America’s strengths are being weakened from the inside and dying

December 3, 2024

A major problem in America today is the abandonment of its traditions. The two-parent family is no longer the dominant feature it once was. The idea of citizenship, love of country, is less obvious these days. So many things have changed, as the culture of America devolves.

And one of the greatest of those is the honor and integrity that once accompanied some of our professions.

People in education too often no longer embrace and abide by traditional concepts and values. They often change what is done in classrooms without notifying parents, or going through official processes. Too often, schools teach what to think, rather than how to think, pushing certain concepts while hiding others.

News journalism once was a clear-cut process of reporting to the public what actually happened in news-worthy events. It didn’t hide relevant information. When reporting on a political topic, it did not take sides. And opinions were not expressed in news stories. The ideals of free speech and objectivity were respected and obeyed.

Yes, there is a place for opinions in journalism, but opinions must be clearly labeled, and not sneaked into news reporting to advance a particular point of view.

That sensible, honorable rule no longer exists for far too many people claiming to be journalists. News is largely no longer the process of keeping the people informed. Far too often news organizations are not providers of needed information, but sources of inducement to a particular way of thinking.

During the COVID frenzy lots of things were labeled as misinformation or false information, and were hidden from the public. However, many things that were labeled and withheld proved to be true and beneficial, and things presented as truth were found to be false.

Among topics where the opinions were hidden from the public were problems with the mRNA vaccine, the source of the COVID virus, and the issue of facemask use and uselessness.

The greatest and most harmful journalistic failures were in the realm of politics. Among those items, in addition to COVID censorship, were opposition to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Steele dossier fiasco, and the Russian disinformation mess known as Russia Gate.

Social media sites also frequently banned certain pieces of information, claiming they were false. Sometimes this action, even though improper in a nation supporting free speech, was due to honest beliefs that the information was truly harmful. Other times — likely in the majority of cases — it was a politically motivated action, designed to prevent the spread of information contrary to the preferred narrative.

Neither of those are justification for the denial and restriction of the free expression of ideas guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even unpopular speech is defended by the free speech guarantee.

Workers at newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and networks were also guilty of banning certain ideas.

Individuals yielding to political philosophy was often the problem. But there is a much deeper problem. Whereas some so-called journalists allowed political ideals into their work, because they hoped to convince the public more than they wanted to hold to their career integrity, others did the same thing for a different reason: they were trained that way, and believed they were acting appropriately.

There is a broad movement in academia away from the notion of objectivity. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School and legal authority, addressed this in his new book, The Indispensable Right, dealing with the right to free speech guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution.

Turley wrote, “In journalism schools, professors now denounce objectivity’s place as the ‘supreme deity’ of American journalism.” One professor, Stanford’s Ted Glasser “has called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking ‘social justice,’” he wrote.

This infection has spread from the classroom into the newsroom, as graduates enter the workforce, and join in with those who prefer political success to professional honor and personal integrity.

Speaking of this new view of journalism Turley wrote: “Reporters must serve as active interpreters in framing the news to convey what they view as the truth, including the suppression of opposing views on issues like climate change, the pandemic, or gender identity.” 

“In 2023, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward released the results of their interviews with over seventy-five media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and harmful,” Turley wrote, adding that “Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: ‘Objectivity has got to go.’” 

In his book, Turley follows up the discussion of the infection of journalistic principles with a similar infection of the field of law and interpretation of the Constitution and legal concepts.

In this context, the ideas and circumstances that brought about legal principles based upon the forces at work at the time they were implemented can now be ignored because “things have changed.” Laws and Constitutional principles can be changed at the whim of individuals rather than through established and necessary processes.

This line of thinking will not protect the freedoms Americans treasure and depend upon.

What happens when professional ethics are replaced by politics

December 19, 2023

Over the last few years, we have heard from federal government agency employees, former and current, telling about their experiences doing and/or witnessing improper things in dealing with serious and sensitive matters.

These whistleblower’s allegations, if true, paint a troubling picture of how federal government agencies often work to the benefit of one group at the expense of another group.

These alleged activities are the epitome of what our government is not supposed to be. The government must be a fair, balanced and just organization that serves the interests all of the people.

Like the government, the news media is expected to perform its duties in a fair and balanced manner, and make certain that opinion and news reporting are clearly separate.

The Founders of this nation thought that a free press was so critical that they granted protection to do its job properly in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, along with the guarantee of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

But as with so many of our noble and cherished traditions, the honesty and integrity of the nation’s news media has been abandoned by far too many of its practitioners.

Recently, a news story broke regarding the New York Times. The Times once was regarded as the greatest newspaper in the world. It had become known as the Gray Lady. It has since become regarded as politically biased, and a weapon of the left.

The internal workings of the Times was the topic of a cover story published in The Economist by senior editor James Bennet titled, "When The New York Times Lost Its Way."

Bennet worked at the Times for many years, most recently as its editorial page editor. He was forced to resign in 2020 after he published an article written by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. The article stirred a great deal of emotion among the Times’ staff, due to its non-left content, prompting the paper’s publisher asking him to resign. 

Cotton, who had served in the U.S. Army, had suggested using military troops to protect businesses under assault by Black Lives Matter rioters following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.

In the story in The Economist, Bennet described how as the Times moved leftward, he was encouraged to attach “trigger warnings” to conservative opinion pieces to alert the paper’s leftist readers about material that may offend them.

