The Golden Gate

Over at EU Referendum we see the Director’s Cut of Qana.

The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah’s media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore.

As best we can, we have pieced together the jumble of evidence which surrounded the production of the iconic photographs which were published around the world, and put them in perspective. Many of the photographs have been used before, some are new to this site and others are video “grabs”. But it is not the pictures, per se, that tell the story, so much as their ordering and analysis. Make of this what you will, but I can assure you that you are not supposed to see them in this light.

The “story” - for that is what it is - starts here, in the wreckage of the buiding at Qana which is performing the temporary and unwholesome function of a morgue. It is from here, that the bodies are extracted, the essential props of this theatre. And standing on the left of the frame is one of the two star characters of our story, Mr “White Tee-Shirt”. With equal accuracy, though, we could call him Mr Hezbollah, for reasons which will become apparent [...]

So, Dan Rather is talking about Rathergate and partisanship and the media. San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman liveblogged Rather’s latest, um, account at the annual Television Critics Press tour which is going on right now in Los Angeles. An excerpt of Rather’s remarks ran today on the first page of the Chronicle’s Entertainment Section.

(Side note: Goodman has dubbed the annual TV Press Tour “The Death March With Cocktails,” and his accounts are consistently enjoyable, if one cares about insider reports from the TV industry and rich-and-famous foolery and that sort of thing. You can follow The Death March With Cocktails here.)

And, for easy reference and background, here is an index of the entire pre-election Rathergate memo scandal.)
Below is the full transcript of Rather’s remarks. Rather had just been asked if he felt that he carried any “baggage” from his career in network journalism.

“Yes, I have baggage. I have the baggage of being a graduate of the journalism school out of the University of South Vietnam. I have baggage from the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham. I have baggage from Watergate and covering, as the White House and lead correspondent for CBS News, on the only President in history who resigned. I have baggage from Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded it. I have baggage from two interviews with Saddam Hussein. You bet your life I’ve got a lot of baggage. And make no mistake, I’m proud of it. Yes, I’m biased. I have a very strong bias toward independent journalism, italicized, underlined, put in bold caps. Some - I’m not here to argue all - some of the problems I have and have had with this question of, quote, bias, is misunderstanding what my bias is. I’m committed to independent journalism and, yes, fiercely independent when necessary. And a lot of the times it’s necessary. Not all, but some of what you describe as, quote, baggage, comes from people who have the following view, which they’re entitled to have. This, God bless it, is America, and you can have it. But their view is, to not just Dan Rather, but to a lot of people in journalism, “Listen, Mr. or Ms., you report the news the way I want it reported, or I’m going to make you pay a price. I’m going to hang a sign around your neck that says you were a bomb-throwing Bolshevik or something. And I’m going to mount a sizable and very effective smear campaign on you.”

Now, this doesn’t only happen to me. If you’ve seen “Good Night, and Good Luck,” you know what I’m talking about. And I should - I should be lucky enough to live to the day that I can walk in the same room with Ed Murrow, but I can’t, and nobody before or since him could. But there’s the model for things. If you’re determined to be independent, you’re going to take the heat. If you are determined to be fiercely independent when necessary and say, “No, sir” - or ma’am - “I’m not going to report the news the way you want it reported. I’m not going to be bullied or intimidated. I’m not going back up, back down, or back away to meet your partisan, political, or ideologic agenda. I’m going to play to my bias for independent news” - now, when you face the furnace, you have to take the heat, and some of the time, you’re going to get burned. And I’ve got plenty of scars. I’ve made my mistakes, and some of my wounds are self-inflicted.

But the one thing, if you check the record - and I invite you to check the record - you will not find me cowing to pressure. Now, sometimes that can lead to making mistakes. Sometimes - and I’ve had people tell me, “Dan, this is not healthy for your career.” Well, my answer to that is to hell with the career. I didn’t get into journalism as a careerist. I’m not going to go out of journalism as a careerist. So yes, I’m biased about doing independent journalism. And you bet I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced toward reporters - and America is filled with reporters - who want to do the right thing. Increasingly it’s difficult to do the right thing because of what I described before. You stand up and ask the tough question. You ask the toughest question you know how of the highest power you can find, and I guarantee you the second your backside hits the seat, there are going to be people coming after you. But you know, that goes with the territory. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That news, real news, news at its best, is a wake-up call, not a lullaby. And I’m not in the lullaby business.”

