Tag: Washington Post

Posted on By Patrick Maines

The Human Element of War

If you like your politics unencumbered by doubt, you shouldn’t read Lone Survivor just as the ISIS is retaking parts of Iraq for which Americans once died.  You might have a hard time getting your moral and intellectual bearings at the contrast between the kind of selfless heroism shown by Marcus Luttrell and the Seals who fought and died in Afghanistan, with the seeming futility of the American campaign in Iraq.

Among the troublesome thoughts: Why did we invade Iraq?  Was it worth the loss of so many lives on both sides in a region of the world where the historical, religious, and cultural traditions are so relentlessly hostile to western values?  What will become of Afghanistan when the last of the U.S. troops leave?  Is the U.S. position in that part of the world stronger or weaker this many years later?

Make no mistake, not everyone will be so conflicted.  Certainly not the armchair warriors in some think tanks and media outlets.  For them, as for so many, the human sacrifices are bloodless things, little more than data or wooden pieces on a chessboard.

It’s only when you read the true stories of their lives and deaths, as with Luttrell’s harrowing account of a Seal mission deep inside Afghanistan in Lone Survivor, or when, as with the publication by the AP in 2009 of a photo of a dying Marine, Joshua Bernard, that the human element of such campaigns comes to light.

Much as we can marvel at the heroism of the Marcus Luttrells, we can see, even in Luttrell’s own account of things, hints of futility and contradiction.  The white-hot hatred of the U.S. military, for instance, among so many of the native mountain villagers, including those not allied with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and the remarkable courage of a Pashtun tribe who, at extraordinary risk to their own lives, sheltered and protected the wounded Luttrell even after the Taliban knew he was among them.  (Indeed, even after U.S. warplanes, searching for Luttrell, bombed areas of the countryside so close to the Pashtun tribe protecting him it damaged some of their houses!)

According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (icasualties.com), between 2003 and 2012 Operation Iraqi Freedom cost the lives of more than 4,400 American military personnel, and an additional 400 lives of allies, British for the most part.  In the same report it’s recorded that the first American fatality, in March 2003, was Lieutenant Therrel Shane Childers.  Childers was 30 years old when he was killed in action in southern Iraq.

Apart from a brief mention by NPR, and some obituaries in his and his parents’ local papers, not much was reported about Childers’s life or death.  Little or nothing in the big-city newspapers or the broadcast networks.  And more’s the pity, because it’s this, the human element in war, which has to be chronicled!  It simply isn’t good enough for the media to reduce wartime casualties to the language of partisan politics or geopolitical constructs.

In a recent blog in the Washington Post, Ed Rogers counsels Republicans to follow Sen. Rand Paul’s, rather than Dick Cheney’s, take on what the United States should do next in Iraq.  Whatever we do, or don’t do, it would be a good idea for the MSM not to overlook the human element in this.  Just as war ought not to be sugar coated, neither should it be reported as though it were a video game without real consequences.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

The WAPO/Koch Brothers/Keystone XL Pipeline Affair

The recent Washington Post story linking the Koch brothers to the Keystone XL Pipeline, via their leaseholds on acreage in the Alberta, Canada, tar sands, is interesting because of what was said in the piece, and because of what its critics have said about it.  But mostly it’s interesting because it’s the kind of flap whose resolution will be an early indication of the kind of editorial product Jeff Bezos wants to own.

In a nutshell, the Post piece, co-authored by reporters Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin, ID’d the Koch brothers as “the biggest lease holders in Canada’s tar sands,” and then suggested that this fact would “inflame the already contentious debate about the Keystone XL Pipeline.”  The authors admit that their article was based on a report produced by a leftwing organization called the International Forum on Globalization, and that it was IFG’s executive director who provided the material on which the WAPO article was based.

Curiously, the co-authors also go on to say in the piece that they don’t really know how many acres of land the Kochs own in Canada, or what they are doing there, and that in fact “the link between Koch and Keystone XL is indirect at best.”

Given that all of this is revealed in the first five paragraphs of the article, one could wonder why the piece was written in the first place, not to mention why it then goes on for another 29.  One answer to that question was provided by lawyer John Hinderaker, who published on PowerLine a devastating rebuttal of the Post piece, complete with evidence that the Kochs are not the largest leaseholders in the tar sands, that they have no interest in the Keystone Pipeline, and that in fact construction of the pipeline would actually hurt their financial interests.  Hinderaker also says this:

Why would the Washington Post embarrass itself by republishing a thoroughly discredited attempt to link the Koch brothers to the Keystone Pipeline?  Because that is a Democratic Party talking point, and the Post is a Democratic Party newspaper.

Writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jack Kelly picks up on this theme, and concludes with the suggestion that “If Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post’s new owner, wants to run a newspaper rather than a Democrat propaganda sheet, he has some housecleaning to do.”

In the face of this kind of criticism, reporter Mufson replied with one of the strangest nonsequiturs in memory:

The PowerLine article, and its tone, is strong evidence that issues surrounding the Koch brothers political and business interests will stir and inflame public debate in this election year.  That’s why we wrote the piece.  (Emphases added)

As Jonah Goldberg subsequently wrote, “By this logic any unfair attack posing as reporting is worthwhile when people try to correct the record.  Why not just … accuse the Kochs of killing JFK or hiding the Malaysian airplane?”

Beyond the facts in dispute there is also the unseemly matter, as Hinderaker describes it, of Judith Eilperin’s (undisclosed) marriage to a man who writes on climate policy for the decidedly partisan Center for American Progress, something that prompts Hinderaker to also wonder if there was any coordination between Eilperin and CAP, or between her and any Democratic congressmen or staff.

Many people are closely watching the Post these days for any sign of a change in the editorial stance in the paper since Bezos acquired it, and there are those who believe they may have spotted something in the decision of the paper to start publishing the libertarian-leaning Volokh Conspiracy blog (which itself questioned the Mufson/Eilperin piece), and in the paper’s decision to pass on the editorial ambitions of Ezra Klein.

But both of those matters concerned opinion writing rather than news reporting, whereas the Mufson/Eilperin article was published as news.

As mentioned here, it would be a surprise if Bezos bought the Post in order to push any kind of political or ideological agenda, but as a businessman he is known to believe in giving customers what they want.  And if that’s the case the article in question must give him pause.

Put it this way:  When the Post was just a print newspaper, distributed mostly in the greater D.C. area with its large majority of registered Democrats, it made business sense to publish a paper that leaned liberal and Democratic.  But in the digital age the paper has the challenge of appealing to people throughout the country, including Republicans and conservatives, few of whom would be attracted by news stories like that of Mufson and Eilperin.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Global Warming and the Chilling of Free Speech

One of the most important, if underreported, defamation cases in recent memory is being mounted by Prof. Michael Mann.  The creator of the controversial “Hockey Stick” graph, Mann is a leading figure among “global warming” scientists, and the targets of his lawsuit are prominent conservatives – the writer Mark Steyn, National Review magazine, the public policy outfit Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and a person who wrote for a CEI publication.

The gravamen of Mann’s suit is that the defendants defamed him by their published comments.  As an example, CEI stated in its initial blog post that Mann “has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science,” while National Review said that “Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.”  Mann further argues that the defendants’ global warming skepticism derives from their financial and political interests.

Successful defamation suits, particularly for a “public person” in a place like Washington, D.C., are very hard to win.  In part, this is because the District of Columbia (along with 28 states) has enacted an anti-SLAPP law that is intended to discourage “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” where the goal of the plaintiff isn’t to win but to intimidate and burden  defendants with the cost of their legal defense.

The other reason such suits are hard to win is because of the substantial and vital editorial latitude given the media, courtesy of the First Amendment.  This explains why the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), joined by 18 other media organizations, including such as Politico, the Washington Post, Dow Jones & Co., and the National Press Club, early on filed an amicus brief in support of the defendants.

For what should have been a relatively simple case, quickly yielding a dismissal of Mann’s suit, Mann vs. Steyn, et al., has been dragging on since fall of 2012.  In part, this is because of appeals of earlier procedural rulings, and also because Mann had to file an amended complaint.  Bottom line: It’s not clear even now if the case will get to the trial stage.  In fact it’s not even clear which court will act next in this case – could be the trial court or the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Adding to the confusion is Mark Steyn’s unhappiness with National Review’s legal strategy, such that he has now dropped out of participation with NR’s lawyers, and is currently representing himself.

