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My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

theintercept.com

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Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#91

Post by deogeo »

spamizbad wrote: post #60

I think it's fair to say the majority of the US "Mainstream Media" is overwhelmingly pro-interventalist and by extension pro-military. MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor, yet ran overwhelmingly pro-invasion stories. A more modern example was the run-up to our involvement with Syria, where you had major network personalities like Jak…

> MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor

I'd be grateful if you could elaborate - I'm having trouble following the ownership chain, since there was a merger with Comcast I think after the Iraq War.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#92

Post by JeremyBanks »

deogeo wrote: post #91
spamizbad wrote: post #60

I think it's fair to say the majority of the US "Mainstream Media" is overwhelmingly pro-interventalist and by extension pro-military. MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor, yet ran overwhelmingly pro-invasion stories. A more modern example was the run-up to our involvement with Syria, where you had major network personalities like Jak…

> MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor I'd be grateful if you could elaborate - I'm having trouble following the ownership chain, since there was a merger with Comcast I think after the Iraq War.

https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/industries/government...

Make of that what you will.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#93

Post by ams6110 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #8
Angostura wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I buy that bridge, I'd want to you to be a lot more explicit about which parts of government, which parts of the media and on which issues. I haven't seen most of the media notably pro-Trump for example, to which I've no doubt you will say "ah yes, well Trump isn't the true government", or some-such.

Every single bit of government, with different parts of the press. No, Trump's not in bed with NPR... but it's hard to argue he's not closely involved with Fox personalities. Hannity showed up at Trump rallies and often chats to Trump via phone. Every Congress member will have a variety of sympathetic press sources that match their politics. Every department has a press corps that depends pretty heavily on access to…

Hannity also isn't "the press" meaning he is not a hard news journalist. He's an opinion/news analysis personality.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#94

Post by mturmon »

The author, James Risen, has had a long trajectory as a reporter. The OP (which I admit I have not read all of yet) touches on Risen's reporting on the Wen Ho Lee case while at the NYT. Risen and Gerth's story, and their later follow-up story, was based on "leaks" from "senior intelligence officials" that were either false or slanted.

It was a disgrace. The case was eventually thrown out of court, and a mealy-mouthed NYT recantation was issued (linked in OP - it's a typical NYT non-retraction retraction).

There was other reporting at the time, from Robert Scheer of the LA Times, that contradicted the Risen/Gerth story. But the combination of the endorsement of the NYT, and the mesmeric hold of "national security" on peoples' minds, led to an establishment take that Lee had committed serious crimes. Scheer tells the story here: https://www.thenation.com/article/no-defense/

The whole affair serves as a warning about the dangers of taking selected "senior intelligence officials" at their word. We seem to need these warnings.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#95

Post by microdrum »

mturmon wrote: post #94

The author, James Risen, has had a long trajectory as a reporter. The OP (which I admit I have not read all of yet) touches on Risen's reporting on the Wen Ho Lee case while at the NYT. Risen and Gerth's story, and their later follow-up story, was based on "leaks" from "senior intelligence officials" that were either false or slanted. It was a disgrace. The case was eventually thrown out of court, and a mealy-mouthed…

James Risen has a checkered reporting background, to be sure. [1] There are all kinds of attacks on the press these days, and we are told to be afraid of attacks on the press. But the devaluation of the press is owed more to its own behavior than to that of its enemies. (In the U.S. Less so in Saudi, China, Russia)

[1] https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/is-james-rise...

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#96

Post by Nasrudith »

scottlocklin wrote: post #81
ceejayoz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply false. NYT in 2003: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/us/popular-pesticide-faul... BBC in 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1930658.stm

Humor me for a minute here: 1) Google Atrazine (I get 1.7m hits) 2) Google "making frogs gay" (I get 4.9m hits) I'm pretty sure this means Alex Jones did a better job of informing humanity that atrazine might be a problem than the NYT or any other news organization. I'm assuming Alex Jones is the source, or at least the main popularizer of the meme "making frogs gay." I could be wrong about that, and maybe it was som…

Quality matters a lot in raising awareness of facts. You can't just say comicbooks are better at raising for showing everyone the dangers of radiation when basement levels of radon is depicted as causing people to melt into goo because lung cancer is also dangerous.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#97

Post by vonmoltke »

zozbot123 wrote: post #13
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title intentionally implies it is still ongoing.

The story itself is from 2018, title included. Whether things have changed or not in the meantime is a rather different question.

A story from 4 days ago is also from 2018. If this story had been posted to HN 4 days ago, would the situation be different? If so, why?

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#98

Post by riffic »

deogeo wrote: post #91
spamizbad wrote: post #60

I think it's fair to say the majority of the US "Mainstream Media" is overwhelmingly pro-interventalist and by extension pro-military. MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor, yet ran overwhelmingly pro-invasion stories. A more modern example was the run-up to our involvement with Syria, where you had major network personalities like Jak…

> MSNBC had a clear conflict of interest in the run-up to the Iraq war, with its parent company being a defense contractor I'd be grateful if you could elaborate - I'm having trouble following the ownership chain, since there was a merger with Comcast I think after the Iraq War.

Historically, NBC's parent company was General Electric.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#99

Post by briandear »

resters wrote: post #17

The major takeaway is that one can't count on the NYT to challenge powerful interests. This makes the NYT a powerful conservative force in US culture. It follows that most of the articles that appear opposed to powerful interests are a) inconsequential, or b) used as a distraction, helping to create the impression that the paper is anything but a powerful conservative force. It's no accident that the paper ran the Ju…

Wedding coverage in The NY Times is paid, just like the obituaries.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#100

Post by tptacek »

ngngngng wrote: post #20
rdtsc wrote: post #9

> Obama was determined to extend and even expand many of Bush’s national security policies, including a crackdown on whistleblowers and the press. Ignoring the possible consequences to American democracy, the Obama administration began aggressively conducting surveillance of the digital communications of journalists and potential sources, leading to more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined. I…

During the Obama administration it became legal to assassinate US citizens without trial as long as they are presumed "terrorists" and aren't currently on US soil. It was a deeply flawed presidency that deserves much more critique than it has ever received. https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-killed-a-16-year-o...

The United States killed its own citizens in military operations long before Obama.
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