The NYT's selective
squeamishness












By DAVID PAULIN

At an upmarket newspaper like the Time York Times, no self-respecting editor would ever consider publishing grisly close-up photos showing victims of horrific car wrecks and violent crimes. Yet that's exactly what it ought to being doing -- at least if you follow the logic put forth by Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt in his Sunday column, "The Painful Images of War." It touches upon the case of former embedded photojournalist Zoriah Miller, the subject of a recent American Thinker article, "The Case of Expelled Embed." In his column, Hoyt reflectively notes,

TWO hundred twenty-one American soldiers and Marines have been killed in Iraq this year, but until eight days ago, The Times had not published a photo of one of their bodies.

The picture The Times did publish on July 26, of a room full of death after a suicide bombing in June, with a marine in the foreground, his face covered and his uniform riddled with tiny shrapnel holes, accompanied a front-page article about how few such images there are.

The photos to which Hoyt refers were originally published by Miller in his blog, which is full of anti-war and anti-Western rhetoric, as the American Thinker noted - but that Hoyt failed to mention. His column had other problems, too, and that was curious.

Hoyt has, in the past, proven himself to be intellectually honest and insightful when taking the Times to task for some of its notable journalistic misdeeds and foolishness. But, curiously, he seems unable to make up his mind on whether the Times acted prudently when publishing Miller's grisly up-close photos of dead U.S. Marines in a story last month, "4,000 U.S. Deaths, and Just a Handful of Public Images."

What to do when you can't make up your mind? Hoyt left the intellectual heavy lifting to Executive Editor Bill Keller, whom he quotes as saying:

"Death and carnage are not the whole story of war -- there is also heroism and frustration, success and setback, camaraderie and, on occasion, atrocity -- but death and carnage are part of the story, and to launder them out of our account of the war would be a disservice.''

Before arriving at this conclusion, Hoyt cited some examples of some controversial Iraq battlefield photos that are, indeed, tough calls in respect to whether they should have been published or not. But his apparent reluctance to criticize the Times for publishing Miller's photos -- photos that had only been published only in the photojournalist's blog -- underscores that the Times has an obvious double standard, one that Hoyt is unable to grasp or admit.

One one hand, the Times would never publish grisly up-close photos of traffic accidents and crime scenes -- even though both claim tens of thousands of victims annually. Presumably, the Times withholds such images because, quite simply, it's a matter of good taste not to publish them. Not to mention a matter of respect for the feelings of the victims' families. And yet in an obvious double standard, both Hoyt and Killer weigh in with Zoriah Miller in respect to publishing grisly photos of dead U.S. soldiers -- all to supposedly illustrate all the aspects of the Iraq war that (it's hardly coincidental) the Times just happens to oppose.

The journalistic inconsistency of this argument reminds me of how the Times covered the slayings of two mobsters in Manhattan. In 1985, gunman for mobster John Gotti murdered the head of the Gambino crime family, Paul Castellano, and a fellow mobster. They two were gunned down outside Sparks Steak House as they were going in for dinner.

At the time, I was a journalist in southwestern Connecticut, and I remember commenting with fellow journalists about the giddy coverage of the slayings in the New York papers. One of the tabloids (the Daily News or New York Post) had a banner headline: "RUBOUT!" And the other had a variation of that: "BIG RUBOUT!" Both had photos of the dead mobsters lying on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They weren't, as I recall, quite as graphic as this, but you get the idea.

The Times, on the other hand, had something similar to this -- a subdued photo of one of the mobsters, draped in a sheet, being wheeled into an ambulance.

Did the Times photographer arrive late at the scene? It's hardly likely. The Times editors picked the photo they did out of a matter of good taste. Publishing grisly photos of dead mobsters is just not the kind of thing Ivy League editors (the types who often tend to work at the Times) would do -- and it's not the kind of thing sophisticated Times readers wanted to see over their breakfast, either. Yet when it comes to dead soldiers in Iraq, the Times has a different standard: Publishing such photos is the right thing to do.

While weighing in with Zoriah Miller, Hoyt quotes Gail Buckland, an author and professor of photo history at Cooper Union in New York, to support his points. According to Hoyt, Buckland

...tells students that because of the lack of a comprehensive photographic record of the war in Iraq, they are ''more impoverished today than Americans were in the 19th century,'' when battlefield photographs by Timothy O'Sullivan and others documented the Civil War. ''The greatest dishonor you can do is to forget,'' she told me. ''Photographs are monuments.''

Yet that's not quite correct. Mathew Brady's great Civil War photos were not reproduced during the war in American's newspapers, days after a battle. He displayed them in his studio.

Hoyt, in his column, overlooks certain aspects of Zoriah Miller's expulsion, as well. He failed to note that Marine Gen. John F. Kelly had asked the freelance photojournalist to remove the photos from his blog -- and that Miller had refused. And nor did Hoyt note that Gen. Kelly was outraged over Miller's detailed written account of the aftermath of a suicide bombing. That account, he stated, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report; the bombing was blamed on Al-Qaida.

That the Times shows more respect for two dead mobsters than it does for dead Marines says much about the paper's agenda-driven worldview.

This was originally published by The American Thinker, where readers comments may be found regarding this post.

U.S. Military detains Reuters “Haditha” reporter for security concerns


By DAVID PAULIN

Western media outlets have reported on the Iraq war by relying heavily on Iraqis -- young men quickly trained to be photojournalists and reporters. Yet their motives and loyalties have not always been beyond repute. Yesterday, this was evident once again as Reuters reported on the arrest of one of its own last Saturday.

U.S. military forces detained Reuters photographer Ali al-Mashhadani due to “security concerns." He was handcuffed and led away by U.S. military forces in Baghdad's Green Zone, while he visited a government facility to obtain a U.S. military press card, Reuters reported. Twice before, U.S. military forces had detained al-Mashhadani, also due to security concerns; he was reporting at the time from Sunni-dominated Anbar Provence. Besides Reuters, al-Mashhadani has worked for BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio.

Two years ago, al-Mashhadani's journalism career got a boost when he fanned the flames of the now-debunked “Haditha massacre.” In his report for Reuters on March 21, 2006, he described a “rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.”

In Thursday's story, Reuters rushed to al-Mashhadani's defense It echoed the line used by the Associated Press when one of its photographers was detained for security concerns. Reuters declared that military authorities should “immediately release” al-Mashhadani -- or “publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.” However, U.S. military authorities are unlikely to release such evidence. After all, it was probably obtained through intelligence gathering that included informants and other methods; both would be compromised if Reuters had its way.

