What modern Journalism is about

Printing, Broadcasting, disseminating ANY negative information about your ideological enemies, no proof required. The allegations are enough.

This is pure propaganda, folks. When you have gotten news from ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and especially CBS or NYT, you may consider yourself as proselytized by the left, IE, dumber. You might as well ask the DNC, or DU to provide you with the facts. The ideological differences between all those above mentioned are few, far in between, and hard to find.

Bin Laden admits defeat in Iraq

The information is here, in the article - but not the headline, which reads

Bin Laden Issues Warning on Iraq, Israel

When you read the article though, you will find:

a. - A good picture of Bin Laden

b. - "warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting al-Qaida" HUH? we thought that there were no Al quada in Iraq? And now Bin Laden has to warn Iraqis not to fight them? What??

c. - "attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military claims to have al-Qaida's Iraq branch on the run." The us military always "claims" stuff. But Bin Laden "Aims to unify" Benefit of doubt=AQ, by ABC. The press is the enemy.

d. - " In Iraq, a number of Sunni Arab tribes in western Anbar province have formed a coalition fighting al-Qaida-linked insurgents" A stunning development indeed. Did it happen before, or after the war was lost by Sen. Harry Reid (D)? And on what frontpage was this reported? Does it not beg a willing suspension of disbelief?

e. - "Bin Laden said Sunni Arabs who have joined the Awakening Councils "have betrayed the nation and brought disgrace and shame to their people. They will suffer in life and in the afterlife." Oh please ABC, tell us more, verbatim, please! In fact - please link us to the whole transcript, so we can decide for ourselves. No? Well, thank you for your effort in clarifying Bin Laden's word for us.

You would think...

ABC news could find a bad picture of this guy



Quoth the newsfilter:

"The terror group has also been campaigning to reach a broader audience, announcing that its No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahri, would respond to journalists' questions sent over the Internet. The deadline for the queries was Jan. 16."

Lets see If ABC asks him whether he "ever admits to any mistakes"

UPDATED - Your news, as interpreted by ABC (re-interpreted by me)

The Senate is poised to take up a $516 billion measure to fund 14 Cabinet agencies and troops in Afghanistan, with President Bush likely to sign the measure if his GOP allies can add up to $40 billion for the war in Iraq.

Why do they need to do that? No explanation.

Senate leaders would like to wrap up debate Tuesday, though GOP conservatives may balk, unhappy with spending above Bush's budget and a secretive process that produced a 1,482-page bill with almost 9,000 pet projects sought by lawmakers.

Why is it above Bush's Budget? Ah! a "secretive process" (unexplained), "pet projects", and anonomynous "lawmakers" Lets try this, ABC - use the words "pork", and "Democrats"

Despite opposition from conservative hard-liners like Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., the stage is set for a year-end budget deal ending a monthslong battle between the White House and congressional Democrats over domestic spending.

And what do these two guys oppose? PORK. ABC sees fit to name their resistance, without naming waht they resist. Once again, what they do NOT report will tell you more than what they do!

Now here comes the biggest weasel-paragraph I've seen all week:

Democrats have succeeded in smoothing the rough edges of Bush's February budget plan, which sought below-inflation increases for domestic programs other than military base construction and contained numerous cutbacks and program eliminations.

Smoothing the edges, ey? Below inflation increases for domestic programs! And "numerous" "other things"! Wow - Now we know what is going on. Thank you, Oh journalist who reports things to us, so we may know what is going on!

Actually, Im confused. WTF? Let's read on....

But Democrats were able to fill in most of the cuts by shifting money from the Pentagon and foreign aid budgets, adding "emergency" funding above Bush's budget "cap" and adding future-year funding for federal education programs.

Uh-oh. PORK.

The bill passed the House late Monday after an unusual legislative two-step aimed at easing the bill's movement through a gauntlet of anti-war Democrats and Republicans unhappy with the measure's price tag and the process that produced it.

Again - thanks for the explanation. POOOORK!

