The recent scandal involving 60 Minutes II once again falling for a hoax, this time regarding phony accusations that Karl Rove engineered the downfall of a former Alabama Democratic governor, got me thinking about all the news stories over the last few years where even minimal standards of professionalism would have gotten the story right.
Remember when John Ashcroft was Attorney General and he had a semi-nude statue of Justice covered up because Ashcroft is such a prude? Whoops. It turns out that one wasn't true. Remember when the Israeli army slaughtered Palestinians in the West Bank town of Jenin? That wasn't true either, and neither were all the doctored photos spread by major news sources when the Israelis invaded Lebanon to fight Hezbollah.
Let's not forget the mother of all false media reports, when Dan Rather offered up forged papers as evidence that George W. Bush had gotten favorable treatment as a member of the Air National Guard. Of course, even as it became obvious that he'd been duped, Rather famously insisted the forged documents were "fake, but accurate." Those are the high standards that have gotten CBS where it is today.
Iraq has produced some made up stories. Last summer The New Republic published fabricated pieces by serviceman Scott Beauchamp. After months of obfuscating and ducking the issue, TNR finally had to admit what was apparent to everyone: Scott Beauchamp was a liar. Recently the esteemed British medical journal The Lancet fell under scrutiny for publishing a study on civilian deaths in Iraq that likely used falsified numbers to exaggerate the number of deaths.
The New York Times has its own little sub-category of fraudulent/politicized reporting. Stuart Taylor has ripped the Times for its shoddy reporting on the so-called Duke rape case, clearly letting reporter bias get in the way of the facts. Also, recall that earlier this year the Times reported with much fanfare that Iraqi vets were coming home and committing an excessive amount of murders. Oops! It turns out Iraqi vets actually murder at a lower rate than the general public. Of course in the last week the Times impugned John McCain's reputation by clearly suggesting McCain had an affair with a female lobbyist in the late 1990s even though all those who were willing to talk on record disputed the Times' version of the facts. The Times then pondered whether McCain is a natural born citizen eligible for the presidency, a matter brought into question by McCain's birth in the Panama Canal Zone. If the Times had merely asked anyone roughly familiar with the law they would have quickly found out that this is a non-issue.
What do all these stories have in common? These stories all got into the mainstream media even though the slightest bit of fact checking or editorial scrutiny would have revealed the phony nature of the reports. Reporters and editors alike let their biases get in the way of professional judgment, the desire for the juicy story that fed their prejudices get in the way of good reporting.
The casual observer also notes that all of these stories, to one extent or another, either advocated a left-wing cause (e.g., Palestinians are victims of Israeli oppression or rich white college students rape poor black women) or embarrassed some Republican official (John Ashcroft, George Bush, John McCain). I am sure there are right-wing equivalents, although I have a hard time thinking of them. It is certainly hard to think of a false story that deeply penetrated the public conscience that was started by a mainstream media outlet and helped a Republican politician or conservative cause.
The National Review got busted with some sloppy reporting from Lebanon, but unlike other outlets, they were upfront about it, immediately corrected the stories, and disciplining the reporter. One could present the "swift boating" of John Kerry as evidence, but one must remember that the "Swifties" were clearly a political group, not a major media outlet, and even John Kerry admitted some of their accusations were true (for example, even though Kerry had once claimed that spending Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia was an experience "seared" in his memory, under scrutiny he admitted it wasn't true).
So we can say media sloppiness tends to be in one direction, i.e., biased toward the left. This is how prejudices of reporters make for bad news. Conservatives, and increasingly your common American, distrust major media outlets. It looks like they have good reason.
Recent Comments