Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here is a textbook example of one of the most obvious problems with the mainstream media, exemplified by its most prestigious name, the New York Times.
A Harvard study of news coverage during the Bush administration found that most mainstream news outlets stopped referring to waterboarding as torture after 2004. Up to that time, the lions of the mainstream media called it what it was; after that time, they were suddenly ambiguous.
"From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture," the study noted. But the study found that things changed in the years when "war on terror" became part of the American lexicon.The New York Times defined waterboarding as torture, or effectively implied that it was, 81.5 percent of the time in articles until 2004, the study found. But during 2002-2008 -- when the George W. Bush White House made a concerted effort to normalize harsh interrogation methods for use on terror detainees -- the Times "called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles." That's 1.4 percent of the time.
The study also noted a disparity in how newspapers defined waterboarding when the United States employed the practice versus its use by other nations -- in the latter instance, newspapers more readily called the practice torture.
And the Times makes the incredible argument that in their news coverage they couldn't call it torture because that would be choosing sides, but they did use it in their opinion and commentary -- so that makes it all okay.
However, the Times acknowledged that political circumstances did play a role in the paper's usage calls. "As the debate over interrogation of terror suspects grew post-9/11, defenders of the practice (including senior officials of the Bush administration) insisted that it did not constitute torture," a Times spokesman said in a statement. "When using a word amounts to taking sides in a political dispute, our general practice is to supply the readers with the information to decide for themselves. Thus we describe the practice vividly, and we point out that it is denounced by international covenants and in American tradition as a form of torture."The Times spokesman added that outside of the news pages, editorials and columnists "regard waterboarding as torture and believe that it fits all of the moral and legal definitions of torture." He continued: "So that's what we call it, which is appropriate for the opinion pages."
All of this is nonsense. There is no debate over whether waterboarding is torture -- there is the truth and there are self-serving lies told by those guilty of ordering it, engaging in it or apologizing for it. Waterboarding has always been considered torture, for as long as the practice as existed. We have always prosecuted those who engage in it, from Japanese and German soldiers during WW2 to our own soldiers as well. This simply is not controversial.
A news outlet that waffles rather than telling the plain truth, that bows to mendacious and convenient political rhetoric rather than pointing out the obvious, is not worthy of the name. That's not objectivity, it's allowing yourself to be manipulated and lying to the public.
Politics
Comments
"...they couldn't call it torture because that would be choosing sides."
That takes the cake.
I used to razz a former employee of the Washington Times that he wasn't working for a real newspaper.
Now I can say the same thing about people who work for the New York Times.
Where are the likes of Jimmy Breslin when we need them most?
Posted by: Reverend Rodney | July 6, 2010 9:42 AM
When using a word amounts to taking sides in a political dispute, our general practice is to supply the readers with the information to decide for themselves.
And this is why I hope the mainstream media continues to wither away. They're so useless, they even admit that they no longer really investigate anything. All they are is the equivalent of a grade schooler giving a book report; no cross-referencing, no reasoning, no conclusions, even, just the bare minimum effort into a simple infodump so they can say they did their homework and get a passing grade.
Posted by: schism | July 6, 2010 10:08 AM
Their argument would make some sense, had there not already been precedent well and clearly set. As you point out, it can be nothing but moral cowardice when a paper stops calling a practice torture merely because the current administration resorts to it, and worse, only for that administration's practice of it, but not for its use abroad.
Posted by: Russell | July 6, 2010 10:11 AM
Can one even imagine the New York Times or the Washington Post conducting an investigation such as they performed on Watergate in todays' environment?
Posted by: SLC | July 6, 2010 10:15 AM
Cowardice or malice? The NYT cannot be trusted to report in good faith.
Fifty years ago, newspapers served their principal revenue source, subscribers. Now they serve advertisers, which are all major corporations.
Posted by: Rose Colored Glasses | July 6, 2010 10:53 AM
I'm a regular reader (and a big booster) of the Times--but in this instance, I have to agree with Ed. The NYT absolutely lost its nerve.
Posted by: gary l. day | July 6, 2010 11:12 AM
Rose Colored Glasses:
O or 100 are not the only possible scores. There are possibilities within those extremes. I find the NYTs is further distancing itslef as a credible source in spite of its standards deteriorating, primarily because their competition's standards are deteriorating at a far faster faster rate, e.g., the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
I too am frustrated by what I perceive is a wrongheaded concession to the fact the country has a strong conservative base. That base does have a large influence on our politics and public square even when they aren't formally in power or their arguments are lies. Exhibit A, Palin's "death panels" lie reduces coverage for Medicare patients on a totally unrelated matter. Jonathan Atler's book on the Obama presidency's first year repeatedly reports compromises made by Democrats to less optimal positions because of the resonance of false conservative arguments getting traction in the media where Obama noted examples even in the NYTs.
I had an email debate last week with a NYT's reporter who I called out for a really bad straight news article on global warming. He reported that Penn State U. cleared their climate scientist Michael Mann of any egregious behavior. This reporter sought out a denialist response claiming the investigation was flawed without pointing to any evidence supporting their claim while this same story failed to get the perspective of any scientific group, e.g., other climate scientists or the National Academy of Sciences, e.g., "it should be no surprise that Dr. Mann's work was cleared given that it has been independently validated by several other independent agencies". Such a response was not to be found, keeping the framing as a he said / she said when in fact there is no moral equivalence between science and the denialist camp.
This failure on this reporter's part continues to deceptively frame the actual status of the theory of global warming where the NYT's pattern of such enablement is also well-established like we see here with torture.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 6, 2010 11:15 AM
To be fair, they're more like such a student who went on to get a marketing degree and then worked in Hollywood. Gotta sex up those stories to increase sales. Add in a little drama, if you need to.
Posted by: pough | July 6, 2010 12:13 PM
"When using a word amounts to taking sides in a political dispute, our general practice is to supply the readers with the information to decide for themselves."
Sometimes, refusing to take sides is, in itself, a way of taking sides.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | July 6, 2010 12:40 PM
Forgive me for quoting my own blog, but: Government cock will not suck itself. That's what a free and independent media is for.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 7, 2010 12:48 AM
Nice pithy quote -- but I don't see those so much as pro-government pandering, as it is false-middle pandering. I mean, the Times basically said so. To paraphrase: "A significant number of people started saying waterboarding isn't torture, therefore we decided we couldn't comment either way." They've done the same thing on evolution, vaccines... If the flat earth movement took off, they would probably stop referring to the earth as round outside of Op-Ed pieces!
Posted by: James Sweet | July 7, 2010 9:04 AM
Oh sure, why not! I can just see the headline now: "Cover-up: Worse than the crime, or no big deal after all?"
After all, it's all about BALANCE!
Posted by: James Sweet | July 7, 2010 9:07 AM
The NYT has also decided that the deliberate massacre of civilians is now often done by "militants", not "terrorists".
Posted by: william e emba | July 7, 2010 9:45 AM
william e emba:
I think the NYTs gets it right on parsing soliders, insurgents, militants, and terrorists. It would be a disservice to us if we defectively lumped too many of our enemies into a category labeled terrorists given our approach should frequently differ based on what type of enemy we face.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 7, 2010 12:42 PM