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August 18, 2007
MSM Hall of Shame
The MSM whines that bloggers are degrading the quality of journalism. But as Randall Hoven observes, bloggers have not been creating the shabby state of journalism, but merely shining a light on it. If the mainstream media would respond to revelations of its malpractice by performing better instead of by sniveling defensively, bloggers would be doing it a favor by offering some quality control. Since media elitist show no indication of mending their irresponsible ways, bloggers are doing the public a favor, by warning it that nothing coming out of the MSM can be taken at face value.
Speaking of favors, Hoven did us one by compiling a list of particularly egregious examples of MSM malpractice. Here are the ones directly involving the disturbingly influential New York Times and its insidious subsidiary, the Boston Globe:
- Hassan Fattah, New York Times (2006). Fell for a hoax. Did a front page story about the man in one of the famous Abu Ghraib photos. But it turned out that the man who claimed to be the one in the picture, who provided details for the story, was not the one in the picture at all.
- Jack Hitt, New York Times (2006). Lying, or at least really sloppy research. He wrote a story about a woman in El Salvador who was sentenced to prison for having an abortion when she was 18 weeks pregnant. It turned out that "her child was carried to term, was born alive and died in its first minutes of life." In short, her crime was infanticide, not abortion.
- Barbara Stewart, Boston Globe (2005). Lying/fabricating. "The Boston Globe acknowledged yesterday publishing a partially fabricated story by a freelance reporter about a Canadian seal hunt that had not taken place."
- The Boston Globe (2004). Fake photos, fake story. The Boston Globe published pictures alleging U.S. troops raped Iraqi women. The pictures turned out to be commercially available pornography.
- Jayson Blair, The New York Times (2003). Lying/fabricating. He fabricated parts or all of at least 36 stories. He, along with his bosses Gerald Boyd and Howell Raines, resigned from the NYT.
- Rick Bragg, The New York Times (2003). "Drive-by" reporting. "Bragg's defense -- that it is common for Times correspondents to slip in and out of cities to 'get the dateline' while relying on the work of stringers, researchers, interns and clerks -- has sparked more passionate disagreement than the clear-cut fraud and plagiarism committed by Blair. The issue, put starkly, is whether readers are being misled about how and where a story was reported." He resigned.
- Fox Butterfield, New York Times (2000). Lying/fabricating and plagiarism. In 2003, a federal jury ruled that "the New York Times and one of its reporters libeled an Ohio Supreme Court justice" in an article published April 13, 2000. The jury found that the article was "not substantially true". He also "had lifted material from a story in The Boston Globe while reporting, ironically, on plagiarism by a Boston University dean".
- Mike Barnicle, Boston Globe (1998). Lying/fabricating and plagiarism. Totally made up stories, including one about a black kid and a white kid with cancer. Also used quotes from George Carlin as his own. Fired from the Boston Globe.
- Patricia Smith, Boston Globe (1998), Pulitzer Prize finalist. Lying/fabricating "An award-winning metro columnist for The Boston Globe resigned Thursday after being asked to leave by the paper's editor, who said she admitted to fabricating people and quotes in four columns this year." "I attributed quotes to people who didn't exist."
- Walter Duranty, The New York Times (1930s), Pulitzer Prize winner. Lying. This man visited Stalin's Russia and wrote that nothing untoward was happening there -- no famine, etc. In fact, up to 10 million people died in the Ukraine famine. His writings matched Russian propaganda almost exactly. His Pulitzer Prize still stands.
Duranty's whitewashing of Stalin's genocide may seem a little dated, but the Gray Lady keeps it current by continuing to dismiss demands that the Pulitzer Prize with which Duranty was rewarded for his journalistic crimes against humanity be renounced.
Hoven came away from his research with some conclusions and some questions:
- These offenses have been going on for years, long before the internet. But there does seems to be a rise in the number of reported offenses in recent years. Did the number of offenses go up, or did the fraction of discovered offenses go up?
- In a good number of these cases, the errors were caught by non-journalists, sometimes communicating over the internet.
- If it is "too good to be true", or just too politically correct to be true, take it with a grain of salt - several grains, apparently, if from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, CNN or Reuters.
- The Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize just ain't all they're cracked up to be.
- If this is the visible part of the iceberg, just how big is the iceberg?
The iceberg is the size of the MSM itself. No wonder liberals are big on public television and the Unfairness Doctrine; wouldn't it be nice if they had the force of government to assure that their monopoly isn't threatened?
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| By hiding communist genocide in the Ukraine from the public, the NY Times' Stalin apologist Walter Duranty helped established the level of the MSM's credibility. | ||
On a tip from Byron.
Posted by Van Helsing at August 18, 2007 1:26 PM
Comments
Three cheers for Randall Hoven. On his first query, he was right the second time: the only number of offenses that increased were the ones who were "pantsed" in public.
And no, the Pulitzer Prize ain't what a lot of folks think...anyone notice how many Conservative/Christian Pulitzer recipients there are? None that I know of...
Posted by: Toa at August 18, 2007 6:14 PM
Stalinism is alive, even today. Incredible.
Posted by: nikkolai at August 20, 2007 5:51 AM
Been reading one heckuva lot about what you are against, but what do you stand FOR? If you had your way, what kind of a world would we be living in? I have yet to see so much as one conservative demagogue (Hmmm....come to think of it, not so much as one so-called 'liberal' demagogue either...) who has had the guts (or is it the intellectual capacity?) to come out with any kind of comprehensive vision of how the average person would live on a day-to day basis. What sorts of entertainment would be available? What would the relationship between the people and the authorities be like? What sort of books would we read? The list goes on. As a dyed-in-the-wool centrist, I find the debate between conservatism and liberalism to be sometimes amusing, sometimes enlightening, but mostly annoying. As one who finds good ideas contained within all shades of the political spectrum and in all religions, I find the insistence by both Left AND Right that their specific ideas and ONLY their ideas will work in organizing humanity to be downright offensive, bordering on provocatory. This particular centrist holds ALL extremists in equal contempt, regardless of whatever faith or flag or ideology they hide behind.
Posted by: BWT at September 17, 2007 1:52 PM
BWT,
I guess that makes you a radical centrist.
As for my ideal society, it would be just like this one, except without all the moonbattery.
Posted by: Van Helsing at September 17, 2007 2:27 PM
