Andrew Hagen

In an anonymously written syndicated story, datelined 3 June 2005 7:36 AM London, Reuters reports on a recent study by the RAC Foundation. It found that certain odors cause bad driving. (*) (†)

The last paragraph, however, states:

Cars of the future are likely to have in-built systems able to detect a driver’s mood and react by altering the car’s seating, lighting, temperature and even smell. In the meantime motorists are advised to keep a packet of mints handy.

To translate, the car will manipulate the emotional state of the driver so it is in accord with what big industry wants the individual’s emotional state to be.

The astounding arrogance of Reuters and, apparently, of automobile manufacturers, is transparent.

Apparently their scurrilous behavior continues. The latest Newsweek Japan cover is abysmal. (*)

We can’t let the media do this to our country.

You know, at a certain point, we’re just not going to take it anymore.

Newsweek has now retracted their story about Koran abuse. (*)

Just great. If this spills over into world war, we’ll know who to thank.

Newsweek is sorry. It falsely reported that US troops desecrated a Koran by putting it in a toilet. In Islam, that is one of the worst things anyone could ever do. After Newsweek published its report, based on an anonymous source, rioting shortly ensued in Pakistan and Afghanistan and beyond. (*)

Who knows what this will do to our Middle East relations?

The moral blame for the rioting must sit with the rioters themselves. Newsweek deserves blame, but for false reporting that has resulted in a major diplomatic problem based on the perception of Muslisms.

With this, Newsweek has unwittingly fired another torpedo at the leaking luxury liner that is the US mainstream media.

Michelle Malkin has more on the situation. (†)

In the wake of the CBS News fiasco and the many other examples of their lies and blase attitude toward their own journalistic negligence, I would like to see the mainstream media call a nationwide conference, and send their top people. A big name institution would have to take the lead. There they would meet with bloggers and members of the general public. The conference would be a success if it impresses on the media of the need for accuracy first.

On the other hand, perhaps the media are just too consolidated and too centralized to remove the cancer of untruthfulness growing in their midst. Breaking up the industry may be the only solution.

Their ratings are down. The MSM has hit crisis mode. The American media is discrediting itself. We need a firm push toward fixing what is broken before our media “breaks a story” that turns out to be untrue and unnecessarily touches off a regional conflict or otherwise has grave real world consequences.

The New York Times reports: (*)

The critical moment came at 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, when, shortly after Florida had been painted red for Mr. Bush, Fox News declared that Ohio - and, very likely, the presidency - was in Republican hands.

Howard Wolfson, a strategist, burst into the “boiler room” in Washington where the brain trust was huddled and said, “we have 30 seconds” to stop the other networks from following suit.

The campaign’s pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC - and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night.

This was a corrupt practice by both the Kerry campaign and CBS, ABC, and CNN. At least NBC (and MSNBC) had the integrity to reach an honest conclusion.

The uncertainty created a false belief in Kerry’s possible success that, when shattered Wednesday morning, caused great disappointment amongst his supporters.

The puppet movie Team America is a mixed bag. (*) It’s as filled with profanity as the South Park movie, but it wasn’t as thoroughly funny. It tries to make a number of points of social importance, but only makes a few.

Its most important point is the film’s very existence. It is the first post–9/11 major Hollywood film on the subject of the Global War on Terrorism. It avoids any deeper question on the nature of the war by switching focus to an imaginary scenario that places the root of all evil with (spoilers) a certain nuclear-obsessed Asian dictator.

The film properly had serious moments as it focused on the victims of terrorism and oppression, but ultimately the filmmakers took great pains to remain politically correct. The message is that Islamic terrorism is not itself a great danger. The real danger is something else entirely.

The voice acting was poor. The self-referential jokes about the movie that features puppets instead of human actors grew old quickly. The joking about coerced homosexual sex was unfunny and a low point.

The bright notes were first the brilliant execution of the marionettes and the sets; second the usually funny lampooning of antiwar celebrities; and third the simple boldness in making a movie that features Arab Muslim characters engaged in anti-Western terrorism.

I would go to another puppet movie, but what I hope this movie really pioneers is the simple task of making a movie about Islamist terrorism and the fight against it.

Update: The strange similarity just occurred to me of the plots of Team America and that masterwork of cinematic trainwrecks, 2001: A Space Travesty (†)

The Dan Rather/National Guard media circus continues. There is a good case to be made that Rather and CBS News crossed the line. (*)

As I said before, the media should just admit their biases in order to protect their credibility. (†) They wouldn’t even have to make an open statement. They could just stealthily signal their bias, as Fox News does.

