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Friday, June 18, 2004

Stupid Question Alert II 
Why are reporters so stupid?

Why are respected news organizations letting idiots cover the White House beat? Is the White House press pool bus smaller than most buses?

I hate to even ask, but here's a question to the President from a White House reporter I know only as "Deb."

Mr. President, why does the administration continue to insist that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda, when even you have denied any connection between Saddam and September 11th. And now the September 11th Commission says that there was no collaborative relationship at all.


The reporter commits several logical fallacies and falsehoods.

1.) There is no contradiction whatsoever with insisting that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda and denying a connection between Saddam and September 11th.

It is entirely possible to have a very close relationship with Al Qaeda and not to have been kept in the loop about September 11th.

2.) The commission did not say that there was no collaborative relationship at all. The commission said that there was no evidence that Saddam had collaborated with Al Qaeda in attacks on the United States. That is quite a different thing. The commission did not find any evidence that would rule out such a collaboration. Nor did the commission take a position one way or the other on whether there was a relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq (prima facie, there was. Zarqawi found shelter and care in Iraq well before the war. The commission does not deny this.)

3.) A "collaborative relationship" != "relationship." A "collaborative relationship" is a subset of "relationship." All collaborative relationships are relationships, but not all relationships are collaborative.

I mean, this is 6th grade logic here, but apparently it's simply beyond Deb's grasp.

She doesn't know what's in the commission's report. She doesn't know what the Administration has been arguing all along. She doesn't know who Zarqawi is, apparently, or where he was in February 2003, before the war (along with a dozen other members of his cell who also found refuge in Iraq along with him). She doesn't grasp the English language--the primary tool of her trade--sufficiently to discern the difference between "relationship" and "connection," nor does she grasp the logic that makes "Al Qaeda" a distinctly different entity from "September 11th," sufficient to understand that one can have a relationship or connection with one, but not a direct connection with another, and that this is no contradiction.

Further, she doesn't have the detatched grace to frame her question as anything other than a "gotcha." "i.e.: why does the administration continue to insist."

This is an unfair and slanted way to express a question she herself simply does not understand. It's the equivalent of asking the President "Do you still beat your wife?"

A better way to ask the question--an ETHICAL way to ask the question--would be something like this:

Mr. President, the Commission reports there is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda, w/r/t attacks on the U.S. But you and your administration continue to assert that some sort of relationship existed between the two. Can you clarify what you believe the nature of that relationship to be, and why it is that you believed that relationship to be a threat to the US?

Of course, those aren't journalist ethics. Too many journalists praise the 'gotcha' question. They confuse it with being "tough minded." And in this case, this woman was showboating.

The real audience wasn't the American people, because the American people derive no benefit from that line or manner of questioning.

Deb's real audience was her fellow journalists in the room.

No. There's a time for the gotcha question. But that time is only when the reporter has done his or her homework, and there's a 'gotcha' to be had.

Being tough-minded is NOT going for the 'gotcha.' Being tough-minded is clarifying the ideas and solidifying your own understanding of the issues, which this reporter--which much of the entire press corps, has not done.

That's why I don't trust journalism ethics to eliminate bias from the newsroom. Journalism ethics, indeed, are part of the problem.

There needs to be less value put on being tough questioners, and more value placed on mastering the CRAFT (not the profession, the CRAFT) of reporting.

This lady hasn't mastered her craft, and looks foolish as a result.

But if you master the craft, then the tough questioning will follow, and it will be far more en pointe, and far more effective for it.

And journalists may be respected once again.

Splash, out

Jason

Comments:
I dunno. Why do people keep refering to these organizations a respectable?
 
I agree that reporters are stupid. Not one follows up Bush's Zarqawi reference and asks why the US and it's Kurdish allies didn't take him out since he was operating in the one area of Iraq that Saddam did not control but over which the US maintained a no-fly zone and had agents on the ground.
 
It's not idiocy, it's a purposeful attempt to launch a successful kill shot. There is no attempt whatever to achieve elucidation, clarification, etc., because that has no payoff to the reporter whatsoever. The entire idea is to get face time on the evening broadcast, and that means successfully embarrassing or wrong-footing the administration spokesperson. It's only that kind of footage that the networks are interested in putting on the air; anything else would be, in their view, aiding and abetting an administration they destest.
 
Gotta be Deb Riechmann of the Washington Post. Story here.
 
I get the sense that certain White House reporters are reporting their own agenda while claiming to report news.
 
Silly,

It's "Get Bush For Dummies".
 
"Why are respected news organizations letting idiots cover the White House beat?"

Because they don't have anyone else.

I also agree with Anonymous #1.

Barbara Skolaut
 
A - for snarkiness. Though your criticism is valid in this case, and reporters are by and large dumb schmucks who don't know how to ask fair or relevent questions, I think it's about time the media challenges the administration on this subject.

YES, the administration never specifically stated a connection between 9/11 and Saddam. But with an eclectic mix of facts, fear, innuendo, false assertions, inferences, and implications the Bush administration led this country to believe (falsely) that Iraq was a major player in the 9/11 attacks.

That's bad leadership. That's capitalizing on fear and ignorance to advance a case for war.

Now, I don't think it's best to use Zarqawi as an example for your cause, because it proves the opposite case. Zarqawi was operating out of northern Iraq which was outside of Saddam Hussein's control (patrolled by US enforced no-fly zones) and Bush apparently refused to take action before the invasion of Iraq because it would undermine his Iraq/Al Qaeda claims according to MSNBC
 
"Zarqawi was operating out of northern Iraq... "

And yet underwent surgery in Baghdad in 2002. Last I checked, in 2002, Saddam had control of Baghdad.
 
I disagree that AP correspondent Deb Riechmann's question was a gotcha; it was a lob thinly disguised as a gotcha. It allowed Bush to spin the 9/11 commission finding by stating that the administration never claimed direct collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda re: 9/11 attacks.

This is the line the White House has settled on in response to the commission's staff report statement. Go here -- http://tinyurl.com/3d5zw -- to see Cheney's twist on the spin, blaming press laziness for any confusion about the administration's claims that may exist in the public's mind.

Hey . . . wait a minute. Cheney's spin is kind of like your spin, too. Gee, maybe you're a minor key in the sound machine . . .

Why are Bush, Cheney, et al., taking this tack? Read the war powers resolution, the following section of which Mr. Bush cut and pasted into his notice to the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro-tem that use of force against Iraq would begin:

(2) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Since we have not found WMDs, the administration cannot argue the invasion of Iraq was a "necessary action." Therefore, arguing that Saddam's Iraq belonged to the sub-set of "those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001" is necessary is the war is to be judged legitimate.

If Saddam and Iraq were NOT a part of this sub-set, as the 9/11 Commission appears to have concluded, then the Bush's stated determination is twice wrong, and he took the country to war illegally. The administration understands that it must maintain a fiction of some sort material support between Iraq and al Qaeda that enhanced al Qaeda's capability to carry out the 9/11 attacks.

If you read the resolution carefully and then follow the various claims made by the administration in the lead up to war, you will see it was attempting to meet as many of the criteria of the war resolution as possible. It now has only one left . . .
 
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