Tommy Christopher takes Jon Karl to the woodshed. Frankly, I think his critique should be even more brutal. Jon Karl lied about obtaining emails, got conned by the person who paraphrased the emails, prevaricated and rationalized when he got caught, and issued a non-apology apology after unjustifiably smearing the Obama administration.
As for ABC News, they sent out a spokesman to argue that the real emails were consistent with Jon Karl’s horseshit paraphrased version of them, as if we are as empty in the head as Michele Bachmann.
As for ABC News, they sent out a spokesman to argue that the real emails were consistent with Jon Karl’s horseshit paraphrased version of them, as if we are as empty in the head as Michele Bachmann.
Actually, on this subject, the vast majority of people probably are no more properly informed than Michele Bachmann. Seems to be my experience, anyway.
They don’t learn, nor care. Instead, the downward spiral seems to accelerate.
Dan Rather should punch Jon Karl in the face.
Sounds to me as if they’ve finally run out of the Grade A BS and are now digging around at the bottom of the journalistic offal tank.
Apology? When the Big Lie is challenged, Goebbels knew that it had to be even more strongly and wildly asserted. That this meant treating the propaganda consumers as imbeciles was irrelevant.
“Conservatives” never admit error whatever facts they are presented with, and the corporate media generally doesn’t, either. Bad for Bizness.
The scandal IS the media. The media is incapable of reporting almost anything political from the perspective of genuine public interest. It’s simply abdicated that role. It’s only framework is the worldview of it’s own class of political careerists and the ownership class who dictates the terms of their respectable discourse.
To reach this level of scandal hysteria in the beltway, this naked talk of “blood in the water for the president,” Bush had to misunderestimate occupying a large middle eastern country, give a kingly wave to a drowning city, and oh by the way lie every step of the way.
“The scandal IS the media”
This is actually bigger than Watergate + Iran Contra x 1,000,000.
Thinking of having that framed.
Why should anyone protect the AP’s “confidential” sources if journalists have no recourse for printing erroneous or false information?
“Evil doer” makes up outrageous crap.
Passes crap to media hack.
Hack flacks crap.
Rubes go wild.
Heads get cracked.
…
Truth slowly emerges.
Rubes retreat in silence.
Hack gets promoted or axed.
Crap lives forever on crackpot websites.
“Evil doer” wins.
Isn’t that the standard pattern?
From the link:
“Karl’s exclusive report on Friday turned Benghazi into a huge political story for a few days, until CNN’s Jake Tapper scored a scoop that exposed Karl’s reporting as misleading, at best.”
So hold on a second. Jake Tapper did some reporting and discovered a falsehood? And he reported this? He actually engaged in a search for the truth? Granted, it was about a media meta-narrative, but still: Jake Tapper! Now I know we’ve arrived in Bizarro Land.
Once upon a time, in the long-ago beforetimes, there was ths quaint old concept of journalism and an archaic notion of ethics.
No, really. When a source fed a reporter a lie, the reporter reported it, and got burned, there was a time when the reporter would expose that source as a big fibber. The source’s credibility would be shot, and nobody would believe what that person had to say ever again.
But in our post modern world of journamalism, reporters and their sources are all part of a big club (and, as Balloon Juice or Drift Glass are fond of pointing out, you’re not in it). They drink together, sleep together, eat together, attend each others’ weddings, read passages from 1 Corinthians, and if someone feeds someone else a line of bullshit, well, once any unpleasantness is brushed aside, nobody ever mentions it again. Surprising that Jake Tapper, a certified bona fide member of the club would forget that, but that will be forgotten, too, after another round of drinks and a spirited game of grabass and clutchbutt.
Then the whole thing will die down for a while. Then someone will say, “You know, this is just like that time with those e-e-e-vil e-mails. Everyone remembers that!” And there will be much tut-tutting and a harrumph or two about the nasty old Obama administration, until some killjoy remembers the facts. And the story will go away again.
Then, a couple of weeks later . . .