Once again showing a disregard for factual accuracy, the News & Record (Greensboro, NC) published a complete and total fabrication as an assertion of fact in its July 11, 2008 edition. The N&R reserves on its opinion pages space for "Counterpoint" columns, reader contributions selected by editors for prominence and additional space beyond what is given to the standard letter to the editor. In a piece titled "Swifties told truth about John Kerry," writer Jospeh E. Lyons of High Point, NC writes this:
"Moreover, based on evidence or lack of it, Kerry’s naval service was less than stellar and the details (contained in his fitness reports, never released) would undoubtedly show this." [emphasis added]
Lyons goes on to speculate that Kerry's fitness reports would show him to have been a mediocre soldier and reasserts that these reports where never released. Lyons is wrong that those reports were not released--and the N&R gave its stamp of approval to this gross lie.
A simple Google search for "Kerry fitness reports" yields a link to Kerry's fitness reports at FindLaw on the first page of search results. It's caveman easy, but apparently beyond the capabilities of Lyons and the N&R editors.
I do not know what value the letters editors deliver to the News & Record. I'd say none other than secretarial. In a little over two months I have documented five instances of the N&R publishing lies, fabrications and plagiarism (the others are here, here, here, and here.) This latest is especially egregious because the editors selected it as worthy of special attention as a counterpoint column.
In this new media age, the one thing that still can still give traditional news organizations an edge is credibility. The News & Record is squandering theirs.
Well said Roch. Hopefully someone over there will take notice of your diligence.
ReplyDeleteYou go Roch.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Liv.
ReplyDeleteGed, I have little doubt that my observations are coming to the attention of the N&R. So far, I haven't seen them addressed, in comments here or anywhere.
Let's see now.....has Kerry yet to release his complete service record, including the details and the nature of his original discharge?
ReplyDeleteBubba,
ReplyDeletePlease stick to the topic at hand. If you wish to raise another issue, I suggest you do it at your own blog, but here's a hint: Do your research first to avoid an embarrassment similar to Mr. Lyons'.
It's really sad how the N&R has sold their soles to page views and abandoned their quest for truth. Neither left nor right should rule our media and the messages should never be for sale.
ReplyDeleteLighten up, Roch.
ReplyDeleteThe LTE page, including Counterpoints, are opinion-based, not necessarily fact-based. The N&R publishes many, many Bush-bashing letters filled with inaccuracies, distortions, and out-and-out lies. Where's your outrage when that happens?
YEAH! WHAT ABOUT OLBERMANN!?
ReplyDeleteThe author of the piece picked the wrong item to use in criticism of Kerry.
ReplyDeleteI merely pointed out one legitimate question that's never been answered, and is a much more appropriate approach to the subject.
if you weren't so narrow minded, and had been less obsessive/compulsive in your analysis, you just might have figured it out for yourself.
jaycee, care to site an actual conservative-ashing Counterpoint (not just an LTE, although I think those should be held accountable, too) that's factually wrong? There are definitely a lot of anti-conservative lies out there, from comparatively minor nonsense like the bogus claim that Bush thinks the French don't have a word for "entrepreneur" to truly vile stuff like the "911 was an inside job" crap, but I don't see them cropping up in N&R Counterpoints the way stuff like the lies about Kerry's service record have. And assuming that the caps-loving Anonymouse isn't mocking Sam Spagnola's mantra, he or she appears to think that Olbermann is a contributor to the N&R.
ReplyDelete(mocking spagnola; i think i owe you a cupie doll)
ReplyDeleteJaycee said,"Lighten up, Roch.
ReplyDeleteThe LTE page, including Counterpoints, are opinion-based, not necessarily fact-based. The N&R publishes many, many Bush-bashing letters filled with inaccuracies, distortions, and out-and-out lies. Where's your outrage when that happens?"
Jaycee, wake up and see the light. You, Roch and I know the editorial pages are opinion but the N&R hides behind the word, "opinion" and plays its readers rather than investigating the truth. Lies, neither left nor right, should ever be printed in any newspaper as far too many people place far too much stock in what they read in print publications be it on the front pages or on the opinion pages.
This is the very same thing the N&R does in local non-partisan politics as well. It's how the public is played and it's very wrong.
Besides, a lie is no less a lie when it's stated as opinion.