The House first voted 253-154 to approve the omnibus spending bill funding domestic agency budgets and foreign aid; they then voted 206-201 to add $31 billion for troops in Afghanistan to the measure and sent the combined spending package to the Senate.

Huh? What?

Democrats are generally far more supportive of military operations in Afghanistan than they are of the unpopular war in Iraq.

Aaaah! the "unpopular" war. Yeah. OK. Made unpopular by a relentless propagandist effort on the part of ..... You.

Republicans generally opposed the omnibus measure, arguing it's unfair to provide money for troops in Afghanistan but not Iraq. They also opposed $13 billion in spending above Bush's "top line" request for the one-third of the budget passed each year by Congress.

Quote please? Damned Republicans. All they do is "argue". Like naughty children.

And there you have it! The Senate is poised, Democrats smoothed the rough edges of Bush's plan by filling in cuts below inflation increase and numerous cutbacks and eliminations, Republicans argued, Unpopular war in Iraq.

Oh, and Article contents contradicts headline.

Soundbite file transfer complete. You are what you read peeps, don't eat gum off the ground!

UPDATE:

Here is what really happened.

Afore Foer is Finished - More Hits on TNR

Roger L Simon Shoots.... and Scores! "The larger issue involved, however, is fact-checking in general. It is the linchpin on which mainstream media bases its superiority over blogs and other new online media and has considerable economic ramifications: whom readers trust equals whom advertisers will ultimately invest in. All of this is fluid."

Michelle Rakes The Anti-US Foer's Decks. The Heading says it all, and the content is devestating. With Juicy "look at what he did NOT mention linkage and images

John Tabin gets his hooks in for the boarding "When critics first started raising red flags about the Baghdad Diarist articles, there were charges that TNR was advancing an anti-military agenda. Such charges were somewhat unfair in July. They're perfectly fair now."

H/t Instapundit, as Usual

A-Fisking A-Foer you resign, Frankie.

TNR CAVES TO REALITY

For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated.

Imagine that! Accusations! For such Sterling work, all you get are... accusations.

When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation.

Then we stalled, prevaricated, and just plain old hoped-it-would-just-go-away.

We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories.

Re-reporting? Were you not supposed to be verifying? Were the UNVERIFIED parts of the story not the problem?

These are our findings.

When Michael Goldfarb, a blogger for The Weekly Standard, left me a message on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, I didn't know him or his byline. And I certainly didn't anticipate that his message would become the starting point for a controversy.

Yes. His message was the "starting point". Not the fiction you sold as fact, but his message is the problem. I think I discern a pattern of blame in this here first paragraph.

A day earlier, The New Republic had published a piece titled "Shock Troops." It appeared on the magazine's back page, the "Diarist" slot, which is reserved for short first-person meditations. "Shock Troops" bore the byline Scott Thomas, which we identified as a pseudonym for a soldier then serving in Iraq. Thomas described how war distorts moral judgments. To illustrate his point, he narrated three disturbing anecdotes. In one, he and his comrades cracked vulgar jokes about a woman with a scarred face while she sat in close proximity. In another, a soldier paraded around with the fragment of an exhumed skull on his head. A final vignette described a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle who took pride in running over dogs.

Because Life in Iraq is disturbingly similar to a 80's era Vietnam movie.

Goldfarb said he had been contacted by tipsters who thought these scenarios sounded concocted by a writer with an overactive imagination--or perhaps by a total fabulist. He asked for evidence that might answer these complaints, "any details that would reassure that this isn't fiction." Among other things, he wanted the name of the base where the author had mocked the disfigured woman.

Hmm - rather specific questions - Could you name all of them in one list? Or is being concise not really a part of this here exercise?

The same afternoon, we contacted the author, asking permission to answer Goldfarb's queries. We thought we could provide details that might answer these concerns without revealing the author's identity and violating the compact we formed when granting him a pseudonym. He agreed.