A rational editorial from the pages of a Canadian Newspaper:

Thu, June 29, 2006

EDITORIAL: It’s time to stand with Israel

The Toronto conference of the United Church yesterday joined the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in calling for economic sanctions against Israel and a boycott of the Jewish state to protest its policies in the Palestinian territories.

Basically, both are calling on Canadians to choose sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fair enough. We choose Israel, which cannot be expected to negotiate with a Palestinian government led by Hamas, a terrorist group whose founding charter calls not only for the destruction of Israel, but for the annihilation of the Jewish people.

Further, we urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to continue Canada’s sensible policy of refusing to recognize Hamas and denying it foreign aid until it unequivocally recognizes Israel’s right to exist and renounces terrorism.

Like Harper, we support the creation of an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel.

But that has never been Hamas’ goal. [...]

Read it all.  What’s next? Pigs fly and France goes hawkish on the WOT?

Hat tips: LGF & Meryl Yourish

Excellent response by Treasury Secretary Snow to Keller over at The Corner:

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide.  In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you.  It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story.  Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story.  And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort.  I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure.  I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror.  Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money.  The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works.  While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective.  Indeed, you have done so here.

What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists.  I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

[signed]

John W. Snow, Secretary

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Amen.

This is big stuff:

On Nov. 20, the Tribune began an inquest: We set out to assess the Bush administration’s arguments for war in Iraq. We have weighed each of those nine arguments against the findings of subsequent official investigations by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee and others. . . . After reassessing the administration’s nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of “the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq.” We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world’s security, stop the butchery–or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now–what this matrix chronicles– affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003.

Read the entire, detailed piece.

Via Instapundit and Steve Antler.

Well, I suppose self-pity and bellyaching and sour grapes coming from a dead-tree media outlet over the success of a slick and widely-loved new media outfit like Craigslist really doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

But, holy cow, to make a COVER STORY out of the fact that you and your fellow dead-tree Old Media outlets are getting whupped by better service and greater efficiency (and more timeliness and accuracy)? And then to expect media savvy readers to cry big splashy tears over the fact that you can’t seem to adapt your performance and business models to the new reality? That takes real chutzpah and brings navel-gazing to a whole new level.

Here’s the boldface text from the COVER of the latest SF Weekly. (I exercised restraint in the headline to this post and refrained from calling it by it’s more commonly-known street moniker — “SF, WeAkly.”)

Craig$list.com
The much-loved Web site is taking millions from Bay Area newspapers and causing layoffs that adversely affect coverage. And its founder’s well-intentioned support of citizen journalism has a slim chance of fixing the problem.

Well, gosh, we’re just all broken up for you, New Times Media (parent company of SF Wea…er SF Weekly.)

But the hard fact is, oh mainstream media, the public doesn’t OWE you readers or subscribers or ad revenue. No business is OWED customers. So I’d humbly suggest that perhaps you ought to spend a little MORE energy on “lighting a candle” — delivering better service and adapting your practices to the new reality — and a little less energy on “cursing the darkness” — hating on Craigslist and expecting us in the media buying public to beweep your sad, sad fate.

Right now, you in the MSM are coming off just like this:

Pardon the public if we refrain from joining the sob-fest.

(Image credit: C. Johnson.)

UPDATE: From our local boards, Chic Deluxe draws the parallel with the Town Criers of old bemoaning the advent of the printing press “back in the day”:

At first, of course, the Town Criers - the official news sources at the time — weren’t worried. “Who’s going to pay for all that paper and ink?” they figured. “And besides — how many people can actually READ, anyway? Not to worry.”

But as the printing presses began to take off and the new business model for news distribution began to get legs, the Town Criers worried.

“Don’t believe anything you read!” they called out. “The printers don’t check their sources! Who regulates them? Why would you trust them! The have no standards, no guidelines! We have an Established System of Delivering Factual News!”

Town councils began to crack down on the printers. But the free press persevered despite having to deal with people breaking in and destroying their presses, setting fire to their shops, and trying to regulate them out of existence.

