Okay, I don't really mean that, but cheese and rice, you gotta wonder just how many of the mortal wounds are self-inflicted.
Via M. Bouffant, we learn that the Boston Globe believed a story about Paul Krugman going bankrupt.
Via Weird Dave in Comments under that same post, we learn that the Washington Post believed a story that Sarah Palin had taken a job with Al Jazeera.
If there is anything to add to any of that, it has escaped me.
The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country's descent into full-scale civil war.
As you can tell from the spelling of "centres," this is furrin reporting. Another win for our homeland media! USA! USA! USA!
Oh, and ...
The Guardian/BBC Arabic investigation was sparked by the release of classified US military logs on WikiLeaks that detailed hundreds of incidents where US soldiers came across tortured detainees in a network of detention centres run by the police commandos across Iraq. Private Bradley Manning, 25, is facing a prison sentence of up to 20 years after he pleaded guilty to leaking the documents.
Read it and weep.
(h/t: Gary Legum | pic. source | pic credit: "Cartoon by Nicholson from “The Australian” newspaper: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au")
You've heard about the conservative pundits taking money from certain Malaysians to write favorable things about certain Malaysians, and unfavorable things about certain other Malaysians, in America? Featuring the comedy stylings of Josh "You Must Include The Tilde To Show How I Am Not Racist" Treviño and his ignorance of the ignorantia juris non excusat principle?
Quick overview here, if not.
And now for the LotD.
It seems that some years ago Malaysia’s ruling party took a good look at leading pundits and policy intellectuals in the conservative movement, reached a judgment about their personal and intellectual integrity or lack thereof, and acted in accordance with that judgment.
Funny how Malaysia gets who these people are and what motivates them — while our own press corps doesn’t.
-- Paul Krugman
PK includes in this gimlet-eyed view some observations on the Heritage Foundation's related antics.
Whoops. Should have warned you to sit down there first, as the man says.
[Added] Speaking of whom, we now have a tie for LotD:
"According to Rich Lowry in Politico" is a phrase which proves Chomsky's idea that mastering the fundamental structures of language allows you to invent statements more horrible than you thought possible.
The opening of the closing paragraph in what was represented not as transcribing a press release but as an Actual News Story In The Paper Of Record:
Still, the threat is large enough that Barnes & Noble executives are working hard to determine a strategy that focuses on core strengths …
Probably you already know my feeling that we ought to sue for surrender and try to get in return one shred of dignity -- a declaration that the space between the g and the h be declared superfluous -- but apart from just that, how the fuck do you cash a paycheck as a Reporter™, and type a CONCLUSION involving the phrase " … working hard to determine a strategy that focuses on core strengths … ," AND sleep at night?
If you care at all about the state of newspapers, and in particular, local newspapers, I recommend Ken Layne's interview of "Sammy Sturgeon," a former Patch.com employee who has gone back to (gasp) an actual print newspaper. It's hardly uplifting, of course, but it is entertaining in spots. (Hurrah for gallows humor?)
(side note) Check out the differences among the post title, the post title as displayed in the browser's top border, and the URL.
(h/t: Wonkette)
__________
More generally, it's great to see Ken Layne back in harness. Or whatever it is called these days.
We’re not talking about ideology or even economic analysis here — just a plain misrepresentation of the facts, with an august publication letting itself be used to misinform readers. The Times would require an abject correction if something like that slipped through. Will Newsweek?
-- Paul Krugman
(h/t: @DiegoUK)
... sixth runner-up on Atrios's list of Wankers of the Decade. Ah, well, Pareene didn't think very little of him, either.
Thanks to hat-tippee Henry Farrell, who also gave me a bonus: I now know that there is (should be) a Krauthammer Unit! Which sort of gives away the winner, doesn't it?
And by "recent" I mean only that I can't think of one that was better, offhand, just this moment, but odds are, it was not that long ago and it was written by the same author.
Show Us On The Doll Where The Reagan Administration Touched You, Libby
Libby Copeland, "Nikki Haley Is Right--Women Don't Care About 'Women's Issues' Any More Than Men Do". April 4
I HAD reached the end of the third paragraph here--and the last of the laudanum--when it all became cosmically clear: Slate is a sort of fractal of the facile and the disingenuous, from its smallest headline teases to its very raison d'être; the phrase If there was any need for Slate it wouldn't exist seemed to stretch the boundaries of my skull like some virtual underground sea, and I swerved to find the keyboard when the phone rang.
Also a little concerned that Yahoo thinks this is a Top Story, but that's another gripe.
“My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism. And it’s not journalism. It’s theater.”
The above is from Mike Daisey, as quoted by Rob Schmitz of Marketplace. Apparently, Schmitz thought Daisey's report a while back on Apple's factory in China sounded sketchy, so he did some checking, and then, with Ira Glass in tow, confronted Daisey.
This American Life will be running an entire show "to detail the errors" in the original show. There's also a blog post from Ira Glass on this.
Sad day.
(h/t: Muck Rack)
The lazy journalist's two favorite words.
Not that I'm accusing FoxNews of being journalists, you understand.
(Backstory.)
A nice apology from one of those who tut-tutted back then, Joe Nocera, who has finally come round to realizing that we were right to worry.
Probably my biggest pet peeve about the MSM -- their rampant, proud innumeracy -- is addressed: "Is a 12-Year-Old Smarter Than Einstein? Don't Be Stupid."
You should have a look at Nick Pinto's cover story in The Village Voice, "Women's Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science."
I'd be the last person to advocate turning a blind eye to the problem of girls being forced into prostitution, but it doesn't help when an advocacy group hires a PR firm to put together a study that is so easily called into question. And it really doesn't help when lazy reporters so uncritically retype press releases.
Thers is right: the rebuttal from The Schapiro Group -- the firm whose study Pinto lambastes -- is a powerful fertilizer such that none may abide its smell.
... is especially good. Not for the first time do I wish that everyone with whom I interact online was as big a fan.
Anyway, even if you don't want to discuss it, this week's show is, as usual, highly recommended listening. Topics covered include the difficulty of reporting from within Libya, the information dissemination related to the Japanese reactors situation, a follow-up on something begun last week -- an examination of NPR's supposed biases, and an interview of James O'Keefe by co-host Bob Garfield. Note that you can stream or download, and this applies to both the whole show and the individual segments.
The bias part features, among other guests, a thoughtful guy who is described as libertarian and an evangelical Christian, and also a regular NPR listener.
The JO'K segment is augmented by OTM's making available the audio of the full interview. See the show page down near the bottom, or do the right-click, save as thing on this MP3 link. It's about 45 minutes long. (I'm just starting to listen to it now.)
(x-posted)
Way to go, ReadWriteWeb:
We believe that Google will preview a major new social service called Google Circles at South by Southwest Interactive today. Update: Google has now officially denied that Circles will launch here, but not that it exists. See final update below, as of afternoon Texas time Google does now deny that Circles exists.