Statement on Intellectual Honesty

Hey,

this post will be rather short as it is merely a reaction to current events. If anyone disagrees with my assessment and interpretation, feel free to point out the flaws in my argumentation. Again, if you are unable to back your views up, I will make fun of you.

Media has in a democracy an absolutely vital role in that the media informs the public and keeps an eye on elected officials. My thesis is that the American media's bias has become so overwhelming that it can no longer fulfill that function. For further reading on this topic I recommend the book "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg.

Because the issue of media bias is so immense, consider that Goldberg has so far written two books on this issue, I will focus on what the media covers and the current Dan Rather controversy.
The various news and media outlets are faced daily by a plethora of news items that need to be covered. A decision then has to be made on what to cover and who to interview. The media's bias here becomes transparent. The Today show on September 13th interviewed in the first hour two authors who wrote anti-Bush books. The second interview was on a woman who claimed that the President snorted cocaine in Camp David, a claim that has been since dismissed as ludicrous with the author's own sources disputing that it ever happened (www.lauraingraham.com is my source on this).

In the last months the Today show gave a lot of airtime to authors criticizing the Bush administration, even ignoring or downplaying evidence disputing those authors' claims. At the same time the Today show not once interviewed Sean Hannity who wrote two New York Times bestellers and Mr. O'Neill who wrote "Unfit for Command" a book that disputes John Kerry's Vietnam claims and which currently is the #1 bestseller on the New York Times. Also, "Vietnam Veterans for Kerry" are frequently mentioned and their activities covered. "Vietnam Veterans for Truth," a group critical of Kerry recently staged a demonstration - which then was ignored by the media. If these people were true journalists, they would look at all sides and report on all strength and flaws regardless of political affiliation. This, the media does not do and in so doing they have let down this country. Today's journalists are not worthy of that name.

The current media crisis has been brought to a point by Dan Rather. Rather broke the story that Bush's commander in the National Guard had suspended Bush because Bush had not obeyed an order to get a physical exam. Rather's evidence were typed memos taken from the commander's file. The problem with this is that the commander's family have now come out to say that the commander a) did not type b) did not keep that kind of records and c) had a high regard for Bush as an officer and pilot. A closer inspection of the memos also revealed that they were written in a font that didn't exist in 1971, when they were supposed to have been written, and that the margins were justified - an ability that government typewriters at that time did not have. In fact, it appears that those memos were written on a PC with Microsoft Word. A good journalist, or at least an intellectually honest one, would have then come out to admit error and investigate the source of those memos. Not Dan Rather. Against all evidence, Rather insists on the authenticity of the documents and appears appalled that anybody would criticize him.

Is this the kind of behavior the modern media wants to condone? Well, they are. I call upon everybody to contact their news outlets (especially CBS and NBC) and complain about media bias. Maybe one day the media will be able to resume their duties as servants to the democracy but until then the media is harming the people by not properly reporting current events.
And Mr. Rather, please just admit for once that you are wrong.

Charles Garman