Hear Yost
: Just got email from Cam Edwards, who says that Mark Yost, center of much journalistic controversy, will be on his Sirius show on Patriot 141 (friendly territory, no doubt) on Friday at 5:20p ET.
7 responses to “Hear Yost”
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I read through your long post on Yost (detailing the emails from Steve Lovelady) and I think it’s fair to say that Mr. Yost has been repeatedly and righteously Fisked over his editorial. I can agree with you that reviewing the coverage is a reasonable endeavor. However, Mr. Yost is certainly not a good choice as advocate for his own arguments, which rely on second-hand information at best (rebutted, of course, by the first-hand reportage of Hannah Allam). I would suggest that a reasonable review of the coverage would require a panel of journalists who have sustained firsthand experience with the situation in Iraq comparing their own experiences with a representative sampling of the coverage in US media. I suggest using a panel of journalists because they (are supposed to) understand (a) reasonable objectivity, and (b) what constitutes accurate coverage of an event of this scale.
Certainly there are numerous US-based journalists who have spent significant recent time in Iraq who can provide a comparison of their experiences with their own reading of the coverage. As broad a sample as possible would allow for a variety of viewpoints, rather than just hearing from, say, Hannah Allam.
But Mark Yost, sitting in St. Paul and having never experienced directly the situation in Iraq, has the right to question the coverage (i.e., to ask, ‘Is this truly an accurate depiction?’) but not a good basis for disputing it (i.e., to opine, ‘This is an inaccurate depiction because my friend in Iraq said it was’). -
Don’t know a lot first hand about Iraq but a journalist is the last person I would ask to tell me how things are in a war zone. As an infantry soldier in VN I can assure you that the media types that came out to see us were positively clueless. That’s why the blogs are so great. You can now get a real perspective from literally hundreds of folks who are actually living the experience, rather than the odd news hack, rushing out (always in the daytime) and then rushing back, after getting enough “interviews” to tell the story of how things were in the field with the troops. You can imagine what the guys opinion of their courage was, and how they viewed the interviews. What would lead anyone to beleive that a group of journalists, hunkered down in a bunker (or it’s equivalent) in the red zone, protected by the troops they regularly criticize, and departing on quick forays to the outback have any better idea of what’s going on than you do. Most if not all of their info is also second hand. In VN these folks were called Saigon Commandos. I guess now we have the Red Zone Heroes.
I have spent many years listening to second, third, fourth, fifth (to the umpteenth power) hand reports from experts on VN tell me all about what happened and what was going on when I was there. These are often the same folks calling others chickenhawks because they haven’t gone to Iraq. Priceless. -
“ìBut Mark Yost, sitting in St. Paul and having never experienced directly the situation in Iraq, has the right to question the coverage (i.e., to ask, ‘Is this truly an accurate depiction?’) but not a good basis for disputing it (i.e., to opine, ‘This is an inaccurate depiction because my friend in Iraq said it was’).”
As opposed to what, Mr. Blum? He’s reporting information provided to him by eyewitnesses on the scene. And that’s different from the GreenZone-enschoned Ms. Allam how? They use sources, they name sources, and they quote sources.
Go back and read Yost’s column again. The only thing that differentiates Allam’s reportage from Yost’s is content and tone. Does she personally witness every story she reports on? Must she recuse herself from reporting any story for which she has no first-hand knowledge? Does the fact that Ms. Allam sends in her reports from the comfort of the Palestine Hotel in downtown Baghdad magically imbue her sources with enhanced veracity?
And, remind me again, why it must be “a panel of journalists” that provide the review of “objective” reportage coming out of Iraq? Reporters reporting on reporters? Good luck with that! There’s a very good reason why independent auditors must have no private or professional connections to the companies whose financial records they scrutinize (particularly when ìirregularitiesî may have occurred). That same reason applies here. -
I’ll second that Nikko.
It may be possible for a panel of journalists to judge the passions and prejudices of other journalists but a panel, or a stadium full, of journalists would be no more likely to get to the “truth” about Iraq than a panel of plumbers. Factually, if you were analysing the sewerage situation, the plumbers would have a more informed opinion, even if their raw data was second hand.
Thousands of onsite bloggers have enormous advantages over establishment journalists, since they can report on each local area of experience without claiming an overall mastery of the entire situation in the whole country. This is the true realization of Fox’s “we report, you decide” motto – without a news organization being involved. When these establishment journalists were challenged they resorted to stats, the quintessential third hand information, to buttress their otherwise unverifiable opinions. Of course they “interpret” the stats, usually a la Krugman. It is seldom that any of this type of interpretation is found to be valid by subsequent events.
When I envision a “panel of journalists” it brings to mind a panel of word processing managers back in ancient times that I was privileged to have my employer send me to. These were the folks who ran the typing pools and word processing systems for large companies back in the middle ages and they were experts in the arcane and wonderful habits of Selectric and Olivetti typewriters and in specialized word processing machines running horrors like Wang, Multfimate, and Displaywrite. After complimenting themselves on how great a job they were all doing and how invaluable they were to their companies they proceeded to trash and dismiss the potential of the new IBM PC that had recently been introduced. The general take from these experts was that it would never catch on. The executives they served couldn’t type or proof and there was no way they could ever survive without their typists and their help. Two years later there were not enough word processing managers left to even hold a yearly conference. Not one of my four college age kids has ever heard of Selectric, Multimate, or Knight Ridder. I guess a more appropriate subject for such panels may be something like “How it feels to be a very scared dinosaur.” -
Jeff,
I sent you an email, but thought I should post this here as well. I received word from Mark this morning that he is unable to do an interview with us at this time.
I’d like to extend an invitation for you to come on during the time period we had blocked off for Mr. Yost.
Thanks for the plug, and sorry that the interview won’t be happening.
Cam -
Yeah, the nerve of those journalists with their “stats” and “facts”. What we really need in order to get at the truth is a thousand bloggers venting their own world views. And I love this part:
This is the true realization of Fox’s “we report, you decide” motto – without a news organization being involved.
Actually, if there was no real news organization involved it would be exactly like Fox. -
Gunther: you’re a moron, and that’s as verifiable as your media “facts”. Stats and opinions are not “facts” – they are just stats and opinions. Get out a dictionary and look up ‘facts’ doofus. Where did I say facts were not relevant? They can be misinterpreted, however, and they must be germane to the subject. It’s a fact that you’re an idiot, but that proves nothing about Iraq. I did not say I credited FOX for living up to it’s motto, only that they make it. So what’s your point, other than to vent your own “world view”.
I propose that media venting their own world views is no better than the bloggers venting theirs, and the bloggers are in position to observe more verifiable facts, they are far more likely to be either eyewitnesses or closer to the events. I also mentioned that they are not required by ego or company policy to have a reputation as an expert to defend, or an organizational agenda to press. The aggregation of blog news from the bombings in Britain was superior in many ways to the coverage of the established media, which lagged behind by an order of magnitude. It was also more free of “world views” and not as subject to censorship (like not using the word terrorist) as the establishment.
Don’t keep your head permanently stuck up your ass, Gunther. It’ll give you a shitty outlook on life.
