The war in Ukraine is going just fine. Swimmingly, in fact. That’s what President Joe Biden and all the king’s men told us, despite knowing secret intelligence assessments that reported just the opposite.
What? The president spins? The military shaves the truth from time to time?
That’s a shocking revelation akin to the famous line in Casablanca when Captain Renault takes a kickback from Rick’s craps table and says: “I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”
Of course all presidents spin. And, yes, the military industrial complex does what is best for itself. Nothing unusual about that.
What is worrisome, if I may play the role of Nevada’s journalism conscience for a moment in this column, is the complicity of reporters in this spin game. President Biden utters rosy proclamations about how the war is going. He rarely gets a challenging question in return. And, if he does, the media hear a befuddled Biden-esque retort followed by “no joke” or “I’m not kidding” as he shuffles off in baby-steps out the wrong exit.
This dodge is passed off as life with a very old president as opposed to life with a spinning president. If reporters do an independent check on the statements of the president, it’s usually with an anonymous source playing for the same team as the administration.
“Oh, yes,” they whisper back to reporters. “The war is going pretty, pretty good. Nothing to see here.”
It’s a pernicious system for democracy because it turns what should be our watchdogs into puppy dogs, sniffing the president’s crotch and then howling official misinformation.
Look, this is not a guess. We know this from the Twitter Files, which remains the most important story (and indictment) of modern American journalism.
And now we know this from that 21-year-old twerp who somehow got hold of secrets and spilled them into an internet chat room.
The important thing is not how this ridiculously junior member of the National Guard got the secrets, but how American newspapers have ceded responsibility for skeptically covering the current administration.
If newsrooms can get back to this simple principle – print only what you can independently verify – it would be good for American democracy.
Not holding my breath.
FT. CHURCHILL
Hey, I’m glad to see work beginning to spruce up Ft. Churchill State Park.
Frame Architecture says in a press release that it has started work to renovate parts of the park to include more accessible walkways. Also the group ramada and picnic area will be torn down and replaced.
The project’s cost comes in at just under a million bucks.
The 1860 fort was built originally to protect the Pony Express Route and telegraph lines. It also served to keep “the natives” at bay, killing them if necessary (or not).
Protecting Nevada’s history – the good, the bad and the ugly – is never a bad thing. It’s a good thing, in fact. But, somehow I suspect the state won’t be asking me to write the blurb on the fort’s new plaque.
ONE MORE THING
– Nevada hiking tip: Trails often look flat on a map.
– If your kid has a meltdown in public and people won’t stop staring, tell them that he just had an exorcism yesterday, but they couldn’t get them all.
– I just flew back from a ravioli convention. Boyaredees arms tired.
Thanks for reading. Until we meet again here next week, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.
“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick, a Nevada Hall of Fame journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com
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