"It was a frenzied time in America," Bennet wrote. "It was the kind of crisis in which journalism could fulfill its highest ambitions of helping readers understand the world, in order to fix it, and in the Times’s Opinion section, which I oversaw, we were pursuing our role of presenting debate from all sides."

Comparing the current attitude of Times’ reporters to that of his time as a reporter, Bennet commented that today’s reporters "may know a lot about television, or real estate, or how to edit audio files ... many Times staff have little idea how closed their world has become, or how far they are from fulfilling their compact with readers to show the world ‘without fear or favor.’”

And in citing his former paper’s increasing bias he called attention to the Wall Street Journal, saying that the Times could “learn something” from its rival.

The Journal, he wrote, “has maintained a stricter separation between its news and opinion journalism, including its cultural criticism, and that has protected the integrity of its work," concluding his cover story.

Although the Times’ leftist orientation has been well recognized and discussed for many years, the actual experience of a long-time and ranking former employee adds much credibility to that belief.

It is a further sad commentary on the condition of many of our news media that an editor of a major newspaper lost his job for actually doing his job: presenting all sides of an issue so that readers would be equipped to make sensible, informed judgements about that issue.

Deliberately burying opinions that differ from the chosen narrative, fearing that those opinions will be accepted by your readers, is cowardly. And, it is un-American.

Back in 1997 the Carnegie-Knight Task Force began a national conversation to identify and clarify the principles of proper journalism. After four years of research, a Statement of Shared Purpose that identified nine principles was released. The sixth principle is: It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.

It reads: “The news media are the common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. This discussion serves society best when it is informed by facts rather than prejudice and supposition. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. Accuracy and truthfulness require that as framers of the public discussion we not neglect the points of common ground where problem solving occurs.”

How wonderful it would be if the instructors, students, and practitioners of journalism would adopt this concept.

Media blows it on Rittenhouse, and some Thanksgiving thoughts

Much of the news media is politically liberal and agenda-controlled. It is not accurate or balanced in its reporting.

These politically-driven persons and agencies have forsaken journalistic integrity, if they every had any, and misinform their audience.

The media coverage of the charges against Kyle Rittenhouse and the ensuing trial are an excellent example of media malfeasance.

Some of the “shoot first, don’t ask questions” modus operandi of the agenda media in the Rittenhouse matter was proudly on display before and after the trial. This gross misreporting could easily have been prevented by doing basic journalistic work, if good journalism was ever the intent.

Instead, the public was treated to incompetence, gross ignorance or deliberate lies, on several elements of the reporting.

Rittenhouse, the then-17-year-old, was reported to have been driven across the state line from his home nearby in Illinois by his mother, armed with an AR-15, as if he had no connection to Kenosha, WI. But while he lived in Illinois with his mother, relatives, including his father and grandmother, lived in Kenosha. And he had a job there. 

Other problems with that story: The gun was not in the car with him, but already in Wisconsin, at the home of a friend’s step-father. And his mother did not drive him there.

He had a gun with him because he had been asked to help protect a used car lot. Rioters were violent and some were armed. He used the rifle to defend himself against three attackers, all of whom had criminal charges in their past.

The agenda media reported that the gun was illegal. Wrong. Under Wisconsin law, he was entitled to possess the AR-15 as a 17-year-old. The trial judge dismissed the phony gun charge. The prosecution never should have charged that crime, or any of the others. They must have gotten their info from the fake news media, or reacted to public emotional outcry.

Rittenhouse’s attackers were not nice guys attending a polite protest. They were rioters with criminal records committing crimes.

Joseph Rosenbaum had a very serious criminal record, was on the Wisconsin sex offender registry for an Arizona child molestation case. He received 10 years in prison in 2002 for sexual contact with a minor, and then was sentenced to another 30 months for sexual contact with a minor related to the same 2002 incident. Charges included anal rape and oral sex with minors. He was seen swinging a chain prior to attacking Rittenhouse, who shot and killed him in self-defense.

Anthony Huber also had a criminal history. He was found guilty of a felony for strangulation and suffocation, domestic abuse. He was also convicted in that case of felony false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon, domestic abuse. He also threatened his brother with a butcher knife, according to The New York Post. Rittenhouse was able to defend himself against Huber’s attack with a skateboard. The assailant died as a result.

Gaige Grosskreutz, who survived Rittenhouse’s defense of his attack, also had a criminal history in Wisconsin. He had a prior misdemeanor conviction for intoxicated use of a firearm, according to court records. He had a concealed carry permit revoked, and was illegally carrying a concealed weapon, which he pointed at Rittenhouse before being shot in the arm.

Rittenhouse was not a white supremacist, he did not kill two Black BLM members, or murder two people because he went to Kenosha to kill people.

Perhaps these examples of gross incompetence and corruption will cause the perpetrators to learn and practice good journalism. Don’t hold your breath.

In two days, we will celebrate Thanksgiving, when Americans get together for a day of feasting and family. 

Virginia’s 9th District Congressman Morgan Griffith emails his constituents at least weekly. For the Thanksgiving holiday he sent a special email about the holiday.

“Four hundred years ago, the Pilgrims of Massachusetts held their first Thanksgiving.

“Four hundred and two years ago, the first American Thanksgiving was held.

What’s the distinction? Read on.

“Most Americans recall the story of the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620 and arrived in what is now Massachusetts – although their original destination was Virginia. After a difficult year establishing Plymouth Colony, they held a Thanksgiving feast with the Native Americans who had been indispensable to the colony’s survival.

“Without doubt, the Thanksgiving in Plymouth was an important event in American history. It simply wasn’t the first Thanksgiving.”

