This blog entry made it onto Huffington Post. You can go comment here.
On May 26, 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times issued an extraordinary apology for their failure in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, The Times and Iraq
. . . we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged or failed to emerge.
Flash forward to June 12, 2009. Thousands of tweets claim the Iranian elections are rigged. Mousavi supporters fill the streets of Tehran. Within 48 hours, hundreds of thousands of retweets echo and amplify the chants and the cries of mostly anonymous twitterers reporting Iranian state violence. The tweets are homepage news on Huffington Post and Drudge Report. All the diaries of leading blogs are further amplifying the information disseminated by the tweets and retweets.
The Twitter Revolution and the Green Revolution were on! The MSM had failed!
But then. Someone from the Main Stream Media actually investigated on the ground in Tehran – Robert Fisk for the UK newspaper, The Independent
At around 4.35 last Monday morning, my Beirut mobile phone rang in my Tehran hotel room. “Mr Fisk, I am a computer science student in Lebanon. I have just heard that students are being massacred in their dorms at Tehran University. Do you know about this?” The Fisk notebook is lifted wearily from the bedside table. “And can you tell me why,” he continued, “the BBC and other media are not reporting that the Iranian authorities have closed down SMS calls and local mobile phones and have shut down the internet in Tehran? I am learning what is happening only from Twitters and Facebook.”
You will recall that the SNM was, of course, buzzing with declarations that the main stream media was failing to report the “truth” as evidenced in the almost entirely unsourceable, unchallengeable tweets. One of the top trending hashtags at Twitter was #cnnfail.
Fisk, however, did what good journalists do, he put on his shoes and went out to investigate. Most of these ‘truths’ circling the socially networked universe, he quickly found were simply untrue.
Now for the very latest on the fantasy circuit. The cruel “Iranian” cops aren’t Iranian at all. They are members of Lebanon’s Hizbollah militia. I’ve had this one from two reporters, three phone callers (one from Lebanon) and a British politician. I’ve tried to talk to the cops. They cannot understand Arabic. They don’t even look like Arabs, let alone Lebanese. The reality is that many of these street thugs have been brought in from Baluch areas and Zobal province, close to the Afghan border. Even more are Iranian Azeris. Their accents sound as strange to Tehranis as would a Belfast accent to a Cornishman hearing it for the first time.
Fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows, but once they are combined and spread with high-speed inaccuracy around the world, they are also lethal. Sham elections, the takeover of party offices, a massacre on a university campus, an imminent coup d’etat, the possible overthrow of the whole 30-year old Islamic Republic, the isolation of an entire country as its communications are systematically shut down.
I am reminded of Eisenhower’s comment to Foster Dulles when he sent him to London to close down Anthony Eden’s crazed war in Suez. The secretary of state’s job, Eisenhower instructed Dulles, was to say “Whoah, boy!” Good advice for those who believe in the Twitterers.
While most of the Fisk dispatches from Iran were picked up in the US blogosphere, this one was not. As happened with the NYTimes, certain information would be “allowed to stand unchallenged.” Many would argue, however, so some of the facts tweeted are incorrect. It’s the fog of war, right? An election was obviously stolen. And clearly there are demonstrations and people protesting. Right?
But where were the protests in the poor area of Southern Tehran asked a former CIA officer, Robert Baer, who was stationed in the Middle East for over 20 years. (The George Clooney vehicle, Syriana, was based on Baer’s novel). Here reporting for Time, Baer writes, Don’t Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost
There is no denying that the news clips from Tehran are dramatic, unprecedented in violence and size since the mullahs came to power in 1979. They’re possibly even augurs of real change. But can we trust them? Most of the demonstrations and rioting I’ve seen in the news are taking place in north Tehran, around Tehran University and in public places like Azadi Square. These are, for the most part, areas where the educated and well-off live — Iran’s liberal middle class. These are also the same neighborhoods that little doubt voted for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rival, who now claims that the election was stolen. But I have yet to see any pictures from south Tehran, where the poor live. Or from other Iranian slums.