During the Vietnam War, reporting like al-Mashhadani's presented a distorted imagine of the war, helping to turn Americans against it. This has yet to happen in Iraq to the extent it did in Vietnam. Now, the blogosphere is serving as a counter-weight to the mainstream's often problematic reporting. The blog Sweetness & Light, for instance, has been onto al-Mashhadani for some time.

Like other Iraqi stringers and freelancers whom bloggers have sharply criticized, al-Mashhadani has a curious talent -- he moves unimpeded among Iraq's insurgents and Al-Qaida terrorists. This brought him to the attention of military authorities in August, 2005. During a search of his home in Ramadi, Anbar Provence's capital, troops found photos of insurgent activity in his camera. He was released after some five months. Not long after that, he shocked the world with his report of the Haditha massacre, a coincidence of timing noted by Sweetness & Light. A few months later, military forces detained him a second time for two weeks.

The AP has had problems with some of its Iraqi employees, too. AP photographer Bilal Hussein was held by U.S. military forces for two years. Last February, he was released as part of a U.S.-backed amnesty law aimed at national reconciliation. A former Fallujah shopkeeper who sold cell phones, Hussein was hired by the AP because he knew the area. One of his photos was part of a package of 20 AP photos that won a Pulitzer Prize; it showed four insurgents firing a mortar and small arms during an offensive by U.S.-led forces in November, 2004.

For the rest of the article, visit The American Thinker.

The Case of the U.S. Marines and Photojournalist Zoriah Miller

By DAVID PAULIN

In the latest instance of the military's uneasy relationship in Iraq with the news media, U.S. Marine commanders expelled an embedded photojournalist for doing something they considered unforgivable -- snapping grisly photos of dead Marines, and posting them on his website.

The case of photojournalist Zoriah Miller, a 32-year-old American, has roiled U.S. Marines in Western Iraq for more than a month. Yet the mainstream media has largely ignored the controversy – until that is, a lengthy article in yesterday's New York Times, “4,000 U.S. Deaths and Just a Handful of Public Images.” While it strove to be circumspect about the issues at play, the Times failed to answer an important question: Who is Zoriah Miller?

The answer explains much about why America's military leaders are not interested in returning to the anything-goes days of media coverage that existed during the Vietnam War. And it explains why Marine commanders in Iraq do not relish the idea of Miller ever again accompanying American troops anywhere in the world.

Miller, a freelancer who uses his first name professionally, had been in Iraq nearly one year when he was expelled. He ran afoul of Marine commanders because of two photos of three dead Marines he published on his website. Initially, Marine commanders ordered Miller to remove the photos. He invited their full wrath with his response.

He refused to obey them.

Immediately, outraged commanders revoked the veteran photojournalist's media credentials. They ordered him aboard the next flight to Baghdad's Green Zone, saying he no longer was welcome in Marine-controlled Western Iraq. In a letter to Miller expelling him, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly -- commander of multi-national forces in Western Iraq – wrote: "By your actions, I have lost confidence in your trustworthiness and your ability to follow the rules vital for protecting U.S. forces assigned to the Iraqi Theater of Operations."

He added, “I have reason to believe that you present a threat all all Multi National Forces-West personnel and installations." A copy of Gen. Kelly's lengthy and detailed July 3 letter, citing specific embed rules Miller allegedly violated, was provided to the American Thinker after a query was made for this story. The general said the photojournalist's detailed blog commentary and graphic photos, about the aftermath of a suicide bombing, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report of the attack; it was blamed on Al-Qaida. In his letter, Gen. Kelly said Miller's photo essay offered the terror group valuable intelligence about the effectiveness of their attack and the Marines' response time.

Miller said two armed guards accompanied him as he awaited his flight. The guards were apparently for his own protection. Presumably, some Marines were in ugly moods on learning the photojournalist had posted photos to his website of dead Marines, two veteran officers and an enlisted man.

On his website, Miller has written at length about the arbitrary treatment he says he suffered, and he's defended his conduct. Specifically, he's accused Marine commanders of censorship and ignoring established rules for embedded reporters, rules concerning what photojournalist may or may not publish. He's also portrayed himself as an idealist -- one with an anti-war message. Recently, Miller returned from Baghdad to his native Colorado, having failed to get his embed credentials reinstated while in Baghdad, where he apparently visited the U.S. Embassy. He claims to have gotten a sympathetic hearing from unnamed officials about his efforts to reinstate his credentials.

As to those two photos of three dead Marines, they're still displayed at his website: Zoriah.com. And now thanks to the Times' story, they're displayed on the paper's website. Editors, presumably, believed that publishing them was necessary to tell the story of Zoriah Miller vs. the U.S. Marines -- and to highlight Miller's claims of alleged military censorship. Yet curiously, the Times has never been the sort of paper to publish similar grisly photos of people who died in violent car wrecks or of gunshot wounds. It's a matter of good taste for the Times; and yet this same consideration is not extended to soldiers killed in Iraq.

What exactly did Miller publish? His two close-up photos show Marines whose bodies seem mutilated beyond recognition. One shows a Marine lying face up, his face disfigured. Miller, noting he was sensitive to the Marines' families, said on his blog that the soldiers were are too disfigured for even their families to recognize. And in line with embed rules, he noted, he digitally removed the Marines' name tags from the photos. He suggested the photos were “dignified” and “artistic.”

Some of Miller's Iraq photos are indeed powerful and interesting. But his photos of three dead Marines resemble the tasteless photos found at some ghoulish Internet sites. Now, the Times has stooped to the same level for the sake of its high-minded journalism.

Miller says he's baffled by the angry reaction his photos provoked among Marines. "You're a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble," he complained at Camp Fallujah, shortly after losing his media credentials. He was quoted in a July 6 article in the Ventura County Star, “Blogger kicked out of Iraq province for war photos,” written by an embedded reporter for the California daily paper, Scott Hadly.

Miller's photos of the dead Marines were part of a graphic photo essay and written account he posted describing the aftermath of a suicide bombing on June 26 in the city of Garma, near Fallujah. The bomber blew himself up at a city council meeting that included shieks and local leaders. At least 20 people died and more than 100 were injured. The Marines killed in the blast were on hand to transfer control of Anbar Provence to Iraqi military forces. The province had been hotbed for the insurgency until the Marines enforced their will on the region.

Before publishing the photos, Miller, in his defense, said he waited until the families of the Marines had been notified of their deaths. Indeed, it was out of consideration for them, he said, that he even provided ample warnings on his website about photos being displayed there of dead Marines. Yet despite his concern, he apparently had no such reservations when granting the Times permission to publish the photos.