So this is a snapshot in time of the murky legal case: Considerably less murky, however, is the larger picture – the one that is painted outside the courtroom, and that has implications not just for the plaintiff and defendants in this case, but for everyone who values freedom of speech.

There is perhaps no issue today that is more hotly debated than global warming, and contrary to Mann’s opinion, this debate rages on not because of the ideological or financial interests of some of the skeptics.  The debate rages on because of so many unanswered questions.

There’s been no global warming for at least 15 years.  Why is that?  Some suggest the heat is hiding at the bottom of oceans.  But whether it’s “hiding” there, or in Al Gore’s house, doesn’t that fact, by itself, prove that the computer models said to predict specific warming timelines are unreliable?

Then there are the vital related questions – beyond the expertise of climate scientists – like the economic impacts of global warming, and its prospective amelioration.  What do climate scientists know about engineering, economics, agronomy, or scores of other disciplines of the sort needed to recommend specific energy policies?

Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that Mann and the warming prophets are right: that anthropogenic warming is occurring; that its net results demand action; that we know what that action should be, and that whatever we did would provide societal results that, on balance, were preferable to doing nothing.

In that case, wouldn’t it be a good idea for climate scientists to attempt at all costs to persuade the public and policymakers to their point of view?  Wouldn’t it seem that defamation suits against people who disagree with you is counterproductive?

Whatever the facts of “climate change,” there’s evidence that few people take global warming seriously. Witness, for instance, the recent WSJ/NBC News poll, which found that, of 13 issues people were asked to rank by priority, “addressing climate change” was dead last.

Writing a comment in reply to a predictable global warming rant in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, one reader volunteered this:

It isn’t the big corporations or dissident scientists that are the problem, it’s the pesky public.  They simply don’t believe the climate change bandwagon.

Why?  Well, one of the biggest reasons is the zealotry of climate change supporters. Arguments that should be factual, with room for disagreement, have become intolerant slanging sessions, with insult and invective traded in place of reason. Even the phrase “deniers” is redolent of a religious movement more than scientific debate….

If climate change believers want to win more support, then it’s time to step back from the barricades and engage with the average man on the street.  Win the argument through persuasion, not rant. We’ve all had enough of that.

                                               

Patrick Maines is president of The Media Institute, and a former assistant publisher of National Review. The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Opinion Journalism vs. Objective News Reporting

The rise of opinion journalism, not just among cable and the newer media but elements of the legacy media as well, magnifies the problem of the dearth of objective news reporting.  About five years ago even the Associated Press announced a turn toward opinion, euphemistically referred to as “accountability journalism,” while the Washington Post and the New York Times have for years now been foundering in the stuff.

Makes one wonder where to turn (outside, perhaps, of the business and financial journals) for investigative and feature news that is not in service to some political party, ideology, or special interest.

And what a loss!  At the very moment that this country desperately needs an independent, credible, and objective press to describe and chronicle the country’s manifest economic problems, there’s practically nobody in the Fourth Estate who commands widespread trust and respect.

For all the talk about the new media, much of it online, is there anyone so credulous as to believe they’re getting unvarnished facts in a “news report” published by such as Slate, Salon, or the Huffington Post?  Or, at the other extreme, by Breitbart, Drudge, or Newsmax?

Nor is there any relief to be found in the product offered up by outlets like Politico, an online journal that has never spotted an issue of such gravity it can’t be covered by resort to rumor, superficiality, and the banalities of horse race journalism.

The complete failure of the media to adequately explain complex policy issues first became unavoidably clear during the presidential election of 2008 when, despite the obvious nature of our economic distress at the time, the media demanded precisely nothing of substance on the subject from McCain or Obama.

This failure has also been a persistent feature of the coverage since of the Affordable Care Act, sequestration, the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing,” and unemployment.  A recent headline from Mediaite, summarizing a new Pew poll, put it this way: “Biased, Frivolous, And Liberal: Poll Shows Most Americans Still Distrust The Media.”

A number of academics have aided and abetted the collapse of objectivity as a journalistic standard, premising their arguments on the sophomoric notion that objectivity isn’t attainable.  Of course it isn’t attainable if there’s no interest in attaining it, but it’s not like objectivity is a Zen koan or some such. What’s required is editors who are smarter and tougher and more fair-minded than the reporters who work for them, and owners who care about the editorial product itself and not just the ads the editorial product attracts.

