she would be defenseless and directly in the hands of the soldiers he’d be betraying. Not so for the Marines out to save the journalist. The Marines would not only have the best available arms but also would be trained for just such a mission and would plan and execute it with every intention of surviving. The Marine commander would not send Americans under his command on a certain or near-certain suicide mission to save a reporter, nor would it be ethical for him to do so.

    More important, there would be no reason for the Marine to believe that by rescuing a journalist he would be endangering the lives of anyone else. So the Marine never has to “play God” by deciding the journalist is worth saving and others worth killing because of their race, religion or nationality.

    The journalist, however, is put in the position of having to decide that the value of the invading troops’ lives is greater than the value of those the troops are on their way to kill.

    He or she may well have moral grounds to decide that’s the case, but it cannot be assumed on the basis of nationality, race or religion.

    And Gingrich’s observations about soldiers being better prepared to act ethically in extreme situations doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The ethical imperatives for a soldier are far simpler and better defined a priori. He has already agreed not to think of the enemy as human in any complete sense of the word. Journalists haven’t agreed to operate under that same assumption.

    One thing does come clear from this discussion: neocons admit that “fair and balanced” journalism is a euphemism for pro-American with extreme prejudice.

14. Reading McLovin has me wondering why American journalists would be out with an attacking enemy anyway. What, of news value, is to be gained by accompanying the enemy on a patrol which may morph into an attack on Americans? The portion of the American public which watches the news already understands enemy tactics. We understand ambush attacks, guns, grenades, and grenade launchers.

    I could see the value of interviewing the enemy in their camp, and finding out the thoughts about aspects of the conflict. But it seems, to me, creepy and immoral to accompany them when they might possibly attack Americans. The more I think about accompanying such a patrol, the more it turns my stomach.

    McLovin, I disagree with many of your assertions, but I appreciate the thought you put into them. It is nice to have discussion which doesn’t degenerate into ad hominem.

15. gcotharn (“I will lay out Wallace’s and Jennings’ case”): Good reporting, via shining light on an invalid or hopeless American war policy, can bring change to that policy, thus saving a large number of American lives.

    Mitsu: …by intervening to save the lives of some American soldiers, they might not only be risking their own lives, but putting the lives of many more reporters at risk

    Interesting to note these strained attempts at an excuse that Wallace himself, in particular, obviously disdained — for him, as he says quite plainly, there simply is no “higher duty”: “You don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter!” Got that? He’s far above any tortuous hypotheticals about risking the so very precious lives of “more reporters”, nor has it anything to do with his merely political views about the advisability of this or that particular conflict. No, if we’re going to get into further imaginary situations here I think we could safely say, on the basis of his own remarks, that if he had to chose between warning authorities of terrorist plans for the Beslan slaughter, say, or helping victims of a potential mass murder escape, and simply letting his cameras roll, he would infallibly choose the latter. And in doing so, he simply dehumanizes himself, assuming the moral status of an alien slug.

    It’s also interesting to note that neo’s taken this exchange about “no higher duty” from a page entitled “Why We Hate the Media”, part of a PBS Frontline website, and it ends as follows:

    As American institutions in general have lost credibility, few have lost it as fully as the press. The media establishment is beginning to get at least a dim version of this message. Through the last decade, newspaper conventions have been a litany of woes. Fewer readers. Lower “penetration” rates, as a decreasing share of the public pays attention to news. A more and more desperate search for ways to attract the public’s interest. In the short run these challenges to credibility are a problem for journalists and journalism. In the longer run they are a problem for democracy.

16. McL: One thing does come clear from this discussion: neocons admit that “fair and balanced” journalism is a euphemism for pro-American with extreme prejudice.

    gc: McLovin, I disagree with many of your assertions, but I appreciate the thought you put into them. It is nice to have discussion which doesn’t degenerate into ad hominem.

    Right. It would be nice.

    That “thought” McL is supposed to put in, in any case, is a pretty frothy attempt at apology, that, as I pointed out, Wallace himself didn’t even try to avail himself of. Here’s how James Fallows described it:

    When Mike Wallace said he would do something horrible, he didn’t bother to argue a rationale. He did not try to explain the reasons a reporter might feel obliged to remain silent as the attack began–for instance, that in combat reporters must be beyond country, or that they have a duty to bear impartial witness to deaths on either side, or that Jennings had implicitly made a promise not to betray the North Kosanese when he agreed to accompany them on the hypothetical patrol. The soldiers might or might not have found such arguments convincing, but Wallace didn’t even make them. He relied on charm and star power to win acceptance from the crowd. Mike Wallace on patrol with the North Kosanese, cameras rolling while his countrymen are gunned down, recognizing no “higher duty” to interfere in any way and offering no rationale beyond “I’m with the press”–this is a nice symbol for what Americans hate about their media establishment in our age.

    So let’s return McL’s non-degeneration into ad hominem: left-libs demonstrate that they’ll grasp at anything when it comes to finding excuses for betraying their country.

17. I agree that Mike Wallace is a poor example for journalists to follow and one measure of that is the performance of his son, Chris.

    Wallace’s reliance on the simplistic idea that journalistic ideals automatically trump national, ethnic or religious loyalties is sadly unpersuasive.

    Fortunately, thinking people have no reason to rely on Wallace’s views. They can analyze the situation on their own and come to their own conclusions.

18. Any reporter at any time reporting from among an enemy during a time of war is either:

    1. A spy against that enemy engaged in broadcasting methods and tactics to educate those fighting against that enemy. In such cases, that reporter is, by law and tradition, deserving of nothing more and nothing less than death administered by that enemy.

    2. A propagandist betraying his own by reporting for the enemy and therefore an enemy agent. And, by law and tradition, deserving of nothing more or nothing less than death administered by his own.

19. What’s more important, your ideals or your nationality?

    When the two come into conflict, which should you favor?

    Isn’t that a much more realistic question?

20. I don’t think Wallace’s argument, or lack thereof, holds water but I think the origin of his impulse comes from a longstanding tradition of journalistic non-interference, for better or for worse. What I am suggesting might be behind this tradition is not a new idea; it’s something that is a deep part of our American journalistic tradition and isn’t a liberal vs conservative idea. I think the concept obviously may have flaws particularly in hypothetical ethical dilemmas such as in this story, but it’s not as though Mr. Wallace invented this idea. He is just expressing it, rather badly, in my view.

    Journalists see their job as reporting. They are targeted for violence as it is, but something that protects them is this idea that they are not active participants in what they are covering. Suppose reporters secretly carried M16s and whipped them out in war zones to attack our enemy. Moral? Maybe, but it would also probably make every journalist a target in a war zone.

    I think the principle of journalistic non-interference has to be weighed against the need to protect lives… but it’s not as though there’s no reason for it at all, despite the fact that Wallace didn’t defend it coherently at all. There is a reason for it and it’s not a secret… it’s something most journalists have to wrestle with all the time.