Miller's photo essay includes a number of graphic color shots of the dead and dying. One bizarre close-up shows a human hand on the ground above a small pool of blood. The dead included Garma's mayor and a tribal chief.

As to those dead Marines, Miller didn't mention their names, and neither did the Times. They were from the Hawaii-based 3^rd Marine Division: Battalion commander Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai, 42, of Pago Pago, American Samona; Marine Capt. Philip J. Dykeman, 38, of Brockport, N.Y.; and Cpl. Marcus W. Preudhomme, 23, an administrative assistant from North Miami Beach, Fla.

The Marines died outright in the powerful blast. Miller, moments later, arrived at the gruesome scene with a group of Marines he'd been accompanying; they were from the same division as the dead Marines. One of them vomited, Miller related. Quickly, the Marines set about restoring order: securing the area, helping the wounded, and even collecting body parts. Miller went to work too: He feverishly snapped off photos. Luckily for Miller, he'd reportedly opted to go out with the Marine patrol rather than accepting an invitation to the event.

Regarding his expulsion, Miller contends he followed the military's rules for embedded media members to the letter. Photojournalists, he says, are in fact allowed to photograph and publish photos of dead servicemen under certain circumstances. In his defense, he cited specific sections of the embed rules to support his case.

Why publish grisly close-ups of dead Marines? "I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show,” Miller told the Ventura County Star. He repeated those comments in the Times' story and during recent interviews with Editor & Publisher, a magazine covering the newspaper industry.

Miller, however, had other motivations, too – though they were not mentioned by the Times and Editor & Publisher which are sympathetic to his cause. Publishing the photos, Miller explained, was justified to show “the reality of the Iraq War.” And he offered some political reasons, too: At his website, he urges visitors who are “offended by the graphic images” to “please do something to stop the political situations and foreign policy that facilitate these atrocities.” What does Miller mean by political situations and foreign policies? He did not explain. But it's clear he has a political agenda, based on other statements at his website, which the Times did not bother to cite.

Miller, for instance, talks much about himself at two Q&A interviews he gave that are posted on his website. In one he says: “I just want to change the world...and I am pretty sure I can do it.”

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.

The AP's New Man on the “Race and Ethnicity” Beat

By DAVID PAULIN

The Associated Press just announced an important change in a high-profile news beat that's overseen by its national desk -- a beat called “race and ethnicity.”

AP's editors, sensing a racially charged presidential election at hand, picked a writer from 449 candidates they'd been considering for their new “race and ethnicity” writer. And last week, they named the lucky writer, a long-time AP staffer named Jesse Washington. Previously, the 39-year-old journalist was the “entertainment editor” at America's most influential news outlet, the source from which most Americans get their news from outside the areas covered by their local newspapers and TV and radio stations.

Earlier in his career, Washington was an editor at two prominent hip-hop magazines. And recently, he published his first novel: “Black Will Shoot,” which is about America's hip-hop culture. Its cover jacket calls it a “compelling look at the most impactful (sic) and influential cultural movement of the past thirty years.”

For AP's editors, the race and ethnicity beat is obviously important. An opening on the beat occurred due to the resignation of AP writer Erin Texeira. Interestingly, the AP gave no reason for her resignation. Among the headlines of some of her memorable stories: “Duke Rape Scandal Reopens Old Wounds For Black Women”; "Slavery Reparations Gaining Momentum" and "Black Men Fight Negative Stereotypes Daily."

So what does the AP's “race and ethnicity” beat mean for the type of news coverage Americans can expect?

In the good old days of American journalism, reporting beats had pretty mundane names: police, city government, national politics, etc. But in the post-modern journalism world, beats like “race and ethnicity” have become popular. And in a sense, they often feed the perception – the false perception -- that America's race relations are in the dire state that's usually portrayed in the mainstream media's stories.

How come? First, consider the very first bias that invariably creeps into a news story: It's that reporters and editors even choose to write a story about something; and in the case of a news beat, they have to produce stories on a particular issue on a regular basis. By itself, the decision to create a news beat says a lot; for it defines a particular subject as being an issue -- one worthy of news space and air time. And a news beat also places a certain onus on reporters and editors. Those covering “race and ethnicity” beats, for instance, are expected to flesh out the basic elements of a story. And the very best stories, of course, invariably revolve around conflict and controversy.

But what if no obvious conflict or controversy exists? Well, for clever reporters entertaining a certain worldview, it's usually easy to come up with something. A beautiful sunset over an orderly middle-class suburb in Chicago or Los Angeles is not necessarily what it seems: It's merely the calm before a Perfect Storm of racial grievances. Basically, that's what's often going on at places like the AP and New York Times in respect to its ongoing and obsessive coverage of “race and ethnicity” in America.

And so then, the “news beats” created by editors say much about what those editors think is important, reflects the potential conflicts they believe are festering all around them. According to his memo on Washington's promotion, published at trade magazine Editor & Publisher, AP's manging editor of U.S. news, Mike Oreskes wrote:

Few subjects permeate every corner of American life more fully than issues of race and ethnicity. So, few assignments have more potential to expand our understanding of America than writing about race and ethnicity.

That is why we have conducted an extensive search for a new national writer to cover this important and complex territory.

That search, ably led by John Affleck, brought in 449 applicants. There were many strong candidates.

It turned out the top choice—and a very exciting one—was right here at home. I am very pleased to announce that our new national writer on race and ethnicity will be Jesse Washington, currently the AP’s Entertainment Editor.

Does race in fact “permeate every corner of American life” as Oreskes claims? There is good reason to believe that it does not, at least not in the way Oreskes and his AP colleagues think it does. And certainly not in the way Barack and Michelle Obama may say or imply. And definitely not the way that's described by Obama's former hate-filled minister and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who recently resigned as pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

Put aside these issues for a moment, however, to consider some things about the AP's new “race and ethnicity" writer. No doubt, Jesse Washington was thanking his lucky stars upon hearing of his promotion. In recent months, after all, thousands of editors and reporters have lost their jobs as the newspaper industry has suffered its worst-ever downsizing bloodbath. Even top people at the New York Times and Washington Post are being shown the door.

Yet Washington, rather than considering himself a lucky insider, considers himself an outsider, at least if Oreskes' memo is anything to go by. The memo not only calls attention to Washington's considerable achievements, it portrays him as something of a scrappy contender – and even a victim. According to Oreskes' memo:

Jesse brings to this new assignment more than just a resume of achievements. He has lived the subject of race and ethnicity every day of his 39 years.

Son of an interracial marriage, Jesse is, as he puts it, “a kid from the projects who went to Yale and married a doctor. I’m a person who fits in everywhere and nowhere.” He and his wife live in suburban Philadelphia with their four children.

