In light of the recent Eason Jordan mea culpa, I think we're discovering that the media are not there to inform us, but to profit on keeping us ignorant of what is going on in the world.

Laurence, I disagree. I would say that the sense of being the "Fourth Estate"* has expanded into a sense of being news creators, instead of reporters.

Or in other words: now that they are a power in the world, they intend to exercise that power.

*(bonus points if you know the first three; Ara, Arnold, and the Esmays are officially disqualified from answering [grin])

Traditionally: first, clergy; second, nobility; third, the commoners.

But lately I've heard it to refer to the various governmental powers with the fourth estate being effectively another form of government.

Just to be the devil's advocate, perhaps Kristoff put those details in his story as a way of warning people? Granted, burying the details makes them harder to find, and less likely to come to the reader's attention, but at least he mentioned them.

Howdy from Texas- I don't feel CNN WANTED to keep us in the dark, but I'm sure their desire for prestige and profit outweighed their sense of journalistic ethics. I'm a former newspaper managing editor and an entrepreneur, but my conscience would not allow me to engage in the activities Mr. Jordan confessed. BTW, Casey- Aren't the first three estates the government or royalty, the clergy or church and the military?
I'm not 100% sure, high school & college were a long time ago. VBG

Sorry, 'function', not 'form'.

Sheeze! The Press is a business, and now we're discovering that big infotainment corporations cut corners, to say nothing of being complicit in cutting human beings. That's their ideology. They're willing to sacrifice individual humans for a greater goal. Too bad the goal is a quick profit.

Brooks

IMO, the Eason Jordan revalations, among many things, are a sign that modern journalism is as much concerned with "manufacturing" news, as with "reporting" the facts.

Journalists "making" news is not a new phenomenon, however, it is getting out of control when it subverts reporting of the facts of a situation. To Eason Jordan, CNN was expected to have an outlet in Iraq in order to maintain its credibility, regardless of the quality of the reportage. Eason Jordon just wanted something, anything!, out of Iraq, he didn't care enough about the actual facts of the situation when they threatened to impede his "product".

Not to slam free market forces, but this is very similar to free market forces at work in many industries Eason Jordan's ilk despises, such as the oil industry. How so? Well, the big oil companies have been pressing all US administrations for the past decade to normalize relations with Iraq so that they could do business with the Ba'ath regime. CNN just behaved like any AMORAL free market institution seeking to maintain its bottom line.

I'm sure Eason Jordan is not flattered by the comparison, but it sticks.

I see no evidence that non-profit news sources are more reliable. Indeed, history suggests that they are generally less so.

In the meantime, the news business depends in part upon its credibility. Which means that, long-term, bad journalistic ethics is bad for business.

Therefore, the notion that this is easily explained by the fact that this is all a business strikes me as missing the point completely.

I think Dean's pretty much right. If we, the consumers, are going to be mad at or send a message to or whatever with CNN, we need to do so with everyone that did the same thing. Else it only becomes a question of who got caught and no real market correction occurs.

I agree with Dean that this has nothing to do with CNN being a business. I also don't think that ths has to do with making the news, in the sense of fabrication. I am reminded of a classification of baseball umpires into three groups, as related to me by my father who used to be a little league umpire:
  (1) "I call 'em as I see 'em"
  (2) "I see 'em as I call 'em"
  (3) "They ain't nothin' till I call 'em"
The news media no doubt suffers some intoxication with the power to direct national attention and in this sense, to make the news. However, this doesn't work too well as there is too much competition in the news industry for anyone to really conceal a topic, and only a limited ability to make people care (since they have loads of alternatives if they don't care and the particular news outlet repeasts itself). For example, despite Howell Raines' best attempts, how many people really care about whether or not the Augusta golf club admits women?

I think that what goes on more is the desire for fame overcoming all else. Fame is an extraordinarily seductive thing, at least to those who have any sort of inclination to it. If a person covers a good story well, which means that their story attracts a lot of attention, it can be very benficial to their career, their prestige among their peers, and their general fame. Indeed, the second may be as powerful an incentive as the third.

In general, the order to look for explanations of human evil are:
  (1) Laziness
  (2) Fear
  (3) Greed (general, not just monetary)
  (4) Hatred

I do disagree with the notion that you can compare state-run media to corporate media however. I think that this is an apples and oranges argument as the two hierarchies strive for different ends.