Mr. McDowell, I said "Bush-bashing letters" meaning LTE's, not Counter Points. Although both letters and CP's are opinion.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jaycee, but calling Bush an "Ivy League Idiot," as Ben Holder recently did, is voicing an opinion. So is saying that Obama is a glib phony who lacks substance. But claiming that Bush refused to sell his former Dallas home to African-Americans (to pick one false rumor from snopes.com at random), or that Obama is a Muslim, is to pass along a specific lie, just as the author of that Counter Point is doing by making specific and demonstrably false statements about Kerry's record. Please cite me an example of a "Bush-bashing letter" that contains one or specific and demonstrably false claims. If you can, I suspect that Roch will agree with me when I say that it shouldn't have been published, either and that the N&R needs to fact-check its Opinion pages.
ReplyDeleteI don't idolize the writer Harlan Ellison the way I did back in the 80s, when he spoke at UNCG and I was his campus liaison. Indeed, I now think he's kind of oxnoxioua and that a lot of his "classic" stories contain some very bad prose. But I still agree with him when he counters the old truism that "everyone has a right to an opinion" with "everyone has a right to an INFORMED opinion."
Mr. McDowell, I've seen more than one LTE claim "Bush Lied" about the Iraq war or that we went to war for oil or that there were no WMD's even though some were found. I call those distortions/lies/or inaccuracies, you may call them what you like.
ReplyDeleteBubba wrote: "I merely pointed out one legitimate question that's never been answered..."
ReplyDeleteNo, Bubba, you posed a question as if it has never been answered, when in fact the answer is out there and it is simply YOU who does not have the answer. Instead of making insinuations grounded in your ignorance, educate yourself.
Ian wrote: "If you can, I suspect that Roch will agree with me when I say that it shouldn't have been published..."
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct Ian. I don't check every single letter or counter point column that gets printed, but when I do my "checking" I do it without regard to the opinion of the writer. Unless the N&R starts exercising some professional standards, it is probably just a matter of time before I can demonstrate that my interest in this is non-partisan. That is may appear partisan at this time is simply a result of the preponderance of these types of letters coming from the right.
Jaycee,
ReplyDeleteYour attitude is more a reflection of your own regard for reality-based opinion than anything else. Take your partisan blinders off and your might see this matter accurately.
The fact is that publishing something under the guise of opinion does not give one free reign to just make shit up. If I were to write a letter to the paper saying that I don't think John McCain should be president because of his multiple convictions for child molestation, I doubt you would defend such a letter because it appears on the opinion page.
Also, I have criticized these types of letters without regard for politics (as you'd see if you follow some of the links). If it appears that it is more often the right that employs these despicable tactics, it's not me, it's the right.
Instead of your vague and unsubstantiated generalization of me ignoring offending letters of a different political persuasion, how about some specifics?
Another example from this mornings N&R LTE's bashing the Iraq War:
ReplyDelete"Was it tapping the sea of oil under the sand (supposed to cover the cost of the war; not a dollar)? "
Wrong; Iraq's revenue from oil has been used for years to fund it's operation.
This is another example of how libs/Dems continue to chant the same lies over and over and over again in hopes that eventually people will think it's the truth.
Jaycee,
ReplyDeleteHow about some substantiation? If you think this letter is an example of the failings I have been documenting, I'd encourage you to direct your ire to the N&R and join me in condemning their practices instead of tilting at the "dem/lib" windmill.
Substantiation for what? That Iraq is and has been using oil revenue money to fund it's government and defense? I hardly think that's news.
ReplyDeleteHey, you're the one who brought it up. I agree that many, many misrepresentations of fact occur in the LTE's and are not challenged.
Jaycee wrote: "Substantiation for what? That Iraq is and has been using oil revenue money to fund it's government and defense?"
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not the question the letter-writer asked and that you condemned. Has Iraqi oil revenue funded the war? That's the question. You say it has. Proof?
Personal observation. Do you think the Iraqi government subsists entirely on US aid?
ReplyDeleteWhile working on the NOC (Northern Oil Company compound) in Kirkuk, Iraq I was aware of the revenue from oil production funding the local government and the monies also going into the General Fund (for lack of a better term) for the country.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/08/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htm
November 9, 2007:
"Proceeds from Iraq's current oil sales - about $30 billion a year in 2006 - go to funding the Iraqi government. In fact, the Iraqi government is nearly entirely dependent upon oil for its funding, with crude accounting for at least 90 percent of its budget."
Jaycee, both Roch and I are talking about specific and easily debunkable "inaccuracies." I don't believe we went to war for oil and think that to say that we did betrays a simplistic and Manichean view of the universe, in which those who make mistakes or whom we disagree with always have easily discernible venal motives (a more trivial example is Orson Scott Card's silly meme about how the "elites" pretend to like Scorcese films in order to impress others).
