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Bush Administration and Media Corruption

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Fri Nov 18, 2005 at 07:50:39 PM EST
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Saturday's LA Times has an excellent commentary on Woodward, connecting him to the Bush Administration's unprecedented manipulation of the media and, by extension, the rest of us.

Two things have distinguished this Bush administration's efforts at press manipulation from those that have gone before. One is their sweep and consistency. There has been bribery — as in the egregious case of the wretched Williams. There has been deception — as in the planting of phony news videos. There have been alleged violations of federal laws and regulations — as in Tomlinson's and Rove's efforts to subvert public television. There has been stealth — as in the whispering campaign to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

And, of course, there has been good old-fashioned bullying, as in the president's and vice-president's assertions that raising questions about their push to war or the torture of U.S. captives is somehow "reprehensible" and unpatriotic. It's a melancholy comment on the state of the American press that it takes a former director of Central Intelligence, Adm. Stansfield Turner, to identify Dick Cheney for what he has become — "vice president for torture" — and that he had to do it in a foreign forum, on Britain's ITV news, as he did Thursday.

The Washington Post views it differently in their Saturday editorial.

Update: Add Joe Conasen to those criticizing Woodward.

< Woodward Tells Time Mag. Why Source Came Forward | Ex-CIA Officers Reveal Torture Details >

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    • Bush Administration and Media Corruption | 7 comments (7 topical)
    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#1)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:15 PM EST
    And there has been massive complicity in just about every phase on the part of the media.

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#2)
    by Fr33d0m on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:15 PM EST
    Stunning! At this point we have to go to our former masters in order to get a word in edgewise? And they have the impudence to talk of the patriotism of others?

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#3)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:16 PM EST
    Fr - Looks like you slid some in with no problems... Can you spell I n t e r n e t... et al - Woodward achieved fame and fortune by doing what the Left wanted. Now they show their loyalty.. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Bob.

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#4)
    by Rick B on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:16 PM EST
    The problem with Woodward's behavior is that he sacrificed investigative daily journalism for the access to write his next books. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that he used his notoriety to try to denigrate Fitzgerald's investigation. It also appears that the Washington Post has preferred to support Woodward's insider access over investigative journalism. How many stories have been spiked or edited so as to protect Woodward's access? The New York Times has done the same, possibly more so, with Judith Miller. The result has been to leave Knight-Ridder as the only newspaper chain who has actually published stories the administration really hated, and they haven't speant a lot of money on investigative journalism. Why should they? They have no competition to beat except perhaps the Guardian. TV "journalism?" Forget it. Dan Rather tried and got his head handed to him. Before and since the so-called "Memogate" TV "journalism" has been tepid, toothless and without context. The reason why American journalists specialize in access journalism is that it is so much cheaper than investigative journalism, and that there is no competition to beat. Woodward and Miller are simply the least expensive way to pretent to cover politics in depth.

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:16 PM EST
    RickB - "So-called?" Oh well, I'm sure you'll tell me the memo was written on a secret copy of Word, available only to the Texas Air National Guard... Provided, of course, via a Time Machine invented by Howard Dean...

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#6)
    by glanton on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:16 PM EST
    Rick, Don't worry about Jim, he honestly thinks George W. Bush was a war hero. As I have commented before, calling him a 'fighter pilot' is the same exact thing as calling Michael Jordan a 'baseball player.' Only the slightest sliver of an artificial title covers the lie. Most Americans know this. And BTW: what Mapes and Rather reported wouldn't have made me think any less of Dubya, had it not been coupled with the fact that he championed the war even as he pulled strings to avoid fighting in it. Same with Cheney, Rush, and the whole chickenhawk cabinet. Clinton was far better--he knew Vietnam represented an utter waste of American blood so that government officials could play some irrelevant chess game, so he avoided going. And spoke out against the war in the same breath. Kerry is a more astonishing case still. He knew the war was stupid but went and fought in it anyway, then came back and protested it. More on topic: Anyone who still thinks the corporate media is left wing really, really needs help. If they can pull themselves away from the socialist hyperbole surrounding Natalie Holloway, or the erotic memories of the Marxist Shiavo media blitz, or the still more titillating memories of the Communist Media during the 2002 mantra of 'WMD's'--if they can pull themselves away from all this, then maybe, just maybe, they will get the help they need.

    Re: Bush Administration and Media Corruption (none / 0) (#7)
    by john horse on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:17 PM EST
    While I agree with the editorial about Bush's manipulation of the media, there is another side to this story. The media seems all to willing to be consensual partners in their manipulation and corruption. Fortunately, there are some notable exceptions. During the Iraq war, old fashioned non-embedded reporters, like Seymour Hersch and Helen Thomas, were attacked or punished by the Bush administration. Still they stuck to their guns and our country and the profession of journalism is a little better off because of them.

    Bush Administration and Media Corruption | 7 comments (7 topical)