NB Extra

One of the central tenants of professional journalism is the notion that reporters remain objective in their analysis and reporting. Generally, it is the responsibility of a newspaper’s management to ensure that individuals who express a desire to maintain emotional and psychological distance from stories they cover are employed to report news under the title of a “journalist.” If the writer is an opinion writer, this is known as a “pundit.”

That stated, the Washington Post hosted an online “Live from Syria” chat session this past Monday on their website. The forum was conducted by a Syrian writer named Sami Moubayed. The Posts’ description of the writer is “PostGlobal Panelist/Syrian Political Analyst, Journalist and Author.” Flipping to the writer’s website and reading the “About” section, however, shows that Mr. Moubayed has some conflicts of interest when it comes to covering the Lebanon-Israel conflict. From Moubayeb’s profile:

One of the things journalists are famous for doing is exploiting the pain of others, often while saving their own from the same type of exploitation. Many times, they will run the very personal 911 calls that are placed after an event. I know that doesn't seem like it should be allowed; 911 is the only option people have for immediate help and victims shouldn't have to worry in their worst of moments whether they will end up on the news. But MSM and their lawyers have forced their noses into every personal nook and cranny that can help boost their ratings.

It didn't pay off this time. WOIO Channel 19 in Cleveland ran a "gruesome" 911 tape of Nancy Fisher calling for help after finding her 6-year-old daughter had drowned in a creek. Nancy is the sister of Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner.

Needless to say, the Cleveland Browns dropped their relationship with the station and are now looking for another station to air Browns games.

Advertisers should follow.

A piece in today’s NYT lets slip a canard that has been increasingly accepted as an article of faith among many talking heads and television news cycles, and reveals that the United States forces are actually helping Iraqis by being there.

And dang it all if it isn’t the Sunnis pleading for the Americans to remain steadfast and strong this time. While this is not necessarily an encouraging development, it does dampen previous notions that the US forces are viewed strictly as occupiers, bloodthirsty killers or as incompetent and unnecessary, and are instead looked upon by the oppressed and victimized as a protecting force (along with the Iraqi police and army).

No doubt you've seen countless examples of newspapers pining for open government, sunshine laws and freedom of access to court documents. That's fine when you're a journalist chasing evil corporations and big government, but as we all know journalists don't play by the same rules as the rest of us.

The Missoulian was caught cheating their carriers out of money rightfully owed. No one doubts that -- they have settled in the class action lawsuit. But don't bother asking by how much they cheated their own employees, the enforcers of transparency won't talk about it. One might then ask a carrier, but the terms of the settlement are confidential. A good reporter would then turn to the court documents but the newspaper "also took the unusual step of requesting that the entire court file be sealed, which request the court granted."

How can we know if the carriers are making "a living wage?"

The top of the New York Times website was odd on Tuesday morning, as its top story on the architect of butchery in Beslan was "Caucusus Renegade Dies, And His Cause May Die, Too." Renegade? The copy underneath was almost value-neutral: "Shamil Basayev's death was the latest of almost two years of setbacks for his separatist faction in Chechnya." The actual story by C. J. Chivers has everything the home page did not, at least. Wow, this is not a typical New York Times first paragraph:

In a long and notorious career, Shamil Basayev, the elusive terrorist leader of the most vicious separatist faction in Chechnya, was an airplane hijacker, a hostage taker, a guerrilla commander and a war-scarred spokesman for terror who tried to justify mass killings of civilians, even school children, for political ends and revenge.

The following is an op-ed of mine first published by The American Thinker.

Did you hear that sound on Thursday, June 29? That was millions of conservatives gasping in horror when the Supreme Court issued its Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision seemingly giving the Bush administration a stunning defeat over terrorist detention centers at Guantanamo Bay.

Irrespective of such justifiable concerns, when combined with another leak by the New York Times of a counterterrorism program just six days prior, Republicans were actually handed a tremendous gift dramatically improving their chances to hold both chambers of Congress in the November elections.