Another Media Black Eye

[gstelmack]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/....uk/index.html

And from:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...use/index.html:

Miller took over for Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was relieved of duty on January 17, a day after the coalition military announced an investigation into abuse in the prison.

Gee, we're so irresponsible we've been investigating (and announced we were investigating) abuses by some of our people over 3 months ago. Yup, we're just horrible people here. But when you live in an age where no one wants to take responsibility, I guess an attempt to take responsibility gets overlooked...

[kcchief19]

I'm not sure I understand your point.

The first link is obviously to a revelation that The Daily Mirror faked photos. There's a surprise. Before you take something The Daily Mirror does and announce "another media black eye," remember The Daily Mirror is tabloid journalism in the same vein of The National Enquirer and its kind. No one in their right mind should take it seriously.

In quoting that line from the second story, I take it that your argument is that we shouldn't be criticized because we've been investigating abuse for three months and we relieved the general who was in charge of the prison in January, and that this is an example of us taking responsibility.

I may have just not read or seen the right interviews, but I didn't and haven't seen anyone say Gen. Karpinski was removed due to the military taking responsible for the abuse. Cynics would say that "taking responsibilty" for the abuse actions might have seemed more genuine if we had taken action last November or earlier when alerted to abuse by the Red Cross or "taken responsibility" before the photos became public. Otherwise, cynics might suggest we look like we're trying to hide something and scoop it under the rug.

We were wrong. We need to fix it. Period. We can't cry about people criticizing us for something we did. That's like a wife beater ripping people for not wanting to forgive and forget that they were a wife beater. When you do something like this, taking responsible is one thing, but living with the consquences is entirely different.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I'm not sure I understand your point.

The first link is obviously to a revelation that The Daily Mirror faked photos. There's a surprise. Before you take something The Daily Mirror does and announce "another media black eye," remember The Daily Mirror is tabloid journalism in the same vein of The National Enquirer and its kind. No one in their right mind should take it seriously.

Given how much play this story has been getting in CNN, someone was taking them seriously.

Originally Posted by kcchief19

In quoting that line from the second story, I take it that your argument is that we shouldn't be criticized because we've been investigating abuse for three months and we relieved the general who was in charge of the prison in January, and that this is an example of us taking responsibility.

I may have just not read or seen the right interviews, but I didn't and haven't seen anyone say Gen. Karpinski was removed due to the military taking responsible for the abuse. Cynics would say that "taking responsibilty" for the abuse actions might have seemed more genuine if we had taken action last November or earlier when alerted to abuse by the Red Cross or "taken responsibility" before the photos became public. Otherwise, cynics might suggest we look like we're trying to hide something and scoop it under the rug.

We were wrong. We need to fix it. Period. We can't cry about people criticizing us for something we did. That's like a wife beater ripping people for not wanting to forgive and forget that they were a wife beater. When you do something like this, taking responsible is one thing, but living with the consquences is entirely different.

The key part was CNN admitting that we had announced the investigation back in January. It may not have made huge headlines then, but we told people we were looking into this then and have been taking steps since to fix the problems.

As to your wife-beater analogy, I'd argue that it's more like the rest of his family arguing they shouldn't be painted with the same brush just because he's a jerk, especially in light of the fact that they turned him in. The whole US military, from the top down, is being painted in an absolutely horrible light due to the actions of a small group, and this incident is being used to attack Bush for a lack of institutional control, when in fact the military was dealing with it through their established channels.

Mostly I posted it because that's the first I'd seen the public media admit that there's been an ongoing investigation. Most of the reports make it seem like nothing was happening and that the abuse was ongoing right up until the photos broke a little while ago. I was glad to finally see some more background trickle into the reporting.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

The first link is obviously to a revelation that The Daily Mirror faked photos. There's a surprise. Before you take something The Daily Mirror does and announce "another media black eye," remember The Daily Mirror is tabloid journalism in the same vein of The National Enquirer and its kind. No one in their right mind should take it seriously.

FWIW, the Boston Globe yesterday published graphic gang-rape photos, purported to be US Soldiers and Iraqi prisoners, that had already been revealed as fakes last week. And the Washington Post published a number of previously unseen photos, saying only that "authenticity could not be verified." So it is not just tabloid papers printing fakes.

[sachmo71]

I think we should not question. We should just accept.

[Dutch]

Fairness,

Yahoo! News headlines decried, "British Troops Humiliate Iraqi Prisoners" just days after the prison scandal. Never was their a headling "Newsmedia Fakes Prison Photos", so those none the wiser who have an equal vote in our democracies will feel British soldiers pissed on Iraqi prisoners.

That's not fair.