The need for objective news reporting grows in proportion to the number and kinds of societal problems, especially those with an important economic element.  Take, for instance, the recent scandals centering on the actions of the IRS.

For most political reporters, and most politicians, the targeting of conservatives by that agency is only of real importance if it can be shown that the president or senior administration officials ordered it.  But that’s just exactly backwards.  The targeting is vastly worse if there was no Administration input; if, instead, these were just the acts of a politicized bureaucracy.

Indeed, the accuracy and value-free qualities of government data collection and government-supplied information are indispensable to this or any well functioning democracy.  Whole markets, after all (not to mention laws and regulations) turn on the truthfulness and clarity of data such as that supplied every month by the Commerce and Labor departments.

A story posted on Aug.11, by Bloomberg reporter Jonathan Weil, adds a wrinkle to the subject. According to Weil, the Justice Department admitted to having grossly overstated the number of mortgage fraud cases the department had filed as part of a multi-agency Mortgage Fraud Working Group.  Weil characterizes the false numbers originally given out as appearing to have been “willfully filed,” and only belatedly corrected because of the pressure put on by some other Bloomberg reporters.

In the larger scheme of things, this particular example of governmental malfeasance is probably not going to bring down the Republic, but the point of it all is to say that if the nation’s news media were to multiply Bloomberg’s reportorial effort by, say, a hundred (or a thousand) additional examples, the media might resurrect their own faltering reputations, and help sustain our democracy in the process.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Reflections on the Sale of the Washington Post

Much is being said, almost all of it guesswork, about why Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, what he plans to do with it, and what it all means.  Some argue it’s just a kind of trophy purchase, others that it was done to gain political influence, for Mr. Bezos and/or Amazon, in the Nation’s Capital.

Still others see in the purchase a path leading to a future in which important elements of the news media are nonprofit entities, either by design or in consequence of operations that, while unprofitable, are subsidized by owners with deep pockets.

I would guess, and hope, that all of these speculations are false.  The more likely reason that Mr. Bezos bought the Post is because he suspects he can operate it, using the tools of the new technologies, at a profit.  That by doing so he would also, serendipitously, save professional journalism may be a by-product of his purchase, whether it’s part of his motivation or not.

In 2000, The Media Institute gave Mr. Bezos its Free Speech Award, largely in recognition of the global reach of his book selling operation, sometimes over the objections of local governments.  In his acceptance speech, Mr. Bezos talked at length about the path he and his wife had followed in the creation and growth of Amazon, and the picture that emerged was not that of a politician or a philanthropist.

Instead, Mr. Bezos came across as an ambitious, disciplined, and hard-charging businessman.  (That same year, the Institute gave its other annual award to Robert Johnson, founder of BET, and I have often thought how similar the two men are.)

To put it another way, I think Mr. Bezos has too much self respect, and too little ego, to have purchased the Post either as a kind of grandstanding event, the better to aggrandize himself or Amazon, or to stand by and subsidize indefinitely a financially failing company.

After all, if news organizations are not created to make a profit, what are the standards of success or failure?  The idea that nonprofit status produces a more value-free product is belied by the reality that most philanthropists operating in the realm of the media have decided political views, a la the Knight Foundation, ProPublica, Open Society Institute, etc.

Going forward, there is one thing I would recommend to the gentleman: that he insist that the editors and reporters at the Post understand how important it is that the media be a watchdog on government. After all, if the media are not a check on government, who is?  If the only role of the media is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers, the media wouldn’t deserve a First Amendment and the Founders wouldn’t have produced one.

Which is not to say that the Post is in all ways politically or ideologically one dimensional.  As contrasted with the New York Times, where the right-leaning Ross Douthat toils away in solitary isolation, the Post’s editorial page features lots of conservative columnists.

The problem so defined is not in the editorial pages but in the news pages – the paper’s breaking, feature, and investigative reports.  No subject better illustrates this point than the paper’s coverage of the ruinous, not to say corrupt, fiscal antics of Congress and the Administration.

Perhaps the greatest threat not just to the financial health but to the very security of this country’s citizens is the growth of government, and of the corresponding governmental debt, at the federal, state, and local levels. Nor is this a new development. It’s been going on for years and the Washington Post has looked right past the kind of things that, were they done in the private sector, would yield indictments and incarceration.

