Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage

[Robbien]

<snip>

While the major media, from The New York Times on down, has largely remained silent about their own failings in this area, a young columnist for a small paper in Fredericksburg, Va., has stepped forward.

"The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry," Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star. "Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.

"Maybe we'll do a better job next war."

Mercier admitted that it was "absurd to receive this apology from a person so low in the media hierarchy. You really ought to be getting it from the editors and reporters at the agenda-setting publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post."

Mercier, an editor and writer at the newspaper who writes a column two or three times a month, told E&P that the column was sparked by what he saw as "a need for accountability and reflection" given the seriousness of the current conflict in Iraq and the failure to find WMDs there or a strong Saddam link to al Qaeda. He saw little of that soul-searching in the one-year anniversary coverage. "By neglecting to fully employ their critical-thinking faculties, the media not only failed their readers and viewers, they failed our democracy," Mercier said.

Concluding his column, Mercier declared, "there's no excusing that failure. The only thing that can be said is, Sorry."


http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000474545

[Kagemusha]

1. Clarke's started a trend.

Guess they're right at L&O: CI. Never underestimate the power of a guilty conscience.

[hang a left]

8. What a coincidence, everyone is finding their lost conscience?

What a bunch of stinky bullshit. There is some serious manipulation going on out there.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. Right. A reporter finds the courage...

...to tell the truth, knowing the reputation of the NeoCons to ruin people that stray from the "party line", and you believe it's all a big plot?

If people had believed the way you when Watergate was taking place, Nixon would have finished his second term with absolutely no difficulties.

[hang a left]

18. What is it about agenda setting you don't understand?

"You really ought to be getting it from the editors and reporters at the agenda-setting publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post."

[tom_paine]

23. You think that line is a Smoking Gun of some kind?

I like you, libnproud, but that proves nothing.

That is a perfectly reasonable criticism of two papers that were once great (or at least good) that have fallen far down the Totalitarian Rabbit Hole.

He is saying that these people aren't doing their jobs, and they should be.

I don't think the editor of this small paper has an agenda. But that is just my opinion as much as your assertions are yours.

[hang a left]

24. Here is a prime example of how our media has been infiltrated

and serves one purpose only.

snip>

With a 21st-century perspective, where internationalism has become globalization, and monopoly capitalism is so powerful it no longer needs to mask its agenda with welfare programs, we can see the Establishment's "liberalism" for the ruthless neoliberalism it has always been. Yet the more powerful and elite the ruling class, the greater its need for an effective propaganda system to maintain that power; and the Washington Post remains, as writer Doug Henwood described it in 1990, "the establishment's paper."

In an article published by the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Henwood traced the Post's Establishment connections to Eugene Meyer, who took control of the Post in 1933. Meyer transferred ownership to his daughter Katharine and her husband, Philip Graham, after World War II, when he was appointed by Harry Truman to serve as the first president of the World Bank. A lifelong Republican, Meyer had been "a Wall Street banker, director of President Wilson's War Finance Corporation, a governor of the Federal Reserve, and director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation," Henwood wrote.

Philip Graham, Meyer's successor, had been in military intelligence during the war. When he became the Post's publisher, he continued to have close contact with his fellow upper-class intelligence veterans—now making policy at the newly formed CIA—and actively promoted the CIA's goals in his newspaper. The incestuous relationship between the Post and the intelligence community even extended to its hiring practices. Watergate-era editor Ben Bradlee also had an intelligence background; and before he became a journalist, reporter Bob Woodward was an officer in Naval Intelligence. In a 1977 article in Rolling Stone magazine about CIA influence in American media, Woodward's partner, Carl Bernstein, quoted this from a CIA official: "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from." Graham has been identified by some investigators as the main contact in Project Mockingbird, the CIA program to infiltrate domestic American media. In her autobiography, Katherine Graham described how her husband worked overtime at the Post during the Bay of Pigs operation to protect the reputations of his friends from Yale who had organized the ill-fated venture.

After Graham committed suicide, and his widow Katharine assumed the role of publisher, she continued her husband's policies of supporting the efforts of the intelligence community in advancing the foreign policy and economic agenda of the nation's ruling elites. In a retrospective column written after her own death last year, FAIR analyst Norman Solomon wrote, "Her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon." It accomplished this function (and continues to do so) using all the classic propaganda techniques of evasion, confusion, misdirection, targeted emphasis, disinformation, secrecy, omission of important facts, and selective leaks.



snip>



http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/020504Hasty/020504hasty.html

[Bluzmann57]

2. Good for him

at least he has a conscience, something which a lot of them don't seem to. It's all about "I'm right and if I'm not then fuck you", which I believe summarizes bushco in a nutshell.

[MSgt213]

3. I agree it is good for him at least he is man enough to admit he made a

mistake. Too bad the rest of the media including all those clowns at Fox News who daily belittled anyone who claim other then the utter bullshit coming out of the White House.

[Bozita]

4. A journalist with a conscience ... what's he doing in Fredericksburg, VA?

If he were at the New York Times, Judith Miller would be greeting customers at the local Walmart.

[Fridays Child]

11. Well put--Judith Miller being the obvious NY Times example...

...and Paul Krugman being the obvious exception.

[thebigidea]

12. instead, she's speaking on FOX as I type this.

ewwwwwwwwwwww

[MountainLaurel]

17. That's WHY he's in F'burg

He has too much integrity to kiss the amount of ass necessary to move up in today's corporate media.

