Gone For Now

The ideal of a free press operating as a fourth estate, and "speaking truth to power" was always an ideal, and seldom realized. The press set professional standards in the modern era that moved it closer to this ideal, as did the culture within major news organizations and at least a small set of actions that could be held up as a model. Younger journalists wanted to push this independence even further, and get closer to the ideal.

It happened for awhile, as the countercultural press created a dynamic that seemed to goose the larger organizations with the resources to do actual reporting every day, all around the world. It would be interesting to chronicle the experience of former countercultural journalists as many of them joined these larger organizations, and the survival or not of those ideals.

News organizations were always businesses, and soon became parts of bigger businesses. When they were in the business of selling papers many did quite outrageous things that had little to do with the ideals of journalism. That seemed to have been marginalized in the modern, Walter Lippmann/Edward R. Murrow era.

Then came the sea-change of the 1980s, when illusions and trivia sold better than news and reality. By now, Bill Moyers' analysis of the media and its role in the downward spiral of democracy is the clearest and most complete, but there are many others outside and within the news business who would agree with most if not all of it. At best, we're going through a reversion to darker times, with the usual differences of technology and context.

Today Time Magazine chose to turn over a reporter's notes in the Valerie Plame case, after the Supreme Court ruled that two reporters, one from Time and one from the New York Times, could be jailed for refusing. They were about to be sentenced.

This has been a difficult case for many of us, more difficult even than in past challenges to a free press which put people in the absurd situation of rallying to the defense of pornographers, whose only real interest in a free press was the right to make lots of money.

The guilty parties in this case are within the Bush administration, and their "dirty tricks" and worse rival Watergate for viciousness and for undermining democracy. Plus one of the reporters involved---Judith Miller of the NY Times---is generally reviled and disrespected as a willing tool of the Bush machine. Her conduct as supposed war correspondent during the Iraq "embedded" reporter period was nothing short of scandalous. The Times should have fired her long ago.

The issues here are serious and complex, but the most objectionable part of Time's decision, and the element of it that is most threatening to journalism---that is in fact most revealing about the state of corporate journalism---is that the decision was made because the editor of Time---not the publisher, not the CEO or chair of the board---the editor decided that corporate interests come first. He said (according to the NY Times):

"I don't believe that a company has the right to put the assets of it shareholders at risk in an act of civil disobedience."

In one sentence he has pronounced the death knell for the independent press in our time.

It is most significant that this did not come from "the business side" of the paper---this might have been an expected response at any time in the modern era---but from editorial, that is supposed to defend its independence. If it doesn't, who the hell will?

Time Inc. Decides to Hand Over Notes of Reporter Facing Prison - New York Times

Iraqmire Update

Response to Bush's speech on Iraq ranges from tepid to savage. The cartoon by Oliphant in the Boston Globe showing Bush strutting over a sea of coffins being the most graphic, but there is also this column by Bob Herbert in the NY Times. Titled "Dangerous Incompetence" he begins:

"The president who displayed his contempt for Iraqi militants two years ago with the taunt "bring 'em on" had to go on television Tuesday night to urge Americans not to abandon support for the war that he foolishly started but can't figure out how to win."

Later Herbert uses the Q Word and the I. Word together, in a statement that is likely to be widely quoted:

"The incompetence at the highest levels of government in Washington has undermined the U.S. troops who have fought honorably and bravely in Iraq, which is why the troops are now stuck in a murderous quagmire. If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently, the Republicans in Congress would be dusting off their impeachment manuals."

Dangerous Incompetence - New York Times

How bad is the Bushitting? The Independent's Patrick Cockburn told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that " [I]t’s a running joke in Iraq, in Baghdad, the number of Iraqi government leaders who are outside the country at any one time. At one moment last year, or this year, rather, a Baghdad newspaper calculated that the entire -- every cabinet minister was outside the country. The president, Jalal Talabani, was saying a couple of months ago that most of Iraq was quiet, but you have to look at where he was saying this: He was saying it in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.

So you just have to get off the plane in Baghdad or look anywhere around the city to realize that this is a place in chaos and this is the most dangerous place in the world. "

Before the Panic Starts: A Cautionary Note about Nuclear

At the moment, only those in the vanguard---environmentalists, scientists, some corporate planners and execs---are obsessively worried about the climate crisis and/or the coming end of oil. But their concerns suggest what is to come, as panic sets in, as it eventually will.

So among this group there is already talk of reviving nuclear power generation, as a lesser of the evils technology. Even one of the founders of Greenpeace is reportedly talking this way. The idea is that nuclear is potentially a large enough source to make up for carbon based energy production, and that improvements in technology have rendered nuclear safer than it used to be. Apparently, the generation of huge amounts of nuclear waste is also part of that lesser evil. Lesser that what? You might well ask.

But a Brit think tank is putting one kobosh to this, simply as not cost effective. Maybe the vanguard will hear this, before it becomes a widespread part of the panic.

The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by a factor of three, according to a British think tank.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says existing estimates do not allow for the cost of building novel technologies and expensive time delays in construction.
They claim that renewable energy sources like wind and solar should be relied upon instead of nuclear power.

BBC NEWS Science/Nature Cost of nuclear 'underestimated'

In Other New...

The Great Malls of China in the LA Times, or an earlier version still at Shopopolis.

"Before Steven" looks at earlier versions of HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds" at Soul of Star Trek.

The War at Home

W breaks into the TV reruns and humiliation spectacles on the cusp of primetime tonight to talk about the war in Iraq. The polls have been showing that Americans have turned against it. But for those who have other plans, like staring into the middle distance for an hour, here's a capsule of the speech, courtesy of press flack Scott McClellan:

It's a very significant speech by the commander in chief at a critical moment in the war on terror"

There you have it---it's all about the war on terror, despite the FACT that John Kerry wrote about in the NY Times today that W's invasion of Iraq created the terrorism there. Anyway, we've all heard all of this before.

We're also going to hear about patience, and the importance of the Iraq elections in December, and how they bravely came out to the polls last time, waving their purple fingers.

So here's a little news note from 1966:

On September 12: South Vietnamese go to the polls to elect a 117 member assembly to draft a new constitution. American supporters point to the 75% turnout as proof that democracy is working.

It worked great there, didn 't it? After another 8 years of war, pain, slaughter, death, blown away limbs, lives that were permanently screwed up and still are, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong won, took over the country, and now the U.S. is trading with them as if none of it ever happened.

Bush and Aides Seek to Calm Public's Concerns About Iraq - New York Times

In Other New...

H.G. Wells Goes to the Movies at Soul of Star Trek.