Missing Curiosity in the Media
Things have been somewhat quiet lately in the whole media-created-and-maintained controversy over the Valerie Plame "outing" by the White House. What generally has been a frustration on my part with the media's misleading reporting on the whole story has now evolved into amazement at their apparent lack of curiosity about so many unanswered questions in the story.
I'm no journalist, but somewhere in my past I seem to remember that the duty of the journalist was to ask all the questions when putting together a story; the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions that will help them get to the bottom of what really happened so they can share it with the rest of us.
Whether journalistic standards have fallen to new depths or our media watchdogs are merely lazy is open to debate. But just in case a real journalist happens to read this (which I know is highly unlikely), let me try to prompt a few of my own questions about this particular story.
1. After he was recommended by his wife, who at the CIA signed off on the decision to send Joe Wilson, a known anti-war, anti-Bush, Democrat Party activist, to Niger to investigate whether the story was true about Saddam approaching them to try to purchase uranium?
2. What did the CIA think qualified Joe Wilson for the job?
3. Why didn't the CIA ask Wilson to sign non-disclosure forms to keep whatever he might discover private?
4. Did Joe Wilson seek or get approval from anyone at the CIA to give his information to reporters, then write his own op-ed about the trip to Niger? If so, who approved it and why?
5. When Joe lied about nearly every assertion about his trip in his Op-Ed, why didn't someone at the CIA who knew the truth call a press conference to help set the record straight?
6. The 2 year investigation into this matter clearly did not produce any violations of the law that instigated the investigation, that White House officials "leaked" Valerie's name and endangered her or her mission somehow because she was (or may have been) a covert agent. Given these facts, if Scooter Libby did lie to the investigators, why did he do so if he knew there was no law broken by whatever he may have shared with reporters about Plame?
7. To expand on the questions about Libby, why didn't he just openly admit talking to the reporters, saying he did so because Wilson was spreading outrageous lies about his mission and reporters should be focusing on the circumstances that led to him being sent, why, who sent him, and why they let him publicly release information? What's wrong with asking reporters to do their jobs, and what's wrong with helping discredit someone who has been working diligently to discredit the President by simply using the truth?
8. Can we establish for certain that Scooter Libby lied or misled the investigation, or is he being prosecuted for bad memory? Even if he didn't want his name put forward as the source of the so-called "leak", why didn't he use the Bill and Hillary defense, "I don't recall"?
9. What did Joe Wilson really find out in Niger? Did anyone cross-reference his information to related information collected by other intelligence sources in the US and other countries? Did anyone review the intelligence from the British that made the claim in the first place, which by the way the British never repudiated.
10. Has anybody followed up on what journalists have been saying for some time - that the fact Valerie Plame worked for the CIA was no secret, and most reporters who covered the Pentagon already knew?
11. How about a final question just for the media itself: Why do you keep reporting the story as about a "leak of the name of a covert operative by the White House in order to discredit her husband", when that line lies somewhere between misleading and false?
When journalism becomes propaganda, we lose our freedom. Why don't today's journalists-turned-propagandists understand that basic fact and do their jobs?
I'm no journalist, but somewhere in my past I seem to remember that the duty of the journalist was to ask all the questions when putting together a story; the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions that will help them get to the bottom of what really happened so they can share it with the rest of us.
Whether journalistic standards have fallen to new depths or our media watchdogs are merely lazy is open to debate. But just in case a real journalist happens to read this (which I know is highly unlikely), let me try to prompt a few of my own questions about this particular story.
1. After he was recommended by his wife, who at the CIA signed off on the decision to send Joe Wilson, a known anti-war, anti-Bush, Democrat Party activist, to Niger to investigate whether the story was true about Saddam approaching them to try to purchase uranium?
2. What did the CIA think qualified Joe Wilson for the job?
3. Why didn't the CIA ask Wilson to sign non-disclosure forms to keep whatever he might discover private?
4. Did Joe Wilson seek or get approval from anyone at the CIA to give his information to reporters, then write his own op-ed about the trip to Niger? If so, who approved it and why?
5. When Joe lied about nearly every assertion about his trip in his Op-Ed, why didn't someone at the CIA who knew the truth call a press conference to help set the record straight?
6. The 2 year investigation into this matter clearly did not produce any violations of the law that instigated the investigation, that White House officials "leaked" Valerie's name and endangered her or her mission somehow because she was (or may have been) a covert agent. Given these facts, if Scooter Libby did lie to the investigators, why did he do so if he knew there was no law broken by whatever he may have shared with reporters about Plame?
7. To expand on the questions about Libby, why didn't he just openly admit talking to the reporters, saying he did so because Wilson was spreading outrageous lies about his mission and reporters should be focusing on the circumstances that led to him being sent, why, who sent him, and why they let him publicly release information? What's wrong with asking reporters to do their jobs, and what's wrong with helping discredit someone who has been working diligently to discredit the President by simply using the truth?
8. Can we establish for certain that Scooter Libby lied or misled the investigation, or is he being prosecuted for bad memory? Even if he didn't want his name put forward as the source of the so-called "leak", why didn't he use the Bill and Hillary defense, "I don't recall"?
9. What did Joe Wilson really find out in Niger? Did anyone cross-reference his information to related information collected by other intelligence sources in the US and other countries? Did anyone review the intelligence from the British that made the claim in the first place, which by the way the British never repudiated.
10. Has anybody followed up on what journalists have been saying for some time - that the fact Valerie Plame worked for the CIA was no secret, and most reporters who covered the Pentagon already knew?
11. How about a final question just for the media itself: Why do you keep reporting the story as about a "leak of the name of a covert operative by the White House in order to discredit her husband", when that line lies somewhere between misleading and false?
When journalism becomes propaganda, we lose our freedom. Why don't today's journalists-turned-propagandists understand that basic fact and do their jobs?
posted by Dan S. at 12:26 PM
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