More Media Miscues

Victor Davis Hanson takes apart Newsweek’s cover story comparing Bush to Ahmadinejhad in their mutual lust for war. Newsweek is using the logic of those who equate Bush with Hitler.


Hanson blasts the story’s authors for heavy reliance on anonymous sources, including:


• a senior Coalition adviser
• a U.S. official involved in the talks
• a participant who asked to remain anonymous
• Asking not to be named
• a diplomat who asked not to be identified
• a White House official
• A senior British official
• an Iranian intelligence official

Writers who quote anonymous sources can literally put any words they want into sources’ mouths.

There’s much more, and one should read the Hanson critique in its entirety. Hanson reminds us that Newsweek falsely claimed U.S. soldiers had toileted the Koran, a story that resulted in several unnecessary deaths.

Victoria Toensing is a Washington lawyer who helped write the law that would punish anyone who “outed” a CIA covert agent. Toensing knew from Day One that Valerie Plame wasn’t “covert” under the law. Toensing rips into a host of people and institutions for mishandling the Plame leak investigation, beginning with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and also including The Washington Post, which published her commentary. Like Hanson’s, Tonesing’s article should be read in full. Toensing specifically:

CHARGES THE MEDIA with hypocrisy in asserting that criminal law was applicable to this "leak" and with misreporting facts to wage a political attack on an increasingly unpopular White House. To wit:

Notwithstanding the fact that major newspapers have highfalutin', well-paid in-house and outside counsel who [should have known Plame wasn’t a covert agent], the following publications called for a criminal investigation:

· The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

· The Boston Globe

· The New York Times

Toensing said The Washington Post, which reported that "two White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife . . . to undercut Wilson's credibility," inspired the other papers’ actions.