The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Hewitt: a year end review of the MSM
The venerable Hugh Hewitt, reacts to the latest front-page fiction that was admitted by the Los Angeles Times. Be sure read it all: Hewitt uses the story as a launching pad to illustrate this and other examples of the depths to which the MSM has sunk--and why it is no longer trusted by an ever-growing majority of Americans.
Some key grafs about the LA Times snafu in particular:
Yesterday I noted the front-page pratfall from Monday's Los Angeles Times:
But now, as the Fish and Wildlife Service ponders a delisting plan that would turn over management of the wolves to the states, federal officials are balking at plans they fear would allow hunters to exterminate whole packs.
In Wyoming, for example, Gov. Dave Freudenthal last April decreed that the Endangered Species Act is no longer in force and that the state "now considers the wolf as a federal dog," unworthy of protection. The governor's declaration reflects the views of hunters and ranchers that the wolves are decimating elk herds and devouring cattle and sheep. Some rural residents say they fear that wolves may prey on children.Idaho, home to the largest population of wolves in the West, has been the least welcoming. Officials say hundreds of wolves have been shot, in violation of federal law. A recent spate of poisonings has not only killed wolves, but dozens of ranch dogs and family pets that ingested pesticide-laced meatballs left along wildlife trails, state wildlife managers say.
I did not reproduce the paper's "correction" from Tuesday, which read:
FOR THE RECORD Gray wolves - An article in Tuesday's Section A about tensions over the federal effort to reintroduce wolves into parts of the West wrongly attributed to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal a statement that Wyoming considered the Endangered Species Act no longer in force and "now considers the wolf as a federal dog." The statement, which was circulated on the Internet, was purportedly from Freudenthal but was in fact a hoax
You be the judge. Did the Los Angeles Times correct its embarassing and deeply misleading story, or repair the reputation of the Wyoming governor, and did it take any steps to protect the paper, its readers, or future targets of its reporters? Of course not.
On October 10, 1999, the Times devoted its Sunday magazine to the opening of the Staples Center, and did so because it had agreed with the center to split the revenues from the advertising in that magazine with the Center. Oh the agony within the newsroom! How the tubas of journalism sounded deep notes. The exercise in self-flagellation amused outsiders as it so clearly framed the cluelessness of the newspaper's insiders as to what mattered to outsiders. Outsiders --especially readers-- just want to be able to trust the stuff they read. The content of the magazine wasn't flawed, but the self-perception of the delusional reporters was.
I doubt that even one of those insiders shocked and horrified by the Staples Center flap even raised an eyebrow at the fact that a front page story could casually absorb and pivot off of an internet hoax, and that the "correction" would be the small and buried aside published above.
Which is why the New Year's Resolution you ought to make and keep is to cancel a MSM subscription today. The papers won't change until they are made to.
Some key grafs about the LA Times snafu in particular:
Yesterday I noted the front-page pratfall from Monday's Los Angeles Times:
But now, as the Fish and Wildlife Service ponders a delisting plan that would turn over management of the wolves to the states, federal officials are balking at plans they fear would allow hunters to exterminate whole packs.
In Wyoming, for example, Gov. Dave Freudenthal last April decreed that the Endangered Species Act is no longer in force and that the state "now considers the wolf as a federal dog," unworthy of protection. The governor's declaration reflects the views of hunters and ranchers that the wolves are decimating elk herds and devouring cattle and sheep. Some rural residents say they fear that wolves may prey on children.Idaho, home to the largest population of wolves in the West, has been the least welcoming. Officials say hundreds of wolves have been shot, in violation of federal law. A recent spate of poisonings has not only killed wolves, but dozens of ranch dogs and family pets that ingested pesticide-laced meatballs left along wildlife trails, state wildlife managers say.
I did not reproduce the paper's "correction" from Tuesday, which read:
FOR THE RECORD Gray wolves - An article in Tuesday's Section A about tensions over the federal effort to reintroduce wolves into parts of the West wrongly attributed to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal a statement that Wyoming considered the Endangered Species Act no longer in force and "now considers the wolf as a federal dog." The statement, which was circulated on the Internet, was purportedly from Freudenthal but was in fact a hoax
You be the judge. Did the Los Angeles Times correct its embarassing and deeply misleading story, or repair the reputation of the Wyoming governor, and did it take any steps to protect the paper, its readers, or future targets of its reporters? Of course not.
On October 10, 1999, the Times devoted its Sunday magazine to the opening of the Staples Center, and did so because it had agreed with the center to split the revenues from the advertising in that magazine with the Center. Oh the agony within the newsroom! How the tubas of journalism sounded deep notes. The exercise in self-flagellation amused outsiders as it so clearly framed the cluelessness of the newspaper's insiders as to what mattered to outsiders. Outsiders --especially readers-- just want to be able to trust the stuff they read. The content of the magazine wasn't flawed, but the self-perception of the delusional reporters was.
I doubt that even one of those insiders shocked and horrified by the Staples Center flap even raised an eyebrow at the fact that a front page story could casually absorb and pivot off of an internet hoax, and that the "correction" would be the small and buried aside published above.
Which is why the New Year's Resolution you ought to make and keep is to cancel a MSM subscription today. The papers won't change until they are made to.