To challenge such assumptions or ask such questions in the Social Network Media at the moment, however, is tantamount to career suicide, which in the SNM means to be unfollowed and blocked. These questions, therefore, don’t get asked – just as they weren’t asked by MSM journalists in the lead up to Iraq. Today asking inconvenient questions is supporting the ayatollahs, just as asking questions in the lead up to Iraq was supporting Saddam Hussein. And just as the New York Times had their man, Ahmed Chalabi, we have our man, Mir-Hossein Mousavi:
Back to the New York Times apology:
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.
Now let’s imagine how this paragraph could be applied to the Social Network Media:
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual tweeters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Bloggers at several levels who should have been challenging twitterers and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops onto the homepage. Accounts of Iranian protesters were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ousted. Tweets based on dire claims about Iran tended to get prominent homepage display, while follow-up tweets (and on the ground articles) that called the original tweets into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.
Yes, there is clearly a massive part of society in Iran who want change, one much bigger than the ‘change’ Americans chose a few months ago. But I imagine the United States, in fact, looked very similar to the outside world in the 1960′s and early 70s, a time of violent street protests and demonstrations, student riots, black marches, Stonewall, Kent State, assassinations and more. History, however, has proven that those in the streets in 1960′s America were on the right side. Their fight was just and it finally prevailed through internal debate, conflict and resolution.
But, imagine, if you will, had France or the UK or any other outside forces, intervened to ‘help’ through either destabilization efforts or with military strikes.
Imagine had change been thrust upon the very sizeable portion of the US population that did not wish to extend freedom to blacks, gays, women or war resisters. Would we today have freely voted in our first black President so soon after Martin Luther King Jr’s march?
The New York Times apologized for being a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration. For failing to question the motives of their sources or to investigate claims that would contradict what the American people seemed to want, for, afterall, the Fox News audience ruled the day. Try telling their audience that Saddam Hussein, while a madman, was actually defenseless and not intent on harming us. This was a truth perhaps Americans did not want to hear at the time but the truth nevertheless and that is what journalism is supposed to seek.
If social networking media is our the future of our journalism, then how do we judge truth in 140 characters?
Social networking sites and blogs are naturally emotional and subjective, but a healthy democracy needs also to have a dispassionate journalism that is able to question the motives of sources. Which, importantly, means being able to confirm the real existence and legitimacy of a source. A media that asks “qui bono?” Journalists that investigate and exhaust every avenue of the entire story. And, yes, that means even when that alley leads to discovery of information that is terribly inconvenient to our own assumptions or to the geo-politcal outcomes we as individuals may desire.
So, finally, if the NYTimes became a mouthpiece for powerful Washington insiders, then we need to ask have we become the mouthpiece for thousands of anonymous twitterers?
Tags: MSM · SNM · social network media · twitter revolution69 Comments
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@Davros – yes, it’s in Max’s bio at the top of the page; we make the show for AP TV to syndicate to other networks.
I’ve probably got the quote all mucked up, but I seem to remember a line from Kipling, something to the effect that “Truth is a stranger in any crowd.” The SNM crowd can hardly be expected to differ.
Apologies to Mr Kipling, Peachy Carnahan, Mahboob Ali and all those terrific RK characters.
@ frances snoot
Very nice verse. May I reciprocate with a few fragments I wrote long ago, in a strange language, in a far away land:
1)
King Lazar prayed in crimson socks,
“God grow this land and fatten it.”
But Turks said, “No!” at Kosovo,
And stomped their boots to flatten it!
2)
I came into this world with no pretense
And vainly tried to culture common sense.
This quest for meaning seemed to mar my span:
The face of Truth was hidden by her fan.
O golden baby, cosmic child of woe,
The lightning strikes the ground where e’er you go.
A tempest stirs and wraps you in a cloud –
No one can hear you crying through the shroud.
……….
There was a man who ate no meat nor bread,
A thousand worms are gnawing through his head.
He viewed his state with sharp, offending eyes,
And saw the whole built on the sand with lies.
