Soccer Dad

Losers

Yesterday's Washington Post runs down the winners or losers as a result of the ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"This is a war that has not had a clear logic, but it does have a large number of casualties and losers," said Robert Malley of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Israel's government is in trouble. Lebanon as a country has lost a lot. U.S. standing is worse. Democracy promotion has been hurt. The credibility of the U.N. Security Council has been eroded. Even the anti-terror agenda has lost. So on almost every count, you see diminished assets and credibility."

Malley, whose credibility has been compromised by his defense of Yasser Arafat, is not alone in finding losers. But there are other views that diverge from his.

Tom Rosenshpiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism says that the media's credibility has been compromised in its coverage of the war in Lebanon, "It's not just that amateurs caught massive photo fraud committed by an old and respected institution like Reuters, it's that much of the rest of the media didn't care. If the media wants to regain its credibility with much of the public it needs to be very careful that what it's publishing is real and unbiased. And if one media outlet notices that another is presenting propaganda instead of fact, it needs to expose those abuses of journalistic ethics first; before others do, otherwise it will just look like the media is more concerned about their own than about the truth."

Added Andrew Kaput from the Pew Research Center, "When a journalist writes an article explaining the anguish that a family feels for a terrorist who is serving a life sentence for two brutal murders readers can't relate to that. The pathos in such articles violates most people's sense of morality. If journalists remain so far removed from the sensibilities of rational people, news organizations are going to find their readership and viewership declining even more."

Thomas Freezeman a popular foreign policy columnist for the New York Times identified another loser, "Sheikh Nasrallah doesn't remember that the groundhog does not declare himself a winner. Here he is declaring victory and he's afraid to show his face in public among the people he says he championed. He's probably in Iran. That shows that he's scared and a puppet. It's hard to imagine how anyone can take his claims of victory seriously."

David Iguana a foreign policy columnist for the Washington Post notes that the UN under Kofi Annan has suffered a huge blow to its image, "Six years ago when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon the UN had a chance to show that it had power and could stand up against terror and disorder. A few months after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah launched an unprovoked attack across the internationally sanctioned border and kidnapped and killed three Israeli soldiers.

Instead of rallying the international community to support Israel who had complied with UN resolution 425, demand that Lebanon abide by the resolution and secure its southern border and bring pressure to bear on Hezbollah and its sponsors Syria and Iran, Kofi Annan and Terje Roed Larsen actually protected Hezbollah. The same inaction over the next six years to sporadic Hezbollah violations of the border and the terror group's open building of an arsenal showed Hezbollah it could act with impunity."

One other foreign loser, according to Jim Hogland also of the Washington Post, is Fouad Siniora the new Lebanese Prime Minister. "Mr. Siniora had a chance to show that he could stand up to Syria and Iran. Instead he showed the path of least resistance and blamed Israel. When he started crying in front of the Arab foreign ministers over a supposed massacre that was shown to be false in short order, he lost all credibility. It was clear that he was taking the path of least resistance and not willing to stand up for his country that was being hijacked by Syrian and Iranian interests."

As you probably can guess, that wasn't the Washington Post article, except for the first paragraph. This was.

And if you thought that the media was showing any circumspection over its miserable performance. Well PostWatch notes that the Washington Post didn't. And NRO's Media Blog shows that the NY Times didn't either.

As long as the media continues to insult the intelligence of its readers with its "pay no attention to the man behind behind the curtain" response to (accurate) charges of bias they will continue to lose credibility and readership.

There are too many other options out there for people to say, "We don't have a choice" or "I trust them implicitly" anymore.

Watcher's Council News

As a member of the Watcher's Council I am submitting this for consideration as this week's nomination. If you're a blogger and wish to participate check the rules here and submit an entry by 8 PM EDT this evening.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Technorati tags: Media Bias, New York Times, Washington Post.