Some thoughts from the MSM
We enjoyed reading the Nieman commentary from the Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin entitled, “How the press can prevent another Iraq.” Here are some bits:
You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority
– Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.
– Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate…Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War
– War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better…
Look Outside Our Borders
– Pay attention to international opinion.
– Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?
– Keep an eye out for how the international press is covering this story. Why should we be so different?
“Why should we be so different?” That’s quite a question, isn’t it — very revealing, as are many of his others. We have to say we appreciate the honesty of Mr. Froomkin and the insight he provides readers into how to read his stories and those of others in the Washington Post.
UPDATE
Given recent events in the blogosphere and certain candidates’ choices of web personnel, we were also amused to see a tiny and aged controversy in the matter of Froomkin and Patrick Ruffini. Ruffini, who has just signed on to assist Rudy Giuliani, wrote a piece a couple of years ago called Dan Froomkin, Second-Rate Hack, which has disappeared into the ether, though not silently. We missed that dust-up at the time.
There is nothing at all second rate, however, about the insight that Mr. Froomkin has given us into his view of the perspective and responsibilities of elite MSM journalists today.
February 15th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Mr. Froomkin’s honesty and insight, which I too appreciate, may have a silver lining. In contrast to the Vietnam era during which the media purported to deliver the straight truth, Froomkin reveals the agenda and modus operandi. If I were an MSM investor, executive or director who read Froomkin’s manifesto and then looked at circulation and profitability, I would not be pleased at all.
It’s unlikely but not impossible that this kind of candor augurs a change in how the media’s owners allow it to operate.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I don’t like Mr. Froomkin’s politics at all, but he makes plenty of good conservative points here.
Not just about the press. Legislators, executives, and commanders should apply the same tests to their own ideas.
The founders knew that war is the greatest nursery of despotism. Not only through direct government power enhancement, but through the way that the process of going to war and being at war dull the edge of civil citizenship. Wars- even unavoidable, essential, defensive, and victorious wars- are corrosive of liberty. To steal a line, wars are like kryptonite to freedom.
ALL citizens should ALWAYS assume governments lie. The burden of proof is, and should always be, on government in every phase of its life.
I might have phrased some of these things differently, but before ANY war I’d hope the press did all these things.
Even the “so different” things. I don’t mean it like Froomkin and Kerry do. But if we are talking war and Surinam isn’t, “why?” is a fair question. I’d want to know why the asserted casus belli affects us and not Surinam. All that is is another way of asking how this “threat” directly touches on our, as opposed to someone else’s, interests. Why do WE have to go to war over this, and Surinam doesn’t? I’d expect a reporter to ask it, and a war advocate to be able to answer it. If the answer isn’t screamingly obvious, maybe we can hold hard.
I’m sure that Mrs. Thatcher (for example) could have answered the “why are we different” question to the satisfaction of her free citizen masters. Mr. Roosevelt couldn’t on 12-6-41. Two days later, he could.
“What’s different” applies to the target, too. It’s a good question to ask about tyrants Mugabe and Hussein, theocracies Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, or “unauthorized” nuclear powers Iran and Pakistan.
I cannot imagine a Washington or Lincoln disagreeing with any of Mr. Froomkin’s points. Nor F.D. R., who was trumpeting the answers to all of them long before Pearl Harbour.