Foreword: representation, truth, fiction & etc.

[pynchonoid]

Sorry, I meant to trim it a bit better than that:

<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&s=baker>
> 
> [...] Who's the exact opposite of Jayson Blair, the
> New York Times reporter accused of inventing sources
> and quotes, plagiarizing and other sins? Well, how
> about Judith Miller? Where Blair is young and black
> and inexperienced, a rookie journalist whose job was
> largely to interview ordinary people, Miller is
> middle-aged and white and a veteran Times star whose
> job it is to interact with the best and the
> brightest
> in science, academia and government. 
> 
> But Blair and Miller have more in common than you
> might think. Both are in trouble for giving readers
> dubious information. While Miller's alleged
> improprieties are of a more subtle nature, and she
> comes into this rough patch with an estimable
> reputation built over the course of a long and
> distinguished career, her case reveals a great deal
> about the state of today's news media. What Miller
> did, and the fact that her brand of journalism is
> encouraged and rewarded by the powers that be, is
> precisely the kind of topic that the Times's
> leadership ought to air during its current
> semipublic
> glasnost phase. In Blair's case, the only serious
> damage has been to the paper's image. Miller, on the
> other hand, risks playing with the kind of fire that
> starts or justifies wars, gets people killed and
> plays
> into the hands of government officials with partisan
> axes to grind. 
> 
> Every morning, almost every other source of news
> looks
> to see what the Times does, then follows its lead.
> On
> the morning of April 21, in a front-page story from
> Iraq, Miller suggested that the main reason US
> forces
> had failed to find the much-ballyhooed Weapons of
> Mass
> Destruction--the ostensible primary reason for the
> invasion--was that they had been recently destroyed
> or
> existed only as precursors with dual, civilian uses.
> Her source? A man standing off in the distance
> wearing
> a baseball cap, who military sources told her was an
> Iraqi scientist who had told them those things. In
> the
> same piece, she floated unsupported claims alleging
> that Iraq had provided WMD aid to Syria and Al
> Qaeda.
> In so doing, she put the Times's imprimatur on a
> highly questionable formulation that was also
> essential to White House political interests. '
> 
> [...] 
> Probably the most instructive exercise in assessing
> Miller's reporting is to compare her with the Post's
> Barton Gellman. You would think the two were in
> different countries, if not on different planets.
> After Miller's "baseball cap" piece appeared,
> Gellman
> wrote an article that politely dismissed her scoop:
> "Without further details of the find, experts said,
> its significance cannot be assessed." Here are
> typical
> Miller headlines from May: 
> 
> 
> May 21: "U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms" 
> 
> May 12: "Radioactive Material Found at a Test Site
> Near Baghdad" 
> 
> May 11: "Trailer Is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning
> Out Bioweapons, a Team Says" 
> 
> May 9: "G.I.'s Search, Not Alone, In the Cellar of
> Secrets" 
> 
> May 8: "U.S. Aides Say Iraqi Truck Could Be a
> Germ-War
> Lab" 
> 
> 
> 
> Now Gellman: 
> 
> 
> May 18: "Odyssey of Frustration; In Search for
> Weapons, Army Team Finds Vacuum Cleaners" 
> 
> May 11: "Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq;
> Task Force Unable to Find Any Weapons" 
> 
> May 10: "Seven Nuclear Sites Looted; Iraqi
> Scientific
> Files, Some Containers Missing" 
> 
> May 4: "Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted; U.S.
> Team
> Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are
> Missing" 
> 
> To be sure, Gellman's record isn't without
> blemishes,
> but he seems to have realized early on that tying
> his
> fortunes to the military's not-always-reliable
> sources
> wasn't wise. The thrust of Gellman's reporting in
> recent months, and his central theme, has been that
> no
> one has confirmed that Iraq actually manufactured or
> retained biological or chemical weapons after the
> last
> ones accounted for by UN inspectors in 1998. Miller,
> by contrast, either downplays this point or doesn't
> highlight it sufficiently. [...] "
> 
> "Every day public opinion is the target of rewritten
> history, official amnesia and outright lying, all of
> which is benevolently termed "spin," as if it were
> no
> more harmful than a ride on a merry-go-round. We
> know
> better than what they tell us, yet hope otherwise.
> We
> believe and doubt at the same time - it seems a
> condition of political thought in a modern
> superstate
> to be permanently of at least two minds on most
> issues. Needless to say, this is of inestimable use
> to
> those in power who wish to remain there, preferably
> forever."
> -Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_ 


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