Patriotism be damned!

While at the New York Times they are beating their collective breasts, the latest White House scandal has opened wider media issues. There are now serious questions about US media in general, and the White House media gallery in particular.
A couple of years down the track, and an intensive prosecution investigation, the media were caught, at the last, flat footed.
In part, to be fair, Fitzgerald’s ‘tight ship’ kept everyone guessing. Still, media reporting on speculation from other media is not good journalism. If the gallery had been fully engaged with this story along the way the reporting might have been a good deal more professional.
The temptation to raise the spectre of ‘Watergate’ was not passed over. However the fact that the media, led by the Washington Post, put serious resources to that story from the outset kept them well in the loop.
The NYTs should be scourging themselves. Their inside player was playing for the other team and they didn’t notice. Apart from Miller, who was obviously well and truly bought, what happened to the rest?
Is Rove so effective that he can divert journalists from their job? Was it intimidation, payoff or perhaps sleight of hand?
I suspect, well speculation is the flavour of the month, that the Gallery were intimidated by the twaddle about patriotism, security and terror. It is clear that they dropped the ball right back when the lies were first being told. Perhaps they and their publishers were happy to see the media potential of a war.
This is an appalling blot on US media and reporting. Adopted ‘moguls’, such as Murdoch, have turned serious news organisations into ‘infotainment’. Forget the primary roll, give them bread and circus and always look to the bottom line. Their journalists have acquiesced, perhaps fed too long on entertainment as news.

Even the language of the reporting is a second rate rehash of past scandals. Like the stunned rabbits, caught by the glare, the writers are simply rolling out the tired phrases of the past. It isn’t even good entertainment.
The irony is the lies of the war, underlying this scandal, were exposed in other ‘allied’ countries. Of course the rhetoric of war overshadowed the truth, but at least it was out there.
Even Murdoch’s Australian and British holdings had to report the truth, albeit with their customary bias. It did not change the outcome, but it didn’t harm the media or journalists in those countries either.
There was a healthy discussion, right at the start, about the value of embedded journalists. Neither of the countries mentioned went down that path. The journalist ethics would simply not tolerate it.
The media have led the fight against Australia’s own neo cons ramming draconian anti terror laws through parliament.
Exposure, exposure, exposure! Sooner or later it pays off and the truth filters through the mind numbing tabloid twaddle.
Patriotism be damned! Or as Oliver Hardy would have it “this is another fine mess you have gotten us into”.