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Anyone Remember Jayson Blair?

The New York Times apologized, as witnessed by it's Wednesday editorial, for unbalanced coverage of the Iraq war in regard to the "weapons of mass destruction". The most powerful newspaper, and some would say the only truly independent media company in America asked for forgiveness in buying into the hype called "weapons of mass destruction". Or so it appears, but in fact the editorial reveals a bigger critique of American mass media.

Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

Editors ... were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops. There's a small problem with this explanation. Be it on the website or in print, the Times publishes news perhaps once a day. It would appear they are at a severe disadvantage to a all-news cable channel or even the major networks. Yet this isn't true; consolidation now means that more and more stories and reports are recycled through not just small town papers but from MSNBC to the NBC Nightly News to its partner in print, the Washington Post. Fox News spins its reports out to Clear Channel's radio affiliates as well as it's website, Foxnews.com. But the New York Times is different. It it is independent and therefore, has to negotiate advertising on a lower scale. Put this way now consider the second part of the comment.

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display....In some case, there was no follow-up at all. Remember the story about uranium in Turkey? The "yellowcake" find in Niger? In any case, this sentence carries tremendous weight. It shows the degree that the consolidated, cookie-cutter, mogul-driven American media have become elitist, and unconcerned with entertainment perverting journalistic integrity. What this sentence really says is that: "we know you don't like to read the news, we know you like being ignorant." "We avoid tough and challenging issues, because we worry you will change the channel to Sportscenter". "We thought the World Trade Center attack would make you more extroverted and concerned about the world, and instead you are even softer and weak".

I say this because the Times, obscures the fact that during the war itself, British news services...from the liberal Guardian to the conservative Independent and BBC saw a meteoric rise in users from the United States. Whoever these people were, and how many they were is irrelevant. It means that the Times either figured this class of people was not big enough to cater its coverage too, or it wasn't concerned with the truth.

Notice however, no one else apologized even though in an earlier part of the editorial reads Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations ? in particular, this one. Cue Al Gore:

One of the strengths of democracy is the ability of the people to regularly demand changes in leadership and to fire a failing leader and hire a new one with the promise of hopeful change. That is the real solution to America's quagmire in Iraq. But, I am keenly aware that we have seven months and twenty five days remaining in this president's current term of office and that represents a time of dangerous vulnerability for our country because of the demonstrated incompetence and recklessness of the current administration.

It is therefore essential that even as we focus on the fateful choice, the voters must make this November that we simultaneously search for ways to sharply reduce the extraordinary danger that we face with the current leadership team in place. It is for that reason that I am calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush and Dick Cheney who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe that we are facing in Iraq.

http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html

But that's not what will solve the Times' problem. The only real solution: Congress has to step in and crush the large media conglomerates. Just as Congress brought about the Sherman Anti-Trust act to break up the robber barons at the start of the 20th century, so too must they act and cure the cancer of media consolidation. Just as yellow journalism led us into elective war then (the Spanish American War), so has it now. And unfortunately, while President Theodore Roosevelt managed to stop some (Joseph Pulitzer)...only time could defeat others (William Randolph Hearst).

It does make one wonder: why did the New York Times fire Jayson Blair again?

Tuesday: As crude oil prices remain high, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets in Beirut. While everyone seems to know that OPEC's biggest player is Saudi Arabia, we'll take a look at the ten other nations and their perspectives as members of the world's most influential economical cartel.
posted by Thomas at 10:20 PM 0 comments

 
Mayor Gavin Newsom, Agent of the State?

From the steps of the California Supreme Court, one can easily see if people are lined up to enter San Francisco's City Hall. Perhaps Gavin Newsom figured, therefore, that he would save the other city attorneys in California the trouble. By issuing marriage licenses to people of the same sex, he earned the ire of the California attorney general, Bill Lockyer. Lockyer, who has been mentioned along with Treasurer Phil Angelides, as seeking to dethrone Herr Schwarzenegger in 2006 demanded that Newsom comply with Article III, sec 3.5 of the California Constitution, proclaiming that a state agency cannot determine if state law is unconstitutional.

Surprisingly, the Supreme Court of California seemed to indicate that Newsom's role as a mayor was to file suit, not to issue the licenses. The reasoning appeared to be that since there was no emergency, no reason that the perceived injury couldn't be fixed through conventional litigation, that Newsom (or any mayor) overstepped himself. While this irritated the judges, the Chief Deputy City Attorney, Therese Stewart, (herself a lesbian) proceeded to say that even if Newsom did not have the technical authority to issue the licenses, that they did not violate the California guidelines for marriage and therefore finding against Newsom's authority would not eo ipso invalidate the marriage licenses he issued to same-sex couples.

The California Supreme Court, despite spending almost as much time with Stewart as the representative for the Attorney General and the Alliance Defense Fund combined, is not as eager as it seems to rule against San Francisco. Article III sec. 3.5 was passed as a ballot measure in response to litigation between the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Public Utilities Commission. It has never been invoked on a mayor before. And it does not stop the couples from demanding that they have a right to marry. With that lawsuit not yet in the CA Supreme Court's docket, but plowing it's way through the trial circuit next door, nothing prevents the panel of six from rebuking Newsom and chiseling out the right for same-sex marriages in separate opinions.

But as Stewart posits, when a mayor in California is sworn in, he or she swears allegiance to the Constitution first and not to the state. Indeed, city officials are not able to be targeted by civil rights lawsuits which require the premise of a person acting "under color of state law". Therefore, even if state jurisprudence considers mayor and civic officials as "state agents" federal jurisprudence might not. However, federal agencies are not able to rule on the constitutionality of federal laws and have to comport to the same scheme that "section 3.5" imposes: only an appellate court can find a law unconstitutional.

But if this is all true, the California Supreme Court might have to declare the marriages invalid. That would create in effect a "Dred Scott" scenario for gay rights advocates, effectively denying the existence of injury because same-sex couples could not marry in the first place. And Justice Werdegar seemed most concerned about just that possibility, noting that perhaps the hardest matter to resolve would be to inform the couples that these marriages do not exist. Just how the Court handles that issue will tell us just what road the gay marriage debate will take.


posted by Thomas at 10:48 PM 0 comments

 
See You On Tuesday

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/newsreleases/NR30-04.HTM The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Lockyer v. San Francisco Tuesday morning. Unpaid will see you at 9am.
posted by Thomas at 2:39 AM 0 comments