Glenn Greenwald has a fascinating article on his blog today concerning the coverage ABC news gave to the post-9/11 anthrax mailings. If you don’t read his blog regularly, this all started a week or so ago with some other criticism that he brought against ABC’s Brian Ross. While the thread of Greenwald vs. Ross is interesting in and of itself, the investigation it led Greenwald into today is a wonderful insight into the attitude and effects of media coverage immediately after 9/11.
While it would be easy to digress into concerns about objectivity in journalism, the failure of the fourth estate, or a myriad of other very interesting topics (digress? ramble? me??), but there there is something here that seems to me very perverse and pervasive about how BuchCo operates.
What stands out about Glenn’s fantastic reporting about ABC’s anthrax coverage is not so much the shoddy fact checking and rush towards sensationalism on ABC’s part, but the shadows behind this story. Given the Lewis Libby conviction and the “Where was Rove? Where was Cheney?” comments by the jury, one has to wonder about BushCo’s manipulation of the media. Sure, the manufacture of public opinion has been around as long as the public has had an opinion, but it seems as if in today’s high-media society the public is less aware of this and the devils behind it have more powerful tools.
And one of the more damnable facets of this story is the degree to which Rove, et. al. have gone to conceal their communications in defiance of federal law. This shameless and intentional defiance of legality is a common operational policy for the Bush Administration and the entire Republican National Party. The laws set forth over the past 231 years of our history are seen as merely obstacles. BushCo has shown complete disregard for the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, voting procedures and regulations, federal law, and even their own laws in their rush to do the one thing they focus on- keeping and expanding their power. This is tantamount to a slow and progressive coup, and one can’t help but wonder what means they are willing to employ that we haven’t yet seen.
Can’t we impeach the bastard already?
-c
UPDATE: ABC responded to Glenn Greenwald’s post, and he ripped them a new one over it. Deservedly so too, those hubris-monkeys.
