Times Piles on Piles
Update 12/1/05 pm: Columbia Journalism Review notes my comments on this matter.
Joining Steve M in the “big whup” camp is Chuck Simmins of You Big Mouth, You who scoffs: [etc.]
They left out the part about the secret lodge handshake.
The New York Times adds to the mound of decaying material termed news concerning the Lincoln Group’s efforts to provide news and information about the good things we are doing in Iraq. Again, the meat of the story comes from anonymous sources, and the documents cited are not public.
Many quotes are given from people who, in the end, actually know nothing about the premise of the story. It’s as if I want to a number of scientists and asked: “What would you think if the sky was green tomorrow morning?” Much is made of General Pace and some other Pentagon types not knowing anything about the contract. Gee, the guy knows nothing about a minor contract in a non-warfighting area of his department. What a freakin’ surprise!
I’m not sure what the issue is here.
First of all, it’s lousy reporting on both the part of the LA Times and the NY Time. The stories that they have published are largely speculation, and properly belong in the opinion section.
Secondly, if this is indeed happening, so what? Reporting is not some religious order populated by highly educated and well trained experts in their fields. The beef seems to be that someone outside the “inner circle” trespassed on holy ground, and far worse, got published. Somebody who doesn’t know the lodge’s secret handshake got a by-line in Baghdad!
If you toss away the myth that news and reporting is some sacred, undefilable calling, this story becomes a non-starter. When I look at the front page of my local paper, most of the stories were not written by their employees. Newspapers use stories from AP or Reuters all the time. Providing content to newspapers is a well-established business. This link, part of a frame in the original site, demonstrates another method, the press release. I can assure you, from all the research I have done for both the Americans Aiding Americans project and the Stingy List project, that newspapers print press releases verbatim all the time. Guess what? Some of those press releases are written for companies that pay the newspapers large sums of money. Far larger sums than seem to be involved in the Baghdad story.
No, this story is old news that Old Media wants to dig up and spread around. If they can make the Administration look bad, wonderful! But most of all they need to fight off the trespassers on the holy ground of news reporting that Jayson Blair and Judith Miller struggled so hard to protect.
[...] Chuck Simmins: If you toss away the myth that news and reporting is some sacred, undefilable calling, this story becomes a non-starter. When I look at the front page of my local paper, most of the stories were not written by their employees. Newspapers use stories from AP or Reuters all the time. Providing content to newspapers is a well-established business. [...]