His story went on to tell of a trip begun on September 16 a year earlier, when 35 settlers and their leader, Captain John Woodlief, set out for land in Virginia aboard the “Margaret.” And they landed there and established the settlement known as Berkeley Hundred. Upon landing on December 4, they disembarked, and prayed: “We ordaine that this day of our ships arrival, at the place assigned for plantacon, in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

Thanksgiving has changed greatly since those first two observances, and we have much to be thankful for.

Best wishes to all for a great Thanksgiving with your family.

News media hates Trump more than they love honest journalism

Last year as the pandemic swept the nation, and the presidential campaign heated up, the criticisms of then-President Donald Trump grew beyond fever pitch. Virtually everything the man said was met with denunciations and put-downs from the political left, stoked by the liberal news media that didn’t always probe the issue.

When Trump tested positive for COVID-19 in March 2020, he took a two-week regimen of the drug hydroxychloroquine, and praised it as being useful for treating the virus. The media criticism was immediate and vicious, with physicians and scientists, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization, saying that it wasn’t effective for the virus.

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden joined in, saying at a Yahoo News town hall on COVID-19 and food insecurity, “C’mon, man! What is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?”

And guess what? “A new study published by medRxiv shows hydroxychloroquine, combined with zinc, increased the survival rate of severely ill Wuhan coronavirus patients by 200 percent,” reported Townhall.com. 

Early on, Trump suggested that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab in China, rather than from a nearby wet market. Again, the media had a field day ridiculing that suggestion. 

It is a known fact that these kinds of labs, wherever they may be, have leaks, so the possibility that Wuhan’s lab could have had one is not crazy. Furthermore, we now know that three researchers at the Wuhan lab suffered from symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in November 2019, before the virus was heard of.

On an episode of CBS "Face the Nation" last month, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, said that the case for COVID-19 originating in a lab has become increasingly likely, and the likelihood that it came from an animal is dwindling. 

Trump was also ridiculed and chastised for urging against lockdowns. However, generally, the states with the strictest COVID lockdowns caused huge losses of jobs, but those with less severe restrictions have experienced low levels of unemployment

And the New York Post reported: “The five states with the strictest lockdowns over the last year — Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — have an average unemployment rate of 8.06 percent. In the five states with the lightest restrictions, unemployment sits at just 3.48 percent — lower than the 3.5 percent national rate before the pandemic hit the US.”

“At the same time,” the Post report continued, “ample scientific evidence points to the fact that lockdowns did not save lives, regardless of the media force-feeding its preferred narrative to the public.”

Trump early on initiated Project Warp Speed to quickly create a vaccine. The Washington Post reported Trump’s statement on the vaccine’s early completion at a coronavirus roundtable meeting on March 2, 2020: “We’re moving aggressively to accelerate the process of developing a vaccine. … A lot of good things are happening and they’re happening very fast,” he said. 

“Trump is not wrong in saying that scientists are rapidly developing a vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus,” The Post article said. “However, he seems to be overstating when a vaccine will be available to the public. Experts have emphasized that actual deployment of the vaccine is more than a year away, not a few months, as Trump has suggested.”

And a headline on NBC News’ Website read: “Trump says, without evidence, vaccine could be ready by Election Day.”

While the vaccines were not ready by Election Day, they were ready five weeks later, and far ahead of the one-to-ten-year timeline that skeptics expected.

And then there is the situation at Lafayette Square where “peaceful” protesters were attacked with “flash-bang explosions and doused with tear gas,” according to The New York Times. This was supposedly done to clear the way for Trump to walk over to the St. John’s Church for a photo op. That is the same church that the “peaceful” protesters had set afire earlier.

The problem is that none of the country’s finest reporters did their jobs as professionals should. Had they done it right, they would have learned that the clearing of the crowd was decided before Trump even planned on going to the church.

“But an investigation released this week by Interior Department IG Mark Lee Greenblatt says U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service deemed it necessary to remove protestors from the park on June 1, 2020, in order to install anti-scale fencing,” as reported by Fox News. “The decision was reached after at least 49 U.S. Park Police were injured while policing protests days earlier.”

Other “journalists” also got it wrong. MSNBC’s Joy Reid and CNN's Anderson Cooper also parroted that it happened so Trump could have a photo op. 

Though you don’t have to be a big city newspaper or network TV reporter to actually think about what you are doing and seek out accurate information, you might expect those folks would be the ones that would. But, no.

Much or most of the major media outlets relinquished their professional ethics and replaced them with political interests. Feelings trumped integrity.

Honest, objective news journalism is not something we can rely on.

Smollett fiasco reveals much about leftists, and the news media

As President Donald Trump is inclined to do, he frequently comments and tweets about “fake news.” This most often upsets the news media, which maintains they do not indulge in fake news.

That, of course, is sharply debated by a large faction, those who are the targets of, or suffer from, those news stories. Some events are more useful than others in demonstrating how crazy some of these tales really are. For this noble purpose the fates have provided the celebrity bright light Jussie Smollett, who is called the “star” of a less-than-well-known TV show called “Empire.”

For those who may not know the gory details, when the story first broke, Smollett had reported that he was attacked about 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 in a Chicago neighborhood by two people who yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him, tied a rope around his neck, and poured a chemical substance on him, which he believed was bleach. Smollett said at least one assailant told him “this is MAGA country” during the alleged attack, as reported by The Washington Post.

