Secrecy And Self-Congratulatory Silliness

Here is a ridiculous exercise in auto-backpatting from Michael J. Berlin, a one-time WaPo reporter.  Ms. Villainess delivers a full length trouncing, but let me summarize thusly - in 1979 when the Iranians seized the US Embassy, alert reporters who compared the hostage list with the list of Embassy officials noticed some names were missing.  "Shhh!" said the Sate Dept press minders - the officials were hiding in the Canadian Embassy, and the press was warned that publishing this story would imperil the officials and their rescuers.  (They needed to be told this?  Hope they were also reminded to inhale and exhale.  Oxygen; reporter; some instruction required.)

Well, guess what - Berlin delivers a happy ending.  With easily identifiable potential victims and villains, the press sat on the story.  No kidding.  And from that experience, Berlin extrapolates as follows:

The Canada-hostage story proves that reporters and news organizations can be trusted, en masse, to make the right call on security information they uncover.

Stop.  About all this incident proves is that the press could make the easy calls almost thirty years ago.

How oddly self-serving that the WaPo offered space for this self-congratulatory drivel.

Comments

[Jane]

"Oddly self-serving"? It seems like that is the MSM middle name.

[Cecil Turner]

Stop. About all this incident proves is that the press could make the easy calls almost thirty years ago.

I think you might be being just a bit too hard on him. In the first place, the fact that "A Secret the Media Kept" is newsworthy, nearly thirty years on, is telling. In the second, he makes essentially the same point as to the changing times:

Do I think that a thousand reporters could be trusted today to make the same call that we did in 1979? I wonder.

Though he misses the obvious datapoints where they failed miserably to do precisely that.

[steve sturm]

I found it interesting, but not surprising, that he felt the big threat came from bloggers and ideologues who use "journalism as a political tool". I would have thought that the real threat from revealing national security secrets came from MSM journalists chasing Pulitzers and/or those looking to score their own points against the Bush Administration... because, as Ms. Villainous points out, since bloggers "are dependent on the media for information" and "as a rule don't uncover much", we can't reveal to the world what we don't know. It wasn't a blogger who revealed the details of the SWIFT program or the monitoring of international calls.

[UofAZGrad]

The press is much more likely to hold a story if the government can point to specific people that will be hurt if its published. The government could only vaguely point to a generalized harm to national security with regard to the NSA spy story and even that was enough to get it held for over a year.

When was the last time the MSM (Novak exempted) published a story exposing a covert operative's name in print. When was the last time (Fox News exempted) the media published troop movements in a war zone as they were taking place. The media is the recepient of lots of information that could directly harm people and it responds by either holding the story or holding portions of it to protect those that will come to harm.

[paulv]

Drudge reveaked the Monica story which NewsWeak tried to spike.
Some democrat senator revealed the name of noc at a hearing.

[cathyf]

CNN was on live the other night practically giving Hezbollah targetting coordinates. ("If the rocket had landed X meters in Y direction, it would have hit a fuel storage facility!")

cathy :-)

[Cecil Turner]

The government could only vaguely point to a generalized harm to national security with regard to the NSA spy story . . .

Puh-leeze. If they need to have it explained to them why detailing our comm intercept procedures or the methods we track down enemy finances is a security issue, they're obviously unqualified for the beat. Similarly, the claim that Valerie Plame's identity is somehow sensitive, yet her hubby's OpEd on his CIA mission was not (as laced with disinformation and Keystone Koppish as it was) is pretty much impossible to credit.

CNN was on live the other night practically giving Hezbollah targetting coordinates.

They do similar stuff all the time (e.g., Gulf War videos of scud impacts). Consistently clueless, and resistant to education.

[bgates]

I'm looking forward to the followup story about the government rightfully keeping one secret in the 70's, which proves all clandestine government ops are legitimate.

[R C Dean]

When was the last time the MSM (Novak exempted) published a story exposing a covert operative's name in print.

Well, to be fair, Novak even didn't do that. Anyone who drives to work at CIA HQ in Langley every day (as la Wilson did) is nobody's covert operative.

[Tom Maguire]

I'm looking forward to the followup story about the government rightfully keeping one secret in the 70's, which proves all clandestine government ops are legitimate.

LOL.

[GnuCarSmell]

You gotta love Michael Berlin's convoluted logic: Since the media acted morally in one instance decades ago, the media is always moral.

I know eight-year-olds who could demolish such twaddle.

[PeterUK]

I would say that any day now,the MSM are going to get the opportunity to prove or disprove this point.The difference between thierty years ago and now,is the evolution of the activist journalist serving a greater good which is far beyond taking sides.