One positive outcome of this might be a melding together of the blog world with the news world. Blogs need reporters. Usually this is done through surrogate reporters in the form of links to news articles on the web. News organizations have reporters, but they need a better format of presentation. The scattershot newspaper front page, where everything is arranged out of order, may be dated. Perhaps a major news organization will adopt the blog format.

News syndicate Reuters (*) admits why it doesn’t use the word “terrorist” in its daily descriptions of terrorists. As it turns out, Reuters fears that if its employees use the word “terrorist,” they will be killed. (†)

We must be strong. We must not cower in fear. We cannot be weak, because that is how evil wins.

Reuters, change your policy.

It looks like I paced Glenn Harlan Reynolds by a month and a half. Reynolds observes that the media’s swoon for John Kerry is likely to destroy the credibility of the media. (*) I made the same observation a while back. (†)

Reynolds adds a superfluous point on the new Internet “competition” for the old media barons. In fact, the primary news sources are the same on the net as on TV and in print. The media’s real problem is that when their credibility lies in ruins, demand for their product will dry up. People will be less willing to pay to read it, and advertisers will see less value in ad placements.

Building new media brands would be a costly investment.

To avoid disaster, the liberal media should just take the masks off and admit their biases, like Fox News or AM talk radio. Credibility comes from honesty and fairness, not feigned objectivity. The big media would temporariliy lose some of their audience, but they would be protecting their credibility for the long run.

Of course, NPR and PBS as government-sponsored media don’t have that option.

The ombudsman of the New York Times, Daniel Okrent, admits his paper has a liberal bias. He uses as an example the paper’s coverage of gay marriage. (*)

Okrent criticizes the lifestyle pieces on gay marriage run so often by the Times for their lack of objectivity. This echoes my own criticism of the NYT several months ago. (†)

Okrent’s admission is not stunning, but it is stunning in that it occurred at all, and right in the pages of the NYT.

The public is becoming more aware of the media’s lack of objectivity on many important issues. As I discussed before (‡), there may negative consequences for the media, such as loss of public trust.

Update: 26 July 2004. Stanley Kurtz is justifiably proud of Okrent’s oblique reference to him. (§) It’s disappointing that the big media organizations have not interviewed Kurtz. He is perhaps the leading American voice in the fight to uphold classical marriage.

Canadians can now watch Al Jazeera, but still can’t watch Fox News. (*)

Many people consider Canada to be a free country.

Update: 12 June 2005. The Canadian authorities have now allowed Fox News in. (†)

Almost one-half of the Voice of America staff have signed a petition complaining about deficiencies in the Middle Eastern services provided by the US-funded network. (*) They say that Radio Sawa did not broadcast the news that Saddam Hussein had been captured, and that Al Hurra, the new satellite television station, does not broadcast breaking news.

There needs to be a congressional investigation into what these networks are doing, and if necessary, a change in direction. The purpose of these new networks was always to reach the Middle East through the airwaves, providing a free flow of information, like the VOA provided people living in Soviet satellite states during the Cold War.

The Middle East has a high rate of illiteracy. The political directions of these nations are determined by relatively few people. Perhaps the idea of using pop music to gain a large market share was a bad idea. The overriding purpose is to spread true news and information, not subsidize American record companies.

The BBC covers a recent utterance of Elton John decrying social pressure in America against anti-Americanism. (*) Elton John does not understand the freedom of speech. He does not realize that it works both ways. Dissenters can speak up in public, and they can be criticized in public. Dissenters have no right to not be criticized themselves. Elton John’s mistake is grating, but is still relatively minor.

The BBC headline is “Elton attacks ‘censorship’ in US.” Elton John, however, did not use the word “censorship” at any point within the article itself. Hence, the BBC apparently misquoted Elton John, because he did not use the word “censorship.” I’m sure the BBC will immediately apologize for this blunder. What is worse, though, is that the BBC described the situation decried by Elton John as “censorship,” when Elton John did not make such a ridiculous error.

There is no censorship of dissent against the war in the US. “Censorship” means an official practice of excluding statements. (†) (‡) (§) There is no such thing going on in America.

It should be noted that in several European countries and now Canada, one can go to jail for stating an opinion that homosexual acts are immoral. That is censorship.

In America, one is allowed to state one’s opinions, regardless of what they are. That is true freedom of speech, and it is at the root of human liberty.

America is still the land of the free. I wish Elton John would stick to what he excels at—entertaining people—and that the BBC would quote correctly, and in addition buy its reporters some English dictionaries.

