Ted Koppel Speaks Out On The Current State Of The Media

[Conan71]

Ted Koppel shares his views on the "new" media, news becoming entertainment, and how it used to be.  It's a great introspective and honest piece from one of the more respected jouralists of our time.  When you have the time, read the whole article.  This was from about a month ago in the WaPo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202857_2.html

"Much of the American public used to gather before the electronic hearth every evening, separate but together, while Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith offered relatively unbiased accounts of information that their respective news organizations believed the public needed to know. The ritual permitted, and perhaps encouraged, shared perceptions and even the possibility of compromise among those who disagreed.

It was an imperfect, untidy little Eden of journalism where reporters were motivated to gather facts about important issues. We didn't know that we could become profit centers. No one had bitten into that apple yet.

The transition of news from a public service to a profitable commodity is irreversible. Legions of new media present a vista of unrelenting competition. Advertisers crave young viewers, and these young viewers are deemed to be uninterested in hard news, especially hard news from abroad. This is felicitous, since covering overseas news is very expensive. On the other hand, the appetite for strongly held, if unsubstantiated, opinion is demonstrably high. And such talk, as they say, is cheap."

[nathanm]

Ironic, considering Koppel was one of the fools in the media taken in by the Iraq WMD claims.

[Conan71]

Ironic, considering Koppel was one of the fools in the media taken in by the Iraq WMD claims.

Bill Clinton ("Larry, I know without a doubt there was missing WMD's in Iraq the day I left office") was taken in as well and I think he had a much higher security clearance than Mr. Koppel.  What's your point?

[dbacks fan]

Ironic, considering Koppel was one of the fools in the media taken in by the Iraq WMD claims.

IIRC there were a lot of people not only in the media, but the public in general as well that were taken in by the WMD stories.

[Conan71]

History is interesting, sometimes a refresher course is in order.

Former President Clinton puts a clear explaination and perspective on it before it was politically expedient campaign material for the '04 election. 

LOL! Algore blasts Bush I for failing to recognize Iraq's ties to terrorism.  I'm sure you will be asleep long before you get through this dullard's speech:

[dbacks fan]

Thanks, Conan, I thought it went way back even to the Regan/Bush era. (Charlie Wilson?)

[Red Arrow]

Saddam was so afraid of Al Gore that Saddam became a changed man just before W's inauguration.

[nathanm]

The outing of Valerie Plame in response to Joe Wilson's NYT column about how he could find no evidence that Iraqis had purchased yellowcake from Niger made it very clear that the allegations were all a bunch of BS. As did Bush telling the inspectors who couldn't find anything to GTFO or be killed in the invasion. As did the military neglecting to secure Saddam's caches of high explosives, which had been under UN seal for some time. Or continuing to this day to allow the Saudis to fund al Qaeda. I honestly have no idea what was behind the decision to go to war with Iraq, but the claimed justification makes no sense in light of those events.

It was eerily similar to Bush refusing to take the Taliban up on their offer to serve up OBL to a third country for prosecution.

In both cases the recipients of our military force deserved what was coming to them, but in both cases the invasions ended up making things worse in terms of global security by throwing the countries further into chaos.

At least we learned our lesson and now bomb places secretly without taking out the governments. The Wikileaks cables confirm that we have been using that strategy in Yemen and Pakistan for a while now. It seems to work better that way.

And Conan, you do realize that what is the case in 1998 may not remain the case in 2003?

Anyway, I think we can all agree that in light of North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons, our focus was clearly on the wrong places.

[Gaspar]

Anyway, I think we can all agree that in light of North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons, our focus was clearly on the wrong places.

. . . and still is.

[Conan71]

And Conan, you do realize that what is the case in 1998 may not remain the case in 2003?

Someone forgot to tell President Clinton that apparently.  He was saying the same thing five years later.

A whole lot of history and bi-partisan support for the Iraq invasion suggests there was a pretty sound basis for there being WMD in Iraq in addition to Hussein's increasingly erratic behavior.  Personally, if I had been the man in charge at the time, I would have sat on Saddam and kept him on a very very short leash until Afghanistan was more stable.  Bush made one gross miscalculation: They thought they could do what needed to be done in Iraq in six months to a year.  What they didn't count on was mass insurgency and unrest which went on for years.  If Iraq had been done in less than a year, President Bush would have come out looking brilliant.

Plame/Wilson = political shenanigans, nothing more, nothing less.  It was meant to whip up the anti-war base for the Democrats in 2004.  Joe Wilson was a political operative, not a CIA operative.  

