On Friday (5/18/12) we noted that the New York Times and Washington Post had long pieces about a drug war shooting in Honduras that reportedly killed four innocent bystanders, including two pregnant women. The story got increased attention here in the U.S. because of the apparent involvement of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Honduran officials and sources claimed the dead were civilians. The Times and Post, though, granted anonymity to U.S. officials to claim that the dead were maybe not civilians at all; in fact, according to some of these unnamed officials, the whole town where the shooting occurred was involved in the illegal drug trade, and it was downright suspicious that a boat would be out on the water at that time of night.
On Saturday (5/19/12), Times reporter Damien Cave, the author of one of the pieces we criticized, offered another take, which included a hospital interview with one of the shooting victims. He also reported that, contrary to the story peddled by anonymous U.S. officials, it would not have been all that unusual for boats to be out in the early morning hours.
It’s a strong piece that sheds considerable light on a story that is obviously still unfolding. The headline is unfortunate—”From a Honduras Hospital, Conflicting Tales of a Riverside Shootout”—in the sense that it suggests equal weight be given to the version of events as presented by U.S. officials.
Cave, it should be noted, appeared in the comments section of the FAIR Blog to argue this: “Instead of judging me and one story, try to keep paying attention to the story as it unfolds.” Fair enough. But the problem with the first story still stands. Why grant U.S. officials anonymity to spin their side of the story? Times readers who are following this story might have a hard time figuring out who to believe: Officials from their own government or the eyewitnesses and survivors. The main reason for that confusion is the fact that news outlets gave those officials space to tell their story without any accountability.
Another Times reporter, Michael Powell, also weighed in on the original blog post to say that Cave “wrote a riveting piece, first-hand, that directly challenges the U.S. government’s account.” That is true, but the first piece did almost exactly the opposite—which was, of course, the point of FAIR’s critique.
Powell dismissed the importance of the piece’s reliance on anonymous U.S. sources:
I am all for being as explicit as possible about sourcing, but would you have slept better if it had said because of government policy on talking to reporters or whatever?
A report that is heavily based on spin coming from anonymous U.S. officials is not a detour on the road to getting at the truth. That is why outlets like the Times, at least in principle, say they try to avoid using anonymous sources—out of concern over being used to transmit official deceptions. If these papers would follow their own rules on anonymity, their readers would be lied to less often.
There’s that thing everyone says about journalism being the first draft of history. But the first draft of journalism is just as important. The Times deserves credit for publishing a more thorough report that challenges the official story coming from the U.S. government. But that doesn’t undermine the critique of the first story; it bolsters it.
Ummm, because the NYT would cease to exist if they didn’t.
Well, it looks like you got under their skin, doesn’t it?
I like to say you touched their consciences, but that would require an observable presence of same, wouldn’t it?
This isn’t about “one story”. It’s about the long and sordid history of corpress outlets when it comes to giving free reign to gummint propaganda. Doing your job to some extent after the fact doesn’t absolve you of that sin.
I know none of this makes a rat’s ass worth of difference to the likes of Cove and Powell. They’ll dismiss this criticism, as they have all previous to it, although I have to think that, if they retain any allegiance to the alleged standards of their profession – not to mention to humanity – they know it’s righteous, and they know the harm their work does to others.
They won’t act on that, of course. It will just be something that will bubble to the surface of their consciousness, and their consciences, in their “weaker” moments, to be swiftly resubmerged through their prodigious powers of rationalization.
It’s in the job description.
Really good post Doug.
“they know it’s righteous, and they know the harm their work does to others.”
I think that’s where the rationalization comes in, right? Difficult to know that other world until it is truly accepted in ourselves. Evil’s association with ignorance is a strong one. How willful is it really? What wakes somebody up? When somebody like Blankfein says he’s doing God’s Work, the scary thing for me is how much he probably means it.
Binyamin, it’s a question for the ages, but at some level it’s moot, isn’t it?
What matters is the damage done. The victims suffer regardless of the intent, and our task is not to analyze motives but to try to end that suffering.
There may be a time and place to try to appeal to whatever better angels may be airborne in the psyches of these persons, but it’s best not to waste too much time on enabling ephiphanies, don’t you think?
There was an AP piece in the Wisconsin (more accurately, “Walker”) State Journal today, exploring the opposition to gay marriage in a sympathetic manner, to my mind, and I couldn’t help transplanting that ‘tude to the era of my childhood, in apartheid Miss’ssippi in the ’60s.
How would you react to an article that took that tack with racist whites, in order to understand “their point of view” … to “humanize” hate? I wouldn’t be willing to bet that it didn’t in fact occur, would you?
That the AP reporter, or his boss, could conceive of such an angle tells you a great deal about the moral universe those in the corpress inhabit.
And it’s not one committed to just treatment of “the other”, be they gay, black …
Or foreign fisherfolk.
I definitely hear what you’re saying Doug. In fact I find myself citing this Chomsky quote a lot lately. “The profession of noble intent is predictable, and therefore carries no information.”
In other words, it’s difficult for the ego to integrate the damage it may do, especially in positions of political power. Everybody is ‘just’ in their minds, or they couldn’t live with themselves. So when you said “they know the harm their work does to others” I wondered aloud, do they? Does it matter? How do you pop that bubble?
I think projects like FAIR have some positive effect. Our corpress may not be capable of shame any longer, but at least the steady exposure of hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and epistemological closure keeps ’em on their toes. There’s gotta be some shred of dignity out there (that’s what I tell myself at night anyway).
This story has a strange ring to it. I would be a bit more relived if the US closed this DEA office and recalled all employees. Until a complete open investigation can be completed by Congress.
Binyamin, it’s a tough nut to crack, and I wish we were able to sit down and discuss it at length.
I’ve seen enough to know that much “profession of noble intent” is utterly disingenuous. At the same time, it may be that some horrible acts are motivated by a perverted sense of “righteousness”.
What does that mean for the moral calculus? Philosophers have pondered that for ages, haven’t they?
I don’t think it’s wholly immaterial as to how we view the actors, but it is regarding our condemnation of the acts.
Let’s work to stop the horrors, both greater and smaller. Then we can decide how justice is best served, and whether redemption is possible.
I apologize for not being able to take it further than that.