As a liberal, I have long understood, recognized, and not denied that liberals, not conservatives, are in charge of the American media. The exception of Fox News proves the rule. Conservative commentators dominate talk radio, but they are commentators. They do not pretend to give the news objectively. Where the news is given as news, nearly invariably, the journalists who find the news and give the news to the people are liberals of the most orthodox sort.

Liberal media organizations today face a mounting crisis, perhaps the most serious one they have faced for decades. It is a crisis of their own manufacture. The mask is coming off. Americans are becoming more aware than ever of the starkly liberal slant of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, CNN, the local newspaper, and just about every other major media organization in the country, as Brent Bozell observes. (*)

Outwardly, all reputable journalists claim that their ideal is to give the news objectively—without any bias or spin. Privately, most reputable journalists calmly claim to be “the conscience” of the country. Presenting the facts objectively, however, is different than being “the conscience.”

The argument about the impossibility of true objectivity in news coverage is a red herring. The liberal media has swung far away from even an attempt at objectivity.

Bozell notes the insufferable smugness of the media elites.

[T]he point was driven home to me several years ago at a meeting with a Los Angeles newspaper. The Media Research Center had just released an exhaustive study regarding liberal bias in the news media, and I was scheduled to meet with the editorial board of the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner to discuss the report’s findings. When I arrived, however, I was ushered into the conference room and met by a solitary figure, a member of the editorial board obviously pegged with the unsavory assignment of listening to this pesky conservative. The ponytailed hair and the cold body language — he silently pointed me to a chair — hinted that this would be anything but a productive meeting. I made an opening statement, then passed him the voluminous report we were to discuss. Without bothering to open it, the editor shoved it back at me and unleashed a vitriolic harangue against conservatives. Niceties flew out the window as he snarled, “All you conservatives care about is making money!” Clearly we weren’t going to discuss the report, so I asked him what liberals like him cared about. Without bothering to deny my description of his ideological persuasion, he quickly shot back, “You just don’t get it: We are the social conscience of this country and we have an obligation to use the media.”

At least this editor had the decency to admit what so many others steadfastly deny. Yes, the mainstream news media’s view of conservatives is less than flattering — the liberal media see conservatives as “the great unwashed,” as Republican congressman Henry Hyde aptly put it — and that is a big problem. But just as important, and too often overlooked, is the problem of how the media view themselves. The media elites feel they must be the “social conscience of this country”; they seem to have a higher calling beyond objectively reporting what happens on a day-to-day basis. Reporters, editors, and producers routinely display an arrogance driven by an inflated sense of self-worth. They are the enlightened, the elite. This attitude cannot help but distort the way the news is covered.

The liberal media elite’s deep suspicion of the Iraq war effort and of the Global War on Terrorism has driven it to energetically spin coverage of these major events. As most Americans are not in tune with the media’s mistaken suspicion, but rightly see the war in the context of the national interest, people can’t help but notice the discrepency between the media’s claim to objectivity and the reality. Why so much coverage of the isolated incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison and so little of our military triumphs? The only answer is bias against the war effort.

The mounting crisis of the liberal media is one of their own credibility. As they make their money by providing facts to people, trust is the only thing of real value they have, and now, sadly, they are frittering that away.

At a level of greater depth, however, the crisis of the liberal media reflects the crisis within orthodox liberalism, a static set of ideologies that deserve to be called paleoliberalism. (†) This is the liberalism of the past. As no “next-generation” version of liberalism has come forward, the death of paleoliberalism as a working set of political principles presents a sizable challenge for those who expect to rely on them.

Fundamentally, the crisis of liberal politics in America, and around the world, is not one of being out-hustled politically or of being the victim of dirty tricks. It is a crisis of imagination, a crisis of vision.

As an unorthodox liberal, I look forward to a day with both a more objective media and an invigorated liberalism.

It is too easy to characterize all terrorists as either affiliated with states or unaffiliated. Reality is murkier than that.

In Laurie Mylroie’s stark conception of international terrorism, the 9/11 attacks could not have been executed without the resources of a state. Furthermore, she says, Iraq worked with Islamic militants throughout the 1990s and sponsored the 9/11 attacks. (*)

We know Dr Mylroie was wrong on a few things. Saddam did not rain anthrax upon Israeli cities when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced despite her conviction that it would. Peter Bergen concludes she is a “crackpot” in a Washington Monthly essay. (†)

A number of analysts have challenged Mylroie’s position that Saddam’s Iraq sponsored the 9/11 attacks. Mylroie contends that the CIA is withholding evidence of the Saddam regime’s complicity with the attacks. (‡) She wants evidence released of the 707 airplane that was at Salman Pak, a terrorist training camp near Baghdad possibly used to train the 9/11 hijackers. (§)

The main question, however, remains: are non-state entities capable of pulling off terrorist attacks like 9/11? Mylroie could be wrong on a lot of issues, but if she is right that they are incapable of such attacks without state help, she has won a critical point.

