Domestic Lying - Questions Journalists Don't Ask

[Wind Dancer]

by Norman Solomon

January 29, 2006

With great fanfare, Oprah Winfrey asked James Frey a question that mainstream journalists refuse to ask George W. Bush: "Why would you lie?"

Many pundits and news outlets chortled at the unmasking of Frey as a liar. The reverberations spanned from schlock media to highbrow outlets. On Jan. 27, the same day that the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" devoted an entire segment to what happened, the New York Times supplemented its page-one coverage with an editorial that concluded "Ms. Winfrey gave the audience, including us, what it was hoping for: a demand to hear the truth."

A key reality of the National Security Agency spying story is: President Bush lied. But routinely missing from media coverage is a demand to hear the truth.

More than two years after he started the NSA's domestic spying without warrants, Bush was unequivocal. During a speech in Buffalo on April 20, 2004, he said: "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

Frey lied about his personal life in a book, and that infuriated Oprah Winfrey. "It is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped," she said, confronting him in the midst of the Jan. 26 telecast. "I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

Yet the journalists who interview Bush aren't willing to question him in similar terms.

The president didn't merely betray millions of readers. He betrayed hundreds of millions of citizens.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=9614

[JuniperLea]

1. To be fair to journalists...

If they ask the tough questions, they won't be allowed to ask another. If their life's business is covering politics, that would cut them out of the loop and out of a job.


I would, however, like to see a Town Hall Meeting... just folk. Just the "yous and mes"... no loyalty oath!

[yurbud]

4. if journalists cut off from pols, they would be forced to do RESEARCH

and if the results were damning enough, the pols would be knocking on their door to get their pov on the record.

For a lot of papers and all national TV, I think you would be fired for asking the question.

But it would be fun to go out in blaze of glory with one of these:

What part of 9/11 didn't go as planned?

Have you ever had sex with Jeff Gannon, Victor Ashe, or any other man?

Did you pay for a girlfriend's abortion?

Are you proud of your grandfather hiding money for the nazis during and after World War II?

Why did you check that you did NOT volunteer to go to Vietnam on your enlistment papers? Did you oppose the war, were you a coward, or just lazy?

After you invaded Iraq, you said one of the reasons was because he hadn't let the UN weapons inspectors back in when in fact he had. Did Karl write a script for the whole conflict and not bother to change it when Saddam didn't follow it?

Would you be willing to undo any restructuring of Iraq's oil industry that you did to benefit our oil companies if it would show the insurgents we aren't there to steal their oil, which would probably save the lives of some of our troops?

Why did you support a recall and coup of a president democratically elected with international election monitors? Does your support of democracy stop when it conflicts with your friends business plans?

[EST]

2. Isn't it strange...

I'd never heard of this clown, his book, or anything else of this "widespread" controversy until the wild scramblings around its outing.

My oh my, if the voting public had any small fraction of its outrage for this feckless but apparently skillful author in reserve for the far more important lies of a marauding majority, this country would be not nearly so doomed.

[Wind Dancer]

3. I wasn't aware of this "widespread" controversy either.

The corporate owned "media" have succeeded in keeping the people distracted from the real issues. They are guilty of promoting an illegal war, false elections and government propaganda. How many "journalists" are actually undercover for CIA or other secret agencies?