QandO

September 13, 2004

A view from a Reader
Posted by McQ

I got a very interesting email from a reader concerning the CBS Ra^thergate memo flap and the reaction of the blogosphere.

Jim Johnson sat out there on the net and watched it all happen. He comes up with some interesting observations and some fairly pointed commentary which I wanted to reproduce in its entirety. I think he does some pretty good analysis:

In your post you refer to a "growing line of 'questionable journalism"." I think it is time to come to a real judgment about the competence of the MSM. There has been a never ending whine of the right about the "liberal bias" and lack of objectivity of the big media. The examples have been trotted out endlessly for years. The naive assumption of the right has always been that if a sufficient number of examples are pointed out that the left, in its desire to uncover truth, would say "O my gosh, you are correct, that wasn't fair."

One of many errors the right continually makes is to grant the inherent competence of its adversaries. The reason for this is that issues become resolvable if there is a shared paradigm of problem solving. This is laziness on the part of the right. It seems to be a quick clean path to resolution. If, however, you say the left doesn't "get it," and that there skill set is deficient one is open to the relativistic arguments that their world view is as valid as yours. This has been the fear of the right as long as I can remember.

There is a resolution though, and that is to be on the right side of what works in the world. It is the Left's biggest and most glaring deficiency. The fact is that the Left is not rigorous, logical, and consistent. Its analysts and commentators are second rate or worse by and large. Imagine James Carville teaching a class in logic. In the same way the media does not have competence in the way the world understands (or should) what competence is. They really don't "get it" or share the same reality. Standards of proof are substandard.

ASIDE: This leaves them open to manipulation by those who do have a clue. Clinton had a very good clue. My opinion is that Clinton is more naturally a conservative in his gestalt and could have been anything he wanted. Circumstances provided the path he took. He is, however, a pragmatist at heart. Triangulation was a strategy based on what works.

This is a rambling way of saying most journalists of the MSM really don't know what they are doing but are very good a spouting a vocabulary that makes them appear to know. They are very good at dissembling because their unconscious and continual covering of their lack of competence is perfect training in their political avocation.

On the other hand it makes the MSM sitting ducks for the Blogoshere because competence (in Bloggerland) is what separates the men from the boys whether in pajamas or not. The outcome of the battle with the MSM is a forgone conclusion. Either the MSM goes down in flames or real competence arises and takes it over. They currently cannot compete with the new medium. The inefficiency that has been revealed is the ability to get at the truth and the Blogosphere has revealed it brutally.

One of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is that many "experts" talk a good game but aren't as "expert" as they'd like us to believe. Some have become complacent in their celebrity, some have stopped developing their expertice in a changing field, and, as Jim points out some simply aren't as competent as they'd have you believe.

Jim's "aside" is very important in my estimation. I agree with his assessment of how Clinton understood and used the old media's incompetence. And we've all seen their glaring incompetence in all things military. The memos highlight this incompetence and demonstrate how very easily manipulated CBS was with rather crude and obvious forgeries. Crude and obvious to everyone but CBS.

And we have reports that CBS eshewed interviews with Killian's widow and son as well as Maj Rufus Martin, all people who would have shed a completely different light on the memos. They also decided they didn't want to talk to others who knew Bush, people suggested by Killian's son. He was told, when he suggested them, that they were to "Pro Bush". Their "expert" who was their "trump card" never saw the memos, but had them read to him. He denied their authenticity once he saw them. Their "document expert" only vetted the signature on one memo and has no expertice in document forensics itself. 11 independent document experts say they're forgeries.

But CBS "stands by its story".

All of this points to an agenda as well as a competence problem. It is very reminiscent of the "Tailwind" controversy at CNN where a blatantly false story was presented as fact, even though there were scores of witnesses and tremendous evidence available to discredit it. The net, in its infancy in this regard, was instrumental in discrediting this story. Although bloggers weren't in evidence per se, message boards and web sites carried the story, gathered the contrary evidence and kept it alive until the old media could no longer ignore it.

Both "Tailwind" and "Ra^thergate" point to another fault with the old media.

Pure and unadulterated arrogance.

They have, for so long, been the sole arbiters of what is and isn't news that they haven't yet recognized or accepted that that day is over. They have, for so long, been able to say "we stand by this story" and have that end the discussion that they are completly blindsided by the new media's ability to keep a story alive. As Jim points out, these things "make the MSM sitting ducks for the Blogoshere".

To everyone but those who desperately want the memos to be real, and CBS, they've been discredited. When you begin to see parody and satire based on the memos, you know that CBS's credibility has not only been questioned, but trashed.

You wonder how long they'll stand by "we stand by this story". You wonder how long they'll agree to suffer this tremendous blow to their credibility. You have to wonder if Dan Rather is worth that.

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