As I said in yesterday’s post, The Real Russian Spy Story, I had been wondering about the media’s flogging of this story.
It has been getting clearer in recent days, but today was the final clarification if we need any more.
There was hardly if any real spying going. The FBI has been onto these people for almost 10 years. Suddenly the government decides to close these people down.
We now know that the purpose was to generate some trading currency to get our own spies out of Russia. There was no real threat to our own country.
If I could smell a phony story in this one, you would have suspected that the professional news reporters could also have smelled the same smell.
So we are left to conjecture how much collaboration between the news media and our government was going on to get this story hyped beyond all relation to its value as news. I guess the story was hyped about as much as it was worth for forwarding the government’s interest with respect to trading spies.
After CBS News’ report tonight about the confessions and deportations of the “spies”, I expected at least a confession on their part of how they blew this all out of proportion at the government’s request. Of course, no such confession was forthcoming. As I watched the rest of the news, I kept saying to Katie Couric, “And you expect us to believe what you are telling us now given how you have been deceiving us over the past week?”
If it was not collusion between the government and the media, it is surprising that the people in the media don’t admit how badly they were taken in.
To one of my friends who thought the Russian “spies” should have been shot, I ask, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” I know that the answer is “No I am not ashamed. I was not taken in by this story. The crimes these people committed are much worse than our government is letting on. Glenn Beck told me so. And I can tell the difference between a lie and the truth.”
Unfortunately, I am at a disadvantage with this friend because I do not believe I can always tell what is a lie and what is the truth.
The government can be expected to put out information that they want to convey. However, it is the duty of the news media to decide how they want to convey it.
If there were some national security reason for lying to their readership, they should at least have the decency to fess up after the security reason has passed.
When I say it is the duty of the media to make the call, that is only in the sense that they may want to stay in business and have stockholders to answer to if they mess it up.
As for the readers, I have a responsibility to make political decisions. I need accurate information to make those decisions. The moment I can find a reliable source of information, I will abandon a less reliable source.
The US auto makers used to be able to get away with shoddy quality because they were all equally bad. Then the Japanese auto makers arrived on the scene with quality that Detroit was unable to match. We see how successful a business strategy it was for Detroit to fritter away the confidence of their customers.
Too bad the news media haven’t seen that story, reported on it, and taken a lesson.
SteveG, you wrote:
“So we are left to conjecture how much collaboration between the news media and our government was going on to get this story hyped beyond all relation to its value as news. I guess the story was hyped about as much as it was worth for forwarding the government’s interest with respect to trading spies.”
To me, that sounded as if you were sniping EQUALLY on the Obama Administration and on the media.
If it was not your intent to imply (possible) collaboration between the administration and the media, I apologize. I was just responding to what you had written.
RichardH, I am trying to figure out what your comment means. What I have come up with so far is that you think this item is sniping at the Obama administration.
It is not. If this is what the administration had to do to get our own spies back, then we can all understand that. The Russians surely understand the game that is being played. After all, they are playing along according to the rules.
If the so called news media is willing to destroy any credibility they had left while they are losing their readers and viewers, I cannot understand that.
If the consumers of news are willing to be easily duped by phony stories, I cannot understand that either.
See “What do Liberals want from Obama?”
http://ssgreenberg.name/PoliticsBlog/2010/07/07/what-do-liberals-want-from-obama/