21. “What’s more important, your ideals or your nationality?
    When the two come into conflict, which should you favor?
    Isn’t that a much more realistic question?”

    Look at it from the other side, then. Would a reporter, reporting the enemy be accompanying an American patrol as it lay an ambush? The answer is no. If you choose to research it, please prove me wrong by citing any opposing side’s journalists in the past hundred years. There are none, but go ahead and spend the time, if you like.

    In war, one who observes military movements and reports them to the other side is seen as either an opportunity for disinformation, an opportunity for propaganda, or a spy. The reason that an american journalist would be asked to accompany the enemy as they laid said ambush would be for propaganda value or disinformation. In participating with enemy operations, the press makes themselves whores for the opposition. After all, their ethical principles would forbid their revealing enemy postions, weapons, tactics, etc, that is, acting as a decent spy. Unique to the American press. I’m so proud of their willingness to take on that role.

22. Journalists make value judgments all the time. In this day and age they particularly make judgments about which political policies are good and which are bad. The conflict arises when they make judgments about foreign and defense policy. If they wish to report on, say the Irag War, in a manner that makes it appear the United States is egregiously in the wrong, that is certainly their right. However, they cannot then retreat under the guise of objectivity. They have made a value judgment that is clear for thinking people to see.

    When the country is at war, it is not at the whim of a dictator. The case is made in Congress, in the Defense Department, and in the media. Votes are taken, opinions expressed, and intelligence is debated. It is a grave decision and is not arrived at because there is NO threat. But when things don’t go just as planned (as things never do in war), those who were against the war immediately decide that it was a wrong-headed idea. It is the right of journalists to jump on this bandwagon, but once again they can no longer pretend to be objective. They have made a value judgment and they are no longer impartial.

    However, Wallace seems to say a journalist cannot make a judgment as to who is right or wrong and owes his loyalty only to the story. With that standard of thinking a journalist cannot, nay must not, have loyalty to his country or countrymen. He must be some kind of God-like figure looking down from on high with no skin in the game. No one is right or wrong, it is all about the story. You know – “We report, you decide.”

    Do airborne TV reporters in helicopters ever decide to help the police apprehend a criminal? Yes they do. Does that benefit society? Most would say, “Yes!” because it gets a criminal off the streets – makes society safer. But in Wallace’s view it would be wrong! Best to stay uninvolved and above the fray. Keep your journalistic objectivity.

    IMHO Wallace and others like him are trying to hide behind a cloak of righteous objectivity that gives them cover to pontificate on high about whatever cause they wish to champion. In that way no one can challenge their patriotism or intentions in war time.

    In keeping with the season and the tradition of Dickens, I would like to say to Wallace and all like him, “BAH, HUMBUG!!”

23. McLovin:

    Your argument is nothing but an apology for treason.

    What “right” does the journalist have to reveal the position of an enemy ambush to the American forces? He has no right to do that. He has a duty to do that! His citizenship, his nationality does trump his “professional ethics.”

    During the Second World War journalists routinely censored stories, even ran false ones in order to help the war effort. They understood that their duty as citizens outweighed their duty as journalists. Any other idea is ludicrous. The reductio ad absurdam of that would be for a terrorist to claim he shouldn’t be punished for mass murder because his professional ethics as a terrorist required him to do it.

    If the journalist doesn’t want to be an American (or whatever) citizen — fine. Emigrate. Sign up with the enemy, wear the enemy’s flag proudly and broadcast their propaganda with a clear conscience. But to live as an American and refuse to save American lives merely to follow a professional code of conduct is hypocritical, treasonous, and, quite simply, evil.

24. Trimegistus:
    As an American citizen, do have a right to decide for myself how to best support American ideals in wartime, or do I have to obey the dictates of a particular political faction or government office?

    What if our ideas about how to win the war against Islamic radicalism differ? Does that give me the right to call you a traitor?

25. I hope, Neo, you will keep in mind the risks taken by journalists to make sure “the truth” does not go unnoticed. Plaase remember the enormous number of journalists who have lost their lives this year in Iraq (and elsewhere), demanding that their judgment must be guided by a creed that we, as safe and detached observers, will never understand.

    When patriotism begins to demand allegiance above accountability, that’s when we should all start worrying.

26. Those reporters are contemptible.

    I know damn well the Marines would have saved my life in Fallujah if I was in danger when I embedded with them. One Marine I spoke to said a Time magazine reporter saved his life in 2004 by pulling him up over a wall as he was falling.

    Just how far would Wallace and Jennings take their commitment to detachment? Would they stand there and let a Marine fall to his death while they taped it? Or does extending a hand not violate the rule in the same way opening their mouths to warn them would?

    Jesus, these people disgust me.

    I would not just intervene to save the life of an American. I would intervene to save the life of an Iraqi as long as that Iraqi wasn’t trying to kill me or others. (What I mean to say is that I would not intervene to save the life of a car bomber.)

    There is a good movie called Welcome to Sarajevo about journalists who violate “the rule” of detachment and save the lives of Bosnian children at the hands of genocidal Serbian fascists. It is a true story, and those people are heroes, not bad reporters.

27. Michael writes:
    “I know damn well the Marines would have saved my life in Fallujah if I was in danger when I embedded with them.”

    Even if doing so was suicidal?

    Remember, the hypothetical neoneocon cited involved a reporter alerting soldiers to an ambush in a situation that would almost certainly lead to the reporter’s immediate death.

28. There is such a thing as right and wrong, i.e. objective morality. There is also such a thing as objective truth. JimmyJ’s analysis implies that there is no such thing as objective truth about what’s happening in Iraq, only pro- or anti-war viewpoints.

    Jimmyj writes:
    “If they wish to report on, say the Irag War, in a manner that makes it appear
    the United States is egregiously in the wrong, that is certainly their right. However, they cannot then retreat under the guise of objectivity.”

    We can have an reasonable debate about whether the U.S. was right to invade Iraq, but there is no reasonable debate about whether facts showing that the U.S. was wrong should be reported.

    Right and wrong matter, regardless of your nationality.

29. Of course Marines would risk their lives to save a reporter. That’s their job. They put their lives on the line every day. And I really don’t think the issue is whether the reporter would sacrifice their life to save American soldiers — with all due respect, McLovin, to me that’s a side issue. I think both Wallace and Jennings would sacrifice their lives to save others in a general context (Jennings explicitly said so, and I believe him). I really think the issue here was the longstanding principle of journalistic non-involvement.

    The principle is, as another journalist, above, mentioned, something one might question in some circumstances. There are very good reasons for it (which I outlined above), and I’m very glad reporters try to adhere to it most of the time (in fact, if anything, the press ought to be criticized more because they do become active participants in the news more often than they perhaps should). But, when lives are on the line, clearly it becomes a problematic situation.