And what happened to all those Town Criers? They went into politics, of course.

Haw. Nice one.

Then, FogU2 pointed us to Slashdot’s excellent article on the subject (clearly, there is much more “lighting a candle” thinking going on at Slashdot.)

He adds:

Business models will change but the market for information, especially reliable and accurate information, is still vibrant. The real threat is when the govt gets involved in trying to save certain media by placing a stranglehold on the innovative media. Watch the FCC and others get involved in regulating the internet as big businesses begin to suffer as a result of cheap entry costs of the web. Lobbyists for the big media companies will cry foul when innovators like Craig Newmark, satellite radio, web phones, etc. start to threaten their cashflow.

Clearly, they already are.

UPDATE: Welcome, SFist readers. You might want to take a look at our past coverage of San Francisco culture & politics. Just keep on scrolling…

UPDATE: And welcome to all you Daily Pundit and Instapundit readers, too. Thanks for stopping ’round our way. As you’ve no doubt already noticed, we’re a San Francisco outlet of libertarian-minded, techno-phillic sass. You might want to check out some of our past posts on Liberty, the war against Islamic fascism, Economics and US Labor unions. But be sure to also check out that Slashdot article that we linked, above. As Glenn noted, not all old media folk are dumb. The thoughtful Slashdot piece lays out some possible ways that the old media can adapt and survive and even thrive in the years to come. It’s pretty much a given that bellyaching isn’t part of the solution, though.

UPDATE: The author of the SF Weekly piece, Ryan Blitstein, posted responses to our entry on both Daily Pundit and Instapundit.

In his Daily Pundit comment, Blitstein objects to Bill Quick’s description of the SF Weekly as “lefty.” It’s true that the SF Weekly isn’t as lefty as, say, the other San Francisco newsweekly, the SF Bay Guardian. OK, but let’s not get carried away. Though the SF Weekly does exhibit more balance than the Bay Guardian (which exhibits exactly none), “libertarian pillar” publications don’t usally run 6000+ word cover stories that amount to decrying the cruel fate of buggy-whip manufacturers in the modern era.

Instapundit publishes an email from Blitstein that says, in effect, we got him wrong — he wasn’t “whining.” I encourage you to read his entire SF Weekly piece and judge for yourself. See if you don’t detect a troubling sense of entitlement running throughout the piece — a sense that these classified advertising dollars RIGHTFULLY belong to newspapers. I also take issue with Blitstein’s other main premises: that it’s all a “zero sum game,” and that the (mostly dead-tree) “journalistic establisment” is the only trustworthy source of factual news; that the loss of classified revenue, by draining the lifeblood from old-media outlets, imperils the delivery of reliable information altogether.

For example, in his article, Blitstein says, “In the best case, [Craigslist's Craig] Newmark is joining a movement that will someday be of moderate help to the mainstream media. In the worst case, citizen journalism’s optimistic supporters, in neglecting the problems of the public institution that is the mainstream press, may leave America with both a failing news media and a mediocre technology that offers little assistance on essential stories.”

“Moderate help?” “Little assistance on essential stories?” See, I find these characterizations laughable, especially in light of the litany of vivid new-media-beats-the-old-media examples: Rathergate, the Plame story, reporting from Iraq — the list goes on and on. The dubious premises, coupled with the hand-wringing and notes of self-pity and impending doom, is what makes the SF Weekly piece a vintage whine.

But by all means, I encourage you read Blitstein’s SF Weekly piece for yourself and make your own call. It is also the case that there’s a lot of interesting stuff there, and I do appreciate that Blitstein’s decided to take part in the dialogue with us “citizen journalists.”

In the end, though, I think I’ve been rather fairer to the dead tree Old-Media outlets than Blitstein was to Craig Newmark, Craigslist or “citizen journalism” as a whole. From where I sit, for all its length and detail, the SF Weekly piece still basically reads like a great big whinge.

And finally, PLEASE make sure you also read the terrific Slashdot piece which has much more to say about old media, new media, and the idea of “news-as-dialogue.”

“News-as-dialogue.” Now THERE’S an idea…

Once the dust settles, I intend to post a thorough entry on Katrina, the finger pointing, the line of responsibility, and our increasing dependence on gov’t, etc.

