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When Those Pesky Blogs Undermine NPR News

NPR’s Jeffrey Dvorkin [1] is in full butt-kissing mode, here:

First, it is essential to report on government documents. But in this case, publishing the unedited report (albeit unintentionally) could have — and could yet — threaten peoples’ lives. There are times when editors have to make a difficult choice between the public’s right to know and the risk of endangering lives. But this was not one of those instances. NPR was right to remove the documents from its Web site once it became clear that the full version could be accessed.

Second, the blogosphere has proven once again to be an amoral place with few rules. The consequences for misbehavior are still vague. The possibility of civic responsibility remains remote. It is a place where the philosophy of “who posts first, wins” predominates.

Are all newspeople such geldings, or do they only manage to grow reproduction equipment when making those right of center look bad?

Whatever happened, I wonder, to the idea… the newsman’s creed, the foundational concept of news people that was so famously put forward during the era of the Pentegon papers, and Watergate, that news orgs were supposed to dig for facts, and release them whatever the costs? Even to the point of going to the USSC?

Was Woodstein held to this standard, for example? Was the NYT in the PAPERS case?

By comparison to these, NPR had the facts right under their held-high noses, and didn’t bother to look at it, much less release the information contained on their very own website.

I dunno bout you, but I call that falling down on the job. Now why would you defend such an action? Or Inaction, as you will?

What would cause you to ignore such a difference?… Oh, wait… what am I thinking… Woodstein had the excuse of having a Republican as a target… a Republican who would have been hurt, not helped by the facts being dug for and thus exposed.  The NYT, similarly, by such digging and release of such info he found, managed to give the military a black eye. Not only was this found praiseworthy amongts the press, he got the Times to back him on it, and pay the legal costs involved.

No such excuse here.  Digging, in this case, would have shown the world that the soldiers at that checkpoint, did their jobs correctly, and it was the communist who was lying.

Now, so far in this discussion, we’re assuming, generously, that you didn’t dig and therefore didn’t know, NPR. Perhaps being less generous to the motives, one might assume you didn’t dig for the info because you already did know, and didn’t pass on that information? Either way…..What selective morality you have.

Let’s call is like it looks; It looks to those of us not on the government’s dole… such as yourself at NPR… that your supposed news org didn’t bother digging because you didn’t WANT the real answer. After all, making the Military action in Iraq look good isn’t on the agenda of any of the leftist MSM in general, and certainly not NPR in particular.

So, please… Jeffy boy……spare us your moral outrage about blogs and their supposed transgressions against the code, and spare us your whining about standards. Spare us too,the self-rightious and self-serving lectures from you about lives under threat because of such release. Wasn’t that one of the big arguments against The Pentegon Papers being printed?

Look, it’s the leftist dominated mainstream press that set that standard years ago, and has held the people involved as demi-gods ever since. Those same standards were applied here. But not by you.

You’re just ticked because Bloggers got the story out the left didn’t want out…. When what you really oughta be is red-faced because they did your job, when you didn’t have the courage to.