eliminate the middleman

Redsock posted this excellent excerpt from Greg Palast:
Was there a problem with the [Newsweek] story? Certainly. If you want to split hairs, the inside-government source of the Koran desecration story now says he can't confirm which military report it appeared in. But he saw it in one report and a witness has confirmed that the Koran was defiled. Of course, there's an easy way to get at the truth. RELEASE THE REPORTS NOW. Hand them over, Mr. Rumsfeld, and let's see for ourselves what's in them. ...

Despite its supposed new concern for hidden sources, let's note that Newsweek and the [Washington] Post have no trouble providing, even in the midst of this story, cover for secret Administration sources that are FAVORABLE to Bush. Editor Whitaker's retraction relies on "Administration officials" whose names he kindly withholds. ...

As with CBS's retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging, Newsweek's diving to the mat on Guantanamo acts as a warning to all journalists who step out of line. Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. [Emphasis mine.] Why not just print Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?
That pretty much sums it up for me.

Comments

  1. laura k20 May 2005 at 09:17

    Thanks so much, G. I'm very behind on my reading various blogs, planning to catch up this weekend. This reminds me to include AWSAD on that list. "d" (lower case, if I recall correctly) is excellent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura k20 May 2005 at 09:17

    Thanks so much, G. I'm very behind on my reading various blogs, planning to catch up this weekend. This reminds me to include AWSAD on that list. "d" (lower case, if I recall correctly) is excellent.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

not so fast

Not everyone thinks the Conservative government is a lock. Canada's opposition Conservative Party, which is set to bring down the minority Liberal government later this week, was hit by a new opinion poll on Monday that showed it was trailing in the country's most vote-rich region. The Leger Marketing poll for the Sun chain of newspapers put support for the Liberals in the powerful central province of Ontario at 43 percent compared with 31 percent for the Conservatives. Ontario, a Liberal stronghold at the federal level for the past 12 years, accounts for 106 of the 308 seats in House of Commons, and no party can hope to form a government without doing well there. . . . Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals have been badly hurt by a corruption scandal and Conservative leader Stephen Harper says the government must be defeated as soon as possible. The Leger figures, however, suggest there is no guarantee Harper can end 12 years of Liberal rule. Thanks, ALPF! I must say, I...
Read more

dipstick

So there won't be an election yet. Talk about a squeaker . Feel free to tell us how you feel about this, unless it's all been said already, then feel free not to. ALPF mustered his courage and sent more links, so I have some good commentary to post. I found this Macleans story on the Conservative party's reaction to Stronach's decision - and public reaction to that reaction - very interesting. Canadians seem almost universally turned off by the name-calling and sexist slurs. On the other hand, when a certain governor made his "girly men" pronouncement, his constituency howled with glee. (Which is not to say the rest of us weren't appalled.) The Macleans article also notes that not all the sexism came from politicians: Some of the most sexist characterizations of Stronach didn't come from her political adversaries, but from media. Montreal's La Presse newspaper ran a cartoon of Martin leaning out his car window to solicit a street-walking Stronach...
Read more