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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject: Disinfo in the Lehigh Valley |
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Another "opinion" piece from a journalism professor at Penn State simply parroting the anti-SVPT canard...apparently the "perfesser" doesn't find that questions of honor, veracity and character have a place in the examination of a candidate for POTUS...
| Quote: | From The Morning Call -- February 6, 2005
(note: Title omitted as it appears to be unrelated to content)
The big house-cleaning at CBS News last month ignored the real scandal: Why was the network — along with plenty of other news outlets — chasing down a 30-year-old story in the first place?
Cataclysmic events occurred during President Bush's first term. Above all else, the election should have been a referendum on the president's responses to those events. Instead, for a large chunk of the summer of 2004, campaign coverage was dominated by an examination of what the candidates did or did not do during the Vietnam War.
True, the contrast between the candidates' military service records was striking and therefore irresistible as a story. Then, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth called that contrast into question by impugning the heroism of Sen. John Kerry. Then Kerry all but wore his medals to the Democratic National Convention, which prompted the Republicans to make fun of those medals at their convention, which prompted the Kerry campaign to put the Bush campaign on the defensive about the president's less-than-stellar stint in the Texas Air National Guard, which prompted …
One could argue that in reporting on all these machinations, the press was just doing its job: Report the claims and counter-claims and let the public decide which ones, if any, are legitimate or relevant.
That sounds right, but it's disingenuous. Reporting confers legitimacy and relevance. Before they allow themselves to be used by this or that interested party, reporters and editors must first ask: Is this a story? How much of a story is it?
(Me#1: Dear perfesser...those are questions for the circulation department to handle. The reporters and editors must first ask: Is there TRUTH in this story and how can we best determine the veracity of the allegations. Quoting the "findings" of a widely acknowledged biased source such as the NY Times is hardly the stuff of "journalism", it is simply parroting propaganda...like the following...)
The New York Times concluded in a front-page story last August that ''The accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.''
Yet the Times, and countless other news outlets, had been reporting on the Swift Boat Veterans' allegations since May.
On the other side of the ledger, not even George W. Bush's most ardent supporters have ever claimed there was anything heroic about his National Guard service. All but the most ardent would concede that, like a lot of people, Bush probably joined the Guard in hopes of avoiding service in Vietnam. Yet, this didn't seem to hurt him in 2000. Would a ''smoking gun'' memo hurt him in 2004? Not likely.
In defense of CBS and everyone else in the news business, one could also argue that covering the Vietnam-era stories and covering other campaign-related issues was not an either-or proposition: The news media gave us plenty of both.
But, newsroom resources are finite. Devoting a lot of staff time and airtime to one story has to take coverage away from something else.
And, when a newspaper puts that story on page one or a newscast puts it at or near the top of a 22-minute program, it is saying to its audience, in no uncertain terms, that this story is important.
Certainly belittling the other guy's military service was important to the Bush and Kerry campaigns and to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But was this Vietnam-era history important to voters? To borrow a line from Sen. Kerry, the news media were focused on ''the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.''
Campaign coverage should have been about whether the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks could have been thwarted, what the government was doing to prevent future attacks, the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and the occupation of Iraq.
Instead, the networks and the newspapers chewed up all that airtime and front-page real estate rehashing how the candidates served their country when they were in their early 20s. That is the real scandal that CBS News and their counterparts at other broadcast, cable and print outlets have yet to answer for.
Russell Frank, associate professor of communications, teaches journalism at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.
McCall.com |
note: There is a "comments" feature for this opinion piece should you care to indulge...requires free registration |
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MrJapan
PO1
Joined: 27 Sep 2004
Posts: 465
Location: Chiba, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Don't these sore losers ever give up? This is pathetic... Are they so brainwashed, that they can't see that everything they are claiming about Swifts are unsubstantiated?
And WHERE did. "heroism of John Kerry" come from? What planet are they from? man... I hope that what I read on Drudge was true... about them really moving north to Canada... Canada can have them. Maybe there would be less problems in the states then... things would probably run much smoother :/
MJ |
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coldwarvet
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Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 1125
Location: Minnetonka, MN
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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Another MSM effort to marginalize the Swift Veterans & POW's For Truth.
CWV
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RogerRabbit
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 05 Sep 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Oregon
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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Just the sKerryites trying to gloss things over so the creep does not have to make good on his promise of signing a 180
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Tom Poole
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 914
Location: America
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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Speaking of CBS, I heard yesterday that no one has resigned yet. What happened to the house cleaning that was supposed to result from the forgery investigation? Not only is Dan-the-Marine still there, but so are the other three including Mary Misery. What's up with the punishment? Seems they didn't even get a timeout. A federal investigation needs to be conducted and felony charges filed.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject: Re: Disinfo in the Lehigh Valley |
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| Me#1You#10 wrote: | | Another "opinion" piece from a journalism professor at Penn State simply parroting the anti-SVPT canard...apparently the "perfesser" doesn't find that questions of honor, veracity and character have a place in the examination of a candidate for POTUS... |
Damn, when I circulated amongst those hallowed halls we had Kerry's SDS tables to trip over back in the 60's...seems the more things change the more they stay the same! Take some measure of comfort in the realization that the Dean who the good perfesser works under hails from Nebraska where such comments would be heard only in the rarified halls of the communications dept ladies room. Perhaps he'll have an opportunity to hear both sides....ummm, in fact I highly recommend providing him with such enlightenment as you care to offer at
mailto:rbf5@psu.edu
I know I did, tho' as a former Lion myself I may have gone a bit too easy on him.
Bruce
CamRanh '70-71 |
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