He then appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to further expound upon the racial and homophobic nature of the attack, to assert that the seriousness of the event was not being fully acknowledged by the public, and then proceeded to insult everyone who did not immediately rise to his cause.

However, Chicago police have discovered a substantial amount of evidence supporting the position that the reported hate crime was really a hoax. This evidence is sufficient to have caused the police to charge Smollett with a crime. The “Empire” bright light now looks like a dim bulb.

Even some of the left’s more dependable critics of all things not-liberal condemned Smollett, and others have moved from their previous joyous and unbounded support to a neutral “let’s wait and see’” position.

In the coming days, weeks and months, this story will play out, hopefully getting as much attention as the initial media-friendly story of racist Trumpsters attacking a gay black man in a troubled Chicago neighborhood in the middle of a 20-degree February night.

If there is anything good to come from this, it’s that is it is no longer a tale of horrible racism committed by Trump supporters. Given that a neutral body, the Chicago PD, has put the charge of racism to rest, and put a truthful perspective on this event, it opens the door to demonstrating other false narratives promoted by supposed victims of discrimination.

Many “fake news” stories are automatically accepted as fact without adequate vetting, or because they fit a particular narrative, or both. A few examples are:

** At Drake University, several students were targeted in racist notes this past December. The notes were, in fact, written by one of the students targeted in the notes.

** In the now infamous incident, Covington Catholic High School students in Washington, DC for a pro-life rally were blamed for hassling Native American Nathan Phillips. The disruption turned out to be caused by Phillips, a known troublemaker.

** A liberal journalist for Mic.com was fed a story about a Native American being harassed by a Trump supporter, but it was never confirmed … because it was a hoax.

** Reported hate crimes directed at Muslims, blacks and a bisexual student in different states recently were all later revealed to be hoaxes.

All of these examples were taken as truth and reported before their lack of credibility came to light. Real journalists practicing real journalism could have saved everyone affected by these false stories a lot of grief, had they done their jobs in the required way.

Much of – perhaps most of – the news media reveals itself to be biased toward certain topics – like racism, homophobia, anti-Islamism – and biased against other topics – like Donald Trump, conservatives, and white people, particularly men.

Among way too much of the news media new standards have replaced the traditions of truth, objectivity, fairness, due diligence and balance. The new standards seem to be: Getting it out fast is better than getting it out right; assuming truth is better than finding truth; and inches and minutes of ad sales, and mouse clicks, are foremost.

News should be news and opinion should be opinion and never the twain shall meet. That is a rule that is these days routinely broken. This represents a true crisis that has rendered news journalism a profoundly tattered and broken profession.

When President Trump calls bad news “fake news,” and when he says that purveyors of dishonest news are the “enemy of the people,” he is reacting to what the purveyors of these stories have created for themselves.

When the American people are deliberately misinformed by the very voice upon which they depend for essential information, how is that different from the work of propagandists?

Rather than reacting to the revealing of their corruption as a wake-up call, many of them merely issue denials, and keep traveling the same road.

Few things in life ever match their ideals, but news journalism has fallen to an historic low. The question now is: Can news journalism ever re-earn the trust of the American people?

The Journalists Creed: Another tradition fallen by the wayside

Several years ago on a trip to Washington, DC, my wife and I visited the National Press Club for lunch and a tour of the Club. Among the many things that impressed me there was a bronze plaque on a wall, The Journalists Creed, which the Press Club has had on display since 1958.

The Creed is the product of Walter Williams, not the excellent columnist of today, but an older gentleman who is credited with starting the world’s first school of journalism in 1908 at the University of Missouri. In 1914 Williams created the Creed, as “a declaration and personal affirmation of the principles, values and standards of journalists throughout the world,” according to the Fourth Estate organization. It regards journalism as an ethical public trust that requires accuracy and fairness.

Since Williams created the Creed, and even since the Press Club’s acknowledgement of it in ’58, huge changes in the way news is distributed have taken place. Now in addition to newspapers, periodicals, radio and television we have the Internet and social media.

These days absolutely anyone can appear to be a legitimate news source on the Internet. Many or most of these sources may have good intentions, but lack the background or discipline to do it correctly. They are unaware of, or ignore the Creed.

These days even some who know the importance of the ethics with which news journalism should be practiced don’t always stick to the straight and narrow. Being first is often more important than being correct. “Click bait,” sensational headlines designed to increase the number of visitors to Web sites, are common.

In addition to new media technologies are also new media genres, such as the speculative media: Trying to be first, a hint of something often spurs frantic action to get out there before anyone else through online or on-air media. For example, when President Donald Trump reached back for Malania’s hand while exiting a plane on their recent trip abroad, and she sort of flipped her hand away, the media reported that there might be trouble in their marriage.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who is catholic, was not among those who met the Pope on the trip, so the media reported that his being excluded might signal that Spicer was on his way out as spokesman.

Neither of these were true.

The assumption media: When Trump mentioned being “wiretapped,” it was “assumed” that he meant wiretapping and only wiretapping, not the newer, more modern methods of surveillance, apparently widely used in the Obama administration.

The agenda media: We saw very little reporting on the positive aspects of Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican and NATO, but there was plenty on the “troubles” in Trump’s administration.

And then there’s Kathy Griffin, the self-described “D-list comedian,” who worked very hard to create a disgusting, low-class image of her holding a bloody likeness of the decapitated head of the President of the United States ISIS-like, by its hair.