    I recall seeing an interview with a former war zone / disaster photographer who used to adhere to the non-interference principle with almost religious fervor. One time, during a hurricane, he photographed a woman standing on the beach, watching the waves. Literally a few seconds later a huge wave came crashed in and swept her out to sea. He saw there were others nearby who were rushing in to try to save her, but he was actually closer and could have made an effort himself, but he didn’t (for the reason above). It first appeared that the other people on the beach were going to be able to reach her, but then another huge wave came crashing in and the woman was again swept out to sea, this time to drown.

    He decided at that point to give up photographing wars and disasters and just turn to other subjects, because he was so upset at what had happened.

    But like I said — while I think this non-interference principle is something that ought to be questioned in certain circumstances — it is usually a good thing, and we ought to be thankful for it (usually). Maybe not in the hypothetical case outlined above, but it’s nevertheless, I think, on the whole, a good idea.

30. Steven,

    Unless Jennings lied in a broadcast interview, yes, I am quite certain he claimed to be Anti-American, saying it came from his mother. It has been some time since I viewed the piece, and I or the interview may have incorrectly implied his mother is/was Canadian. But the anit-Americanism was directly spoken, by him, in plain English, without a pretext or subtext. I watched the interview several times to make sure I wasn’t missing something. My guess, it was Lerher (sp?), or someone like him, who did the interview. I just cannot recall now.

    Technically, I am away from home, thus the computer. But, I had to clear this up.

    I just did an Ask.com search, to make sure the face and name where correct, in that they fit. They are, and do. I see he has died. So, I don’t worry about him having changed his mind.

31. McL: Even if doing so was suicidal?

    A choice example at trying to focus on an irrelevant detail when your main point is lost, no? Regardless of the hypothetical, the point of Wallace’s reply, and Jennings’ shameful backdown had nothing to do with a concern for their own skins, but everything to do with a refusal to save the lives of their own people solely in order to “get the story”.

    McL: There is such a thing as right and wrong, i.e. objective morality.

    Yes there is, but it’s not the same as objective facts, and anyone who pretends it is, as though facts come labeled with little “good” and “evil” stickers, is either simple-minded or disingenuous. And the duty of a reporter is to report the facts, not to select and design those facts so as to reflect their personal view of that objective morality. Such a duty may only be an ideal to be striven for, perhaps, but it should at least be that.

    McL: What’s more important, your ideals or your nationality?

    Interesting that “ideals” and “nationality” here seem to involve an either/or opposition, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t the support of your nation be at least a part of your ideals? Whatever happened to that common leftist cry of “Don’t question our patriotism?” — do you think maybe it emerges from a bad conscience?

32. And by the way, contrary to Mitsu, the principle of journalistic non-involvement is not what is at issue here at all — in the first place, it’s a guideline or rule of thumb, not a “principle”, and in the second place it’s an entirely obvious guideline that no one is questioning. What is being questioned is whether such a guideline should be taken to trump all other considerations, as is clearly implied by Wallace, with Jennings’ acquiescence. Talking about the abstract issue of “journalistic non-involvement” becomes just a way of trying to change the subject.

33. GREAT post, Neo. I’ve seen that episode several times, and thought it was fantastically illustrative of all that was wrong with journalists today. Everyone should call their local PBS affiliate and ask them to run it. Fortunately, the Orange County, CA affiliate seems to run it about every six weeks.

    So many points that are so wrong, but I think there’s an underlying idea that seems to be throwing many off-track. The idea that there can actually be an exercisable “principle of journalistic non-interference”. It’s a complete impossibility. Heisenberg. The moment a reporter observes something, much less reports on it, he has affected ‘the story’. People react differently when a camera is on, or they are ‘on the record’, or even ‘off the record’ with the knowledge that they are talking to a reporter. Once a reporter files a story, the simple act of making something public knowledge will have far reaching affects. There is a reason that tyrannies control the press- it has tremendous affect, even when people KNOW that they can’t trust it. So the whole idea that reporters aren’t an intimately involved part of the whole works is silly at best. C’mon, tons of kids in J school are there because they think they can make a difference in the world. Does that sound detached to you?

    “When patriotism begins to demand allegiance above accountability, that’s when we should all start worrying.”

    Patriotism to what? Allegiance to whom? Whose accountability? What a meaningless statement, unless you load it with the usual anti-American ideology. Patriotism and allegiance to the U.S, bad. Accountability to mythical journalistic ethics, good.
    We get it. We’ve heard that song before.

    “Journalists see their job as reporting. They are targeted for violence as it is, but something that protects them is this idea that they are not active participants in what they are covering.”

    Journalists have no protection whatsoever from terrorists and tyrants. They are regularly silenced and killed by them. There’s a reason most western reporters in Iraq hang around the hotel bar while their stringers go out and work up propaganda pieces for the terrorists, and it isn’t because they worry that the Marines are going to kill them. Get real.

    McLovin, You seem to know very little about the men in our armed forces. You might want to start with a post over at Blackfive about a friend of his who had been killed in Iraq.
    here’s the key lines:
    “The one part that I left out of this post is that Major Schram’s convoy was followed by a car with a major weekly magazine reporter in it. Once the action began, the reporter and his driver turned and got the hell out of there. If it wasn’t for Mat’s charge up into the ambushers, they never would have made it out of there alive.

    The weekly magazine never ran a story about my good friend, Mat.”

    There are other stories, but I doubt you’re really interested. You’ve already got it all figured out. You should be a journalist (if you aren’t already).

    But I’ll toss a few more your way, just in case.

    Like this one:
    “The most spectacular recent case of a journalist with an antiwar mindset being completely overwhelmed into a change of heart by American soldiers, according to the public affairs officer, was a Greek public television reporter who had been embedded with an infantry unit that became entrenched in a 45-minute firefight with insurgents. Yanked out of the line of fire by a soldier who put the journalist’s life above his own, he waited under cover and in fear of his life for the almost hourlong duration of the battle, with the best view possible of American soldiers in action against an armed and murderous enemy. He credits his having lived to tell the tale directly to those young troops.”

    or this about BBC reporter Ben Brown:
    “More recently, Ben was embedded with British troops in the Iraq war. Ben wrote about his experiences in a book, ‘The Battle for Iraq’, notably how a British soldier saved his life by opening fire on an Iraqi militiaman who was just about to shoot Ben in the back with a rocket-propelled grenade. He recounted how he elatedly kissed the gunner from the Irish Guards; “It was a natural reaction I suppose, but later I was rather disgusted with my delight. Reporters are supposed to be observers of the battlefield, not participants. I wondered if, by being so close to the British troops, I had somehow crossed an invisible line.”

    Yeah, he crossed an invisible line- from idiocy to lucidity.