Dean says "which means that, long-term, bad journalistic ethics is bad for business".

Sure, but businesses being managed in ways that are good for this quarter's bottom line but bad, or even catastrophic, for the long term is a long-running trend that's hardly unique to the news business: see Andersen, Arthur.

Business has always been managed to maximize the careers of the managers running the company rather than for the benefit of the company itself. The change is that the long-term health of those managers' former employers is no longer anywhere near as important to their future career prospects as it used to be.

Ok, for you folks who have all the easy answers, how about a tough question:

Do you go public with a story knowing that it will get your sources and your employees and possibly their families killed? Do you walk away from Iraq, knowing that your action almost certainly condemns your former colleagues to prison, torture and possibly death?

If an intelligence agency were to say, "We could not reveal everything because we have to protect our sources and methods," would you be so quick to jump on them? But at least people who work with intelligence services know they may be risking their lives. Should translating for a news channel carry that same risk? Why should spies be more worthy of protection than translators, or cameramen?
Once CNN was involved with Iraq -- and it's possible that when they began to work there, Iraq's totalitarian nature was not as apparent -- there were no more good choices: Hide some things, and help your employees (and contacts and colleagues and acquaintances) live, or tell all, knowing your actions will get some of them killed. How moral is the second choice?

Some of the comments above are so filled with hatred toward some beast called "media" that I think the posters need to get down off their haughty horses and remember that the folks in these businesses are people just like the rest of us. Jordan had a hell of a tough choice, one that was literally life and death. If you can't acknowledge that, it's time to check your own moral compass and make sure it's still there.

Bad journalistic ethics is bad for business. . . .How much business does Rupert Murdoch do again?

Television news networks are in the entertainment business, and "news" is nothing more than product to them. How much coverage a story gets depends on factors like how good the film they have is, how attractive they think the subject will be to the viewers, etc.

Oh, come on Matthew. Outside of the tinfoil hat squad who rant about "big fat packs of lies!" at things just because they challenge their worldviews, the knock against Murdoch has always been his style, not his ethics.

Loud, brash sensationalism has been selling papers since the very first issue of the very first newspaper came off the press. It has always been so, and will always be so. The question is, where does it cross the line, where does your credibility become so hurt that you start to lose your audience?

Some news outlets trade on a higher degree of accountability and reputation than others. That, too, is part of the business. Once again: it has always been so, and will always be so.

The notion that the Wall Street Journal or Time Magazine can take as much a hit on credibility as the New York Post or the National Enquirer can, on the other hand, is kind of silly, don't you think?

As a veteran journalist, I have seen this kind of blurring of the lines toa greater or lesser degree across the entire industry over the years.

First, if Eason is to be believed, his protection of the safety of his own staff is a good enough reason. But the next thing to ask yourself is: Given that predicament, how can you, in good conscience and with regard to your responsibility to inform the public truthfully, continue to maintain a news presence that is inevitably going to be completely compromised and unable to fulfil this responsibility?

It would be better under such circumstances to operate outside the control of the country concerned (in this case from Jordan, perhaps) in order to have the freedom to publish and be damned.

I saw this process taking place at first hand in South Africa under apartheid. One newspaper I worked for, the Weekend World -- a massmarket paper for black readers,primarily, was finally banned outright for continuing to report the facts of the death of Steve Biko, current at the time. The paper simply vanished. Given this example, others fell more or less into line.

The problem is that if you continue to publish while wielding the blue pencil of self-censorship, you are telling lies, even if it is only by ommision, and you are not telling your readers that. I left South Africa for Britain just before my last paper, the crusading Rand Daily Mail, was shut down by its backers entirely for reasons of political appeasement. What was left of the mainstream press became farcical, subject to direct censorship and a plethora of highly restrictive laws.

I guess I''m saying that there is vailidity in the argument that mainstrea m press and TV news organisations are vulnerable to this because they are run primarily by people with an eye to the bottom lne. The film The Insider, about 60 Minutes, CBS and the tobacco industry, is instructive because it portrays the main antagonists in this struggle. Usually it is the bean counters who win.

