Greenwald

Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?

My comments to the above article, sent to Bill Keller (at the NY Times) via email:

“but I think most readers trust us more because they sense that we have done due diligence, not just made a case.” – Bill Keller

Oh, you could not be more wrong on that.

In 2002, I worked as an audiologist (still do) and I had a six year old notebook computer and a dial-up AOL connection. In 2002, I figured out (as did millions of others around the world) that Iraq did not have WMDs and that the whole Bush administration push for war was nothing but a pack of lies. Now, you may think that this does not matter on how I and others view the NYT and other corporate media, but you would be completely and totally wrong. I see the NYT and most other corporate American “news” media as very untrustworthy. I see them as accessories to mass murder. And in the years since 2002, that opinion has only gotten stronger.

On the other hand, I always have trusted Greenwald. He gets the data out there. He identifies his sources. I also trust McClatchy’s (formerly Knight-Ridder) because they also have proven to be factual. I trust Amy Goodman and her news show Democracy Now, again because they have shown that they are factual. Furthermore, they have shown that they think killing innocent people IS A VERY BIG DEAL AND IT IS HORRIBLE NO MATTER WHO DOES IT FOR WHATEVER REASON.

The NYT is often not factual. Time and again, they get things wrong and think a quick “sorry” will re-establish trust. I do not care if you are “fair” or “liberal” – I care whether the information you present is accurate and reliable.  I care whether you identify your sources and methods. I find that the NYT is often neither accurate or reliable or truthful. And furthermore, I think they have a pretty callous attitude to innocent people who are killed or injured when the criminal happens to be the US government. They tend to make excuses for this evil behavior if it is someone in a US agency or the US military that does the violence. For example, take a look at the NYT reports on Malala getting shot by the Taliban verses the three Afghan children killed by US drone on the very same day.

I do not trust the NYT anymore.

“But it’s simplistic to say, for example, unless you use the word “torture” you are failing a test of courage, or covering up evil.” – Bill Keller

I do not agree. If you can call what another country does as “torture” then you can use the very same word when the USA does the very same thing. This is not “simplistic” - this is honestly. And a lack of doing that shows hypocrisy, a great deal of hypocrisy, at best. Like you, “I’m happy — and fully equipped — to draw my own conclusion.”

I do agree with Greenwald’s positions on many things, but I also have differences of opinion with Greenwald’s political positions and other opinions he has stated. That does not matter much in my eyes, what matters is that he is reporting the facts as best as he can and identifying his sources (or his reasoning) while doing so. Greenwald also has a store of historical data (including recent data) at his command. And, like I said, I can draw my own conclusions.

Returning to the example of not using the world “torture” when the USA was clearly doing torture (still going on, by the way, and the report on this is being blocked by Obama), this inspired me to draw the conclusion that the NYT is not being forthcoming and honest. Add to that the lack of historical reference (like the US government condemned Japan in the 1940s for the exact same kind of torture that we have done in the past ten years), and it really does inspire me to draw the conclusion that you are interested in either making the USA look good and/or the White House happy. And I don’t know if it is from a lack of courage or some other reason, but the yearly White House Press dinner gala does give me some ideas. As you can see, I drew my own conclusions, and this includes the conclusion that I cannot rely on the NYT to inform me about what my government is actually doing in a straightforward and clear manner.

In the example that Greenwald presented in his letter regarding Burns beliefs about the upcoming Iraq war, I too wished Burns had stated his beliefs and position. Not because doing so would make me think he was an “activist” – rather, I would have thought he was a world class fool. (Well, actually, I did and still do think he is a fool for the most part, but that would have REALLY confirmed it.)

I want factual accuracy and I want all the details about what the US government is doing during my lifetime. That will never change. The NYT provided that back when I was in my teens and 20s, but it has not done so in the last ten plus years.

The idea that David Brooks puts “reason over passion” sure gave me a laugh (it does show that you have a point of view, though, a point of view which I think is rather detached from reality). I doubt that Brooks would recognize reason even if it hit him over the head. He sure does know passion though. What Brooks does is passionately promote the well-being of the corporate entities and the politically powerful elites that pay him very well to do exactly that, all the while showing a total blindness to what life is really like outside the bubble of DC, and maintaining the overall status-quo. (No, they don’t pay him directly. But they do pay him.) You can bet your last dollar that Brooks never saw the Occupy Wall Street movement coming and that he (to this very day) has no idea what Occupy movement really meant.

And I think that the recent follies in DC (the shutdown and potential default) are, on the whole, a good thing. It shows just how dysfunctional and corrupt our government really is, and it makes the whole thing very public. I do not think we will get rid of the corruption in DC among the wealthy political elite and their “buddies” in the corporate media and elsewhere, until the whole thing falls apart. And we are going to face that one day, along with another economic collapse and an even more serious environmental collapse. But I am sure that all that will catch the majority of the NYT staff, including you, by surprise. I see it as unavoidable, so I believe that the sooner it happens, the better.

I don’t know if Greenwald is “the future of news” but he is surely one of the few reporters that I will continue to read and support for as long as I live and as long as Greenwald reports.