NP: Re: Here Atticus, some examples

[Thomas Eckhardt]

On 18.12.2017 21:08, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> James Risen almost got jailed by the Obama justice department who jailed Jeffrey Sterling without proof. Hardly a major victory for press freedom, though Risen is profoundly admirable as  an investigative journalist. My criticism has not one single sentence that condemns journalism in general. My criticism is that The Times and Post and others ignore the truth from people like Risen to support presidential wars and aplogize later for the lies, never seeming to realize ahead of time the horrible human crimes they are endorsing.
As regards James Risen and the NYT, this article by Risen provides a 
welcome glimpse behind the curtain:

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/03/my-life-as-a-new-york-times-reporter-in-the-shadow-of-the-war-on-terror/

Excerpt:

"The next day, Abramson and I went to the West Wing of the White House 
to meet with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. In her office, 
just down the hall from the Oval Office, we sat across from Rice and 
George Tenet, the CIA director, along with two of their aides.

Rice stared straight at me. I had received information so sensitive that 
I had an obligation to forget about the story, destroy my notes, and 
never make another phone call to discuss the matter with anyone, she 
said. She told Abramson and me that the New York Times should never 
publish the story."

How can a respected newspaper tell so many lies while all the time 
adhering to journalistic standards? Chris Hedges explains:

"I was on the investigative team at the New York Times during the 
lead-up to the Iraq War. I was based in Paris and covered Al Qaeda in 
Europe and the Middle East. Lewis Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Richard 
Perle and maybe somebody in an intelligence agency, would confirm 
whatever story the administration was attempting to pitch. Journalistic 
rules at the Times say you can’t go with a one-source story. But if you 
have three or four supposedly independent sources confirming the same 
narrative, then you can go with it, which is how they did it. The paper 
did not break any rules taught at Columbia journalism school, but 
everything they wrote was a lie.

The whole exercise was farcical. The White House would leak some bogus 
story to Judy Miller or Michael Gordon, and then go on the talk shows to 
say, ‘as the Times reported….’ It gave these lies the veneer of 
independence and reputable journalism. This was a massive institutional 
failing, and one the paper has never faced."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/10/06/hedg-o06.html
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