John Kelsey wrote... "For some reason I've never been able to fathom, many journalists seem to be remarkably gullable, when they're told something from the right kind of source, especially a government agency or other official source." Chomsky (dig around on http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) and others have commented on this quite a bit. What it seems to boil down to is a sort of natural selection. Basically, it works like this: 1) Government is releasing some cool smart-bomb commercials, erh I mean video to a few select news sources. 2) NBC sends a questioning, smart, well-informed dude to said press conference. 3) During said smart-bomb footage notices the Arabic word for Hospital on the top of the smart-bombs target, and asks "Is that a hospital?" 4) Government takes NBC off list of cool "insider" info: "Can't be trusted, not playing ball" 5) NBC, now out in the cold, assigns said informed journalist to covering Ruwanda or other low-profile stuff, and assures military officials that they'll send someone a little more cooperative next time. I'm exagerating for effect here of course...there's possibly not as much conscious decision making, and supposedly this kind of list-making happens for much quieter, "insider" stuff (not smart bomb footage). But clearly, there's got to be SOMETHING like this happening. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 09:31:35AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
I'm exagerating for effect here of course...there's possibly not as much conscious decision making, and supposedly this kind of list-making happens for much quieter, "insider" stuff (not smart bomb footage). But clearly, there's got to be SOMETHING like this happening.
You're not very far off the mark. Be too critical and lose your sources. Happens at the White House and every federal agency, and is one of the tragedies of modern political journalism. I've written about this before in the context of the Justice Department antitrust suit. "Washington Babylon" is a good book that hits on this topic, I recall. -Declan
test On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 10:13:16AM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 09:31:35AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
I'm exagerating for effect here of course...there's possibly not as much conscious decision making, and supposedly this kind of list-making happens for much quieter, "insider" stuff (not smart bomb footage). But clearly, there's got to be SOMETHING like this happening.
You're not very far off the mark. Be too critical and lose your sources. Happens at the White House and every federal agency, and is one of the tragedies of modern political journalism. I've written about this before in the context of the Justice Department antitrust suit.
"Washington Babylon" is a good book that hits on this topic, I recall.
-Declan
-- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Tyler Durden wrote:
"For some reason I've never been able to fathom, many journalists seem to be remarkably gullable, when they're told something from the right kind of source, especially a government agency or other official source."
Chomsky (dig around on http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) and others have commented on this quite a bit.
If you want to hear it from the horse's mouth, I suggest you read some of Vin Suprynowicz's columns, or his book, _Send In The Waco Killers_. He's been a working journalist for decades, and so can describe first-hand how this process of co-opting journalists works.
participants (4)
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Declan McCullagh -
Harmon Seaver -
Kevin S. Van Horn -
Tyler Durden