IP: Re: Journalism's Moral Responsibility: Three Questions

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> From: wendyg@cix.compulink.co.uk (Wendy Grossman)
> Subject: Re: IP: Journalism's Moral Responsibility: Three Questions
> To: farber@cis.upenn.edu\
>
> > Many have asked, "How could our intelligence services have failed us
> > so?" But I would ask: How could our reporting on intelligence have
> > been so poor? ' In February, CIA Director George Tenet told the
> > Senate Intelligence Committee that Osama bin Laden's "global network"
> > was the "most immediate and serious" terrorist threat to the United
> > States. A handful of newspapers covered the testimony, and even their
> > stories were brief and buried.
>
> Could we please put the media blame where it belongs?  Many journalists
> and editors want to report serious stories every day of the week, and
> they get blocked by publishers whose chief interest is the bottom line
> of the media conglomerate they work for.  Almost every media outlet has
> had their budgets cut and staff trimmed, and the first thing that
> suffers is international news because the attitude among the
> bean-counters is that it's expensive and customers don't want it anyway.
>  You want to blame someone for the media's two-minute international
> stories?  Blame the regime that has allowed concentrated
> cross-ownership.  What was the first thing AOL Time Warner did after the
> merger?  Cut CNN staff.
>
> wg



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