34. Doom — I looked up the Jennings quote online, and the exact quote was that he said his mother “was pretty anti-American. And so I was, in some respects, raised with anti-Americanism in my blood or in my mother’s milk at least.” He doesn’t claim that he himself is anti-American, just that his mother was and it was part of his experience growing up. And, really, if you know many Canadians you would know a lot of them are “anti-American” in the same way Yankees fans are anti-Red Sox. I mean, they complain about the US but obviously Canadians aren’t anti-American in the sense that they want harm to come to America, or they don’t feel close to the US at the same time. Brothers often fight each other but they are allied against people outside the family. I think the same can be said for most of Canadian so-called “ant-Americanism.”

35. Heh, and back over. “Reporters are supposed to be observers of the battlefield, not participants.”

    Like he would have been a non-participant when that RPG went off in his back? Right.

36. douglas and Sally,

    Of course there’s no absolute “principle of journalistic non-interference” and as I myself pointed out, I agree that it clearly shouldn’t trump every other consideration. And, equally obviously, it’s not something that can in fact be practiced perfectly, as reporting a story changes the story no matter how objective you try to be. But I strongly disagree that this is just some sort of vague “guideline” — particularly with war reporting, it’s a principle that many reporters and photographers really adhere to very strongly, whether you agree with it or not. And I also think it’s ludicrous to suggest that this principle has no effect on the safety of reporters in a war zone. There are many examples of reporters being allowed to get interviews with people who would kill them in an instant if they were an American soldier. It’s simply a fact that the non-interference reputation of journalists helps them do their job and helps to save their lives in tough situations. Obviously this is something that has to be balanced against saving lives (as I myself said) but it’s hardly a “change of subject” — this is what is at issue in the hypothetical situation Neo outlined above. It’s not a matter of Jennings being afraid to sacrifice his life (as McLovin suggested) nor is it just a matter of reporters wanting to “get the scoop” for personal reasons only — it IS a principle which has some value in protecting journalistic access, and while it’s just one of many principles that have to be balanced, it’s not one that should be taken lightly, in my opinion.

37. >Like he would have been a non-participant when that RPG
    >went off in his back? Right.

    Oh, give me a break. Obviously reporters can’t be entirely uninvolved in a story, the point is they try to be (and should try to be, up to a point). Reporters risk their lives every day in war zones and I for one am grateful to them for doing so. Trying to stay objective and uninvolved doesn’t mean they aren’t risking their lives to get the story. The fact that a reporter might get killed in a war zone is obvious, and has nothing to do with the issue here.

38. it IS a principle which has some value in protecting journalistic access

    So does the “principle” of taking a tape recorder with you when you do interviews have some value in preserving journalistic details — so what?

    Try to focus, here, Mitsu. The issue for Wallace and Jennings was, yes, the “hypothetical situation”; but the issue here — i.e., the topic of the post and the thread — was Wallace’s and Jennings’ response to the hypothetical, which you keep trying to ignore.

39. The fact that a reporter might get killed in a war zone is obvious, and has nothing to do with the issue here.

    I think you’ve been given too many breaks. The fact that a reporter might get killed in a war zone — and is made safer by the troops that reporter is covering — is precisely relevant to the point that two prominent reporters announced that, given the opportunity, they would refuse to lift a finger to help those same troops. On the other hand, the idea that as a general rule, but one with lots of exceptions, reporters should try to stay out of their own stories as far as possible, is so trivially obvious that no one else has anything to say about it.

40. >So does the “principle” of taking a tape recorder with you

    The point I am making is that principles are things that one adheres to even when it is difficult or personally uncomfortable. I’m sure most reporters have a lot of personal opinions about the stories they report on, and inevitably that colors their reporting — but they restrain themselves from getting involved even when they have strong opinions, and this to me elevates this “guideline” as you call it to the level of principle. For example, journalists have gone to jail to protect the confidentiality of their sources … that is a journalistic principle which has caused great discomfort to some journalists but they fight for it because otherwise the entire enterprise of a free press could potentially be threatened.

    The same is the case with the principle of journalistic non-interference, so yes, I think you’re simply wrong to suggest this is in any way a sidetrack. It is what is at issue in this case.

    The point is, above, both Neo and some of the commenters to this thread initially posted as though Wallace and Jennings were complete bastards who responded as they did for no reason whatsoever, except some sort of selfish desire to get a sensational story. I am saying that, while I might disagree with their response, there is a line they were trying not to cross, and it is a line that reporters shouldn’t cross except in extraordinary circumstances. So, one can disagree with them but it’s not as though what they said is based on completely selfish or entirely base motives. There is a journalistic principle at stake that deserves to be considered in any war reporting situation or reporting in general.

41. >The fact that a reporter might get killed in a war zone – and
    >is made safer by the troops that reporter is covering – is
    >precisely relevant

    What are you talking about? Your comment is a total non-sequitur to what I was saying. I wasn’t talking about that, but the fact that douglas was claiming that the fact that a reporter might get killed in a war zone means he or she is already “involved” in the story he is trying to cover. I am saying that the fact that he might get killed is irrelevant to the principle that reporters should try to stay uninvolved in what they are covering. It has no bearing on that whatsoever. Your comments are valid but not what I was talking about at all.

42. It isn’t just Neo and “some of the commenters” — see the documents from the Frontline broadcast from which she gathered the quotes. See if you can understand just this much: no one is disputing the principle, guideline, whatever, of “journalistic non-involvement” in general — not me, certainly, and not Neo, and not other commenters, and not the commentary in those PBS documents. No one. Not one. It’s precisely what’s meant by a non-issue in the context of this thread and topic.

    The whole issue here, on the other hand, has to do with the moral and human line that Wallace and Jennings did cross in responding as they did, and whether that makes them “complete bastards”, or something less, or something worse.

43. Sally,

    Perhaps *you* understand this principle clearly, but I am responding to specific comments. For example, Neo wrote (and I want to say that on the whole, I find Neo’s writing quite lucid and rational — so this is not meant as a general criticism of her writing in general, but merely a comment I am raising in reply to something she wrote): ‘reporters elevating themselves and their profession into “journalists” who stand above such petty emotions as nationalism’ — similarly, another commenter wrote ‘In this case the journalists have placed themselves on Mt. Olympus. They are saying, “We are wiser and we kinow better than the citizens that have been elected to protect the country.”’

    These comments seem to indicate that what is at issue is the reporters thinking of themselves as higher arbiters of ethics than, say, soldiers, but I think the situation is quite the reverse. Both Wallace and Jennings, like any of us, recognize the fact that not intervening to save lives would be an ethical lapse in any ordinary situation, but they are saying that reporters have a responsibility *not* in some sense to sacrifice even their own personal sense of morality in order to protect the principle of journalistic non-interference — to protect journalistic access in war situations, to avoid interfering with the story.

    Again, as I’ve said numerous times — we may disagree with the call they made. But I don’t think these calls are easy to make.