This editorial is especially ballsy considering the high percentage of military installations in that area: Quantico is in the backyard, Fort AP Hill (I think that's it) is down the road, DC is only about 45 miles away.

[Skittles]

5. when they apologize for being RNC WHORES

I will listen.

[jimshoes]

6. Apology accepted...

Now please use your position to get the truth out there. Thank you.

[Voltaire99]

7. He's in the wrong profession

For every Rick Mercier, the US media boasts one hundred Judith Millers.

Too bad the tradition of hari kari isn't practiced here.

[Mr.Green93]

9. we need a truth commission

[waldenx]

10. Where is Kerry's apology?

He still doesn't regret it.

[stepnw1f]

14. Apology accepted!!!

Thank you for being an accountable and responsible human being. I will however hold news networks accountable.

[54anickel]

15. That's a good start. Now try getting us the truth on Haiti, Cuba,

Pakistan, Venzeula etc, etc, etc.

[dae]

16. Just emailed a copy of it to the NYTimes editors, told them

they could learn something from this Mr. Mercier, and Judith Miller should be made to eat her crow feathers and all.

[David Zephyr]

19. Aaron Brown of CNN on Night Of Iraqi Invasion: "Great Fun! Great Fun!"

Grinning ear to ear as U.S. bombs dropped on civilians lighting up the darkened landscape, Aaron Brown could not contain himself and the joy he felt as he exclaimed over and over again: "Great fun! Great fun!"

Anyone who remotely thinks that this creep could possibly be impartial or report fairly on the illegal occupation and orchestrated terror in Iraq is blowing smoke up their own ass.

Aaron Brown was complicit in the Bush/Cheney failed war.

This reporter, Rick Mercier, has provided a breath of fresh air. I'm sure he will never be allowed to work for Murdoch News Corporation, General Electric News Corporation or AOL/Time/Warner News Corporation.

But then, they don't hire journalists, do they?

[kath]

28. OMFG! Did he actually say "Great Fun!" ?!?!

Absolutely appalling.

[David Zephyr]

30. Kath, It Was Appalling, Indeed!

It was sickening watch a national "news" anchor let his feelings of joy and glee get the better of him with the bombs dropping and CNN's night-vision camera-feed of the bombs lighting up the skyline of Baghdad.

"Great fun! Great fun!" Brown crowed in delight.

[Mari333]

20. I have written all the major media outlets and warned them

for 2 years..and let them know that History will show them with blood on their hands for not speaking out, for not thoroughly investigating this fraudulent war, for sitting on information and not investigating it, for every civilian and soldier killed or wounded, the blood is on every one of their hands and they will go down in History as cowards.
and I said it as a soldiers mom with a kid in Iraq.
If they read what I said, they owe the USA not only an apology, but god help them, they must live with it for the rest of their lives.
Maybe on their deathbeds, they will look at their complacency, and face the full extent of their cowardly behaviour.
and then theres the draft that may very well take their own kids.
Shame on all of them.
http://www.mfso.org

[boobooday]

21. This is awesome

The cool thing about taking responsibility is, it allows us to move on. BushCo should try it -- it's good for the soul! I thought that was important to them!

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[Bandit]

22. Well I suspect this is the last article he will be able to sell

He won't be allowed to make another dime because he speaks truth. Rove will see to it.

[keithyboy]

25. Funny, I just watched "Shattered Glass" today. (S. Glass New Republic)

The story of one reporter who worked for the New Republic and how he not only fabricated (lied) events he fabricated sources, notes, websites, e-mails, companies, and executives. It was amazing how his co-workers and the public could fall for his outrageous stories and could even find his lies through fact-checking. It took an editor and hes team from an on-line Forbes newspaper to bring Glass's deception to light.

You folks have to see this movie but more importantly you have to get it on DVD so that you can see the real 60 Minutes interview with Steve Glass. He is really sorry case. Even after all his deceptions he was able to finish law school and become an attorney (speaks volumes about some attornies). My point here is that you really have to fact check for yourself and you can't believe everything that is printed and filed on the Internet either. But watching the "special report" on this movie all I could visualize was FOX News. After watching them misquote, dissemble, and actually lie about Clarke's testimony I had to wonder if there isn't something akin to Stepford Wives going on with the Murdoch and Scaiffe controlled media. I call it "Glassford Journalists"

I guarantee that you will get a chill after watching this movie.
BTW, you can check out the history of this real event on the Internet. Lots of sources. I am going to read some Glass's articles just to see how outrageous they were. I tell you, it will blow your minds.

[bpilgrim]

26. another tide marker

and i certainly apreciate it :toast:

we DEFINATELY have LIGHT at the end of the tunnel

































get back to work ;->

peace

[Just Me]

27. I believe the American people are due a helluva lot more apologies!

I appreciate this guy's aroused conscience. However, there are bigger fish that owe far greater repentence for their failures as reporters to the American people. I betcha they will show neither the conscience or the guts to shoulder that responsibility 'cause their souls belong to the money.

[leesa]

29. Well, you can plead guilty to treason charges. That's another thing you

can say. You can travel the Goebbels route. Sorry is not nearly enough when you are complicit in treason.

[progressivebydesign]

31. Well put.. how about an apology for how we protestors were protrayed? N/T