Have Journalists Learned Anything This Year?

The answer to that question is a resounding no. Journalists still refuse to consider the effects their words have on the public. Journalists still make baseless accusations about the military and hope that no one is around with a video camera to capture the lunacy on tape.

And yet, they still get caught making little lies and big lies.

The latest 'journalist' to make baseless accusations is one Linda Foley, who happens to be a mover and shaker in the broadcast journalism community. She's the International President of the Newspaper Guild and is President of the Communications Workers of America, which happens to be the nation's largest broadcast and journalism workers union. She said:

"Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or …ah, or… ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um…in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."

"They target and kill journalists…uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like Al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity…"

That would be nearly the same exact claim that Eason Jordan, formerly of CNN said at the Davos Conferences. It was those same baseless claims that got Jordan fired.

As the JunkYard Blog notes, there is an intermediate paragraph not captured in the quote, so she might be able to find some wiggle room. Problem is, the first paragraph is unambiguous in its animosity towards the US Military and that the US military is targeting journalists.

The problem isn't with the bloggers, but those who continue to peddle memes that it is the US at fault here, not terrorists, not journalists who shill for terrorists, and journalists who are really terrorists using press credentials to capture terrorists at work (see the Haifa Street terrorists executing elections workers for more on that aspect).

The media has not been having a good couple of years here, and that's because they keep getting caught peddling lies, exaggerations, and misstatements about the stories they publish. They're supposed to be providing hard news, but instead offer news wrapped in opinion, outright fabrications, or stories that cannot be confirmed by sources.