It is conceivable that a terrorist group could afford to refuse the help and sponsorship of a nation-state, including funding and protection. Yet, given the choice, a terrorist group would not refuse such aid. That would not be economically rational. The level of aid provided by a state would be too high for a terrorist to pass on.

Perhaps the better question is what incentive if any does a terrorist group have to refuse state aid? In a context of competent and adequate law enforcement closing the net on high–profit margin black market operations like drug smuggling, the level of funds needed to sustain terrorist activity can only come from a handful of a few places, and the most obvious is a government.

Plainly a terrorist network enjoys an advantage over a state in that a state can be easily located by a foreign power and possibly destroyed. A terrorist network thrives on mobility. In the event that a host state like the Taliban suddenly squares off with a superior enemy like the US–led coalition, a group like Al Qaeda has the opportunity to flee the fighting to new environs where operations may safely be resumed, thereby escaping the fate of the host government.

On the other hand, the weak point in the armor of a non-state terrorist network is that for maintenance of group cohesion, frequent resort must be had to global communications technologies like telephones and the Internet. A terrorist network without global communication has no global coordination. In a way, electronic coordination of terror is the most dangerous cyberterrorist threat.

The terrorists’ need for constant global communications access is mitigated somewhat by the method of sleeper cells. If a terrorist group uses sleeper cells, orders can be given in such a way that they are only executed at some point in the remote future. Then, until word comes from above, sleeper terrorists embed themselves deep within the free society. Sleeper cells suffer from numerous tactical disadvantages. People move on with their lives, or miss the secret triggering message. Sleeper cells are highly dangerous weapons when deployed against free states, but a terrorist group cannot rely on them.

To fight a non-state terrorist entity, free states must monitor the Internet and the telephone networks for hidden messages and codes, and put that intelligence to use immediately.

A multi-pronged approach to fighting these terrorist groups may be described as:

• Monitor or cut off the terrorist’s access to global communications networks;
• Reduce the terrorist’s funding by improving law enforcement of black market industries with high profit margins like illegal drugs;
• Reduce the terrorist’s funding by tracking down money laundering schemes and enforcing laws against funding terror;
• By any and all necessary means, disrupt or remove state regimes that sponsor, help, or finance terrorists; and
• Monitor communications and funding links between terrorist groups and regimes.

The last one may prove the most challenging. Unfortunately, I believe that the channel most likely used for communication and funds flow between regimes and terrorist groups is the mosque. The problem might be limited to a few radical mosques. If the problem were indeed limited in scope to a few radical mosques, the level of controversy in addressing this problem would not be high. Controversy, great or small, will inevitably follow scrutiny of mosques, however.

If we take Mylroie’s argument seriously, we have to look at the mosque as the essential middle-man between a government and a radical Islamist terrorist group. We must remember that Islam is a very political religion (and a very religious political system). The mosque traditionally plays a key governance role in Islamic countries.

Today, the known terror-supporting states have dwindled in number. Syria, Iran, and perhaps others continue to support terror. The best strategy for free states is to focus effort on the terror-supporting states and their affiliated groups.

Several years ago, newspaper editor Jerry Ceppos led the San Jose Mercury-News in publishing the famous “Dark Alliance” series, alleging that the CIA boosted the crack cocaine trade in the US. In the media squall that followed, Ceppos admitted error. Upon reflection, he drew from the experience a list of reasons why news sources, especially newspapers, are losing readership and credibility among their remaining readership.

Ceppos listed:

• not listening to readers’ complaints;
• framing and writing stories before getting all sides;
• refusing to explain actions or decisions to the public;
• pretending issues are black and white.

(*) That excellent list can be summed up as the avoidance of arrogance. I wish that list did not apply to any media organization, but I’m afraid that today they are all guilty to one degree or another. No journalist seems to have the guts to be both daring and humble anymore.

A frequent criticism of movies by cultural conservatives is that they are “violent.” Now that most cultural conservatives embrace Mel Gibson’s new cinematic sensation, Passion of the Christ, their criticism of “movie violence” may be undercut. Passion depicts the torture and crucifixion of Jesus in extremely graphic detail.

