L.A. Times and the War on Terror: A History of Journalism Malpractice

L.A. Times and the War on Terror: A History of Journalism Malpractice

....if it’s objective truth we’re expected to be concerned with, rather than taking sides, how well does the LA Times come up to scratch in other areas? Say, with regard to releasing material which could be damaging to a sitting President? The newspaper has videotape of a 2003 dinner in Chicago honoring Rashid Khalidi, at which then-state senator Barack Obama spoke glowingly about his friendship with the Palestinian-American academic and activist. It has been suggested that the tape could offer some revealing insights into President Obama’s real thinking on Middle East issues. However, the Times refuses to release the tape, citing loyalty to ‘confidential’ sources. 

When it comes to speaking truth to power, Presidents are the ultimate target. From Watergate to Monica Lewinsky to President Bush’s DUI conviction, the media has not been shy about holding a serving chief executive’s feet to the fire. To what extent these various endeavors have been motivated by a yearning for truth, a quest for Pulitzers, or the pursuit of ideological agendas is open to debate. (While the media at the time of Watergate harbored a pathological loathing of President Nixon, the Bush DUI story was broken by a Fox News affiliate rather than the liberal media elites who were so relentless in their attacks on his presidency.) But today the LA Times, along with most of the mainstream media, is unabashedly in the tank for Obama’s re-election and will not let the question of whether it might be in the public interest to release the Khalidi video in an attempt to get at the truth of the matter stand in the way of achieving their objective.