The Guardian:
Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist”.
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would” – or the death of Osama bin Laden. “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,” he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an “independent” Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. “The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,” he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.
The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.
“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” he declares in an interview with the Guardian.
“It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn’t happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.
He isn’t even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.
He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “changed the whole nature of the debate” about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government’s policy.
…Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.
“Do you think Obama’s been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What’s going on [with journalists]?” he asks.
Curt, while this far-off-the-left-liberal-cliff writer is right when he says,
. . . . he doesn’t show much insight with his reasoning for the collapse of the main stream media, . . .
Hersh has given his brethren socialists a pass. He’s quite happy with the government growth, but he’s not happy that brute force has to be used against enemies. Hersh just needs to get a better grip on human nature, instead of displaying the typical politically correct liberal and complacent attitude which destroys a Nation through internal rot.
At least he’s showing ’embarrassment’ at the MSM acceptance of the daily dose of fictional fantacy spewed by Obama. I look forward to seeing what the buffoons at the NYT do with the adjective LYER, as applied by one of their own to this empty suit in the W.H.
I remember Hersh when Bush was president; always claiming some un-named source told him Bush was about to start a war on Iran.
None of it was true.
Sometimes Hersh uses an impossible to deal with line like, ”There exists no irrefutable evidence of ….”
Gee.
No irrefutable evidence.
Yet Hersh uses un-named sources all the time!
Media bias crosses different lines. It’s no doubt where the MSM is on guns, abortion or politics. Yet it goes further than that. In the 1980’s 60 minutes did a piece on unintended acceleration of the Audi 5000. It almost ran them out of the country. As it turns out it was all driver error. A 3000 pound car with a sub 200 horsepower engine will not take off like a bat out of hell with your foot planted firmly on the brake; as the story was told it would do just that. The general public ran from Audi. One thing I think many people don’t realize is reporters are not experts on 98% of the subjects they cover. They can be easily fooled and report a story with dramatic flare to convince an unknowing public. When I saw the Audi story I recall saying this is BS. It took years for it to shake out. So bias is there, whether for political purposes, to sell papers or to get eyeballs on the screen it’s there.
Back in 2008 there was a piece by Orson Scott Card called “Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights?” It’s still worth a read.
@Mully: #3
In the late ’60s, as a teenager very much into automobiles, I watched the ignorant and vile Ralph Nader destroy the Corvair – a unique, beautifully designed, rear-engined, independent suspension car that was pushing the edges on technology. The progressive loons of the MSM jumped aboard his idiocy bucket and killed a great car with great potential.
He also railed against the designs we today collect as classic automobiles – they had too much chrome, and sloping fenders, and Nader decided they were dangerous to pedestrians. How genius was that for selling books and becoming famous? Automobiles were just violent monsters ready to pounce of unsuspecting foot traffic.
GM executives were clueless in their response to the relentless assault on the Corvair by Nader and the media, and mishandled the whole affair, finally caving, and providing the Corvair an untimely death.
@Mully:
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? by Orson Scott Card