Saturday - October 13, 2007

Biased Reporting on the Speech Given by General Sanchez-How the Media Lied

If you looked at the headlines splashed across the world by our media concerning General Sanchez's Iraq speech, they screamed FAILURE and NIGHTMARE. You can see some examples that I included in this article.

Yet, interestingly, the biased and leftist media decidedly did not report on most of what the General had to say. The full transcript of his speech can be found here. Unfortunately, the transcript is presented entirely in upper case. I've attempted format it correctly, but be warned that there are bound to be some mistakes, though the meaning of Sanchez's remarks should be clear and have not been tampered with.

Today, I will attempt to do two things - first I will give you my assessment of the military and press relationship and then I will provide you some thoughts on the current state of our war effort. as all of you know I have a wide range of relationships and experiences with our nations military writers and editors. there are some in your ranks who I consider to be the epitome of journalistic professionalism - Joe Galloway, Thom Shanker, Sig christensen, and John Burns immediately come to mind. they exemplify what America should demand of our journalists - tough reporting that relies upon integrity, objectivity and fairness to give accurate and thorough accounts that strengthen our freedom of the press and in turn our democracy. On the other hand, unfortunately, i have issued ultimatums to some of you for unscrupulous reporting that was solely focused on supporting your agenda and preconcieved notions of what our military had done. I also refused to talk to the European Stars and Stripes for the last two years of my command in Germany for their extreme bias and single minded focus on Abu Gharaib.

Let me review some of the descriptive phrases that have been used by some of you that have made my personal interfaces with the press corps difficult:

"dictatorial and somewhat dense",

"not a strategic thought",

liar,

"does not get it" and

the most inexperienced ltg.

In some cases I have never even met you, yet you feel qualified to make character judgments that are communicated to the world. My experience is not unique and we can find other examples such as the treatment of secretary Brown during Katrina. This is the worst display of journalism imaginable by those of us that are bound by a strict value system of selfless service, honor and integrity. almost invariably, my perception is that the sensationalistic value of these assessments is what provided the edge that you seek for self agrandizement or to advance your individual quest for getting on the front page with your stories! As i understand it, your measure of worth is how many front page stories you have written and unfortunately some of you will compromise your integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed. This is much like the intelligence analysts whose effectiveness was measured by the number of intelligence reports he produced. For some, it seems that as long as you get a front page story there is little or no regard for the "collateral damage" you will cause. Personal reputations have no value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct.

Given the near instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry. an arab proverb states - "four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity." Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change. other major challenges are your willingness to be manipulated by "high level officials" who leak stories and by lawyers who use hyperbole to strenghten their arguments. Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda driven biases contribute to this corrosive environment. All of these challenges combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America. Over the course of this war tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for America because of the tremendous power and impact of the media and by extension you the journalist. In many cases the media has unjustly destroyed the individual reputations and careers of those involved. We realize that because of the near real time reporting environment that you face it is difficult to report accurately. In my business one of our fundamental truths is that "the first report is always wrong." Unfortunately, in your business "the first report" gives Americans who rely on the snippets of CNN, if you will, their "truths" and perspectives on an issue. as a corollary to this deadline driven need to publish "initial impressions or observations" versus objective facts there is an additional challenge for us who are the subject of your reporting. when you assume that you are correct and on the moral high ground on a story because we have not respond to questions you provided is the ultimate arrogance and distortion of ethics. one of your highly repected fellow journalists once told me that there are some amongst you who "feed from a pig's trough." if that is who I am dealing with then i will never respond otherwise we will both get dirty and the pig will love it. This does not mean that your story is accurate.

I do not believe that this is what our forefathers intended. The code of ethics for the society of professional journalists states:

...public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. the duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility

the basic ethics of a journalist that calls for:

1. seeking truth,

2. providing fair and comprehensive account of events and issues

3. thoroughness and honesty

All are victims of the massive agenda driven competition for economic or political supremacy. The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war.