Criticized for this repulsive display of what today passes for humor by nearly everyone, she finally issued an apology, except not apologizing to her target, Trump and his family. Shortly thereafter, the firestorm of anger and disgust she stirred up created for her a moment of brilliant insight: The negative reaction to her gross attempt at humor, and her resulting misery is actually Trump’s fault.

And guess which one gets too much coverage? Poor deranged Kathy’s campaign about her hurt feelings at the hands of her imaginarily beheaded enemy.

Wesley Pruden, Editor Emeritus of The Washington Times, is a man trained in and who worked in journalism when standards were more broadly expected of practitioners. He characterized a Bloomberg News reporter’s G7 coverage like this: “Just what a ‘bromance’ is [between France’s Emmanuel Macron and Canada’s Justin Trudeau], beyond the not-so-clever wordplay, sounds like too much information, something you ought not to want to know about. It’s no doubt overheated reporting by a reporter who never had an editor to teach him the rewards of restraint.

“But romance was clearly in the air, not between the leaders of France and Canada, but by reporters nurtured not on the rough edges of politics and discipline of newspapers, but by too much time spent watching soap operas.”

Another old pro, Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal, said this about today’s practice of the profession: “When journalists drop objectivity to become part of the shout-fest, and when grass-roots activists move beyond making voices heard to voicing threats against those with whom they disagree, they are adding to the problem.”

These examples of journalistic malpractice and comments about news coverage from two old timers show how far news reporting has strayed early in the 21^st century.

Combined with a general public largely unconcerned with studying current events America has a true problem. So many consumers of news get their “news” from their friends on social media, and accept as true those communications that fit their preconceptions. They just don’t look beneath the surface for fact.

With all these factors, the public is largely under-informed, or misinformed, a circumstance both dangerous and foolish.

The Latest from Bones

One investigative reporter’s intriguing trials and tribulations

Sharyl Attkisson is an award winning television journalist who until recently worked for CBS News. She received two Emmy nominations in 2010 and another in 2011 for investigating members of Congress and the government’s wasting of tax dollars. Her reporting of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) “Operation Fast and Furious” debacle won CBS News the Investigative Reporting Award from Accuracy in Media in 2012, and also won CBS Evening News the Radio and Television News Directors Association's National Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video Investigative Reporting.

You may remember “Operation Fast and Furious,” although it received much less coverage than it deserved. That was the name attached to the ill advised, poorly conceived, and error-ridden misadventure devised by ATF, an effort to shut down the flow of U.S. guns to Mexican drug cartels. The idea was to allow guns to be put in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers for the purpose of tracking them to cartel members and arresting them.

Not only did ATF botch tracking the weapons, but people who were armed with two of those “Gun Walking” weapons and were illegal aliens that the ATF had not arrested, killed Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on the U.S. side of the Mexican border. While it is certainly possible to dream up a more preposterous plan than this one, “Fast and Furious” richly deserves the Dubious Achievement Award.

While working for CBS News in 2013, according to huffingtonpost.com, Ms. Attkisson told a Philadelphia radio station that "[t]here has been an issue in my house and there has been an issue with my computers that's gone on for quite a long time that we're looking into.” The issues, she said, had been occurring for about two years. An investigation by CBS News confirmed that, indeed, an external third party had accessed her computer numerous times.

Further problems were outlined by Erik Wemple on washingtonpost.com: “By November 2012, writes Attkisson, disruptions on her home phone line were so frequent as to render it unusable: ‘I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house. Or it rings at home once but when my husband or daughter answers, they just hear a dial tone. At the same time, on my end, it keeps ringing and then connects somewhere, just not at my house. Sometimes, when my call connects to that mystery-place-that’s-not-my-house, I hear an electronic sounding buzz,’ reads one passage in [her new book]. She also alleges that her television set ‘spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames.’ The home alarm, too, ‘sounds at a different time every night’ and when she checks with the alarm system, it indicates that there’s ‘trouble with the phone line.’”

Who had the motive and the means to do such things?

Could it have been a competitor network? Perhaps. But would a competitor have strong enough motivation to take on such a project? How about a foreign entity, like China? China has the wherewithal, but would it be interested in the subjects Ms. Attkinsson was investigating? Probably not.

How about the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOJ or other government department? Well, given that she was looking into misbehavior of members of Congress and the “Fast and Furious” mess, yes, both motive and wherewithal exist in administrative agencies. However, the Justice Department denied any involvement, so we can just follow the lead of the mainstream news media and put that suspicion to rest, can’t we?

Ms. Attkinsson did yeoman’s work investigating and reporting on the “Fast and Furious” government screw-up, but CBS’ interest ran out before the story was over, as did the government’s interest in explaining to the American people how such a thing happened.

You would probably use more than all your fingers and toes counting the prominent media outlets that share a grand lack of curiosity for epic blunders, bungles, fiascoes and miscalculations by our government over the last few years, like the Benghazi security failure, the Solyndra financing boondoggle, the IRS targeting non-profit applicants, the NSA mass spying project, the failure to secure the southern border, and the Justice Department spying on reporters’ private communications.

Finally, however, after more than five years a few media outlets have started to notice and point out the administration’s many shortcomings, and to ask questions about these things.

Ms. Attkinsson left CBS News this year due to what she said is the network's liberal bias and lack of dedication to investigative reporting. She has written a book, Stonewalled: One Reporter's Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington, published by Harpers, and focusing on difficulties she has experienced in reporting on the Obama administration.