[Hoss]

Plame/Wilson = political shenanigans, nothing more, nothing less.  It was meant to whip up the anti-war base for the Democrats in 2004.

Really?  Is that why someone sits in jail right now over it?  Is that why President Bush refused to pardon that person?

It surprises me that you act so blazè about something that put a CIA operative in danger.  If it would have happened during Obama's presidency, and it was proven that a staff member of VP Biden had outed a CIA asset, would you have been so blazè about it?

While I don't disagree that it was political, I'm just a little taken aback that, and this is the way it appears to me, you would take such a 'meh' attitude about something that compromised an American intelligence worker.

[Conan71]

Really?  Is that why someone sits in jail right now over it?  Is that why President Bush refused to pardon that person?

It surprises me that you act so blazè about something that put a CIA operative in danger.  If it would have happened during Obama's presidency, and it was proven that a staff member of VP Biden had outed a CIA asset, would you have been so blazè about it?

While I don't disagree that it was political, I'm just a little taken aback that, and this is the way it appears to me, you would take such a 'meh' attitude about something that compromised an American intelligence worker.

Scooter Libby isn't sitting in jail.  His sentence (30 months, 250K fine, 400 hours community service) was commuted by President Bush to remove the 30 months of in-house.  Apparently President Bush felt that perjury and obstruction of justice charges were significant and he should not be pardoned thus clearing his record and good name.  As a result he was disbarred.  Keep in mind, Libby was convicted of perjury and it's been universally agreed that Richard Armitage of the State Dept. "outed" Plame in the first place, not Libby, not Karl Rove, not Dick Cheney.  Even Armitage has admitted as much and stated that Patrick Fitzgerald knew this but still went after Libby.  

Valerie Plame did not have high level clearance at the time of the "outing" and her importance to the CIA was over-blown in the haste to try and indict someone, anyone in the Bush/Cheney White House for "outing" her.  She was never in danger and it's suggested the agency outed her years before this episode to the Soviets and to Cuba.  Joe Wilson's trip, it appears, was at the urging of his wife.  Why on earth would the CIA send an ambassador to do the job of a spook?  What does this ambassador do upon returning from the trip?  Writes an op-ed piece which would have a far more deleterious impact on national security and an attempt to embarrass our reasoning for going to war in Iraq.  Plame and Wilson are political whores.  Now they've cashed in on their, uh, notoriety with a web site, book, and now a movie which has been panned as being largely fabricated.  Total slime.

Even more of a black eye to these two attention and money-grubbing miscreants is the DOJ under Obama saying they have no basis whatsoever to re-file their civil suit against anyone regarding her "outing".

A couple of completely morally bankrupt whine-bags:

http://www.wilsonsupport.org/

Here's recent pieces from WaPo regarding the inaccuracies and outright fabrications of the film and more importantly their "story":

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2010/12/valerie_plame_film_panned_agai.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120306298.html

Now, I have to ask, why are you taking such a "meh" attitude on two people who severely damaged our nation's standing amongst global peers for personal and political gain?

[nathanm]

Joe Wilson's trip, it appears, was at the urging of his wife.  

There is zero evidence of that.

[Conan71]

There is zero evidence of that.

Really?  It's only been restated hundreds of times.

"An internal government memo addresses some of the mysteries at the center of the White House leak investigation and could help investigators in the search for who disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, according to two people familiar with the memo.

The memo, prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel, details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Ms. Plame, a member of the agency's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested at the meeting that her husband, Africa expert and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, could be sent to Niger to investigate the reports, according to current and former government officials familiar with the meeting at the CIA's Virginia headquarters. Soon after, midlevel CIA officials decided to send him, say intelligence officials.

Classified memos, like the one describing Ms. Plame's role, have limited circulation and investigators are likely to question all those known to have received it. Intelligence officials haven't denied Ms. Plame was involved in the decision to send Mr. Wilson, but they have said she was not "responsible" for the decision."

http://cryptome.org/plame-memo.htm

[Hoss]

Now, I have to ask, why are you taking such a "meh" attitude on two people who severely damaged our nation's standing amongst global peers for personal and political gain?

You really have to ask that given who was in the WH from 2001-2009?  I think GW did PLENTY to damage our standing there, C.

But if you condone putting CIA operatives at risk, no matter their status in the agency, go ahead.  I'm sure, like I said, if this had happened either during Clinton's watch, or during our current President's watch, then the R's would have been calling for heads to roll.