44. correction: I meant to write that they are saying that reporters have a responsibility to sacrifice even their own personal sense of morality to protect the principle of journalistic non-interference. That general principle, in some sense, is to avoid making ethical calls, and just observe, to the extent possible. They’re trying, in some sense, to avoid playing God (as another commenter accused them), not the reverse.

    So, while we can disagree with them in this hypothetical, I would say this: if it was a choice between staying uninvolved when they should be involved and getting overly involved, I’d rather have reporters erring on the side of staying uninvolved than the reverse, because I think overall staying uninvolved gives us better access to information out here than if reporters were getting involved too often with the situations they’re reporting on. Naturally, in a perfect world we’d want reporters to make the right ethical call in every circumstance — crossing the line when it was appropriate and not crossing it when it isn’t — but I’m simply saying I can understand Wallace’s attitude that it is better for reporters to avoid making that call altogether because if they start making these calls regularly, it could mean far too much involvement on the part of reporters, which would have a negative effect on reporting overall.

    Reporters aren’t soldiers and we don’t need them to become soldiers, in other words. Yes, perhaps in this hypothetical they should become soldiers — but I’m not as shocked as some of you are that Wallace thinks the opposite. We already have soldiers on the field and we need reporters as well, to do a different job, in my view, on the whole.

45. Doom, I was just commenting on your use of the present tense. I gathered that you did not realize that Jennings died a while ago. I wasn’t questioning your understanding of the content of what Jennings said when he was alive.

46. But it seems, to me, creepy and immoral to accompany them when they might possibly attack Americans. The more I think about accompanying such a patrol, the more it turns my stomach.-GC

    If someone like me were figuring out how to solve this problem, gc, it would be through the use of bugs and spies on reporters. When you know a reporter is going to meet with a “source”, that is of course AP sponsored terrorism or something similar, then you just target in a concrete bomb and nail the reporter when you think he is with his source. Same for when you start to figure out that this reporter always seems to be around attacks on our convoys and what not. Or simply “near the attacks”. Then instead of bombing the reporter, you simply prepare counter-ambushes and wait for the reporter to ‘spring’ the enemy ambush if an allied convoy or soldier comes into range. Counter-ambushing the ambushing terrorists inflicts damage that the terrorists simply can’t recover from. Precisely because they can’t just “run away” once they have commmitted to the attack. They could if they were ambushing someone else, cause their retreat lines are safe or available. But we would already have covered those lines if we know that there would be an attack in a specific place. Which we would know if we tailed, bugged, and tracked reporters known to always or nearly always be around terrorist attacks.

    The media is just like any other enemy, GC. Know them for what they are and be sure to keep track of what they are doing. The more you know, the better you can fight.

    Even useful idiots have their uses to us, Gc.

    Currently, we have this ethical gray area in which the media are sort of on our side and sort of our on enemy’s side. We give them protections as if they protect and serve us, even when we know they don’t. Then we have people like Yon and totten and Vince Foster which must be protected, intermingled with all those reporters that are knowingly sabotaging us, like that France propaganda film about the Palestinian boy. They knew exactly what they were doing, and those types of folks are in Iraq, you can bet on that.

    What’s more important, your ideals or your nationality?

    Just do what Benedict Arnold did when he asked himself the same question.

    When the two come into conflict, which should you favor?

    Isn’t that a much more realistic question?

    Indeed it is, since it has been asked and answered by real people.

    I’m so proud of their willingness to take on that role.-tom

    Hey, Known Spies are great. If you got the will to use that knowledge.

    Bush may not, true, but that won’t always be true.

    Remember, the hypothetical neoneocon cited involved a reporter alerting soldiers to an ambush in a situation that would almost certainly lead to the reporter’s immediate death.

    Michael Totten will never be working in a terrorist outfit filming their rapes and murdering mayhem of his own free will, so that hypothetical is like asking “if you were taking a wooden stake and impaling six year olds, do you not have an ethical responsibility to inform the UN so that they could come in and watch”.

    No, you don’t.

    Neo’s hypothetical, assuming you didn’t gloss over something for your own benefit, Mc, has answered itself. When a reporter puts himself or herself into the hands of the enemy, he is no longer fighting on our side anymore. Whether because he is a POW or otherwise, does not matter. He is no longer fighting on our side anymore.

    but obviously Canadians aren’t anti-American in the sense that they want harm to come to America

    And this has what to do with Benedict Arnold being a traitor that also did not want harm to come to America?

    He’s still a traitor and Canadians are still anti-American in large part. Nothing changes that.

    Obviously reporters can’t be entirely uninvolved in a story-Mitsu

    Of course. That is why when a reporter can benefit from being more objective through sacrificing men, women, and children, the reporter should do so given the Ethics of Journalists which place a higher priority on other journalists than any other entity.

    Reporters risk their lives every day in war zones and I for one am grateful to them for doing so.

    Everybody in a war zone risks their lives. Enemy, allied, loyal, disloyal, civilian, military, front line, back line, any and all in the war zone are at risk.

    You might as well be “grateful” to the harsh cruelty of war as be grateful for the fact that reporters risk their lives every day in war zones. Just because a terrorist or enemy ally risks his life, doesn’t mean I have to be “grateful” for it. Such is not the ethics by which I go by. I have different standards for what is good or not, Mitsu. Which are not based upon what you consider journalist standards.

    Some reporters, like Totten, have proven by their words and actions that they are not enemies. Those I value. Others are like any other thing in war. Unknown and potential threats to be taken care of.

    The point I am making is that principles are things that one adheres to even when it is difficult or personally uncomfortable.

    And the point I am making is that people like Yon or Totten have different principles than some other reporters, or even you, have.

    There have been instances of goodwill and honor between people of opposing sides, of course. But in this war, that is doubtful.

    but they restrain themselves from getting involved even when they have strong opinions

    For an example of what I mean by different principles, here is an elaboration. Some people do in fact believe in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that you cannot observe reality without also changing that reality. Your way of seeing things, Mitsu, discounts Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle because you have a different view of human nature, or emphasis on the priority of human nature, than I do. You think it is a good ethical principle to restrain yourself from getting involved even when you have a strong opinion. Other people recognize that you are already involved once you are an observer, that it is your choice which side to aide. In this war, there are no neutrals. There are no targets off the list for both sides. Not for each side, but for both sides. Anything in Iraq can be hit, nothing is discounted, for there are no neutrals in this war. Everyone has a stake in whether their side wins or the other does.

    But if you don’t have a high priority on human nature, Mitsu, then war will not factor in as a reality changing situation when you try to create ethical frameworks.

    There are no such things as the Red Cross that can help the wounded of both sides, without getting “involved” in the conflict. Journalists are neither brave enough nor competent enough, even assuming they are good enough human beings for such a task. The closest to the Red Cross formed after the US Civil War, for the benefit of the wounded on both sides, is the Army medical corps. Which is an American entity, if you recall.

