May 15, 2005

Mainline Press Infected by Gotcha

Sadly, the profession of journalism has come down with a serious case of “gotcha” virus.

The so-called “main line media” is infected with bias aimed at “getting” public figures – mostly those perceived to be conservatives – caught in malfeasance.

Latest cripple is Newsweek – a subsidiary of the Washington Post. Star reporter Michael Isikoff incited an anti-American riot in Afghanistan by a fraudulent story.

Isikoff asserted that unnamed “sources had heard” that an upcoming report would say U.S. guards at the Guantanamo stockade for captured terrorists had flushed the Muslim holy book Quran down a toilet to make an inmate talk.

Seventeen 17 Afghani were killed in the riot. Scores were injured.

The Defense Department stoutly denies such a sacrilege. It suggested that Isikoff’s informer may have confused it with an already reported incident. A Muslim prisoner tore out pages of the Quran and flushed them in an effort to stop up the toilet as a protest.

When confronted by the Defense Department, Isikoff admitted he had only one informant, but “it had been accurate in the past.”

One?

Journalists receive “tips” daily. Few get into print because they cannot be substantiated by a second, trusted source. Standard operating procedure.

Isikoff and his editors probably caught gotcha from Dan Rather and CBS who wanted desperately to believe any damaging allegation against President Bush.

Newsweek—with blood on its pages -- reluctantly “regrets that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”

Whoopdeedoo! That ought to atone for the lives lost, comfort the wounded and assuage besmirched U.S. policy. Reporters playing with live ammunition have a responsibility to be extra careful.

Newsweek finally retracted the untrue, irresponsible article. Alas, too little, too late.

The Newsweek debacle is only the most recent editorial fraud. Jayson Blair of the New York Times, and Jack Kelly of USA Today, lost their jobs for fabricating facts.

Journalism started down a slippery slope with biased Washington Post garbage by two ambitious reporters -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein -- in the 1974 Watergate affair.

They say their source of damaging information about President Nixon came from a mysterious source code-named “Deep Throat.”

The gist of Post ‘revelations” was that Nixon authorized six campaign workers to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to steal secrets.

It was established that the burglars, caught red- handed, had acted on their own. In White House tapes eventually discovered, Nixon termed the antics of his overzealous campaign workers as “jackassery.”

The term can also be attached to the gossip of Woodward and Bernstein and their editor. Months of accusations that forced Nixon to resign were based on a source still unknown.

The Post got away with character assassination because newspapers up to that time were trusted. Stern stories quoted the source – or did not publish.

When I was getting my corners rounded off as a rookie sportswriter for the Flint (Mich.) Daily Journal – many moons ago – I was startled one day when the newsroom suddenly fell silent.

A stranger walked slowly past the desks of editors and reporters to the managing editor’s office as every one stared.

“Who’s that?” I asked the news editor (God’s mighty right hand) in a whisper. The editor softly replied, “He’s a private detective the boss hired to try and trace the source of a scoop we’re working on.”

The moral of this incident is that pre-Vietnam journalists, in the heartland press, considered clandestine investigations morally suspect.

Vietnam changed everything in the journalism profession. Pacifist do-gooders -- who bought into the Kennedy Camelot mystique about the Vietnam War -- turned against President Lyndon John’s inherited role. Then, vehemently against Nixon’s exit strategy.

The Mai Lai slaughter became quintessential proof of American official brutality. The Tet Offensive victory was categorized a defeat by a hostile press. Returning veterans were booed.

Now, style and political correctness are everything for main-line media admittedly 90 percent liberal. A growing number of people shop the Internet for verity.

Hometown newspapers have their fists in the crumbling dike against liberal press propaganda – but the task is wearying.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org