How pathetic have the U.S. media become?

**Adrian II** · 05-18-2005, 13:54

All week we've seen American media outlets and bloggers twisting their knickers over the Newsweek Quran-flushing story and cheering in support of the Pentagon's attempt to enforce self-censorship in the country. Yet the real news has gone practically unnoticed: the leaked minutes of the July 23, 2002, meeting in Tony Blair's office with the prime minister's closest advisors. The meeting was held to discuss Washington's policy on Iraq and the likelihood of an invasion. 'It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided,' the minutes state. They also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, head of MI6: 'There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Oh, were they? Maybe the White House or Pentagon press corps could ask a few pointed questions about that. But nah, they were too busy blowing smoke screens at the expense of their Newsweek colleagues. They didn't ask a single question about it. No major paper gave more than a passing reference to the memo, the Washington Post didn't mention it at all and the electronic media acted as if they never heard of it.

It was big news in Britain. I guess those strange Brits somehow care about their democracy a bit more?

**discovery1** · 05-18-2005, 14:13

I believe that the president can decide which media outlets can have correspondens' in the White House. I was told that the prez can use this to persuade the media not to talk about a certain story(if they don't have acess to the White House, then all the good news from there they don't have). Perhaps that is what happened? But then again, my source for this is'nt exactly unbiased so....

**KukriKhan** · 05-18-2005, 14:17

Our guys have their hands full right now, covering the life-or-death of Phil E. Buster, that long-winded fella whose verbosity stops everyone from working....apparently.

Scandals? War? Small potatoes. :insert choice of smilie:

**Adrian II** · 05-18-2005, 14:22

Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Our guys have their hands full right now, covering the life-or-death of Phil E. Buster, that long-winded fella whose verbosity stops everyone from working....apparently.

Scandals? War? Small potatoes. :insert choice of smilie:

Yeah, weel, Heaven knows the Brits have their tabloids and the Dutch have their rags etcetera. But the radio silence about this memo is amazing.

**LittleGrizzly** · 05-18-2005, 14:22

that does seem a strange sense of priority...maybe its that liberal media bias some of the american members keep talking about...

**KukriKhan** · 05-18-2005, 14:33

Happens every time one of their colleages gets busted (e.g. the Jason Blair/NYTimes saga). They march-in-place and navel-gaze for a bit before they get back to work. This news consumer doesn't like it one bit.

Meanwhile, the world still turns, and serious news readers have to go far afield to feed their (and my) addiction.

**Adrian II** · 05-18-2005, 14:47

Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Happens every time one of their colleages gets busted (e.g. the Jason Blair/NYTimes saga). They march-in-place and navel-gaze for a bit before they get back to work. This news consumer doesn't like it one bit.

Meanwhile, the world still turns, and serious news readers have to go far afield to feed their (and my) addiction.

I feel your pain. Man, Dutch newspapers and politicians have become so provincial and are engaging in such senseless navel-staring (who's doing it to whom in The Hague) in the past two to three years that I hardly read them anymore. I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

**English assassin** · 05-18-2005, 15:12

I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

Well I can't speak for Germany or France but God help you in the UK. The Financial Times is about the only paper that seems to think that "news" should be part of its agenda, I swear the Times today is worse than the Daily Mail 15 years ago, and I can't be doing with the political agendas of the other broadsheets.

I wouldn't wipe my arse on the tabloids, obviously.

Thank God for the BBC, and to a lesser extent channel 4 news. (And an especial hurray for the Today programme. Today trivia (and nothing to do with its news gathering abilities): one of the criteria for independent launch of the missiles given to the commanders of the UK's bomb boats is not being able to pick up the Today programme- it being assumed if Today is not broadcast each morning, London no longer exists. But I digress.)

**Don Corleone** · 05-18-2005, 15:19

You guys are kidding me about the news community towing the White House line, right? Scott McClellan couldn't conduct Tuesday's press conference because every question was bashing him & the White House for their statements about the flawed Newsweek story:

"Who made you Newsweek's editor?"

I'm not going to argue that our media does a pretty lousy job sometimes. But they are most certainly not in the White House's back pocket.

Yes, they focus on extraneous, irrelevant topics. Yes, they miss the 800 lb gorilla more times than I can count. But they are anything but White House apologists. If they were, do you really think there would have a been a Quaran down the toilet story, regardless of whether it was true or fabricated?

Nobody has a good press anymore. Brittish papers editorialize WAY too much in their news sections (sorry, I can't speak for Dutch or French papers) and American ones are lazy and sloppy in their work. Think about it.... CBS's #1 mistake was laziness. If they had done even a perfunctory check on their data, they never would have run that story. But the nature of the story they got nailed on proves they're not in Bush's back pocket.

**Fragony** · 05-19-2005, 09:54

Originally Posted by AdrianII

I feel your pain. Man, Dutch newspapers and politicians have become so provincial and are engaging in such senseless navel-staring (who's doing it to whom in The Hague) in the past two to three years that I hardly read them anymore. I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

NRC and Trouw are very decent newspapers I think.