Media Culpability - the Fourth Estate

[CalicoPenn]

Seems to me there is much more at play here to try to pass it off as bias.

 

The size of the newspaper plays a major role. A small town paper is more likely to cover Scouting and School and Church, etc. activities than larger newspapers. The major metro newspapers - New York, Chicago, LA, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. are the least likely to cover Boy Scout stories unless there is some other hook involved - a controversy, or a major challenge met. A major metro isn't likely to cover a story that Billy Scout earned his Eagle badge unless perhaps Billy Scout is a quadriplegic, or some other factor makes it less than ordinary. Suburban newspapers - which tend to cover large areas in a major metro market but more suburban focused, may cover some "feel good" Scouting stories, but tend not to cover such events as Blue and Golds, etc. that might be common in small town papers.

 

A big part of this has to do with staffing as well. In a small town, the person who gets all those press releases may very well also be the person that is going to do the reporting, or has some authority to assign stories to a reporter. It's likely they're also getting only 1 to 5 press releases by local groups per day, so those press releases are more likely to be read in a timely manner. By the time you hit the mid-level markets (small cities, suburban), those press releases are being received by a clerk who may be handling a couple of hundred a day and is categorizing them for an assigment editor by type - business, sports, religion, community, government, etc. Not to say your press releases are getting lost, but they may just not trigger any response if they won't allow your story to be fit into a certain format, or are just "too common", ie "just another Eagle Scout" (or insert your event here) story" Sometimes its all about timing too. Scouts doing a service project to clean up a creek is likely to get more play in April while newspapers are doing stories about Earth Day than September when newspapers are doing more stories about Back to School.

 

In a lot of cases, volunteers are doing the press work and they're all reading from the same suggestion books available in the local library, or following what the folks before them have done because thats the way it's always been done. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here when I say that its doubtful the Councils have professional PR folks working for them who can help with press relations. Most corporations have people who do nothing but PR, and most large advocacy groups (NRA, Audubon) have people who do nothing but PR. Most small, volunteer advocacy groups (the local LGBT group for instance) have gotten their volunteers some real PR training.

 

So what might the LGBT group be doing that you can do also, if you only knew what to do. For starters, I'd guess that not only did they send their press release to the standard contact at the newspaper, they also sent it to one or two by-lined reporters and/or columnists that they may have talked to before. They may very well have called one or two reporters, maybe even the editor, long before their dinner, just to introduce themselves, tell about their mission, and offer to be a source for qoutes, or background on any story they may be doing about GLBT issues (it may be a story about marriage in New Hampshire, and they're located in Idaho - but they've indicated their readiness to "give good quote" should the editor decide to localize the story a bit. I'd guess that they didn't just send a press release announcing or summarizing their dinner - they probably invited someone from the paper to attend the dinner "Gee, we'd love for you to come to our dinner - we'll put you at a table with some really interesting and fun people - and please let us know if you would like to bring your spouse with you. Dinner is Prime Rib or Trout - we also have a vegetarian option - which would you prefer?" Left unsaid, of course, is that there is no cost to the reporter.

 

Calico

[Herms]

I just recently returned from Iraq and was disgusted at the way the media (television) reporters act and what they are looking for over there. All they are looking for is negative and sensational material.

 

We went out on particular convoy to open 2 new schools and a new 40 mile section of highway the Seabees had finished and when I went to the trailer to ask if any of them wanted to go out (and as the senior guy I got ordered to do it) not a single reporter out of 15 or 16 (ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX etc...) wanted to go to report on something good, something positive. It was amazing to watch some of these Iraqi kids going to school for the first time and not a single reporter was there to report on it!

 

In another instance we had a CNN reporter take a situation during a convoy op and completely twist it around so that it didn't even sound like what really happened! Perhaps the best reporters were the BBC guys. They were the least offensive and the most truthful (relatively speaking).

 

I won't even watch national TV news any more as I KNOW how badly they skew and miss-represent facts.

 

 

 

[Eamonn]

hops_scout,

Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction? No, he did not. We've known that for some time now.

Most of the faulty intelligence came from an Iraqi defector known as "Curve Ball," whose fabricated story of mobile biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who provided the information is a small time crook.

His story and the story he told is so full of holes that I don't understand why some hard working truthful journalist didn't see and report what just didn't add up.

The Intel provided by "Curve Ball" which has now been proven to be a pack of lies is the material that was used by then Secretary of State Colin Powell before the United Nations.

Eamonn.

 

[Gold Winger]

"Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction? "

 

Gotta wonder what he used on the Kurds. I guess that doesn't count.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Saddam Hussein used poison gas and nerve agents in the Iran-Iraq war and against Kurds in Halabja circa 1984-1988. But considering the short shelf life of what he used (mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX) and having weapon inspectors crawl through his country after getting pushed out of Kuwait, no, it doesn't count as having WMDs nearly 15 years later.