My assessment is that your profession, to some extent, has strayed from these ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the american public sees on tv, what they read in our newspapers and what they see on the web. for some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconcieved notions, biases and agendas.

It is astounding to me when i hear the vehement disagreement with the military's forays into information operations that seek to disseminate the truth and inform the Iraqi people in order to counter our enemy's blatant propaganda. As I assess various media entities, some are unquestionably engaged in political propaganda that is uncontrolled. there is no question in my mind that the strength our democracy and our freedoms remain linked to your ability to exercise freedom of the press - I adamantly support this basic foundation of our democracy and completely supported the embedding of media into our formations up until my last day in uniform. The issue is one of maintaining professional ethics and standards from within your institution. Military leaders must accept that these injustices will happen and whether they like what you print or not they must deal with you and enable you, if you are an ethical journalist.

Finally, I will leave this subject with a question that we must ask ourselves--who is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of the profession in order to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be threatened by this dangerous shift away from your sacred duty of public enlightenment?

Wow, as the pictures I have included show, the mainstream, leftist media, failed to report upon this part of Sanchez's speech. If America's media was unbiased, we the people would have seen headlines that said, "Sanchez Blasts Media for its Bias" or "Sanchez Hints American Media is Unpatriotic." 

Nope, our wonderfully leftist media lied to and mislead the American people by failing to honestly report the facts. Because as the General noted, journalists allow their message to be colored by their political leanings. 

The General compared the media to "pigs". He referred to the media's "agenda." He called the media's reporting on Iraq "unscrupulous." He accuses the media of destroying "reputations" based on half-truths and rumors. And he charges the media of "perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members...."

And let's get this straight. The General is not accusing the media of a conservative political agenda. He all but said the media is pursuing a leftist political agenda that is undermining the United States during a time of war. Dare I say he just called the media lying unpatriotic scumbags.

And yet our leftist media ran this with story. Even though the General accused them of criminal ethics, of being unpatriotic, of leaking secrets, and killing American soldiers, they just had to report and spin this story to promote their political agenda. To do so, they just had to lie and omit one half of his speech . Talk about being scumbags with no ethics.

And let's be honest, the last part of the General's speech does criticize the post-invasion policies of the Bush administration. And for my leftist readers, he is right. The military strategy that toppled the Taliban and Hussein was nothing short of brilliant. The post war reconstruction of Afghanistan and especially Iraq was pitiful. In fact, the Bush Administration must have made no post-war reconstruction plans at all. Not to dust off the Marshall Plan and look at the reconstruction of both Germany and Japan was a blunder of nearly unforgivable proportions.   Bush should be roundly criticized for this grand failure to not turn success into a triumph.

But, another part of Sanchez's speech, that the leftist media downplayed was this paragraph:

America has no choice but to continue our efforts in iraq. A precipitous withdrawal will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the greater middle east. If this occurs it would have significant adverse effects on the international community. Coalition and american force presence will be required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand strategy we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the iraqis maximum ability to exercise their soveriegnty in achieving a solution.

One thing that is disappointing though, is that the General offers no introspection. Why didn't he push for a coherent reconstruction plan? As the commander in Iraq, his opinion would have been given great weight. And no doubt, if he had pushed for, or had he on his own his, which his purview would have allowed, instituted some of the reforms he now suggests, the current Iraq situation might have turned out differently.

But the bottom line on this story is that America's biased media failed to honestly report all the facts or we now know they only report the facts that fit their political agenda. And that agenda, is an unpatriotic agenda. Oh, and I bet the left really had to hold their collective noses, as here is how the General finished his speech: "May God bless you and may God bless America. Praise be to the Lord my rock who trains my fingers for battle and my hands for war."

Trackposted to Blue Star Chronicles, Faultline USA, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and Right Truth, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Author: The Machiavellian
Technorati Tags: Sanchez media bias leftists
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