I’ve written before about Peter Braestrup’s book Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. It describes how the media got the Tet Offensive wrong. Braestrup’s conclusion is … Continue reading →
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, … Continue reading →
[Part I here.] In his introduction to that Cronkite interview featured in Part I, Dick Gordon writes: It was February 1968, and in a three minute editorial essay on the CBS Evening news Cronkite quite simply changed the course of … Continue reading →
While Bush formulates a new plan for Iraq, and others say all is lost there no matter what, I’m reminded of a famous “all is lost” moment from that ever-festering sore of history, the Vietnam War: Walter Cronkite’s editorial on … Continue reading →
One major element in my political change process was my loss of faith in the MSM based on something as simple, and easily checkable, as its reporting of the speeches of public figures. I say “easily checkable,” because, with the … Continue reading →
Since last week’s election, I’ve been thinking about Vietnam. Again. Back in earlier installments of my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” series (and no, readers, I’ve not given up on composing new installments; they’re just so lengthy … Continue reading →
Bob Woodward has done an about-face from the relatively Bush-approving stance of his last two books on the administration. The present one, State of Denial, is by all accounts a description of a quarrelsome and conflict-ridden administration, with Rumsfeld, Cheney, … Continue reading →
Wretchard at Belmont Club has a post about the France2 case, in which he asks the following question: While the Press is probably honest in most things — who won the NASCAR race, what the stock price is, who won … Continue reading →
In honor of Oriana Fallaci, the fearless and uniquely outspoken correspondent who died yesterday in Florence Italy, I’m posting excerpts from her 1979 interview with Ayatollah Khomeini, which occurred not long after he came to power (these quotes appeared as … Continue reading →
Here’s the joke: A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a … Continue reading →
The utterly unique and seemingly fearless Oriana Fallaci has died. Charismatic, beautiful, outspoken, iconoclastic, articulate, fiery, controversial, in recent years Fallaci had been battling cancer, but she continued speaking out against Islam’s violent incursions into Europe. Fallaci never was one … Continue reading →
There’s a case about to begin in France that–according to blogger Richard Landes–could rival the Dreyfus case in importance. I’ve written previously about the underpinnings of the present case: the misleading media coverage of the alleged death of 12-year old … Continue reading →