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Malkin - Calling MSM Reporting Into Question
Michelle Malkin's column re the AP's shoddy sourcing of news coming out of Iraq is right on point.
RBT would encourage all to write the editors of their local papers and request that they hold the AP accountable.
RBT
*****
Mr. Smith, Editor
Spokesman-Review
Spokane, WA
I copied my friend, Scott Malensek co-blogger, writer and author, with my earlier email with today's Michelle Malkin column. Scott wanted me to forward along these additional comments. I'm in total agreement with Scott.
I think Michelle and Scott have both made a sound prima facie case for requiring further explanation by the AP. We, as readers of your paper and others, have little control on what the AP puts on their newswire.
You and other editors are collectively the consumers/owners of their product. You can hold them accountable. If not, your publications will be tarnished by their lack of objectivity and apparent shoddy sourcing.
As I've mentioned before the survival of the print media rests with its credibility, predictability of future events, and usefulness to its reader[s] in their daily lives. With the advent of alternative news sources that are more reliable than the print media, the decline in circulation will continue.
As before, kudos, to the SR for its ability to do local investigative reporting necessary to hold our elected/appointed governmental accountable. Please remember though you have a responsibility to hold the AP accountable as well. The readers do not have the time to review AP sources as to their credibility and reliability and it is given the presumption of reliability.
To win the GWOT we must also win the war of information. Perception is everything. The enemy is very adept in co-opting our trusted media outlets to demoralize the folks at home to win what they can't on the battlefield.
A good case can be made that the AP has been aiding, abetting and rooting for the enemy as some the underdog in a Sunday afternoon football game. The stakes are very high. Deja Vu 1938, we must win this war decisively now, lest our children have to re-fight this war at much greater costs.
Our enemy cloaks itself within the guise of religious fanaticism, knowing we give considerable deference and tolerance to religious beliefs. How far do we allow the David Koreschs and Jim Jones[s] to dictate the [our] beliefs and actions before we draw the line?
Like Nazism before Islamofascism has no moral equivalence in modern society. There can be no appeasing this enemy. It must be totally discredited as a viable ideology. This ideology seeks our total destruction and what we hold most dear - the free will of men and women.
The ultimate weapon against these totalitarian enemies is the TRUTH!
Yours,
RBT
www.rocketsbrain.com
*****
[Scott's Comments]
They told us that removing a dictator was immoral.
They told us that Pres Bush was so brilliant, and they so stupid that he was able to manipulate intelligence reports and trick them into authorizing war. Later we found out from the WP that only a handful of members of Congress even looked at the intelligence reports before authorizing the war. Nearly a half dozen bi-partisan, independent, and international investigations have found that it was a decades-old decrepit intelligence network that lead to 911 and the pre-war Iraq intelligence failures.
Then they sent us an ambassador to tell us Bush made up all the claims about uranium, but it turned out the ambassador was lying and so too were his claims that the President outed his spy wife (yeah, real low key cover being the wife of an ambassador).
Then they told us there was no connection between Iraq and 911, but the attacks' mastermind conceded that they were set in motion immediately after Pres Clinton's 12/98 attack on Iraq, and Bin Laden's strategic planner, Zawahiri, is on record has having "vow[ed] to retaliate for what the Americans have done to their brothers in Iraq."
Then they told us that Saddam was just "a bad guy" and compelled us to look the other way on the idea that he'd killed half a million Iraqis who rose up-at America's insistence in 1992-for Democracy.
They sent us poorly photo-shopped press photos of terrorists being oppressed in Lebanon, and they denied the lie as long as they could.
They sent us a long list of faked stories from un-named sources who later turned out to be making up stories to further their political agendas, and they denied it as long as they could.
They showed us videos made by terrorists sniping American soldiers and claimed that they were showing the terrorist propaganda videos as news-while looking the other way that it was still propaganda (you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig).
They show us pictures that insurgents stage, then turned in to them, and claim that the photos are "representative" of what's happening, but encourage us to look the other way at the remaining fact that they are not actual captures of time (rather captures of imagination).
Now it's been revealed that not just the WP, NYT, LAT, Reuters, but also AP have chosen to publish and circulate around the world false stories that have likely been provided by the enemy (yeah, the insurgents are in fact...the enemy), and they've done so (again) out of either utter stupidity coupled with complete unprofessionalism, OR they've done it deliberately as part of supporting the enemy's propaganda effort to distort the picture of what's happening in the war on terror.
When will the truth outweigh the lies-uh, I mean, "errors in reporting"?
When will people swallow hard and realize that their partisan disdain, their post911 fears/concerns, and the shadow of their own personal Vietnam experiences have been played upon by people with their own political agendas, their terrorist campaigns, and/or their sensationalist reporting schemes in search of career-building scoops and awards given no longer for great news, but for the greatest fiction?
