And then there were none

Today, a horrible crime was committed by an extremist who, in cold blood, gunned down a security guard at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. There is no excuse for such a crime, and I have no tolerance for anyone who thinks the same way or supports this act of hate.

I pray for the family of Stephen T Johns, the security guard killed in the attack, and that justice is served swiftly and coldly against this killer.

Within minutes of discovering the identity and possible onetime military affiliation of the shooter, Shepard Smith, of Fox News, made the following astonishing leap of logic: that this shooting validates the contents of the DHS report labeling veterans as potential right wing extremists. A good synopsis of Smith’s statements and their context to the DHS report can be found at Mudville Gazette. In one statement, Smith and Fox News advanced the damage already caused by the original report. Now, the leftist blogsphere is alight with the very kind of rhetoric that has spilled into every channel of media blovating, including now Fox.

Unfortunately for Smith and all of the other people out there who want to desperately believe that those who serve in the military, support the idea smaller government, and believe that people should be able to believe whatever they want even if it offends others, the murderer in this case proves nothing about the DHS report. The murderer was 89 years old, may have never served in the military (the only available confirmation of his service is his own claim that he served), but was an extremist in every other sense. The report, on the other hand, is explicit in its reference to modern veterans returning from places like Iraq and Afghanistan:

(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

–from Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (.pdf)

Now, it no longer matters what the facts of the shooting are and what the DHS report said. The cultural meme that veterans are dangerous extremists who murder people out of hatred has been created and will continue to persist. Now, people who do not bother to differentiate between those with legitimate philosophical disagreements about beliefs and politics will be even more invigorated in their intolerance of people with differing views.

It does not help that too many people out there in the ether of the internet take their disagreements to extremes when responding to such events on both extremes of political belief. People sending email to Shepard Smith today only reinforced the stereotypes too many people have of the conservatively minded as surely as liberals have done in past instances, only proving how uninformed and reactionary they are themselves.

We live in a time of strong, sometimes even radical, disagreements about the way forward for our nation and for the world. I have been a part of that debate for a long time, and it saddens me more than I can convey with these words that our national discourse has degraded into shouting and increasingly hostile accusations against one side or the other. Certainly, I believe that some of the things being done by liberals are destructive to our country, and I believe it is my place to argue against those actions with the hope that something like the middle ground–and often the best–solutions can be achieved.

However, I do not now, nor will I ever condone violence against those with whom I disagree either now or ever. The threshold for taking up arms in support or opposition is very high, something anyone who has sworn the oath to protect and defend the Constitution should inherently understand.

The distinction between this view and that of the murder in question is rapidly being lost, and with that loss comes the loss of the very things the veterans now being steadily maligned hold dear. I ask the same question now as when this idea first reared its ugly head: what happens when those who have decided that what their nation stands for is worth fighting for are no longer willing to do so because what they believe in has become criminal? How can any nation survive criminalizing a way of thinking? How can any nation survive criminalizing its defenders?

First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemoeller

We are sliding down a very slippery slope. God help us all.

Journalism wakes up

Obama snubs the White House press corps for two days and everyone gets testy. Maybe mainstream journalists will finally start asking Obama some real questions.

Not if Obama can help it:

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."

A brush with journalism

Last week, I interviewed for a staff writer position at the Greenville (Ohio) Daily Advocate, a small community paper located in west-central Ohio. Unfortunately, I did not get the job because my availability did not match what they needed right now, but the whole experience has me thinking about journalism.

After interviewing for the position, I had the opportunity to do some thinking about the kind of journalist I could envision myself being, and one of the conclusions that I reached was that the only kind of journalism I could do as a career is that of an independent journalist. In fact, I came to realize that independence is, perhaps, the defining trait for what I consider to be great journalism, and it is a clear lack of independence on the part of most journalists that makes me so down on the journalistic profession.

This idea of independence is something to ponder. I wonder what modern journalism would look like if there was more of it.

Media malfeasance

The Weekly Standard Weblog details the ongoing attempts by the media to smear John McCain’s vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin by publishing outright lies and unproved innuendo.

I long ago abandoned any notion that modern media represents fair, objective reporting of the truth, but the events of this election cycle prove beyond a reasonable doubt that much of the media has largely taken one political point of view and will do or say anything to support that view. From my point of view, the media has joined the socialist left without apology or regret.