Given the AP's evident preoccupation with race and ethnicity, it's interesting that Oreskes' memo makes no mention of Washington's own racial or ethnic background; but a photo of him posted with the AP's online news release reveals what is all but obvious: He's black.

But perhaps the failure of Oreskes' memo to mention Washington's race is consistent with some of the AP's news coverage. Recent AP articles about gang violence in the nation's inner cities, Chicago in particular, made absolutely no mention of the racial or ethnic background of the young thugs rampaging through city streets with high-powered weapons. It took a little Googling to learn that Chicago's gangbangers are part of the city's dysfunctional black culture.

Washington himself has been guilty of such oversights during the early part of his AP career in the mid-1990s. Writing in October, 1993, about Detroit's annual “Devil's Night” – an arson spree occurring on Halloween -- Washington made no mention of the ethnic or racial backgrounds of the young thugs torching vacant buildings during a night of mayhem that “added insult to the city's already injured reputation.” (“Detroit Hopes to Stifle Devil's Night Fires Again,” AP, Oct. 1992.) Then again, maybe the story Washington submitted did mention such things, only to have them deleted by a politically correct AP editor.

According to a check of Factiva, the news archive, Washington wrote a variety of stories while assigned to the AP's national desk in the 1990s, the kinds of stories one might expect on the national beat – crime, political scandals, etc. But he returned repeatedly to stories about race. And invariably, the stories on race that really "moved” on the wires (got picked up by lots of newspapers across the country), involved those that highlighted an earlier period of racism in America's history.

Washington wrote one such story in mid-July of 1991: “White schoolmarm challenged New England's anti-black stance.” Reporting from Canterbury, Conn., he began:

When a strong-willed white schoolteacher in 1833 opened New England's first academy for black girls, she was tormented by her neighbors, made an outlaw by the state Legislature and even jailed.

Today, the clapboard house where Prudence Crandall operated her boarding school is a museum, a monument to one woman's courage and a reminder of a troubling episode in Connecticut history.

Americans, of course, ought to reconsider their history and look back on their past. But in the post-modern journalism world, the approach to news coverage that does that inevitably has a cynical tone -- the equivalent of repeatedly tearing a scab off an old wound. And invariably, progress in the nation's race relations is never noted; it never stresses what America has accomplished, thanks to Americans of all colors working together. Instead, news stories are invariably about what white Americans have done to black Americans; no matter if most white Americans today display little if any racial animus, an issue that Linda Chavez recently highlighted in a perceptive and lengthy piece in the magazine Commentary. She wrote:

To put the truth plainly: far from there being a racial stand-off in the United States, relations between blacks and whites have never been better. According to virtually every survey of racial attitudes taken over the last several decades, only about 10 percent of whites report generally unfavorable views of blacks. In a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, the relevant figure stood at 8 percent—lower, interestingly enough, than the percentage of blacks reporting similarly negative views of their fellow blacks.

Because of the nation’s rapidly changing demography, the whole issue of race and ethnicity in America has become much more complicated and variegated. One thing remains clear, though: in surveys assessing racial attitudes among all groups, non-whites display consistently less favorable attitudes toward each other and toward whites than whites display toward blacks and other minority groups. One such survey, taken in the mid-1990’s, found blacks and Hispanics significantly more likely than whites to regard Asians as hostile to non-Asians and as “crafty in business,” while both Asians and Hispanics were likelier than whites to think that blacks “like living on welfare” and “can’t get ahead on their own.” Nor have inter-minority stereotypes changed much since then. A 2007 poll found that a plurality of blacks would rather do business with whites than with either Hispanics or Asians.

Chavez is chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, the only conservative think tank devoted to race and ethnicity in America. Her conclusions about race in America are far different from what was found in the racist sermons of Jeremiah Wright, the Obama family's former minister.

For the rest of this article, visit The American Thinker.

DOWNSIZING BLOODBATH

What the newspaper industry's unprecedented wave of layoffs says about American journalism -- and what it means for newspaper readers and bloggers



By DAVID PAULIN

The downsizing bloodbath in America's newspaper industry is different from earlier waves of layoffs over the years. This time top editors and reporters are being let go at the most prestigious newspapers. What does all this say about American journalism? And what will it mean for newspaper readers and bloggers?

First, consider the financially troubled New York Times. Layoffs are being threatened there -- something once unimaginable at the liberal Gray Lady. Many veteran reporters in recent months have accepted buyouts. They're people in their 50s and early 60s: well-known reporters such as John Noble Wilford, Linda Greenhouse, Jane Gross, and Lawrence K. Altman, to name a few. In professions such as medicine and law, such people would be at the top of their game.

But that's not the case in newspaper journalism, and that's ironic.

Many MSM news executives claim to want well educated and able people in the newsroom – but not, it appears, any who are too able or well-educated. That was underscored by an article in the American Journalism Review in January, 1995, “Fellowship Folly.” James V. Risser, a two-time Pulitzer winner, complained of mid-career journalists who took prestigious fellowships – only to find that their post-graduate educational experience was “too often” not appreciated -- or not even utilized. He wrote: “News executives say that they want to staff their organizations with more intelligent and sophisticated journalists, equipped to better cover a complex world. But when it comes to taking steps to help bring that about, some of them balk.”

It was an interesting comment in light of the criticism that MSM executives and journalists often level at bloggers – that they are not qualified to be reporting on and interpreting news events. Some even complain of a reckless anti-intellectualism in the blogesphere (especially among conservative bloggers). Yet it can be found as well within the nation's newsrooms, as “Fellowship Folly” pointed out. Of course, that's no surprise to bloggers who have made their reputations snorting out errors and misdeeds in the MSM.

The unprecedented buyouts at Times and Washington Post underscore the severity of the current wave of layoffs and downsizing affecting newspapers across the country. For the past 20-plus years, the newspaper industry has undergone periodic downsizing, amid declining readership and advertising revenues.

And in the past few years, newspapers have been losing readers and credibility to a new competitor – bloggers.

Many MSM executives deny that bloggers are a competitive threat. But there can be little doubt that those executives are running scared. That was underscored by the Associated Press' recent edict that bloggers would have to pay the AP to quote from its articles.

In addition, the AP recently took a petty swipe at bloggers with a story, “Journalists Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two.” It focused on bloggers who were portrayed as well-intentioned amateurs prone to run afoul of libel laws – and thus in need of a formal journalism education.

That's hardly true for the best blogs and online magazines around, however. Their writers, editors, and publishers are among the best and brightest around. And they certainly could hold their own -- and then some -- against the very best of the MSM. Two examples on the conservative front are the American Thinker and FrontPage Magazine. On the liberal side there's the Huffington Post, which recently announced that it would be expanding into local news coverage.