Until then, we have to wait for our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our fathers....our soldiers...to come home and tell us the truth following their shock and awe at returning and seeing the reports that we see. [RBT emphasis]
-Scott Malensek
RBT would encourage all to write the editors of their local papers and request that they hold the AP accountable.
RBT
*****
Mr. Smith, Editor
Spokesman-Review
Spokane, WA
I copied my friend, Scott Malensek co-blogger, writer and author, with my earlier email with today's Michelle Malkin column. Scott wanted me to forward along these additional comments. I'm in total agreement with Scott.
I think Michelle and Scott have both made a sound prima facie case for requiring further explanation by the AP. We, as readers of your paper and others, have little control on what the AP puts on their newswire.
You and other editors are collectively the consumers/owners of their product. You can hold them accountable. If not, your publications will be tarnished by their lack of objectivity and apparent shoddy sourcing.
As I've mentioned before the survival of the print media rests with its credibility, predictability of future events, and usefulness to its reader[s] in their daily lives. With the advent of alternative news sources that are more reliable than the print media, the decline in circulation will continue.
As before, kudos, to the SR for its ability to do local investigative reporting necessary to hold our elected/appointed governmental accountable. Please remember though you have a responsibility to hold the AP accountable as well. The readers do not have the time to review AP sources as to their credibility and reliability and it is given the presumption of reliability.
To win the GWOT we must also win the war of information. Perception is everything. The enemy is very adept in co-opting our trusted media outlets to demoralize the folks at home to win what they can't on the battlefield.
A good case can be made that the AP has been aiding, abetting and rooting for the enemy as some the underdog in a Sunday afternoon football game. The stakes are very high. Deja Vu 1938, we must win this war decisively now, lest our children have to re-fight this war at much greater costs.
Our enemy cloaks itself within the guise of religious fanaticism, knowing we give considerable deference and tolerance to religious beliefs. How far do we allow the David Koreschs and Jim Jones[s] to dictate the [our] beliefs and actions before we draw the line?
Like Nazism before Islamofascism has no moral equivalence in modern society. There can be no appeasing this enemy. It must be totally discredited as a viable ideology. This ideology seeks our total destruction and what we hold most dear - the free will of men and women.
The ultimate weapon against these totalitarian enemies is the TRUTH!
Yours,
RBT
www.rocketsbrain.com
*****
[Scott's Comments]
They told us that removing a dictator was immoral.
They told us that Pres Bush was so brilliant, and they so stupid that he was able to manipulate intelligence reports and trick them into authorizing war. Later we found out from the WP that only a handful of members of Congress even looked at the intelligence reports before authorizing the war. Nearly a half dozen bi-partisan, independent, and international investigations have found that it was a decades-old decrepit intelligence network that lead to 911 and the pre-war Iraq intelligence failures.
Then they sent us an ambassador to tell us Bush made up all the claims about uranium, but it turned out the ambassador was lying and so too were his claims that the President outed his spy wife (yeah, real low key cover being the wife of an ambassador).
Then they told us there was no connection between Iraq and 911, but the attacks' mastermind conceded that they were set in motion immediately after Pres Clinton's 12/98 attack on Iraq, and Bin Laden's strategic planner, Zawahiri, is on record has having "vow[ed] to retaliate for what the Americans have done to their brothers in Iraq."
Then they told us that Saddam was just "a bad guy" and compelled us to look the other way on the idea that he'd killed half a million Iraqis who rose up-at America's insistence in 1992-for Democracy.
They sent us poorly photo-shopped press photos of terrorists being oppressed in Lebanon, and they denied the lie as long as they could.
They sent us a long list of faked stories from un-named sources who later turned out to be making up stories to further their political agendas, and they denied it as long as they could.
They showed us videos made by terrorists sniping American soldiers and claimed that they were showing the terrorist propaganda videos as news-while looking the other way that it was still propaganda (you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig).
They show us pictures that insurgents stage, then turned in to them, and claim that the photos are "representative" of what's happening, but encourage us to look the other way at the remaining fact that they are not actual captures of time (rather captures of imagination).
Now it's been revealed that not just the WP, NYT, LAT, Reuters, but also AP have chosen to publish and circulate around the world false stories that have likely been provided by the enemy (yeah, the insurgents are in fact...the enemy), and they've done so (again) out of either utter stupidity coupled with complete unprofessionalism, OR they've done it deliberately as part of supporting the enemy's propaganda effort to distort the picture of what's happening in the war on terror.
When will the truth outweigh the lies-uh, I mean, "errors in reporting"?
When will people swallow hard and realize that their partisan disdain, their post911 fears/concerns, and the shadow of their own personal Vietnam experiences have been played upon by people with their own political agendas, their terrorist campaigns, and/or their sensationalist reporting schemes in search of career-building scoops and awards given no longer for great news, but for the greatest fiction?
Until then, we have to wait for our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our fathers....our soldiers...to come home and tell us the truth following their shock and awe at returning and seeing the reports that we see. [RBT emphasis]
-Scott Malensek