Sharyl Attkinsson epitomizes what the Fourth Estate is supposed to be: the people’s guardian against government misbehavior. A responsible and determined news media provides the public the information it needs to properly evaluate what its government and elected officials are doing, and as such is an indispensable tool for a free society. This function has been largely missing since January of 2009. Maybe if a Republican is elected president in 2016, the function will be revived.

Lack of media integrity represents yet another serious crisis

A major factor in this year’s presidential campaign is something that should not be a factor at all: the media.

What the nation needs, what the media are expected to provide, and what some Americans think they are getting, is objective, balanced and fair coverage of the events of the day.

That, of course, is what the Society of Professional Journalists intends its profession to provide, and so stated in its Preamble: “Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.”

America suffers mightily because the media have largely abandoned their ethical and moral obligations in favor of pursuing political goals; no longer information purveyors, they are partisan players, who instead of providing accurate, objective news now push deliberately distorted partisan messages.

This has earned the media a few derisive names: the lame stream media, the drive-by media, the lapdog media or press, the Ministry of Propaganda, the Talking Point Monkeys, presstitutes … the list goes on.

The bias exhibited by the major media exists not only in how they present information, but also in what information they present, what they don’t present, and the amount of emphasis certain items receive.

The issue is further clouded by the fact that many media outlets provide both news and opinion. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as news and opinion are carefully handled and kept separate, and opinion is clearly labeled as such. Far too often, they get mixed together.

It doesn’t get much worse than when the media take sides, as they have done in the presidential campaign. One recent example resulted from a meeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney held with a few supporters in a private home in Florida. Speaking to a group of like-minded supporters, Mr. Romney made comments that on the surface conveyed a message that seemed to show his apparent lack of concern for approximately half the country.

Such an interpretation doesn’t pass the smell test, of course, as indicated by the high level of charitable giving the Romneys donate each year – nearly 30 percent of net income in 2011 – but it makes a good story and helps the media boost their candidate, Barack Obama.

Some facts need to be considered: First, it was a private, off-the-record meeting; no press invited, and he spoke to people who understood that his comments were not intended to be taken absolutely literally. Furthermore, a whole lot of the people in that 47 percent that Mr. Romney mentioned not only know what he meant, but agree with him.

Second, a spy secretly – perhaps illegally – recorded his comments, and then an openly left-wing publication edited the comments and published them without explaining the circumstances of the meeting or confessing that it had doctored the contents.

The recording became a handy Romney-bashing tool for other media outlets, which either didn’t research the source or notice the clandestine nature of the recording, or just didn’t care about the lack of honesty and forthrightness.

There can be no reasonable doubt that this cheap-shot episode was designed solely to hurt Mr. Romney to the benefit of Mr. Obama. Such “reporting” is dishonest and beneath responsible journalists, who are now in short supply.

However, stripped of the spy’s and the media’s disreputable conduct, and the media’s opportunistic parsing and misstating of his beliefs, what Mr. Romney said was true, and important: Half of the country pays taxes to the government and half receives money from the government. In fact, 70 percent of federal spending goes to 47 government dependence programs, according to the Heritage Foundation, and that is a serious problem.

The national media largely reported the Romney non-story rather than objectively cover the nation’s fiscal crisis and the disastrous presidency of Barack Obama, whose administration danced, dodged and twisted into knots to avoid admitting that the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya was a terrorist attack.

The public has taken notice. Distrust of the mass market mainstream media – newspapers, TV and radio – hit a new high this year, with 60 percent in a Gallup survey saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly,” while only 8 percent have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence.

Last year, Gallup found that almost half of Americans (47 percent) believed the mainstream media had a liberal bias, but in the 1970s trust in the media was as high as 72 percent.

Alas, the good old days of the media, like the good old days of many other things, are long gone, and the American media seems not to care about its reputation.

Liberal U.S. media working to subvert Mitt Romney’s candidacy

The experiences of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week illustrate how the media fail to provide adequate, objective and balanced coverage of serious campaign issues.

Campaigning in Colorado last week, Mr. Romney gave an interview to a local TV reporter, no doubt wanting to talk about his ideas for combating the horrible economic conditions, the need for jobs, and other weighty problems that threaten the nation.

The reporter began by asking about Mr. Romney’s inability to connect with Colorado Republicans, and following his 24-second answer then moved to same-sex marriage. Mr. Romney gave what he said was the same answer to this question as he has given from the beginning. The reporter then asked follow-up questions on that same subject. After two minutes of questions and answers on same-sex marriage, the reporter then asked if illegal aliens should receive in-state tuition. And then after that she asked Mr. Romney about medical marijuana.

So, given the opportunity to interview the likely Republican nominee for the office of President of the United States, a local reporter spends three minutes of the four and one-half minute interview asking about social issues.

Mr. Romney had about all he could stand, so he protested, since medical marijuana, same-sex marriage and tuition for illegals are neither the most important issues facing the nation, nor something about which a President of the United States should be concerned, since they are state issues.

And, indeed, there are obviously more important issues needing attention, such as the $16 trillion national debt that runs to $50,000 for every one of the more than 300 million Americans. How about the highest corporate tax rate in the world that makes U.S. corporations less competitive in the world market? How about the 16 percent of American workers – about 13 million, all together – that can’t find a job at all, or are underemployed? What about a nuclear Iran, and the mess in Afghanistan? How about the fact that the Democrats in charge of the U.S. Senate have shirked their obligation to pass a budget for three straight years?

None of that seemed important to the reporter, but she finally did get around to asking questions about energy.