I told Goldfarb that the insults to the woman had occurred at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon. A day later, Goldfarb sent a link to an item on the Standard blog. It quoted an anonymous source who said the story sounded like a collection of the "This is no bullshit ... stories soldiers like to tell." Goldfarb called on the military blogosphere to do "some digging" and for "individual soldiers and veterans to come forward with relevant information."

Embarrassing huh? When you verify something, you ask the same guy who may have told you the lie in the first place, while Mr. Goldfarb goes and does what is called "independent verification" That is, he checks the information as close to the actual event or place of the event as he can, and independantly of the author, whose work is suspect.

By the weekend, the Standard's editor, William Kristol, published an editorial that, without evidence, pronounced the Diarist an open-and-shut case.

Yeah. No evidence. All he had was your and "Scott Thomas’s" word, which are not to be questioned at ALL, for fear of , umm , becoming a starting point in a controversy? You are kinda right he had no evidence. He had no evidence that what you guys printed was true. And right now, here today, it turns out - neither do you.

Kristol wrote, "But what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales? Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support."

An then it goes on. And on. And on.

And.... on.

So, in the interests of brevity, and your and my time, Ill selectively quote and fisk as without regurgitating the entire bore fest Mr. Foer coughed up.

Here goes more!

"Naturally we wanted to learn more about the dog-hunting and the skull--although, in hindsight, the genesis of these anecdotes in such a nonchalant aside should have provoked greater suspicion. Beauchamp revised the piece, and we sanded down the prose. A month after he submitted the first draft, after several revisions, it entered into galleys."

Here we learn that TNR's Editors had a LOT of time to look at this piece. They had time to "sand the prose" and make "several revisions" Nowhere in this process, it seems, did anyone question the actual events being desccribed.

Facing the difficulties of verifying the piece, but wanting to ensure its plausibility before publication, we sent the piece to a correspondent for a major newspaper who had spent many tours embedded in Iraq. He had heard accounts of soldiers killing dogs with Bradleys.

They fact checked this piece, about the agile-as-dogs armored vehicle with another MSM Journalist? And he had "heard accounts" Tell us. who is this man, and what is his opinion of the Iraq war?

Reeve also asked a National Guard medic who had served in Iraq if he had seen burn victims in chow halls. He replied, "[N]ot many ... but a couple."

Could you actually find any yourself? Scratch that - If you cannot find the one that is mentioned in the story, your story is horseshit. And She must also verify the incident - OK?

I almost fell for the clever little lowering of standards there - fact checking now seems to have become "probability searching" "If it is at all possible, it HAS to be true!

He also added details to his accounts. The woman Beauchamp said he had mocked loomed large within his circle of friends. They called her "Crypt Keeper" or "Mandrake's Bride."

Um, Yay. Did you consider the the embellisher might be embellishing? Some more?

The bones, meanwhile, had been uncovered while filling sandbags in a small section of his combat outpost. (I received a photo of Beauchamp holding a bone in one hand while obscuring the name on his uniform with the other.)

No pic, no believe. Print the picture.

He provided us with the names of the soldier who wore the skull and the driver who ran over dogs. And he solicited corroborating accounts from five other soldiers.

Provide these names, Please.

Soldier A: "While digging we came across several bones and a guy named [name withheld] said he was part Indian and danced around the bones to show he was peaceful and he did a proper burial procedure."

Names, please.

The nature of these contacts wasn't ideal: Beauchamp was soliciting his own witnesses. But, once Beauchamp established the initial contact, we tried to communicate with these soldiers independently. We always considered the possibility that they were lying to cover for their friend, but there was no way for us to know that for certain, and we couldn't dismiss what they told us. They were not only Beauchamp's buddies, but, in some instances, the only witnesses to the events described.

Wait. You only thought of that afterward, right? Not before?

Beauchamp instant-messaged us that officers had "made people sign sworn statements saying that brads don't intentionally hit dogs and that no mass grave was found" at his combat outpost--"in fact, that no human remains at all were found there."

Beauchamp said he was under enormous stress.

Yeah, that happens to Liars when they get caught out.

