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Recent
Stories
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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May
24, 2003
Americans are Liars
The Hollowed
Holes of Ethics
By WALT BRASCH
The nation's journalists were surprised, shocked,
and outraged. Jayson Blair, a 27-year-old New York Times national
correspondent, had lied and cheated his way through a four-year
career at the paper that not only claims to have the highest
journalistic standards but also believes it's the national record.
At the time he resigned under pressure
at the end of April 2003, Blair had not only left a trail of
innumerable factual errors, but had fabricated quotes, "covered"
stories in other states while not leaving New York, and plagiarized
from metropolitan newspapers.
Several persons, according to the L.A.
Times, didn't report Blair's errors because they "shrugged
off his mistakes as more examples of sloppy, melodramatic reporting."
Only about one-fifth of all Americans even believe "all
or most" of the stories in their newspapers, according to
a survey by the Pew Center in 2002; a separate poll revealed
that almost half of all Americans thought news stories "are
often inaccurate." The L.A. Times, Newsweek, and dozens
of other publications reported that even when some sources tried
to report errors, they were met by an arrogance in which editors
didn't return phone calls--a common problem among all major media,
not just the Times. The Times senior editors apparently also
didn't listen to reporters who had questions about Blair's accuracy,
or to metropolitan editor Jon Landman who a year earlier had
written them a terse memo calling for Blair's termination.
In an unprecedented 14,000 words of explanation
and apology almost two weeks after the "resignation,"
the Times excoriated the chain-smoking, Scotch-drinking, cocaine-using
Blair for having "committed frequent acts of journalistic
fraud," wailed that it was the worst "black-eye"
in the newspaper's 152-year history, and promised to take steps
not to allow it to occur again.
But, it will occur again, just as it
had occurred for decades, not just at the Times but in all the
media.
During the nineteenth century, in their
quest for political power and circulation, newspapers not only
exaggerated and fabricated, they also played innumerable hoaxes
upon their readers. In the twentieth century, "jazz journalism"
replaced "yellow journalism," but reporters still looked
for ways to meet their publishers' needs to sell papers. Journalists
have come a long ways since then. But, as in any profession,
there are still significant holes of ethics.
TV shows sponsored by Ford in the 1960s
and 1970s either shot away from New York City's Chrysler Building,
or electronically eliminated it. The National Geographic digitally
altered the pyramids for "aesthetic" reasons for one
of its covers. Janet Cooke, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a feature
about an eight-year-old boy who was addicted to cocaine while
in his mother's womb, was stripped of her prize and fired from
the Washington Post in 1981 when the story proved to be as much
fiction as her resume.
NBC-TV broadcast a story about fish that
were supposedly killed on government land, but it was footage
of a different forest--and the fish weren't dead. NBC also came
under a firestorm of protest when the public learned that to
enhance a story about truck safety, the network's "Dateline"
staff rigged a GM truck with an explosive to illustrate how easily
those trucks burst into flame. FOX-TV obliterated the distinction
between news and hucksterism when it "interrupted"
its coverage of the 1997 Super Bowl with a "special report"
by news anchor Catherine Crier. The breaking news? The Blues
Brothers "escaped" and were about to headline the half-time
show.
Both Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass fabricated
stories at The New Republic in 1990s. Associated Press correspondent
Christopher Newton invented quotes and sources in 40 stories.
In 1998, the Boston Globe fired columnist Patricia Smith then
two months later allowed long-time columnist Mike Barnicle to
resign after they acknowledged they made up sources and quotes.
Ironically, Globe editors were warned by some reporters that
Blair, who was an intern for two summers and freelanced after
that for several months, had a credibility problem. In May, the
New York Post acknowledged that it published an article by freelancer
Robin Gregg that was plagiarized from The National Enquirer.
The deceit doesn't end with the stories reporters file.
A few American reporters, embedded with
troops in the second Gulf War, apparently assumed they could
plunder Iraq of national treasures, including art, antiquities,
and weapons.
As much as journalists may want to believe
these are isolated examples, they aren't. As much as the public
wants to believe that the problem occurs only in journalism,
it doesn't. About 75 percent of college students admit to cheating,
according to a 1999 survey conducted by Donald McCabe, a Rutgers
University professor. A year later, a survey conducted by the
editors of Who's Who Among American High School Students revealed
that 84 percent of high school students believe cheating was
common. A study by the Center for Academic Integrity revealed
that about 15 percent of all students say they bought research
papers, and more than half admit to having copied passages, without
attribution, from published sources.
More important, students don't see that
cheating, lying, or plagiarizing are necessarily immoral or unethical.
Almost half of high school students, according to the Josephson
Institute of Ethics, believe "a person has to lie or cheat
sometimes in order to succeed." College graduates pad their
resumes; references lie in their recommendations. Psychologist
Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts found that
among 11-16 year old students, there was a high correlation between
lying and popularity. Feldman told the Associated Press, "Politicians
have known for a very long time that telling people what they
want to hear is a very good social tactic." Politicians
and CEOs, aided by hordes of PR professionals, also know they
can spin the truth because the media, often faced by increased
work loads and diminished resources, have largely abrogated their
roles of cynical watchdogs.
Americans lie on their income tax returns,
on claims to insurance companies, and about the condition of
their used car which they're about to unload. They lie about
productivity to their bosses, and use "sick days" to
play golf. And when it comes to managers and executives, Enron,
Adelphia, Halliburton, and dozens of others may not be exceptions
to how many corporations do business.
The nation's journalists shouldn't be
shocked, surprised, or outraged about Jayson Blair's theft of
honesty--they, like most Americans, are all part of the problem.
Walt Brasch,
a national award-winning reporter and editor, is professor of
journalism at Bloomsburg University. He is the author of 13 books,
including The Press and the State, and the current book, The
Joy of Sax: America During the Bill Clinton Era. You
may contact him through his web-site www.walterbrasch.com.
He can be reached at: brasch@ptd.net
Today's
Features
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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