 

Why do you think the Bush administration used a vague term like WMDs instead of what they "knew" Hussein had, anyway? It's so it would match practically anything found. If Iraq was attacked because the US knew he had e.g. mustard gas, the Bush administration should have said "mustard gas" instead of WMDs.

[Gold Winger]

WMD sounds better in the newspapers than "mustard gas." As for the "inspectors," it took them so long to get into the country . . . Well, give me that long to get rid of the evidence and even my jealous girlfriend wouldn't have known that a long haired blond had been in the house.

[evmori]

Does it really make a difference why we toppled Saddam's reign of terror? The country is better without him.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Eamonn]

"Does it really make a difference why we toppled Saddam's reign of terror? The country is better without him."

 

As of Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, at least 3,911 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,181 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

 

The AP count is three higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EST.

 

The British military has reported 174 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

 

Yes I think it does make a difference!

Eamonn.

 

 

[acco40]

Eamonn - you left out one other nationality - Iraqis.

 

As for the media - we get what we pay for.

 

(CNN) A teenager described as a Boy Scout saved Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom from a knife attack Tuesday, a presidential spokesman said. The assailant "aimed at the president from about 10 feet away, but another young boy -- about 15 years old -- maybe one feet away jumped to prevent him," spokesman Mohamed Shareef said. The boy "came in the way and grabbed the knife," Shareef told The Associated Press. "One brave boy saved the president's life." The attacker's knife was wrapped in a national flag, Shareef said. "The knife touched the president's shirt but not his body," he said.

 

The teen, whose name was given as Jaisham, is a Boy Scout, Shareef told AP. Jaisham received a hand wound and was flown to the capital of Male for treatment because he could not move some of his fingers, Shareef told AP. Gayoom was unhurt, Shareef said. The Maldives is a nation of islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of India. The president was visiting one of those islands, Hoarafushi, to inaugurate an energy project, Shareef said. Police arrested the attacker, he said.

 

yeah, darn media never covers Scouts. With so many media sources now - home town weekly papers, large city daily papers, internet, cable, podcasts, TV, magazines, talk radio - the list goes on and on - one can find "news" to substantiate almost any point of view.

[BrentAllen]

This whole WMD issue is so tired. For those who think GWB knew there weren't any WMD's and just invaded Iraq for oil, please answer just one question:

 

If he lied about the WMDs, why didn't he just plant them once we were in Iraq? If he and Cheney were going to so much trouble to misrepresent the intelligence, why wouldn't they take the next logical step and have a team ready to plant evidence of WMDs? According to the Bush-haters, he KNEW there weren't any WMDs and he invaded, knowing his lie would be uncovered, and he didn't do anything to cover it up. That just makes no sense at all.

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

why didn't he just plant them once we were in Iraq?

 

W ain't that smart! I think he did it for dad since dad didn't get him before!

 

Sorry Eamonn, but quoting causalities is so Vietnam era! Yes there were those who gave their lives. The question is was the reason worth their life?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Like I said earlier, if Bush supposedly knew what weapons Iraq had, why use a vague term like "weapons of mass destruction"? It's so it could match nearly anything that was found. But nothing close was found. So what were those WMDs that Iraq was supposed to have had? But the Bush administration still hasn't said what they (supposedly) mistakenly thought Iraq had.

[hops_scout]

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf

 

According to the definition found at dictionary.com these items fit the description.

 

weapon of mass destruction

 

noun

a weapon that kills or injures civilian as well as military personnel (nuclear and chemical and biological weapons)

 

 

If they don't fit yours, I'd be interested to see your definition of a WMD.

 

 

Eamonn, I counted 4,212 casualties in your post. Wikipedia puts the casualty numbers on September 11 as being 2,999 with many of those being civilians.

 

So 4,212 casaulties over nearly 5 years or 2,999 from a single day? One is too many. But it has been reported a few different times that attacks have been prevented from happening on US soil since we have entered Iraq.

[Beavah]

But it has been reported a few different times that attacks have been prevented from happening on US soil since we have entered Iraq.

 

Bah, humbug.

 

We weren't in Iraq, or doing much of anything, from 1993 to 2001. Eight years it took the nutjobs to put together a new attack between the WTC bombing and the 9/11 airplanes assault.

 

So can we say that attacks were prevented from happenin' on US soil for the 6 years following 1993 because we didn't invade anybody?

 

Da notion that our involvement in Iraq has had a direct effect on the lack of terrorist activity in the US is just bunk. Hasn't stopped stuff in Britain, eh?

 

But it is another good example of political "spin" picked up and reported uncritically by some of da media.

 

B

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

hops_scout writes:

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf

 

According to the definition found at dictionary.com these items fit the description.

 

The Iraq Survey Group, the Bush administration's own commission on investigating WMDs in Iraq said:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter a policy ISG attributes to Baghdads desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

 

Like I said earlier, old chemical weapons dating from circa 1988 (even though they can be hazardous and potentially lethal) don't count as WMDs.