[maryrose]

30 years ago journalists knew their place-report the news and protect Americans in danger zones.
Today as katie couric so aptly phrased it her intention is to try to solve problems and find solutions to things rather than report on what's happening. I call that new age journalism. What journalism school did she attend and am I the only one who thinks that Matt Lauer with his Ohio University degree was the brains in that operation? I am unimpressed with current msm sources, only read "The Wall Street Journal" and basically take a pass on Newsweek{always a down arrow for Bush in the conventional wisdom section. My daughter is a journalism major in college now-maybe she can change the current tide-this blog seems to make the most sense to me with very astute commenters.

[Pofarmer]

"Today as katie couric so aptly phrased it her intention is to try to solve problems and find solutions to things rather than report on what's happening. I call that new age journalism."

I don't know what to call it, but that ain't journalism. Seems like everybody wants to be Rush Limbaugh, all of a sudden.

[Pofarmer]

And, oh yeah, I finally had to cancel Newseek. After the pitiful Presidential race "coverage", then the whole "Koran Flushing" thing, I just couldn't take it any more. Too bad, before the BDS took hold I thought they were a fairly respectable source.

[PeterUK]

Maryrose,
It strikes me that the rot set in when "Journalism" became a degree course.Prior to that people either joined a locak newspaper from school of university,they started at the bottom learned the trade and got sent out on "Escaped Parrot" stories,gradually working up the ladder,"Washing stolen from clothes line" etc, until the editor regarded them experience enough to handle important stories.What the editor did not want was a cub reporters opinion on anything.
Now only a centre page op-ed and a probing interview with the Supreme Ruler of the Galaxy will suffice.

[Jim C.]

maryrose wrote, "Today as katie couric so aptly phrased it her intention is to try to solve problems and find solutions to things rather than report on what's happening. I call that new age journalism."

Pofarmer wrote, "I don't know what to call it, but that ain't journalism. Seems like everybody wants to be Rush Limbaugh, all of a sudden."

Sounds more like Oprah. Giving people hope in just one hour. A sitcom/drama turned into a "reality" show. And makes her bloody rich while accomplishing a lot less than people think.

"New age" journalism is right. It'll be about as effective as those other "new age" techniques like astrology, homeopathy, etc. ad nauseam.

A plague on all their houses.

[Soylent Red]

It strikes me that the rot set in when "Journalism" became a degree course.

That's about right. Before there was a "journalism" curriculum, reporters were just that- reporters. That is, they reported.

Being a reporter was what English and literature majors did to work their way through school, augment their faculty income, or kill time until the publishing of their great American novel. Some reporters, in fact, were little more than high school graduates who could write coherently. Lots of reporters did it as a side job to more mundane newspaper functions like setting up presses or running linotype machines.

In other words, the assumption was that if you could observe incidents, and translate what you observed into prose, you were qualified to be a reporter. You only got to be a "great reporter" by being able to observe and accurately convey facts, repeatedly, over a long period of time.

J-schools sprang up on the notion that observation and conveyance of facts through writing could or should be trained. And like all soft majors, there has to be a lot of theory to legitimize the major, and more importantly, stretch the curriculum out to 134+ hours for revenue purposes. So at that point it became less about how to structure a news article or conduct an interview, and more about "journalism as engine of social development", which it had never been before.

And of course, this takes place in a liberal pseudo-intellectual university environment.

So what you end up with is:

1. journos (and aspiring journos) believe their profession can't be done without formal training;

2. by virtue of college training they are the practitioners of the pure art form, and are now gifted with a unique and rare talent;

3. the highest achievement of that talent is embodied in the idea of the "crusading" journalist acting as a catalyst for social progress;

4. the meaning of "social progress" will be judged (and graded) by ivory tower beard scratching libs.

What's ironic is, we had better news when being a reporter was a less hallowed job title.

[clarice]

I met Carl Bernstein when he was a young reporter. He never graduated from college. He was a scruffy kid assigned to the police beat.

Most of the best reporters of my age had little or no college education.

It's an art. You can learn how to get better at it, but if you don't have that particular talent you can't do it.

A degree in journalism is part of the degree inflation trend in the U.S. Do you realize people get PhD's in Drivers 'Education here? See, we have drivers' education courses in high school. Therefore, it is considered important and necessary to have people who teach them and programs are created to produce Master's degrees in drivers' education, and then it's a quick leap to PhD's in it to teach the teachers.
Honest.

[Soylent Red]

Do you realize people get PhD's in Drivers 'Education here?

Feh. I think my ulcer just started bleeding again.

"Women's Studies" programs are what originally gave it to me...

[PeterUK]

Then it comes full circle,none of those Professors of Journalism have ever been journalists.
It is now possible to obtain a degree in Surf Management,better call an ambulance Soylent.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

In the old days reporters were too busy reporting to be writers. They called in their stories to copywriters and editors edited.

See: Confused? Help people?? if you want to know :: eyes rolling :: J-school grads say they want to become journalists. Bring the gag bag.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

** why J-school grads say

[clarice]

OT:Volokh has an excellent rundown on UNFIL's shameful performance.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_07_16-2006_07_22.shtml#1153523571