(Sidebar: There is no such thing as “movie violence.” The violence portrayed in movies is simulated. When filming, special effects and camera tricks are used to suggest violence. Very little actual violence filmed is ever shown in entertainment features. During a boxing match scene, for example, actors might accidentally hit one another with force, and footage of that may be filmed. Yet lasting injuries are not meant to occur. Real violence on film usually only appears in news coverage.)

“Awe-inspiring” is Dr Robert Schuller’s description of Passion. (*) A cultural conservative, Schuller appears on the Crystal Cathedral/Hour of Power.

Would a cultural conservative say the same thing about a non-Christian film with similar levels of extremely graphic depictions of violence? Of course not. This provides an opening to antinomians and paleoliberals who will cry “Hypocrisy!” the next time a cultural conservative criticizes the pseudo violence of a movie.

One web site that reviews movies for their questionable content is Kids-in-Mind. (†) It gives Passion a rating of very high simulated violent content. It notes that Passion has no nudity, sexual content, or profanity. (‡)

That gives rise to a counterargument for cultural conservatives. They could say depictions of violence on screen are okay so long as the overall message is moral and the film does not have nudity, sexual content, or profanity. Thus Passion is acceptable but Pulp Fiction is not. (§) Liberals will continue to cry “Hypocrisy!” and a useless shouting match will ensue.

This could very well lead to several more rounds of raging shouting matches between TV talking heads, all of which I will try to avoid.

Movies are only visual and symbolic. Movies do not have great impact on matters of public affairs.

Update: 4 March 2004. John A Kalb adds insight. (**)

In all of this talk of Mel Gibson’s new movie, the Passion of the Christ, on whether it is a faithful depiction of the story told in Gospels, on whether it is anti-Semitic, on whether it will make money, on whether Gibson will ever work in Hollywood again, a key point has been forgotten.

It’s just a movie.

Americans invented the movie a century ago and today regard it as perhaps the highest form of art, and certainly the most commercially lucrative. This attitude could only be the result of our unfortunate cultural narcissism. Americans have created great art, but it is primarily jazz that has lasting value, not movies.

Movies are supposed to educate us. Many people base their lives on movies. Electronically broadcast moving pictures, also known as television, are a related obsession. These dark days you hear more references to Simpsons episodes than to Shakespeare or works of literature. We raise our children to know a forest of detail about the lives of cartoon characters, but not to properly spell. This is all terribly sad.

Movie making is inherently a commercial venture. There is no reason to believe that any kind of video production can ever faithfully portray any real event that ever occurred. Video can only portray a myth, a set of events that could not occur, because the view of the characters is limited by that of the audience and that of the audience is constrained by the small window through which the subject is filmed. (*)

Americans take movies far too seriously. Mel Gibson apparently expects that masses of people will start converting to Christianity after viewing the film. I have only skepticism that the movie will do anything other than make money and provoke some discussion. The movie is not a form of high art and it has little consequence in human affairs. Film buffs often cite the Triumph of the Will as proof that movies have great impact upon the world, but historians have no need to refer to it when they explain how World War II or the Holocaust started. Propaganda does have effect, but visual propaganda is weak compared to the power of the spoken or written word.

If I start hearing verbal abuse heaped upon Jews, then I would become concerned. Yet we must recall that the current great wave of Jew-hatred primarily comes from Islamofascists and their supporters, not Christians. (†) Hearing no verbal abuse heaped upon Jews other than that which was done before, my advice is not to worry about this movie or any other. Be concerned not with the phony two-dimensional world, but with the real one. Don’t watch a movie. Read a book.

Rush Limbaugh and many, many other American commentators are busy weaving webs of conspiracy theory, putting Hillary Clinton on the hook for the allegations of adultery against John Kerry. They say she is doing it to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

Not a single shred of evidence supports it. If they employed Ockham’s razor, they would adopt the simpler explanation: the allegations from Drudge are coming from somewhere that we are not aware of. That may not be appealing to feckless pundits, but it has the advantage of being solidly grounded in fact.

If we do the same thing ourselves, who are we to decry Iraqis for conjuring up conspiracy theories about the US secretly using super weapons, using alien technology, keeping Osama secretly in custody, or trying to steal all the oil?

The public should demand that conspiracy theorizing pundits produce evidence and supportive arguments for their claims, or the public should start listening to new pundits.

CNN runs a surreal story that treats, with what is apparently irony, plastic dolls as if they were real people. Mattel’s Barbie and Ken are no longer dating. (*) I thought the characters were married, not dating.

I don’t know which is worse: the culture’s obsession with humorless irony or the amoral lesson this will teach to children.