Fewer staffers; more freelancers

What will the MSM's newsroom shake-out mean for newspaper readers? Increasingly, they won't be reading stories written by full-time staff reporters. Freelance and “contract” reporters will write them. Over the years, major newspapers and wires services have increasingly relied on such folks – and the MSM's coverage of Iraq has offered the most visible example of that.

In Iraq, most of the news-gathering has been done by “local hires” -- hastily trained Iraqis working for major newspapers such as the Times, and for wire services such as the AP and Reuters. Some have proven courageous and able journalists and news gatherers. But the loyalties of others have frequently been called into question; it's what you'd expect in a country that has all but been in a civil war.

In Iraq and elsewhere, such freelance and “contract” labor is problematic in two ways. First, it means that inexperienced people are writing and gathering the information that gets into newspapers in America and overseas. Indeed, many if not most of them would not even be qualified for a regular newspaper or wire service job in America; would not, ironically, even get through the front door with a job application at the organizations that readily hire them overseas.

The second problem regarding freelance and contract labor is that there is less accountability in the news-gathering process. After all, when Wal-Mart uses sub-contractors, it has less control over how they operate. The news business is no exception. A staff reporter is more accountable than a temporary hire -- a person with no long-term relationship to his employer.

Less Foreign News Coverage

What type of news coverage will suffer the most as a result of the cutbacks? No doubt, it will be foreign news; traditionally, it has been the first causality of budget cutbacks. Papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal will, of course, continue to run lots of foreign news stories; but their foreign news may not have the same quality it did in the past due to budget constraints, and there may not be as much of it, either. Most Americans don't read those papers anyway. They read their hometown papers.

And in hometown papers across America, the foreign news that gets into the paper will be provided as always by two left-leaning wire services, the Associated Press and Reuters. Their coverage of the war in Iraq and Israeli's incursion into Lebanon took lots of hits in the blogesphere for its lack of impartiality; it's a problem sometimes traced to “local hires” who deliberately distort the news -- either for ideological reasons or to make a fast buck.

For Americans working abroad as freelancers, you'd think the downsizing trend would mean more work for them. Just the opposite is true. Because of declining advertising revenues, there is a smaller “news hole” for foreign news in America's newspapers.

Accordingly, the foreign news that gets published in most newspapers – those most Americans read -- will usually revolve around breaking news written mainly by the wire services, usually the AP and to a lesser extent Reuters. Of course, freelancers, contract reporters, and news assistants or "fixers" in places like Iran – those working for a variety of MSM outlets -- will have more work than they can handle if a war erupts there. Until then, many will be starving because there's less room for foreign news due to a loss of advertising space. Some will be tempted to cut corners to make ends meet. (More on that later.)

In respect to foreign news, the first type of news that will disappear from most newspapers will be trend stories -- the kinds of pieces that can suggest which way the wind will blow. Wire services tend not to do these pieces; it's not what they're good at. Usually, it's talented freelancers and full-time newspaper staffers (the handful still working as foreign correspondents) who do them. Over the years, news chains and big metro papers have drastically reduced the number of foreign bureaus they operate.

Good for bloggers?

How might the economic turmoil in the mainstream media affect the blogesphere? It may give it a boost.

In the past, news executives in the mainstream media have often criticized bloggers for failing to undertake on-the-spot reporting; all their work, many contend, is derivative from reports in the mainstream media.

Just the opposite is true.

Many able bloggers are undertaking on-the-spot reporting. They include Richard Landes, a history professor at Boston University. At his blog Augean Stables, he has been at the forefront of exposing how staged television footage taken in the Middle East – depicting alleged Israel-on-Palestinian violence – has easily found its way into the mainstream media. (See letters section for comment from Prof. Richard Landes.)

And in Iraq, former Army special forces soldier Michael Yon has written extensively about the war, providing a counterweight to the mainstream media's approach. The AP, from which most Americans get their news, usually defines news by a simple formula: “If it bleeds, it leads.” And if a scandal involving Americans troops can be uncovered, so much the better.

Early in the Iraq war, Steven Vincent – journalist, author, and blogger – brought a level of intelligence and moral clarity to his reporting that was seldom found in the mainstream media. He was murdered on August 2, 2005, in Basra, Iraq.

Elsewhere in the world, Michael J. Tottena has reported regularly from the Middle East and Eastern Europe in his blog, Middle East Journal. He has provided a perspective that the wire services do not provide.

Above all, the smartest bloggers will continue to distinguish themselves when critiquing and analyzing stories from the MSM – looking for the headline behind the headline, undoing the ideological spin that animates a story, whether from the AP, New York Times, or other news organization.

Given the trends taking place in the newspaper industry, expect more muddle than ever in respect to the news that makes it into America's newspapers. Bloggers will be busier than ever.

You also can expect more embarrassing incidents for the mainstream media -- such as one involving Cox News Service in late 2005. I wrote a piece about that incident for Editor & Publisher's online edition that ran on December 3, 2005. Republished below, it gives a blow-by-blow of how screwed up things can get when news organizations depend on some “local hires” to gather the news.


COLUMN - SHOPTALK
Cox's Tale of 'Fixer' Misconduct Abroad Has Familiar Ring
The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn that a local 'fixer' in the Middle East would fabricate and plagiarize quotes. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised. Former foreign correspondent David Paulin offers suggestions on how the system can be made more honest.

By David Paulin

Cox News Service has joined the list of news outfits owning up to unethical reporting. None of Cox's employees, to be sure, were involved. Here, the protagonists were a "contract" foreign correspondent and his freelance Syrian news assistant, or "fixer," as such folks are known in the trade.

Does the term "freelance" ring any alarm bells here? It should.

For readers who missed Cox's correction or E&P's post-mortem, here's a recap: On Nov. 20, Cox moved a story on the New York Times News Service about an Arab version of the venerable Barbie doll. The only problem, according to Cox, is that the story contained fabricated quotes and plagiarized material from the St. Petersburg Times -- all supplied to Cox's unwitting contract freelancer, Craig Nelson, by well-known fixer George Baghdadi, who also has worked for Time magazine and USA Today, among other news outlets.

Cox placed the blame squarely on Baghdadi, but Baghdadi pointed the finger at his news assistant, Hussein Ali, whom he claimed had supplied the offending material. Baghdadi declined to make Ali available for questioning, although he said he had fired Ali, which was the same treatment Cox gave Baghdadi.

The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn of such chicanery in its midst. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost-cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised.