There are things to admire in the Washington Post, and it’s to be expected that Mr. Bezos would not come out with early comments of concern about the editorial product there.  But if he cares about the promotion of excellence in journalism, and would like to add conservatives and Republicans to the newspaper’s admirers, this is something he ought to put in his cart.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Politico Accuses the Post and Times of Media Bias: Reporters Detect a Disturbance in the Force

Every once in a while something happens in medialand that stirs up reporters. The most recent example occurred last Thursday when the editors of Politico accused the Washington Post and the New York Times of bias in their coverage of the presidential campaign.

Under a headline that read, “To GOP, blatant bias in vetting,” the authors added their own commentary in ways that suggested that Republican critics of media coverage of the presidential campaign are right.

“Republicans cry ‘bias’ so often,” they wrote, “it feels like a campaign theme.  It is, largely because it fires up conservatives….  But it is also because it often rings true, even to people who don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh – or Haley Barbour.”

And with that, the dawn came up like thunder among those whose calling it is to resist journalistic apostasy whenever it rears its head. Take, for instance, one Devon Gordon, who writes for GQ (“Look Sharp/Live Smart”). Gordon wrote a piece whose thrust was nicely summed up in its title: “Five Points About Politico’s Hatchet Job on NYT and WaPo.”

Or how about John Cook who, writing in Gawker, began this way: “Megalomaniacal supervillain Jim Vandehei and emotionally hobbled robo-reporter Mike Allen, both of Politico, have penned a rugged endorsement of Mitt Romney’s chief grievance today, agreeing with his advisers that the press corps is busy ‘scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of Mitt Romney to the general election audience.’”

And lest we forget our friends from papers across the pond, there’s the Guardian’s Oliver Burkeman.  Digging deep into his reservoir of profundities, Burkeman relieved himself of this penetrating observation: “This is always the problem with the charge of ‘media bias’: for it to be valid, it would have to be the case that ‘not being biased’ were a viable alternative option, and it isn’t.”

And then there’s the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple.  In (at last count) six separate pieces on his blog, Wemple makes points like the following: (1) Politico is jealous that they didn’t develop the Post’s story about Romney’s alleged bullying in high school; (2) Politico itself gave lots of attention to the Post’s bullying story; and (3) Politico’s claim that the Post’s story was overdone fails to acknowledge that “Bullying (a) schoolmate by pinning him down and cutting his hair is not only illegal but hateful, violent and destructive."

And there it is. Never mind the well documented history of Republican unhappiness with the media, or the larger issue of media bias as perceived by about half the people in the country, and what that portends for the future of the commercial media. 

No matter that polling organizations like Harris Interactive and Pew established without any doubt in 2008 that Republicans overwhelmingly thought the media favored Obama over McCain (indeed, the Pew poll found that Democrats and Independents felt that way too), or that a Gallup poll published just last September found that 47% of the people think the media are too liberal (a number that rises to 75% when polling Republicans only), while just 13% think they are too conservative.

It is, apparently, one thing for such data to be reported in the charts and graphs of pollsters, or in the words of known or suspected Republicans, but another thing entirely for a member of the MSM to break ranks and criticize the media along the same lines.

                                   

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Orts and All

Can’t Miss TV

Comes now the news that Michael Moore, the merry propagandist, is joining Keith Olbermann on Al Gore’s Current TV, the legendary television network.  It’s practically a miracle!  Even now the crowds are queuing up to catch a glimpse of this dynamic duo.

One can only imagine the kind of material that, in collaboration, they may produce.  Perhaps an investigative report on the link between Citizens United, the Tea Party, and global warming.  Or maybe something even more intellectual, like a video essay on how the alleged indebtedness of the federal and state governments is just a rumor started by the gnomes of Zurich.

Whatever, isn’t it great to know that we live in a country where bombast and imbecility can have their day in the court of public opinion?  As they say in the ad – “mm, mm, good!”

Those ‘Public’ Airwaves

The Speaking Freely essay written by Erwin Krasnow, recently co-published by The Media Institute and The Thomas Jefferson Center, is striking in a number of ways, not least because its author is a former general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters.  As such, Mr. Krasnow has known for years of broadcasting’s embrace of concepts like “scarcity” and the "public interest" standard as useful tools in re certain policy issues, like cable TV’s “must carry” obligations.