ReplyDeleteBut, like the claim that Bush "lied" about the War (which assumes information about what Bush believed that's unavailable to us), or many of the claims about Clintonian mendacity, it's something that's not easily proved OR disproved.
The claim about Kerry IS easily disproved. Even Bubber admits it was false. Although his rejoinder that the writer simply "picked the wrong item to use in criticism of Kerry" is amusing. One might as well say that the next coffeeshop waspafarian who quotes the bogus "presidential IQ ladder" used the "wrong item to criticize Bush" and then move on to repeating other anti-Bush criticisms, rather than man-up and condemn anyone who prints that bogus claim without questioning it.
There's a reason why www.snopes.com devotes phosphors to debunking the claims that Bush said "feces" when he meant "fetus" or that he's responsible for a 17% increase in Medicare premiums, but doesn't address the WMD controversy or whether he lied about the war, and it doesn't have anything to do with Barbara Mikkelson's alleged political biases. Roch's original intent was to point out the obvious falsity of a statement that's the anti-Kerry equivalent of the bogus Medicare claim (and more importantly, to chide the N&R for accepting it), not a broader and less immediately refutable claim like "the war is about oil."
Oh, I see.
ReplyDeleteSorry.
I should have realized you guys were just upset that a DEMOCRAT was maligned in the N&R. You don't get upset when a baseless claim is made against a Republican, even the President of the United States, no matter how absurd or damaging.
My apologies.
That's pure twattery, jaycee, and you know it. I've already given you several examples of baseless claims against Republicans that I'd take the N&R to task for printing (and I suspect it's likely they HAVE printed some of them in the past, but haven't actually noticed them doing so). I've certainly taken other people to task for repeating falsehoods about Bush, and even walked out on a blind date because she was stupidly parroting the lie about Bush refusing to sell his Texas house to a black family. The claim that he increased Medicare premiums is another easily demonstrable lie, and if you would bother to dig up an example of an N&R LTE or Counterpoint contributor citing it, I suspect Roch would agree with me that the author should have been fact-checked.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with claiming that Bush invaded Irag over oil is that it's less easy to disprove. This doesn't mean that it's true, and in fact I don't believe it to BE true, but it's something that a person can argue without accepting a single obvious falsehood that can be disproved with a thirty second web search.
What Roch is arguing for here are MINIMUM standards, to weed out those things that could be caught with that thirty second search. Rather than joining him in decrying the lack of those standards, you choose to complain about the alleged bias of his example. If, rather than whining "why aren't you complaining about what people have said mean things about Bush?," you'd said someting like "that's bad, and they let this piece of nonsense about Bush pass without fact-checking it, too," and then given a specific citation,we could find some agreement and direct our energies to making sure the paper was more truthful. But because your ox was leaking, you chose to give the impression that you care less about principle than partisanship.
“No, Bubba, you posed a question as if it has never been answered, when in fact the answer is out there and it is simply YOU who does not have the answer. Instead of making insinuations grounded in your ignorance, educate yourself.”
ReplyDelete(sigh)
This is what I get for trying to point out the obvious on a blog maintained by a well-known anally retentive control freak, who fancies himself as some sort of (self appointed) authority and arbiter of style, content, and taste on everything blog-wise.
He's not the only one. There are several other local members of that particular club.
All of them have been put on notice by any number of blog participants that they will be held accountable for their activity and attitude.
You will notice that he fails to answer the question I asked, which was extremely pertinent to the point the N&R poster was attempting to make.
That's standard operating procedure for people like him.
Meanwhile, to the subject of Kerry’s “fitness reports”, let’s read what someone who REALLY understands fitness reports had to say about the realities of such things.
Excerpt:
“If you were to compare the evaluation reports of LT(JG) Kerry with other officers in his unit you would find comments that mirror, almost identically, one another. However, there is one unique comment that sticks out concerning Kerry, ‘He is impressive in appearance and always immaculate.’”
Yes, indeed…….
Now, let’s see……where can I find any clarification that established Kerry's 1978 honorable discharge was the ONLY discharge Kerry ever received, and was not an upgrade from a previous discharge?
Wait, what could this be?
Why, it’s Kerry’s original agreement with the Navy in 1966 (similar to what I signed a few years later), obligating him to a six year period of total service, which would have ended in 1972.
Hmmm, let me see……Kerry’s honorable discharge is dated 19978, given after a review by a board of officers convened under authority of Title 10, U.S. Code, Sections 1162 and 1163. I wonder what those passages have to say about their duty?
We won’t even begin to talk about the “restoration” of his medals.