October 30, 2008
Speaking about journalistic "integrity"
Proving that the AP's Calvin Woodward is the exception to the rule -- and that there's no bottom limit to how low the L.A. Times will go in its relentless campaign to protect Obama -- there's the ongoing refusal by the paper to release video in its possession of the Democratic candidate at an Israel-bashing dinner.
Hugh Hewitt notes:
This is an astonishing moment in the history of journalism. In the last presidential campaign, an arm of MSM attempted to influence the race by inventing a major story. This time, a different arm is influencing the race by censoring the news.
Times' owner Sam Zell and every single editor and reporter at the paper are thus now complicit in a decision to manage the news so that voters are not informed of all that might influence their choice of president. The videotape might be as bland as skim milk, or as incendiary as even the most inflammatory Jeremiah Wright sermon, but the content doesn't matter. The paper is suppressing the news and using Orwellian language to claim otherwise. The silence from other MSMers tells us all we need to know about their commitment to the mission of getting important facts before the public.
Imagine that the tape is of the sort as to tilt the election to McCain, but because of its suppression by the Times, Obama is elected. The paper then "owns" everything that follows on Obama's watch. This is of course true for the author of every partisan action that yields a decisive influence on an election, but it is an unprecedented position for an alleged newspaper to be in. Newspapers thump their chests when state secrets are revealed, claiming the need of the public to know even at the risk of damaging national security. What a turnaround to be wholly and irrefutably exposed as a mere agent in a presidential campaign rather than the guardian of the public's interest in truth.
It's astonishing, really, a complete repudiation of the Fourth Estates role in giving information, not withholding it from their readers.
Hewitt then makes the obvious comparison.
When the Times published stories on the SWIFT program used to track terrorist financing, I interviewed the Times' D.C. bureau chief, Doyle McManus.
HH: Is it possible, in your view, Doyle McManus, that the story will in fact help terrorists elude capture?
DM: I did…I neither believed it nor disbelieved it. I would believe I took that seriously. It’s impossible for me to evaluate independently to what degree…whether the potential assistance to terrorists…I think they actually didn’t argue that it would help terrorists. They argued that it would disadvantage, or make more difficult, counter-terrorist programs. But that’s probably a distinction without a difference. What…would that be momentous? Would it be marginal? I don’t know.
HH: Is it possible, in your view, Doyle McManus, that the story will in fact help terrorists elude capture?
DM: It is conceivable, yeah, although it might be worth noting that in our reporting, officials told us that this would, this disclosure would probably not affect al Qaeda, which figured out long ago that the normal banking system was not how it ought to move its money, and so turned to other unofficial and informal channels.
HH: The terrorist Hambali came up. He was captured in August of ‘03, mastermind/financier of the Bali bombing. Are you familiar with Hambali?
DM: I am.
HH: And did they alert you to the fact that they believe that Hambali was captured as a result of this SWIFT program?
DM: They did not. The first I knew of that was when I read it in the New York Times.
HH: Is it possible now that whoever was familiar with what Hambali did, those terrorists in Southeast Asia, could just simply reverse engineer his financing, and figure out what they shouldn’t do now?
DM: Well, I suppose it’s possible, except in effect, what we’re talking about here is the simple question of whether international banking transmissions are monitored….
The Times was willing to run the risk of informing terrorists about efforts to capture them, but is refusing to inform the American people about relevant, indeed, potentially decisive facts on the eve of an election.
And you still think you can get a fair take on the election by reading the L.A. Times?
Shame on you.
And shame on the L.A. Times.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 30, 2008 07:54 AM
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Comments
Do you think, though, that we might be better off, publicity-wise, with the Times continuing to stonewall on the issue, than with the actual video getting out there?
My idea is that the imagined awfulness of the thing is likely to have more impact than the real McCoy, based on my experience with many political "bombshells" that are less significant when the truth is out than when we were guessing what the contents might be.
As long as the Times clutches this video to its journalistic breast, we can attack Obama for what we think is on the tape without fear of contradiction, and we can attack the media for being Obama acolytes, equally without fear of contradiction.
Go on, LA Times, cling to what is in your mind the last shred of journalistic integrity you have.
Posted by: The Litttle Coach at October 30, 2008 10:32 AM