Consider how the process of foreign news gathering works these days -- a process I learned about firsthand while working as freelance foreign correspondent and, on rare occasions, a fixer in Venezuela in the 1990s.

First, fixers are the weakest chain in the news gathering process. Generally, they're local hires who get their jobs through an informal word-of-mouth process -- not through the organized vetting process news organization use to hire editorial staff. Indeed, it appears this was how Baghdadi got his job with Cox, or, as Cox's Washington bureau chief, Andy Alexander, told E&P: "Because of the reputation of George Baghdadi and the fact that he was used by many Western news organizations for years and years, we felt we were dealing with someone who was trustworthy."

Baghdadi was probably like fixers I have known in another respect. He apparently played a major role in shaping stories, doing just about everything in the news gathering process except for writing the finished piece. Indeed, fixers may decide who to interview, set appointments, lead visiting reporters around by the hand, and provide translation services -- all things Baghdadi apparently did for Nelson, Cox's contract reporter. Fixers also may provide quotes and local color to staff foreign correspondents holed up elsewhere, perhaps across town in hotel rooms or in offices in another country -- also something Baghdadi did for Nelson, although in this case it was fabricated or plagiarized quotes.

Fixers may be local residents or expatriates, and their journalism experience may be extremely limited. Those who are proven journalists and do terrific work are in demand, although proven and busy freelance journalists, to be sure, are often reluctant to work as fixers.

One day in Caracas, I got a phone call out of the blue from a staff reporter from the Washington Post. He'd just gotten into town and was in a panic to find somebody to go to Congress there, cover the proceedings, and send quotes back to him at his hotel room. He had gotten my name through the grapevine. Sight unseen, he seemed ready for me to go to work for him.

I was intrigued. But I rejected the offer: I was busy and, most importantly, I regarded myself as an able reporter, not a fixer who did gopher work for other reporters. I also reacted skeptically to his claim that doing fixing work for the Washington Post could "lead to something" at the paper. It's a line other expatriates in Caracas had heard from staff writers from big-time papers. None of the experienced journalists bought it, knowing as we did something about the hiring preferences of papers like the Washington Post.

Presumably, the Post guy got somebody more gullible or at least eager to please: somebody who needed the work and who, most importantly, could provide translation services.

This little anecdote is fairly typical. Caracas, during my seven years there until 2000, was at the time full of aspiring journalists eager to give their careers a quick start: American and British expatriates along with a few English-speaking Venezuelans. Most were recent college grads with limited journalistic experience. Most badly needed an extra paycheck to supplement whatever work they scrounged up: teaching English, working at the local English-language newspaper, or writing for a few English-language business magazines. Most were eager to work for a big-time foreign correspondent.

However, one can imagine the potential for abuse among freelances living from paycheck to paycheck.

Once in Caracas, my checking account was nearly empty. Yet up at the Dallas Morning News, a business editor was sitting on a story that was supposed to pay my rent. To give the story additional balance, she explained, I needed to provide extra quotes from a new source -- one that I could not immediately locate.

Relating my frustration to a Venezuelan journalist, he responded with wide-eyed surprise: "Why don't you just make up the quotes?"

Concocting quotes was not my style. But no doubt about it: I could have gotten away with it. Nobody would have phoned the paper to complain. My editor, as it turned out, tweaked the story to eliminate the need for additional reporting. I paid my rent.

How many fixers in Iraq and elsewhere, struggling to support families amid chaotic conditions, would be tempted to cut corners to ensure that a check arrives on time?

In an age of layoffs and declining profits, freelance "contract" reporters such as Nelson and freelance fixers such as Baghdadi are here to stay. How can the system be made more honest?

One would be to require that fixers be trained journalists. Besides working as fixers, they should write for the papers which contract them. Editors should vet them as carefully as they do perspective staff reporters, and they should meet the same professional requirements as new staff members. A base salary would deter the temptation to cut corners, such as fabricating quotes, to help maintain a cash flow.

Finally, fixers who provide quotes should be credited in stories as having done so; it's something some papers don't do. In the case of Cox's Barbie doll story, for example, Nelson failed to credit Baghdadi with having provided quotes, which was described as contrary to Cox's sourcing policy.

This reflects a problem inherent in foreign reporting as practiced today. Media giants such as the New York Times and Hearst regularly publish articles by freelancers -- yet fail to note those reporters are in fact freelancers and not on staff. In the case of one Hearst paper for which I have written, I was amused to see under my byline that I was part of the paper's "foreign service."

What I learned in Havana talking to ordinary Cubans


By DAVID PAULIN

The secret love affair between left-leaning elites and Cuba goes on no matter what. No sooner had Cuba's aging Fidel Castro resigned, than a common narrative emerged in liberal papers like the New York Times: positive changes could be coming to the hemisphere's last bastion of communism.

On Cuba's northeast coast, meanwhile, 24 ordinary Cubans -- men, women, and children -- boarded a boat under cover of darkness. They set off across the Florida Strait to America -- presumably unaware of the media's upbeat Cuba narrative playing out in the country of their dreams. They landed in South Florida, reported the Miami Herald. They're among tens of thousands of Cubans who have escaped their island in recent years.

Coming when it did, their escape underscored yet again the glaring perception gap regarding Cuba dividing ordinary Cubans and leftist elites in America and abroad. You have to wonder if Cuba's apologists have ever talked with ordinary Cubans, those living in Cuba or who escaped from their island prison to America.

Nearly every night, boat loads of fleeing Cubans cross the Florida Strait -- and even more Cubans now take a longer and safer route through Mexico. That's according to official statistics cited in a New York Times article published a year and a half ago.

Given Raúl Castro's inability to inspire confidence among his subjects back then -- when he was acting president -- it's perplexing that the Times recently described the newly elected president as a "practical" and "no-nonsense" guy who is less wedded to ideology than his brother Fidel. All because of his "decision to begin his tenure by meeting the Vatican's top diplomat, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a possible go-between with the United States and Europe."

Cuba, however, has played this game before -- inviting Pope John II to Cuba for a historic visit in January, 1998. Back then, many liberals also interpreted this as being a sign of Fidel's good intentions, evidence that positive changes were coming to Cuba.

It never happened.

Within a few years, the government cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy initiatives -- most notably the Valera Project -- by tightening its grip on power and making mass arrests. Kangaroo courts sentenced 30 journalists up to 28 years in prison in April, 2003, provoking international outrage.

So much for the Vatican's influence on Raúl and Fidel.

Why does nobody take Raúl at his word? After the National Assembly voted him president -- unanimously, of course -- he pledged to make no radical changes. And he noted that he'd closely consult with his ailing big brother. Members of Cuba's privileged communist elite must have been happy to hear all that.


