Journalistic Malfeasance

American Journalism Review has a very interesting analysis of the media’s coverage of the Abu Ghraib story.

There were stories out there before the pictures, but nobody seemed very interested. The images are what finally woke up the press and even then they were terribly sluggish and slow off the mark. They offer a number of different reasons: intimidation by the administration, lack of resources and access, misplaced post 9/11 “patriotism”, physical danger in Iraq, complaints by conservative readers and others.

One of the things it touches upon but doesn’t really expound on is the fact that most of the sources for these stories, until Joseph Darby’s name became known, were all Iraqis. And, I believe that because of that it was assumed that they were lying. I wrote yesterday about the Center for Constitutional Rights report by the three British prisoners who were released from Guantanamo. I thought for a bit if I should put in some qualifiers about their story because, after all, we only have their word for it. Normally, I would have written something like “even if only half of what they say is true it’s…” I didn’t do that because after a few moments reflection I realized that there was already so much information out there confirming that the US had legally justified torture, had developed systematic torture schemes and had actually perpetrated torture (we’ve all seen the pictures) that the burden of proof was now on the US, not these prisoners. I believed them.

Journalism, however, in its fetish to provide “balance” even when common sense tells you there is no balance, will continue to present these stories with a built in skew to the administration’s side of the story. If it’s covered at all, you have the word of a trio of muslim ex-prisoners against the pentagon. You have the word of petty criminals against the CIA and the Army. Without visual proof, many reporters and many people will simply not take the word of “the enemy” over Americans. Indeed, even with visual proof they find themselves scrambling to excuse behavior that can only be seen as disgusting and sadistic.

And, one cannot ignore the outrageous excess of the news media after 9/11, wallowing in jingoism and signing on to the US “war” effort, no questions asked. In the AJR article I still don’t hear a lot of remorse for having missed the big picture on the torture story. This, despite the fact that the discussion of whether torture should be used was right out and in the open since 9/11. The press was reporting actual incidents of it since December 26, 2002 when Dana Priest and Barton Gellman wrote a story in the Washington Post detailing torture allegations, replete with MP’s “softening up” prisoners beating them and throwing them against walls. When asked why they didn’t follow up, editor Len Downie says,” in part, obviously, because information was not made readily available, and in part because we didn’t always see the tip of the iceberg as clearly as we should have.”

The press not only misses the tips of icebergs these days, they are actively helping to steer the ship into them, cheering and clapping along the way.

This problem with journalism is not simply a problem for the Democratic party. It is a serious national issue that goes beyond politics. The world is more and more fast paced and complicated and we must be able to depend upon at least some parts of the news media to resist the temptation to jump on the entertainment or propaganda bandwagon and see the forest for the trees. These last few years have been a disaster for journalism. And, aside from the predictable mea culpas after the fact, this article and all the others suggest there is little reason to hope that it will change.