Military mindset spins the press

The US military's snarlingly defensive spin-meisters showed their true colors in a Haditha talking points memo written by four officers last January. It was part of the evidence submitted at a Camp Pendleton hearing to determine whether some US Marines should face court martial for murder after 24 Iraqi civilians were killed.

The NY Times ran excerpts from a five-pager that mulled over how to respond to Time's veteran war reporter, Tim McGirk. Stonewalling by the military put the Haditha story on the backburner for several weeks until Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) broadcast his misgivings that these killings of old folks and children in their beds might have been "in cold blood". Was there a cover-up?
.................
NY Times reporter Paul von Zielbauer, attended the preliminary military hearing in San Diego then highlighted how the marines were dismissive and suspicious of anyone who confronts them with difficult questions. They conceal rather than inform, and obviously prefer that their heroics are extolled by embedded hacks. The Los Angeles Times had quoted from part of the same scary memo last week.

McGirk: How many marines were killed and wounded in the I.E.D. attack that morning?

Memo: If it bleeds, it leads. This question is McGirk’s attempt to get good bloody gouge on the situation. He will most likely use the information he gains from this answer as an attention gainer.

•
McGirk: How many marines were involved in the killings?

Memo: First off, we don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “killings.” One of our squads reinforced by a squad of Iraqi Army soldiers were engaged by an enemy initiated ambush on the 19th that killed one American marine and seriously injured two others. We will not justify that question with a response. Theme: Legitimate engagement: we will not acknowledge this reporter’s attempt to stain the engagement with the misnomer “killings.”

•
McGirk: Are the marines in this unit still serving in Haditha?

Memo: Yes, we are still fighting terrorists of Al Qaida in Iraq in Haditha. (“Fighting terrorists associated with Al Qaida” is stronger language than “serving.” The American people will side more with someone actively fighting a terrorist organization that is tied to 9/11 than with someone who is idly “serving,” like in a way one “serves” a casserole. It’s semantics, but in reporting and journalism, words spin the story.)

Click here for more.

Jemima Lewis on Brit hacks vs supine Yank journos

Journalists in this country are despised, and we know it. Indeed, we embrace our lowly status with a perverse, distinctly British pride: we call ourselves "hacks", lest anyone should think we take ourselves seriously, and delight in Fleet Street legends of debauchery and low cunning. British journalism - both the profession and the end product - is tough, unscrupulous and, at its best, riotously good fun.

In America, different standards prevail. When I went to work at a current affairs magazine in New York a couple of years ago, my editor warned me that I was in for a culture shock. "American journalists," he said, "believe they belong to a kind of priesthood. Ever since Watergate, we have seen ourselves as guardians of the truth. That," he added ruefully, "is why our newspapers are so boring."

Until you have tried ingesting The New York Times with your breakfast, you do not know the meaning of ennui. Nicknamed the Grey Lady - as a term of endearment - and boasting the priggish motto "All the news that's fit to print", it is the sine qua non of sober, morally upright journalism. And this respectability is its greatest weakness: it is far too polite to be subversive.

When President Bush was making the case for the invasion of Iraq, The New York Times - supposedly a fierce critic of this administration - swallowed the White House propaganda as if it were medicine from Mary Poppins. As it later admitted in a hand-wringing editorial, it simply accepted what it was told about WMD, because it came from "official" sources.

So did some in the British press - but there were at least plenty of sceptical, irreverent and downright belligerent voices making themselves heard. Our broadcast media, too, acquitted themselves dispassionately - at least by contrast with the feel-good patriotism that saturated the American TV news. There is a thin line between respectable and supine, and American journalism has settled on the wrong side. Our own press is no less obsessed with celebrities, but we specialise - too much so, you might think - in tearing them down. In America, to be famous is to be worshipped unquestioningly. Hollywood stars demand copy approval, and get it - which is why you will never read an interesting celebrity interview in an American magazine.
from the Independent