Thursday Revelations

Two stories this morning that reveal how we should be taking the news we receive through our media with far less than automatic acceptance.

Research: Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt interviewed MSNBC journalist Lawrence O'Donnell in the first hour of his radio program. As O'Donnell started gearing up for his criticism of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Hugh got the network news analyst to make some startling admissions about the priorities on his reading list in this post-9/11 world...: [my transcript]

[22:43] Hugh Hewitt: Did you read The Nuclear Jihadist by Douglas Franz...
Laurence O'Donnell: No.
HH: ... and Kathleen Collins.
LO'D: No.
HH: He's John Kerry's senior investigator on the foreign affairs committee, does he sound reputable to you?
LO'D: Keep going.
HH: The AQ Khan network is gone.
LO'D: I know they're gone, I know... and that's a great thing. But let's just get a couple of things straight: Cheney did nothing about it, not one meeting. From the day he was sworn in, until September 10th, he did NOTHING about Al Qaeda, NOTHING about the AQ Khan network, NOTHING. The guy wants you to rate his job starting on Sept 12th; do you want to start rating the Obama presidency on September 12th 2009?
HH: Larry, that's a specious argument, but I want to get one more piece of data out there... Have you read The Looming Tower yet?
LO'D: No.
HH: What was the last book you read about terrorism?
LO'D: The last... I don't think I've read a book about terrorism.
HH: Ever??
LO'D: [thinking] N-n-n-no.
HH: About Al Qaeda?
LO'D: No.
HH: About... How about the Mullahs in Iran?
LO'D: No.
HH: [pause] I'm... I'm just stunned!
LO'D: Well, I'll tell you, I've read Bob Woodward's books about the accounts inside the Bush administration, from what they were doing, from the day they got sworn in. Okay?
HH: You've never read a book about terrorism??
LO'D: There is no, there is absolutely no evidence, and I defy you... I defy you to point to me...
HH: Larry, You've never read a book about terrorism?
LO'D: ...point to me a citation, of one memo, or one meeting, that Dick Cheney was having, where he said anything about Al Qaeda...
[bumper music starts, signaling the end of the segment and the approach to a commercial break]
HH: Larry, I've got to go lie down. I really do. Do you think you're well-informed MSNBC, by MSNBC standards? Do you think you're above the grade of people at that network?
LO'D: That's a trick question, Hugh.

Context: TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly is so internet-savvy that he doesn't know the technical difference between a blog post and a comment left at one, as he refers to commentors as "bloggers".

It's sad to see guest Amanda Carpenter's non-reaction to O'Reilly's sarcastic comments about Hot Air.com, the second conservative site whose comment threads were quoted from in the segment. Amanda Carpenter isn't just any Washington pundit, she also happens to be a frequent guest on Hot Air's Ed Morrissey's daily blog talk radio show. (In case Bill O'Reilly stops by to read this: this is a call-in show done over the internet) Come to think of it, it has been a while since she's made an appearance on Ed's shows; maybe her indifference to O'Reilly's smear comes from agreement, and she really believes that one of the blogosphere's most polite, fair-minded, and cheerful political bloggers could actually have written something as purile as what was quoted by O'Reilly. Maybe she had a tiring day, and out of exhaustion simply didn't hear what O'Reilly was actually saying. Either way, Amanda Carpenter owes Ed Morrissey a big apology.
With friends like these...

Truce in Gaza, a little of the truth trickles out

We all know that when it comes to war, the MSM will leech onto any horrific propaganda and repeat it often if it fits their pre-conceived narrative. But this does not make it any easier to accept that we are being lied to - whether or not those uncritically feeding lies to us know what they are doing - especially when it comes from the likes of our tax-payer funded CBC where I have heard many claims that Israel is using white phosphorous on civilians.

Anyway, the New York Times is now covering itself for past misreporting, in the final paragraphs of a recent story on Gaza:

Mr. Kellenberger of the Red Cross said that Israel had facilitated his trip to Gaza and added that he had seen no evidence of the use of white phosphorus, an obscurant used in military conflicts that can be dangerous for civilians under certain circumstances. Palestinians say Israel is using it in Gaza.

Last week, the Red Cross issued an unusually harsh condemnation of Israel for refusing to allow its personnel into Gaza to rescue people trapped in battle. On Wednesday, Mr. Kellenberger said that although the situation remained critical, rescue missions had not been entirely shut down. The organization rescued 100 people trapped in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City, on Tuesday.

This news was discussd by Marty Peretz in his blog (ht:contentious centrist), one of whose anonymous commenters writes:

As a Navy Seabee veteran with experience on 60mm and 81mm mortars, I have fired my share of white phosphorus ("willy peter") shells. WP was used during vietnam for illumination for night fighting and for brush clearing, and rounds were fired directly at the enemy as well. WP burns at 5000 degrees F. and will not extinguish until it completely burns up--it will even burn under water. If it gets on you it will burn right through you. Hence the danger to civilians "under certain circumstances."

Having seen the footage in question I can say that in my estimation, having seen WP up close and personal many times over, Israel is NOT using WP based on that footage.

Wouldn't it be nice if our media could fill their stories on war with a few sober military experts and not the sentimentalization of (and hence encouragment to produce more) victims that we get from the NGOs?

Fall of the Times

We've had some discussion here recently on the nature of media, public and private. Regardless of our discussions, the world acts, and in the case of the L.A. Times, the world acting is not to the good of the LAT. The market tells. But it doesn't tell all. I'm leaving a lot of room for our readers to fill in the details. One finds some interesting commentary at the American Thinker link below. For now, the Fall of the Times.

Kevin Roderick, "Incredibly, deep new cutbacks at L.A. Times."

This is a breaking situation this afternoon. Editors met over the weekend to get the word and to refine their lists. Newsroom staffers are being told today individually and in department meetings that as many as 75 editorial positions are being cut through voluntary departures and layoffs. Some staffers were approached last week about volunteering, "enticed" with the threat that this will be the absolute final time that editorial employees will receive two weeks severance pay for each year of service when they leave. When new publisher Eddy Hartenstein took over in August, right after the last round of deep cuts, he was asked repeatedly about the prospect of new layoffs, and according to a first-hand report I passed along then:

The question of more layoffs was posed in half a dozen different ways and he said he hadn't been given a target number for the staff, that Sam Zell told him to run the place, etc., etc. He did say (as did Mark Willes and Sam Zell) that we can't cut our way to prosperity.

I've emailed Hartenstein and Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan some questions about what has changed since August and the extent of this round of cutbacks. My sources say the newsroom staffing level is headed to about 650, but I don't know if that includes the decimation of the Washington bureau expected by many there after the November election.
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/10/incredibly_deep_new_cutba.php

Thanks to Thomas Lifson, "Newspaper death spiral accelerates" at American Thinker.