Media Wars: The Boomerang Backlash Effect

Newsweek made a mistake. It got sloppy. But the practice of using anonymous sources is the same technique used to uncover necessary truths – like Watergate and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski.

Anonymous sources are also tools of administrations, too. Many administrations have leaked stories to the press for their benefit.

You have to ask yourself, why didn’t the Pentagon refute the story when Newsweek gave it to them to fact check?

What about the anonymous source in the military? Newsweek followed reporting protocol and offered the Pentagon a review of the article, yet Newsweek takes all the blame, while this anonymous course remains, well, anonymous and unscathed.

Can you just hear the dialog prior to the release of the article?

NEWSWEEK: (To the Pentagon.) Can you read this over and let us know if we have this right?

PENTAGON: (Later, behind close doors.) Hmmm. This thing about the Quran being flushed down the toilet looks pretty bad. And so does this prisoner abuse stuff, but is it ALL true? And who is the source for this? We need to find them and let the public know who it is.

LATER.

PENTAGON: Here’s your story back. Looks good to us.

But the preceding paragraphs aren’t really the points I wanted to make. I’m not an apologist for Newsweek. I’m seeing a dangerous trend from Right wing pundits employing a tactic of demonizing the press, specifically outlets they label with a liberal bias.

Conservatives have successfully sold the idea that the press is liberal. Ask any quasi-knowledgeable, conservative person and they will start citing statistics about how the majority of reporters voted for democratic candidates, about how the press favors liberal stories, and how Dan Rather sloppily gathered facts in some of his recent stories.

Newsweek opened the door for more “facts” to be built up against the “liberal media establishment.” It was a real case of piling on as conservative pundit after conservative pundit lined up bash Newsweek and “uncover” yet another “abuse” of the American people by the liberal media.

One of the best examples is Michael Reagan, who in his latest column, blames Newsweek for

“inciting riots that killed at least 16 or 17 and injured scores more”

and

"reported a bogus story that caused the deaths of not 16 people.”

That Reagan fails to acknowledge that the Newsweek article also factually includes references of prison abuse along with the fact that our war effort is supremely unpopular in the Muslim world makes his claim somewhat amusing were not for the fact that these riots did result in casualties. While the Newsweek article may have been the tipping point, it certainly didn’t “cause” the death of 16-17 people. The Muslim extremists behind these riots need little or no reason to riot. They have hated American influence for years and add it the fact that we have invaded their homeland and anyone can see how they might riot.

I think David Letterman's quip on it summed it up best. (I'll paraphrase.)

"There seems to be an uproar over in the Mid-East after Newsweek ran an article about a Quran beingh flushed down a toilet in a prisoner of war camp. That's too bad because, you know, they loved us up until then."

Another example of how the conservative media is trying to paint the rest of the media into a corner is Dick Morris’ take on the Newsweek article. He states regarding the story,

(the) “Newsweek magazine story falsely reporting desecration of the Koran by American military interrogators”

and

“And now Newsweek has published an inflammatory story that has led to massive anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan — the first since the war — protesting the seeming defilement of sacred texts. Sixteen people are dead because Newsweek got the story wrong,”

Again, I return to the core argument that Newsweek did not make up the story of the Quran being flushed down a toilet, they reported it from an highly regarded military source. And when placed along side the slew of atrocious prisoner abuse cases perpetrated during this war, does it seem out of context that a Quran would be flushed down a toilet to add to the debasement of these prisoners? Come on, there are pictures of a pile of naked Muslim men out there and men forced to crawl on the ground wearing a dog collar. How far do you have to go to “buy” the fact that a Muslim sacred text could be flushed down a toilet to add to this debasement?

And my last example, from Barbara Simpson, reporting for World Net Daily (a reach, yes);

“Newsweek lied, but did so because in the thin air of East Coast journalism, the purpose was more important than the message. It was a scoop. It would air more alleged scandal to shame and incriminate the United States, the U.S. military and especially President Bush and his administration.”

She adds:

“Newsweek printed the scandalous story without verifying its truth or reaffirming sources.”

Did Newsweek lie? Or did the anonymous source lie? Did Newsweek uses its liberal bias to report an unfavorable story towards an administration it has great disdain for?

Newsweek did not lie. Again, Newsweek was sloppy, but it had a source. If you have a reliable source that tells you something and you print it, how can that be construed as a lie and bised reporting. It's beyond me.

This isn’t to give reporters a lazy, free-pass to not do their jobs thoroughly. Media has a great responsibility to get their stories correct and this is an example of how they didn’t get it right, but for conservative media columnists to use it as way to cite yet another example of how the liberal media is out bashing the administration and the troops again, come on. The Right is exploiting the situation for their own gain.

Frankly, I think it’s less of a case of liberal bias, but a part of media’s desperate need to break the story. This need to be first has driven many a reporter and media outlet to jump to conclusions, get facts wrong, and generally practice poor journalism.

But the current (effective) tactic of conservatives is to go on the attack when a “liberal media outlet” gets it wrong. This tactic puts these media outlets back on their heels and effectively start marginalizing their credibility with the public. But the hypocritical aspect of the whole tactic is that conservative media outlets have made the same mistakes and display their bias on a regular basis.

Conservatives, media or not, have played an effective game of labeling the media and the people have bought it. Thoughtful and sometime provocative news outlets have been labeled “East Coast Liberal Elitists” and we in fly-over land are buying it to our detriment.

From my experience, reporters from the past worked hard to remain objective and restrain their biases. Today, conservative media outlets show no pretense in this area. Bias is rampant. Watch FOX News or listen to Rush Limbaugh for a week and find out what I mean.

I can say that, yes, through use of story selection and probably some slight bias, there probably has been a liberal bias to the media for several decades. And yes, if you’re a conservative, this might annoy you, but currently there is a boomerang backlash in effect that is grossly tipping the scale away from any idea of unbiased reporting. Reporting critical of this current administration and our efforts in Iraq have been labeled as attacks from the liberal media.

But what is the role of media and hasn’t the media in the past been instrumental in bring to light abuses of power? Isn’t a free press one of the greatest assets of our country?

I fear that the conservative tactics of the right are endangering the balance that lies between government and the press. This check and balance system between government and the media has had a long and effective tradition in our country. Certainly, there can be two sides to a story, but when the press becomes neutered, we as a public lose an avenue of information to help us make up our own minds.

With the advent of cable TV and the internet, we have seen the gradual break down of the media in into ideological camps. Yes, some East coast papers have a liberal slant. But, also talk radio is vastly conservative. Balance, accuracy and responsible journalism is what we all deserve.

Ultimately, it’s my opinion that while the media of the past may have held a bias, it in the vast majority of instances, held that bias in check, attempting to deliver fact-based stories that would help Americans make up their own mind. In this new polarized media landscape, with lines been drawn and camps set-up and partisan politics playing a greater role in reporting, bias is coming through loud and clear and I don’t think Americans are better off for it.


Sources:
Michael Reagan Artilce

Dick Morris Article

Barbara Simpson Article