Visiting Havana

The media's problematic reporting on the Castro brothers brought to mind a week-long reporting trip I made to Havana in 1996, 12 years ago, in mid-December. While reading recent news reports about Raúl Castro's government -- including cautiously upbeat ones -- I was struck by how things in Cuba today are as bad as when I visited.

Then and now, salaries average about $19 a month, not enough to pay for basic goods such as soap, cooking oil, and medicine. Then and now, Cubans giving interviews to foreign reporters insist that only their first names be used, fearing they'll be punished for speaking their minds. Some won't talk at all, of course.

It has been like this for nearly half a century. Accordingly, if Raúl Castro is indeed a democratic reformer in disguise, he'll face a major challenge in repairing the psychological and social damage that he, his brother, and members of the communist elite have wrought in a state that owns all property, most businesses, and punishes those who dare to exercise civil liberties we take for granted. Some Cubans have bravely protested or fled the island. Others play along with the charade and pay lip service to it.

Take religion, for example. When I asked a Havana school teacher how she'd be spending Christmas, she told me: "Why, there is no Christmas in Cuba!" Pointing to a little girl, she added, "She has never known a Christmas!" It was one of many telling anecdotes I gleaned during my week-long trip to the hemisphere's last bastion of communism. Coming to power in 1959, Fidel Castro eradicated nasty bourgeois influences such as Christmas -- a holiday no longer fit to celebrate under his communist ideology.

I was a Caracas-based journalist when I went to Havana. On assignment for the Dallas Morning News, my subject was what Cubans thought about the historic visit to Cuba being planned for Pope John Paul II.

Traveling alone is no fun. I'd gotten an absurdly low-priced package trip to Havana that was for two people, not one. So I invited along a Venezuelan acquaintance named Fiffy. She had a gift for putting people at ease, and she occasionally helped me out with my not-so-perfect Spanish.

Like more than a few sophisticated and well-educated Venezuelans, Fiffy was not a huge fan of the United States, but nor was she a raving anti-American. Neither of us had ever visited Cuba. The place fascinated us.

It was during our first afternoon stroll in Havana that a cheerful teacher beckoned us inside to visit her classroom, having spotted us looking into the grade school's street-level windows. She introduced us to her charming and smiling class of uniformed students. They greeted us on command. I didn't tell the teacher I was a journalist.

"We're tourists," I said. It seemed like the safe thing to say.

Soon after arriving the previous afternoon, I ran into serious problems with customs at Havana's Jose Marti airport -- all because my well-worn U.S. passport raised eyebrows among Cuban officials. They claimed it was too shabby to be taken seriously. Having traveled for years in the back pocket of my Levis, it was a bit creased around the edges. A tiny corner of my photo was unglued.

"No señor, this is not acceptable!" a man wearing dark military-style fatigues told me. "I don't think they'll let you in." He added, "You'll have to take another flight back to Caracas."

Alternatively, he explained, I could spend a week in a detention facility and then leave on my return flight. "Don't worry. It's not like a prison."

Read the rest of the article at The American Thinker.

The Wacko Journalist Narrative

BY DAVID PAULIN

Are the hard economic times facing the newspaper industry stressing newsroom denizens beyond the breaking point? While willing to entertain stories of wacko-vets, newspapers seem singularly uninterested in exploring the human cost of their own continuing economic troubles. In place of worries about soldiers allegedly returning home and committing suicide and murder in unusually high numbers, liberal papers like the New York Times and Washington Post might look at the nation's newsrooms -- their own included -- for a fascinating new narrative. You could call it the wacko journalist narrative.

No parody is intended here.

Trade magazine Editor & Publisher, considered the bible of the newspaper industry, says many newspaper staffers may be at risk for suicide as their industry faces yet another round of painful downsizing and layoffs, along with other work-related pressures.

In a story last June, E&P warned that newspaper staffers affected by the current shake-out should be "watched for suicidal tendencies" according to two health professionals, whom it quoted. Both are familiar with the newspaper business.

E&P's article and a related one in mid-June concerned the possible suicide of a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, Richard Ramirez, 44. He was reportedly concerned about impending layoffs at the McClatchy-owned paper; it's now a shadow of the powerhouse it was years ago under its previous owner, the now-defunct Knight Ridder.

Ramirez, according to E&P, had been "troubled just days before his death by personal problems," and his wife was quoted as saying he was worried about impending layoffs. He was found in his backyard with a fatal knife wound. His death was later ruled a suicide.

Putting Ramirez's death into a larger context, E&P interviewed two public health experts. Both raised concerns about the mental health of newsroom staffers in the face of another round of cost-cutting and downsizing.

"All mid-career journalists are now dealing with enormous uncertainty in the future and enormous doubts about what choices they face. This is a time when we can be looking out for each other," according to E&P's interview with Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Frank Ochberg, a Dart psychiatrist and founder of center, told E&P: "Conditions of employment are not very good right now -- and often it is more upsetting dealing with conditions of employment than vicarious trauma."

According to E&P, both men agreed that if Ramirez's death was indeed a suicide (as it was indeed ruled to have been) it "will be a reminder that anyone affected by the current news industry downsizing must be watched for suicidal tendencies."(Emphasis added.)

Part of the University of Washington's Department of Communication, the Dart Center, according to its website, "is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy." It also says it "addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism."

E&P deserves credit for covering the newsroom suicide angle. Yet E&P's left-wing editor Greg Mitchell has nevertheless demonstrated far more interest in covering the suicides and emotional problems of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Along with echoing the agenda of the loony left in his online column, he has exhorted newspaper editors to vigorously cover the suicides of American troops. On the other hand, he's urged no such pile-on in respect to covering journalists who, in increasing numbers, are themselves committing suicide.

Whether journalist suicides are in fact on the rise is hard to say, for no statistics measuring such things are available; at least nothing comparable to the extensive data the U.S. Army keeps on its soldiers -- and that it obligingly shares with the Washington Post.

Even so, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence available on journalist suicides -- and it's troubling. In June 2005, E&P referred to a spate of journalist suicides in a heart-rending story, "In Texas, the death of a reporter."

The in-depth piece (4,646 words) focused on the suicide of a well-respected and award-winning journalist at the Austin-American Statesman, 46-year-old Kevin Carmody. He specialized in investigative and environmental reporting, and, according to E&P's story, was dealing with a number of personal issues and work-related pressures.

Among other things, Carmody was taking the antidepressant Paxil and faced a court date for DUI charges two days before his death, E&P reported. And a week before his death, he brought his will to work: He had two colleagues witness and sign it, and another one notarized it.