American tanks charge into Iraq holy city
Bremer says U.S. will leave Iraq if requested
Police union rejects Bush, endorses Kerry

The above are the recent Yahoo News headlines. Does Yahoo! News (which apparently gets it's headlines from Reuters and the AP ever give equal time on their headlines to the 50% of the nation that is supportive of the War on Terror and the Bush Administration?

Fairness. That's all I ask for from our media, and let us decide then what is right and what we are comfortable with. That's the media's constitutional right, not to be the politcal sponsored arm of one politcal party over another.

[wig]

Does anyone trust the media anymore?

It's become a joke.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by wig

Does anyone trust the media anymore?

Not with them faking pictures left and right.

There was another article recently on a doctored photo where a journalist combined two pictures to tweak the scene, but I can't find it now.

[clintl]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

The key part was CNN admitting that we had announced the investigation back in January. It may not have made huge headlines then, but we told people we were looking into this then and have been taking steps since to fix the problems.

As to your wife-beater analogy, I'd argue that it's more like the rest of his family arguing they shouldn't be painted with the same brush just because he's a jerk, especially in light of the fact that they turned him in. The whole US military, from the top down, is being painted in an absolutely horrible light due to the actions of a small group, and this incident is being used to attack Bush for a lack of institutional control, when in fact the military was dealing with it through their established channels.

Mostly I posted it because that's the first I'd seen the public media admit that there's been an ongoing investigation. Most of the reports make it seem like nothing was happening and that the abuse was ongoing right up until the photos broke a little while ago. I was glad to finally see some more background trickle into the reporting.

It has been widely reported for quite some time now that investigations started in January. However, it wasn't until the photos became public that knowledge of the magnitude of abuse became widely known and newsworthy. Up to that point, the Pentagon and Army were doing what they could to hush it up, and deny that it was a big deal. Since the story did break, the Army and Pentagon has flat out lied about this being the work of a few rogue soldiers, when it is now obvious that at the very least, military intelligence and civilian contractors were involved and like directed the whole thing. This is not a failing of the news media.

As far as fake photos go, you can blame them for not their checking sources carefully enough. And that's all.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by clintl

As far as fake photos go, you can blame them for not their checking sources carefully enough. And that's all.

You mean whether the source is Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro? You know that a picture is worth a thousand words so you think it's no big deal to widely publish or create doctored photos? One image can change people's minds and opinions so what pray tell would be the motivation of a major news outlet to publish/create doctored photos? Surely it's not to present facts and let us decide, is it?

[Mac Howard]

>The Daily Mirror is tabloid journalism in the same vein of The National Enquirer and its kind. No one in their right mind should take it seriously

Those who wish to ridicule the tabloids (including myself) tend to say that but in truth the Mirror is the premier blue-collar, left wing newspaper in the UK. The 'paper has been the foremost critic of the government since before the war and has regularly called for the resignation of Tony Blair (particularly difficult for him as he heads the left wing Labour party). The editor of the paper has been sacked because he refused to apologise for the publicity he gave to the fake 'photos and The Mirror is desperately trying to recover some credibility before its circulation plummets.

Here's a web site with the recent front pages:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/

As you can see they have much humble pie to eat

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

There was another article recently on a doctored photo where a journalist combined two pictures to tweak the scene, but I can't find it now.

LA Times was the paper that did that (or rather, one of the LAT editors did that)

[Leonidas]

What's even better is Congress and the Senate knew about all this in December. During the questioning in the Senate last week John McCain pointed out several times to his colleagues that they were hearing the same information they received back in December and could they please move on to something new.

Same thing with the 9/11 hearings. They made this big deal about the Condeleeza Rice testimony when in private she had told the same people exactly the same things weeks before. It's all a big dog and pony show meant to further political agendas while looking tough in front of the camera.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Leonidas

What's even better is Congress and the Senate knew about all this in December. During the questioning in the Senate last week John McCain pointed out several times to his colleagues that they were hearing the same information they received back in December and could they please move on to something new.

Same thing with the 9/11 hearings. They made this big deal about the Condeleeza Rice testimony when in private she had told the same people exactly the same things weeks before. It's all a big dog and pony show meant to further political agendas while looking tough in front of the camera.

NOOOOOO!!! That can't be true.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

LA Times was the paper that did that (or rather, one of the LAT editors did that)

I know the Times got busted for trying to call out Arnold during his run for Gov. The Times also was caught 1-2 years ago when one of the editors ran an editorial about how he was promoting the Paper as a Pro-Choice Newspaper. So much public outcry, that the paper toned down their obvious liberal stance.

Oneof the many reasons I'm not fond of the hometown newspaper