Allahpundit started the demolition of Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell yesterday. Today it is the Confederate Yankee's turn to apply the 2×4.
Did rightwing bloggers attempt to smear the entire media, as Mitchell alleges, or were they targeting specific questionable stories, specific questionable photographs, and photographers exhibiting a suspicious pattern of behavior?
The answer, quite obvious to those that actually read the blog posts and the commentary they generated, is that bloggers investigating specific instances uncovered general problems with how the media gathered news and verified the accuracy of the information, a fact that Mitchell begrudgingly admits. I'd like to know which "wacky conspiracy theories" Mitchell was referring to, as the Qana staging episode and the Red Cross ambulance stories most thought implausible when first proposed by bloggers, turned out to be absolutely correct.
In a significant number of the more widely disseminated blog posts asking questions and making accusations about suspicious media accounts, the suspicions of bloggers turned out to be quite well-founded. Contrary to Mitchell's suggestions, quite a few—more than a handful—of the more widely regarded questions raised by bloggers were exposed apparent staging or fraud–a remarkable achievement by people thousands of miles away from the story, doing the fact-checking and analysis that the media should have been doing, but much to their embarrassment, often did not.
Mitchell, apparently then unable to go much further on his own, decides to simply turn to the Lightstalkers photography forum, and quote heavily from media photographers denying that manipulation and staging took place. And while the much-respected Tim Fadek can say all he wants that the scene in Qana wasn't staged, and other photographers choose to take his observations as fact, when I see with my own eyes on YouTube that it was indeed directed by none other than Mr. Green Helmet himself, I have every right to doubt the veracity of Mr. Fadek and other photographers that denied Qana was staged, along with the media organizations that try to act that such compelling evidence of malfeasance does not exist.
I suspect that Mitchell's next groundbreaking column will expose that according to interviews with inmates at San Quentin, 99% are actually innocent.
This E&P editorial chooses to dodge the real issues of the media's vetting of the accuracy of the stories and photographs that they chose to print coming out of Lebanon and other venues, just as they dodged how so many pictures and events ever had reason to be questioned in the first place.
Bob also makes sure there is some historical perspective on Mitchell's politically motivated hackery, which he is trying desperately to project onto those who rightfully question the accuracy of faked news. As I responded in comments yesterday: Mitchell's opinion appears to be that is just so unfair that people demand accuracy and truth instead of just reading the media approved truthiness.
Editor & Publisher has long been considered the “bible” of the newspaper industry. You can find the trade magazine on every desk of every senior newspaper in the nation.
Mitchell came of age during Watergate and the Vietnam War, and he still lives in that era, as I noted myself some months ago. He seems to have a following, too. Otherwise, he would’t be where he has been for so long. Bottom line: Look at Mitchell, and you can get a sense of how lots of senior editors think — just like him.