A wounded savior raised his hand to me
Beneath the branches of a Penance tree.
His blazing words told of a coming crash,
But his machine could only run on cash.
A wounded Minstrel slumped down near defeat
To redefine his art in terms of Beat:
“As seasons change, we find we have to choose,
And now the time has come to dig the Blues!”
In the Receptacle the Forms were shaped,
From Pure Perfection all things less were aped.
Cold Reason was designed to set the Rule,
But Passion’s Vices voted for the Fool.
And Plato’s Great Inversion blew my mind:
Gross Passions top’ling Reason made me blind.
The courtroom filled with such a din and shout,
Poor Justice, bound and gagged, was left without.
……….
Our Future’s curved and Destiny is bent,
The Apex fades, and soon the Trough is spent.
Fast as we rush we find the Time is late,
And end as Grist ground by the Wheel of Fate.
Sweet Anima in gentle voice replied,
“Come to the Light and you shall see the side
Of being, hitherto to you denied,
Before embarking on your final slide.”
On the horizon was a blast of light.
Long ere the shock waves hit we lost our sight.
The searing heat made all our Atoms prance:
Death’s screeching fiddle played our final dance.
The Cosmos creaked from such a lack of Grace,
My hands weren’t large enough to hide my face.
And all at once, imploding out of sight:
The World in conflagration, cleansed of Blight!
A pulsing Vortex sucked me deep inside.
The Warp of Time and Space became my Bride.
I turned to look, before I’d travelled far,
And saw the once-bound Souls becoming Stars.
3)
Ah, Love, let storms blow
This Life so harsh and fleeting:
Our two Hearts beating.
So “how do we judge truth in 140 characters?” Love the article.
There was a rumor about Jeff Goldblum falling to his death in New Zealand the same day MJ died.
But speaking of being a “mouthpiece” for the Administration, wasn’t Huff Post doing that with its planted question last week?
@ frances,
I personally don’t have a grandmother nor do I ‘believe’ in God. You don’t have evidence that my ‘belief’ in god is not founded on observation. Verification is subject to corruption. All beliefs eminate from personal perspective, the antithesis of this ignorant sentence from Wikipedia:
According to Richard Wilson, who highlights the phenomenon in his book Don’t Get Fooled Again (2008), the characteristic feature of false skepticism is that it “centres not on an impartial search for the truth, but on the defence of a preconceived ideological position”.
Tell me one belief anywhere that is not a defence of a preconceived ideological position. please.
I was commenting on Stacy’s piece, which I said was ‘Stacy’s piece, … is all about source evaluation.’
You said you had a grandmother who believed in God, and that you believed her and believed in God. Now you say you don’t have a grandmother (which raises questions about the conception and birth of your parents) and you don’t ‘believe’ in God. Then you say it’s up to me to provide evidence that your ‘belief’ in God (which you’d just said you didn’t have) is not founded on observation. You’d previously implied it was derived from your belief in your grandmother.
So you’re an unreliable reliable witness regarding the existence of family members (let alone God), you conjour them up or conjour thtem away to suit some debating point you’re making. Nor are you reliable on whether you ‘believe’ in God or not, or what the foundations of that ‘belief’ or othewise might be. It’s not up to me to establish the basis for whatever you may or may not believe, nor to prove or disprove with whatever point your trying to make with wiki-Richard Wilson. If it’s about sources for a belief in God, then I don’t think it’s really relevant to Stacy’s piece or my response.
It would be helpful if you actually cited your source fully, so I could at least verify what you cite from the open-access encyclopedia. That’s a basic standard in journalism, academic research or intelligence. I couldn’t find it, but I’m not going to trawl the whole site just to makes sense of some point you might want to make.
I have no problem with what I understand to be Richard Wilson’s substantive point:
Against the evidence
Published 18 September 2008, New Statesman.
“…The genuine sceptic forms his beliefs through a balanced evaluation of the evidence. The sceptic of the bogus variety cherry-picks evidence on the basis of a pre-existing belief, seizing on data, however tenuous, that supports his position, and yet declaring himself “sceptical” of any evidence, however compelling, that undermines it.