It manifests itself in many apparently less harmful waysthe mainstream media don' ask big movie stars tough questions because if they are anything less than hype-driven, they don't get interviews. They need the cover pictures, the big name coverage, so they play ball in the name of circulation. It isn't going to affect readers lives much, but it still matters. It's lying.

And the trend, I would argue, is getting worse as the conglomerates get bigger.

Sorry for such a lengthy post. I have strong feelings about this subject.

Sorry for all the bloody typos above, I'm on a deadline here ...

Douglas,

When I first heard about this, I was inclined to agree with you. However, looking over what the guy said, he went to Iraq 13 times to convince them to allow CNN to stay. Had they kept silent, I would sympathise with them greatly. They didn't keep silent, they tried quite hard to report in Iraq.

"Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would "suffer the severest possible consequences." CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad. . . ."

They didn't mind sending the reporters in with warnings about "the severest possible consequences", but they were worried about their baghdad staff?

And did he even mention anything about trying to extricate the people who were in danger, and then pulling out?

I don't think that Jordan thought that CNN was being dishonest. I read an interview with him (done a while ago) in which he gave reasonable answers concerning Iraq. Yet at the same time, he certainly gives the appearance of valuing access above big-picture accuracy.

Cutting back to the subject of Iraqi hatred of Americans, perhaps you would all like to read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2948121.stm

Photos of Iraqis kissing British/American soldiers are all well and good, but they are only representative of that individual and perhaps the majority of the crowd with them. That's not to say the remainder of Iraqis feel the opposite way, but it seems simplistic to assume from one photo that generally the Iraqis are predisposed towards the coalition forces (or rather, their Governments).

It's been said before, but people keep forgetting that Regime Change and US Provisional Military Rule are two very separate things, and whilst most Iraqis are likely to have been in favour of the first, it doesn't automatically follow that they are in favour of the second.

P.S. Dean; to say people dislike Murdoch for his style and not his ethics is utter hogwash. There are numerous cases of (at the very least) The Sun newspaper publishing photos and stories which have prompted Press Complaints Commission censuring.

Examples include publishing hoax photos of Princess Diana allegedly with lover James Hewitt, a photo revealing Sophie Rhys-Jones (wife of Prince Edward)'s nipple, and numerous criminal cases where the suspect's personal life is dragged up in front of the nation to the extent that finding an unbiased jury is impossible. Are these ethical practices in your view?

Ben,

"US Provisional Military Rule are two very separate things, and whilst most Iraqis are likely to have been in favour of the first, it doesn't automatically follow that they are in favour of the second."

This is true. However, the benefit of transitional rule is that it doesn't matter much if the people like it or not -- it's transitional, and will soon be gone. What matters is whether or not they like the government that our transitional military rule helps get into place. People forget transitions very quickly. If they're well off in a few years, and well of because of transitional military rule, then the good fortune of the future will soften memory of the past.

Btw, I strongly get the sense, from the snippets that I've seen, that a lot of what we're seeing is fear and mistrust, not hatred or dislike, of America. When, in a few months, things are better and it becomes clear that we're serious about helping them, I suspect that you'll hear better quotes from Iraqis.

Right now, a war is in the process of ending. It would be absurd to expect anything but apprehension on the part of Iraqis. I'd be rather scared if I were an Iraqi. Things are not good over there, and it will take a while for them to get good.

Hopefully, whatever real press organizations start up in Iraq won't be modelled after our western ones, at least in so far as the western ones consider it their duty to be obstructionist. If, after so many years of lies, they got the idea that honesty is the most important thing, even more important than challenging authority, it will be a big help in the future turning out well.

Eric A. was mostly right, global TV news is an "infotainment" business. Whatever sells, that's legal. It's a business, for profit. And it suffers the same competitive pressures to cut corners on product quality that other businesses do. As little quality as the customers accept, same as McDonalds.

The problem is that so many human journalists want to elevate their work into a moral crusade -- which is not necessarily bad, if the search is for "complete truth", but HAS BECOME bad in the current PC anti-American crusade, any truth that makes America look bad, and barely enough balance to claim balance. The BBC is also full of anti-American hacks, for instance.

