Robert Parry On The Failure of the Mainstream Media
Robert Parry has a fine piece up at Consortium News on one of my pet peeves, the obsequious approach taken by the media towards the government, and the Bush administration in particular.
The gravest indictment of the American news media is that George W. Bush has gutted the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter yet this extraordinary story does not lead the nation's newspapers and the evening news every day.
Nor does the press corps tie Bush's remarkable abrogation of both U.S. and international law together in any coherent way for the American people. At best, disparate elements of Bush's authoritarian powers are dealt with individually as if they are not part of some larger, more frightening whole.
What's even odder is that the facts of this historic power grab are no longer in serious dispute. The Bush administration virtually spelled out its grandiose vision of Bush's powers during the debates over such issues as Jose Padilla's detention, Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination and the disclosure of warrantless wiretaps.
Parry takes on the usual suspects, including Thomas Friedman, Richard Cohen and David Ignatius for their advocacy editorials.
The pundits also have kept spotting glimmers of hope in the Middle East, even as the U.S. position has grown grimmer and grimmer. A year ago, these commentators were hailing Bush for unleashing the cleansing winds of democracy across the Middle East.
But the pundits missed the fact that many of those regional developments were unrelated to Bush's invasion of Iraq. They also didn't catch the possibility that elections might not bring the blessings of peace and moderation that Bush promised.
The "tipping point" meme gets critical attention.
After those Iraqi elections and several other regional developments, Friedman was perceiving historical "tipping points" that foreshadowed "incredible," positive changes in the Middle East. [NYT, Feb. 27, 2005]
To Friedman, this expected transformation of the Arab world would also be a personal vindication for his endorsement of the bloody Iraq War, which has now killed nearly 2,300 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Parry wonders why media tools never have to suffer the consequences of their bad calls. Though he has too much class to connect the dots for the reader, I must point out that Robert Parry did have to suffer professionally for his reporting.
Parry grew critical of the national security state years ago, and was jettisoned by the mainstream media.
The gravest indictment of the American news media is that George W. Bush has gutted the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter yet this extraordinary story does not lead the nation's newspapers and the evening news every day.
Nor does the press corps tie Bush's remarkable abrogation of both U.S. and international law together in any coherent way for the American people. At best, disparate elements of Bush's authoritarian powers are dealt with individually as if they are not part of some larger, more frightening whole.
What's even odder is that the facts of this historic power grab are no longer in serious dispute. The Bush administration virtually spelled out its grandiose vision of Bush's powers during the debates over such issues as Jose Padilla's detention, Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination and the disclosure of warrantless wiretaps.
Parry takes on the usual suspects, including Thomas Friedman, Richard Cohen and David Ignatius for their advocacy editorials.
The pundits also have kept spotting glimmers of hope in the Middle East, even as the U.S. position has grown grimmer and grimmer. A year ago, these commentators were hailing Bush for unleashing the cleansing winds of democracy across the Middle East.
But the pundits missed the fact that many of those regional developments were unrelated to Bush's invasion of Iraq. They also didn't catch the possibility that elections might not bring the blessings of peace and moderation that Bush promised.
The "tipping point" meme gets critical attention.
After those Iraqi elections and several other regional developments, Friedman was perceiving historical "tipping points" that foreshadowed "incredible," positive changes in the Middle East. [NYT, Feb. 27, 2005]
To Friedman, this expected transformation of the Arab world would also be a personal vindication for his endorsement of the bloody Iraq War, which has now killed nearly 2,300 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Parry wonders why media tools never have to suffer the consequences of their bad calls. Though he has too much class to connect the dots for the reader, I must point out that Robert Parry did have to suffer professionally for his reporting.
Parry grew critical of the national security state years ago, and was jettisoned by the mainstream media.
posted by Effwit at 11:40 AM
3 Comments:
Friedman's a buddy of a certain B-clan governor. It's kept hush hush...but they swap both this and that in off all record privacy. Of course he toes the line - brown-nosin' with da' juice is worth a helluva lot more than professional integrity. We be surprised that his special relationship ain't made it to the public arena yet.
(Not to suggest that personal ties per se come even an ant pecker's length within range of explaining the root cause of the corp. media sell-out.)
Cloudberry Bravo:
Nice handle!
The Friedman angle does not surprise me overmuch. NYT and WaPo reporters always turn out to be married to (or screwing) the most unlikely suspects.
Friedman's special connection to power would seem only different in aspect (and maybe not even then).
Excellent gossipy dishing, Sierra Hotel.
Funny guy!
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