[...]
Bogus scepticism does not centre on an impartial search for the truth, but on a no-holds-barred defence of a preconceived ideological position. The bogus sceptic is thus, in reality, a disguised dogmatist, made all the more dangerous for his success in appropriating the mantle of the unbiased and open-minded inquirer.”
As I said in light of Stacy’s piece, and your confusion between nytms-se.com and the real New York Times, it’s “…all about source evaluation.”
juergenwahl:
simply beautiful
@HarryW
Can we just kill Granny and call it a day? I was attempting to be witty by inventing a syllogism. Don’t get your underwear in a twist!
Yes, we all conjour, world with our mere words!
@HarryW:
Here’s the link, sorry about that:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism
I’ve decided to name my dear grandmother: Nona Rosa Marie Louise.
“The genuine sceptic forms his beliefs through a balanced evaluation of the evidence. The sceptic of the bogus variety cherry-picks evidence on the basis of a pre-existing belief, seizing on data, however tenuous, that supports his position, and yet declaring himself “sceptical” of any evidence, however compelling, that undermines it.”
Oh, yes, ahem.blloorargh, time to get my knowledge from “peer-reviewed journals”. NO more cherrypickers! DOWN WITH CHERRYPICKERS! Put all the cherrypickers in camps where they won’t be a danger to society and we…the open-minded ones.
Are you guys behaving?
Here is a question I just posted on my twitter account:
If sheep + people = sheeple; does sheep + twitterers = sh*tterers? Or would it be shortened to sh*tters?
What do you think?
Open-minded people don’t conjugate words. Only cherry pickers make up new words and meanings. The truly educated rely on the tools provided by the government, being words appropriate for the job. So, we mustn’t attempt to make sh*t out of a tw**t!
[...] Fisk, however, did what good journalists do, he put on his shoes and went out to investigate. Most of these ‘truths’ circling the socially networked universe, he quickly found were simply untrue. [Read more →] [...]
It’s interesting how the MSM has been selling the Iranian ‘Green Revolution’: “We’re just passing along stuff reported by Twitterers and YouTubers, so you can be assured it’s real!” Never mind the high potential for there being deliberate, organized disinfo campaigns. By all involved.
Just finished reading first fifty posts….good stuff cool.
@serky…LSD=MSM…Like it.
@max power….interesting…overnight figures for internet,,, next evening after shool/work was very busy…very slow as I remember it.
@All Y’all
just wonder as always with all ‘our’ discussions on maxkeiser.com where we fit in, as with anything we are just as vunerable. I’m not pointing at anyone in particular, but researching…..primary sources, secondary sources…are they things of the past? internet cut and past fact/logic is used more and more as the pressure to come up with a story or opinion increases…now communication is evolving at such a rate and is so fast we may need to rewrite some the rules for researching and reporting….from the top down.
@Catfish…nice quote.
Charlie Brooker on using the public and the internet ‘the idiot magnet’ more in news reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QN_hd9LeSs
A classic from Jeremy Paxman on user genetated content (maybe he could see the thin end of the wedge)only18 secs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVaZwJn-ZcM
Max or Stacy,
Which one of you guys wrote this or was it a collaborative effort? Genius work but I can’t picture these words coming from either of you because it lacks Max’s satirical voice I have become so accustomed to.
@Nancy, check out a really funny Colbert Report clip about Jeff Goldblum’s “death.” He’s not really dead, nor was he even in New Zealand. Anyway the clip is from June 29th.
U.S. (Oil) policies (Kissinger) may have contributed to Iran revolution of ’79, study says – L.A.Times http://tinyurl.com/a8cnvs
Interesting observations about where the people are who are protesting.
How widely is handheld technology distributed in Iran? Do poor and rural people have easy access, and use it much?
I’m just wondering whether the reason there are so many tweets on one side is because that side is wealthy and/or well-connected enough.