Saturday, August 31, 2024

Now Do "Politifact"

As more publications followed suit, the Arlington stories suffered a dreadful fate: they all started to sound the same. News outlets ended up with articles bogged down in parsing federal law, carefully defining what exactly counts as an altercation, and quoting milquetoast official statements like “There was an incident and a report was filed.” 

Lumped together, the reporting this week left readers and listeners, especially those with no knowledge of the military, at a loss to understand what actually happened—and, crucially, why it mattered so much. The Trump campaign team had successfully muddied the waters by alleging that the photographer had been invited to the event by family members of soldiers buried there. 
But as any veteran knows in their bones, the solemnity of the ceremony is exactly why the unauthorized photographer had no business being there—regardless of who invited them. Section 60, the part of the cemetery where the incident occurred, is one of the most sacred places for this generation of troops. It is where those who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. Those graves are visited not by tourists looking for historical figures, but by mothers and fathers visiting their fallen son or daughter. In Section 60, wounds are still raw. Political activity there is never appropriate, and under the law, only cemetery staffers and approved photographers are permitted to film or take pictures there. 

Readers needed to know that, when you visit Arlington, you might not know exactly what you’re supposed to do when confronted by those rows of headstones, but you damn sure know what you’re not supposed to do. But the coverage this week left many readers with the impression that the whole thing might have been a bureaucratic mix-up, or some tedious violation of protocol. It focused on bland horse-race coverage so common during election season, rather than clearly stating what really took place: an egregious and willful violation of long-standing norms. What was missing from the coverage was a willingness to quickly and decisively state what a grievous insult the whole debacle was to the dignity of Arlington. The sacred had been profaned. 

As I wrote recently for CJR, newsrooms have been losing reporters with military experience. Some editors believe that without American troops involved in major wars, there’s less need for journalists on staff who are veterans. But episodes like what took place this week at Arlington show how important it is to have reporters and editors who can cut through political noise and jargon to explain the true importance of an event involving the military.

So, journalists are idiots who can't write intelligently about anything they don't have personal experience with?  And we are supposed to trust these people as the "Fourth Estate" over bloggers and tweeters and talking heads on cable because.... "objectivity"?  I mean, I know from personal experience that reporting on legal cases, unless done by actual lawyers (which applies only to major national news stories by some reporters, but hardly all, and certainly no one below the national network level), is pure crap driveled out by boobs as ignorant and credulous as the average MAGAt.  But CJR is telling me that's what's to be expected because we haven't been engaged in a major military conflict like WWII since...WWII?

Great. 

Pretty sure you don't have to have been in the military to understand that.
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