``Ha! I'd like to see them try to keep the NY Times... from covering the White House.'' Jon Johanning
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Okay agreed... but anyway.
News media people need passes, be on lists to be admitted to all sorts of government venues. The WH is just one. But, if a major news org starts running the un-spun-correctly view, they will get negative feedback. It will start to `cost' them, if they keep it up.
Almost all agencies and government offices have a press office and a spokesman assigned to track media coverage of their agency and supply the approved media line on issues that inform the public's perception and interest in the topic. Since these government spokesmen supply the information needed for media coverage, reporting is pretty much a matter of attending briefings and announcements and reporting what was said. So `objectivity' is produced and covered by simply re-wording the agency canned pronouncements.
Meanwhile, mucking round in the toxic dump behind the EPA or following the trail of bio-hazard bags leading away from NIH or FDA isn't encouraged. Besides all that kind of news work costs money and doesn't make money. Ads make money, news costs money.
Reporting the pre-spun news doesn't violate journalistic ethics of objectivity since the media are just reporting what was said.
``I think the Times' avoidance of "torture" is essentially part of its constant desire to appear "objective" and "neutral." "Abuse" is supposedly a "neutral," "non-emotional"word...'' JJ
Well, think about the quote from Terence Smith on Rumsfeld's parsing of language. Where does objectivity leave off and spin begin?
It would be one thing if US news on Abu Ghraib used both `torture' and `abuse' in obvious and rational ways that reflected their different meanings. For example we might read that ``The torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib was an abuse of military regulations.''
But that is not what is happening in the US press stories on Abu Ghraib. There is a systematic substitution of `prisoner abuse' for `torture'.
If you assume editors want to sound objective which of these do they pick:
1.) ``Ahmed X said he was tortured at Abu Ghraib...''
2.) ``Ahmed X claimed he was abused at Abu Ghraib...''
Sure you can make the argument and pretend that somehow the latter is more objective than former. On the other hand, which of the two sounds more like what ordinary people actually say?
When editors and reporters systematically messuage what is reported as direct speech by ordinary people it is usually for the purpose of spin, not objectivity or semantic clarity. On the other hand, look at Rumsfeld as a supplier of labor saving favors for the press. He messuages his speech in advance, so the news doesn't have to. Just report it and forget it.
If I got beat up by cops, I wouldn't tell a reporter that the police abused me. I'd say they beat the holy shit out of me. When I read later that ``...victim claimed he was abused by police...'', is it objective reporting or spin? I call it spin.
The underlying implication to words like `abuse' cover anything from using bad language and rough handling to getting slapped around.
The word `abuse' doesn't imply systematic use of brutal handling, frequent beatings, calculated humiliations, disorientation techniques, electric shock, hostile interrogations, and murder.
At any rate, we agree this was torture and not abuse.
CG