THE PRESS AND THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST
Tom Wolfe, who chronicled Ken Kesey’s riotous, hallucenigenic trip across country in a painted school bus in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test wrote in that American classic “It’s easy to have faith as long as it goes along with what you already know.”
I can’t think of a better explanation for the cognitive dissonance shown by the mainstream press since “Crapperquiddick” hit the fan this past weekend. Because make no mistake: The very same people in the press who took CBS to task last fall for their “fake but accurate” defense of the Bush TANG memos have elevated that apologia so that it’s now considered a legitimate way to report the news.
In editorial after editorial, the press has latched on to the idea that since abuse of prisoners happened in the past at Guantanamo and especially Abu Ghraib, the story of the flushing of a Koran down a toilet sounds true, seems true, and therefore, must be true. Never mind that the only people making these charges are former inmates, their families, and the lawyers representing them. And unless you believe, as the American left so feverishly imagines, that these same inmates were just innocent bystanders swept up in military dragnets and thrown into dungeons like Gitmo, one must be extremely concerned that a line somehow has been crossed.
It’s easy to have faith as long as it goes along with what you already know.
Forget for a moment that the press is more willing to believe the jihadist beheaders, Taliban thugs, and unreconstructed Baathists rather than their own government and military. Forget for a moment that these terrorists are not stupid, that like their bloodthirsty brothers in arms from 40 years ago, the Viet Cong, they know how to push the hot buttons of the American left and their allies in the press. What’s so very striking about this sea change in press standards is that it’s being used to justify the publication of a story that so far has resulted in 17 people losing their lives.
I say so far because as I’ve mentioned previously, I have little doubt that with enough digging, the press will find whatever it is their looking for. And when they do, the piously ignorant peasants who rioted in the streets of Pakistan and Afghanistan last week will pick up where they left off and more hell will break loose. To what end? The explanation given by the press is the eternal “people’s right to know.” A noble sentiment meaningless when placed in the context of covering a war where the United States is fighting for its survival. Terrorists are not just an inconvenience. They are a threat. And if the perfect storm of weapons of mass destruction and fanatical jihadists ever merge, there will be no place in America to hide from the cyclonic blast , least of all the newsrooms and boardrooms of MSM.
What then drives the press to go so far as change reportorial standards when it comes to confirming stories with the potential to harm American interests? Bias is the easy answer. Hugh Hewitt believes that arrogance and hubris - the corruption of power - has blinded reporters to what their real jobs are; to chronicle events in a fair and accurate manner.
Id take that a step farther and say that the press is lost, adrift on an undiscovered ocean where the old certainties and verities of just six months ago no longer apply. They can’t stand the new found scrutiny of the Shadow Media (HT: Ace). They try to cover their uncertainty with bravado and insolence, hoping like a teenaged boy being questioned by his parents why he came home at 2:00 AM to bluff their way through. It won’t work.
If the press thinks this “fake but accurate” paradigm will improve their credibility with the public they’re sadly mistaken. It just becomes that much easier for those of us in the Shadow Media to point out that the Emperor forgot something when he left the palace this morning.
Cross Posted at Blogger News Network
“Fake but accurate” indeed. As we even know from the ostensibly objective world of Science, if your data are crap, no amount of analysis is going to change that, let alone validate the crap conclusions drawn therefrom. Witness cold fusion. Of course researchers can arrogantly make up theories and disingenuously seek only the data to support them - even concoct said data. No one will ever know, until they get caught. Then: career= poof. These rare yet highly visible events have the nasty habit of making all scientific endeavor look bad in the process.
I’d like to see a little more “career = poof” in the media for their similar transgressions. The rub off effect is starting to take hold, as more folks seek alternatives to MSM’s biased at best, disingenuous at worst, reporting.
Comment by The MaryHunter — 5/19/2005 @ 7:04 am
The Birdman of Yggdrasil
Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … It’s Stop the ACLU Thursday
Trackback by NIF — 5/19/2005 @ 7:42 am
Just a note to say I was unaware of this blog until I came across HH’s link. I’m grateful to him for the link, and I’m appreciative of the insightful and intelligent discourse I find here. This has become another ‘must visit daily’ site for me.
Comment by Levans — 5/19/2005 @ 10:03 am
Right Wing Nuthouse: A New Blog Discovery
Different blogs are worth reading for different reasons. Some are fine aggregators of links to information, some are interesting in their own right; and some are a combination of the two. Right Wing Nut House is one of those combination blogs. The bl…
Trackback by The Hedgehog Blog — 5/19/2005 @ 10:21 am
The odd thing is that these stories don’t really tell the narrative that the press is looking for: that orders to flush Korans (or the stuff at Abu Ghraib) came from the top. Without that, the press really has nothing other than a couple soldiers acting like jerks, which is hardly news.
Comment by Pat Curley — 5/19/2005 @ 12:11 pm
Now that Fox News’s ratings have fallen for the 6th consecutive quarter, have you begun to consider that perhaps the angry rightwing ideologue shtick is going out of style? And that blaming a news magazine for Bush’s myriad failures in South Asia is a gambit that just isn’t going to make it with as many people as it might have a year or two back?
Comment by Ellard Brighton — 5/19/2005 @ 12:13 pm
Ellard, it’s sixth consecutive month, not quarter, and everybody in the news biz’s ratings (including blogs) saw a drop-off after the election. They’re still about 40% above CNN’s.
Comment by Brainster — 5/19/2005 @ 4:20 pm
6 consecutive months of ratings decline at Fox? Wow. That must be quite a relief for you. I hear their new slogan is going to be: “We decline, you whine.”
Anybody see the Chicago Trib article on purported Koran desecrations by US military folks? Looks like the Red Cross is talking now. Should they now be held responsible for anti-American riots in Afghanistan as well? Or will it be The Tribune? Oh my gosh, so many guilty parties to blame for General Georgie’s military debacles.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationwide/chi-0505190306may19,1,278199.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=28cset=true
Comment by Ellard Brighton — 5/19/2005 @ 6:40 pm
“so many guilty parties to blame for General Georgie’s military debacles.”
What debacles?
Comment by bigair9 — 5/19/2005 @ 6:59 pm
Big Air: So which one are you? See No Evil, Speak No Evil, or Say No Evil?
Comment by Ellard Brighton — 5/20/2005 @ 9:40 am
Ellard Brighton,
I’m still waiting for you to list the debacles.
Comment by bigair9 — 5/20/2005 @ 12:42 pm