The worst thing about the Iraq war was not that people got away with lying. It was that they did not [get away with it] - and it did not matter.

The 10th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq was a week of media culpa. Every day a new journalist or pundit came forward to atone for supporting a war predicated on disinformation. "I was excitable and over-reacted,"wrote blogger Andrew Sullivan, explaining why he once argued that no "serious person" doubts Saddam Hussein's intent to use WMDs with his co-conspirator al-Qaeda. "I owe readers an apology for being wrong on the overriding question of whether the war made sense," wrote journalist David Ignatius, noting that, in retrospect, it did not.

The media's failure to question the fallacies of the Bush administration has long been derided - as The Nation's Greg Mitchell noted, they have been apologising for years. But while it is right to criticise the media, it is wrong to hold them completely accountable. Plenty of people got Iraq wrong, but plenty of people - experts and ordinary citizens - got it right. The problem was that it made no difference.

"Without evidence, confidence cannot arise," Hans Blix declared to the United Nations in the run up to the war. He was wrong: confidence, like evidence, could be created. The warnings of Blix, Anthony Zinni, Mohamed ElBaradei, the liberal columnists called out as fifth columnists and the hundreds of thousands of protesters around the world changed nothing. When revelation hit, it was with a sense of helplessness that defined the decade to come. Confidence, like evidence, could be destroyed.

The Iraq war is notable not only for journalistic weakness, but for journalistic futility: the futility of fact itself. Fact could not match the fabrications of power. Eventually, our reality shifted to become what they conceived. "I could have set myself on fire in protest on the White House lawn and the war would have proceeded without me," wrote Bush speechwriter David Frum.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332485324209150.html

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This article is near enough the reality of the Iraq war journalism.

Except for one major point. Most journalists and media outlets were under instruction from Uncle Rupe to go with the full-on war angle in the English speaking world... Any journalist working for him no towing this line would have been dismissed, but Uncle Rupe expect loyalty in return of employment. And he gets blind loyalty.

His front troops were at the core of receiving "evidence" for war and "whipping it up" as much as possible... Other media organisation did not have the same access to George Bush as Rupert did (they met at least once a week), so these media organisations went along the same route, just in case... Eventually the New York Times apologised to its readers for having got things so wrong...

It was a case of massaging the message...

Here, at YD, we knew exactly what was happening. We knew that uncle Rupe was in on the act of dissemination of fake evidence. We also knew that going to war against Saddam was STUPID  and going to place Iraq hand in hand with Iran...

One did not have to be Einstein to know this... But the dummies and the rummies at the head of American politics were thinking with an organ usually used for excrementing. And the morons did it in our face.

And Uncle Rupe still does news with glorious contempt... 

One could wonder why in the toon straight above on how to deal with Rupert's Daily Telegraph, I did not suggest to everyone not to buy the misery-gut paper... One has to understand how the law works... Rupert Murdoch was rattled when the South Sydney Rabbitohs took him to court on a Trade Practices Act technicality... As the NRL and News Limited kicked South Sydney out of the competition, its lawyers argued that this was a restriction of trade in a game which the club was one of the original founders.

The Rabbitohs won the case on appeal, after some judges found that the original judged erred a bit... 

Restriction of trade is serious business. Thus I am not encouraging you not to buy the paper, but to burn it at the stake there after without reading it... But if, of your own accord, you decide not to buy the paper, then it's no skin off my nose...

Journalists with their unnamed sources are far from a cornerstone of democracy, says David Horton — and, in fact, may be something of a threat.

That is, this kind of “leak journalism” is not aimed at the public interest, but at private interests in the Great Game of politics. The identity of informants, where they do actually exist (and I suggest some are, like the dead body in World War 2 Operation Mincemeat, not real people at all), is not being protected because of the value of their information to the public, but to hide the nasty political games they are actually playing.

What’s more, their anonymity has become a way of journalists inflating the apparent value of sources, of effortlessly increasing them in both numbers and rank to give a totally false impression of the meaning of a story. Pretending that the journalist has 50 whistleblowers, instead of one whistleblower — 50 times. And a way of hiding secret agendas, political and business. And of disguising the informant who is a member of a think tanks, pushing a nasty neoconservative economic agenda on behalf of paymasters. And of pretending that “inside information” from the Labor Party isn’t, in fact, coming from a cunning Liberal troublemaker.

And so on.

The media has been completely happy with fake whistleblowers, helping them, for example, churn out endless fake “Rudd challenge” stories, with no more effort than pushing a programmed function key on a keyboard. But the media have treated with contempt those ultimate real whistleblowers: Assange and Manning. Their stories needed investigation, work, writing, and, more scarily, would actually involve speaking truth to power. A function once primary for journalists, but apparently no longer — at least not for the Fourth Estate

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/unnamed-sources-and-democracy/

In the preparation of the war on Iraq 10 years ago, some journalists got some smashing hot exclusive access to information from unnamed sources, including some defectors from Iraq... This information was used to strengthen the case of war.... Eventually, the sources and the defectors were shown to be part of a shop front, a side small business enterprise, companies that actually BELONGED to the CIA.... All journalists got conned by the misinformation...

Beware of some whistleblowers...

A few months back, myself [Callum Davidson] and David Donovan, managing editor ofIndependent Australia, agreed it was high time that the vocal and growing online community of Australian political blogs deserved a voice in the Press Gallery of Parliament House.

As it turns out this is a difficult task to accomplish.

The concept began in the Twittersphere and I believed I had a fair claim to represent Independent Australia – and perhaps other online outlets – as a correspondent from the halls of power on The Hill. I hold an Advanced Diploma in Journalism and have been working freelance for a while now; but infinitely more importantly, I live a stone’s throw from Parliament House in Canberra.

The press gallery is a bizarre and fascinating beast. Most of the Australian public still digest their political discourse from those guardians of information tethered to the cramped dorms on Capital Hill. All major mainstream news outlets, both television and print, have long had reporters stationed directly within our political elite. From Fairfax to News Limited to ABC, journalists mix with Federal politicians and their staffers, conversing with media opposition and rapaciously competing when necessary. But with the aspirational digital age and the declining fortunes of traditional media, would they let an outsider in?

The short answer, at least in my case, is no.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/how-the-canberra-press-gallery-shut-out-ia/

See toon and story at top...

Rupert Murdoch ‒ who claims to be a journalist ‒ is a fraud. He has never written anything, except on Twitter, reads little more than balance sheets and dictates terse letters. He shows up in the working areas of his newspapers only when cameras are around.

This is why Australian politics is in turmoil. People think they are being informed by what were once called “the mirrors of the world”.  They are, in fact, reading manufactured pages of  falsehoods and duplicity.  On top of that, we are bombarded by mentally-deficient radio shock-jocks and screwed by much of the electronic media.

Australia’s current political turmoil coincides with frightening developments throughout the world. Several nations, in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, South America are erupting. Afghanistan remains unsettled as foreign troops leave and may continue as unsettled forever.

Angry frightened and exploited citizens are engaged in endless insurrection.  Sanguinary mass murder has erupted in religious wars, leaving hundreds of people killed and mountains of murdered children waiting to be buried.

This is our world. Today.

Australia will soon be faced with more important decisions than we have ever encountered before. Our alliances may need to be reviewed. Informed honest and accurate journalism is urgently needed to be discussed by all — voters and politicians. From where will the best information and advice come?

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/big-money-versus-good-government/

See toon and story at top...