So how to get a handle on Krasnow’s call now for an end to such concepts, and to the notion that the public “owns” the airwaves?  Perhaps it’s the prospect of forced spectrum surrender, or maybe the notion that broadcasters are able these days to charge for their carriage by cable that explains it all.  Whatever, it will be interesting to see if, in days ahead, the NAB echoes some of Krasnow’s arguments.  For that matter, it would be interesting to know what those at NAB think of Krasnow’s essay, which has attracted rather a lot of attention.  Goes without saying that we at TMI would be more than happy to publish any such.

It’s the Gospel (‘Jesus Dropped the Charges’)

Doubling down on my earlier reckless confession of love for the blues and gospel music, herewith a link to a piece by the late O’Neil Twins.  (Yes, the title is amusing, but I’ll fight any man in the bar who says he doesn’t like the music.)  Check it out here.

Drudging Respect

Writing in The New York Times, David Carr has this to say about the extraordinary influence of the Drudge Report: “Yes, Mr. Drudge is a conservative ideologue whose site also serves as a crib sheet for the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  But if you believe that his huge traffic numbers are a byproduct of an ideologically motivated readership, consider that 15 percent of the traffic at Washington Post.com, which is not exactly a hotbed of Tea Party foment, comes from The Drudge Report.”

Say what?  Featuring, on its editorial pages, such as George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Jennifer Rubin, Robert Samuelson, Mark Thiessen, and Michael Gerson, the WAPO may not be a hotbed of “Tea Party foment,” but it is the source of a lot of conservative opinion of the sort that Drudge links to often.

Carr’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding (and how many times do we have to say this?), the primary reason for Drudge’s success – as for the success of conservative talk radio and the Fox News Channel – is its political point of view, which is different from that of most of the MSM, and popular with a large number of people.  Sheesh!

                                   

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Richard T. Kaplar

Aggregating Newspapers Into Extinction

Hardly a day goes by without another reminder that the demise of newspapers is in full swing.
    
In the Outlook section of yesterday’s Washington Post (Sun., Aug. 2) came the latest, an anecdotal example by Post reporter Ian Shapira titled “How Gawker Ripped Off My Story & Why It’s Destroying Journalism.”  The title pretty much sums things up.
    
Gawker is, in Shapira’s words, “the snarky New York culture and media Web site.”  More importantly, it is a news aggregator, and it had written about and heavily excerpted an earlier story Shapira had written for the Post.
    
At first Shapira was glad for the recognition, until his editor reminded him that he, and the Post, had been ripped off.  Shapira had spent several days researching and writing his original story (and getting paid by the Post to do so).  Gawker repackaged his story in no more than an hour and posted it on its site – for free (or close to it, if you count the time of the poorly paid 29-year-old “independent contractor” who did it).
    
And therein lies the worst-case scenario for the destruction of journalism – which is to say, original reporting.  Newspapers are already being decimated financially by online media sites and blogs.  To the extent that any of these sites offers serious journalism, that journalism frequently consists of stories that have been ripped off, er, “aggregated,” from established newspapers.
    
But here’s the rub: As online aggregators continue to strangle the newspaper industry, they are killing the geese that have been laying their golden eggs – original reporting.  Once the newspapers are dead (or knocked senseless), from where will high-quality journalism originate?  How many online outlets will be able to pay real reporters the way newspapers did?  What will pass for journalism?
    
It’s already happening.  Buyouts have emptied newsrooms of many of their most experienced and knowledgeable reporters, leaving things in the hands of novices.  (A small example: An inexperienced reporter at the Post refers to the Obama inauguration train’s observation car as a “caboose,” and the editor doesn’t know the difference.)
    
Sadly, even the august New York Times is not immune.  A piece by the Times’ Public Editor Clark Hoyt on Aug 1. described how the paper of record’s appraisal of Walter Cronkite contained seven factual errors – something of a record, no doubt, and a feat unimaginable in an earlier era.
    
Yesterday I was sitting with a group of friends and one of them was reading the Sunday New York Times.  He asked me if I wanted to see it, and proffered a selection of unmistakably slim sections.  He added apologetically: “The Times isn’t what it used to be.”  No, my friend, it isn’t.  But neither are the rest of them.
    
I don’t know where all of this is going to end, but I do know that we’re well on the way.