... the major newsgathering organizations aren't sending people to Kandahar, Peshawar, and out to frontiers, where they aren't being kidnapped or killed?
That is precisely why there are very few "real" journalists. Because it is dangerous and expensive to send people to investigate half-way across the world. That is why most (at least) American news organizations just pass along un-edited propaganda released by Dept. of State.
Often they'll write "an offical from Dept. of State said..<blah>" and people are so used to hearing that, they believe <blah> automatically. It is an official, it is from a major news org and from Dept. of State -- wow, it couldn't possibly be a lie.
There are very few honest and idependent news organizations with "real" journalists. News companies are not there to provide news for money, they are there to sell audiences to their advertising client and make money mostly from that.
Even the military "embedded" journalists are "embedded" into one side. It is rather naive to expect them to be objective.
I will highlight again, that there are few brave journalists who risk /risked their lives and died in order to provide accurate reports of the situation. But those are very rare exceptions.
Now you provide a link to "Slate" where Kaplan claims that Wikileaks is not real "journalism" because the news wasn't shocking enough and of course everyone should go to slate.com where real journalists report.
Let's take a look at a couple of his quotes:
These problems were, in fact, the main reasons behind the new strategy that Obama put in place in December 2009—after the period covered by all of the WikiLeaks documents, which date from 2004-09.
That is true because ... that is what Obama said. It is the standard claim being broadcast from the White House now -- "Obama is already handling this!". I've heard this already on the radio and read in other sources. Note how Kaplan just assumes that as the truth and directly quotes the White House. So if Obama has already fixed all this, can we see some results or some documents, some proof that situation got better?
Let's look at another quote:
Journalism, the old saw has it, is the first draft of history. The WikiLeaks documents amount to the first notes of a journalistic story, and incomplete notes at that.
He seems to be saying that everyone instead of getting the un-edited data, should get the "filtered" data, interpreted by someone. Someone who would put the "right spin" on things, perhaps.
I am not surprised. He is just defending his profession and his modus operandi. He sees journalists as writing history and here is some renegade kids with a website disrupting the age old process. Bypassing all the filters so carefully put in place over the years. I can see how he would be less than sympathetic.
That is precisely why there are very few "real" journalists. Because it is dangerous and expensive to send people to investigate half-way across the world. That is why most (at least) American news organizations just pass along un-edited propaganda released by Dept. of State.
Often they'll write "an offical from Dept. of State said..<blah>" and people are so used to hearing that, they believe <blah> automatically. It is an official, it is from a major news org and from Dept. of State -- wow, it couldn't possibly be a lie.
There are very few honest and idependent news organizations with "real" journalists. News companies are not there to provide news for money, they are there to sell audiences to their advertising client and make money mostly from that.
Even the military "embedded" journalists are "embedded" into one side. It is rather naive to expect them to be objective.
I will highlight again, that there are few brave journalists who risk /risked their lives and died in order to provide accurate reports of the situation. But those are very rare exceptions.
Now you provide a link to "Slate" where Kaplan claims that Wikileaks is not real "journalism" because the news wasn't shocking enough and of course everyone should go to slate.com where real journalists report.
Let's take a look at a couple of his quotes:
These problems were, in fact, the main reasons behind the new strategy that Obama put in place in December 2009—after the period covered by all of the WikiLeaks documents, which date from 2004-09.
That is true because ... that is what Obama said. It is the standard claim being broadcast from the White House now -- "Obama is already handling this!". I've heard this already on the radio and read in other sources. Note how Kaplan just assumes that as the truth and directly quotes the White House. So if Obama has already fixed all this, can we see some results or some documents, some proof that situation got better?
Let's look at another quote:
Journalism, the old saw has it, is the first draft of history. The WikiLeaks documents amount to the first notes of a journalistic story, and incomplete notes at that.
He seems to be saying that everyone instead of getting the un-edited data, should get the "filtered" data, interpreted by someone. Someone who would put the "right spin" on things, perhaps.
I am not surprised. He is just defending his profession and his modus operandi. He sees journalists as writing history and here is some renegade kids with a website disrupting the age old process. Bypassing all the filters so carefully put in place over the years. I can see how he would be less than sympathetic.