Sucking up to dictators for access is OK -- but NOT then claiming to report "the truth". Even when a news org has free movement in a country, and can talk with whoever they like, they can only show a part of the truth. When the parts they show are dictator propaganda, they NEED to at least warn the viewers. [Suggest --"country xx does not allow a free press" in every report]

Here the desire for product "access" instead of truth is particularly galling -- essentially direct support for Saddam. (I wonder if victims of Saddam could try to sue CNN for conspiracy? THAT would get the news agency attention/ behavior change.)

Watch Fox -- for now. But they'll be bad in some ways, too.

The BBC is also full of anti-American hacks, for instance.

I'm not so certain about this - there is a lot more US-related news focus with the BBC; this much became clear when my parents and I stopped watching BBC News 24 and started watching EuroNews (available for free on Sky Digital - possibly cable/freeview too, if you're in the UK). It was clear by comparing the two that a lot of important new stories in Europe are ignored in favour of stories pertaining to the US.

Whether these stories are all favourable or not is another matter entirely, I suppose...

How many of you people still have stock portfolios? When are you going to sell? Do you have any idea how many companies you own in your mutual fund guilty of some misdeed or malfeasance? When are you going to find out? Are you waiting for CNN or FOX to astonish you some day and then ask "What else are they not telling us?" There is a serious lack of ethics that you likely support implicitly. And it's that neglect that makes it all the worse. Who here has any real principles?

Ben Darlow: I don't consider any of the examples of Murdoch's behavior that you mention to be anything except offenses against good taste, and, more importantly, even if I did consider them unethical, I think you'd have to be a rank moron to compare them to the kind of thing we're discussing here, which involves the accusation of covering up some of the most heinous of crimes.

It is the case, as I said, that some of Murdoch's enterprises strive for greater credibility than others. Newspapers like The Sun do not strive for the same level of credibility as other papers. [shrug]

By the way, as for the Iraqis: the pictures of smiling and cheering Iraqis speak volumes. No one I know is stupid enough to think this means all Iraqis love us, so who's this argument addressed to?

Joe Sixpack: so now, if I own a stock portfolio, I have done something as terrible as hiding knowledge of mass murder and torture?

We prosecute the executives of corporations who commit crimes in this country, by the way.

I found this quote in a NYT editorial from a couple years ago that I think accurately reflects what CNN did, including their denial last Oct when they were caught.

"Their behavior violates the fundamental contract between journalists, serious publications and their readers. If journalists lie or publications knowingly publish deceptively incomplete stories, then readers who become aware of the deception will ever after ask the most damaging of all questions: How do I know you are telling me the whole truth as best you can determine it this time?"

Any guesses to the issue?

You would think that AOL Time Warner had enough ethical issues surrounding it right now that they would handle this better. I've already written to the chairman asking they respond. Now we just need stockholders to ask questions at the annual meeting next month.

I would also point out that Mr. Jordan decided that some people's lives were not important, because he did nothing to stop Hussein's son-in-laws from returning to Iraq to certain horrible deaths. And now he tries to claim some moral superiority? Get real.

Joe Sixpack,
I would also add:
A free and open press is one of the cornerstones of a free society. My stock portfolio isn't.
Unfortunately, our press is no longer free and open. The socialist agenda advanced by the more-left-leaning of the nation (including the left-leaning in the media) requires a totalitarian govt to fully implement. In many aspects of life and society, we are as a people less free than 30 years ago. We are less free from fear of being murdered, raped, burglarized, sued, and these are an indirect result from the efforts of leftist journalists (among others), the same people who would conceal the actions of tyrannical dictators.
Iraq is not an isolated situation; what have you heard from the press about Cuba's crackdown on dissident news reporters there?

The mainstream media, of which CNN has been a member for some time now, is interested in telling what the news means, not in telling it what the news is. Where is Walter Cronkite?

"he did nothing to stop Hussein's son-in-laws from returning to Iraq to certain horrible deaths."

Actually, he did tell the king of Jordan, who completely disregarded him. What I don't understand is why he didn't tell the men himself.

Hmmm... Iraq isn't the only place where Eason Jordan is likely playing this game. Read this article over at CNN.

Looks to me like Mr Jordan is willing to pump up ANY insane dictator...

>>IMO, the Eason Jordan revalations, among many things, are a sign that modern journalism is as much concerned with "manufacturing" news, as with "reporting" the facts.

Right on Eric. I thought this for years.