"[I] wanted to get out of the room alive," he told us.

Because the US army Executes those who refuse to sign? On the spot?

He signed statements but tried to phrase them carefully. "[I] think i worded it pretty well enough to buy me some more time without contradicting myself."

"buy me some more time" The Meme is set!

Earlier that morning, we had received an e-mail from a soldier in Beauchamp's unit who had mentioned seeing the disfigured woman in Kuwait

Names please.

A pattern began. Beauchamp's behavior was sometimes suspicious--promising evidence that never arrived--but so was the Army's. Beauchamp had corroboration, but his confusion over Iraq and Kuwait was troubling. And we were running out of leads; one of the few remaining was a former member of Beauchamp's unit named Kristopher Kiple.

A Name! Who remembers Beauchamp's Fantasy! And might have read the fantasy, Like everyone involved most likely did. Did he ask you for a job?

You see, Mr Foer, by now anything you say gets questioned. Nothing less than FULL transcripts of ALL your conversations with EVERYONE about this will do. But we won’t be getting them from you, now will we?

"Without new evidence to be gleaned, we began to lay out the evidence we had assembled. It wasn't just the testimonials from the soldiers in his unit. Among others, we had called a forensic anthropologist and a spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Nothing in our conversations with them had dissuaded us of the plausibility of Beauchamp's pieces."

Nothing....had dissuaded us of the plausibility...." This is really the centerpiece, the method of your defense. The allegations you and your correspondent had made, had only to be "plausible" to be true. All you had to verify, is whether things were "possible" Not whether they actually had occurred.

For an enlightening clarification on how this works, your "fact checking" with the Bradley expert went almost to the letter, down the road of "could a Bradley possibly kill a dog?" You asked as general question as you could, got the most slight whiff of a possibility, and called it "verification". Yet, you question every one else's integrity.

You are a Laughingstock. Resign. Or Hell, Stay, and give us more fodder to laugh at.

No Conservitive Scandal or Bomb in Iraq Today

We Can tell, Becaus CNN leads with aplane crash in a foreign country. Mainly, I think, because there are good pics...



MSNBC dredges up an old favorite, Aids. Complete with "I am a victim - healthcare for all! - socialist goodness.




They could not resist a Bad pic (upnostril), and an Accusation against Rudy. This is Sourced from the NYT, Long time ally and supporter of "America's Mayor". Read some of these, then ask thyself - they are accusing Rudy of futzing the numbers?



ABC got Nuthin!

How Anti-gun propaganda works 101

Headline:

118 arrested and 1,300 guns seized in massive firearms raid.

Wow! impressive!

"Raids in hotspots which account for more than half of Britain's gun crime - Manchester, London, Liverpool and Birmingham - involved more than 1,000 officers yesterday.
The operation seized 10 handguns and £5,900 in cash. "

1000 Cops! 10 handguns! European money! What Success! And then.........

"six imitation handguns, 1,290 other realistic imitation firearms,"

UH-OH. Here we go. A raid, with 1000 Cops, yields some 1300 "guns", 6 of which were "imitation", 1290 were toys, and 4 were Airguns? With pictures of which the caption says "pretty impressive", and a file picture that has NOTHING to do with the raid, the haul, the confiscated cars?

Yet the people who wrote this trash, consider themselves the sole qualified arbiters of our window on the world. Because of "levels of editors". Or some such.

No Anti-gun meme here!

Hat Tip: BMEWS

An Opinion Unfit to comment on

Let Alone, Print.

It's here! But nowhere to be found here.

If a Democrat makes a doubleplus ungood speech, and the NYT ignores it - did it happen?

This is how the game is played - Talk only about the things that fit your agenda - make them "issues", and stay on that message. Never give your philosophical opponent the mic, and if you DO let him speak, make sure it is through an interpreter-Journalist who can put it in the right context for you.

The problem for readers? You are slightly dumber after you had read this publication, becase vital information is being kept from you deliberately.

H/T Powerline