While the Colorado reporter was focusing on less relevant topics, the intrepid investigators at The Washington Post were busy looking into Mr. Romney’s high school days, searching for archaic dirt. And, they found some.

Some of the former governor’s high school classmates from 1965 said that he had indulged in boyish behavior, and one incident allegedly involved forcibly cutting the long blonde hair of a boy a year younger than Mr. Romney, who the classmates said may have been gay. If true, this was clearly wrong and indefensible. But it was nearly 50 years ago in high school, and appears to be an isolated incident. Yet, The Post thought it was important enough for 5,000 words starting on page 1 above the fold. And since then these allegations have “evolved” into proof that Mitt Romney was a homophobic bully. He also is accused of pulling classmate Susie Jones’ hair in the third grade.

The Post’s crack investigators successfully found this 47 year-old story about Mr. Romney (13 times longer ago than the last budget passed by our Democrat-controlled Senate), but gave little attention to Barack Obama’s history with former members of the Weather Underground and his admitted “enthusiastic” drug use, and were unable to find any information about his mysterious college days, including his grades, his formal papers, his days at the Harvard Law Review, his friends, etc.

Some people’s past apparently deserves closer scrutiny than others. You can understand why The Post might regard Mr. Romney’s past as more important: he’s running for President.

It is relevant to note that the family of John Lauber, the victim of Mr. Romney’s alleged brutish haircut, is appalled that their relative would be used for political purposes. His older sister, Christine, was unaware that Mitt Romney, or anyone else, “bullied” her brother, who passed away from liver cancer in 2004, but she was clearly not pleased by the story. “Even if it did happen, John probably wouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “If he were still alive today, he would be furious.”

“The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda,” she said. “There will be no more comments from the family.”

The treatment of Mitt Romney in 2012 and the treatment of Barack Obama in 2008 couldn’t be more different. In the Romney story, an unproved allegation of bullying gets front page treatment from The Washington Post, but admitted drug use, et al, by Barack Obama goes virtually unreported.

By emphasizing peripheral issues like same-sex marriage, illegal alien tuition, medical marijuana, and high school behavior, the liberal media distracts attention from President Obama’s dismal record on the critical economic problems. And in the attempt to discredit Mr. Romney, The Washington Post story denigrates John Lauber’s memory and upsets his family, presumably because of its obligation to inform the public. Well, about some things, anyway.


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The ups and downs of Herman Cain’s campaign for the presidency

Editor's Note: This column was written for a daily newspaper and was filed a few hours prior to the public statement of Sharon Bialek accusing Herman Cain of inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances, and therefore is based upon the circumstances existing before those accusations were made public.
The circumstances surrounding these new charges are still developing, and these charges are disputed by Mr. Cain.
We will see what develops as time passes.

Herman Cain, one of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, is an interesting political character. Mr. Cain has achieved the American dream, rising from humble beginnings as the son of a domestic worker mother and a father who worked as a janitor and chauffer. After that modest start he has achieved great success, working as a civilian mathematician for the U.S. Navy, chosen as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. He also has been a syndicated columnist and radio host.

As a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination who has never held elective office, Mr. Cain rose from relative obscurity to sit atop Republican polls ahead of better-known candidates like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, and Rick Perry, all of whom are experienced in the fine art of politics.

Despite the large number of Americans upset with careerism in politics, that rare individual who dares to enter national politics without first paying dues or learning the ropes in some lower office is often the object of disdain.

However, Mr. Cain’s lack of political experience is one thing people like about him. A frequent complaint about American politics focuses on how many elected officials make a career of holding elective office, many spending decades in elected positions, and more than a few tending to focus on being re-elected more than on serving the people who put them in office.

Another thing they like is his clear thinking, learned as a successful businessman running a large corporation, which also taught him to identify problems and cut through the fog to find practical solutions to them.

Whether it is Mr. Cain’s experience in the private sector rather than in government, or his no-nonsense approach to problems, the Republican rank and file seems to like it, and that has the other Republican candidates on edge. It also has gotten the Democrats’ attention, and the way they have reacted tells us just how nervous they are.

“I can’t imagine that he wasn’t given a hand—whether it was through state policy or affirmative action,” says Stacey Abrams, the Democratic leader of the Georgia House, downplaying Mr. Cain’s success. Harry Belafonte, who was a popular calypso singer forty years ago, said on the Joy Behar show that Mr. Cain was a “bad apple,” a “false Negro,” someone “denied intelligence,” and then praised Fidel Castro as a supporter of democracy and people’s rights.

And then there is the week-old story of 12 year-old sexual harassment allegations by former employees of the restaurant association.

As things stand now, this story is an indictment of the news media more than of Mr. Cain. The lack of detail and real information in this story is breath-taking; a textbook case of what not to do in journalism, but it is nonetheless being used by Democrats and the media to attempt to destroy a political enemy.

First published by the left-wing news organization Politico as a story of a formal complaint filed with the restaurant association, the story was based on anonymous sources and furnished virtually no detail. Cases of this nature involve confidentiality provisions that protect the parties, so information about the claims is not available. Responsible journalists would not have published a story with so little factual information available, and it is shoddy journalism like this that produced the terms “lame-stream media” and “drive-by media.”

Then there are the allegations themselves, which may represent actual cases of sexual harassment, or they may not. Right now no one really knows. An allegation is just an allegation, and settlement agreements keep the details of the claims private.

But even a settled claim does not mean that sexual harassment occurred. Any attorney can tell you that legal settlements result because settling is frequently less expensive than the cost of going to court, and amounts of $35,000 to $45,000 are considered “nuisance value.”

