In Praise of Journalism

March 2nd, 2007 · 7 Comments · Media, National

Yesterday’s firing of the commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Dick Ahles’s op-ed piece in the March 1 LJ got me to thinking about the value of good journalism.

This is one of those cases in which military malfeasance or incompetence has been exposed and everyone agrees it was an outrage. SecDef Robert Gates even went so far as to thank The Washington Post for breaking the story.

You may recall several previous stories about alleged military improprieties or national security issues (one of which was penned by the same Postie who broke the Reed story) that had the Bush administration reacting in fits of apoplexy. Unflattering stories about CIA prisons, aggressive interrogation techniques and leaked memos about the dismal outlook for the Iraq war were met were with much huffing and puffing: “You’re endangering national security” or “this emboldens the enemy.”

Not this time. By most accounts, if Post reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull hadn’t broken the story, officials would have continued to look the other way as wounded heroes received outpatient treatment in disgraceful conditions.

I’m not sure I agree with Dick that only newspapers typically have the resources to do this kind of story. The broadcast networks, CNN and Fox News (and I believe NPR) still maintain investigative units and could surely pursue the story vigorously if they chose to. So it’s not resources that prevent television from getting this kind of story, but something else …

Television relies heavily on images to tell a story. And I can’t imagine any TV network would want to pursue the Reed fiasco without bringing camera crews into the hospital, which would attract attention and probably cause the hospital staff to cover their asses and kill the story. But TV producers don’t want to send a reporter in there to get a story that can’t be told without images of rats scurrying about or cockroaches crawling up an amputee’s stump, so they would surely be inclined to ignore the story.

On the other hand, a print journalist can walk the halls largely unnoticed and, while newspaper editors do prefer a story that’s accompanied by a photo or some other sort of graphic, those extras are not essential to telling the story. And that is one area where print media can continue to make their mark. Telling investigative stories that don’t necessarily lend themselves to the camera.

Be that as it may, it’s time for people who are highly critical of the MSM (like me) to acknowledge good work when we see it. Otherwise we look like hypocrites on a par with Al Gore (oh no, not him again!!).

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7 responses so far ↓

1 Geoff Brown // Mar 2, 2007 at 1:53 pm

I guess I’m a little more cynical than you are about the firing of the doc that ran Walter Reade.

My take on this is that military doctors are not really full members of the military establishment — unlike line commanders who tend to be. By firing a two star general in the Medical Corps, the Administration gets to say that they didn’t hesitate to punish “those responsible” regardless of their rank — even a general — while not upsetting the military establishment.

Furthermore, one wonders a little bit whether the general in question really was in a position where he could do much about the considions in the outpatient housing at Walter Reade. That hospital was slated to be closed, and the chances are that the commandant was under strict orders not to spend a dime on the facility.

In fact, given the way the military sometimes works, it’s not even far-fetched that the real reason this doc was canned might have been BECAUSE he was kicking up a fuss about conditions at Walter Reade, agitating for more $$, etc. (Generals asking for more resources are not favorably thought of by the current administration, as the early years of this Iraq war pretty clearly show.)

But I do agree that this was pretty certainly a job for print journalists (or bloggers) to break. It’s not one that lends itself to exciting pictures.
2 terry mccarthy // Mar 2, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Ironically, the journalist who comes to mind when I think about this Walter Reed story is Geraldo Rivera. Geraldo kickstarted his career back in the early 70s with a report about the awful conditions at a health care facility in, I believe it was, New York. Three decades later you look up ” Tabloid TV ” and his mug shot’s over there in the margin. I guess we have to give credit where it’s due to The Washington Post and those two reporters. But these sorry conditions are nothing new. From what I’ve read and heard, it’s been going on for years. Every pol and celebrity you can think of ( Imus included ) has gotten the Walter Reed PR tour, and have come away with nifty photos and clear consciences. It’s been win win, PR wise. Walter Reed’s looked good and so have the people who’ve paid a visit. But while all that was going on for years, all that other stuff was going on in Building 18, which is literally in the shadow of the main building on which the spotlight’s been aimed. And the guy who was put back in charge lives across the street from the campus. To make a long comment short, where was Geraldo, or some journalistic heir or heiress apparent when we ( and the troops! ) needed him? Sure the Post deserves credit. But isn’t it fair to ask: What took them so long?

And as far as photos go. I think the shots of the building falling apart at the seams are pretty compelling. But what do I know. I was a print journalist.
3 Marshall Miles // Mar 2, 2007 at 3:53 pm

My comment on the media and investigative reporting….

Even a blind squirrel gets nuts sometimes!!!!

Marshall
4 Jake // Mar 2, 2007 at 4:24 pm

Maybe now we can expect the Washington Post to conduct an in depth investigation of conditions in the Washington DC public school system, and demand the heads of the people running that outfit.
5 Geoff Brown // Mar 2, 2007 at 6:38 pm

Shoes keep dropping on this one.

Now we find that there has been an extensive operation in place to outsource care at Walter Reed to civilian contractors. One source I read said that the number of military personnel dropped from more than 300 to around 60.

It will be really interesting to see:
–Who the civilian contractor(s) are (and what their relationship with the adminstration is - if any), and
–If any of the civilian contractors are also dismissed (don’t count on it).

From personal experience, I can say that supervising units made up of both military and civilian personnel has never been easy, even when the civilians were DoD civilians. I can only assume that supervising units combining military, DoD civilian, and outsourced contract personnel has to be especially difficult — and, if the contractors have political connections as so many do, perhaps impossible.
6 Terrence McCarthy // Mar 3, 2007 at 9:42 pm

Ain’t gonna happen, Jake. My guess is their kids go to private schools in Virginia and they couldn’t care less about public schools that fall ( in more ways than one ) in the long shadow of the Washington Monument.
7 Yankee // Mar 7, 2007 at 3:53 pm

Having spent nearly ten years in the Post newsroom, I’m not surprised it was a print journalist — proud it was a Postie — who broke the story. I estimate that fully 80-90% of such stories are broken by print reporters, and by that I mean mainly newspapaer reporters.

Let’s put it this way: No Google search would have found that story. (Nor would your local tv or radio stations!)

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