Month: May 2004

Disturbing

I found 2 reports online today (here and here) referring to the possibility that Iran is taking an active hand in Iraqi affairs by recruiting suicide bombers to go after US/British targets in Iraq and elsewhere.

I don’t know whether the World Tribune is a reliable source, but MEMRI, although they do have a pro-Israel agenda, at least can be trusted to get its translations accurately.

What’s disturbing is not that there are more threats being made to recruit and send out suicide bombers. That’s hardly news. What I do find disturbing is the direct linkage of the threats to the US occupation of Iraq.

When people ask for proof that Bush’s war is in fact not making the world safer for America and Democracy, this is the kind of thing we can point to. But since most of it is not happening in English-language news sources, it’s going overlooked.

It has begun

More or less right on schedule. Bush isn’t looking too good in the polls, so what happens? The word starts to go out that a vote for Kerry is a vote for the terrorists.

[CNN reporter Kelli] ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.

BEN VENZKE, INTELCENTER: Al Qaeda feels that Bush is, even despite casualties, right or wrong for staying there is going to stay much longer than possibly what they might hope a Democratic administration would.

Source: CNN

Arena’s quote particularly annoyed me. It would be nice to know who is speculating that sort of thing. Sounds like the kind of thing a Republican operative would say “in confidence” to a reporter, hoping that said shill would repeat it on the air. Heck, it worked for Judith Miller, why not here?

With examples like this happening on a daily basis, small wonder why so few people think the media is trustworthy these days.

Update: I sent an email to Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news exec. Not likely I’m going to get an answer, but at least I feel like I did something.

Dear Mr. Jordan,

During the ’91 Iraq war, I had CNN on virtually non-stop. Through most of the 1990s, CNN was what I turned to for my news coverage. Over the last 2 or 3 years though, I’ve declined my viewership. These days, I scarcely watch CNN at all.

Want to know why? Comments like this one:

“ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.”

Courtesy of http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/27/wbr.01.html

Arena is a CNN reporter, not a guest on that show. When she talks about what Al Qaeda is thinking, it would be nice to know her sources, assuming she actually had any. Who exactly is it that thinks Kerry as POTUS would somehow help Al Qaeda? Sounds like the kind of thing a Republican operative would say “in confidence” to a reporter, hoping that said reporter would repeat it on the air.

Isn’t it CNN’s job to actually report the news, not shill for the politicos? Oh wait, Judith Miller already answered that one. (Yes, I know she did not work for CNN. The point still stands.)

I wish this were an isolated incident, but it is not. Every day, journalists are doing less and less real reporting and more attending briefings and then parroting back what they’re told. Sure, it’s easier to get your story in when all you have to do is show up at a press photo op, upload a press release, and do a live intro to the package. But that’s not news. It’s PR.

You guys need to take a hard look at what you call news these days. If you did, you might actually get viewers like me back in front of the TV.

The Grey Lady and Blogs

As Yogi Berra might say, “It’s deja vu all over again.” Remember the spate of articles published in the mid-late 1990s about people who used the then-new medium called the Internet? What did many of them focus on? Obsessive Internet use. So today, The New York Times writes about blogs. And what do they focus on? Obsessive bloggers.

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession.

Can’t the mainstream media come up with something else to write about? There are probably a couple of million blogs out here in the blogosphere. There’s got to be something more newsworthy in all that wealth of punditry, rants, raves, personal details, pet and child photos, and general snarkiness. There’s got to be at least a few good stories in there somewhere.

The cynic in me suggests that if mainstream media were to take a more realistic look at blogs and blogging, they would have to ask themselves some hard questions about whether they don’t have some things to learn about reporting from the blogosphere. (Jeff Jarvis has touched on this subject over at Buzz Machine). So instead, they look at the freakshow aspects.

I certainly don’t consider myself to be obsessed with my blog. There are days I post multiple times, there are days I don’t post at all. If I don’t post for a couple of days, I do start feeling like I ought to get something up here, but it’s hardly a compulsion. And I suspect many – dare I say most? – casual bloggers feel the same way.

But of course, that’s not newsworthy.

Smile of the Day

I didn’t see a single cicada while in NY/CT this past several days, but this is funny as heck anyway (thanks for the link, Craig!). Here’s a sample:

Do Cicadas make that loud buzzing sound to attract a mate? No, that is a common myth. Our research indicates that sound is actually a battle cry that roughly translates as Kill the Humans. When you hear that sound, take cover! It means the killing spree is about to begin.

Courtesy of Cicadaville. Now go read the rest and enjoy.

Krugman on Jobs

Kudos to Atrios (most days, my favorite blog) for pointing me to this Krugman Quote of the Day on jobs:

In April, the economy added 288,000 jobs. If you do the math, you discover that President Bush needs about four years of job growth at last month’s rate to reach what his own economists consider full employment.

The bottom line, then, is that Mr. Bush’s supporters have no right to complain about the public’s failure to appreciate his economic leadership. Three years of lousy performance, followed by two months of good but not great job growth, is not a record to be proud of.