Sexual harassment is a very real problem, but not every charge is true sexual harassment. A female employee may complain that a male co-worker stood too close to her and made her feel “uncomfortable.” But just because she was uncomfortable doesn’t mean she was “harassed.” A casual comment intended as a compliment can be misinterpreted, and a harassment charge may result. The definition is foggy, but the legal standard is that the alleged conduct be “severe or pervasive.”

Mr. Cain, who denies that he has ever harassed anyone, handled this situation very poorly, perhaps due to his lack of political experience. However, under the standards of American justice he is innocent until proven guilty. Until some actual proof of true sexual harassment comes out, this firestorm is a tempest in a tea pot, and is best ignored by everyone.

Whether Herman Cain is the best of the Republican candidates will be determined over the next several months. He has some very good ideas, a refreshing non-political perspective, and the insight of a successful private sector performer.

If he does not prevail in the nomination process it must not be because of this shameful journalistic misadventure.

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Media dishonesty and complicity are in the news once again

Not too long ago the light of truth shined on climate scientists who cheated in trying to persuade the world that its end is near when a series of emails were made public revealing their fraud and deceit.

Now, a series of online discussions between journalists, academics and others of a similar mind have been discovered in which the dialogue centered on how to manipulate the voting public, and other matters equally out of bounds. The journalists represent several media outlets, including The Washington Post, Time Magazine, the Guardian (Britain), National Public Radio, The Nation, The New Republic, Bloomberg News, Salon, and Harper’s. The emails were posted at an online meeting place, a list-serve called “JournoList.”

Some people defend the activities of JournoListers as nothing unusual. Mike Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, asserts that the communications are normal interaction between associates. To him there is nothing unusual or improper about journalists discussing how to distract the American public from the negatives of one candidate in a presidential election. Boys will be boys, you know.

But journalism professor Jim Campbell of the State University of New York at Buffalo finds the JournoList troubling. “At one level it could be thought of as just colleagues throwing ideas out to one another, but from another standpoint it almost looks like collusion … where virtual talking points are shared and solidified in a group.” “That can’t be healthy for the country – or for the media, for that matter,” he added.

Bingo.

One useful tactic of the JournoListers was to distract attention from negative Obama news with some sensational charge against a prominent conservative. Someone named Spencer Ackerman, at the time on the staff of the Washington Independent, suggested to participants that to distract attention from Barack Obama’s racist and anti-America minister Jeremiah Wright, pick a conservative like “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists.”

Manipulating information for political and ideological gain wasn’t the only topic these folks discussed in this virtual smoke-filled back-room. They also thought freedom of the press should be done away with, because it allows Fox News to exist. Daniel Davies, a columnist at the Guardian, commented that “I am genuinely scared” of Fox because it “cannot be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation.” Imagine that: a news outlet that can’t be “controlled.” He continues: “In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework.”

We need a “legal framework” to control Fox News, while the media outlets where the JournoListers work continue to operate unfettered? That sounds both fair and constitutional, doesn’t it?

Jumping on the anti-Fox News bandwagon was Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, who suggested a more strong-arm solution to the Fox News dilemma: “[I]s there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?” This man is a law professor?

Journalists are supposed to be in competition with one another, not in collusion, formulating “talking points” with each other. It is, obviously, a glaring conflict of interest when journalists pick a side and conspire to support one candidate or one side of an issue over the others. Such conflicts are scrupulously avoided by ethical professionals.

And what a horrid concoction of arrogance and insecurity these media people have. They are so arrogant as to think their ideas are more important than those of their fellow Americans, and yet are so insecure about their ideas that they believe they have to fool the American people into supporting them.

This perverse exercise has revealed such curious creatures as journalists who want freedom of the press for some but not others, and who conspire to manage information, and a law professor who believes Fox News has an FCC “permit” that can be revoked at will.

Good grief!

We are witnessing another once-honorable profession abandoning its integrity and hawking a personal agenda as it takes its place in the Hall of Shame alongside climate science.

At its best, news journalism is a noble and vital profession that adequately informs the public by objectively supplying accurate information so people can be well informed in order to make good decisions. It makes a point of covering controversial issues fully, because controversial issues are the ones most in need of public discussion. It does not favor one side over another, and leaves the picking of winners and losers to the American people, where it belongs.

At its worst, it is a corrupt and dishonorable perversion that controls information on events and issues to fit an ideological agenda. It ignores stories that will damage its chosen beneficiaries and over-emphasizes its point of view on important issues and its chosen candidates. It focuses extra attention toward its opponent’s negatives and ignores the positives. All to the detriment of the country and the citizens it is ethically bound to serve. Such integrity-challenged “journalists” throw ethics on the trash heap, and reduce themselves to partisan players in the political game.

Today, it seems there is much more “journalism at its worst” than ever before.

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Do most journalists really subscribe to this?

The first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, Walter Williams, created the Journalist's Creed approximately 100 years ago.

The University’s Website states that “his declaration remains one of the clearest statements of the principles, values and standards of journalists throughout the world.”

Clearly, it sets a high standard for those who are trusted with the solemn duty to fully and adequately inform us.

How many of today’s journalists do you think rise to this standard?

The Journalists Creed

I believe in the profession of journalism. I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.

I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.

I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.

I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.

I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one's own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends.

I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

I believe that the journalism which succeeds best -- and best deserves success -- fears God and honors Man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship; is a journalism of humanity, of and for today's world.

- Walter Williams

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