    The same is the case with the principle of journalistic non-interference, so yes, I think you’re simply wrong to suggest this is in any way a sidetrack. It is what is at issue in this case.

    If people actually look up and read the Journalist code of conduct, they will see just how many loopholes there are in it to be able to side with and aide evil. To call such a thing “ethics” is to call the UN pristine.

    I am saying that, while I might disagree with their response, there is a line they were trying not to cross, and it is a line that reporters shouldn’t cross except in extraordinary circumstances. So, one can disagree with them but it’s not as though what they said is based on completely selfish or entirely base motives. There is a journalistic principle at stake that deserves to be considered in any war reporting situation or reporting in general.

    You don’t accurately analyze human motivations because you don’t base your judgements on human nature, nor do you even think human nature is uncheangeable enough to form as the foundation for accurate beliefs and judgements. On this basis, there can be no intersection of views or agreement.

    To say that Wallace has ethics is like saying an animal has ethics. Maybe true, but the ethics of self-preservation and ambition are not the same as selfless sacrifice in the belief of human progress and liberty that classical liberals have.

    To conflate the two types of ethics, is a gross disservice to those who are actually ethical.

    They’re trying, in some sense, to avoid playing God (as another commenter accused them), not the reverse.

    I doubt they believe in a God. They do not believe there is a higher authority that can judge their actions to be wrong, for they know that their actions are right. You disagree only because you cannot accurately analyze human motivations and psychology.

    Jennings may have believed in God, Mike certainly could have gone both ways with an atheist father and Catholic mother. He may have just taken up anti-Americanism as a religion when he didn’t like his mother’s Catholic teachings To Mike, there is a very high chance that there is no God in Heaven, thus leaving Wallace a convenient vacancy.

47. Pingback:A couple interviews Mike Wallace did on religion and atheism « Sake White

48. McLovin Said:
    “As an American citizen, do have a right to decide for myself how to best support American ideals in wartime, or do I have to obey the dictates of a particular political faction or government office?”

    No, you don’t get to decide. That’s called citizenship. In a democracy you express your opinion of policies or policymakers at election time, then you go along with the majority decision. That’s how democracy works. (Example: the abolition controversy which led to the Civil War. Your argument is that slaveowners had every right to defy the government and keep other humans in perpetual servitude, even if the majority of their fellow citizens thought otherwise. Congratulations, Mr. Davis.)

    “What if our ideas about how to win the war against Islamic radicalism differ? Does that give me the right to call you a traitor?”

    As I said, you can express those different ideas all you want. We have freedom of speech. You can express those ideas at the ballot box. We are a democracy. But you don’t get to carry out actions contrary to the national policy. That’s in the Constitution — Article I, section 10 prohibits states, and by inference individuals, from conducting their own separate foreign policy.

    As to treason, that’s defined in Article III, section 3: levying war against the united states, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

    If you can find two witnesses who can testify that I’ve done that, you have an absolute right to accuse me. But differences of opinion over policy aren’t treason: it’s acts that matter. The Wallace example describes an act which is clearly “adhering” to our enemies, and indeed might qualify as directly levying war.

    Finally, there’s just the simple human matter of loyalty. If you’re not willing to stand up for your own God-damned country, what the hell good are you?

49. Get a load of this reporter working for the AP being objective, folks.

    Link

50. Mitsu: Yes, perhaps in this hypothetical they should become soldiers – but I’m not as shocked as some of you are that Wallace thinks the opposite.

    Well, after much contortion, and a lot of verbiage, we at least get a position on the issue at hand out of Mitsu, though even now he gets it wrong: no one is saying that reporters should become soldiers, even in this hypothetical case — we’re simply saying that they should be human beings, and citizens of their country, and act as such, rather than act as though they’re some sort of amoral alien from the planet Report. Mitsu — and other lefties, so long as the hypothetical involves betraying American troops, at least — says he’s not “shocked” that reporters would decide in favor of the amoral alien option. I guess there’s no accounting for taste, even in the sphere of morality — you can find some people who profess not to have been shocked by 9/11 after all. But most people, as the Frontline document made clear, are indeed shocked and angered that a decision between betraying a reportorial “principle” on the one hand and betraying one’s country on the other would even be close.

51. >most people … are indeed shocked and angered

    And perhaps they should be, but all I’m arguing is that Wallace isn’t expressing some view that he made up himself, or that is based on some leftist or “postmodern” academic concept, it’s an idea that has been part of journalistic ethics for a very long time. The reason I’m not shocked by it is simply because I’ve heard journalists talk about it before, and at first I was kind of shocked but later thought it through and realized it makes some sense (even if it is somewhat shocking — and I’m sure it would be better not to adhere to the principle 100% of the time). Wallace’s interpretation is absolutist — reporters shouldn’t make ethical judgement calls, period — but he didn’t invent it, even that interpretation of it. And I really doubt Wallace himself has ever faced a situation like the one in the hypothetical, in person; we’re talking about something abstract here — if he were really out there, what he would do may well be quite different.

    But my main point is this “Planet Report” idea isn’t some invention of the leftist postmodern intelligentsia. As I noted before, this war/disaster photographer used to adhere to the “non-interference” idea in a similarly absolutist way — he would travel to war zones and disaster zones and photograph what was happening without getting involved, at all. It sounds strange and perhaps it’s a bad idea — but as I said before I can see why he did this — but when his decision not to involve himself may have caused the death of someone he had photographed, it changed his career. So, yes, reporters are human after all, and this guy realized he couldn’t handle the ethical tension any more — but he also realized that he probably couldn’t go into war zones and disaster zones and do his job if he was constantly making these judgement calls — so he decided to stop reporting those things, period, and moved on to lighter subjects.

52. Mitsu:

    That statement is factually wrong. Wallace’s position is not some age-old bedrock principle of journalism. It’s something he basically made up himself. As recently as the early 1960s American journalists understood that they are Americans first and journalists second. Reporters from just about every other society on Earth still understand that. This isn’t a keystone of press freedom, it’s a recent pathology which is destroying journalism in America, turning it into some kind of weird self-hating propaganda machine.

53. People need to stop dragging Heisenberg into discussions about ethics. The uncertainty principle has to do with measuring the position and momentum of subatomic particles – not measuring the loyalty of reporters on the battlefield.

    If we’re referring to the observer effect – the idea that by merely observing a phenomenon we change it – again, I think this has more to do with quantum physics than macro-world phenomena. Mike Wallace probably won’t listen if you tell him he should warn the troops because of Schroedinger’s Cat.