Putting the reporter's suicide into a larger context -- that of possible a trend -- E&P writer Joe Strupp wrote:

"Does Carmody's suicide say something about the effect investigative reporting can have on those who may already have emotional problems? In the past year or so, several reporters have taken their lives following stressful assignments.

"Just last December, former San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb shot himself in the head following months of growing depression, much of it caused by his inability to return to daily newspaper reporting (he left the newspaper in the wake of criticism over a 1997 series he wrote on CIA drug connections). Others include former Iraq embed Dennis O'Brien of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, who hanged himself in February 2004, and author/journalist Iris Chang, who shot herself last fall."

It's a list, to be sure, that is hardly complete, as any Google search will reveal.

Troubled Industry

The current shake-out is nothing new. Over the past few decades, the newspaper industry has undertaken one wave of downsizing after another -- part of an effort to remain profitable amid declining readership and ad revenues. One popular downsizing tool has been "voluntary buyouts" of senior editorial staffers -- usually folks in their 60s, 50s, and even 40s, who earn the highest wages. The Washington Post is now undertaking such an effort.

At the same time, newspapers have gone on a minority-hiring binge (sometimes hiring not-so qualified people) under firm affirmative action/equal opportunity quotas. In today's politically correct newsrooms, the goal is to create the same ethnic and racial composition that exists in the local community, state, or even the nation; whichever criteria news executives feel is appropriate (or feel pressured into using). William McGowan's book Coloring the News dealt with the consequences of such multiculturalism.

Newsroom jobs are even being outsourced to India. Reuters has done that. And recently the Miami Herald was on the verge of doing it but backed down in the face of strong criticism. Interestingly, the Herald's outsourcing initiative was launched under Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal -- a man you would not expect to be overseeing such things. After all, he's the former editor of the left-wing Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Newspapers, like liberals, are suffering from high levels of cognitive dissonance these days. They love to run showcase exposes on Wal-Mart -- excoriating the retailer (wildly popular among working folks) for its allegedly cut-throat business practices. Another hate-object is the military, whose members are often portrayed as both killers and victims. Yet neither the New York Times nor Washington Post nor anyone else has ever done any comparable pieces about it own industry, focusing on the heart-rending human costs of another wave of downsizing. And make no mistake about it; there are human costs to such shake-outs: Many middle-aged staffers face a future of joblessness; part-time work; or irregular income working as freelance editors and reporters. And because journalism salaries are paltry in comparison to other fields, many have little savings to fall back on to launch new careers.

Ramirez, of the Mercury News, knew first-hand how bleak things could be. He'd been "looking for a new job for at least a year," according to E&P. 

Lack of Accountability

All in all, some news outlets do a lousy job when it comes to covering scandals within their ranks. Consider how the American-Statesman reported the death of its long-time staffer, Kevin Carmody.

A well-known reporter, Carmody had written some prominent stories -- and some controversial ones. His work had spurred much public discussion. So you'd think the American-Statesman's readers would have wanted to know what led up to his suicide - and how it occurred. His wife found him near a favorite fishing hole by Austin's popular Barton Creek -- a well-traveled public area. He was hanging from a length of rope tied to the branch of a tree.

Yet none of that ran in the newspaper where Carmody had worked; the 522-word piece about his passing focused only on what a talented reporter and wonderful guy he'd been. Indeed, E&P's article pointed out:

When the American-Statesman reported on Carmody's death, the story offered few details about how he died, stating only that his death was "being investigated as a suicide," and it has written nothing more. Although his body was found in a public location, Editor Rich Oppel contends it was not "public" enough to merit more information for readers.

Well, Oppel must know what he's doing; he's a member of the board that awards Pulitzer Prizes, after all. Still, you have to wonder: How would his paper have covered the suicide of a local solider who -- to the shock of his family and colleagues -- hung himself in a public area?

The New York Times, for its part, found very little that was fit to print following the highly public suicide of a senior staffer. Allen R. Myerson, 47, who jumped from the paper's 15^th floor at 10 a.m. on August 22, 2002. Minutes earlier, the business and financial reporter had left a suicide note on his desk.

In the next-day's Times, readers learned only that Myerson "fell from a parapet above the 15th floor." Police suspected a suicide, the paper noted.

Interestingly, a little over two years earlier, the body of reporter Agis Salpukas, 60, was found floating in the Hudson River. He'd reportedly suffered from depression -- a common thread in many suicides.

Could the two deaths be part of a trend at the Times? Well, probably not. Yet imagine if some Times' sleuth had learned that two soldiers at a military base had killed themselves within a number of months of each other? Imagine the next-day's headline: "Amid Iraq turmoil, military investigates another suicide."

Recently, satirist Iowahawk pulled together numerous news reports of journalists who had turned to crime; everything from wife beating to child molestation to murder. It's yet another possible trend that the mainstream media has yet to explore, and to quantify.

If only the Fourth Estate kept as many statistics on its personnel as the military did. Imagine the interesting trends it might dig up pertaining to suicide, crime, and other mayhem.

And who knows: Such stories might even boost circulation -- helping to ward off yet another round of downsizing, buyouts, and the outsourcing of editorial work to India.

Originally published at The American Thinker.

Author's Note: The men in the photo are, of course, two heroes of the mainstream media -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Whether these two actually deserve their hero status, however, is another question, as is noted by Stratfor's George Friedman in his article, "The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism." That article echoes some of the points made years ago in a fine article by Edward J. Epstein, "Did the Press Uncover Watergate?" published in his book "Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism."

The Return of the Wacko Vet Media Narrative


BY DAVID PAULIN

As the troop build-up in Iraq produces positive results, many media outlets have seized upon a new anti-war narrative. It's right out of the Vietnam War-era: wacko and self-destructive vets running amok on the home front.

"Soldier Suicides at Record Levels," trumpeted a 1,500-word front-page piece in the Washington Post this week. And for three recent Sundays, the New York Times has dished up a front-page series of more than 10,000-words called "War Torn." It's about veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned home -- only to kill again.

According to the Times' series:

"Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Taken together they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak."

The story is flawed, however. Commenting on "War Torn" in his column last Sunday, Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that the series "tangled itself in numbers right from the start." It was "analytically shaky" and relied upon "questionable statistics." His analysis followed howls from conservative bloggers, who were all over "War Torn" long before Hoyt's piece came out.

But give the Times credit for creating the position of public editor, a decision designed to restore its credibility after the Jayson Blair scandal and other problems.

Who is responsible for such agenda-driven reporting at the Times and other media outlets? Mostly senior reporters and editors who are in their 50s and 60s, folks who came of age during the 1960s.

For the rest of this article, visit The American Thinker.