Saturday, April 12, 2003 CNN Deception By Diana Hsieh @ 10:34 AM The brouhaha over CNN's admission of withholding news unfavorable to Iraq in order to preserve their access to that country has a rather interesting history. Back in October of 2002, The New Republic published an article entitled Air Wars which argues that news outfits like CNN are under such tight restrictions that staying in Baghdad requires them to become shills for the regime. CNN's Baghdad Bureau Chief, Jane Arraf, wrote a scathing letter in response (second from the bottom) arguing that CNN's coverage was not compromised by the restrictions and monitoring of the regime. Even more interesting was what I heard on Brit Hume last night. After that TNR piece, some CNN executive (Eason Jordan himself, I think) flatly denied any withholding of news in order to preserve access to Iraq in an interview with NPR. He said that CNN would rather pull out of Baghdad than slant coverage. (I wish I could find the exact quote, but web searches haven't proven fruitful.) Brit also had some interesting quotes from CNN reporters on how much Iraqis love Saddam, meaning that CNN wasn't just failing to report the news, but also happily spreading Saddam's propaganda. CNN needs a new slogan, perhaps something like "All the news that two-bit dictators want us to report." Update: A reader ("alee") was kind enough to post the URL of the earlier interview with Eason Jordan which was quoted by Brit Hume in the comments section. Here's the relevant quote: I mean we work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there; but we do think that some light is better than no light whatsoever. But what if the light is not adequately illuminating what it ought, namely the horrors of the regime? Also, when asked about a presence in Iraq during the expect Gulf War II, Jordan said: We'd very much like to be there if there's a second war; but-- we are not going to make journalistic compromises in an effort to make that happen, being mindful that in wartime there is censorship on all sides, and we're prepared to deal with a certain amount of censorship as long as it's not-- extreme, ridiculous censorship where -- which we've actually seen a number of cases in previous conflicts -- not just with Iraq. But-- sure! We want to be there, but it's --we don't want to be there come hell or high water. We want to be there if we can be there and operate as a responsible news organization. Of course, "journalistic compromises" by a something other than a "responsible news organization" is a pretty apt description of CNN's coverage between the two Gulf Wars. Link / Noodles / Trackback Concealed Carry By Diana Hsieh @ 9:50 AM Check out the updated concealed carry map. The sea of blue is states with shall-issue laws. (Colorado just went from yellow to blue in the past few weeks. Yeah!) It makes sense that states in liberal New England often have restrictions on concealed carry. But the contingent of restricted states in the upper midwest just makes no sense to me. Anyone know the reasons? Link / Noodles / Trackback Asking For It By Diana Hsieh @ 9:48 AM A woman is kidnapped, held in a basement dungeon for 2 years, raped daily, and burned with cigarettes for disobedience. Other women were also held captive. So what does the lawyer say about it? Michael Forsyth, Jamelske's lawyer, has advised his client not to grant interviews. "When the dust settles, we'll see there's a lot less to this than meets the eye," he said. "There's a big danger of a media circus erupting around this case," Forsyth said. "The impression may be given that this was a 'Silence of the Lambs' scenario, but I think after an intensive investigation, the authorities will find out it's not that kind of case." Wow. Yeah, I'm sure we'll find out that she asked for it. *eyes rolled* Link / Noodles / Trackback Thursday, April 10, 2003 It Takes the Breath Away By Diana Hsieh @ 10:44 AM I have to agree with Conrad: "Hong Kong will take your breath away" is indeed the worst-timed ad campaign ever. Haven't these guys heard of SARS? Update: Conrad's sympathy scale of deaths in Iraq is pretty funny too. I'll have to add him to my blogroll... after Terry, of course. Link / Noodles / Trackback Short Live Saddam! By Diana Hsieh @ 10:41 AM For the past few weeks, I've been hoping that Saddam was very, very dead. But today's Bleat makes me hope that he lives... with access to satellite TV... for just a few more days. You hope Saddam’s alive to see this, to see the hailstorm of footwear, the burly men taking sledgehammers to his statue’s polished podium, to see the American flag draped over his cruel empty mug. Eat that, Saddam! Link / Noodles / Trackback Damn Mormons! By Diana Hsieh @ 10:24 AM How on earth did Ricky Smith get voted off American Idol last night? Carmen was truly "ghastly" -- and she wasn't even in the bottom three! Did every single Mormon vote for her? Sheesh. I'm disgusted. (I didn't find out about the results until today, as the show ran over the half hour recorded by TiVo. I bet the judges were surprised.) Okay, back to more important matters, like, um, the war. Link / Noodles / Trackback Wednesday, April 09, 2003 Reason on the Sole of My Shoe By Diana Hsieh @ 4:12 PM If these incidents are the worst the anti-war crowd can dredge up, then this war is far from the hell proclaimed by Jesse Walker in Reason's Hit and Run. Oh, and did you like that bit of moral equivalence at the end of Walker's blog entry? Revolting. I think that I might go buy a copy of Reason... just so that I can beat it with the bottom of my shoe! Link / Noodles / Trackback A Tale of Two Cities By Diana Hsieh @ 3:45 PM I never read the original Dickens, but I really liked this Tale of Two Cities. It has cool picures and stuff too. Link / Noodles / Trackback Tuesday, April 08, 2003 All Your Base... By Diana Hsieh @ 10:19 PM Yo Saddam! All your base are belong to us! Link / Noodles / Trackback Monday, April 07, 2003 Plagiarism By Diana Hsieh @ 10:07 AM Plagiarizing in school papers is stupid. Plagiarizing in newspaper articles is really stupid. Plagiarizing in blog entries is sheer idiocy. But that's just what Sean-Paul Kelley of The Agonist did with material from the for-fee intelligence service Stratfor. The details are in this Wired News article. I'm honestly shocked by the number of people defending him on the message board. I don't think that Kelley's sin is unpardonable, but passing off the work of others as your own is a serious breach of integrity for any writer. And unfortunately, Kelley doesn't seem to be taking the issue very seriously himself. In recent days, I had been checking The Agonist more frequently for war updates, but I think I'll stick to The Command Post from now on. Blech. Update 1: I e-mailed Sean-Paul a note about the above post. In response, he pointed me to this post written a week before (in his words) "the press decided to have a field day with me." However, lack of time and equipment is hardly a justification for plagiarism. In any case, would "Via Stratfor" (even without a link) really have been so difficult to type in before copying and pasting? Blech again. Update 2: I just send this note to Glenn Reynolds, which I thought worth reposting here, even though it repeats some of the above: Is it just me, or does Sean-Paul Kelley seem to be digging himself into hole? He seems to think that a long-buried blog post saying that he does sometimes copy-and-paste (without notice or attribution) was warning enough to his readers. He argues that his time constraints and the difficulty of posting from a PDA justifies plagiarism. (Hmmm... let me try that line with my philosophy professors sometime... not!) Worst of all perhaps, in response to my post on the subject, he claimed in an e-mail that that the "press decided to have a field day" with him, as if he did nothing wrong in liberally reposting from a for-fee news service without citation. I think that unless Kelley mea culpas, this story is going to turn into a big hairy beast for him. But a mea culpa seems unlikely, as he just doesn't seem to understand that passing off the writing of others as your own is wrong, wrong, wrong. And that's a real shame. Update 3: Sean-Paul has finally really apologized. I'm very glad. Link / Noodles / Trackback

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