WEDNESDAY'S LETTERS: Press Gets Failing Grades on Security Report Card

By: E&P Staff Thoughs on Wikipedia, the economics of cartoon syndication and newspaper layoffs, and more.

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With FOIA, Use It Or Lose It

Re: Are Media Using the FOIA Enough to Get Military Info?

Kudos for your attention to the bloggers? findings on Raw Story that AP led the news pack on filing FOIA
requests (November 24 E&P). But your description of the largest individual requester, the National Security
Archive, left out a significant part of the story. The Supreme Court agreed (1990) that the Archive is a
?representative of the news media? under FOIA, and the Archive has won the George Polk Award (2000) as well
as the Emmy (2005) for outstanding news and documentary research. I?m the Archive?s director, and the heir to champions of FOIA like Raymond Bonner and Scott Armstrong, who founded the Archive. You might have noted, as the bloggers did, that the Archive has filed more requests at the Pentagon than the top 20 newspapers and all the TV and cable news networks combined. I?m proud of that record, but I would rather the disparity between our numbers (895) and the top MSM (AP?s 73) was not so enormous. Use it or lose it.

Thomas S. Blanton
Director, National Security Archive
George Washington University
Washington D.C.
www.nsarchive.org
www.freedominfo.org

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Failing Grades on Security Report Card

Re: Media Fell Short in Covering 9/11 'Report Card'

Regarding "homeland defense," the press in general hasn't grasped the full gravity of the current situation. If you read the report card and then look at The National Response Plan (somebody please look at this *entire* document, not the Cliff's Notes version), you'll see that for the most part, the feds have assigned most responsibilties to the states. We saw how well that worked after Katrina -- now picture that same 'plan' in action after a terrorist attack.

Those few of us who are still following Katrina's aftermath are getting a very clear -- and not at all reassuring -- picture of what the aftermath of a terrorist attack might be like.

For a glimpse of what the response and aftermath of a bioweapons attack might be like, have a look at the Pandemic Flu Response Plan. Then think for a while about the response to Katrina.

The general press hasn't connected these dots yet, and it's about time it did. Of course, this means actually *reading* these enormous documents, with their flow-charts and leisurely explanations -- and it also means ferreting out the assumptions underlying the plans, and finding out if they're realistic. This is much harder work than, say, reworking a wire service story about the face transplant.

Louise Kosta
Freelance, Endwell, N.Y.

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How Crass?

Re: Military Mislead Press, Families, About How 10 Marines Died

I would like to know the answer to this question, in light of the article "Military Mislead Press, Families, About How 10 Marines Died": The media has shown, over and over, video of what I believe is a humvee being blown up. This has been described a the vehicle the Marines were driving in when they were killed/injured. Now, it turns out the Marines were actually on foot. What is it that the video is showing if it was not the moment of death for those men?

I must be frank: I was horrified that just a day or so after the deaths of the men, this video would be released to the press and that it would --allegedly -- show the moment of death for the ten. How crass is this government that it would not only lie to the families about the circumstances but would also allow them to think that they have just watched their loved ones being blown to pieces?

I am at a loss -- I hope you can answer the question I have posed regarding what exactly we have seen in the 'humvee' video.

Liz Taylor

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Right Wing Media Bias

I find it funny that right wingers (and alleged anti-war democrats who would somehow vote for Bush) are still on their talking points against the media. From Bob Woodward to Judy Miller, the NY Times to the Washington Post, it is the right wing that has corrupted the media and really soft balled the administration for the last five years.

If you think otherwise, explain to me why there has been no coverage of the GAO report of overwhelming fraud in the pivotal Ohio 2004 election results? Explain why the president can lie week after week and no one in the MSM will call him a liar? No less a tool than Elizabeth Bumiller admitted it; even if the president lies, you have to find a euphemism.

It was, after all, just 16 words in the 2003 state of the union, right?

Hardly.

As for Donald Rumsfeld, it doesn't take a biased media to make him look bad. He does that all by himself. I'm waiting for the "Rummy, you're doing a great job moment," and when we hear it, I am certain I'll tune in to CNN or MSNBC to hear some host with a clear bias (Kyra Phillips springs to mind) tell us why if the president said it, it must be true.

