Truth in the MSM
It's been an interesting weekend for conservatives around the blogosphere as not one but two mainstays of the mainstream media come out and publicly acknowledge problems within their organization.
First we have the BBC's admittance, through details of a leaked meeting, that they are in fact a bias organization which is quite willing to allow agenda driven reporting. While not a surprise to most impartial or conservative viewers of any BBC programming this may put a real crimp in the debating technique of dedicated leftist who routinely try to use the BBC as an impartial observer to back up their anti-Bush arguments. The Captain, Michelle and Charles have more.
Second we have the NY Times ombudsman coming forward and publicly stating that he is now of the opinion that their leaking of the SWIFT financial tracking program from a few months back was a mistake. From his reasoning you'd almost think he actually read someone outside of the NYT/LA Times bubble as it perfectly mirrors the arguments of almost every single conservative at the time of the story; those being A) the program is perfectly legal under American laws and B) there is no evidence that any individuals personal data had been in any way misused by the NSA or any other Federal agency.
His defense of his earlier opinion is almost laughable as he places blame on the condemnation coming from the White House in that it caused him to reflexively defend his paper.
First of all, as he now admits, the NY Times outed a perfectly legal, well run intelligence gathering program which the government had already used to capture at least one high profile terrorist, effectively reducing it's usefulness to nil, so I believe any words of anger from anyone in the administration were well warranted.
Secondly, as ombudsman, it's his job to objectively review complaints or questions about the conduct of the paper he works for. If, as his defense seems to put forward, when he feels his paper is being attacked he automatically defends them without judging the merits of the attacks he does not deserve the job of ombudsman. While I'm glad Mr Calame came forward and reversed his earlier decision based on the facts of the case, by his own admission, he is a complete failure as an independent arbiter which is precisely what the job of ombudsman requires. I'm with Patterico on this one, Byron Calame Should Resign.
Now if we can only get the CBC and CNN to openly admit their general bias; CNN founder Ted Turner doesn't seem to have a problem doing it. And at least CBS had the decency to discredit themselves in front of the entire world when some of their staff tried to push their anti-Bush views (save to a few dedicated leftists, like a certain D. Rather, who will still argue the veracity of the Killian documents despite all expert testimony to the contrary) .
First we have the BBC's admittance, through details of a leaked meeting, that they are in fact a bias organization which is quite willing to allow agenda driven reporting. While not a surprise to most impartial or conservative viewers of any BBC programming this may put a real crimp in the debating technique of dedicated leftist who routinely try to use the BBC as an impartial observer to back up their anti-Bush arguments. The Captain, Michelle and Charles have more.
Second we have the NY Times ombudsman coming forward and publicly stating that he is now of the opinion that their leaking of the SWIFT financial tracking program from a few months back was a mistake. From his reasoning you'd almost think he actually read someone outside of the NYT/LA Times bubble as it perfectly mirrors the arguments of almost every single conservative at the time of the story; those being A) the program is perfectly legal under American laws and B) there is no evidence that any individuals personal data had been in any way misused by the NSA or any other Federal agency.
His defense of his earlier opinion is almost laughable as he places blame on the condemnation coming from the White House in that it caused him to reflexively defend his paper.
First of all, as he now admits, the NY Times outed a perfectly legal, well run intelligence gathering program which the government had already used to capture at least one high profile terrorist, effectively reducing it's usefulness to nil, so I believe any words of anger from anyone in the administration were well warranted.
Secondly, as ombudsman, it's his job to objectively review complaints or questions about the conduct of the paper he works for. If, as his defense seems to put forward, when he feels his paper is being attacked he automatically defends them without judging the merits of the attacks he does not deserve the job of ombudsman. While I'm glad Mr Calame came forward and reversed his earlier decision based on the facts of the case, by his own admission, he is a complete failure as an independent arbiter which is precisely what the job of ombudsman requires. I'm with Patterico on this one, Byron Calame Should Resign.
Now if we can only get the CBC and CNN to openly admit their general bias; CNN founder Ted Turner doesn't seem to have a problem doing it. And at least CBS had the decency to discredit themselves in front of the entire world when some of their staff tried to push their anti-Bush views (save to a few dedicated leftists, like a certain D. Rather, who will still argue the veracity of the Killian documents despite all expert testimony to the contrary) .
posted by Bic at 12:41 a.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home