    I just finished reading “Slightly Out of Focus,” by Robert Capa. It’s a narrative of his experiences as a war photographer in WWII. I never got the impression that he was worried about objectivity – about getting the Germans’ or Italians’ side of the story. He also didn’t appear interested in educating the ignorant American public about the “true cost of war” or any other preconceived theme. He just travelled around with the troops, photographing what he encountered – surrendering German generals, starving Italian orphans, filthy exhausted American infantry, jubilant French girls at the liberation of Paris. I never got the impression that he considered himself or other journalists somehow special or charged with a sacred mission. In fact, he’s totally self-deprecating about himself and his colleagues. The military and the magazines and papers treated them pretty much like disposable assets, and none of them seemed to expect anything different. A far cry from today’s situation.

    So I’m wondering – why did journalists metamorphosize from hard-drinking, cigar-chomping mugs into anointed defenders of Universal Justice? When did they become elites rather than working stiffs? (You could ask the same questions about actors, by the way.)

54. This is a great discussion.

    Let me add some historical perceptions. I was a teen during WWII, a college student during Korea, and a Navy pilot during Vietnam. I witnessed the morphing of journalism from it’s position of trying to report the facts and let the reader decide.

    As I understand it journalists are supposed to include who, where, when, how, and what happened. They are supposed to report the unadulterated facts to inform the reader. The reader can then form an opinion about why something had happened and whether it was good or bad. Opinion was not supposed to be a part of the story. Opinion was expressed on the editorial page.

    Vietnam changed all that. There have been reams of material written about the reporters that went to Vietnam and found not the glorious war they had expected, but a dirty, back-alley knife fight that didn’t seem to make any sense to them. (Most of them did not perceive Communism as a threatening force.) Most became quite disillusioned and cynical about the war. At the same time Communist propaganda was being spread through U.S. colleges that, of course, made its way into mainstream journalism. The gist of the propaganda was that the U.S. had become illegally involved in a “civil war.” The mantra was that the U.S. was wrong and our legally elected leaders were corrupt, venal, and had to be dissuaded from prosecuting the illegal war. As the war drug on and the casualties mounted the protestations became louder and louder. Covering the anti-war effort began to sell a lot of copy. And some august journalists (Walter Cronkite & others) decided that, yes, the war was unwinnable and the U.S. was, indeed, wrong. Public opinion followed.

    The aftermath of our ignoble withdrawal and betrayal of the South Vietnamese is well known, but seldom thought about today because it was so shameful. (Thanks to Neo for covering this in detail on her blog)

    However, journalists decided that they had played a noble role in bringing all this about. Prizes were awarded, books were published, and the mantra of journalism schools seemed to be: We must always remain alert to opportunities to thwart wrong-headed moves by the government. If what the elected leaders propose is, in our opinion, wrong we must do everything to stop them. That is how we can make a difference in the world.

    Fast forward to 9/11. Even the most cynical and world weary journalists were shocked by the attack on the U.S. For a few days, at least, most of them believed an act of war had been committed. But when it became apparent that we were going to actually do something other than protest to the UN and send some FBI agents out to investigate the terrorists, many in the MSM (NYT, WA Post, LA Times, etc) began to swing into their Vietnam mode. We heard facts about Afghanistan like: The Russiands failed there. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan. Afghanistan will be another quagmire like Vietnam. Etc. Etc. Etc. The quest also began to find out why the terrorists hated us and what we must do to make amends.

    Much the same was heard during the lead up to Iraq. Anmd since.

    Now to an example of what we are all talking about here, which, IMO, is that journalism and journalists today try to claim that they are objective and do not have an agenda except to inform.

    Let me refute that. The Abu Ghraib scandal was on the front page of the Seattle Times (and most other big city dailies)for over weeks. The stories were full of florid adjectives chosen to make people irate about our soldiers even being in Iraq, much less doing the stupid things (yes, they were STUPID!) that a handful of soldiers did. During this time the Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq captured Nick Berg and released a blood curdling video of him being beheaded. That story appeared on the fourth or fifth page of the Seattle Times and it was quite short. It was a paragon of journalistsic virtue. What, who, where, when, etc. all done in perfectly neutral prose calculated to inform only. Yessir, they say, “We report, you decide.” Hogwash! They claim to be objective purveyors of truth, when, in fact they have an agenda that is obvious to any thinking person.

    Fortunately, the marketplace is rendering a judgment on their brand of hypocrisy.

55. jimmy j: great post! God I love sane people!

    I’m only 33, so I dont have a longer view of the changes between generations… but it seems to me that logic and reason and clear-thinking is being decimated in those younger than me.

    Is this true.. or am I just “getting old” ?

56. There is one point may missed her, is it the reporter story or the agency that sent him to the field to report stories?

    How the agenesis like the story to be folded and published.

    This issue should account as the reporter not entirely free to report what he sow put he should reporting with the guidelines his agency bound him and his works.

57. Truth – That’s a good point. I don’t know to what extent a reporter’s boss sends him or her out with a specific “mission,” i.e., to report a story in a specific way. Ideally, we would like to think that a reporter observes a situation, comes up with his own interpretation, brings it to the editor, and together they decide what the story “means.” I know that newspapers have editorial policies or stances about various things. I don’t know whether reporters in the field intentionally look for facts and incidents to support those stances. Does anybody know?

58. The uncertainty principle has to do with measuring the position and momentum of subatomic particles – not measuring the loyalty of reporters on the battlefield.

    I didn’t refer to measuring the loyalty of reporters on the battlefield. The Uncertainty Principle has a lot more to do with human problems than just the physics of particles, just as physics has a lot more to do with human survival than just a few equations about parabolic trajectory.

    If we’re referring to the observer effect – the idea that by merely observing a phenomenon we change it – again, I think this has more to do with quantum physics than macro-world phenomena.

    The observer effect exists because of Heisenberg’s law. It is a matter of epistemology, not metaphysics. If it was about metaphysics, then quantum effects could and should not apply to macroscopic effects like what individuals choose to do. Since this is epistemology I am talking about and utilizing, then it is not as if the limitations on quantum mechanics applies to how human minds work.

    Mike Wallace probably won’t listen if you tell him he should warn the troops because of Schroedinger’s Cat.

    It has never mattered what Wallace will or will not do. That choice is out of our hands. We can only utilize the fact that reporters change what they are viewing, for our side instead of theirs.

    Also editors ensure that even if a reporter wants to do something good, that it won’t get published. Thus there is no incentive or reward for doing what is right, only what the editor wants. And of course, the editor doesn’t know what will sell, the editor only knows what will serve as propaganda for his ideology.

59. Let me refute that. The Abu Ghraib scandal ….(yes, they were STUPID!)

    Jimmy J.
    With all due respect of your view in this case may be close to the view that stated The mindless cruelty of a miscreant handful of soldiers..

    But the facts are Abu Ghraib is not because of “some Bad Apples”?