In joining the left, the media has committed itself to a campaign of smearing anyone who voices anything looking like disagreement with their agenda. This campaign goes so far as to justify the printing of lies and innuendo as fact in an attempt to sway political points of view.

At the same time, many journalists maintain a public façade of the unassailable purity of journalism, going so far as to claim that anyone who is not trained in journalism cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Perhaps there are a few journalists who still adhere to the journalistic ideal, but a large majority of them has abandoned the truth of objectivity for the lie of political power.

So, if journalists are the fourth estate of government, then how can they justify publishing lies and half-truths? The last time I checked, we punish politicians and civil servants for lying. What should the penalty for journalistic lying be?

Unfortunately, we cannot easily thwart the power of modern media over the flow of news. We can however, abandon modern media in favor of new media. Independent publications, television, radio, and internet sites represent the small but growing rebellion against the excesses of modern media gone bad. The more people who turn to these alternative outlets, the less power the modern media has and the more chance there is for reform.

Of course, searching out and using such alternatives requires a conscious decision on every individual’s part. Further, it requires each individual to test those sources for their reliability.

Perhaps, those actions are the real answer to the problem of modern media gone bad. When citizens take responsibility for their news and their politics, there is little need for estates of any kind. The people are the final estate of libertarian democracy, and we should use that power accordingly.

-=DLH=-

Cross-posted on Dennis L Hitzeman’s Worldview Weblog

The demise of the American fish wrap

Recent news reveals the rapid decline of the American newspaper. Some even claim that the American newspaper is dead. Many people put forth many reasons why, but I believe the answer is simple.

Somewhere along the line, American newspapers stopped providing Americans the resources they wanted.

Since the advent of television news, American newspapers felt they had to compete with other forms of media to remain the source of breaking news and to remain the source of record. Along the way, however, Americans realized that they can get different kinds of news from different kinds of sources, but many newspapers failed to adapt to the new niches new ways of delivering the news created.

One niche that newspapers have ignored is local news. I am not talking about reporting on how many murders or fires happened, but what is going on in the place that the paper claims to serve. I am not talking about a glorified community calendar, but in depth coverage of what is going right, what is going wrong, and how the paper’s readers can be involved.

Newspapers have also missed the niche of impact. Local newspapers are in a better position than any other kind of news organization to deliver in-depth coverage of local, state, national, and international news in a way that makes such news relevant to local readers.

How can papers fill these niches? Simply by focusing themselves locally. Bigger papers need to create multiple, hyper-local editions. Smaller papers need to focus on what is going on outside their own front doors. Papers need to employ people who write for the benefit of other people, even if those writers are not “trained journalists”. Papers need to focus not just on events, not just on problems, but on trends, ideas, and solutions as well.

The newspapers that will survive the current changing marketplace will be the ones who see these niches and exploit them. The ones that fail will be the ones that continue to try to be something their readers to not want or need them to be.

Maybe I should go start a paper. I bet I could buy the Dayton Daily Fishwrap (News) in a couple of years because I understand what would sell papers.

-=DLH=-

Cross-posted on Dennis L Hitzeman’s Worldview Weblog

Cross-posted at A Host of Contributing Factors

Journalistic pursuits?

I have long been hard on journalism and journalists, which is why it may come as a surprise to some that I am writing a weblog about those subjects. In fact, some may think that this weblog is another attempt on my part to, in their view, attack journalism and journalists.

Quite to the contrary, I started taking journalism classes in the fall of 2007 as part of my ongoing education as a writer, and I believe that some essence of the ideas of journalism cannot help but become part of my writing. While I may disagree with some of the deeply held tenets of journalism, it is still writing, and as a result, it has something to teach.

I am actually in journalism classes at all because of the proxy advice of a friend. He was once a journalism student and a journalist himself, and he advised that his experience as a journalist was formative to his later writing. I believe that all writing experience can only help the writer, so I followed his advice and decided to take some classes.

What I have discovered so far is that I am still a detractor of journalism because I find its ideals unattainable and its fundamentals misguided; however, I have also discovered that journalistic writing has much to offer writers in general, especially when it comes to writing succinctly and in gathering information upon which writing will be based.

So, in a way, my writing is becoming journalistic, but not in the traditional sense. This weblog is dedicated to my pursuit to discover what parts of journalism I can fold into my own writing and what parts I cannot. It is my belief that, whatever conclusions I reach, the end result will be me as a more developed writer, which was my goal from the beginning.