Good Question: Whose side are they on? Updated!

Update: You should read the article at Winds of Change on Newsweek’s diastrous handling of this whole sorry event.

I’ve been taking special care to note the media’s reactions to the Newsweek bogus report and perfunctory “apology.” To say that the MSM is thrashing around looking for people to blame – and usually landing on the Administration and the military – is an understatement. Via Power Line, I found The New Criteron where Roger Kimball raises the obvious question: whose side is the media on?

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But supposing there was a Private Lamebrain who did flush a Koran or two down the toilet. And suppose Newsweek got wind of it. Should they publish the story? Let me quote from Denis Praeger again: “If an American interrogator of Japanese prisoners desecrated the most sacred Japanese symbols during World War II, it is inconceivable that any American media would have published this information. While American news media were just as interested in scoops in 1944 as they are now, they also had a belief that when America was at war, publishing information injurious to America and especially to its troops was unthinkable. “ Unthinkable. Why? Because the press then was on our side. Whose side are they on now? I wonder.

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Kimball gets to this point as a result of the press’s dismall performance at the White House Press conference yesterday where the “journalists” present sought to make a huge issue that the White House would like Newsweek to do what it can to repair the damage they caused with their rabid rush to get a story published that was critical of our government and military at the expense of the the truth. They kept trying to make a “Bush is trying to dictate to the media” point in hopes that they could all start screaming about that rather than on the incredible foul-up of one of their own.

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Q: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it’s appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print? MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not telling them. I’m saying that we would encourage them to help – Q: You’re pressuring them. MR. McCLELLAN: No, I’m saying that we would encourage them – Q: It’s not pressure? MR. McCLELLAN: Look, this report caused serious damage to the image of the United States abroad. And Newsweek has said that they got it wrong. I think Newsweek recognizes the responsibility they have. We appreciate the step that they took by retracting the story. Now we would encourage them to move forward and do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report. And that’s all I’m saying. But, no, you’re absolutely right, it’s not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report. … Q: Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you’re saying here? MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military – Q: You’ve already said what you’re — I know what — how it ends.

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You see, the media already has the story in place. Mr. McClellan’s just not reading the lines they’ve written for his part. Personally, I’d have leveled a finger at this so-called journalist who can’t keep her mouth shut long enough to actually hear the events she’s alleging to report on and said, “Hell, yes, I want them to write a story.” I’d want them to write a story because that’s what Newsweek supposedly does for a living. I want them to write a story that was as prominient as the one they wrote spewing unsupported bullshit. I want them to get in there and get that flashlight-up-someone’s-arse approach to investigative reportings and figure out how this kind of thing happened in the first place. Oh, and I want them to write a story that says what we now know: that no such event as what they described happened.

I imagine that’s something Newsweek considers “not newsworthy.”