What is this article referring to, was sheehan proven to be some long time leftist protest organizer?

From the quality of their work, I'd certainly have to refer to them as "amateurs."

At least the nut jobs will lose coverage to Rita.

That's the way it was written in ANSWER's press release so that is the way WaPo had to report it. Reporters are not allowed to do original work when it comes to reporting on left-wing organizations.

Stuff like this make me think I should start using a pseudonym when I'm online.

I hear ya, big guy. Are the reporters biased, or just plain too lazy to do the legwork?

It's just like when they said that LA Gov. Blanco didn't declare a state of emergency until Thursday and a quick google search could find it was in effect the Friday before Katrina, on the state's web site. Another click will find the President's acknowledgement on the gov't website. It makes you wonder...

Oh yeah, and I bet she voted for Bush in 2000. Sure, sure.

Speaking of lying liberals:
I love it when the libs call in to C-Span on the "support President Bush" line and say how they are disappointed in Bush and as a life-long Republican they will NOW become a democrat.

I emailed C-Span and suggested they change the telephone line labels from:
Support President Bush
Oppose President Bush
Other

To:
Support Democrats
Oppose Republicans
Moonbat extension

Bart, I must have missed something. I was agreeing that the WaPo's reporters are more like stenographers than actual journalists. I don't understand how Gov. Blanco's voting preferences have anything to do with that. I was just adding another example to the original post.

Isn't it wonderful that in a thread on lazy people who don't fact check a asshat like iamcoyote pops in and drops a turd and a link? If you follow the link you will see the following lie on its blog:

"White House: Bush acknowledges Declaration of State of Emergency - puts FEMA in charge"

Then read the declaration and it says:

"Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency"

Of course it doesn't say anything about being put in charge but hey, who needs facts when you're in late-stage BDS.

You're right, BrewFan, (I'm one, too, BTW) Bush's acknowledgement says FEMA is authorized to provide resources, but the National Response Plan (on page 27) clearly designates DHS and its agents (FEMA) as being in charge of command and control of resources as well as logistical planning and communications between agencies and relief organizations.

DHS officials recently admitted that the NRP has the fatal flaw of not allowing for local first responders to be inundated. It was the LA Nat'l Guard command center that first reported the levee break Monday morning as Katrina hit, because their building was under water. And we all saw what happened to the NO police department.

This is actually worse than poor fact checking by the WaPost.

The obvious question one has after reading this is: how exactly did the reporter (Dvorak) get the phone # for this supposedly random protester in Kansas? I mean she didn't throw darts at the phone book; someone had to give it to her.

And just who would that someone be? You may notice that shortly after quoting Cuddy the article goes on to quote none other than Brian Becker who is identified as the "National Coordinator" for ANSWER.

Now you don't have to be a 1st year journalism student to figure out that Brian, or one of his associates, gave the phone number to Dvorak, presumably to back up their party line that the anti-war movement was going mainstream. After, who else would have Cuddy’s phone number than the person organizing the march?

This makes the WaPost's omission more than just a "fact checking" error as Dvorak clearly should have been very wary that a source proposed to her by ANSWER was in fact an ANSWER plant or at least someone with strong connections to the organization. That she failed to check out the source's background is simply proof positive of her personal bias. She can claim that Cuddy deceived her by lying about her background, but that argument holds no water as any reporter worth their pencil would have been very suspicious of the source to start with given its origin.

Sadly, what's most probable is that Dvorak was already attached to the hip with ANSWER and knew full well that Cuddy wasn't the babe-in-the-woods she and Becker made her out to be. After all, the slant of the entire piece is basically parroting the ANSWER party line down to a T. No, the truth is most likely that Dvorak (and her editors) liked the story and its angle (probably after having it pitched to them by someone at ANSWER or their PR agency) and wanted to run with it ... truth be damned.

Some things that would be interesting to know:

1. Did Dvorak indeed get the phone number for Cuddy from someone at ANSWER?
2. Does Dvorak have any history with Becker?
3. Does Dvorak have a history of anti-war protests herself?
4. Did ANSWER or their PR agency pitch this story (either through a press release or a direct pitch) to the Post?

Perhaps someone with Google and a few minutes on their hands can “answer” these questions.

Besides bias, first-person experience has revealed to many that many reporters are just lazy. The intertia created by this magnifies their bias.

Happens all the time. There were a number of cases of "guy-in-the-street" interviews in the MSM around election time that any googler could discover were with Young Republicans.

Laziness? Sure. Something devious? Maybe. Shameful journalism either way? ABSOLUTELY.

Highly significant compared to daily MSM flaws?

Hardly.

Why has it taken so long for THIS to come out?

Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, the Jacksonville company that held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation, did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit, according to Sally Snead, a Carey senior vice president who headed the bus roundup.

Read it all.

In a regulatory filing last week, Landstar Express said it has received government orders worth at least $125 million for Katrina-related work. It's not known how much of that total pertains to the bus evacuation.

Landstar Express is a subsidiary of Landstar System, a $2 billion company whose board chairman, Jeff Crowe, also was chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation's premier business lobbies, from June 2003 until May 2004.

Whatever happens likely will be good for Landstar's bottom line.

Landstar's regulatory filing also said that because of Hurricane Katrina, the maximum annual value of its government contract for disaster relief services has been increased to $400 million.

But the other point is that according to the polls, a VERY significant portion of the US thinks invading Iraq was a mistake.