For now, a tidbit here and there. Here’s a good one. Wuzzadem Handles this myth fairly well:

Myth: Representatives of the US Dept. of Homeland Security prevented the Red Cross from delivering a shipment of food and water to evacuees housed at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center on September 2, 2005.

Go check it out. While you’re there, have a look around. He’s got some great TV news parodies and other humor.

…is the title of a post from the eternally indispensable LGF.

I am stunned at the humanity of our military in the face of all that they experience and the distortions in the MSM. What grace. Indeed.

…gets beat over the head like a mushy headed idiot by Cassandra at Villainous Company.

She quotes the Bi-Partisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee Report:

Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report. The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.

AND, there’s a lot more. Go and read it all.

I would also say that critical thinking courses should be _required_ in schools of journalism. Probably way too much to ask. Way.

From Cox and Forkum:

One particular passage reveals the Times blindness to the real issue. They write that if Governor Pataki attempts to “appease one small, vocal group of protesters,” “he runs the risk of turning ground zero into a place where we bury the freedoms that define this nation.”

“Bury”? The Times has the gall to use the word “bury”? There are actual Americans buried at Ground Zero, murdered because they lived in a free county, and the Times’ main concern is not the victims but that Ground Zero have an art gallery able to exhibit “controversial images of 9/11 and America’s role in the world,” all in the name of “free speech.”

The real issues are how to properly use the hallowed ground of the WTC site to memorialize 9/11 victims and to historically document the attacks, and whether or not the IFC “freedom museum” and “arts center” are distractions from (and potentially even desecrations of) that memorial. As currently planned, the WTC memorial is already buried beneath the International Freedom Center building. With left-leaning individuals deeply involved in the IFC, it’s not difficult to imagine how much worse it can get.

And there’s more. Go read it. Here is the cartoon:

You can read and sign the Take Back the Memorial petition here.

via LGF:

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove’s head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we’d say the White House political guru deserves a prize—perhaps the next iteration of the “Truth-Telling” award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real “whistleblower” in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He’s the one who warned Time’s Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson’s credibility. He’s the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn’t a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there’s no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband’s selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he’d obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn’t even know Ms. Plame’s name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the “no underlying crime” point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times’s Judith Miller out of jail.

“While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear—at least on the public record—that a crime took place,” the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.

From The Wall Street Journal. You will want to read it all.

Powerline has a great post fact checking the MSM. Here’s a taste:

This is just wrong, as we have pointed out repeatedly, most recently here. It isn’t true that Wilson “said he could not verify the claim.” What actually happened, according to the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was that Wilson returned from Niger and reported to the CIA that Niger’s former Prime Minister had confirmed that in 1999, an emissary from Saddam Hussein made an overture that the Prime Minister interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. (The claim that was made about Niger was that Iraq tried to buy uranium there, not that it succeeded.) Six months later, Wilson lied about his mission to Niger in an op-ed in the New York Times that attacked President Bush. Wilson misrepresented what he learned in Niger, and what he told the CIA.

None of this is hard to figure out; it was all widely reported when the Intelligence Committee’s report was issued in July 2004. There is no excuse for an AP reporter not knowing these basic facts.

Go read it all

At its worst.

I expect this from someone as muddle-headed and opportunistic as Michael Moore. But not from a major news anchor. Those who can not see the moral difference between liberty and Sharia from a universally spiritual place [freedom=spiritual because it is then that human creativity and productivity can flourish and grow] do not deserve those freedoms.

I saw this in my San Francisco Chronicle this morning, and had thought to say something about it later today.

But then I cracked up reading Brian Tiemann’s remarks over at Peeve Farm, and I had to pass those along, as well:

Hello from the 21st century, wish you were here

Wow.Thanks a lot, Garry. I would have thought this was beneath you, but… I guess you’ve been digging for material so long, there’s nothing left down there.Y’know, I think maybe he’s just jealous of people who can do journalism and hold down day jobs at the same time. Lord knows he doesn’t meet many in the MSM.

An interview on the eve of the G-8 Summit that I tremendously enjoyed reading.

Hat Tip: Instapundit