The American public knows better.

Greg Klein
New York City, N.Y.

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Re: Vanity Fair Offers Fresh Details on Judith Miller Saga

Based upon this account, Ms. Miller gives new meaning to the term embedded journalist.

James Oxendine

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Re: Rumsfeld's remarks

He's correct. The media publishes the anti-US side of the war and ignores the good and the progress being made. Those of us who want a complete picture go to blogs, newsgroups, and elsewhere in the Internet. Unfortunately the news media, in its typical arrogance, discounts what anybody else reports.

I would much more trust the observations of a soldier on the ground in Iraq than I would the ramblings of a reporter who sits in a hotel in Baghdad, sipping tea or beer and reporting on only the negative parts of the press briefings?or who genuflects before entering the offices of Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, et al, and later spews forth their musings as absolute truth.

Take me back to the days when we journalists aired our dislike for conservatives over a beer late at night and not in what today we call "reporting."

Bob Bonnell
Director of Marketing Communications
Saint Francis Medical Center
Grand Island, Neb.

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A Modest Proposal

Nick Anderson is an outstanding editorial cartoonist, well deserving of the Pulitzer. But perhaps his sudden jump in client papers picking up his work has as much to do with cutbacks in staff as it does with his winning the Pulitzer. Maybe if staff cartoonists took themselves out of syndication, perhaps eliminating syndication of cartoons by cartoonists who have a job, there would be more cartoonists employed by newspapers. After all, shouldn't a cartoonist's work be done exclusively for the paper paying his or her salary and benefits?

This dovetails with the long overdue protest by cartoonists on Black Ink Monday. Editors and publishers are not entirely to blame for the loss of so many staff cartoonist positions. Staff cartoonists whose work is sent out and bought so cheaply by other newspapers only make it easy and affordable to kill off the position held by other cartoonists. If an editorial cartoonist wants their work syndicated, then they should go the route of Pat Oliphant and Ann Telnaes and work exclusively in syndication.

So while we cartoonists are quick to point the finger of blame at editors and publishers, perhaps we would be wise to take a good look in the mirror first and clean up our glass house before throwing stones.

Wiley Miller
Kennebunkport, Maine
Ed's Note: The author is the creator of the Non Sequiter comic strip.

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Wikipedia Here to Stay, Warts and All

Critics of Wikipedia should understand that it succeeds because it offers more fairly reliable information than any other site on the web. But it's a victim of its own success, because people seem to think that its content should be as reliable as that of a newspaper. Clearly, when anybody can edit an article for whatever reason, there will be misinformation or libel added from time to time. Nobody should make the mistake of considering Wikipedia to be authoritative.

In my own case, I noticed that an obvious libel about me had been posted in a Wikipedia article about a disreputable neo-fascist English-language newspaper based in Moscow, Russia. The editors of that paper had apparently decided to use Wikipedia as a method to publicize their work, and as an example repeated a libel about me that they had earlier printed in their own paper.

I worked through the Wikipedia system to have this libel removed. I found the system to be very cumbersome, but eventually after 3 or 4 weeks the libel was removed, and it looks like it will stay removed. I'm not entirely satisfied with the process, but I can say that Jimmy Wales and some other wikipedians took my complaint seriously and acted in good faith.

Critics should also understand that something like Wikipedia is here to stay. Even if Jimmy Wales decided to close Wikipedia tomorrow, and American Internet libel laws were made drastically more severe, a new wiki-encylopedia would spring up within a week using the same software and same content, since both the software and content are freely available to everybody, and there are nearly 200 countries where the project could be based.

How Wales handles the libel problem will determine whether his wiki-encylopedia or a newly created version will dominate. Clearly, some sort of "right of response," or "express libel deletion" is needed for Wikipedia to retain its credibility.

Peter D. Ekman


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Sounds Like Someone Who Works in Customer Service

In reference to the poll listing the ranking of various professions I would add this. On the very, very bottom should be the American public. After dealing with them 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 7 years I can tell you that those who live in glass houses should not cast stones. Personally, the "public" are dumbed down, rude, ignorant, self-centered lying cheats that would do anything to scam someone.
I wish I could really say what I think.

Don Fahrenkrug
Pueblo, Colorado