Get out and talk to people. Ask at your local coffee shop how people feel. You'll find out that plenty of quite ordinary people feel strongly against the war.

It really doesn't matter how shitty a job the MSM job does in representing it. Reality is still reality.

An aside: about a year ago, a college student who had spent the summer as an intern at one of the Big Three networks mentioned in apssing that she had been explicitly told not to use GOOGLE to do research.

Please don't feed it.

I mean, it's not like I don't know. I know.

My first response was a rebuttal, and then I deleted everything and wrote, 'Please don't feed it.'

It's hard. I know.
But you can't teach it anything.

a VERY significant portion of the US

a VERY significant portion of the US can't even find Canada on a map either.

Nice try tubino. Gosh, after two years of non-stop leftist, anti-war, anti-America, and anti-Bush propaganda in the media with zero exposure of our successes on the ground, a poll done by that same media comes out and says "Hey, look, we're finally getting our message across." I do talk to ordinary people, and every one I've met who opposes the war and the President's handling of it has no fucking idea of what is going on, and can only parrot the "Bush lied," and "It's all about the oil!" nonsense. When the "ordinary people" hear the facts, they get pretty pissed that they are not hearing the truth from the MSM.

Hey Ace- I did some extensive research myself (google) and found that another protester in an AP article participated in a service last year where this rare version of "America the Beautiful" was sang...

O beautiful, for darkened skies, for us there is no grain; for purple mountain majesties, above the fruitless plain...

Brings a tear to your eye, don't it.

And the WAPO rep cound not understand why I would not accept a free courtesy copy of the WAPO during my last visit to Giant.

If they are willing to lie for their cause, just imagine what they are willing to do on election day, including rising from the grave.

"a VERY significant portion of the US"

The term "significant portion" is what one says when they don't have a majority.

It really doesn't matter how shitty a job the MSM job does in representing it. Reality is still reality.

Fake but accurate.

Or, as I like to now say, stuck on stupid.

Ya know, I wonder how much misinformation and downright lies were perpetrated by the MSM during the Vietnam war. Of course, we have Walter Cronkite to thank for spinning the Tet Offensive as a military defeat. But when you look at how incredibly biased and lazy news is today, thanks to what bloggers uncover, you really have to wonder just how bad it was before.

I'm only being half facetuious in asking this question. It seems to me that the MSM has gotten progressively more biased as time goes on. I guess the questions are (1) Was the media just as biased before the blogosphere and alternate media. (2) Did they simply do a better job of covering it, and their incompetence, "in olden times."

What do you think?

one wonders about the janet cooke, jayson blair possibilities in this story.

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2005/09/24/novice-protestors-or-novice-reporters-and-editors/

thanks,

jack risko

I think most journalists aren't even aware of their biases. My liberal friends here in SF don't notice any bias because it dovetails with their own preconceptions. In general, MSM journalism is grounded in several Vietnam-era canards: that America is a racist country; that the world is engaged in a titanic struggle between the corrupt West & the oppressed Third World; that govt intervention is a good thing; that the American military is a malign force; that Third World peoples can't be judged by the moral precepts of the West.

I think most journalists aren't even aware of their biases.

Oh they know - they simply don't care because the end justifies the means.

This country hasn't had anything resembling real "journalists" for oh...40+ years.

Anybody catch ANSWER's Million Moron March coverage today? Classic.

One speaker said people should have the freedom to return to their homes, whether those homes are in Palestine or New Orleans.
I SHIT YOU NOT.

Haven't laughed that hard since I saw John Kerry in a wetsuit.

They should do this every weekend. You know. 'Get the message out.'

Not surprising since many of the antiwar demonstrations were orgainized by the WWP Workers World Party a confirmed communist organation

Funny how the worm turns. When Kerry lost the election, a lot of Dems felt that the public was misinformed on Iraq (especially since polls showed that the majority of Bush voters thought Saddam was responsible for 9/11.) What did the Republicans say? "How elitist. The people of this country know what's going on, but you big-city Dems have nothing but contempt for the average American. You think you're so superior."

Now that polls show the majority of Americans think going into Iraq was a mistake, what do we hear from Republicans?

"a VERY significant portion of the US can't even find Canada on a map either."

"I do talk to ordinary people, and every one I've met who opposes the war and the President's handling of it has no fucking idea of what is going on"

Boy, you war supporters think you're so superior to the average American.

Then of course you've got Bill, who uses the standard right wing tactic of pulling something out of his ass "the Post reporter got her phone number from ANSWER" and proceeds to demand an investigation into something that exists only in his fevered imagination.

It is frustrating when the media doesn't do basic fact checking, though. Like when Republican congressional aides were protesting during the Florida recount in 2000, and telling reporters they were just concerned citizens. It would have been nice if the press hadn't taken them at their word. I guess Republican congressional aides and ANSWER have the same level of credibility.

You know, you can use made up names on here. Really. I'd take into a consideration a post by Bob Bubblybutt, but I can't be arsed to respond to a post by .

I made the mystery post. I actually put in my name and e-mail address, but I've noticed if you don't complete a post within a certain time the info seems to get deleted.

Oh. Chris. Well, it doesn't have the credibility of Bob Bubblybutt, but I guess your name is your name.

"Boy, you war supporters think you're so superior to the average American."

So, what's your point?

I actually put in my name and e-mail address, but I've noticed if you don't complete a post within a certain time the info seems to get deleted

more chilling of dissent

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