I just love the following statement by Evan Thomas, Newsweek editor, concerning his periodical’s reporting of the Duke rape case: The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong. Thomas actually was one of the writers who wrote early on … Continue reading →
[Part I here.] In previous wars, allegations of atrocities have been made by either victims or witnesses. For example, in the case of My Lai, reports were originally made by US helicopter pilots who were shocked by what they saw … Continue reading →
Okay, class, I know it’s been said before, including by me. But I promise I’ll be (relatively) brief this time. Here’s how you write about Israel and Palestine if you’re a journalist today—even, apparently, if you work for the Voice … Continue reading →
Jules Crittenden has a well-worth-reading takedown of the NY Times’s editorial demanding that we get out of Iraq ASAP. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time exhaustively fisking the Times piece; Crittenden and others have done so … Continue reading →
When I was getting my Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, one of the major messages I learned was that words matter. Not just the words that clients use to each other, but the words the therapist uses in … Continue reading →
I’ve written before about journalist Seymour Hersh, whose work presently appears mainly in The New Yorker. Mr. “hardly ever met a source he was willing to name” Hersh (I’m quoting myself, by the way) has recently expanded his oeuvre by … Continue reading →
John McCain was once a media darling. The last time he ran for President, long ago and far away in 2000, the press couldn’t restrain itself from slobbering over him. Slobbering? Don’t blame me, it’s not my word. No lesser … Continue reading →
I’m reading a fascinating book by Robert Kagan entitled Dangerous Nation: America’s place in the world from its earliest days to the dawn of the twentieth century. A mouthful, I know–and that’s only Part I, which goes up to the … Continue reading →
As Blair announces and Britain prepares a phased pull out from Iraq, I noticed this list of our allies who are still there. It’s a somewhat varied and lengthy group, considering that basically this has been a US effort. And … Continue reading →
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 →