    But what we saw at Abu Ghraib, we now know, were exactly the techniques that McCarthy supports: stress positions, abuse short of torture, sexual humiliation, religious abuse, and all the other techniques the Pentagon approved to break down resistance to giving up information. It was cruel, but it sure wasn’t mindless. It was designed to soften inmates up before interrogation – to prevent and stymie an insurgencyThe new regime at Abu Ghraib in which such “mindless cruelty” took place was installed by General Geoffrey Miller who had been personally dispatched by Donald Rumsfeld to “Gitmoize” the place.

60. Y – Agreed about the effect of a reporter on the battlefield, just not sure it has anything to do with quantum physics. Minor quibble, anyway. I would agree that by observing and reporting an event, the reporter becomes part of that event. That’s not to say they should just throw up their hands and actively participate. But they should NOT pretend they’re uninvolved.

    I think the military as a whole as well as individual outfits have the right to check out a reporter and decide whether they want him or her along on a mission. From their point of view, freedom of the press does not trump survival. If a reporter wants to die for his craft, fine – but the reporter should not expect anyone else to die for it.

    Of course, not allowing a press person on a mission will probably result in bad press for the military. At best, the story will become “what’s the military hiding?” and at worst the reporter will try to fill in the blanks without firsthand knowledge.

    As far as Abu Ghraib and other scandals – It’s often remarked that the military discovered the problem and conducted its own investigation. I’m wondering if the investigation would have been as prompt and thorough if the powers that be didn’t have to worry about the consequences if the press found out first. I’m not saying the military would have ignored mistreatment or atrocities – just that prospect of a media circus might make them a little more meticulous about keeping their house clean.

61. Truth,
    You’re not getting the point. My point isn’t about who might have been at ultimate fault for what happened at Abu Ghraib.

    The point is that the MSM could have reported the incidents in scholarly, detached, objective fashion giving the public the who, what, where, when, and how. Then they could let the readers or viewers, as the case may be, make up their minds about whether it was right and why it was done. Instead, the way the stories were written they were calculated to elicit outrage at the Bush administration and, not just the soldiers involved, but the entire military.

    In contrast they reported a barbarous action by our enemies, the terrorists, in classic neutral, objective fashion. Just the objective facts and let the reader decide why it was done and whether it was a good or bad thing. Why the difference in reporting the two stories?

    For anyone with a room temperature IQ or above, it seems painfully obvious that the MSM is NOT, as they try to tell us, without biases and agendas. I would have more respect for them if they would openly admit that yes, they are biased and yes, they are trying to mold public opinion in a certain direction.

    You can ramble on about who was responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib. That’s your right, but it has nothing to do with my point.

62. Jimmy J.

    I take your point, although reporting the terrorist act of criminals should never be ignored or marginalized but because that Abu Ghraib was done by an American solders who sent to free the Iraqis and help them not to tortured them and was done according to orders of commanders (its not my attentions to ramble on about who was responsible) that gave the priority and the importance for reporting that’s may be the case.

    As for bringing “anyone with a room temperature IQ or above,” in regards of media biased in this case or another which I am not dropping this fact here, it’s same argument with “anyone with a room temperature IQ or above,” there are more doubt that the media have not done perfect job in any way prior to 2003 war with reporting and making people believe that Iraq can hit Europe in 45min with WMD!! all sorts of those talks by reporting they prepared the ground to lunch the war and after this the case with MSM or NYT or other media outlet like FOX and others, , in fact the media clearly biased with Arab / Palestine Israeli conflict there is very clear biased views by most reporting and media outlets.

63. After visiting relatives and being away from my computer for a few days, I am late to this particular discussion, so don’t know if this comment will even be noticed, but this thought occurred to me years ago, and now I have a chance to use it.

    Suppose the following: Mike Wallace (disregard that he is too old for this) and Peter Jennings (yes I know he’s dead, pretend otherwise for the moment), are embedded with the so-called insurgents, who have managed to secretly infiltrate a large force in and around an American Forward Operating Base (FOB) recently established in a valley in a mountainous part of Faroffistan. The enemy force has vastly superior numbers, as well as numerous heavy weapons, and is quite likely to overrun the FOB when they launch their attack. Previous insurgent practice in such attacks has included beheading all prisoners.

    With the wonders of modern technology, Wallace and Jennings realize they could secretly text a message on their cell phones back to their studios, at some small risk to themselves. The studio could in turn alert CENTCOM in Florida, and conceivably alert the FOB and get air support and quick reaction troops on the way in time to reinforce the FOB and prevent the attack.

    Would they do it? Of course not. They have a “higher duty.”

    But lets add this wrinkle. Unbeknownst to the insurgents, Wallace, and Couric, US surveillance assets have been tracking the insurgent force, and in fact, the FOB was established as bait to draw them to this particular valley, where every possible nook and cranny has been surveyed and turned into coordinates for precision guided weapons. Likely escape routes have also been plotted, and special forces are being quietly move into place behind the insurgent force astride these routes. Once the last insurgents are in place, massive airstrikes will be launched to annihilate the insurgent force in its pre-ambush positions, and any survivors who attempt to escape will be destroyed by the special forces either by the SFs calling in airstrikes, or using direct small arms fire.

    SIGINT (signals intelligence, i.e. electronic eavesdropping) has detected Wallace’s and Jennings’ occasional text and voice messages while tracking the insurgent force. It is likely, in fact highly probable, that they would both be killed in the airstrikes.

    Do Wallace and Jennings think that CENTCOM should try to secretly notify them via text message that they should leave, at the risk of tipping off the insurgents?

    Do they think the airstrike should be called off in order to prevent their deaths? If the airstrikes are called off, though, the FOB will be overrun. Do Wallace and Jennings think this just?

    If Wallace and Jennings could secretly communicate their position, do they think the US should avoid bombing that location, even though it would result in large numbers of insurgents escaping — possibly so many that the special forces could not deal with them?

    Let’s assume Wallace and Jennings do survive the strike and find themselves making their way out of the valley with surviving insurgents. Also assume the special forces waiting in ambush have been informed of Wallace’s and Jennings’ presence and have directly observed apparently western journalists in the company of a large force of fleeing insurgents. There are too many insurgents for the small special forces team to engage directly with small arms — their choice is either to use a Fuel/Air Explosive (makes a REALLY BIG bang) that will destroy the entire force, thus killing Wallace and Jennings, or let the force escape for now, knowing that they will not get a good chance to interdict them again.

    What do Wallace and Jennings think the special forces should do? Doesn’t the military have a “higher duty” to win? The Laws of Armed Conflict do not absolutely forbid killing civilians, only that the military try to avoid it, and that the value of the military objective outweigh the cost of the civilian loss. Doesn’t killing a large force of insurgents outweigh the loss of two journalists? Especially when the journalists can hardly be said to be innocent bystanders — they aren’t villagers who happened to be in the way, they chose to be with insurgent forces.

    Wonder how Wallace Jennings would parse this?

    elb

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